A journey of a yoga teacher who has now found peace in a piece of hijab. A surprising discovery of total surrender to Allah and the happiness it brings.
This blog is about expressing passion of being a fashionista by balancing everything else that matters. This is my playground, the love and passion for my favourite people and things ...
THIS IS HIJAB N THE CITY !
Whenever I looked at Minime before, it reminded me of love, pure, innocence, joy and the list go on. She was like this magic furball - she just have to be infront of you and all your stress would disappear. She was different from any cats we rescued.
We found Minime dead today – She was’ hit and run’ by a car at the back of our house. I grief like never before. I just want to grief. For I would not see her again. It was the last meal she had yesterday morning that I gave her. She was our family’s little baby. She didn’t do things to annoy us. She didn’t meow but made a cute little sound. She followed everybody everywhere !! The World was okay with Minime around.
God lend her to us for 6 joyful months and took her back yesterday. I did not ask God why? I just thought how happy she has made me and Pete and Naomi and Innaz. I just thought how loved she was. How happy she was with us.
Minime was different . She was like a little angel who couldn’t do wrong. She loved us well too and she made us loved her very much. Even all our 4 older cats loved her to bits. Spikey especially because we named Minime after Spikey – his Minime.
Minime was buried this afternoon. Her body was dumped at the side of the road by some heartless bastard who sped up ! Housing area is not a place to speed up. I hope Minime wont be cold and lonely outside. I hope God has put her in a nice place for nice little cats.
REST MY LITTLE MINIME – ALLOW ME TO GRIEF ...
IN THE ARMS OF AN ANGEL, FLY AWAY FROM HERE ... :)
I was tested today and I shocked myself. I hate rudeness - people who have no manners and greedy! Sometimes we encountered these people on the streets during our homeless food distribution. Not many of them but there are, nevertheless. For 4 years I have managed not to stumble upon them but today I was tested! I made a point to be at the 5.30pm food distribution at Klang Bus Stand today to greet my friend Angeline and her team from Maybank who were on their CSR program.
( Refer to our work at www.reachoutmy.wordpress.com )
Things were smooth in the beginning but then one chinese auntie started to shout rudely because she wanted to change her nasi lemak ayam to a better one (when they were all the same) and went on and on . ('kiasu' at work definitely!) I lose the plot, screamed back and put her in her place - I was shivering with anger. And for a moment - I went through flashes of moments that I have sacrificed to do this work! For a split second, I asked myself "Is this worth it?". I was tested just before that with 2 young Malay guys who carried Iphone with some stylish hairstyles but have the cheeks to tell me they were jobless and homeless and argued with our volunteers. Grrrrrr!!!!
I went quiet the whole journey home and kept quiet still at home to reminisce the pain I have gone through to make REACH OUT happened ! Satan has whispered to me, has sent his soldiers to discouraged me. I have forgotten the joy, forgotten what I saw on people's faces that we have helped all these years, the wonderful and kind people who are working with us and helped us in many ways. For a while I have forgotten why I do the things I do. Not for me but for what God has entrusted me.
Our street friends have many personalities just like the rest of us. They are human too! No difference! Some are kind, generous, cheaters, liars, drunkards, humble etc - they all have stories to tell but I am not here to judge them. One crazy auntie and two cheeky guys shouldn't be allowed to take my peace away. I pray silently for a bit more doses of calmness and drifted to my moment of silent.
"MAKCIK ANI INFRONT OF HER RESTAURANT - 'SELERA KAYU ARA'" - yummy good food!
HELLO FELLOW BLOGGERS! LONG TIME NO SEE!
Hi friends ! It has been months since I blogged . I have been writing in my head, playing many events and hoping to blog a story but I have too many things to do, and too little time!
And I did miss blogging but well, something happened in July that needed my attention fully, I have to play a part in an evolution and operation for REACH OUT MALAYSIA - refer to www.reachoutmy.wordpress.com (That's another story but today I want to talk about Makcik Ani - my nasi lemak makcik - the supplier of Nasi Lemak Ayam for Reach Out Malaysia. I felt very strong to write about her...
