Hyphen

The gist of this following post is not from me (marked in bold), but there is so much wisdom in it, I wish to share it with anyone and everyone who visits this place. When I take notes, I would mark out important lines with a small asterisk, when it strikes a chord with me; I double the number of asterisks, or draw big stars beside the lines. Today, my notebook is covered with so many asterisks, great big stars, exclamation marks, boxed up words, underlined and re-underlined.

I am not one who embrace changes. I guess it is natural for most to prefer lingering in the realm of familiarity to swimming in the unfamiliar. My resistance to change is that- but to a greater intensity, I detest and disregard change. Change is the hyphen between the old and the new and I view this ambiguous dash with a tinge of weariness. Perhaps, I fear change so much that sometimes I choose to remain ignorant in order to continue in the usual conventional accustomed manner.

And perhaps, this ignorance has even led me to believe that there is nothing wrong with stagnancy. In fact, it might even be romantic, being sentimental and reminiscent, thinking about good o’ times that has passed and gone, or living the present days in the days that are over.

In this mood of reminiscence as we cross over to 2008, lamenting how time flies, we also make New Year resolutions once again. Some have stopped doing so since we never seem to follow those goals anyway, such that they remain as fiercely determined alphabets and words on pages of diaries and journals.

The way we leave determines the way we enter. As we stumble or stride into a new year, it is not just a difference of the last digit, we are confronted with a brand new set of threehundredandsixtyfive days, new circumstances, new people, new opportunities.

Yet, to allow these opportunities to knock on our doors, we do not just wait, or even just pray, we make decisions for ourselves for all change begins with a decision and change is necessary for growth. Since our whole entire life is one continuous change after another, there is no reason to be obstinate.

Fools won’t change,
Dead Men can’t change.

And because we are neither, let us all be courageous and lead the change, before it leads us.

I just read what I have written and I can’t help but feel that this is such a diluted version of what I experienced. I wish I could reproduce the same but I can’t and I shall end on this note: We are where we are because of the decisions we make.

Kitkat days

He went out to the field one evening to meditate.

Days during the vacation are played out with one outing after another such that there is very little solitary time.

I enjoy companionship a lot and so I always have difficulty dealing with partings. I love camps, how everyone goes to sleep together, wakes up together, eats together, as with overseas trips, how no moment is individualised.

When I learnt that people with low social solidarity have a higher inclination to committing suicide, I thought Of course!

But recently, I realised that too much time spent with others can be unhealthy when it robs you of your personal time for quiet meditation. Spending time in isolation is like a calm retreat that everyone ought to have.

Orange Warmth

Finally, after Christmas, I have found the time to sit in front of my laptop to think about the last few weeks. December has been a month of rushing and also of unhurried reflections during journeys, long coach rides in Taiwan and to Selangor.

This has also been a month of the most precious conversations, propping heads up in a foreign MacDonalds, in another land having our Life Journeys played out all over again, part three, four, five, six, drawing closer to each other as we have conversations beyond plastered polite smiles, about religion, family, love, topics that carry past fatigue. Conversations that disregard place and surrounding, in a random food outlet in Bugis, Sarah and I gushing, laughing, listening to each other, parting with a tight hug, an intimacy that leaves the double syllabic friend-ship understated and weak. Conversations that ignore time, at two am in a Prata Coffeeshop with my mother, placing past secrets on the table over cups and more cups of tea, drinking into a night of revelations and also acceptance. So much emotion is evoked in these placid sharing and exchanges, it is incredible how the small human heart muscle can hold it all.

How else can or shall I document this month when there is so much to write about but when every thought that runs through my head seems indescribable. Last night, I could not follow the rhythm of handclaps because there was a joy that I could not contain. Last night, I turned around to see a beautiful sight where orange glows lifted the darkness. Cold fingers clasped around white wax, flames that held every single heart, friends around me, I could almost feel them beaming in the peaceful serenity.

Old Man Charles wrote in a Christmas card, “For this Christmas and the coming New Year, I wish that you retain the virtues of sentimentality but throw away the vices of indecisiveness.” I guess ambivalence always accompanies memory because with memory there is a desire to return, like how I could just continue on endlessly about the past, instead of summarizing it into neat paragraphs like these.

I was writing short notes the other day, with every card speaking of the New Year to come, “May 2008 be your best year yet”, and I am truly looking forward to this new year, a year of possibilities with renewed strength.

Love me tender

I have a way of writing in ambiguity such that most of what is documented becomes unfathomable, it feels personal yet detached, it seems clear yet incomprehensible. I never cared whether people reading this understood what I was talking about, whether they could relate to shared accounts, because writing, to me, is very much for the self.

But this entry shall be different; I have an experience to share and I am going to do so as explicitly as I can.

I began my semester wondering what love is. In one of my older entries in August, this is how I felt:
What is love, really? I am starting to believe, that love is made of emotions rising at certain moments, it is made of impulsiveness, it is made of sonnets that romanticize the mysterious thing that nobody knows, of songs that sing, “He fills my soul with so much love that anywhere I go I am never lonely”. But how long does it last, that after the years that passed, that you still could be passionately swept away.

Characterizing love is not difficult. In love, there is some care and concern, pain and tears, happiness and sadness. And love is varied, holding different kinds of relations together, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters, men and women. I seem to be able to tell what love is. Yet, to look at a scene of tenderness or to feel a certain emotion, realizing that is love and telling myself this is love is something I have difficulty doing. I think I know what love is, yet I am unable to pinpoint it.

These few weeks have been days of small discoveries and growing. I do not have clear answers but it is a notion that is becoming less vague. The biggest revelation to me is actually very simple: To feel love, one must allow to be loved.

I went to church a couple of Saturdays ago after a long hiatus and made a choice to open my heart. Service was scary as much as it was impactful. I was amazed by the level of faith and belief that others held, and I was more aware of the huge disparity that lay between me and them. Stepping up and taking a leap of faith was definitely not a moment of awakening, of certainty or conviction. As I stood, the only thoughts that were running through my mind was that it is very cold, am I ready for this choice, I ought to be more prepared this time round, it is really freezing.

