A Whole New Kind of Disconnect

My cellphone has died. I was sitting in a meeting room this afternoon, patiently listening to my colleagues describe in minute detail (that's what this week is about - minute mind-numbing detail), when I glanced down at my phone on the table in front of me. The screen had gone blank - it was white. The keypad wasn't responding. Eventually, the screen goes black, the led light goes red, as if in a last gasp effort to save itself. Then the whole thing becomes nothing more than a store display model. Useless.

All efforts to revive said phone have failed. Internet searches reveal that this a relatively common issue for this model. So that's nice. Internet searches also reveal potential fixes. Seven hours later, none of these fixes work. The phone is dead. Long live the phone. When it's replacement is sourced.

Not having the security of the contactability is absoutely dilapidating. The feeling of disconnect and vulnerability is very real. How did I ever survive growing up in Africa without a cellphone? It's a miracle that I made it to adulthood.

In all seriousness, not being able to text or phone Love, on a whim, is really disconcerting. These trips are palatable (sometimes only just) because I can connect anytime, and Love and the Girls can connect with me. Walking through markets, I can slip my phone out of my pocket a pop a question on size or colour or appropriateness. Walking past something that would tickle the girls interest, and being able to snap the moment onto a micro SD card.

Like this evening. I had dinner with Simon and Ping at Suntec, at a Chinese restaurant opposite the Fountain of Wealth. How cool would it have been to snap a shot of the colourful dance of water and include it in a blog. Imagine it - right here.

Dinner with Simon and Ping was great. They are an inspirational couple. So comfortable in who they are in themselves and in God. Simon taught me so much about being a man of faith in the world, in the workplace. That in fact the two aren't mutually exclusive, but the ooposite - they co-exist because they must.
Seeing them again reminded how far we - Love and I - have come since we first arrived here almost exactly three years ago. Brighted eyed and clueless. Knowing of God, but not really knowing God. We've come to the place where we know we'll never really arrive, but arriving isn't as important as staying the course and continuing the journey.

Love posted the most amazing post today. A depth, insight and revelation that was spine tingling. I read it, and re-read it, drinking the words. First gulping them, them slowing sipping them. Letting them linger, to truly taste them, before swallowing them and letting the fill me and enrich me.

Amy Joan, you have a wonderful gift that is being unwrapped. The Giver is sitting across the room, watching with marvel and excitement as you peel away layers of wrapping and become more and more aware of what it is He has given you.

You're not sure yet whether this gift is truly for you. You wonder if it's all a mistake, and when the right recepient will take it from you.

The gift has your name on it. It is yours. Truly, says the Giver.

Let Me Paint You a Picture

The air is thick with humidity. The sun is setting, and the light fades from natural sunshine through to a glow of city-light. It's warm. Warm enough, and humid enough, that as soon as you start walking, you bead in sweat.

The smell in the air is vegetative. Lush and thick. Sweet. As I leave the open air restuarant on the river bank, the streets are filling with pedestrian traffic. It's eight in the evening, and the professional quarter around Raffles Place is emptying. Young Professionals, suited and i-podded and busy-ing themselves on their handphones walk briskly through the square to converge on the MRT platforms. Escalators fill. The unspoken, automatic movement of those-who-stand on the left, and those-who-walk take the right.

The clunk of the gates through the MRT stations. More escaltor traffic. The silence of the platform, broken by the muffled whoosh of the train as it arrives behind the glass barrier. The very Singaporean clip-ness of the PA announcements. On the train, the effecient hum, punctuated by more PA voice-over announcing the arrivals at stations.

I get off at Bugis. Familiar territory, but I half thought about getting off at City Hall and walking around the equally familiar Raffles Plaza. Decide against it - more of Bugis will do. The clunk of the MRT gate as it opens for me and deducts another 70 cents of my ezi-card. More escalators, more automatic riding.

The basement of what was Seiyu. Smarter and more commercial now than it was before. Jolliebee. Bread Talk. Cedelle. Delifrance. The Coffee Bean. Cold Storage is still there, but the old food court has moved up to the second floor of Bugis Junction. I take the escalator up and walk into Seiyu/BHG through the TopShop entrance. Hand Bags, shoes, costume jewellery, watches and fragrances. Make a purchase, served by an eager young assistant, who moves quickly and snaps my purchase into a bag, hands it to me, along with the credit card and receipt, all in a well rehearsed action.

