2012

 
   I still remember. I was at a book fair, looking through discounted books, when I flipped to a page, I read a line, it cut through my heart. This was 2012 for me.

   From V.S. Naipaul's "The Masque of Africa" citing Rian Malan's "The Traitor's Heart":

   "If you're really going to live..., you have to be able to look at it and say, 'This is the way of love, down this road: look at it hard. This is where it is going to lead you.'... 'I think you will know what I mean if I tell you love is worth nothing until it has been tested by its own defeat.'"

  And the answer for me, is to love more. Always love more. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. I will love us into the space beyond space, into oblivion. I will love until the stars can no longer be indifferent, and we will be remembered on a night like this.

Do not fear, my friends.

   
    The year is ending and there is so much to say, with so little words. I shall fall back on what I once wrote when I turned twenty-one, 

A whole life awaits. Do not fear, my friends. For fear of the things we cannot control is like trying to control a tooth ache. All of you are so brave and beautiful.

   (And four years later, I do fear. I do want to control pain. I do sometimes want to hide in hidden pockets of time, where the world won't change, but I get a day of uninterrupted peace and sleep. I do wonder what will happen, and when it does, if I would be brave enough. But, most of all, my friends, who are still here, to listen to me say this once more. All of you are so brave and beautiful). 

La Maison Fatien

La Maison Fatien 

76 Duxton Road 

For reservations: 62203822

$60-90 per pax (without wine) 

French 

Semi-formal, quiet charm 

Warm service but inattentive 

     Two weeks ago, M, H and J picked La Maison Fatien to celebrate my birthday for me. I still remember it had started to rain and all of us were arriving from different directions. I started to get lost as I walked from Pinnacle and the rain pitter-pattered all over me. When I reached 76 Duxton Road, La Maison Fatien appeared like a lovely grey safehouse from the rain outside. 

   I was first and grateful to be seated and served warm water. (Lots of it, please!) The manager (I'm guessing) was lovely and started going through the wine menu. It is of note that La Maison Fatien has its own winery but it's only sold by the bottle. So, we didn't try any since only M and I can drink, and we are very bad with wine. 

   What I like most about this place is that it seems outside of time - whether it is because of the lovely company I was in where we would laugh for hours, or the way it was decorated, there is a quiet stillness about this place that I really like. 

Both pictures from the La Maison Fatien homepage. Top shows the 1st floor and the Bottom shows the 2nd floor. 

    I think this place also serves excellent starters - we either had foie gras (I am ever constant in my fixation with foie gras) or onion soup. Oh, the onion soup was divine, wonderfully enhanced by the wintry coolness of the rain outside. The texture of the onion soup was interesting - with delicious bits of bread and I cannot remember. Frankly, I love a place with many wonderful starters because it encourages all to order a large variety as possible to share. After all, a meal is about sharing isn't it? 

  

   

         

Lovely scallops as main course 

   The sweetest thing is that since we all stepped into La Maison Fatien, J kept asking if they had a chocolate cake. She said their chocolate molten lava cake was highly recommended online and really wanted to have it. I thought it was one of her pregnant cravings. It wasn't on the menu and we had to ask if they could provide. The restaurant said they had one left.

   When it came, I was surprised (even though I knew this was my birthday celebration). It is difficult to surprise each other when it has now been ingrained as tradition that the four of us take turns to celebrate each other's birthday at a new restaurant. J stated she knew I loved chocolate molten lava cake. And, I did love it.

   Thank you girls for making growing older so sweet.

Merry Christmas!

    Christmas for my family is a variable occasion. When I was very young, I remember my mum setting up a huge Christmas tree in the living room. We would all decorate it. Pearl and I were short, so we mainly decorated the base with our favourite disney characters. We would cry, "where are the presents?  presents?" and watch as the presents sprout magically on Christmas morning. On the morning of Christmas, we would run down and gleefully look for the presents that belonged to us. Ah, the glories of youth, when decorum does not apply,

  As we grew older, we no longer set up the Christmas tree. Sometimes, we would have a big party at our house, or another relative's house, or we would go out to some glamourous place - sometimes, we just watched a movie, and it didn't really feel like Christmas at all. But, we were always together.

   This year, I suggested getting a real Christmas tree and suggested having a small Christmas party with Grandma, Auntie and Uncle. My little suggestion grew into a full blown wonder as my Mum took over. She is so extraordinary and I can only hope to be as good a hostess as her one day.