This bout of doubt and uncertainty comes from the mindset that one’s level of faith has to reach a certain benchmark for the threshold of something new. In faith that dwindled, and amongst faith that appears unwaveringly strong, I felt I was not ready. But I had made a decision, a second one, and within insecurities and doubts, I decided to give myself a chance. On Sunday night, the same night I wrote an entry and said, “Tonight I will try”, I took out the bible that has been kept away for years and read it. I was expecting revelations, tears, an impact, a great one, I was bent on looking for the breakthrough force that people always talk about. There was none, I read it, it was comforting, but there was none.

When I related this to a friend the next day, he said many things, but the one thing that struck me was this, “Faith is like a muscle, you’ve to exercise it. Love is a choice.” I reaffirmed my choice that same night, in reading and in prayers in the nights that follow; I only wanted to reach out.

But sometimes, it is difficult. Stepping into and out of church is, like what another friend told me, “crossing between two worlds”. Returning home and going back into the world of realities feels like leaving something behind. Sometimes, in this sphere, within the walls of my room, in school, in between journeys, all that I really long for it to recreate that same experience in church, feeling His presence. So in faith that is on a constant fluctuation, some days big and other days small, I did the same thing I have been doing since the first night: reading and keeping in prayer.

And when I say the notion of love is becoming less vague to me, it is because I am able to pinpoint it, even as intangible, as invisible as it may seem, I find myself moved.

Last night I was confronted with the same feeling of loss that comes from leaving church and returning home. I fell asleep with “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.”

He works in ways we least expect. This morning, I received a letter, it is truly through God’s grace that I received it and in my shocked happiness, as I read the words on the letter, the only words that registered are those I read last night. As the letter is perhaps a new beginning of sorts, that Saturday is definitely a new beginning.

To feel love, one must allow to be loved.

where paths meet

Between everything else and listening to Sundial Dreams and realizing that today is the first day of December and that the year is coming to a close and soon it will be new goals new plans new resolutions, I must mark down certain things, not in fear of forgetting, but because, just because- their relevance speaks out to me.

Drapes of conversations with different people, lines from text messages, online chats, I don’t think talk is all that empty. It is bountiful, typing these; I feel like I am transported back to that moment and space where the conversations are played through again.

“You don’t need to expect anything; you just need an open heart.”

“I felt like tearing.”

“Faith is like a muscle, you’ve to exercise it. Love is a choice.”

“Your one step equals to ten steps.”

“I guess it is about merging the two worlds together everyday.”

“I can go on arguing and probably make a good argument but nobody can argue with you about the experience you felt.”

Glass coverings

My mother returned from a wedding dinner last night, sat down beside me while I ate a chicken pie. I was supporting my head with my hand and felt a strained fatigue after removing my contact lenses. She asked me how I was; I said I was Good and that I have been studying. She spoke of the dinner, of the 47-year old groom and the 34-year old bride, of happiness, and burdens. I was listening mostly, but not speaking because with mothers that is how it is, a space of comfortable silence. I was finishing the last bits of the pie and I declared it is from Polar. To which, she replied, Amazing, you are my daughter. I looked at her, eyes behind glasses, and laughed. She waved her hands and asked if we would be best friends if she were my age. I got up, brought the plate to the kitchen and said Mummy, no, because I cannot imagine telling you all my secrets. She frowned and said, but you tell your friends secrets right. And I sat down again, Maybe, not really, I don’t know and suddenly, that seemed like a perfect moment before she went into I think life is miraculous, how people are related because of ties like ours. I got up; I think so too Mum, went to my room, crawled into my bed, blanket over everything else and fell asleep immediately.

I can't think of a title.

Sometimes, I feel that I can no longer put thoughts into words. I am unable to choose the right words and there are just too many thoughts- I don’t know which the dominant one is or whether there is one. Last night, I felt that I needed to talk to someone who has been here before but tonight, tonight I feel that talking and talking or writing and writing are just words, verbal and written, heard and read. And so tonight, I will try.

once in a lifetime

Sentimentality and indecisiveness would kill me.

Tonight, I am very happy. Class 95's playing. I like the smell of soap in my room after baths. I treasure smells a lot; I think they are more important than all our other senses. Places are marked by smells, memories are evoked by smells, people are remembered by smells, emotions are loaded with smells.

On a Sunday, I walked past a constructor worker carrying a bucket of cement and the smell belongs to Laos.

Everything in this world is differentiated by their scent: a double decker smells different from a single deck bus, which is again different from the smell trains carry. There is nothing to describe departures, arrivals, vacations but the whiff of air-conditioned airport air. A sunny day is a trail of fields of crisp grass, a rainy day holds vapoured air that smells heavy.

On a Tuesday, it is so hot I am perspiring and this wrinkled leaves smell belongs to Laos.

What do people do with all these remembering, all these recollections? I cannot even place a finger on what I miss really. I have three thousand photos, and the people who created these memories are here.

Tonight, I am reading ml's blog and she says, "too many commas, commas will run out of commas sometime , yet I don't like full stops".
The other day, we were paying for our White Water Rafting trip and Fam said, “Have you started packing?” Guan said, “We’re leaving soon.” I said, “Yah, two days after exams right.” And I think the moment stood there-three of us standing, in a kind of circle, pretending we’re leaving again.

Devouring emptiness

This morning I walked into Cold Storage, they were playing Christmas carols and suddenly this festive season has a new attached meaning, readings mixed with Santas mounted on glass windows. Things seem to be on a standstill for now, the days have become incredibly dry. This is a period of monotony, of waiting for days to go by quickly, for exams to be over, for this bland coven to be gone.

