Reflection On A Quiet Christmas

I've had just enough time to...   enjoy a quiet Christmas

Taken in the park on Christmas day

This Christmas, I decided to do something different. Under a cool, overcast sky; I took a walk in the park and have it all to myself. Everyone is out there somewhere celebrating Christmas or visiting friends or be just at home with their family. I took a long, slow walk playing out the year that had gone before and relived that long journey as I walked, alone with my thoughts. I liked doing that sometimes. Long walk in lonely places and nothing was lonelier than the park today.

I chose a bench to sit down and savour a different feel to this Christmas. Surrounded by trees and the songs of birds, there was not a Christmas tree or blinking lights in sight nor any replays of Christmas songs. But I could not get away that easily. Among the greens, white Christmas rose to the surface and I could not get rid of it. So I might as well change a few words and sing a few lines.

I’m reflecting on a quiet Christmas

Not like any I used to know

Where the dewdrops glisten and I listen

To the birds singing in the trees

I’m reflecting on this quiet Christmas

With every Christmas wish I made

‘May your days be merry and bright

And may all your Christmases be divine’

A couple having their marriage photos in the park

I thought about the miracle this Christmas. A friend had a stroke and internal bleeding in his brain. A young man with an unemployed wife and a young child. What will become of them? The doctor told the wife to take him home and ‘get ready’. Within days, he is out from bed and moving around apparently on the way to full recovery. We are hopeful and fearful at the same time but each day is a blessing and a miracle.

After enough reflection and recharging of my soul, I went home to take a bath but decided to go back and took a shot to share my quiet Christmas on a day when I do nothing and yet felt strangely fulfilled. The bench I sat on was now taken up by a young couple with cans of coke, snacks and a portable radio. The scene I wanted to shoot was now taken by a couple taking their marriage photos in the park. I smiled at the change of the situation though it denied me my shot. So I went to another part of the park to take a different shot which is the one you saw. On the way back to the car, I saw the marriage couple going up the stone bridge and shot them. I was so engrossed in what I did that I did not take note where I was standing and a large weaver ant crawled up my leg and bit my upper thigh. With an instinctive flick of my hand, I sent it to Ant’s heaven.  

It was just an ordinary day in the park. It was also Christmas. Nothing happened yet a lot of things did. Even in reflecting, we should not overdo it. So I walked back, satisfied with how I spent my quiet Christmas. “Merry Christmas and May All Your Christmases Be As Nice.”

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An Island of My Own.

I've had just enough time to...   wish to retire to an island of my own.

Taken of a private island not my own in Tanah Merah Lake, Perak, Malaysia.

Out there I know

An island waits patiently,

For me to come home.

Each day

Squeezing through the crowd,

I am an island of my own.

The clock ticks

And with each impatient minute,

I heard my island calling me home.

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No man is an island,

No man stands alone,

Each man's joy is joy to me,

Each man's grief is my own.

We need one another,

So I will defend,

Each man as my brother,

Each man as my friend.

- John Donne

When The World Is A Lonely Place.

I've had just enough time to...   test my courage.

Taken on the top of Maxwell hill, Perak, Malaysia.

When your world is shrouded in mist

And you could not see further than the nearest tree

When it come closing in

And you could not reach for a helping hand

When you are utterly alone

And the world seems such a dreadful place

You will learn what courage is.

Fly Away Yellow Bird.

I've had just enough time to...   wish I am a yellow bird.

Taken in the tropical garden of Bali.

Yellow bird, up high in banana tree.
Yellow bird, you sit all alone like me.

Did you lady friend leave the nest again?

That is very sad, makes me feel so bad.

You can fly away, in the sky away.

Your more lucky than me.

Wish that I were a yellow bird, I'd fly away with you.
But I am not a yellow bird, So here I sit.
Nothing I can do.

Yellow bird, yellow bird.

- The Mills Brothers

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Don't we all wish we are yellow birds

That can fly away when we want to.