It is the seventh day of the new lunar new year of the Water Tiger.
As we move forward towards new chapters in our lives, may we turn new leaves with more confidence about who we are, and the love that we all deserve, always.
Moving from an Eastern non English speaking world into a Western English speaking one as a young adult, crossing languages and cultures, from one which most messages are encoded implicitly in actions rather than explicitly in words, I became more acutely aware how much more often some words are used in the English language seemingly to me without the same kind of social and emotional accountability compared to the equivalent words used in culture and language I grew up in.
Two of the most overused words on the internet, "FRIENDS" and "LOVE" are some of them.
As we enter the second week of celebration to welcome the new lunar year of the Water Tiger, all alone together in our respective pandemic travel bubbles and reaching out to each other through the internet, I am reminding myself of love, family, and friends. Who they are. What they mean to me.
As I grow older, my body more beaten, my mind more stretched, with the world seemingly squeezed in and the walls closing in a world redefined by a virus, I often return to an old quote. So often quoted that it has become a cliche which cringe I had to get pass for the first few seconds, every time, before I can see them again with the fresh pair of eyes of my youth which saw it for the very first time decades ago:
"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1 Corinthian 13:4-7, New Living Translation)
It took me decades to understand. As the Indonesian saying goes: After eating salt and vinegar. There is no equivalent saying in English. "Blood and tears" comes close. But not the same. Is it. Salt and vinegar. Not as dramatic as blood and tears. One is visible to others. The other quietly, deeply, felt. Without any witnesses, but yourself. But which outcome impacts everyone around you.
What of the word "friends" then?
Well. Does love not made the definition of friends?
Love works like a vaccine. I think. It looks self centred, but ultimately others centred.
I'll leave you with another quote:
"If you can't love yourself
How in the hell you gonna love somebody else?
Can I get an amen?"
(Mama Ru)
May you celebrate the new year of The Water Tiger in love.
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