It is not that I don’t enjoy school, I am happy that for the first time in my life I feel that I am finally getting a real education that makes sense, that is purposeful, and that I can look forward to everyday but I dislike the intensity of formal education that impedes all other kinds of learning. How a book has to be kept away, a film delayed, productions that I can only read reviews of, enticing events listed in Arts Beat that remains in that form, text on magazine paper.
I rented Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 today because this restlessness has become stifling and I think I am searching for something moving, endearing, evocative, -to create emotions of some sort.

humming and humming

Weekends are defined by Class 95, “soft rock”, “all 90s”, “Y2K”. A neighbour is having a barbeque dinner and the evening smells of smoke, like the last night in Laos.

At Cedele, I hated it whenever someone orders a Meringue pie. Not that cutting it was difficult or that I had to run the knife under hot water longer so that the cut would be smooth. But that a slice of it crumbled the meringue and it gave it such an unflattering flatness.

I’m sitting here listening to the radio’s recycled songs and staring at my calendar. I am in need of some boost, like the shot you add in Espressos, the fragrance of Himalayan tea that stings your ears, a good dinner that leaves you too sleepy for anything else.

"If you wake up at a different time and in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?"-Norton, Fight Club

The Twinkle

I grew up feeding on snippets of Horoscope from the papers, magazines, anything that tells me how my day or week will be, what my lucky colour or number is, on which days of the month the great love of my life will appear, the people from certain constellations I should avoid on certain weeks and the like.

And as the demands of my daily life increase, this habit has been reduced to times when I happened to flip to the particular page in the Life section or whenever I randomly remember. Recently, I am beginning to doubt how the various positions of the Sun, Moon and Planets affect my individual life, as well as billions of other separate, unique beings.

Increasingly, I believe that the decisions one makes or doesn’t make have to do more with the different agencies in one’s life. I am accepting this job because I am an Indian from the middle-class, I am choosing children over work because I am a female, I am living the present, uncertain about the future because I am a youth, and it goes on endlessly. There is really no such thing as a unique and special individual.

Because everyone can be matched to a certain other(s), experiencing identical emotions, dealing with duplicate problems, going through particular equivalent stages of life. There are different groups, but there is no marked and distinctive person. Ecstatic happiness that “no one knows of”, piercing sadness that “you’ll never understand” are little notions that we subscribe to for the precious and fragile sense of individuation, which does not exist.

So, the stars glitter black skies and- I think it ends there.

Inquisitions with no answers

Tonight, I am observing the landscape of a streetlamp-lit country. There are protrusions of cranes in the skyline, cable cars, distant and ambiguous, sailing in the darkness. The smoke from a cigarette butt rises from a rubbish bin. Trees with leaves so black, they are unrecognizable from their morning identities. Sights like these go unnoticed every night as they negotiate in dark spaces.

Each time, I’m on a bus ride or a train ride, I feel like I’m in a goldfish bowl watching the rest, without them realizing my gaze is on them. In these rides, everyone is busy, reading a book, a magazine, playing PSP, catching up on lost sleep, bound and tied down by institutions. I wonder if people are happy because people look tired mostly, they look like they have so many things left to be ticked off their lists and they are not even half-way through. In this space of eyes glazing over, I think we have to deconstruct the term happiness. What does happiness really mean, and how much do we need to be happy in this space? How much more or less do we need to be happy in another space?

Happiness, in our space, is tied to achievements and rewards from capitalism. The lure of it is so great, it traps us in, leaving us in an awful mouth-agape, perpetually hungry state. Pragmatism is the reason why we will never escape the lure of the big C. Sometimes, on cold nights like this, I wonder what is practical about such relentless drive for economic betterment, social mobility and at the end of it all, feeling breathless enough to yearn for simplicity.
-----
Z says:
do u think u can give capitalism up?
D says:
why do u ask ?
Z says:
oh..
Z says:
because i was thinking it is so difficult to do so
D says:
well...capitalism is the dominant form of way of life
D says:
if we give up capitalism, we become peasants and farmers
D says:
LOL
Z says:
hahaha
Z says:
yes exactly
Z says:
u know how people have to get everything
Z says:
before they can finally retire n go fishing
Z says:
i mean-u can go fishing without completing all that
D says:
hahaha
D says:
u see how pple associate fishing - a form of non-capitalism activity, as a form of 'retirement' ?
Z days says:
HAHA
Z says:
but it is such an irony of life u know

when time passes,

Here we are, always threading on a fine line-the world of practicalities where money buys, and the world of strong determined personal values where money is paper. On our way back, we played a Korean soundtrack in the car. There was this one song, one of those songs like Sukiyaki, painfully sad, and agonizing. When a person leaves, dies, departs, rests in peace, it is no matter what they call it, I don’t know what is left behind, clothes, objects of regret and memory, tears, remembering this way and that and every way but never being able to pinpoint exactly the warmth of the physical self.

Pieces here and there

The highlight of today is settling into the cold seat of a plates-and-cups-clanging Starbucks, sipping Green Tea Frappuccino, whipped cream almost touching the transparent cap cover but missing by a little. Sprawled on the table is Who Are You Today. Aroma of coffee beans, the smell of the cool air-condition air and sunlight falling on faces.

It has become a subconscious habit to link every sight to a theory or concept I’ve learnt. Spotting a pair of Adidas on a kid and immediately relating that to the theory of the Sacred Child. Beatrice Richmond sat beside me and Daniel Ong said, “Kids are expensive. They are a million dollars each.”

Looking at the green-aproned people behind the counter and thinking how race and class are conflated in Singapore and how class is reproduced one generation after the other.

There is an American who orders a drink and starts a loud conversation with one of the Starbucks boys. He says the Singapore dollar is getting stronger and why aren’t imports comparatively cheaper. He is an Economics graduate, he says, it is all very simple really but we are all getting cheated- the rest of which I couldn’t catch. Then his voices rises again, “I don’t know all the details of the Myanmar thing but Singapore has done many bad things and you should know that."

I think one could do a thesis paper just sitting in Starbucks.

Oh.

