#clearskieslenormand

[nsw4133]

I admit, I’m in love with the old gigantic scythe because it is big and ominous and looks hella cool. But I placed it in a ripened paddy field because that’s probably when a scythe is gonna be used--the harvest season. My people had their culture arranged around the harvest cycle. Understandably, back then rice was everything. No rice, no food, the end. But now, even as we’ve all moved on to jobs that does not require us to farm and worry about the weather all the time, we still make our biggest celebration around this magical idea of harvest, the Kaamatan. It’s not as largely celebrated on my island, but bruh, on the mainland, that’s where the harvest celebration go really all out. And I know I’ve missed out on that growing up because usually that happens during the school year, not when it is a long school holiday. But since I’m out of the school system, I’ve been given more chance to experience all these festivities and I love it.

[nsw4133]

I didn’t just want to draw a floating heart, so I decided to put it on a very familiar childhood medium--a paper plane. We didn’t get to throw paper planes a lot, which makes sense because we probably have to pick them up ourselves, which is part of responsible living. But I think in those times there were pockets of moments where we thought writing confession letters were amazing and writing in everyone’s memory books were cool and so we did that. Me and my classmates. And I remembered back then that the really cool people were the ones that could talk to both boys and girls well. I admired that.

[nsw4133]

Warning: mention of religion.

Islands, being islands, have plenty of beaches around, and I didn’t understand the luxurious access I have to these natural wonders until I moved away. I remembered having to attend baptism services and they were always traditionally done in the sea, full immersion style. I also remembered being dragged to the beach to hang out with this coworker of my mom who was talking about me and my future, all with the assumption of me and “my man”. All because apparently my mom thought I was going through a rebellious phase and thought getting a coworker to talk to me will work wonders. When literally it was just because she does not spend time with me in person, that she does not even know who I am. That conversation was the first time that anyone even used the idea of a future partner of mine with the words “your man”. Man? What man? I, can have a man? I was so confused, and maybe even a little touched that this is probably the closest I will ever get to an adult acknowledging the fact that I will in fact, date some day. It’s just that even now, my mom has not even got around to this dating conversation with me. And that’s sad. If I can go back to that fateful conversation, I just wanted to add in this question: Are you sure I want a man?

[nsw4133]

The animal in the dog card look very fox-like, and I knew that there is no way I’m going to draw something similar for the fox card. So I drew a “flying” fox instead. Which is really your fruit bat, but still. Maybe because it was as orange as the regular fox, so that’s why it is called the flying fox?

[nsw4133]

A fake ring on a tree? Totally a thing that a child would do. I don’t know why any child would have access to a ring, but I think early on, the impression I have on rings is that they indicate someone is married. And I’m pretty sure every time we have a new teacher to be our substitute teacher, and she probably does not have a ring on, and pretty soon we were asking the teacher is she has a boyfriend. Because that’s what all kids want to know. We just think the idea of love is cute even though we have no idea how much work it really takes. I think of the one time when my class got into a similarly crazy situation. We were 10, 11 years old and this new guy teacher becomes our substitute teacher. He was fairly young and has frosted tips for hair, and that was enough to make all my girl classmates the permission to go gaga over him. Which would have been a great time to figure out that crushes are a thing and they can be pretty helpful in figuring out one’s sexuality. And lol I was so not impressed by him. But some months passed and it turned out that he has to be transferred elsewhere. So when he broke the news, one of my classmates was like, please don’t leave us. All while holding his hand. And then the hand holding lasted longer than expected and that’s when the whole room went from “nooo teacher don’t leave us” kind of sad to “ooohhh (so you like him huh?)” kind of awkward.

[nsw4133]

I think before my internship gig that also involves living in a mice infested dorm, I don’t really have an encounter with mice. Which says a lot of how much sanitation has improved since the world wars. My current living situation reminded me of how my childhood does not have any of these nonsense, and to be fair, at most we got hamsters as pets for a while, but even then, I already didn’t like the idea of having pets anyway. I have no idea how much headaches these mice can cause until my internship situation and I’m just so glad the child me didn’t have to deal with this.

[nsw4133]

Warning: super religious memories.

I was raised in a church. It wasn’t the worst, but you can tell that just from the way they like to preach, it often seemed that they were so removed from the real world and the suffering around it. Nevertheless, I can tell you that growing up, I have gone on for years when the only real adults I’ve been in contact in my everyday life are my Sunday school teachers and the regular church goers. Not my parents, or my relatives. It was very confusing, because I didn’t know that I was supposed to be a leader, and I’m definitely not the prime example for my sisters to follow. The only time when I’ve arrived church on time is when someone was giving me a ride. Any time when I get to church with my parents, it meant that we will arrive late and that was weird. And it didn’t take long for me to realise that I enjoyed the company of the other adults in the church than my own parents and I didn’t know why. It just so happens that my parents were always so busy, always working in another city, that a lot of times, all of my growing up process were witnessed by other adults who were not my parents. That most of my growing up process, if not for these adults’ presence in my life, would probably have not been celebrated at all. But now that I also recognise the gay in me, I now wonder if these same people would even welcome me at all if they knew how gay I was. Because getting kicked out of the church is real. Because being swept under the church’s rug as if queer people don’t exist is real. Out of the 50-60 kids that grew up in the same Sunday school around the same time, I’ve realised that there are at least 3 of us that turned out to be gay. And I wonder, what kind of difference would they make if they had been more progressive back then?

[nsw4133]

This is the house that I grew up in. I don’t know how, but even as a wee child, I learnt that the size of my house is not normal. That it suggested something else that my parents have that I didn’t know. This house is really just one of the many manifestations of my class that I’ve inherited. Maybe it was modest back at the time when my parents bought it, but I’m pretty sure the maintenance was not easy. Along with my parents’ somewhat unclear rules on not bringing people into the house and yet always claim that they want me to bring friends to the house but also seriously they’ve never got the time to let me go hangout with my friends, I’ve felt so uncomfortable with my own house that I just opted not to bring any friends over. It was supposed to be just “no strangers in our house, no boys in our house(we are an all girls siblings) because we don’t want you to do hanky panky stuff”, but it rolled into something bigger where I simply don’t feel safe for people to see my house. It does not represent me. It was suffocating for me to see that only they get the nice things and not me. Now looking back on it, it was great that they didn’t waste money on things that I may not appreciate as much. But it was hard feeling like I was treated like an afterthought in a house that has what they want but not an ounce of what I want. It was, and still is, a battleground. When my parents are not around, it was a place where I grew up in, where I spent so many afternoons napping under the rays of the hot sun, where I sent so many shuttlecocks up to the roof because I smashed too hard on badminton, where I discovered neopets and onemanga. I guess it was supposed to be my refuge, but yet I’ve never felt like I could show my friends my house. I felt ashamed. I fear my class could be alienating. I never wanted my friends to feel intimidated because of what my parents own. I want them to be friends with me because of me, even though I can’t go to any outings, ever. What a relief when I realised that now I’m no longer a child and I can treat myself better. It is only now that I started to discover the magic of PS2 games. Damn I wonder how I managed to get though my childhood with 0 magazines, 0 gaming consoles, and 0 sports. You would think that after so much internal drama I went through I would hate my house, but the thing is, every year that I was away from this house, is every year that I stare at it from google maps.