(M); or Parentheses

All words have their roots. Chinese words in pictures of the thing they describe. English words mostly draw from Latin. 

Some words though boggle the mind like parentheses = meaning brackets. I never thought of its origins until we were there in a theatre watching Hamilton. M was seated in between us. Flanked by us, or rather bracketed by parents.

And how appropriate it is that the opening line of the musical is,

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore

And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot

In the Caribbean by providence impoverished

In squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

For M, her life has been anything but. 

1. Yes, she grew up on a tropical isle but one that is bracketed but other larger land masses and hence protected it from typhoons and hurricanes that continue to wreak havoc over the Carribean islands. 

2. No, she was conceived well within wedlock, and have two surviving parents who are holding well to do (and even respectable) jobs

3. She is an Asian growing up in an Asian century in one of the capitals of Asia

Many would give a limb or an organ to have this start in life. Indeed, her circumstances are almost diagrammatically opposite to Hamilton’s though that is not to say their destinations would differ.

M may have been parenthesised, but making it to U of O is all her own making. Dad may have had his aspirations but he didn’t study for it and certainly didn’t take the exams nor got the grades. That’s all hers. And in choosing the course, she decided to, in her words, “go big or go home”. Though preternaturally inclined to Geography, she eschewed that (and the higher probability of entry into a larger intake) for the more relevant Human Sciences, which is the study of the nature and nurture of humans.

One of her classmates commented that it is surprising that a religious person like her would choose this course, with its science of evolution and all. But as a kindly old woman we met serendipitously in University Park said, and I paraphrase her, “it’s important to anchor such study in human spirituality”. That M is doing this course in a hall that still has Benedictine/Roman Catholic ethos underline how the good Lord has and is continuing to watch over her. He has even got her staying in a residence dubbed The Nunnery, for it used to be a convent that helped to educate nuns in the higher faculties like the men. It is so apt, M tells me, that she started her primary education in a convent and is concluding her tertiary education at The Nunnery. God works not only in mysterious and wonderful ways as this completion of her education circle shows.

In fact, a year ago as she was applying, none of us knew any of the colleges in the university to have a preference; though from a strictly touristic (hence, unimportant) perspective, I thought K had the nicest grounds when I first visited this town nearly 30 years ago. In any case, she did an open application and got routed to this permanent private hall that has scored very well the annual student satisfaction surveys (including topping one in recent years) and not least due to its small size where everyone is part of the family: undergraduates, graduates and faculty alike. It’s the best home away from home environment she can hope for.

Her friends (classmates, teammates and gang) all came to see her off at the airport last week. We flew in earlier and helped her settle in over the weekend. Freshers Week started yesterday and she has already connected with different bunches of people: a gang of big boys on her floor and a collection of eclectic exotics. The world is at her doorstep and very soon she will be opening her mind to the world of knowledge of who people really are.

Her journey here has not been without stress. A perfectionist by nature, M strives for the best and would not settle for the rest. It is this attitude that has gotten her so far in life. At this juncture of her life though, there will be more colours that will appear on her spectrum of choice and she will learn how to live with shades, rather than just choose one at the rejection of all others. The fact that there is a bunch of eclectics already speak to it: there are people of different faiths or even no faith; the boy living next door may have bruiser rings on his fingers but will probably protect her. The big girl with bad fashion sense may be the most sensible one around. And the girl in a hijab has the most luxuriant hair! 

M naturally has traits from both sides of the family. The combination though is a completely unique and fantastic one. She has a perfect blend of our good looks (ahem!). She aims high. She also cares about the present. She has also inherited some flaws (both by nature and nurture, and here’s hoping she will understand this better after learning human sciences). With all of these excellent as well as explosive concoction, all we wish for is that she uses these varied traits to help her cope.

Her mom wants her not to overthink things or fret about the future and just enjoy the present. Great advice. Her dad wants her to cast an eye further forward (far forward, I should add), so that disappointments in the present or expected shortcomings in the near future are seen not as failure but merely humps on a longer, glorious journey. 

Indeed, many has been down these roads since the 13th century. Down the road from her main hall is a pub called The Eagle and Child. Nearly a century ago, a group of writers, The Inklings, met here regularly. Amongst them, C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien and it is little wonder that these two writers went on to produce some of the most loved mythology stories of the modern age. We remember them in the rose tint of their fantasy stories but their own journeys were fraught with pitfalls. Tolkien was an orphan. He grew up poor. A girl he loved nearly married another as he had to choose between her and his studies in this university. And he nearly got sent down from the university. Yet he overcame all these to author the magnificent tomes on Middle Earth. He certainly lived and enjoyed his present and when presented with obstacles, he did not allow that to paralyse him but merely worked past it on his way to his desired end state.

M has probably not defined an end state, though in her mind I am sure she has a sense of what she could aspire to be, in her family, in her career and in life. I wish that she can see these as her destinations and treat every encounters she shall have on the way there as just thrills as well as spills on the road. Already, the road ahead of her is so much better than what her parents had. She is in one of the best universities in the world, being taught to by world class tutors and stimulated (and probably exasperated) by equally talented class mates. We are so proud of her. From now on, we are merely parentheses as she forges ahead. 

And the words of Kahlil Gibran ring in my head .......

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.