Friday evenings are tender and orange when there is the weekend to look forward to. This week has been such a hectic rush, walls and floors blend together in an acceptable way. The Friday crowd is always happy and everyone is walking different ways, smiling, holding different conversations. I realized on the crowded bus ride how here they are, fellow Singaporeans I am reading about, studying dutifully, writing papers, finding journals, researching about. It is a muted ride, I listen to these same recycled songs and I cannot hear any sound beyond this inner concentric world of mp3 songs. Here we are, all together, squeezed in on this evening ride to different destinations. Each day, we talk about the society and its different aspects. And suddenly, on a slow bus ride, I am reminded oh this is how society looks like.

Positive influence

I cannot remember the last time I intentionally slept before midnight, before morning. Recess week has culminated to this. A break from reality into another reality that is not really any different, Harrison said over msn the other night. The past week has been a crazy rush, researching for papers, interviewing various people, knocking on the doors of strangers, sitting in the balcony where intimate, personal details were shared at length. Meeting in KFC talking about race, ethnicity, identity, and the state with Daryl, doing readings, and now time has reached a Sunday evening.

There is actually a lot of positivity behind these works done by ex-convicts which I saw sometime during the week. What does rebellion mean in each figurine, what do these faces speak of, what is going to Jurong Birdpark watching the backs of their colourful clothes.

I would say dealing with emotions, getting closer to the self.

I think local films should cover positivity. There has been a lot that has been said and made about people living on the fringes, on urban alienation, on subcultures, and people dealing with pain. When the mass media painted too rosy an image of life, such films captured the other, the alternative that has been neglected and forgotten. Though they were in no way all-encompassing or representative, they seemed real, characters with feelings we can identify with. But it's an overkill. Now, I'm looking for something refreshing, something bright, positively cheerful and most importantly, un-constructed.

No more melodrama

I have washed my hands clean off sticky situations and let me document this in this space as a reminder to myself that I am living by the mantra: yesterday no more. In retrospect, I feel like an overgrown teenager, dealing with petty, immaterial problems and being so overwhelmed by them, so much so that I have lost sight of the bigger picture.

It is a good that that it is recess week, today is a Sunday and it just poured in the morning. There is only one word that is playing through in my mind now and there are all these signs reminding me: Rebirth. I must not over emphasize agony, because it is not something that deserves romanticization. Like these raindrops that come and go, I am awake and far away from distractions. The new week is going to be exciting, I can feel it. There are these projects to be completed that I am genuinely interested in, ploughing through readings that I enjoy and feeling happy that I am stimulated by school.

There will be no more black-and-white moments, wasted tears and excruciating confusion. There will be a renewed appreciation of forgotten things in life, visible and invisible, feeling a breeze evaporating perspiration on my neck, squinting in the sun, stepping into a shop and having a favourite song played, tasting the smell of chlorine on my lips after a swim. In these limitless and personal possessions, there is nothing but comfort.

stream of painful conciousness

It is the time of the semester when running has replaced walking, dashing into cabs, throwing in change, meetings after meetings. There are these deadlines marked out in bold red in square little boxes, to-do lists that extends weekend after weekend.2am and Joni Mitchell singing, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now”. Saturday morning rolling over and there is a dizzy feeling, but not light-headed happiness. A compelled need to record this moment down, thoughts that cannot be compartmentalized into labelled ring files. But words that come pouring into this rectangle. And Joni Mitchell still singing and singing, “clouds got in my way”. There is sleep as an option and waking up to decisions unmade. There is staying up with slow songs that comforts into these early mornings, ungodly, peaceful hours that are unbearable.

-

The point of all these is?

It was drizzling in the evening. I started jogging back before the droplets on my shirt joined together to form a big wet patch. Between panting and stitches and thinking how beautiful the sun is when it’s at it’s softest, I thought of the Laos kids playing in the rain. Dipping themselves in the newly-created pool, hair wet, bodies cold, playing those jumping games they always play.

It was a happy and sad thought, being able to re-visit and not relive. There is an old man in the documentary: Invisible City who showed black-and-white photographs of police hitting students from the Chinese schools then, and he retorted something of the like to the black video filming his angry face, “If something is not recorded, did it not happen? Read all the history textbooks, they say Chinese students were violent. Tell me who is violent, look.” Last week’s lecture on Lim Chin Siong being erased from the official history in our secondary school education and the whole issue of alternative histories ties together with memories and perhaps our obsession with documentation.

“If something is not recorded, did it not happen?” We need to click away, to capture an emotion or an ambience, so that there comes a day when we can look at the photograph in it’s real, glossy, physical form and say, “It happened. I remember now.”

-But technology is very dangerous. Cameras, vidoes, blogs, they leave some traces of flavour behind, without being able to record it's entity, so that on that one day when you re-visit, it becomes an exaggeration or a romanticization.

life, extended

These evenings and nights carry the smell of incense in this restless land. The sun is too hot; the rain comes at the wrong hours. Days have become forgettable and rants audible. These sights and little conversations are ebbing to a place. The world’s a stage, our lives are films, memories shoot back when credits roll.

The wind that sends hair whipping faces, unconscious smiles, racy heartbeats, hungry hearts, immortalized seconds, details that matter will mute sulks.

Credits that roll too fast for reading, we have forgotten what appreciation is.

Feeling Your Invisibility

Crisp cornflakes,
Old newspaper cuttings,
Thoughts at thirteen,
Musty bookshelves,
Unearthed at twenty,
Brown edges,
Wine turning sweet,
Round handwriting
Turns cursive
News at ten every night,
Different news every night,
Becomes history someday,
Plural smells of the same wind,
Sunlight changing hues,
tearing
calendar pages
the same tune, the same lyrics, the same singer,
an altered feeling,
transforms to be an oldie.
someday,
photographs will record decadence.
smells and fears mingling
have turned soggy in milk,
warm and sour.

swept under the rug.

