Dojo Magic

September 15, 2025

            I think I must be the world’s worst ‘re-settler’ or even ‘settler’. Been home two mornings, and a full day already, and I am still wo(a)ndering around the home fiddling with this or that and not doing much. I used to be better, but though I moved into the cats’ home just 20 mins away and just for two weeks, I feel like I was living in an alternate universe for an unknown number of years, where language was distorted and words disappeared from memory, and even when I went out for a bit I felt like a stranger in a strange land. I’m thinking sleep deprivation can do weird things to the mind-body, but I need to figure this out—why each time I live at the cats’ home I feel disconnected from the city I am living in and the life I ‘normally’ live. 

            Yesterday I arrived at the dojo from my own home in that altered mental state. Only one of the brown belts was there doing some stretching, and I joined him. One of the other black belts was prepping the lesson for yesterday and he had got stuck because of rain and was late. I’m not sure how we got there but we found ourselves in a conversation about death, living alone, aging, and meaning at different stages of life. I shared how as we aged spouse and I became more dependent on each other and my fears of being the one being left behind. I spoke of how I felt I had done almost everything I had wanted to do in life which money didn’t constrain, and I wasn’t holding out for a long life. The brown belt talked of his grandma who lived almost forty years after her spouse passed on and what the last years of her life were like. When the black belt came in, changed into his gi, and joined us on the black mats of the gym we rent on Sundays, he said, “I was thinking this same thing on my way here.” He shared a bit of his thoughts and the memory that triggered his reflections, then we all stood up and trained hard for the rest of the time.

            It was magical. Outside it was dull and cloudy and sitting on the black mats felt cosy and conducive for such a conversation. Then hitting the bags first, and then doing other training, the thoughts we had shared and heard softy assimilated within. I have experienced such magic in the Singapore dojo community—on Sundays when fewer or us train and we linger for a chat, or on Saturdays when several of us go out for brunch to the coffee shop at Aperia and have conversations where anything could come up—from career explorations, post-retirement plans, existential issues, the terrible genocide in Gaza, something going on locally, besides of course thoughts related to martial arts. 

            We are a dojo, and we train hard together, but we also meet weekly, and the bonds that this regularity creates allows space for intimate sharing. People who join the dojo take their time to find their comfort levels within but most end up feeling this camaraderie. We also have had disagreements but today I want to bask in the magic of our small karate family in Singapore. I suppose this magic happens in any group where people meet to practice a common passion in an atmosphere of co-operation and not competition. We listen to each other and encourage people towards their dreams. 

            I didn’t know that I came ‘here’ today to say this. I merely sat at my desk, flipped open my lap top, and opened up my blog to help me gather my scattered self after finding it difficult to settle back into my tiny home, where paint smells still waft in from open windows, and I hear workmen chatting somewhere close, and I worry if they will be painting something outside the window or in the corridor and I will be back to battling allergies—already my ears feel a bit inflamed and the eyes burn. 

I know this time I will pull on my sandals, grab a notebook and perhaps the laptop and head out. And I am about to do just this soon, as I don’t have any left-overs for lunch and am too lazy to put together something. But the magic of yesterday and writing here today has grounded me a ton. 

Time with the Cats

September 11, 2025

            My time with the cats is coming to an end this weekend. 

I had ‘work’ and ‘play’ goals when I came here and based on vague memories from my last visits, I knew to be moderate with them. I’m not sure how this is possible, but I am feeling both ‘empty’ and disappointed about what I’ve managed and feeling good too. I guess in this blog I am trying to make sense of this contradiction.

            But before that I want to share a conversation that spouse and I had this morning. After twelve consecutive days of being woken up early and earlier with each passing day, by Yoda the spouse asked, ‘why do cats need to wake sleeping people?’ (Yoda of course even wakes sleeping cats!) And then the spouse added, ‘why do cats need to knock things off the table?’ (He had knocked off several things including my iPad off the bedside table.)

            I don’t know the answer to either and might google them later. But this morning, as we sat looking bedraggled and droopy-eyed while I tried to jolt awake with the caffeine in a second cup of  Assam tea, I replied, ‘ya, and they get rewarded for it. We don’t punish cats the way dogs sometimes get punished.’ I mean we had fed the cats despite Yoda’s annoying behaviour, cuddled them, and I had even stood sleepily keeping watch near the open door as Yoda had his morning peek at the corridor—I would call it neighbour spying but most days there is nothing to see. But this visit though Yoda has been particularly pesky, and I have been particularly patient with him. But except for the very early wake-up visits, and one chomp when I tried to syringe water into him (left it to the spouse after as he is better at it), he's been particularly affectionate with us, though it was also easy to see he had some very 'bad' days towards the end of the trip when I am guessing he is missing his mum (he is mama's boy) He either sat on his mum's bed and self-calmed or when he was being his old self he chased Heka around and woke her constantly when she was asleep. Heka has been smooth and sweet except for two days when we gave her the wrong breakfast and she complained vociferously. 

            But back to that weird contradiction. This was one of the most ‘distracted’ visits, dominated by trying to heal from symptoms of the allergies that I had arrived with, never having even one night of six hours sleep, and unexpectantly being shocked by renovation/hacking sounds from above for three days. Despite this I managed some of the stuff from my ‘work’ goals list. I couldn’t do anything that required a ‘full brain’ but first drafts, reading craft essays/books and making notes, and other such stuff, got picked at daily. My ‘play’ list was dominated by drawing and painting. The sleep deprivation made even this hard this time, but I sampled all the colour pencils from my daughters around seventy piece water-colour pencil Derwent set (that she’s had since school) and drew the same tree outside the window in a different set of colours every day. This morning’s tree in shades of brown (my favourite from which was burnt carmine) was significantly improved from the first tree in shades of cream and pale yellow. 

            I’m going to have to find a way to get more ‘brain involved’ work done even while tired—I can train something or the other even on my most physically challenged days—but I am glad that I had some discipline and worked despite fairly severe illness and fatigue. I also drew/painted much less than I have the last two times I’ve been here, but my one daily drawing of that tree and some practice of negative space cat drawings showed improvement and for that I am more than pleased. Actually just doing a daily drawing of the same tree is what I am most pleased about and not the improvement — daily practice is more desired than the one lovely image, process over product. I guess this is where the feeling good comes from, and the source of the self-criticism is obvious.

            In my time here but I have watched the news but haven’t had strong reactions or formed opinions around it, I think because of the tiredness. Only this morning I did feel outraged at Netanyahu’s statement that the world should be ashamed about condemning Israel’s Qatar attack targeting a Hamas delegation, and I felt anxious watching the unfolding chaos in Nepal—will something better come from it or will it just end in more suffering for the people. I have reached a point (and I hope I get through it) where even when I see or hear of something that has partial hope, I find it hard to muster up hopeful expectations—whether about the world or my personal self—because of so much disappointment for so long. I journalled about the state of my mind on most days and this stood out.

            So ya, this is where I am at the end of my days with my cats. Earlier this week I read the blogs I had written during my last two visits, looking for similarities, differences, hope, or advice and decided that even though I don’t have much to say it will be good to have this record to refer to next time. I will be happy to be home in two days and get a full night’s sleep; and I am hoping that the painting of the external walls of our building on our side is done so I am not assaulted by more health disturbing smells and sounds.