If only our world is like this picture everyday - turning from grey to rainbow colors, this lifetime is full of wonder...
But isn't the colours of our lives in our own hands? We are the artists who sketch and who choose the colours of the paints for the pictures that we draw.
My last trip back home was so colourful....from the boring grey of the same old stories made by people who have nothing else to do but drag us down with their mundane world to the colourful moments spent with best friends and newly found relatives with similar likes and dislikes. Each time I go on an outing with my sweet friend and cousin, Imor, I discover how much we are similar yet different. With a true friend, one has no inhibition. Sad, happy, silly, great, funny stories are shared and often both of us are laughing till our eyes sting with tears mixed with our make up or eye shadows.
The first time we met each other was brief and it was back to the time we resided as high school boarders in one of the buildings belonging to St. Thomas' Parish in Kuching - the capital city of the former British colony of Sarawak. We were both studying for our Higher School Certificate ( 6th Form). There were a few other girls from out of town staying there with us. And we were under the charge of an Anglican nun, Sister Florence. She was one strict and fierce woman! Curfew time was 10 o'clock every night - no more lights on, no more noise from us!
Imor and I were typical teenage girls - we loved to gossip, giggle, tell jokes, share stories and sneak out after 10 at night, just to go down to buy fried noodles!! We would sneak down the stairs of the loft where we slept, slipped out of the back fence down to St. Mary's primary School and then crossed the road to those shops selling freshly cooked food. Luckily Sister Florence never came back after 10 to check on us. I used to wonder what kind of punishment we would get if we had been caught! All in the name of fried noodles or just some hot banana fritters.
After that year, we parted and went on our separate ways, got married, built our careers, had children in my case and never crossed paths until lately. Thanks to Facebook, we found each other again and Imor initiated our meeting. Despite the very long separation, we felt as if our last meeting was just yesterday. We spent an entire day catching up with each other's stories. We just have plenty of topics, wide range of subjects to talk about. we can talk just about anything under the sun! Imor hasn't changed aside from looking more mature, slightly bigger and many times wiser. She is still as candid, chatty, down-to-earth and lovely.
As for me, I found my old friend again in Imor...a friend who won't hesitate to tell me to slow down or speed up, to put myself before others as against my old self-sacrificing me...and who doesn't upset me at all. In her I can place my confidence, because she knows how to filter which topics are ours only, and which can be shared with someone else.
During my recent trip home, she gave me some 'buntal masin' (salted puffer fish). It was delicious beyond words. I cooked it with a local vegetable - the terung asam (Solanum feroc L.) mixed with a pinch of freshly pounded turmeric, red chili and strips of culantro leaves (daun sop Dayak).
