Don't go far off, not even for a day, because--

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- 

because--I don't know how to say it: a day is long

and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station

when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because

then the little drops of anguish will all run

together,

the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift

into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;

may your eyelids never flutter into the empty

distance.

Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far

I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,

Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Z & C (5)

(i)

   This was ZM's first moment. I got it from his "journal" that he wrote in periodically in Holland:

"Traffic lights went against my favour, hence I decided not to follow gary, and that was when he bumped into the black junkie. And while cycling on a roundabout way, guess who I found. Lost and confused. A girl clad in purple with long hair and a black cap waiting for someone to come by. Crystal. She heaved a sigh of relief. I stopped in my tracks. Two confused and lost souls met. "

(ii) 

      All three of us had finally managed to get a bicycle each and started to cycle through the city centre. However, I wasn't used to the speed at which everyone cycled and actually hit my bicycle on one of the small stone pillars. I was cycling way back and ZM and G were in front. Later, ZM noticed that my bicycle was kind of funny. I told him that my bicycle pedal actually broke into half. 

    Later that day, we went canoeing in the Utrecht canals. I canoed with G, and ZM canoed with an extremely tall guy from Kazakhstan we had met on a city tour earlier. It was a huge group and kind of fun in the you are only young once way. At some points, when the canal was still, and the moon shone down, it seemed almost magical. Other times, when there were really tiny bridges, it was really a push of faith that we could actually make it through to the other side! 

 Much later that day, it was early dawn, I think, hours after we were all back in our apartments from the midnight canoeing, I heard rustling sounds outside. I looked out of the window and there was ZM bending down over my bicycle. 

   I laughed, "What are you doing? 

  ZM looked sheepish and said he was going to fix my bicycle pedal. He told me to go to sleep. 

  It was simultaneously embarrassing and insides-wanting-to-break-out hilarious. 

   That was the first moment for me. 

Home & Decor (1) : Living Room

      ZM and I have received news that our house is going to be ready for possession in June/July! Exciting stuff. It's good because P will have graduated and moved back home by then, since I was always concerned about leaving my parents alone in the house. While I haven't really sorted out my feelings about leaving my childhood house, I am also full of anticipation of decorating my own home! Whee.

   ZM and I have worked out a budget that both of us are comfortable for doing up the house - actually most of the fixtures and furnishings are completed, and we will probably spend on the light fixtures, bed (many serious and intense discussions on the bed) and changing one room into a walk-in wardrobe (a HUGE wardrobe haha).

   I can't wait to see the house all done, because we don't actually know what would be the views like from the house (eeks) or how big or small it would feel. We bought a three bedroom apartment on the highest floor so it comes with extra-high ceilings, and we have also thought a lot about whether we wanted to make an upper partition. Although the consensus is no for now, every now and then, I have this dream of a loft-like library! Haha.

   I've changed a little from my previous design aspirations, see below:

   Now, I envision something really clean and light. Comfy and livable. It's going to be rather neutral with pops of colour, nothing very strong. I don't think we are the kind of people who would like a strong visual element or design signature, because we will probably get tired of it after a few months. I imagine a simple sturdy structure which will allow us to change the feel of it with simple accessorising. Some examples for the living room:

  Also, this picture made me giggle a lot because it already has the corgis I'm planning to get! Finally, with my own home, I can keep a dog again :)

  

Ambush Sausage & Pasta Bar

Ambush Sausage & Pasta Bar 
391 Orchard Road
Basement of Takashimaya
#B2-04 Ngee Ann City
Opens daily: 10 am to 9 pm
Western
$15 per pax (includes drink, dessert & soup!)
Perfect weekday date place


   Finally.

     Finally, there is good news (however tentative). To see and hear the joy in my father is to watch beauty in motion. Mum, adorable as always, asked me to go have a date with my husband, "whom also needs to be taken care of". So, off we went. There could only be one place for a weekday date - Ambush.

