Ommm Salaam and Aaamen

Selamat datung, nama sama lizzi, reporting to you live from Kuala Terangganu. A small state on the Eastern shore of the Malaysian peninsula affectionately known as “KT” – who’s motto boasts, “More mosques than Mecca, baby!” not necessarily due to exceptional piety, but grace à the particular brand of tourism cultivated by the local government. On our morning commute from the beachside hotel to the sailing centre we pass by the Muslim theme park, a collection of famous international mosques built in miniature. Like mini-golf! But with all mosques! And no putting. One of the twenty-something Ozzi boys never fails to say, “We should take a rib ova’ ta ‘Mozzi-Land’ afta’ waak– I reckon it’ll be heaps cool!” Dr. Seuss will roll in his grave when I am able to say I was buzzing with Ozzis to Mozzi-land.

I’m back up here in Malaysia for more of the Monsoon Cup – this go round is the Malaysian Qualifiers regatta. Monsoon Cup is the final event of the World Match Racing Tour. (I repeat, so how did I get involved in this?! Clearly skiff sailing in Sydney is a pre-req for match racing in Malaysia…)

Following discussion on how to minimize potential damage during boat rotations (the general boathandling ability is quite beginner – someone ran aground on practice day – the passing squalls challenging, and the boats need to be in tip-top condition for the Monsoon Cup next week) Peter Gillmore, event director and current defending Monsoon Cup Champion, asked me to create an entirely new round robin for the 13-team, 8-boat fleet with minimum boat rotation... about 2 hours before the first warning gun. This is of course after staying up till 2200 the previous night making final formatting adjustments to the original rotation. “Sure! No problem! Now please excuse me while I go rip off all my toenails.”

Anyone need a template for 13-boat, minimal changeover rotation? I've got one! Posted at 13team8boatminimalchangeoverroundrobin.com – and already I’ve received 1,346 hits! My youtube site featuring the “making of” has surpassed the 100,000 hit benchmark! Who knew watching people under pressure make overly involved formatting [=c10/[e136+t9978] could be so entertaining! I have no idea how comfortable my bed is at the resort – I’ve been sleeping in Xcel spreadsheets…

I did have a moment to read this morning’s headlines, slipped under my door. Next to “MJ wins lifetime achievement award” was, “Winning thesis took 6 years to write”. A masked Michael Jackson and an unassuming girl in tudung (headscarf) pictured adjacent on the front page. I heart local news. [Insert: shout out to Miri “aren’t theses awesome?!” Hutcherson, here.] The world loves a winner.

Here in Malaysia monsoon and religion vie for who reigns harder. The entire Malaysian Air in-flight magazine devoted its pages to devotion. The feature article described the perfect getaway to the top ten holiest sites in the world. “Muslim Architecture”. “Madrid’s New Cathedral”. “Japan’s Oldest Zen Sanctuary”. The ads used religion as a selling point: “This lip gloss has apple extracts. In the Old Testament apples are said to have… ” Sold! I’ll take three! The local “Mackas” (Aussi-talk for Micki-D’s) advertises the “Prosperity Burger”.

Malaysian Air gets my vote because they serve mango ice cream! The flight was an eight-hour sandwich between an English chatterbox and a genteel Indian woman who also just moved to Sydney. He, as most often do upon discovering you are a “sailor”, eagerly sputtered his few intersections with nautical life – seasickness, gale-tales, sleeping through shifts: “When I finally woke up, we were there! I was bruised where they tried to punch me to wake up!” Mmmm, not an ideal offshore companion, but pleasant enough for row 34. She gave me a movie recommendation: Evan Almighty, “It’s about this man and a flood and he starts to grow a beard and no one believes him, and he is suppose to take all the animals. I think it refers to a story from Christian mythology. It’s such a funny movie”.

Initially I thought the simplicity of her narrative quite funny… and then I thought of the numerous Hindi myths I could of course recount offhand… and suddenly her story got pretty damn impressive.

While Arabic polyglots all the signs around town, Malaysia is not an Islamic state. The Terangganu region has a muslim majority, but the nation is divided somewhat evenly amongst Hindi, Buudhist, Muslim and Christian people. Ommm, salaam and aaamen.

Salaam, meaning peace, amen – just something you’re suppose to say a lot, and “Ommmm” the Hindi meditation, the yoga class closing prayer, the first sound in Sanskrit creation mythology, a vibration so powerful it caused the universe into being.

Mmmmmmm. Humming and spirituality. We summon air from within hum and expel it through our nose, trapping the sonic vibrations in our mouths, buzzing in our lips. Used to express piety, prayer and the satisfaction of desire: good food and good sex.

A way for us to experience the physicality of breath – of spirit moving through us.

november!

