Thursday, May 31, 2018

Years And Years

15 Ramadhan, 1439

The astonishing, egotistical, manic ambition of John Donne can still take one's breath away, some forty-six years after first encountering it: Let us love nobly, and live, and add again / Years and years unto years... In a poem that begins All kings, and is riven through with images of the poet and his beloved as royal beings, there's not much doubt about how JD imagines loving, and living, nobly.

I'm not sure either myself or the Missus imagine ourselves as any kind of royalty. But we have managed to keep things going for some fair few years now, as this day of days serves to remind us, and that's enough - indeed, more than enough.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Out Of Step

14 Ramadhan, 1439

When fasting your body tells you things should slow down; unfortunately, life and its various business generally doesn't get the message. So you find yourself straddling two worlds, with one foot in either, as it were. Funnily enough, this isn't necessarily a bad place to be; it's certainly a reminder that the one world we think we know is just a narrow fraction of all that there is.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Testing Times

13 Ramadhan, 1439

Happened to glance at the comments following an on-line article related to fasting in Ramadhan the other day, and rather wished I hadn't. There was a bit of a back-and-forth between adherents to the faith and folks who were more than a little sceptical as to the value of Islam - in fact, a fair few (as usual) who were aggressively anti- in pretty much every way you can imagine - and the tone overall was not exactly positive. I don't want to get into any big debate on this (thankfully having no one to debate with) but it did seem to me that quite a few of the nay-sayers with regard to the fast were missing the point, and spectacularly so.

They generally assumed the whole business was a kind of imposition upon Muslims and that we are somehow forced into an extremity of self-denial. The notion that the fast might be something to welcome, something entirely positive from which there is much to gain, didn't get much traction. And, of course, in terms of a world view focussed on grasping as many easy rewards as possible from our time on the planet, such a positive view would appear deeply absurd.

Once you come to glimpse being tested as something written into the fabric of things in a way that helps us read the book of the world, the world and your place in it changes. Just a little. But enough.

Monday, May 28, 2018

Making An Effort

12 Ramadhan, 1439

It's easy to forget the tiredness that is attendant upon this month of months. Except, that is, when that tiredness is being directly experienced, at which point it becomes distinctly unforgettable. The great thing about the feeling is the way in which it makes everything count. A simple trip to the shop becomes a bit less than simple when you need to get yourself into the right frame of mind to make it.

It's as if everything becomes that bit more memorable, that bit more meaningful, that bit richer - for being that little bit more difficult.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Finished

11 Ramadhan, 1439

Finished Hobbes's Leviathan yesterday. I don't think I've ever taken quite so long to read a book of equivalent length before. Not sure that the effort was worth it, but very happy to get to the last page. And, ironically, this was an abridged edition.

In contrast, the effort required to fast results in complete fulfilment.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Familiarity

10 Ramadhan, 1439

Gosh, we're a third of the way through the fasting month already. It feels like it only started yesterday, but also that it's been going on for quite some time. I'm not sure how this double-awareness is achieved, but it's somehow always the same. I suppose the mixture of familiarity and strangeness is similar. A sense of finding out new things that are already known.

Friday, May 25, 2018

Togetherness

9 Ramadhan, 1439

Broke the fast in a sizable company for the first time this year. The company in question comprised some of my Muslim colleagues, and a jolly time was had by all. We dined at an eatery along Bussorah Street, just along from Mesjid Sultan, and I enjoyed doing the Maghrib Prayer there, after eating plentifully.

A notable feature of Islamic thought is the notion that doing prayers in congregation makes them more valuable than doing them alone. The emphasis in our faith is always on community, a keen sense of others. For someone who's a bit of a loner like myself this is a powerful and necessary corrective.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

A Very Very Very Good Thing

8 Ramadhan, 1439

Most of us would agree that food is a good thing, even when the particular food might not be terribly good for you. And certainly very good food, like that provided by the Missus, is a very good thing.

But it takes going without food for a few hours to truly grasp just what a surpassingly good thing food is. And don't get me started on the virtues of tea. Or just plain water, when you've been doing without it.