For anyone who has read Kafka's The Trial, this is it in our very own local context:

http://www.blurty.com/talkread.bml?journal=sleepless77&itemid=161258

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/281669/1/.html

MOE's standard, very bureaucratic reply just wipes away that little sense of pride I have these days from the red and white flying everywhere and those patriotic songs on the airwaves.

don't know what it's like.

“Where do I begin?
To tell a story of how great a love can be.”
-Shirley Bassey

My fringe is falling, my singlet sticks to my back, there are so many men and women here. I am curious, but I need to cycle faster. From afar, these men and women look like they are huddled together, they belong together. As the fonts on the signboards of hotels’ names grow larger, I see them clearly now. Men who are skinny, dark, with two buttons undone collar down, two buttons undone waist up. Women who are fair, with hair a brown that has turned golden from over washing and roots an unsightly black. In my singlet and shorts that hikes up as I peddle, I feel immodest beside sneering strangers who look at our sweaty, gleaming arms as we passed them. We are intruders in their territory where men make their selection as women offer their most sultry post. Men who wipe their nose excessively, women who are meticulously made up. There is a man who wears a white long sleeved shirt and has tired eyes behind his glasses that slips down the bridge of his nose. There are men who walk in pairs, hides a sniggle, silences the rising pleasure and impending excitement. There are women fanning themselves, one leg strutting outwards. There is a woman in skinny jeans that wraps her too tight, she carries a look, I cannot tell the thoughts behind this expression she holds. There is a man who places his hand under his shirt and flaps it upwards, fanning himself, it is a hot night, as he makes an offer, presumably. The woman looks experienced; she knows the procedure, the smile, the tilt of the head, it has been done many times. They walk together down the lane, I am reaching the end of the street, there is a junction ahead and tau huay awaiting. I leave behind men from failed marriages who are seeking love, women from varied backgrounds who are hanging on survival, men with wives they used to embrace whom they have grown tired of now, and it is such a hot night for intense passions, to relive their youth and the moment that has been kept away for too long, they want to remember how and what that moment is. Women who watch a string of shadows moving in the dark, who would want to latch on a bicycle.

I am in Macau, this is Grand Lisboa Casino. There are so many tables here, bright lights and performances. The place smells of cigarettes and sin. On the laps of some men, there are women staring at nothingness, looking at bottled water, or the brightness of the light, but not at the men beside them or the casino table. They look familiar; it is a look of desire, a longing to be somewhere else.

I am in Singapore, at the Parliament Lane. There is an old couple, the woman is ahead of the man and she turns around to wait for her husband. She reaches out her hand and calls him “dear”, he limps ahead, towards the hand that is all too familiar.

In Macau, there is chattering everywhere, a kind of hurried, furious, loud chatter that never dies. It is Cantonese, and I cannot catch anything they say, but mo man tai, which is used a lot, which means no problem.

What is love, really? I am starting to believe, that love is made of emotions rising at certain moments, it is made of impulsiveness, it is made of sonnets that romanticize the mysterious thing that nobody knows, of songs that sing, “he fills my soul with so much love that anywhere I go I am never lonely”. But how long does it last, that after the years that passed, that you still could be passionately swept away. When I visit older others who are sick or hospitalized, there is an overwhelming sadness and realization of the transience of life that brings tears. There and then, I think, so this is love, isn’t it love, I am sad. But a few days down, I bother less and I am moving on with my life very well, because there is still bidding, there are still movies to watch, outings to go to. Why do men go to prostitutes? Why are there women who turn around to wait for their husbands, are they not tired of their faces, of waiting, of doing household chores, of caring, of the same bed they sleep in every night? Why is there even a need to demarcate the boundaries of what love is and what it is not? When one does not know what love is, how does one know whether he/she is loved or whether he/she is loving? Mo man tai, I guess and hope, one day, there will be some who have stories of how great love can be to share, of the hand that is always there.

I want to vomit.

I remember watching Sylvia the movie, and thinking how mentally unstable this woman is, to get so frustrated over writing, to be so overwhelmed by motherhood, to be unable to contain her own life in her own hands. Mostly, I wondered why she tore and burnt her work.

Today is the first day, since a long time, that I've spent the entire day at home, from morning to night, not stepping out at all. I have finally, after deliberating for more than a month, found a topic. It is a mammoth task ahead as I lay in bed wondering which voice to write from, the techniques I can use and later sit in front of my laptop, backspacing almost every line that I've typed. After which, I would click on Tools and Wordcount to see how many words I have typed. I walked around my room, the house, opened the fridge, ate things, came back to read whatever little has been written and I think what lousy work I have. And then, I think I want to achieve something, I have to press on, I need to push myself. So, I try to force another line out and 7 minutes later, the Internet browser is up and I am surfing around, finding nothing, but looking at everything else.

I couldn't understand Plath because wasn't writing a reflective and very liberating act? But I feel choked now. I cannot construct two sentences without cringing. I feel as though I have lost something and I am looking under the carpets, on table tops, everywhere for it, knowing that I will only find it one fine day when I'm not looking for it.

Inwardly

In the shelter of my green umbrella, the wind carries a mist that gathers on my face. My toes are wet and from my ankle up towards my knees, my jeans slowly turn a shade darker than it originally was. I feel the moist on my skin, the tips of my fingers are cold to the touch. I held onto the “Play” button, wishing it could turn on at least and when I saw red on the battery life, I hope it would last longer than I could bear silence. On the train, it was very cold, a kind of freeze my burnt skin would have yearned for during the six days of camp. A cold that chills the blue seats, stings the skin and is now deemed undesired by the forlorn. My Ipod is still alive and I do not have to deal with otherwise. I placed the notebook on my laps, pen in one hand, phone in the other, and search for a day that has not been scribbled on. Instinctively, my fingers find a name from the list of people I have to meet up before the semester begins and texts the person. I am surprised the train is still at stations I thought it had passed. When I close my eyes, I think about the girl from Eating Air, a white blouse stained by purple ink, her purple flower speeding across the underpass. She carries an expression I cannot fathom, I feel like a teenager from that movie. When the loud noises from the arcade dies away, when a camp of loud cheering is over, I am in my room, my bed on the right, my laptop in front, my air-conditioner behind. In the room, there is one person, and I am suddenly not used to that. Every free, wakening day is a time to catch up with old friends, while securing new friendships. In the company of so many others, and in the rhythm of left-over silly games from camps, in days that follow where I am pre-occupied, I have forgotten how voids and emptiness can be soothing.

booksactually lovesyou.