Well, once again you won't believe any of this... somehow I’ve managed
to navigate my entire life between imagination and reality. So if you
dare trust me - read on.

I am just back from Malaysia where I was put up at a fancy resort in a
small islamic town 5 degrees north of the equator (the closest I have
been to date). I had been elected, entirely unbenknownst to me, as
Chief Umpire for the Match Racing event - a position, I openly
admitted I had never performed before, and that all my umpiring
experience has been in Teams Racing (3 v. 3) - similar, but still
different than Match Racing (1 v. 1 like America’s Cup). “You’ll be
fine!” Ok...

A good friend of mine here in Sydney, one of the leading members of
the “Pom Cruise” I socialize with, used to live and work in Hong Kong
and became involved in the Asian sailing circuit. She received the
call for duty, but un/fortunately! the event coincided with her first
day of work. Realizing such, she reccommended myself.

Garbed in official regalia - regatta officer uniform, “UMPIRE” dog
tag, and whislte, I was whisked to the press room and asked to sit on
stage, behind my name placard for the Skipper’s Briefing. Little did
I know that I would be hosting televised press briefings morning and
night for the duration of the event. I was one of about 10 women
involved in the entire program, perhaps the youngest, and the only
person from the Americas.

Once racing begain, I fell more comfortably into my position. The on
the water duties of handling the speedboat and reading race manoeuvres
are familiar to me, and relying on my sailing experience brought me
confidence. It also helps being reasonably articulate under
pressure... I received many compliments on my press briefings.
“Really?? I pulled it off?” This young, dred-headed yankee girl, how
does she do it?

I met a lot of excellent characters, like the Malaysian Navy member
who kept trying to practice his Italian with me, the garrulous
Irish/Indian jet-pilot who celebrated herself to the brink of slander,
the women at hotel reception who kept asking to touch my hair, the
city-slick race management team from KL who all wore designer jeans
and rode around on Segways to get from A to B, the always laughing
Singaporean sailor who was queen of the scene, the sun-crusted
sail-maker from Hong-Kong made goofy from too much sail-bumming and
booze and god only knows what else, the young rock-star sailor from
Australia who couldn’t get enough of the girl who loved sailing so
much (I hope I see that one again!), the fiercely competitive and
sportsmen-like Japanese crew, and the easy-going Kiwis that executed
excellent boat-handling and won every race of the event.

Did I mention the cute sailor from Australia? Oh right. Moving on!

After 5 days, and 1000 USD richer, I'm de-planing the 777-200 in
Sydney and my phone rings - it’s England. A few weeks ago I was
presented with a potential employment opportunity in Europe, and since
then we have had a few conversations and e-mails back and forth. “Is
now a good time to talk?” No. I’ve just been on - and am STILL on a
plane - for 8 hours, and I am about to head through Australian
Customs. But in our brief conversation, it sounded like the position
had expanded from “sales assistant” to the “on-the-road” face for the
company. Translation? Travelling around Europe, sailing and
representing the company at all the major events. Twist my arm.

“Can we fly you to England before Christmas?” Well... I’m heading
back to Malaysia on Friday...

So now I am catching a flight from Kuala Lumpur to London, and then
heading back for the Monsoon Cup final in Terangganu, Malaysia before

heading back to Sydney. Jet-set - GO!

And in all the in-betweens I'm running down to the sail loft repairing

spinnakers for Tricky-Nick, and entertaining my American friend and

his acute case of heartbreak.

We talked about the "good stuff": the beauty of transforming it all into

our forever anticipated selves. Patience, acceptance, and not enduring

but celebrating the moment, our ephemerality.

life is a breath and a heartbeat. bombom. bombom. si-no,

si-no. each second you have this choice. and when you take it
that moment becomes everything - it fills your every capacity for
sensation and you immerse yourself in the present, receptive to all that
surrounds you in that precise time and space. the crunching of leaves
underfoot, a more vibrant green, sea-kissed cheeks,
symmetry, sonority, slipping into our sensory selves and
the intensity of our being. and then in the next
breath, and the next beat we face it all anew. but going
forward we have the strength of communion - that which we draw from
the great oneness around and through us.

And chin up! No worries! It's biology - every mid-twenties boy is going

through the same crisis. Take solace in the fact that you are on the right

developmental path! Keep up the good work!

After sending him off towards the airport with words of both soft and tough

love, and before going home to prepare for my return to Malaysia,

interview in England, not to mention face the mounting quotidian

responsibilities, I came accross a few of my brasilieras sunbathing on

the beach. Buttered in lotion, lazy beats playing over pink portable speakers,

clad more in tattoo than bikini. It was the first time in about two weeks I

have had a chance to breathe, relax. “Come on, Lizzi! Let’s go for a swim!

It’s so beautiful! Let’s just enjoy it!”

And we hit the waves.