I had a happy birthday, day before yesterday, and it was a good one.
You tend to think of special days and holidays as "celebrations", often associated with a gathering of friends or family, or food and drink, gifts and going to places you want to remember or re-live. It is about creating new memories and recollecting great ones.
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The first birthday party I ever remembered was when I was six (1970), just after my brother Chris, and the cake was baked by our mother.
It was the same rainbow butter cake - except my brother Chris had more chocolate veins and mine had strawberry veins with chocolate. The cake had butter icing on it and I remember how she had baked it the day before, and in the evening got down to the icing on a smallish nickel cake stand which could be rotated. She had made trellises on the edges, and down the sides in lines, careful to add the hem at the bottom last so that it would be over the others. Then there were silver sugar coated balls, like ball-bearings, which she had dropped as pearls on the top of little buds of icing she had put all around the cake. There was even a silver cake board, which for some reason I associated only with bought cakes. So, even as I was puzzled about this detail, I imagined my mother's cake to be as good as any we would have bought from the store. Perhaps, just being six years old then, I would have already sensed that something we bought with money cost more than something we made at home. I loved the butter cake or pound cake as she called it, and when she had done with the icing, Chris and I could lick the spatula and brown ceramic icing bowl clean. Then my mother would put the cake, all dolled up, on the cake stand which would sit on an inverted saucer in a plate lightly filled with water. This was to create a moat trap for any wandering ant, while the large food net with a wire loop would keep the flying bugs away. The following day, in the afternoon, the furniture around the house would be re-arranged for the party, which would be my first. Arrangements would be quite the same as Chris', and I would now be quite prepared for what will take place. There would be orange squash, and we would all be dressed up, my hair slick with Brycream, or some greenish goo from this Lavender brand which came in a small pumpkin shaped fluted jar with a round gold cap. Fortunately, I had a keen sense of smell, and many of my early childhood memories are laced with smells I remember.
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Now, the other neighbourhood children arrive and there are two girls I like, and if you ever looked at the pictures, you need not guess which of them I liked more...
But my earliest birthday memory was when I was just about three (1967), when Christopher
celebrated his birthday. I knew it was his birthday because my father took a photograph of him first while I was held back behind the camera. Then after his shot was taken, I was gingerly positioned next to him, little and made akimbo, which was a really silly pose. But I was very happy and remembered the whole scene and on-goings. I remember the black-white striped pockets which I dug my tiny hands into. More importantly, I remember my mother's ployester blue dress with the little white embrodiery reindeer prancing around her like a carousel. It is very strange how these memories are structured, and we have vivid visual recollection of meaningless details while we forget other elements which might matter more. But it is important to recall that I was only 2 years eleven months old when these things took place, and I remember other details which I cannot put to a date without the aid of some evidence such as notes on an old photograph.
Children will always remember their mothers on these special days; similarly godmothers and fathers on baptisms and so forth. My brothers who married - I wonder - will they remember also what my mother said and did for them, when their anniversaries come around, or will their own anxiety and those of their wives make up more of their recollections, and the small part actors are made up of the rest of us.
Why do these memories matter? Perhaps, because in obvious and latent ways, we are made up of these influences. I did not cherish my birthdays as much now: for since I ever was, this is my first birthday without that other key player in my life, who was the key player in the drama 44 years ago in the old Kandang Kerbau Hospital where she was in labour for half the day. I remember my mother talking about the stitches she had just giving birth to me and I wonder about how she had endured giving birth to all four of my brothers and I, and possibly surviving the personal grief of a miscarriage or two.
She is now gone; all too quickly. In the last seven months when she battled cancer and had to confront her own mortality, it left too little opportunity for us to ever talk or reminisce of these happier events we shared, even though my part in such times would be that of the minor, as I was indeed. A minor player in these parts, we who are less preoccupied by the roles and speeches, are often better spectators than players. I suspect this was to be so true that my own calling would become manifest when I found my own voice through writing.
.JPG)
The first birthday party I ever remembered was when I was six (1970), just after my brother Chris, and the cake was baked by our mother.
It was the same rainbow butter cake - except my brother Chris had more chocolate veins and mine had strawberry veins with chocolate. The cake had butter icing on it and I remember how she had baked it the day before, and in the evening got down to the icing on a smallish nickel cake stand which could be rotated. She had made trellises on the edges, and down the sides in lines, careful to add the hem at the bottom last so that it would be over the others. Then there were silver sugar coated balls, like ball-bearings, which she had dropped as pearls on the top of little buds of icing she had put all around the cake. There was even a silver cake board, which for some reason I associated only with bought cakes. So, even as I was puzzled about this detail, I imagined my mother's cake to be as good as any we would have bought from the store. Perhaps, just being six years old then, I would have already sensed that something we bought with money cost more than something we made at home. I loved the butter cake or pound cake as she called it, and when she had done with the icing, Chris and I could lick the spatula and brown ceramic icing bowl clean. Then my mother would put the cake, all dolled up, on the cake stand which would sit on an inverted saucer in a plate lightly filled with water. This was to create a moat trap for any wandering ant, while the large food net with a wire loop would keep the flying bugs away. The following day, in the afternoon, the furniture around the house would be re-arranged for the party, which would be my first. Arrangements would be quite the same as Chris', and I would now be quite prepared for what will take place. There would be orange squash, and we would all be dressed up, my hair slick with Brycream, or some greenish goo from this Lavender brand which came in a small pumpkin shaped fluted jar with a round gold cap. Fortunately, I had a keen sense of smell, and many of my early childhood memories are laced with smells I remember.
.JPG)
Now, the other neighbourhood children arrive and there are two girls I like, and if you ever looked at the pictures, you need not guess which of them I liked more...
But my earliest birthday memory was when I was just about three (1967), when Christopher 
celebrated his birthday. I knew it was his birthday because my father took a photograph of him first while I was held back behind the camera. Then after his shot was taken, I was gingerly positioned next to him, little and made akimbo, which was a really silly pose. But I was very happy and remembered the whole scene and on-goings. I remember the black-white striped pockets which I dug my tiny hands into. More importantly, I remember my mother's ployester blue dress with the little white embrodiery reindeer prancing around her like a carousel. It is very strange how these memories are structured, and we have vivid visual recollection of meaningless details while we forget other elements which might matter more. But it is important to recall that I was only 2 years eleven months old when these things took place, and I remember other details which I cannot put to a date without the aid of some evidence such as notes on an old photograph.
Children will always remember their mothers on these special days; similarly godmothers and fathers on baptisms and so forth. My brothers who married - I wonder - will they remember also what my mother said and did for them, when their anniversaries come around, or will their own anxiety and those of their wives make up more of their recollections, and the small part actors are made up of the rest of us.
Why do these memories matter? Perhaps, because in obvious and latent ways, we are made up of these influences. I did not cherish my birthdays as much now: for since I ever was, this is my first birthday without that other key player in my life, who was the key player in the drama 44 years ago in the old Kandang Kerbau Hospital where she was in labour for half the day. I remember my mother talking about the stitches she had just giving birth to me and I wonder about how she had endured giving birth to all four of my brothers and I, and possibly surviving the personal grief of a miscarriage or two.
She is now gone; all too quickly. In the last seven months when she battled cancer and had to confront her own mortality, it left too little opportunity for us to ever talk or reminisce of these happier events we shared, even though my part in such times would be that of the minor, as I was indeed. A minor player in these parts, we who are less preoccupied by the roles and speeches, are often better spectators than players. I suspect this was to be so true that my own calling would become manifest when I found my own voice through writing.
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