Welcome to Jar of Ashes

Hello and welcome to the first-ever post of this blog. My goal is to fill this blog with ideas. This “jar” serves as my digital journal and writing practice. Here, I will talk about everything under the sun and moon of my life: stories I’ve read, music I listened to, random info I decided to research, or just plain ol’ “dear diary”. 

But it does not mean I would like to be alone in my musings and thoughts. You are completely welcome to comment. Please do keep it respectful. I appreciate a good snark, but one that crosses the line—just the common sense/etiquette line—is not tolerated. That will result in an instant delete and block.

Disclaimer: I do not use AI to write. I do use them (Gemini or Claude) to edit and give pointers.

Why ‘Jar of Ashes’?

Everything needs to start with the name: why and how I chose the name. Those who knew me personally can skip this section, as it’s easy to guess. Those who don’t, let’s get to know each other! My pseudonym is Lusyatik, but my personal nickname is Ash. Hence, ‘Jar of Ashes’. Dusts of me are collected in this digital jar. Everything here might be transient and trivial, but it is worth collecting—in my opinion. 

Pardon the narcissistic tone in the previous paragraph; this is, after all, a personal blog. Anyway, today I will just recount some parts of my life that might give you the general idea about me, so we can get to know each other. Of course, it won’t be just any old stories. In fact, today I will recall some of the defining moments in my life that have shaped who I am today. 

Jasmine, Polkadot Dress, Chocolates

The three words define the entirety of my early age. I have a vivid memory of how my house’s side garden (small and used for clothesline, not purely decorative) had flowering jasmine plants. It masks the trash odour from the open outdoor kitchen. I loved a polkadot dress until it was ruined. I still love chocolates. Would you like to hear more about them?

Jasmine

jasminum sambac (image from Wikipedia)

Every weekend, my father and I would sunbathe in the morning. We sat down on the terrace of the outdoor kitchen, watching butterflies, feeling warmth on our skin. There is a big trash bin, still, so sometimes flies come over. Some of the flies persistently circled me, prompting my father to tease, “It’s because you haven’t showered.” 

And he was right: after I showered and went back outside, none of the flies bothered me anymore. But at nine o’clock sharp, he went to do his take-home work, back to being busy. Then I moved back indoors, as around that same time, housekeeping started. 

The flies finally stayed away, and I could only smell jasmine. On workdays, I came home from school to pick some of the flowers, smelling them. Tuck them into my hair. They can be white, pink, or pink-purplish. Those were just some of the little joys of my childhood that settled into the jar of memories.

However, there were wet clothes that needed to be hung, and the jasmine’s routine trimming was starting to become tiresome. My parents and some helpers shaved the jasmine plants down to nothing. Later, concrete slabs and a shed were built to fill the side garden’s path—no more sunbathing by then.

Polka Dot Dress

Oh how heavy my chest is with the thought of the polkadot dress. If you saw how I dress nowadays, you wouldn’t even associate me with something so colourful and patterned. Although I must swerve the direction of my memory further back, when my father went down to one knee and presented me with a necklace, proposal-style. The said necklace has broken and lost now, and while the moment stayed in my heart, the polkadot dress carved a deeper mark.

My father graduated from his degree and officially became a specialist doctor. He bought me a polka dot dress. The overall colour was white, the polkadot were muted pink and orange. There were silver ribbon etched on the chest and waist area, and to this day, I thought about it fondly. I never saw one quite like it anywhere else anymore.

Back then, I loved it so much I wore them as outdoor play clothes. This led it to tear, stain, and unravel at the seams. I wore it until it was genuinely ruined: several holes, a large tear, an unwashable stain, and my mother reprimanded me for still wearing the ‘junk’. Secretly, I cried.

At the very end, that dress was still thrown away. The last dress my father ever bought me, I wore in love to its ruin, and landed in the trash at its end. It might be the last frequently-worn colourful cloth I wore for the next ten or so years. 

In all honesty, I wish I could find a similar dress one day.

Chocolates

Not all of my memories end like the two above.

After I started puberty, I ate so much chocolate everyday, supplied by my mother. Always. Everyday is one to two bars of chocolate. Every day! That was crazy. I repeated those words to emphasise: I ate so many of them. Then I grew to love them even in their dark bitterness, in coffee, and in pure cocoa slush. I also grew horizontally rather than vertically. Oddly enough, I put chocolate far below on my list of ice cream taste preferences. Personally, chocolate is tastier when eaten hot or at room temperature. They melt down warmly and smoothly in your tongue without any distraction, like the biting cold of ice cream. 

Nowadays, when something goes wrong, I would seek mocha coffee or make one. With every grand accomplishment, I’ll treat myself to some chocolate bars. It has been my precious reward and comfort. But that is all; I didn’t consume them everyday and always as before. All the fat I gained from such reckless eating was lost through a one-month hellish fitness routine and strict diet. Before I consider buying one, I would count the sugar amount I have consumed that day and steer away from it. 

The relationship between me and chocolate is similar to “missing the one that got away”. I miss them, but rather not deal with them too much. My age now promises diabetes for such foolish eating habits. 

End Notes

Those little memories are particles of ashes at the very bottom of this jar. I don’t recall if I’d ever told these in such detail, despite the clear image of them in my mind. No prompt nor incentive for me to tell them, besides in by-gones, by-passing talk, despite their weight and mark in my mind. 

Initially, I planned to write more crystal-clear moments kept by my brain. But the weight of those three was enough for me to feel short of breath. So today’s entry will just be this, and I hope it introduces you to me effectively.

Until next time!