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