Into the sweet humid outside. Cross the square, past Starbucks and the fountain, and through into the glass, air conn'ed bubble of Bugis. Wander nonchantly through the carts of Random Stuff on the ground floor. Make my way up through the escalator maze to the Watsons on the third floor. Walk straight to the back of the store, right up to where I left off, pick up four boxes of kids Panadol and made my way to the counter.

Slowly wind my way back, down to the ground floor, and come back into the hotel through the doors from the mall. The bustle and busy-ness give way to muted civility. In the lounge, the piano tinkles a background tune. Guests chatter. Hostesses float. Memories flood.

The bingbong of the lift. The quiet of the hotel corridor, the softness of the carpet. The bridge over the mall, a last gasp of sweet humidity before a night of artificial cold.

Pause to take in the shutters and the blend of the old Peranakan shophouses and the sleek modern glass and steel of the mall.

The whoosh-click-click.

Love, I missed you tonight.

Seat 22A

Seat 22A on SQ286, bound for Singapore. Two, no three, movies down and still three hours and forty minutes to go. The trip is weirdly same-same-but-different. The feelings and emotions are surreal; automatic and disengaged all at the same time. Excited and empty. Guilt. Maybe some relief to have headspace time. More guilt just for that. Such emotional conflict. Mr Freud would have a field day.

Being in Auckland, and having had the experiences that we have in the past five months in Auckland no doubt contributes to the emotional stir-fry. We have grown and have expanded as a family, and as individuals. There is so much depth to what has happened in us that it truly warrants a posting of its own. Which is really a cop-out on my part. What I’m really saying is that I don’t want to dig that well just now.

There is a physical difference in this trip. Not having to do the Wellington to Auckland thing is s-o-o-o nice. I appreciate only now what an absolute pain in the arse that was. (As an aside, MS spell-check redlines arse. Must be the English spelling.). The getting in the taxi in Northcote, and getting to the airport a half hour later was very civilized. I left Love and Mishie at 11.00am, after a coffee and some QT. Had we still been in Waikanae, I would have left the girls three and a half hours earlier than that, and have had to fill that three and a half hours with a car trip, an airport lounge, a domestic hop and a transfer between terminals. Today; kiss, taxi, there. Reason 432 why Auckland rocks.

I think my bladder shrinks when I fly.

If I drink a fluid ounce worth, twenty minutes later I need to go pee. It can make a movie a very punctuated experience. Thank goodness for the pause function on KrisWorld.

There is lady flying with her son in the seat across the aisle from me. (Aside number two - doesn’t the word aisle have the most non-intuitive spelling in the English language? I mean, really.) So the son is about two. And has zero social skills. From the moment the doors closed and the plane started moving, the boy cried.

Not a boo-hoo-hoo kind of cry.

More I-will-burst-your-ear-drums-before-I-am-finished.

Loud. Unrelenting. For One hour. Sixty minutes. By minute twelve we had only just taken off. By minute twenty-two, we were airborne, and my gentle nature and father-heart are being seriously confronted. My feelings for the woman are somewhere between pure frustration and sympathy. Flying with kids is hard. They should give medal to parents who even contemplate it. But if you do contemplate it – give it some thought! Get a strategy better than having the sprog scream on your lap. Get some help. Get something. Valium for me is a start. Anything! So by minute twenty-seven the hostess finally comes round with the headphones. I damaged the re-useable packaging trying to get the things out. I nearly bend prongs trying to get the things plugged in. Turn the volume up. Loud. Must. Drown. Out. Persistent. Wailing.

The little darling is now sitting in the aisle (great word that), using the retractable remote control for the entertainment system as a throw thing. Cute. Mummy is asleep. Little darling has been running up and down the eye-ill (trying spelling options for that word). The aircrew, usually quite accommodating with little-ones, have kept a wide berth. Smart people.

Of course, my toddler would not behave like this. One, she’s a girl. Girls are inherently good. I have three and am an expert. Girls are gooder than boys, fact. Two, travelling parent would not be sleeping whilst toddler plays Cabin Wars. If said toddler did venture into the i-ll (aisle is hard to spell differently!), she would only do so under supervision, and with express purpose.

Brat.

There are now three hours and five minutes to go now. Must be time for another movie.

Oh, and I need a pee.