  She prepared two different table settings (one for a party on Christmas Eve and the family one on Christmas day) and prepared a veritable feast! The food was really wonderful and you felt as you could eat forever.

   I am always touched when I receive gifts. But, I was most overwhelmed when I gave my presents to Grandma. She looked taken aback and said, "But I didn't get you any presents". She looked at me and my sister who was sitting next to me. And, I smiled and told her I just wanted her to enjoy my presents. She looked almost sad when she said she only got presents for the maids, cheap simple gifts, because she knew my sister and me won't like those items and she couldn't afford expensive gifts. I told Grandma then with all my heart that we didn't need presents, we just wanted to eat her cooking. She smiled then and asked what we would like to eat. I told her anything, but especially her Agar Agar, and proceeded to eat them from the table.

   Dear reader, thank you for reading and I wish you a heartfelt Merry Christmas! I used all my birthday wishes this year for good health for those I love and care for, and that I am certain, includes you.

To my husband

I would like to be the air

that inhabits you for a moment

only. I would like to be that unnoticed

& that necessary. 

- Variations on the word sleep, Margaret Atwood

  

  Thank you for being the boy who found me at the crossroads when I was lost. You were lost too, but you said you felt as if you were found when you found me.

  Thank you for being you even when I tried to change you. For understanding that even while I loved you the way you were and are, I thought these changes would make you happier.

  Thank you for loving me. For loving me even though I was, am, a difficult person. For loving me because I am difficult.

   During my birthday week, I scarcely had time to think about my birthday. But, you slept on my couch every night, next to me, as I worked late into the night, sorting out the legal problems. At the end of each night/dawn, I would nudge you softly and say, "I'm done." And you would smile at me, and say, "Let's go to sleep."

   If love is an idea, you are my execution.

Bistro du Vin

   Bistro du Vin
   1 Scotts Road
   #02-12 Shaw Centre
   For reservations: 67337763
   $60-90 per pax (without wine)
   French
   Unpretentious, semi-formal with large servings
   Good service


     I've decided to make the effort and try my best to capture food moments, considering it has always been a dream of mine to be a food critic. However, as my general threshold for good food is set so low, I will likely be considered as non-discerning.

   M was saying we had not had a dinner just the two of us in ages, which was true - so she made reservations at Bistro du Vin and we had a lovely thursday dinner together. As the restaurant was largely decked in red with white snowflakes, it had a lovely christmas feel about it. I usually go with my regular foie gras and duck confit combination at French restaurants, but Bistro du Vin had a beautiful blackboard in the middle of the restaurant with all the daily specials.

   My heart skipped when I saw it had bouillabaisse with lobster! It's a provencal fish stew originating from Marseille. The first and last time I ate the dish was in Marseille! I loved it, ZM hated it - which really captures the essence of bouillabaisse - which is incredibly fishy and solely, completely, overwhelmingly, for hard core seafood lovers. This is the real fishy deal - just a soft spot for crustaceans would not cut it.

   M ordered beef cheeks with mashed potatoes. It was such a huge hearty serving that half an hour into it, she remarked, "it still looks untouched".

  All the food was generally good with such generous servings that we wondered if the restaurant might want to consider cutting a little back, so that diners can actually long for that little bit more, instead of feeling too heavy.

  But, the best dish was definitely the pan-seared foie gras with eggplant.

  It's incredibly tasty and incredibly value for money considering the price and the size. M and I agreed that we would share the foie gras next time as a starter, because we were left with no room for dessert.

  At the end of it all, with a heavy belly, we reminisced about our backpacking through Europe three years ago. When we did not have much money and were always hungry after each meal. But, although we were always hungry, I like to think our hearts were full. We laughed and laughed. Friends, indeed, are the greatest seasoning in life.

almost twenty seven

     As Mum pondered out loud whether she should buy two fried treats or just one, Dad chimed in, "Buy one. You won't be able to finish."

    Mum immediately turned to my sister, "I want two."

   I laughed and turned to my Dad, "Almost 27 years of marriage and you still don't realise you shouldn't tell your wife what to do?"

   They had little squabbles of what was good and bad for Mum's body, with Mum happily swinging the fried treat bags as we left the food centre.

    They walked off, hand in hand.

