(Musings on my solo flight from KL-HK 22 August 2011)
I am a mother of three. So,I am hardly ever, if ever, ALONE. On an everage academic/school year, I would have 100 students under my tutelage. So I am NEVER alone in school either. A 20 minute lunch break without a student popping in is a rarity. I am also a wife, daughter and sister. With an extended family larger than the A-team, and friends from all over the country and the world, (in real life, and on cyberspace), from all social circles, I hardly, if ever find myself on my own. My solitary, disciplined walks, usually taken on Saturday mornings up the hills afford me with 90 minutes of alone time- at best. Or a couple of precious hours at a beauty spa would constitute alone time for me. Twenty minutes by myself in the bath/shower before Junior 1, or 2 or 3, or ALL 3 waltz in( this open plan bathroom idea probbaly wasn't very well-thought out when we were designing our house),- either to chat, show me a painting, or a test score, a poem or just to make me to some inverse writing "I love you, cat, dog, Thomas" on the steamed up shower glass. So, you get my point. I am hardly, or ever alone. Solitude for me is a luxury. Solitude unencumbered is something that I am just no used to. Frankly, it's a little scary. But it's bracing. And a blessing.
But here I am , on a full-service(cheap sale) flight( nice) to HONG KONG, entirely on my own, no family, no girlfriends in tow. For someone who has (in the words or another friend) "a million friends & family" I can be totally stand-offish, not-chatty, unfriendly even when I am travelling on my own. I haven't chatted to anyone since hubby dropped me at Kl Sentral station this morning. I haven't started a conversation with my co-passenger. I don't want to talk to anyone. I have relished in the private moments that is me. Just happy being on my own, immersed in my thoughts, of the individual, and of what defines me.
I can look out of my window at the floating clouds in the cerulean sky and know for a fact that I am on hey, on my own! I can create poetry in my head, or make grand plans of our lives, wrapped up in my happy solitude, and cast worries away. It's a bit of a luxury undefined for this crazy mummy of 3 with a million things going on at home.
I know I am heading for Asia's most bustling and populous cosmopolitan cities, but I am sure I will find peace here. I have a purpose in Hong Kong that doesn't involve shopping or food( I can hear you laughing now)- wait for my next blog post! No,right not, let me enjoy my me time- for 24 HOURS+, before sister dearest arrives from Singapore and all consumeristic anarchy will break loose. I may go to the parks, the Teapot Museum, jog up the Peak, take a ferry to Lamma island, or just shut myself in my ladies' only floor in my hotel room and READ! WHO knows? I may master Dicken's take on utilitarianism when I am here, and finally complete Orhan Pamuk's tome- I am just celebrating being me, myself and I! It's truly liberating.
( though missing the little ones and the man terribly...)
My little haiku embodying how I feel:
Floating with the clouds
My thoughts meld- with love, sleep, life!
At peace with myself.
r
x