   It's not romantic at all and it isn't "our place". We have ate here plenty of times in other groups and with other friends. But, in so many ways, this place, unassuming and yet hearty, reflects just the way we like to be. When we were in Europe, and fantasized about seafood because it costs so dearly in Europe, ZM kept saying he would bring me to eat cheap and fantastic lobster pasta in Singapore. And, so this was the place, with the slipper lobster pasta that never fails to make me feel better.

   We have been eating here since our university days, which makes it about four years now. In a way, it feels like we are queuing up for one order of nostalgic deja vu. Just like how whenever I walk around in Marks and Spencer at Wheelock Place, I see Borders everywhere - the magazines used to be there, the children book section, the place I would sit and browse books. It is still there, I can see it, even if I can no longer touch it. Ambush is that kind of place for us. No matter how much we may grow or change, we are still that boy and girl.

            

  

       Sometimes, it is hard to be happy when there are so many things one has to worry about - so many things yet to be solved or managed. But, one has to be happy when one can. This is my life and I have to take possession of it. Before, the next wave hits me again, and I have to hold my breath for as long as I can - I need to, be exhilarated, feel this, this small piece of heaven.

两个人能在一起是缘份

    My dad adorably made post-its for the hospital:

   Every night, Dad and I drive home, sometimes in anger, sometimes in silence, always in hope. Just as we anticipate each day for my Mum's wounds to heal, we each carry our own open wound. Tonight, especially, the songs on the radio were especially soothing.

只是这样的日子 还剩下多少 已不重要

时常想起过去的温存 它让我在夜里不会冷

你说一个人的美丽是认真 两个人能在一起是缘份

早知道是这样 像梦一场 我才不会把爱都放在同一个地方

我能原谅 你的荒唐 荒唐的是我没有办法遗忘

早知道是这样 如梦一场 我又何必把泪都锁在自己的眼眶

 Mum and I love 那英. If she ever comes to Singapore for a concert, I hope the two of us will be there.

Z & C (4)

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."

                                                                                      - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen 

(i)

     It is too long ago. When I try to remember, I see a few golden moments shining out of the dustiness that seems to meld into each other. All the days that seemed so precious, has faded into oblivion, unnoticed, while we had continued to live on. It is almost as if the past never existed, if we don't remember it.

   It is like the words I told ZM when we left Holland to return to Singapore. I remember looking back at our compartments that pretended they were houses, all the things we had done in our last year, all the life we had lived, and feeling it disappearing already as the bus rode on. I had looked at ZM and told him, "Don't become a memory".


(ii)


    I have no sense of direction. When we arrived in Utrecht, we made our way by always returning back. Re-tracing our steps, as our paths get longer and longer and we slowly etched the route of the city centre in our veins.

   ZM promised me on the first day that he would always find me if I was lost. He was still only just a friend then, but there was a ball of thread unravelling. And if that ball of thread ran loose, he would be the one on the other end.

    We took a long while to set up our mobile plans, so we practically had no form of external communication except good old being physically present in the same space. What we will do would be to go knock on each other's windows.

   G, ZM and I had formed some form of routine for our meals - lunch and dinner together, and I insisted we would have one day (Wednesday) alone. The boys could meet if they want to - but I would go off and explore. It was nice, in the sense, that I could be a girl again, without feeling like I was dragging the boys into places they rather not be.

  There was one Wednesday when I came back rather late, but not too late since the sun practically sets by 5 pm, and ZM was not around. This was strange since we were going to have dinner together. So, I started preparing dinner anyway, since he would turn up sooner or later.

   He turned up rather late, sweating, and exhausted on his bike. He looked at me with mild anger. "Where were you?"

  "Here?"

  "I went to look for you," He said.

   I apologised and said I didn't know he did.

   He gave a look, "I left a note."

  "You did?" I frowned. "I didn't see one when I returned."

   "It's outside!" He insisted.

   He brought me outside and pointed.

   I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

   He pointed to a small flowerpot with almost dried-up flowers. We were given a flower pot each from the supermarket because they were dying and they were going to throw them out.

