monoceros blogsI became a fan of six-word memoirs after reading this story on NPR last year. Six-word memoirs are a little like PostSecret cards, but in six words only. The brevity makes for hilarious and startlingly poignant stories.
The original sold so well they expanded and published a revised edition. This year, there's one just for stories on love and heartbreak.
According to the creators on Smith Magazine, your memoir can change with time. You're even encouraged to write a new one every year (or month, or week). Here are three I wrote last year:
"Ignored my instincts; paying for it."
"Didn't want a safe, predictable life."
"Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging. Often misunderstood."
And one I wrote this year:
"Did the unexpected. Many thrills ensued."
The first book
The second book
Tim Tamashiro is a Japanese-Canadian singer who does standards with a deep, rumbling voice that reminds me of butter...and velvet.
This is how we met. In 2003, I was having a manicure for the very first time in a small nail salon in Chinatown, near my old office at Kreta Ayer Road. When the manicurist asked me for my name and I gave it, she brightened, saying the owner had the same name. She also told me that the wonderful music playing was chosen by my namesake, who loved jazz vocalists. I liked what I was hearing, so after the manicure, I found a Gramophone store and bought the album.
I loved it so much that I took it with me to graduate school in Michigan, and after countless listens, it was time to return with it to Singapore, but the jewel case for the CD went missing, so I had to place it with another CD. When I got home, I couldn't find it, not till two years later in 2007 when I was organizing my music on newly arrived shelves. I was thrilled. Tim still didn't have a case of his own so I put him with yet another CD.
Clearly, I hadn't learned my lesson. He went missing again. With four fully filled shelves, looking for Tim would be akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. It would turn up again one day, I comforted myself.
Last week, something stirred within me, and I remembered my favorite song from that album. I determined to hunt for it. Staring up at my four shelves, I vowed to open up every CD until I found Tim's. Yesterday, I found two other missing CDs tucked in the soundtrack and classical sections. That felt good, but Tim still hadn't turned up. He was somewhere in there; I was sure of it. Today, I was near the bottom of the third shelf when I finally found that elusive CD.
How ironic that the song I really wanted to listen to is called "It Never Was You."
I've been searching through rains
And the wind that follows after
For one certain face
And an unforgotten laughter
I've been following signs
I've been searching through the lands
For a certain pair of arms
And a certain pair of hands
Yes, I looked everywhere
You can look without wings
And I found a great variety
Of interesting things
But it never was you
It never was any way you
An occasional sunset reminded me
Or a flower hanging high on a tulip tree
Or one red star hung low in the west
Or a heart-break call from a meadowlark's nest
Made me think for a moment
Maybe it's true
I found her in the star
In the call
In the blue
But it never was you
It never was any way you
Anywhere, any way you
It Never Was You, by Tim Tamashiro
An MFA friend, E, recommended this - before the campaigns, the speeches; before the nomination, the election, the inauguration, the balls and the White House; before children, before the world watched them change history, they were just a couple in Chicago with great dreams, full of hope and love for each other.
Obama has such a way with words, and it shows especially when he writes or speaks about his ideals and the people he loves. The way he sees Michelle - her strength and the vulnerability few people know of; how wondrous he is of what is familiar and unknown about her; his clear knowledge of what sustains them. He doesn't even have to use the word "love."
"And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person." ~ Barack Obama
Between prepping for class, watching "How I Met Your Mother" online, running back and forth between my study and the TV den, telling DSD (via g-chat) that the CNA journalists were annoying me with their incessant, can't-stay-silent-during-key-moments chatter, and consoling Tiggie in Minneapolis (via g-chat) because she had to watch the ceremony at work on her laptop with little sound, I had my hands full on the night of President Barack Obama's inauguration. But it was a good fullness. I was happy to be sharing the moment with friends around the world. I even rang my parents to make sure they were awake and watching CNN.
Diversity was the motif of the ceremony. From Obama's biracial heritage, to his half-sister's intercultural marriage and her Indonesian and Hawaiian roots, and then the wonderful quartet of great musicians - Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman, who was born in Tel Aviv; French-born Chinese American cellist Yo-Yo Ma; African-American clarinetist Anthony McGill; and my favorite pianist with the gift of improvisation, Gabriela Montero, who was born in Caracas, Venezuela but now lives in the U.S. In the same vein, Barack Obama selected a notably conservative pastor, Rick Warren, to give the invocation, but also chose a more liberal figure, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, to deliver the benediction.
Air and Simple Gifts, composed by John Williams and performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, Gabriela Montero, and Itzhak Perlman.
Music and song. Poetry and prose. Solemnity and laughter, as evoked by the Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction, "Lord, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."
Then the crowd joined in a rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" that I can only imagine was nothing but fervent and moving, and I say "imagine" because the CNA journalists returned to their talky mode, the one where they are horrifically clueless about moments rich with sentiment and symbolism. The American national anthem was being sung by the new President - the first black President - his new team, his family and friends, and two million people who stood in the biting cold but were united in their hope and unparalleled joy at this historic moment. And the CNA journalists couldn't wait for two more minutes before beginning their verbal exchange that gave nothing new or particularly interesting to the Singapore audience during that time.
I won't post a video of Obama's inauguration speech, for nearly everyone has seen it by now. But I do want to put up the speech that many say began it all - the 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address.
...and two celebrations later, they now live in the same country, city, and apartment. Together at last.
Valentine by Donald Hall
Chipmunks jump, and
Greensnakes slither.
Rather burst than
Not be with her.
Bluebirds fight, but
Bears are stronger.
We've got fifty
Years or longer.
Hoptoads hop, but
Hogs are fatter.
Nothing else but
Us can matter.
Make You Feel My Love, by Adele (the song that accompanied S as she walked into church)
Crazy Love, by Aaron Neville & Robbie Robertson
...so I'm using his wishes from last year as well as his new ones for this year -
I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
Please Be Kind, by Dave Brubeck
Wise Up, by Aimee Mann
