🌱Pilgrimage Reflection by Shirin Tan🌱 23 March 2026
The session today was immensely powerful. The 2 questions asked were so simple yet I realised I never take time to think and reflect. We seldom stop and account for our life and story. Thank you to coaches for giving me the opportunity to think about what it means to be me.
When telling my story, I didnt feel much emotion, just emptying my cup. However returning home, barely resting for 3 hrs. I woke up. Feeling the pain behind my knee after 12 hour hike. I suddenly became emotional, allowing myself to experience the emotions I have felt over the years.
Listening to everyone's story, there is underlying longing for assurance, acknowledge and belonging. Even though we are all adults, we have not made sense of it all. On one hand, it seems our education has failed us as we seek to escape fears and conform rather than spending time to make sense of the world and what our role in it is.
On the other hand, it's also these pains and sufferings we went through that shaped who we are today. Suddenly. I felt a sense of exhaustion, of fighting all these years. My faith, my studies, my career, childbirth, breastfeeding, navigating parenting, my children's education, homeschooling, worldschooling, and now, my path towards opening my dream school.
It's been an exciting journey yet many a time, tiring. I have been challenged, beaten yet refuse to give up. Fought for my voice for truth, for my children, for my dream and my life. So much opposing force. So much resistance, so much energy needed to swim upstream and against the tide.
I am reminded that a forest school classmate said something about resistance at our first meeting.
When there is resistance, it brings balance to the force. When life gives u challenges, it trains and shapes us.
I am reminded of a quote I read: "To struggle gives strength, to endure breeds a greater capacity for endurance. We must not run away from our heartbreaks in life; we must go through them, however fiery they may be, and bring with us out of the fire a stronger character.... Love, hate, passion, fear, sorrow, pain–they act on us and spur us on, they develop our qualities and give us colour and individuality...Without extremes there is no contrast and life becomes a dull monochrome, an interminable grey day, with no shadow, to be sure, but always deprived of the glory of the sunlight...we must try to get out of every experience in life the very best it can offer."
Towards the end of the hike, my mind wants to continue and refuse to give up, but my legs cant carry on anymore. Thankful to all to tell me its ok and to recognise physical signs that is telling me its time to stop. I realised I am like this, I will push myself to the end and want to be involve in everything just because I can. All my life, I just go go go, and most of the time end up being burn out. Its time to really take time periodically to really focus on those goals that I want to work on and take courage to say no to the rest.
1. What's your childhood play memories?
* When I was about 4, I loved exploring the cleared land that is meant for new housing development. I remember my dad used to bring our dog and I for walks in those raw Red earth that has ups and downs, jumping over gaps, and climbing to higher grounds. I enjoyed that memory with my father.
* I enjoyed going to the playground every day when I was in lower primary, playing tag and jumping off the big slides/bridge when the catcher is near. We will play there every evening till 7pm, Sometimes we are so engrossed with play that we forget about time. This is when my mom will come, standing on top of the stairs of the badminton court, she will scream for my name across a badminton court, a basketball court, a volleyball court and a cycling ring.. I will be so embarrassed that I will quietly run another direction and take the long way home.
* I remember me and another another friend will bring water and things to the sand playground to build a tall mountain and carve out a path for the water to flow down. I remember revisiting the playground every week after our piano lessons to work on an improved version of the waterfall until we were satisfied with the results.
* We also have a 'bicycle gang' where about 10 of us, including our siblings will ride our bicycle around the 'taman' (garden). I remember there is a road that we love to take, its a long downhill road. We will line up our bicycles side by side,lift our legs up and race down the slope! Loved the feeling of the wind on my skin and the speed that we can go! Untill there is a stretch where the dogs will bark and some will chase us, we will scream and cycle as fast as we can to cross that section. It was so exciting, frightening yet we loved every moment of it.
* We had a close community of Baha'i families who we meet weekly for a children's and teen's program. Those days were filled with joy and fun. A close family friend who live near me will come and pick me and my brothers in in a van to go for the weekly classes. They took away the seats at the back and pack all of us kids about 6 of us in the back, we will have no seatbeats on and will be squating and waiting for the uncle to swerve as he turns right or left and we will push and fall over each other.
* When we were in the car and it stops at the traffic light, we will make eye contact with the driver in the car at the back and start shooting him with pretend guns. We were strangers but we had a good connection.
* The centre where we meet is a double story bungalow that has a lowered basement area with a piece of land on both the sides. Sometimes the community will organise a celebration with delicious home cooked potluck food, we would a build a campfire and we would sit around and have games and songs and dance during holy day celebration, Some days the kids will play hide and seek and have pretend play at the side while the adults have their sessions. I vaguely remembered seeing fireflies and encounters with snakes. It's not until we started having complaints from neighbours that there are too many cars on the roads that we have to give up the bungalow and move to a shop house. All of the kids have grown and moved away. I really missed those days, I am glad my older 2 boys got to experience that for a couple of years before moving to Singapore. Now, the community have been asked to decentralised and re-build these communities in many other neighbourhoods in JB. Its my hope that love and joy continue to grow in each neighbourhood and continue to create beautiful connections between kids and families.