I am ambivalent as to whether I should share this little gem tuck away in a second storey old shophouse along Telok Ayer street with a man sitting inside, head bent clicking away on his tpewriter. (Check their namecards out!) Books Actually is a small, quiet, cosy bookstore with a decor that is full of subtle surprises and is quite alluring.

The view that greets you as you climb upstairs.

Companionship on drizzly nights, early mornings and other solitary times.

Have to finish, have not started.

There is a deadline to be met and in search for something to write, everything now seems to be a potential topic to be given a voice to. I am paying more attention to crannies that did not exist previously, having little conversations with myself, thinking about how to set thoughts into words, selecting words that can connect, looking at an insignificant scene and giving it a description, letting it be part of a narration.

I think such desperateness is nauseating; the urgency to force a thing out of nothingness is excruciatingly exhausting. When I bathe and the hot water hits my toes first, I instinctively turn that into a phrase, a line, and wring some emotion out of it. Or in the bus, on the train, I start scrutinizing every face, thinking hey what is beneath this wrinkle, this powdered face, finding something to muse on. But-what can I do when there seems to be nothing worth ruminating upon that has been brought up twenty thousand times before.

It is a sunny day; I am going to the library now and hopefully find an Idiot’s Guide to Good Writing.

I ask:

Between the wet and the dry,
There are curtains, square grills, two panels of glass and translucence.
Between out there and in here, there is vagueness.
The rain can be heard, but not be felt.
Between the wall that demarcates,
or the glossy white bouncing off-
that hopes to skirt and mark…
Between here and there, now and later;
between all betweens,
The glossy white shines inside but is wet outside.

In seeking certainty, betweens must cease, like a downpour.
With conviction, there is day, and there is night.

But there is midday, midnight and a wee morning
trailing.
Not omnipresent, but their existence
overlapping.

The rain continues, it is still wet outside and dry inside.
Between all betweens,
I pull the sheets and go to bed.
Wondering whether shadow(s) exist in singularity or plurality.

For a good conversation

I watched Wong Kar Wai Dreams the other night. In it, a woman blends characters from his different movies and her situation is a concoction of these imaginary people, only that she is oblivious to it. She is quiet, very confused, and speaks of her difficulty to singularize dreams from reality. It is the instant when you wake up suddenly, trying very hard to recollect if the dream you had was fictitious or if it belongs to the world of routines, except that this instant happens excessively for her.

I am thinking of characters from my favourite movies coming together, Raymond from Rain Man, Joel and Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Forrest from Forrest Gump, Sam from I am Sam, Guido from Life is beautiful…

[Raymond doesn't want to go outside when it rains]
Charlie: Hey, Ray, you take a shower right?
Raymond: Yeah.
Charlie: Well the rain is a lot like the shower, you get a little wet. What do you say, Ray? What do you say?
Raymond: Of course the shower is in the bathroom.
Charlie: That's the end of that conversation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Forrest Gump: Will you marry me? [Jenny turns and looks at him]
Forrest Gump: I'd make a good husband, Jenny.
Jenny Curran: You would, Forrest.
Forrest Gump: But you won't marry me.
Jenny Curran: You don't wanna marry me.
Forrest Gump: Why don't you love me, Jenny? I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Lucy: I won't read the word!
Sam: I'm your father and I'm telling you to read the word. Cause I can tell you to because I'm your father.
Lucy: I'm stupid.
Sam: You are not stupid!
Lucy: Yes, I am.
Sam: No, you are not stupid 'cause you can read that word.
Lucy: I don't wanna read it if you can't.
Sam: No, because it makes me happy! It makes me happy hearing you read. Yeah, it makes me happy when you're reading.
Lucy: [Lucy reads again]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guido: [being shipped to a concentration camp] You've never ridden on a train, have you? They're fantastic! Everybody stands up, close together, and there are no seats!
Giosué Orefice: There aren't any seats?
Guido: Seats? On a train? It's obvious you've never ridden one before! No, everybody's packed in, standing up. Look at this line to get on! Hey, we've got tickets, save room for us!

I don’t usually fuse characters from different movies like the woman in the play but sometimes, or maybe too many times, I get the déjà vu sense creeping onto me. The feeling you get when you hang the laundry, clip toenails, walk to the train station, look at the same scenery and at fixed times see the same people doing the same thing. I think it is a case of having too many repeated conversations that I feel as though I have been through this before. Little talk, deliberate teasings, one-liner ice breakers.

We need to talk the talk. We need to open our mouths, we don’t need any right atmosphere, we just need someone to start.

-

I am stuck whenever friends ask me, "So, how was your trip?" It is difficult to find a fitting description, so most of the time I reply, "Extremely impactful", realizing that these two words do injustice to the amazingly powerful experience. And I struggle hard to find the right words to verbalize moments so that they can feel a fraction of how I did.

I remember WC telling me to blog more about the trip and include some real description, but I am too aware of the problems of representation and not being able to fully encapsulate my wonderful fifteen days refrains me from writing about it.
Perhaps, pictures will do a better job. Here is a slideshow of some 60 odd photos selected from a collection of 3000 photos the photographer of the trip took: http://family.webshots.com/slideshow/559362455QQFffJ

While we are still impulsive-

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

A friend shared that with me. And another one, on going to bed, asked me "Why do we have to sleep?"

"Because we have to start dreaming again at some point."