In our super-saturated world it's increasingly difficult to focus on quality. Finding ways to do so lies at the heart of grasping that world and the goodness it has to offer us.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Opportunities

7 Ramadhan, 1439

Fasting month brings with it a number of opportunities to part with money. It's the time of year when one's Zakat needs to be paid, but there are no shortage of requests for donations from various worthy organisations. As with so many other counter-intuitive features of the month, it's odd how good it feels to be giving away some of the green stuff. I don't think I'm a charitable person by nature; so often I need to be prompted to do the right thing. So having a time of year when doing this particular right thing is part and parcel of the experience is a blessing in itself.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Losing Count

6 Ramadhan, 1439

At one point this evening I was trying to remember how long we've been fasting this year, in order to answer a question from someone related to this, and I realised that I couldn't give a precise answer. Some years ago I would have known the exact number of days. Thankfully, now the days begin to blur into each other.

I'm hoping for more imprecision as the month moves on. More forgetfulness. More living in acceptance in the moment.

Monday, May 21, 2018

Adjusting

5 Ramadhan, 1439

Five days into the fast and it's beginning to feel like the normal way of things. Still difficult, but not overly demanding, certainly not impossible - as it felt on the first morning. So strange the way one adjusts. And the only way to find this out is through the actual experience. The community is united at one level in its knowingness.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

The Crisis That Wasn't

4 Ramadhan, 1439

Noi was preparing sahur, the pre-dawn meal in the early hours (of course), and I was bumbling around inconsequentially when the microwave oven and kettle suddenly refused to work. We quickly realised we'd blown a fuse, and traced the problem to a specific location in the fuse box. But the tripped fuse stubbornly refused to un-trip. It didn't take long to realise that the circuit affected also meant that the power points in the apartment as a whole didn't work, so we were fridge-less, telly-less and internet-less, amongst other deficiencies.

Too tired to worry overmuch we went back to bed after sahur, vaguely formulating plans to transfer items from the now-redundant fridge to one of our neighbours, if possible. I must say, though, that even when too tired to worry I managed to worry just a little, but reminded myself that this was a First World Problem and a way through would be found.

On waking again I tested the errant fuse. The first time I levered it up it seemed as loose as it had done earlier, but I thought I noticed a faint light glowing near it. (This may have been a complete illusion, by the way.) I tried again, and magically it clicked into place in a deeply satisfying manner. So our little problem had solved itself with the minimum of effort from us.

We're so lucky. To be reminded of our vulnerabilities, our neediness, without really being tested in any fashion. My prayers today have been for those poor yet deeply admirable souls who are tested, often on a daily basis, and somehow pull through. When my time of testing comes I hope I will have learnt something about courage and resilience from them.

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Far Away

3 Ramadhan, 1439

The arrival of the weekend has involved some relief from the demands of the fast, in terms of the extra physical pressures exerted by getting though a day of work, and I think I'm beginning to make some of the necessary, inevitable adjustments anyway. It's been a bit of an odd afternoon though, with the Missus, for reasons which escape me, determined to watch the ghastly proceeds involved in another of those royal weddings.

Mind you, that made me happy to be fasting and far away from the nonsense attendant upon that particular shindig. Perhaps that accounts for my not being invited.

Friday, May 18, 2018

At The Limit

2 Ramadhan, 1439

Realising that you've got next to no energy left after climbing a couple of flights of stairs is a wonderfully direct way of understanding your limitations. All it takes is some eight hours of going without food & drink and I'm as weak as a baby.

We live in a context of support from every side. Take just a bit of that away and watch us crumble. (Well, me anyway.)

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Underachieving

1 Ramadhan, 1439

I was doing pretty well up to 8.00 am. That was the first time in the day I found myself thinking happily for a few seconds about the cup of tea I would soon treat myself to, only to abruptly remember that such joy was not to be. Not until 7.07 pm. Several further equally painful moments followed in the course of a demanding day, and, I'm sad to say, several tetchy moments of something approaching irritation.

By the way, losing your temper means you've compromised your fast, so absolutely must be avoided.

It's the same each year. I find myself hoping that this time round the experience will be appropriately rewarding in an almost serene manner; and each year the experience turns out to be about finding myself in quite another sense. But a more real and valuable one, I hope.

