Goals

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Light

Best wishes for the New Year, and a new decade.

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New Year Hues

To all fellow-bloggers, followers, readers and everyone:

Yellow for sunshine

Blue for clear skies

Crystal for clarity of the heart.

Wishing you all the colors that you desire

in the New Year.

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The Journey of Flowers

The Hong Kong Orchid in full boom. And  along the way, it also took on fascinating shapes.

Spending time in the garden has taught me a lot of things.

Not just about plants and soil, but also other things, such as developing patience. Being patient, while waiting for a seed to sprout, or for a new plant to show buds of color and beauty. Being patient while the plants shuts down for winter, or shed its leaves, looking bare and undecorative.

I also learn that some plants may not root, and also sometimes, you can’t give up on a wilting plant, and that it can be nurtured back to health.

But walking in my garden in late summer, I was reminded of a life lesson I had been guilty of forgetting: that in my focus to reach my destination, I sometimes forget to really enjoy the journey or the stops along the way.

It took several walks in the morning or early evening for me to notice the flowers in various stages of bloom. It was as though I had never really paid attention to this before.

The Hong Kong Orchid, in its first few stages of blooms, astounded me with a geometrical-like shape. The baby plumeria spiraled outward with verve, reminding me of a top.

The flowers “talked” to me. And so I have to thank my garden for leading me back to this awareness. Thus, this year, I will remind myself that on the way to my goal or to whatever else I desire, I will be mindful to enjoy the journey, and not just the destination.

The bud took on a crisp, geometric angle as the petals unfold.

The plumeria in full bloom.

I was fascinated by the way the baby plumeria spiraled outwards.

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Party of One on New Year’s Eve

One can be a lonely number on New Year’s Eve. So that was what I thought, until last New Year’s Eve.

The year had brought its share of changes and transitions for us. So on New Year’s Eve, we were just happy to be “still standing” and to relax in the mellow mood that often prevails on the last days of the year.

Living in a new city, we did not have any special plan. So we decided to have a late dinner at a chain diner where we like the shrimp alfredo noodles.

I looked around me in the restaurant, and saw the different configurations of diners who did not want to cook, or who wanted to go out on New Year’s Eve.

There were several middle-aged couples, a group of friends in their 20s, and a woman with her young son.

There were also two lone diners. One was a woman who seemed to be concentrating on her food, or lost in her own thoughts.

The other was a man who looked like he was really enjoying his dinner. At times, there was a hint of a smile on his face. His body language told me that he was eavesdropping on conversations, and found something amusing. I know this because this is something I myself often do in restaurants and coffee shops!

He also had a type of jelly dessert and coffee before he left the restaurant.

Instead of feeling sorry for themselves, these two diners decided to go ahead and do what they felt like doing, despite how they might be seen or perceived by others, on a night associated with social popularity and social excitement in our popular culture.

That night, in the warm glow of the restaurant where people with different individual stories awaited the new year, these two diners illuminated this thought for me: that our attitude ( how we see life and how we take life head on ) begins first with each of us. To quote Dr Phil: “The most important relationship you have is the one you have with yourself.”

I think that it’s only when we begin to celebrate and support our own selves, then we can honor and share that same attitude with others.

I have a feeling that if I were to go back to that same restaurant this New Year’s Eve, I would probably not see these two diners again.

But on a night that started off as a quiet New Year’s Eve dinner, they imparted to me a life lesson that left a profound mark.

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