We swam with Nemo, Marlin and of course, Dory earlier this week, when we were in the Maldives. It was magical, frolicking in the turquoise clear water under the blue moody sky with them. The bursts of oranges and whites, blues and yellows, pinks and greens, greys and blacks, the darts and strolls of big and small, streamlined and boxy, elegant and clumsy. We shall never forget.

I’m not big on beach holidays usually and try to avoid them. There’s something so… lazy about them. Bathing in the sun, bathing on the beach, bathing in the sea. That much bathing seems more appropriate for someone who has toiled for so very long and desperately needs to do absolutely nothing but bath. I never feel that I deserve that degree of laziness. This year though, I succumbed as I’ve denied Son a beach holiday for a couple of years now. The Maldives seemed like a good idea. We went there for our honeymoon and thought it would be nice to show Son the place of his creation (too much information?!). We chose a different island this time and it was more beautiful and enchanting than I remember of the previous one. More importantly, it has lots more to do and my worries about laziness were quickly assuaged. We fed fishes, and sharks. We went in search of dolphins but found manta rays instead. We indulged our inner speed devils on jet skis and our inner archaeologists by collecting fossils (err, shells). There was so much to learn too. Do you know that the two sides of a whale’s brain take turns to sleep, which means therefore that it sleeps with one eye open? This is so that it will remember to rise to the surface for air – as a mammal, it can’t breathe in water! Do you also know that a dolphin belongs to the whale family? You probably do but I didn’t! It was very nice, as always, to learn something new. Nine days whizzed by and we felt a tinge of sadness on the last. We made a pact that in the coming year, we shall all do our part, i.e. Husband and I give our all at work, and Son gives his best at home and in school, so that we all deserve to go back again next year!

Yesterday, appropriately, we watched Finding Dory. We were informed by the marine biologists on the island that the global population of clown fish nosedived after Finding Nemo and they are now worried about blue tangs. I didn’t realise a movie could have such an impact on our ecosystem.. I’m not into keeping fish – or any pets – but if you are, perhaps not blue tangs? Dory belongs to the ocean!

I’m always sceptical about sequels but this, like my Maldivian sojourn, proved better than the first. The pivotal scene (warning: spoilers ahead!!) was when Dory, all lost and confused, saw the shells on the seabed and suddenly recalled how her parents used to lay them out as a guide to home in case she forgot her way. She followed them to what looked like a home, but there was nobody there. She turned around and in the distance, two shadows formed. They approached her slowly. It was two blue tangs clutching a handful of shells in their mouths. Her parents. They had been waiting for her to return, all these years. And everyday they would go in search of shells to lay out a route home. They laid many, each emanating out of their home like a ray of sunshine, in the hope one of them would bring their daughter home. I couldn’t stop my tears. I must have sobbed through four pieces of tissue paper..

Love is easy to say, but so very hard to practise. It is not just about having a good time together, or not having a good time together but keeping at it out of convenience or fear or obligation. It is to never foresake, in good times and bad, in sickness and health. To never foresake because you never want to. Like Dory’s parents never wanting to give up on waiting for their daughter, never wanting to contemplate a life without her, never wanting to foresake.

If you ever find yourself considering a blue tang for your aquarium, think of Dory’s parents!

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There, I said it. I am a shopaholic. I buy way too many clothes. And shoes. Bags too. But before you cluck your tongues and shake your heads, let me redeem myself. I have a great idea (so I say!) on how to derive some good, apart from contributing greatly to the economy, out of that.

As I mentioned in “Inappropriate dressing”, my walk-in is inappropriately obese, literally bursting at its seams. This is after having usurped all 4 other closets in the house, and leaving only a small panel for Husband and an even smaller one for Son. I want to reassure you however that I’m as responsible as you would expect of any middle-aged auntie, and by no means a poor example to young girls out there – I make my own keep, and spend well within my means. I practise what I teach – I save (hooray!). I just have a, shall we say, weakness, for all things beautiful. All beautiful things that perhaps in my delusional mind, would transpose just some of its incandescence to me, on me.

The laws of Physics dictate that I have to give away a lot of these collections – to make space for new ones.. Over the years, I have been doing just that, to friends, family, and charity organizations. For a few years, before I took on my current global role, the few of us including Equally Fierce and Little Swallow would organize fashion bazaars, food bazaars, even art fairs annually to raise funds for charities. A lot of my pre-loved (fashion speak for “used”..) clothes, shoes, bags and accessories went to the fashion bazaar. I recall a Louis Vuitton Speedy, an Anya Hindmarch envelope, a Herve Leger tote, and a Ferragamo clutch, a present from Husband, but I convinced him there’s no greater way to love it than to set it free for good (as in a good cause). I recall a pair of YSL Tribute which I donated and convinced a young colleague from Ops was a good buy. I hope she found some use for them! All proceeds from the sale went towards charitable causes. It was hard work but great fun. Hard work because it took a lot of time and effort, from the central collection, sorting (note to all you enthusiastic doners out there: there’s a difference between pre-loved and ready for a second lease of life, and pre-loved-to-death and ready for the incinerators..), steaming (it’s all about selling!) and pricing (low enough to be enticing, but not so low as to be undesirable – very important to grasp the shopper’s mentality). And there’s the headache of unsold stock to deal with. Great fun because of the camaraderie forged over the common purpose of doing some good. We took votes to decide which charities to give to, which worked well enough but also meant not everyone’s causes were supported.