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Not Exactly Prepared

We begin the fast tomorrow. It's been easy to lose sight of the big challenge ahead whilst dealing with the smaller challenges of simply coping with what each day throws up in what is generally a tough month in my working life. So I suppose I should regard the bigger challenge as an unwelcome one.

But it isn't. It's a chance to get things in some kind of reasonable perspective, a perspective I'm painfully aware of having lost. When the slightest obstacle serves to irritate it's time to deal with something real.

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Nothing Gets Easier

As a youngster I took it for granted that life and its attendant challenges got easier as one grew older. As an oldster I realise just how ill-founded that assumption was. The only way in which challenges seem less daunting these days than they might have seemed when I was a teenager is the awareness given by experience that I'm likely to survive even the toughest times and come out reasonably intact. Maybe.

Monday, May 14, 2018

An Absolute Priority

Tickets for the Dylan concert in early August at the Star Theatre became available on-line at 10.00 am today and I'd got mine by 10.10 am. There are some things you just don't mess around with and making a booking to see the greatest living American do what only he can do is one of them. (Especially when the place he's doing it is actually within walking distance!)

Spent every spare minute of the remainder of the day devising impossible set-lists in the certain knowledge that whatever His Bobness elects to do I'll love anyway.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

An Embracement

It's been a busy day, dominated by an unpleasantly aching head (my own) for several hours. Funnily enough, the headache pretty much disappeared after some fairly hectic rehearsing in the early evening. Not quite what I expected, but a very welcome outcome.

I'm hoping to sustain a reasonable level of energy for the next couple of weeks particularly. There are busy days ahead, demanding days, and past experience suggests due recognition of the demands, if not actively embracing them, is the best way forward.

(Having no choice in the matter helps, of course.)

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Knocked Out

Another hot day. Nodded off in the late afternoon for a couple of hours, waking with a thick head, and haven't really completely come round since.

Highlight of the morning was a trip to my back doctor. He detected a fair amount of stiffness in the muscles around my spine, but nothing to really worry about. In fact, most of our conversation centred around this week's election results. He's Malaysian and had gone across to Johor on Wednesday morning to cast his vote. He and Noi were both chortling over the outcome, far more concerned about the state of their nation than the state of my spine - and rightly so, I must say.

Then in the afternoon we got to see Osman & Rohana at a house-warming, eating rather too well in the process. Man is having quite a bit of trouble with his bad shoulder, but is determined to carry on working. He'd suffered from a nasty fever earlier in the week also, so it was a relief to see him quite relaxed and enjoying his afternoon.

I suppose it was the food that helped knock me out after we got back, in conjunction with the stodgy warm blanket of the afternoon air in our living-room. Can't honestly say I achieved much today, but can't honestly say I care much. So there.

Friday, May 11, 2018

In A Sweat

The weather's been hot here of late, which doesn't bode too well for the approaching fasting month. By the time I left our place for work this morning I'd already built up a stickily unpleasant sweat. It didn't help that I was wearing a dark, long-sleeved shirt for some filming I needed to do later in the day.

My commute to the staffroom takes only a minute or so, but I was very glad indeed to reach air-conditioned comfort, though it took a good twenty-five minutes or more to really cool down. Funnily enough by the time I found myself outside again, with the sun up, the intense, close warmth of that first hour of the day seemed to dissipate somehow, and I didn't feel quite so extremely uncomfortable for the rest of the day.

One thing's for sure though: no matter how hot it gets, it's a whole lot better than an English winter - especially the ones in Manchester.

Thursday, May 10, 2018

The Unexpected

If you'd have told me some 20 years ago that this household would one day be celebrating the election of one Dr Mahathir Mohamed as the 7th Malaysian PM I would have been laughed scornfully, to put it mildly.

Expected the unexpected, especially in Malaysian politics. And especially from the astonishing Dr M.

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Democracy In Action

Came home to find Noi glued to Channel News Asia and its coverage of the General Election in Malaysia. She was expressing a more than fair degree of frustration over stories that voters in some areas had had to deal with a range of obstacles in getting to fill in their ballot papers.