In transition

Today, I accidentally boarded the train in the opposite direction of my destination. I was caught off-guard, the same feeling I get when I see a familiar face in a sea of not-so-familiar and quickly conjure a smile and a little wave. I heard a different station name, looked out abruptly, and saw a different station sign. That’s what happens-when you have your head in the clouds-I am dreaming too much for my own good really. It’s been ten days since I have returned and I am spending most of the time alone, thinking, and reading. I have not arranged to meet up with anyone because I am enjoying this solitude:-I shop, talking to nobody; I walk into a bookstore without looking for any book, just to smell the place, pick up a book and flip through its pages. I buy a snack and travel along the underpass, I hear a basker singing and playing Peng You and between where I am and where he is at, those memories zip back and I stop to give, without telling anyone that I have stopped, wait a moment for me.

But this private, individualized respite has lasted longer than it should have and has crossed over the boundaries to become Unhealthy. So, it is a good thing that I have found a job today. It is as if I am in an Orange jumper, carrying a banner, shouting “I’m refreshed and ready to enter society again!”

What do I want to do in society in the future anyway? In the future is just an easy way of making three years sound distant and less daunting. I am entirely clueless, I sent out applications of internships to so many places, all of bizarrely different natures. And when they all reply to say they want final year students, I thought fine then, I’ll work at a café, something I would not do in the future anyway. But, this could very well be something I would want to do.

When I was in primary school, I wanted to be a Longan Seller, a stationery shop owner, a sticker shop lady because Longans was my favourite fruit, and because I wanted free fancy pens and stickers. And over the years, I thought of being a lawyer, a teacher, and now, now I want to be so many things at once, I am overwhelmed by Now What.

Growing up is such a pain sometimes to the point that youth is wasted on the young. There is the urgency to consume as much as you can. Yet, there is age acting like a buoyant keeping you afloat, each time you push yourself to the bottom of the pool, wanting to absorb everything, you spring up. Youth limits your learning because it just leaves you confused most of the time and in the heart of the darkness of confusions, can one see anything? Oh right, everyone grows up. And we are all in this together.

Yet, there is a perpetual thought that ten years down the road, I would still wake up everyday, making instantaneous decisions on what breakfast shall be today, and planning for today with no great, grand plans of the tomorrows that I can speak of.

I picked up a brick.

Then I wondered what I would do next.

Hanging by moments

My Days are numbered from 1 to 15.
Every journal page is a resistance to reach 15-
But 15 came and my days have names again;
Everyday is a day to resist thoughts about those 15.
Today is Thursday, I think I am ready.

Day 1

Conversations on the plane, on the bus, glazed doughnuts and rain, red walls of Dragon Lodge, first Angels, first Mortals, dinner spread on the long dining table, two paintings staring, I stare back at the one with a man, back-faced, relaxed, perhaps looking into the distance.

Day 2

Checking the school grounds, feigned illness, wet grounds on the market, flies, fruits, darkness in a circle, light on some faces, you share, I listen, all walls are broken, rain pattering at 2:29am, my roommate is asleep, I am awake, shaking-with warmth.

Day 3

Sweeping whirlpools of dust, face-masked, their eyes follow us, they smile, wave, names exchanged, sweets placed shyly in my hands, fizzy drinks in their hands, running away, in a huddled blanket, you share, you bare, I listen, colossal thoughts in bed.

Day 4

Voices with eagerness overflowing, there is no fan, no frustration, there are smiles, Simon Says, packet lunches, swarms of children, I cut strings, you weave, you laugh, I am beaming, there is laughter before my turn, I am immensely scared, I speak, my heart thuds, I do not censor, in a circle, lights on nobody’s face, we hold hands, I am trembling.

Day 5

Toasts with marmalade, jazzy songs, glances exchanged, I smile, it is a beautiful day, encouraging notes in my mailbox, chopping in the kitchen, teases and jokes flying, five people and a new dimension, my sides hurt from laughing too hard.

Day 6

Chatting and sandpapering, intense bonding, talk of tight butts and muffins, around the corner friendship bands tied around my wrist, glorious food, guitar strumming, a birthday cake falling apart, secret meetings and letter writing, I am afraid that I cannot undo the knots of the bands when I return.

Day 7
A painting with three monks in orange robes against a backdrop of grey, chewing and munching, polite laughter, delicate and careful, toilet adventures, sinking into the sofa, cold toes, old Chinese songs given a contemporary twist, a new hotel in an old Laos, frustration over micros and macros, honesty along the stairway.

Day 8

Bus Journeys, a thought that we are all linked by colonialism, unsettling feelings amidst serenity in the boat, giving thought to what real community needs are for the first time, blasting music, happy dances, the smell of beer, we leap high, the bus is standing on the water, the sunlight falls on me, a child splashes water on her face, hands in water, water on face, looking at your country in semi-darkness, waking from naps, fried rice that never tasted so fragrant before.

Day 9

Discussion under a tree, animals roaming around, a pale blue above a lush green, us in multi-coloured shirts, Polaroid shots, Walls ice cream tune, toasts that transcend cultures, rockets shooting up, the sun, the heat, the happy drunkards, Prata with condensed milk, condensing us together as we walk back to the lodge, the wind in our faces, sleepy faces playing card games in a room, saying Good Nights.

Day 10

Good Mornings to familiar faces, today is my last teaching day, learning not to fight transience, will deal with it, English lessons at 5/2, tongue twisters, arms linked, singing songs, camping in Room 204, gossips amongst fun fair preparations, imitations of “Morning!”, laughing about Singapore T-shirts, the guys leaving, lights off, there is Fam beside me, there is a happiness radiating within the four walls.

Day 11

Squatting, hammer in hand, hacking bits of the wall, tuk tuk journeying to the market, I am quiet, I am taking in the dust, the brown bumpy gravel roads, sign boards that I may never see again, briefings, meetings in our room, pats on backs, snipping paper, howling with laughter over multi-coloured sunglasses, panties hidden in handkerchiefs, smiling sleeping.

