Of all the cats that alone walked There’s none like Tabby Toro; He is the sweet of my heart And he likes to sleep at my feet. There’s no cat in the world is half so sweet as Tabby Toro; He is the sweet of my heart And he likes to sleep at my feet.
The soft furs are like a great fluffy pillow his little heart pounding at my feet with the brilliant eyes riveting billow bright sparkles of emerald secret he keeps from the faraway star where he was once a little prince; He is the sweet of my heart And he likes to sleep at my feet.
My mother tells me all the time that I love Tabby Toro too much, And, but for him, silent I am Smiling at the taunts and sighs such; But pity not, for I am fine as long as I feel the little heart at my feet, And I know there’s Tabby Toro He is the sweet of my heart
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
I would like to meet Jane Austen, George Eliot, Mary Seacole, and Francis Barber, whose backgrounds and personal aspects interest me not as celebrities but as persons from my knowledge of their extraordinary lives birthing from the ordinary milieu.
1. Jane Austen – Today, Austen is one of the most revered writers of world literature worldwide. But her novels were not regarded as a lofty tome of literature in terms of academic value in her days. Austen was not of blue stockings, but a woman attending the household cares that feminists call drudgery. She took care of her elderly father, and writing was a means of her creative outlet to express herself. Also, she was weak at spelling, just as Leo Tolstoy was. (What a relief that perfect grammarians are not necessarily great authors!) She was also unmarried, so she and I would have many things to discuss as a single woman taking care of her family with a love of writing.
2. George Eliot – a great intellectual writer, Eliot used to churn butter out of milking the cows on her family farm. But her family denied it because it would mar her image of an intellectual as if doing chores were considered unfit for a woman of her literary status. She was a strong-minded, independent-willed woman with the power of words to compensate for her lack of physical beauty.
3. Mary Seacole – I want to ask her how she upheld her confidence and determination to care for the wounded soldiers during the Crimean War after Florence Nightingale rejected her application to volunteer for her Nurse Corps. Her love of humanity and keen observation of societal norms and behaviors have impressed me, and I want to ask her for a word of advice.
4. Francis Barber – Born into slavery in Jamaica, Barber was a loyal servant of English essayist and author of A Dictionary of the English Language, who took him under his protection against racial injustice and mistreatment. Johnson even bequeathed him a small fortune after his death, so Barber set up his small business and started a family with an English woman. His descendants still live in Lichfield, England. I want to meet him and ask him about what Johnson was really like – as it is the best way to know the character of one’s boss – and how his life became after the death of his master in the time when the blacks on the British Isles were conspicuously existent in small numbers. Was he treated like his counterpart in the U.S.?
It would be best never to meet your heroes or idols in real life because you will be disappointed with their actual characters. But my list of people will not be a disappointment because they were not from the highest estate of the ether and seem approachable and relatable. Or so I should think.
Ask any acclaimed mountaineers, such as Edmund Hillary and Reinhold Messner, why and how they climbed up the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. Their answers were simple: there was a mountain to climb, and they had to move forward. Likewise, here are my life’s three guides: imagination, creativity, and hope that accompany me in this life’s journey.
I am a figure of paradoxes, contrasting light with dark, ideal and worldly, bright and melancholy. I see myself trapped in the Labyrinth of Crete, where the Minotaur lurks in the corner of the maze, waiting to ambush, yearning to eat me. (It is more poetic than being lost in a level of the dreadful Backrooms, as it were.) Normal is not default, and insecurity constantly stalks me like a haunting revenant, resisting departing this world that it longs to remain for an unfinished business. And yet, there is always this impalpable, mysterious sense of what-if flickering in its iridescent halo from a distance. So, I follow the light, walk forward, and never look back because moving forward keeps me alive. Didn’t Stephen Hawking also collaborate with it by saying that it is possible for humans to travel to the future but impossible to return to the past?
Creativity is essential because it gives a sense of existence, of what it means to be a human. Viktor E. Frankl said three values shape a meaningful life, which are creative value, experiential value, and attitudinal value. I enjoy appreciating the artistic works of others and learning to accept who I am. But I am also delighted in creating my own creations, however good or bad they may be. Writing is such a means of expression by which I can express myself. It is fearful of disappearing like a speck of the world, and I am not nothing.
I can imagine myself one day arriving as an acclaimed memoirist, diarist, or essayist. Novels are not my forte because I can’t write things I pretend to be or know. That is why I prefer reading nonfiction, and I like to think that I can write it well.
Thus are my principles – or, more fittingly, my guides – in life. I am a Dante who imagines, a Virgil who creates, and a Beatrice who hopes through life’s journey.
What details of your life could you pay more attention to?
Dear Reader,
After a long and tiring day at work, I look back today and regret not doing things the way I wanted – yet again. Since I spend more time in an office full of strangers with nothing in common with me other than working for the same employer, reflecting on today’s memories and actions brings me a feeling of sorrow and sympathy. It’s always this matter of diplomacy of interacting with others without offending them, which is what I should pay more attention to.
The art of social interaction is hard enough for me to achieve without having a poker face or a public mask – persona. I have seen people who ingratiate themselves with those whom they regard as socially beneficial and politically influential. I see them, all of whom are women, but I don’t see beauty in their visages, nor their minds and hearts. Those able-bodied, fair-weathered friends or sycophants are unashamed of their deeds, acting as if they were all above others, thinking themselves better than others.
Not that I begrudge them such a skill of flattering, but I realize that having the diplomatic forte may help me to live a more comfortable life for me and my two beautiful cats. Indeed, smile is the best global language where no spoken words are required. I can smile and smile beautifully, but my beautiful smile is unrelated to currying favor from the powers that be, so to speak. Still, it would work wonders if I could pay more attention to my facial expression and the whole demeanor of my body in a polished way so people would not be rude to me.
My wish is someone’s daily life or just a fancy, but it is still my wish to induce a good impression on me, no matter where you are from.
Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.
Dear Readers,
There are many things I wish I had done but aborted by the yoke of life or through the vertigo of existential distress. I had to smother my true spirit under the duties and responsibilities of an elderly child of an immigrant family struggling to make a living in a land of people who do not like me very much. But I will say it anyhow in my blog because I am asked by today’s prompt to which I am willingly obliged.
I wish I could have become more articulate in expressing myself in writing and speaking so that people could understand why I am the way I am and that they could be my friends, as many people seem to achieve the art of expression without effort. That would have changed my life in a brilliantly green way to happiness because if you can’t articulate yourself effectively, it is like being socially and mentally awkward, and people will ignore you and leave you alone, even if you hate being lonely. What a tragedy.
I wish I could have realized that worrying will get you nowhere because it will derail you from the tranquility of the mind with multiple faces of a fool. That life is livable, even if it is unlikable sometimes or many times is what I wish to realize someday. To that effect, being serious every time will trap me inside the existential backrooms with a point of no return. I wish I could look back on the foot steps I have treaded upon in my life and say with a smile thus: “My goodness, was I too serious for nothing?”
I still have a life that I haven’t forsaken, and I want to give it another try to make it as beautiful as possible. The words of St. Teresa of Avila could not have sounded more soothing and curing than any other time than this time: “Let nothing frighten you, let nothing disturb you. All these will fade away.” I hope to see the world around me as workable and achievable, and most of all, adorable in its own oddly enchanting way, which I hope to utter someday, “Oh, LOL! Was I too serious back them?” Why not? Wishes and hopes are free.
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