There’s very little I can say for sure these days. This I know for sure.

I like learning things. I’m actually happy when I learn, know or gather information that interest me. It could be something I’d seen or experienced. Or would like to know more about. 

Not in-depth knowledge. Just enough especially as my mind is a sieve, literally. I cannot remember. Full stop. Does it worry me? Yes. What to do? The usual recommended memory retaining or improving suggestions. From playing scrabble, putting puzzles together to unscrambling anagrams. Have these helped? Hmm. 

What irks is I used to have a photographic memory when I was much younger. I could remember passages, pages, numbers, years, names, and faces. I was proud of my prowess. Now, it’s a hazy blur.

As an aside, brother number 1 had scribbled the words, ‘I was a god’ in my history book. What he had intended to write was, ‘I was a dog.’ It was part of that sibling sometimes like-like less-love-annoyed but mostly easy-going relationship we had growing up😊.

We also called each other names that stuck into adulthood. He called me ‘Mota’ which means bald. I’m laughing as I’m writing this. Yes, go figure. I know I have fine hair but it’s still hair. I called him ‘Gunda’ which translates to round/fat. He was rounder than not in the belly/’tonthi’ area. Not complimentary, yes, but the names were exclusively ours and oddly endearing. 

The point I was trying to make was I could even remember the pages of the history book where he had written those words. Pages 66 and 67.  As a further aside, he had written those words in reverse because he was dyslexic. A diagnosis none of my family had heard of or knew about, back in the 50s and 60s.

Brother number 1 was a think-out-of-the-box kind of person. He could build just about anything and repair just about anything. He was our homegrown MacGyver. When we were little, he constructed hand-sawed wooden guns that we, including brother number 2, shot each other with using ‘Suji’ berries as bullets, and a wooden box-car with wheels that we rode in. He also made the ‘sap sai,’ a toy made from discarded chicken feathers and rubber from the inner tube of a bicycle tyre. We used to juggle the ‘sap sai’ with our foot like juggling a ball.

When our mum grew older and smaller, and found it less comfortable to eat at the dining table, he gave her a lift. He made four rubber stocking lifts to fit the four legs of her chair, and voila, she was at the right height for the table. Dyslexia somewhat stood in the way, academically. That said, he got a Mechanical Engineering diploma from the Federal Institute of Technology. Yay. This is true. He could detect and mend just about anything amiss in an Internal Combustion engine. A little late, I know, but I now better understand dyslexia.  

I digress. Back to gathering information. Last week I learnt from the bio-diversity officer at Tanjung Jara Resort, a very nice holiday retreat in Terengganu, not to randomly and unthinkingly grab, hold and touch trees, branches and leaves, and/or pluck and pick up fruits and seeds/pods hanging on trees/plants or lying on the ground. Why? Because trees, branches and leaves could have thorns and spikes that can tear and damage skin or other body parts. While fruits and seeds/pods could be poisonous and fatal.

Before listening to that briefing by that bio-diversity officer at the resort’s nature conservation centre, my husband and I did exactly what we weren’t supposed to do. We touched, picked up and examined closely the Sea Putat or Putat Laut. We have visited a number of natural reserves and parks but have never laid eyes on the Sea Putat before. Then again, maybe we missed or were oblivious to its presence. Anyways, the shape of the fruit piqued our interest. Like a pretty green lantern, the Sea Putat is smooth and light to the touch. While the fruit can be eaten, the dried seed is considered highly poisonous, and can cause death. Hmm.

We had also given the same tactile treatment to the Pong-pong or suicide tree, yes, suicide tree. Mainly because the Pong-pong fruit looks like mango in shape and colour. The only difference is its fibrous flesh. Several of our detailed inspection of the fruit was at the Botanical Gardens in Putrajaya. We actually wondered why monkeys and birds hadn’t feasted on these luscious looking fruits. We reckoned it was the fibrous flesh. Nope. The seed of the Pong-pong tree holds the potent cardiac toxin cerberin, which interferes with heart function and can cause death within hours of ingestion. Good to know.

A day later, my husband and I, did not touch a single thing during our jungle walk with the same bio-diversity officer.