Reflective Writing and Poetic Musing by Condemiang + Stories About the World

Stories of Little Happiness - 02 The world was reeling from the shock of COVID-19. Everything, except essential services like grocery stores, came to a halt. Parks, playgrounds, public facilities, shopping malls, restaurants, beauty salons—places we once took for granted—were suddenly off-limits. Yet here in Canada, people remained calm, composed, and considerate, weathering it all with quiet resilience.  Looks a lot like me—same face, same frame. There’s a guy I know—well, a few of them, actually—who hadn’t had a haircut in over two months. Their hair had grown wild and unruly. But cutting it themselves? Too risky. One wrong move and disaster strikes. Asking a family member? Just as risky. If the cut goes wrong, the blame game begins. Better to just live with it. But me? I had nothing to worry about. For the past 12 years, my wife has been our family barber. Mine and our kids’. She took a crash course in men’s haircutting—a whirlwind three-day program—and never looked back. Of c...

There is a window of mine where the cold of winter lingers. A window unseen, unopened—not by me. It casts a shadow heavy as life itself my small defiance against a world grown dim. These quiet corners where time blurs all things into distance. The ache of accepting what I can never hold. And the longing that will not fade, led always by the traces that will not disappear. My lost familiar rhythms. My verses once tireless and lovely as the footsteps of children at play. My deep passions that glowed without polishing. The azaleas that came running with spring. The little mirror I used to see only when I turned away. The thousand reflections of myself that streamed within it. The soft, steady sound of my mother shaping trees. The bashful footsteps of my tipsy father, late at night. I once had a window through which every fearful wind of the world melted away. A window I closed—and yet through which everything still shone so vividly clear.