   "You should eat heathily," Dad said, "Because I want to be with you for a long time."

To have you is more than I could ever hold.

   I've been wanting to write this entry since November 30. It's probably never too wise to start writing an entry at midnight, especially after you have had quite a few glasses of white and red wine. But perhaps, wisdom never made for memorable entries, and it is when the heart takes over that the mind speaks.

   On November 30, the word of the day was "cathexis". It is a noun, defined as "the investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object or idea". The Merriam-Webster gives an example from an essay by Margaret Brose in The Body in Early Modern Italy: "The veil that hides Laura and her eyes, her hair, her smile (and its counterpart, the glove that veils her hand) becomes the object of Petrarch's cathexis..." The example is particularly apt considering Petrarch's love poems are considered one of the finest examples of a sonnet - and what could be a better expression of the essence of a sonnet but the "investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object or idea"?

   But what I really love is that "cathexis" comes from the Greek word, "kathexis", meaning "holding"; ultimately traced back to the Greek verb "echein", meaning "to have" or "to hold". To have and to hold. My breath disappeared. I felt a very real twinkling down my spine - from the brain, to my heart, through my lungs, rolling all the way to the bottom of my toes. I finally understood.

  In my wedding vow, I told him, he would be someone to have and to hold until the very end of my life. I titled the blog, to have and to hold. But, it wasn't until then, that very moment when I read the root of "cathexis" that I felt I knew what I had meant all along even before I understood.

  Even now, what is felt in my heart, I cannot fully express. It is not just to hold someone's hand till the end of your lives, never letting go, to hold all that is dear and true in your marriage in the bosom of your heart. It is to realise what you have, the unbelievable overwhelming magnitude of it all, to look at your hands and gaze in amazement of what you have. To shiver, literally, at what has been given. And to hold, oh to hold, palm to palm, like holy palmer's kiss. 

   I especially like that this word has such a beautiful Greek origin. I still remember him as the boy who couldn't leave me alone, as I determinedly set out to head to Greece to fulfill all my long-held desires - to see Epidaurus (the physical embodiment of the theatre of my dreams) and to gaze at all my childhood wonders. To head to Greece, we had to spend a lot of money, but more than that catch many connecting flights. We had to walk out into the darkness (no lit lamp-posts to guide us) at 3 am and trudge to the train station with all our luggages; always slightly worried some drugged-out person will attack us in the dark. But we did. We walked in the darkness, sat for hours in the cold, changed tons of connecting flights, buses, monorails, until we reached the middle of Athens. I was so happy, I thought I would burst into flames. You were so tired you could barely keep your eyes open. We have so many other moments, so many before, so many after, but I remember this so vividly. That in this world, I have you, and you would follow me anywhere, no matter how long the journey.

   That when we climbed up the stairs all the way up the theatre, I wondered how good the acoustics were. So, you ran down all the way till the bottom again, and you said can you hear me?

   
      Loud and clear.

"I wish I was a photograph / you carried like a future in your back pocket"

    I was finding something on facebook, when I decided to look through old photographs. There's something strangely nostalgic about looking at moments captured out of your past. I'm really happy with the person I am now, but also long for that person I was. That specific moment in time, with all those specific people, with all those specific feelings. Sometimes, you want to tell someone, I wish we were as close again. That I miss being that close to someone, being that close to you. I wish to be that person in your life you could share all those small things, irritating and lovely, that make up a day. That I would know why you are feeling this way, right now, so specifically, because I know your yesterday, the day before yesterday, and all the days before.

   At the start, when people drift, they lose the small things first. But, they take heart that they will always have the big things. Not knowing that the big things were always anchored by the small things. Sometimes, I see something and am instantly reminded of you. I smile to myself, and file it away. But, perhaps, that was my little bird, my little window, to tell you, hey, today, I thought of you. 

The way the wind blows

       Although I think the bracelets at Kate Spade are ridiculously over-priced, considering they are even more ludicrously marked up in the Singaporean stores, I think I am in love. Sadly, I can't bring myself to buy it. No, I should not pay for a line that much. I will write it in my heart, and wear it in the insides of my wrist. 

