Valentines with Kids

He was holding Leaf, trying to entertain our hyper-active one year old while i was trying my best to keep Sami who was so amused by the lights from running towards the stage.
It was a Valentine's party for couples, entitled "A Night of Love and Romance," a dinner concert. We were entertained with love songs and some "quotes" on love. We were the only couple with small kids in tow but for me we were the most romantic couple...


I took this photo while the song "How Did You Know" (our song which also played during our wedding) was being sung and after he mouthed "I love you" to me.

I think it's the presence of children in a marriage that helps spark up romance and not otherwise. One just need to have the eyes of love to see that.

Wedding vow, Wishes, Wonders...

I wrote this vow for an aunt who will be saying her "i do", take two :) come August (inshallah).

"the road i have treked to reach this place haven't been easy
but meeting you along the way sparked a way for me to find a better meaning
and purpose in life.

you have been a friend providing wise guidance whenever i need it,
offering a strong shoulder to lean on,
giving company during both good times and bad.

life cannot be lived alone
love cannot to be kept nor withheld,
and though we are already in the autumn of our lives,
it is still best to walk with a hand to hold
as leaves fall and until our winter sets in...

so as i embrace the future with you today
i pledge to stay by your side,
i commit to share my life with you,
be the woman God has molded to love you
the way He designed,
grow with you in mind and spirit,
and create with you a trail of lasting love
that will be a blessing to our children
and to those who look up on us.

this i promise with faith in the One and only Author and Giver of love
-true, perfect, and everlasting."

I wished i have written a vow as beautiful as this for my own wedding. It's a shame that as a Wedding Planner i was never able to plan my own wedding as well as i did my clients'. Even my mother who has been a caterer for almost 20 years now could never seem to serve her own family's table nicely.

This is a strange thing...

policemen having children becoming criminals,
caterers who cannot promptly provide food to their hungry husbands/children,
wedding planner-bride having own wedding a disaster,
musicians who cannot teach own kids the basic so-fa syllables,
and ghost writers forever remaining ghosts
too dead to their own eulogy.

Like a Christmas Dream

A blurry little Christmas photo...seemingly filtered like in a dream, only this one's real. Happy, alive and free. Good food, good conversations, music, singing, laughters, and friends. It will be cherished for a lifetime though it lasted for a moment. It was a gift. It was a dream.

Chestnuts Roasting and So am I

Had a happy Christmas followed by these thoughts two days later:

"It is truly better to be a servant in one's own country than to be a princess imprisoned in someone else's castle."

Raw, Naked, and Honest

I crave for freedom, even a teeny bit like letting my hair down, uncovered in front of other people.

Waking up in darkness as emotions rush out of me in the form of tears almost turning into blood. Is this what happens when someone is squeezed inside a life-size shaker for a long time?
Forced or compelled to be who she is not...

I crave for freedom, even just to go to a grocery to choose goods i want for my pantry, diaper brands i want for my boys.

If everything happens for a reason, this eventful non-event in this kind of life is still groping for definitions for its being.

Take away someone from a zone of discomfort and put her inside this shell, see if she survives scarless and unwanting that place she once deemed painful. She will be scathed and surely long for air no matter how stale, as long as it is air.

I crave for freedom, even just to be myself - outgoing, routine-and order-freak with regular lazy days - without being judged.

Stuck in a rut twenty four-seven; post post-partum blues or plain mood swings? Whatever these are, anybody "refined" this way will feel worse and might even kill.

Am i really being refined in this fire? Am i resisting change? How can i not when i am regressing and not progressing?
Perhaps i cannot see the progress yet?
Or perhaps this kind of "refiner's fire" is telling me to run and not endure?
I may be made of another kind of gem but not gold...

I crave for freedom, even to talk freely, express myself - in my own language without trying hard to be understood and to understand a response.
I crave for time, a few hours a day to learn something new, without interruptions or worrying about my boys.

I crave freedom, even for my boys...
the freedom to run around under the sun, in an open field or a lawn...to explore, to trip, fall and stand up on their own even with a harmless cut on a knee.

I crave for a safe and happy place for them, to see them regularly spend quality time with their grand parents - no screams and shouts, just gentle touches, laughter, horsey-rides, cookie treats, or simple conversations - real attention given to them.

I crave to see them play with their cousins without hitting or being hit or pushed, without falling off tv sets or tables...i want them to play with toys, to be amused, to be curious, to learn...

I crave to give my boys the best of me - a mom they can be proud of...and even just for now, a mom who is strong and free enough even to take them out by herself.

My boys may be my home, but this is not my country.
This is not my kind of country, not entirely my kind of culture, not entirely my kind of beliefs and practices.
I want to be where i can be who i want as well as who others want.

I crave for freedom, to laugh shamelessly even like a hyena, to sit, walk, talk, and smile a certain way i find comfortable, to talk or joke about anything concerning my past or future and still be loved.

I crave to be around people who really know me inside-out.

You wake up in the morning tired, you sleep at night exhausted. You only have one kind of hope and that is Home. Where you are human, where women may not be amazons but know the value of time and people. Where you see the sun, the trees, the sky, the seas...where you can chase dreams unceasingly...where you can plan and fulfill even just a quarter of it...where you can contain all your loves in your heart and in your life.
Where you have all the time and time has all of you.

Life is short, one should not live like this.
Oh have i almost come in full circle, now am suspended, sliced into a half-moon, half-lunatic.
Is this what happens when Wondering Wander Woman is caged for a long time?
The unspoken social norms here have made me build an invisible prison around myself.

I crave for them here to see me as i am so i can go in peace for i know they will never understand nor can they accept that person.

I crave for something i cannot give myself.
Freedom will have to wait.

I long for someone to satisfy these cravings. Apparently, there is only one person who can give me this. If he does, i am pretty sure that the girl he adored the first time he laid his eyes on her will resurrect before his very eyes.

For now, i can but only write.
True Freedom will have to wait.

Response to a Response

Prozacs in half, Zolofts in full.
Oh he who breaks is such a fool.
Pardon my french, i mean no harm
Prozac Prince calls for alarm.

I know this is lame. But don't we need a break from all the old fashioned way of dealing with the blues?
I like your line, though. "Break...The...Prozacs...In Half!"

I responded with this poem to a response to a post in poetry form in Mylot. Below is my reply to the discussion starter who seemed to reflect his depression in his poem:

Just keep on writing. It's good you are letting it all out. It does save us from falling off the edge. It keeps us sane. Darkness is not forever. After the night, morning breaks free. Joy will come prancing along. Open your eyes. Open your heart. Look at you inside. Beautiful being. Your mind is in a deadly place, but your heart is somewhere glorious. Sweet soul that you are. Pain is because you love. Death is because you fear. Embrace pain. Live.

Just Sharing

It seethes through souls, squeezes, cuts, chokes.
Teardrops become ink, into pen, then kisses paper.
Pain grips the poet, then sets free
The hand that writes with heart, oh! love-maker.

Ever appreciated pain after you have written a poem and set yourself free? Now i can exhale...

Wrote this three months ago, starting a discussion under Poetry in MyLot.com.