Oww!! my body's aching! I havent been teaching yoga for quite awhile and my stunt of a perfect shoulder stand infront of my students today has left me feeling like as if my bones were cursing to say - "You have not been discipline! now look what happen!" But as an experienced yoga teacher I have master my body to be my servant and command a perfect composure regardless how crappy I felt! (Roswidah, If you are reading this, I sure have fooled you just now hehe :))
Back to Makcik Ani, she cooked one hell of a nasi lemak, very prompt, discipline and can always be counted upon whenever I needed to buy nasi lemak ayam for the homeless. I always observed the way she does her work - She is calm and collected. She speaks in a single tone, nothing could surprise her and me being the energy reader, is fascinated by her. As I grew older and wiser - I become fussy about people around me - especially those who are doing business with me, be it students, suppliers, volunteers - I watched closely for negative energy and would not compromise. I believe, you are judged by your associates and if business is done with god-fearing individuals, you can find a lot of peace and trust in any dealings.
Each time I met makcik Ani, I would learn a little about her. She is originally from Acheh and has been here with her family for 30 years. I know she worked hard. She owned a simple restaurant in Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara, near uptown. She told me that whenever she made extra money she would help to fund some orphans in her Kampung in Acheh and helped their mothers - she felt she is blessed with her good fortune and her rezqi in Malaysia - (Something I thought a lot of Rakyat Malaysia should learn from - to be grateful to our country and to be the best we can be).
She has been missing for a few weeks so the nasi lemak supplies has been cooked by her Assistant (which is not quite the same, I think! ) - her assistant also informed that makcik Ani's mom passed away hence her absence from her Restaurant. I called her hp today and a familiar voice answered! Makcik ani is back! So I ordered the usual 250 nasi lemak ayam for Saturday's food distribution. Before I opened my mouth to ask about her mom passing, she blurted out (and so unlike her) (This is the point where I wrongly pressed something and lost a whole chunk of writing aaaagghhhh! now I have to rewrite this part!!) Ok I hope it will be as dramatic as the first one.
She blurted out that she just came back from her kampung and her mom passed away while she was there. She went on to tell the story that she came home for her younger sister who has lost her husband and pregnant at the same time and later lose the baby as well. Her mom wasnt sick or anything but as Makcik Ani prepared to go back to KL, her mom stopped her and requested for her to stay awhile because she said it was time for her to go! (huh?? Wow I thought!) To cut the story short, Makcik Ani's mom died while doing zikir with her children and just slowly drifted away as if she was smiling and sleeping at the same time ... what a blessing it must be for everybody in her family. I got to know that even her dad passed away that way! It was also the norm for her and family to read Quran together as part of their routine.
How simple life is for Makcik Ani and family, She did the best she could for her and her family. These people are so simple that they don't seem to miss anything the way normal people do. Some of us who have such a competitive personality , spent most of their lives justifying why they do the things they do. Some of us who pretend a lot spend all their life convincing that they are someone else other than themselves. Some of us who are too coward to stand up to the truth and justice, give reasons that it is none of their business. Such a lame world and such a lame excuse not to be the best we can be or operating from the truth of life.
We are all tested in so many ways - but I do believe, that the one thing we are all striving for is to find peace within ourselves and may not achieved it, if it is based by anything other than God's standard! And if only we know, how the chain of energy work in this universe and how it will cause a karmic effect in so many ways - no one will dare to compromise the truth.
I learned something today which is, if I were to go from this world, I want to be as sure as Makcik Ani's mom who have everything simple in her life but have made such a great impact to her children. I too want to recite Quran as regular as I can so I may die reciting it.
Today I feel small in God's greatness who allow me to learn this - me who have made many mistakes a thousand times and am still blessed in many ways.
At the end of the day, isnt what we look forward to is to find peace within ourselves and to die and meet God, the way Makcik Ani's Mom met her Creator. In readiness. subhanallah.
I know with Makcik Ani supplying nasi lemak ayam to Reach Out Malaysia to feed the homeless, we will share her pureness too. Maybe that was why God allowed our 5000 nasi lemak ayam campaign succeeded to 6000 in numbers last month?? Wallahuaklam. Keep me strong Allah for I am just a small being in your great kingdom.
If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.
We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.
There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.
Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.
And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.
Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.
The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by “chow downers”, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.
Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.
When you are comfortable with “eat lunch and run”, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo desert and cleaning the whip cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.
Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after-all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things. Down your back, like a book of blessings.
Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might of never happened had you not been there by yourself.
Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after awhile nobody is dating them.
But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.
You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.
But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them maybe lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.
Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.
It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relived, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.
Take silence and respect it.
If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.
You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.