Day 12

Waking up to knocks on the door, scissors on the floor, early tribe breakfast, enthusiasm that floats around 300 children, a posed photograph of us, arms akimbo, sitting around a table, writing, talking, remembering for life that “of” does not follow consist, spontaneous sharing over soy bean milk, thoughts that belong to a world of silent articulation.

Day 13

Josh Groban music playing, soothing companion on a windy night, the aroma of Teh Tarik lingers, conversation with Mrs. Chan Sook, suppressed giggles, Camel lurking in the backdrop, posed Piggy faces, I am left alone in the depths of the night, my green journal and I, I am falling asleep, I carry myself upstairs, tonight is the second last night.

Day 14

Tourist attractions on possibly the hottest day, pizzas, reminiscence creeping in, everyone looking lovely in purple shirts, cream puffs in the embassy, it is drizzling, names read aloud, ceremonial mood, cheers, songs, dances, durian feast, notes to thirteen other people, last-minute packing, scrambling down, henna painting on ankles, on hands.

Day 15

Singing all the way on the plane, scribbling reflections on a paper, touching down, embraces, photographs, fighting back tears, knowing that Metta means love is reassuring.

Pre-departure high

I have abandoned my packing to piece together a photo album that I can bring along.

Today is wonderful. It’s nice to wait for something to happen and all throughout the day, you’re smiling to yourself, packing your bag, lifting through old photos, and catching yourself in an unconscious grin. It is the same feeling I used to carry before going for birthday parties. For the entire day, I have been looking through photos taken in sc, all in soft copies, all in colourful, younger smiles. The huge deuter bag I am carrying has a lingering, musty odac smell. And of vj photos, a random assortment sent by ah pek of olc looks that everyone appears absolutely cui in.

In and out of time

Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and remember it is a Wednesday and between brushing my teeth, I think about what I did last Wednesday or the Wednesday before that. I remember that last Sunday I watched a play or last Monday I was out having dinner and there is an inevitable juxtaposition that goes on. I have a habit of placing days alongside their past selves. During this period of late nights, early mornings, waking from the guilt of a twelve-hour sleep, I am thinking of the same period last year and all that comes to my mind is a woman I met, shook hands with, and have completely forgotten until now.

I think she was twenty-eight or thirty-one and I was eighteen. She was on the brink of going to jail and it offered me a change from my stamp licking, book binding days. I have to remind myself to subdue the excitement that arises from visiting her in Changi’s Women Prison or the flurry that takes place inside me when I took my place beside her lawyer in court. There is an unabashed happiness that lies unconcealed in my note-taking, the happiness that arises from first experiences, first times. I am thinking of her now because one year has passed and that translates to one more year left for her to serve. When she went to court that day, she had glasses on because her lawyer told her to look remorseful and to colour her hair black. But all that does not really matter to me, I am only realizing that one year has passed, in the snap of hair growing longer, I am again comprehending that time is fast.

It is not enough to say time flies because time is a concept I cannot understand. When I peel parking coupons, the first option stumbles me already-should I jab 07 off or is it 06 now and is 07 actually next year? It is strange to be alarmed by the days running by because so many Christmases, New Years, end of school terms have passed, one should get used to it by now. But time is a scary idea altogether because it allows me to compare with the past times and the awareness of how things have changed or have remained renders a bite of the lower lip.

Phantom

It is about dressing up, inflating the mood, stepping into enchantments, walking away, puncturing myself, trying to forget their lines, remembering who I am, reminding who I am not, parking nicely back into reality, with a week to the first paper.

Memory and Memories.

The knowledge that each second that ticks away is a fragment of memory forgotten is creeping onto me. In an hour and a half, I have had my dinner, finished unpacking and bathing. Through jets of warm water, there is an urgency to increase my pace, for my hands to slather soap quicker. Through dinner, there is a desire for bigger bites, faster chews, greater gulps of soup. In unpacking, there is a need to run behind to throw my insect-repellent-ridden clothes, to pack my bags in the cupboard with immediacy.

I want to document everything through photos, through writings like these. I am taking extra glances around and hoping to bring the atmosphere with me. I want to be able to write down every thought that I feel during sharing sessions, every laughter that surfaces in long walks. At every stop and at every new experience, I have a desire to photograph that moment because I need to pack that away with me. I am certain that I would remember this retreat in Ubin, of cobwebs, standing with icy cold water splashing down and a fluorescent light slapped above in a slipshod manner, of wires, of forsaken Chinese New Year goodies, of walks, of beautiful sights. I am greedy and afraid that I might come to forget the thought attached to single particular moments. I am fearful that when I think back two weeks later about the quarry, I will only remember the depth of it, the blueness of the water and the stinging heat but forget the thought that I held in my mind for that few seconds.

In a paradoxical way, I am punished for my appetite for memory. There is a compromise on the present as I try to build an entire bankbook of memory for my future self. It is inculpable but perhaps too foolish. I demand too much from memories, I want the thoughts in each singularized moment to stick with me like a clamshell.

So there is a constant fluctuation between the phobia of the wholeness of a moment forgotten and the belief that a memory strong enough would accompany me, with its entity and totality. While I am being swung around like a pendulum, retrospection whispers that there is no controlling of memories and if it stays, it will in its entity. If it does not, it was not worth its entity. For the night, I shall remember last night, with rain pouring down on the Aluminium roof, cats screeching in the wakes of the morning, curling up inside my sleeping bag, while the rest sleeps around me, in fatigue and contentment.

A quote

Yesterday, in between mouthfuls of bee hoon, Eric sprouted a quote by Mark Twain, " I have never let schooling interfere with my education."

Sometimes, we need reminders huh.

I think this might be reality.

This is a girl crying.

That is the loneliness we don't carry on parades.

This is the life we keep hidden.

This is the almost naked highway.

These are the cold handrails that numb our fingers.

I beat you this time, I caught you setting.