That’s a big digression but sets the stage for my great idea! So, here it is:

1. A website where you can post your pre-loved clothes, bags, shoes – anything really – for sale at a price that you decide. A portion of the proceeds, say 20%, will be channeled towards charitable causes. If you prefer a higher percentage, that can be done!
2. You have a say which charity you want to support, by first nominating your favorite causes that are then included in a panel. You indicate which charity on that panel your proceeds will be directed to, and this will be made transparent to the buyers. If you have no favourite causes, then the proceeds will simply go towards a central pot, the beneficiaries of which will be decided at the end of every year by a vote of all members of the site.
3. There’ll be a chat forum for everyone to share thoughts on your causes, and their related activities.
4. And there’ll be an education platform on issues like budgeting and saving to help the under-privileged that you can contribute to if you, like me, have caught the teaching bug.
5. This would be THE alternative shopping site – for those who love pre-loved things, and would like to do some good whilst doing that!

What do you think? Would you shop there? Would you sell there? Would it work??

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Muhammad Ali has passed away. One of the most iconic sports legends in living memory. The Greatest, as he declared himself to be.

I’m not into playing sports. Those of you who know me know that I can’t run to save my life, and the ideal sporting venture to me is one that is sweat-free (!). I try to go to the gym every week (“try” being the operative word..), but that’s really more an exercise in vanity than physical achievement. I take a very keen interest in sporting legends though. Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Fu Mingxia and Muhammad Ali, amongst others. Because through the pursuit of excellence in their respective sports, they embody those qualities that I think represent the best in us human beings.

There cannot be excellence without dedication, hours and hours of training, day in day out, over years. There cannot be dedication without the audacity to dream, and the conviction of belief. The road to success will be littered with many setbacks and failures. Not to mention injuries. And even if success is attained, the inevitable is eventual decline. An outsized strength of will is necessary to keep seeking that often elusive and potentially short-lived glory, and to persist where others have given up, during an epic match or over the course of a sporting career. Giving up is often the easiest and so very tempting. Hence many do, but not these greats. I remember vividly Pete Sampras, all but written off by commentators, determined to win again at Wimbledon. Nothing was going his way and at every changeover, he hunched over a note of encouragement written by his wife, trying to summon his inner belief for one more victory. It was not to be and he was defeated by his little known opponent, at the second round. It was a humiliation, painful just to watch, but he did not succumb. Later in the year, he came back and beat longtime rival Andre Agassi at the US Open and then bowed out of the game on his own terms, one of the greatest players of all time.

Of course there’s talent, a lot of it, but talent without belief, dedication and perseverance won’t amount to much. This is partly why I send Son to tennis and taekwondo lessons. Not because I want him to become a career sportsman, but because I wish for him to forge those qualities, to be applied to his talents, whatever these may be, and to his life.

Of them all, Ali holds a special place. Because of boxing. And because of him. Boxing has to be one of the rawest sports practiced by mankind. Two men seeking to inflict and escape nothing but pain, using nothing but their bodies and brains, with nothing between them except the ebb and flow of the most basic of instincts. The instinct to win and to conquer, amidst the pain. The instinct to self-preserve and to surrender, amidst the pain. The pain… Which I think is very different from that of lungs gasping for air and legs crumbling from exhaustion. It is pain at its most direct, damaging and life threatening. It takes a whole different kind of courage, plus a whole different level of mental toughness.

And him. From Cassius Clay to Cassius X to Muhammad Ali, because he didn’t want a “slave name”. Losing three years in the prime of his athletic life because he didn’t want to fight a cause in Vietnam he didn’t believe in. Cunningly employing unorthodox strategies like “rope-a-dope” to defeat stronger opponents. Defying his doctors to continue fighting because he wanted to believe. He did it his way. He had his flaws, of course he did, but who doesn’t? But he had his wit too, and how many do? His subsequent decline due to Parkinson’s made his victories, arrogance, charm and convictions all the more poignant. Was that the price he had to pay for the prize of having floated like a magnificent butterfly through life, and stung like a ferocious bee in the ring? We will never know for sure. I suspect it’d be a price he’d be willing to pay, if given a choice all over again. I say that because through his loss of speech and mobility, he never lost the twinkle in his eyes.

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