Democracy is a wonderful and extraordinarily fragile thing. Something worth caring about.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Just A Couple Of Feet

I was keenly aware when I was a little lad that my feet were seen as being 'wide'. I had no idea what this meant in physical terms, since my feet were just the two bits of my body I looked down on at regular intervals and they looked perfectly normal to me. But whenever I went for a pair of shoes the ritual confirmed the wideness of those two bits of me. We always went to Clarkes, the only shoe shop that measured kids' feet for width, and regardless of who did the measuring the verdict was always the same - my feet were disturbingly wide.

It's only in recent months that the disturbing quality of their wideness has become obvious even to their possessor. This was partly the result of Noi remarking one day on their deformity, as if this were a fact of life she'd always taken for granted, assuming the same of myself. In addition I can't help but glance at the feet of worshippers adjacent to myself at Prayers realising that all those feet look very narrow from my perspective. Goodness knows what they make of mine.

In fact, Noi reckons they're getting wider with age, I suppose as a result of the daily pounding they take. I'm now very much aware that at the end of a busy day they ache very distinctly indeed.  That happens to be the case just now. It's not a terribly unpleasant feeling in its way, bringing with it a mild sense of accomplishment. But I can foresee the day when simply walking will take some effort. I just hope that's a long way off.  

Monday, May 7, 2018

Trailing Clouds Of Glory

Came across this in a journal entry for early May fifteen years ago:

Arsenal lost to Leeds last night thus handing the Premiership to United. A remarkable victory considering how bleak things looked at some points of the season. Wenger is managing to be exceptionally ungracious in the circumstances, something that Ferguson has rarely been guilty of in terms of acknowledging the qualities of eventual winners.

Strange that both managers have been in the news lately, and neither for the best of reasons. But, my goodness me, they certainly had their glory days, eh?

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Soon

20 Syaaban, 1439

Now well into the countdown for the arrival of the fasting month. For the last couple of evenings I've enjoyed big meals - with a Boyos' Night on Friday and a belated birthday dinner featuring just myself and the Missus yesternight. Good to get such times of plenty in before a period of relative deprivation, and strange just how much some part of me looks forward to that mild deprivation as much as another part gets a wee bit nervous (still!) at the prospect.

Now thinking of what should feature on my reading list for Ramadhan. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary, from Seyyed Hossein Nasr and his team of editors is likely to dominate, and happily so. I've been waiting for the right time to get to grips with this, and that time is soon.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Down To The Nitty Gritty

Reading Richard Williams's excellent blog the bluemoment today reminded me of the wonderful singles released by Shirley Ellis, way back when. In search of The Nitty Gritty on-line somewhere I came across this version, featuring some stellar dancing of the old school. It all looks and sounds wonderfully innocent now, but in its way it was quietly revolutionary.

And, by the by, I still have vivid memories of Ms Ellis's The Clapping Song being played at Thursday dance nights in Hyde Town Hall - of all places.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Just A Number

Got to the gym this evening for the first time since my birthday. Realised this was the case as I was keying my age into the machine (one of the demands it makes upon you, along with your weight, and the number of minutes you intend to torture yourself for before you start peddling.)

They say that age is just a number. They neglect to mention that eventually that number gets to be a pretty hefty one.

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Between The Sun And The Moon

On the way back from Melaka on Sunday, somewhere on the highway south, a particularly fine, very full moon, became visible low on the horizon ahead of us. The light was just beginning to go, but it was still afternoon, not the time of day you'd normally expect to be contemplating our neighbouring satellite. Just as Noi and I were voicing our appreciation of the sight, glancing into the side mirror I realised that at our rear the orange-red sun was doing an excellent job of smearing itself above the horizon.

Caught between the two, I had the oddest feeling that things were falling into place, and it was a very fine place to be.

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Top Man

There was a great article the other week, in the on-line version of The Guardian, on Barcelona's midfield genius Andres Iniesta, on the occasion of his imminent retirement. Despite all the nonsense that can make an interest in footy a dispiriting experience these days, there are sometimes reminders of what makes it, at its very best, the beautiful game.