Mock Turtle Soup, The Fat Duck |
Mad Hatter's Tea Party, The Fat Duck Tasting Menu |
Thoughts flow in
and out of our minds. Apart from improving one’s command of the language one is
reading in, reading helps one to string together one’s thoughts and discover things about oneself . For me
reading definitely helps me to identify and formulate my thoughts about things in general.
If you are
bothered or distressed about something, you may find it difficult to switch off
your mind and focus on what you read. When reading is a hobby, it is a
pleasure. If you are too busy, you have no time to read a book from back to
back, perhaps you can try to read something short or just a paragraph or two
whenever you can. That is if you want to. I used to welcome the time when I had
been kept waiting for my girls when they were held back in their respective
classes. I even looked forward to the time when I had a dental appointment or some routine
medical check up as that was the time I get to read what I wanted
to read. That was when I managed to get a moment to read a page or two of some
good writings. It was not the best way to read a book but if I had not done
that I would never get around to reading any books for more than a dozen years.
Whenever I had to do the supermarket run in my suburb, I used to grab a coffee
at the Starbucks outlet where the supermarket was located so I could sit in one
of their sofa chair for twenty minutes or more to read some pages of whatever
book I was reading then before I sped through the grocery shopping which was
the purpose of my trip. I was dividing my time into different segments so I
could get mini breaks to read.
I have the habit of reading two or three
books contemporaneously. A decade ago, there was this one time when I had to do
some laundry, a task I found terribly uninspiring. I reluctantly picked up the dirty clothes around the house
and decided to do a quick wash of the clothes before going to work. While the
clothes were being washed in the machine, I had a quick shower and got myself
ready for work. Then while waiting for the clothes to spin dry, I wanted to
catch up with one of the
novels that I was reading then.
While I distinctively remembered that I had the book with me when I gathered the clothes, I could not
locate the book. When the washing machine stopped spinning, I found bits of paper
stuck to all the clothes. I had thrown the book into the machine as I loaded
the clothes. Incidentally, the book that I had thrown into
the wash was The Dirty Girls’ Social Club.
It is a novel written by Alisa
Valdes-Rodriguez about six Latina women friends who regularly meet
after they have left Boston University and they nickname themselves ‘Sucias’ .
Twice a year, every year, the sucias show up for their meetings of the Buena Sucia Social Club. The women’s stories are told by Lauren,
Elizabeth, Sara, Rebecca, Usnavys and Amber in first person narration that I
had found interesting. It is sassy and fun like Sex and the City but the
characters are more credible as they have added sorrow.
Nowadays I have more time to read the books I want to read but
I still cannot get enough
time to read as much as I would like to. Also these days it can be a little
inconvenient when I happen to step out for lunch armed with a novel and
forgetting my reading glasses. I now realize why some people do not read as
much when they get older due to poor eyesight. But seriously, what is a slight
inconvenience when I can rectify it by wearing reading glasses. It is time to
embrace growing old with grace.
It has been more
than a week since the plane MH 370 went missing and the incident has sent and continues to send tremors
throughout the whole world. While it is heart warming to see how countries
amidst their differences have stood together to search for the missing plane
and how people from different faiths and ethnic groups pray for the safe return of its crew and the passengers on board,
it is definitely a harrowing experience for people around the world.
The unresolved
tragedy reminds me of the passages from the novel “ Saturday” written by Ian McEwan. Saturday,
February 15, 2003, Henry Perowne,
a successful neurosurgeon unusually wakes before dawn, drawn to the
window and filled with a growing unease. As he looks out at the night sky, he
is troubled by the state of the world and he witnesses a burning plane from his
bedroom window .
‘The plane emerges from the
trees, crosses a gap and disappears behind the Post Office Tower. If Perowne
were inclined to religious feeling, to supernatural explanations, he could play
with the idea that he’s been summoned; that having woken in an unusual state of
mind, and gone to the window for no reason, he should acknowledge a hidden
order, an external intelligence which wants to show or tell him something of
significance. But a city of its nature cultivates insomniacs ;it is itself a
sleepless entity whose wires never stop singing; among so many millions there
are bound to be people staring out of windows when normally they would be
asleep. And not the same people every night. That it should be him and not
someone else is an arbitrary matter. A simple antropic principle is involved.
The primitive thinking of the supernaturally inclined amounts to what his
psychiatirric colleagues call a problem , or an idea, of reference………’
“ …..Among the terrified passengers
many might be praying – another problem of reference – to their own god for
intersession. And if there are to be deaths, the very god who ordained them
will soon be funereally petitioned for comfort. Perowne regards this as a
matter for wonder, a human complication beyond the reach of morals. From it
there spring, alongside the unreason and slaughter, decent people and good
deeds, beautiful cathedrals, mosques, cantatas, poetry. Even the denial of God,
he was once amazed and indignant to hear a priest argue, is a spiritual
exercise, a form of prayer; it’s not easy to escape from the clutches of the
believers. The best hope for the plane is that it’s suffered simple, secular
mechanical failure.”
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