  
    

        I went to wash my hair at my favourite salon today, and one of the manicurist asked if I wanted to do my nails. I declined because my nails were brittle and crumbling like an ancient forgotten castle. But, she looked at me with such earnest-ness, proclaiming she would rescue them. My nails, ever the damsels in distress, could not resist. But, what I wanted to write about was the very strange fact that I went out of my way to choose a colour I have not worn before or would normally wear. It was the shade of a rose that had drunk too much coffee. However, when it dried, I looked at my nails, and it was exactly the shade I usually paint at another nail salon. I was stunned, for a moment. Do we consciously set out for something new, just to end up with the same? Perhaps we are always attracted to that one thing. Perhaps, it is just the way the wind blows.

"I knew what slant of light/ would make you turn over"

San Antonio
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Tonight I lingered over your name, the delicate assembly of vowels a voice inside my head. You were sleeping when I arrived. I stood by your bed and watched the sheets rise gently. I knew what slant of light would make you turn over. It was then I felt the highways slide out of my hands. I remembered the old men in the west side cafe, dealing dominoes like magical charms. It was then I knew, like a woman looking backward, I could not leave you, or find anyone I loved more.

Circles

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light. 

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, 

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, 

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine 

and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.
- The Coming of Light, Mark Strand 

  

      I like to walk home when it rains. When I step out of the lift that takes me up from the insulated underground onto the ground floor, I feel the electricity in the air greeting me. Everything pitter patters lightly around me, and I try not to step onto the snails. All the dark brown leaves on the floor look like snails from afar, and I always pause to make sure they don't move before I carry on.

    There is a hidden symmetry in the way we live. When I walk towards the train to work in the morning, I climb up a gentle slope. The sun beats down and each step uphill seems inclined against any desire to go anywhere. When it's time to walk home from the train, I amble downhill. Even gravity wants you home. Sometimes, when I get home early enough, I watch the sun set. Not fully, because of the buildings, but a warm glow shines from ajar, like the jagged shards of a glass phoenix. 

       I like to think that all the beautiful points in our lives have circles to mark them. Circles - the perfect shape of beginning and end. You cannot see them when you are living inside of them, living out that difficult curve or reaching out hard to move on just that bit further. But, when the circle closes onto itself, you feel that tingle from the top to your bottom of your body, because your soul knows that you have reached full circle. That wonderful shining beginning with a heartfelt poignant end. That disappointing start renewed with a fresh bright energy. Just like being brought to a restaurant again by someone new to forget the bitter disappointment of that someone old. How the only time I was happy in the worrying month of June was when I visited a children's bookstore, and that was the very children's bookstore ZM surprised me in July when he proposed. We create our own bookends - we may not be able to control how something starts, but I like to think we can determine how graceful we make our ends. 

                  In these circles, we grow, we learn, we reconcile. And, perhaps when we live long enough, when we can look back on the long shadow that is our lives, we can connect all these beautiful dots together, and smile. That was, is me. 

Window Dressing

     We checked into Marina Mandarin on Saturday to support Dad for his marathon on Sunday. It started wonderfully - we were given a free upgrade and late checkout. As we settled into the room, Mum, Dad and I changed into our pajamas and snuggled into the bed for an afternoon nap. Actually, only I slept I suspect and Mum and Dad watched HBO and gave each other "huggie hugs".

   I liked how after dinner, Dad wandered into an art shop while Mum hovered around the shopping centre concierge wondering about the points she could clock from the dinner receipt and what items she could redeem. I especially liked an adorable statue in the window front by artist, Wu Qiong. Hand in hand, they looked ready to leap into the future together.

    As we walked back to the hotel, Zm joined us. He had taken the train from Yishun after a family dinner and joined us. He looked half sheepish as he came bag in hand. He whispered to me, "Am I under-dressed?" He felt so under-dressed, I had to coax him to go down to the Piano Bar downstairs at the hotel atrium. Me in my blue pencil dress and golden heels, he in his polo shirt, three-quarters and red slippers. Haven't we always been this way? The waitress in resplendent long golden cheongsums with high mid-thigh slits waltzed around. One came with a dessert tray full of alcohol and invited us to order a cherry jubilee. We did. As the waitress started swirling the cherries, the alcohol and vanilla ice-cream together, I turned to him. This man-child, who had insisted on coming from wherever he was, with a sleeping bag (because we didn't know if my sister was going to sleep over too or not), just because it's family and if it's family, he would come. Even if it meant sleeping on the floor. I turned to him, and smiled. We raised our glasses. Cheers.