“Why is he nailed on the cross? Why can’t he move?” My four-year-old niece Ruth dared to ask my sister Espie when she looked at a crucifix. It must be ironic for her. It must be a mystery. A puzzle. And she has all the right to ask. 

She thinks and believes in a POWERFUL God. She believes it is this BIG, GOOD God who provides our daily food. She prays to this God before she sleeps. When we talk about monsters and sharks and all other villains and any form of danger in the stories she knows, she thinks of God as the only one who can ultimately conquer them. Without doubt. She wouldn’t take our promises. When her mother told her she’s gonna kill the monster, Ruth said, “But you’re just a girl!” When I told her I will drive the monster away, Ruth warned, “But the monster is really, really big!” I’m not big enough for her. Haha. But God is.

Now with the sight of an image of Jesus, on the cross, she asks a very important, deep question, “Why?” 

My sister tried to explain the best she could. Ruth, with her impatience, said, “Okay!” before my sister could finish her lines. Haha. Her cousin Yancy told her, “You will understand when you grow up.”

Oh, God. This young, curious, believing little girl is contagiously refreshing!

I have been collecting books to donate to a college’s library in my town. Some are new. Some are old. I have also put in some of my own. In the process of sorting them out, touching them, smelling them –  I just can’t help but fall in love again and again with books. Good ones.

A couple just gave a number of books, mostly on literature. Classic ones. I felt greedy. I wish to keep some of them. Haha. But no, I have to let go. I would love the students in town to have access to these books.

One of the books I got was that of Franz Kafka. He is the one who said: “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us…We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” 

Young writers – come and join the All In! Young Writers Media Festival organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore. Rendezvous Hotel, 9 Bras Basah Road, 18-19 Feb 2012. This festival will explore the creative and career opportunities for young writers in the new media. It has various sessions on social media, ebook publishing and ebook stores, writing, transmedia and more!

For more information, please email info@bookcouncil.sg.

Dragon dance…of course, you should have seen it, heard it during Chinese New Year. From my room I heard it many times. I smiled because it reminded me a bit of Cebu’s Sinulog festival. The noise, the beat…

Last night I thought I heard it again. Was it another dragon dance? My housemate said, “No. It’s for Chinese funeral.”

Ooops. Okay.

I’ve been here in Singapore for more than five years now and I haven’t really seen a Chinese funeral. Decided to go to the block near my place to take a quick look, but the ceremony was over when my housemate and I got there. Haha. Anyway…

I am not a singer, so I sing. Why not? Haha. This is what happens when I am homesick. When I have deadlines to meet. When I have writer’s block. When I’m supposed to complete a project and don’t even know where to start. When I am restless. When I am missing someone. When it’s 2 am and I’m still awake. I sing. I am free. I enjoy and laugh at myself. I start all over again. I allow myself to make mistakes and be a beginner again.

I am not a singer, so I sing. Why not? Sometimes it’s easier to do the thing that you don’t know. Haha!

(I was supposed to record my voice over for my digital story. I just couldn’t do it right. So I ended up singing. Haha!)

Okay, this made me stop and melt. I was captivated. I’ve heard this song many times before (yes, I love old songs) but I haven’t seen the artist perform and sing it. This one is just special!

I am unwritten
Can’t read my mind
I’m undefined

I’m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries
Are outside the lines

We’ve been conditioned
To not make mistakes
But I can’t live that way, no

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin

“When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first to stand up and join in.” – Derek Sivers

I should try and aim for this!

“The National Book Development Council of Singapore and Scholastic Asia are jointly launching the 2012 Scholastic Asian Book Award (SABA). The award will recognise Asians and writers in Asia who are taking the experiences of life, spirit and thinking in different parts of Asia to the world at large. SABA is awarded to an unpublished manuscript (original or translation) targeted at children of ages 6 to 12 years. Deadline: 17 October 2011, 5pm (Singapore time).”

Are you also interested? Visit SABA for more info. All the best!

Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover, it is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.

Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in Heaven will mind it, and the finest phrase falls dead if there is no feeling behind it.

Though perfect the player’s touch, little, if any, he sways us, unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us.

Though the poet may spend his life in skilfully rounding a measure, unless he writes from a full, warm heart he gives us little pleasure.

So it is not the speech which tells, but the impulse which goes with the saying; and it is not the words of the prayer, but the yearning back of the praying.

It is not the artist’s skill which into our soul comes stealing with a joy that is almost pain, but it is the player’s feeling.

And it is not the poet’s song, though sweeter than sweet bells chiming, which thrills us through and through, but the heart which beats under the rhyming.

And therefore I say again, though I am art’s own true lover, that it is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox