This Is a Long Commute

It's 8.05pm in Singapore. I'm sitting in the lounge at the airport, in the business section where business-y types are clattering away on keyboards and having louder than appropriate conversations on cellphones. I'm waiting for flight SQ285 to board, in half an hour, so that I can start - wait, continue - the trip home.

I left the office three and a half hours ago. I get home in about twelve hours. fifteen hours, door to door. Traffic's bad, I guess.

The week has been a weird one, as these trips go. I've had a couple of splash dash trips like this - crammed agendas, red-eye flights, no time to stop and smell the durian. So in a way, it really does feel like a commute. It feels no different to popping into the office; only the pop is a very drawn out, expanded p-o-p.

Singapore, in a hurried trip, doesn't have the romance that I guess I've fallen for. No time to drink it in, all I get to see is the hotel, the MRT, the office, and the shops that I stumble across en route. Add to that feeling absolutely knackered, living on double espressos and Red Bulls to keep the eyes open and mind alert through the meetings, and you get a three day trip that hasn't been so enjoyable.

There have been some nuggets, though. Landing in Singapore on Monday morning, and driving into the city from the airport, along the ECP with the sun coming up was special. Seeing all the boats in the Straight, lights twinkling in front of a warming horizon. Watching the sun go down last night fron the 60th floor of the OUB, watching the sky darken and the city scape brighten. Walking past the fountain at Bugis Junction on a genuinely hot Wednesday afternoon, and watching the little ones squeal with delight as they splash themselves cool, and the passers-by taking snapshots of them with their handphones. Nice nuggets.

A nugget of a Thursday beckons though. Home at the end of my commute.

Pure Gold.

What, Ten Already?

My darling Kenzie Lou is ten. As clichéd as it may sound, I have no idea where the time has gone – I remember her birth as if it were just last week.

But at the same time, thinking back over the past ten years, Kenzie has already lived a very full life, and she’s been gracious enough to let us share it with her.

Love posted on her blog, and captured the essence if K so well. But more than what Love said about Kenzie, as I was reading the posting, I realized how much Kenzie simply takes my breath away. Not just because she’s genuinely beautiful. Not just because of the blessing that we have in her being part of our lives.

She shortens my breath because I see in her the embodiment of what Amy, God and I have between us. When Kenz was just being to move around on her own, and as she came into that very interactive stage of babyhood, Ames and I used to say that watching her was like watching your heart running around. Ten years on, my heart still squeezes a little when I see her. My spirit lifts a little when she smiles. And I know I’m home when she silently snuggles in for a back tickle.

Oh, and at times she so much like me in character that it’s scary.

K Lou, loving you is an adventure. You have helped, in ways you don’t yet know, shape me into the dad, husband and guy I am.

I love you Princess. Happy Birthday.