  That was his flowerpot. His tiny flowerpot saying I was here and I've gone to look for you.

Loans

  
    I've been reading so much about the changing financial landscape for housing and cars. While it's clear that the housing market will likely face additional drastic regulations, I'm actually surprised by some of the criticisms arising from the new regulations for cars.

    Due to my general lack of financial know-how, before the new regulations, I didn't actually know how cars were bought or financed. I'm actually mind-boggled that people could take 100% loans to buy cars previously. To me, taking only a 50 or 60% loan on a car makes prudent financial sense. While I can understand that a 5 year loan will be a hefty burden and many would prefer it to be 10 years, I can also agree with the starting point that people should then only take a quantum of loan within a budget that they can manage within 5 years.

   I've seen more than my fair share of bankruptcy applications and a lot of them comes from credit card debts - inability to pay car loans, or too many of those deferred payments from Courts (buy your applications now and pay later!).

   In fact, when I was younger, I was truly surprised that people bought stuff now and paid for them later. We were all in the red - and this was normal, even ideal. You make your money work for you that way - if your loan interest rate is lower than inflation, because your money would just sit wasting in the bank. Of course, this is only true if the good that you bought would increase in value at a higher rate than the interest rate over time, or at the very least, not lose value.

    This is clearly not true in the case of cars. While there are cases where someone buys a car at an incredibly low COE rate, hence what he paid for his car is lesser than what is the current market price - a car is undoubtedly in the category of goods in which it loses value as soon as it is used.

    Perhaps, I may seem harsh, but I can't feel sympathetic to all these newspaper reports of "victims" who now cannot afford their dream cars because of the "harsh" new financial regulations. I wonder if Singaporeans really think about how they consume and their debt to income ratio, or they believe interest rates will always remain so low.

    We must always pay in the end for what we spend.

Z & C (3)

        I always remembered one of the first things ZM said when we had all said our goodbyes and entered the boarding area. There were three things he wanted to accomplish on Exchange: (i) See the Northern Lights, (ii) Go Ice-Fishing, and (iii) Go Surfing in Spain. I had a good laugh - not that the three things he wanted to do were funny, but perhaps it was his delivery, or the surprise, because that was the moment on when I started to think about what I wanted to do. 

    It was a reminder of the agency we have been given, that we have always had, but sacrificed on the altar of opportunity cost and dreamed gains. We had the agency to do anything - all we needed was time and the strength of will.


  

     We arrived in Utrecht in a flurry of excitement. There were a lot of places with impossible to pronounced names to go. To first pick up the keys for the apartments for ZM and me (we were neighbours), then accompany G to the suburbs where he had rented a room from a Nigerian online. I still remember ZM and I laughing about it - what if it was a scam? G was nervous as well, since it did sound too good to be true. But hindsight will let me tell you that it all turned out well and his landlord was a gregarious Nigerian who sold stuff at the tourist market in Amsterdam from his home village, and then sending money back. I loved these kinds of stories, I try to see the heart of it, behind all the money and middle-men exchanges.

    I also remember G losing his laptop when we had gotten down from the bus. And, that led us to run furiously with all our luggages to try and catch the bus. It all turned out well again because a fellow passenger had passed the laptop to the bus driver and the bus was going to drive back to the main terminal to return it to G. G was so relieved; and so were ZM and I. When you only know two people in a foreign land, it feels likes our fates are entwined - and any happiness or excitement is guiltily had when someone else cannot be happy. So luckily, everything went well, again and again, and we after settling one hundred and one administrative stuff, could tuck in for dinner.

    I made beef stew (in the days when I could still eat beef) with lots and lots and lots of wine (this was before I learned proportionality in cooking). At this point, I didn't even think about love. Loving anyone specifically. There was my whole life to unpack in my suitcase, and there was a whole life waiting for me outside. The air was cool and crisp, the trees were becoming completely yellow. There were too many variations of beauty outside to just stop at one.


   

Z & C (2)

"somewhere I never travelled, gladly beyond

           any experience, ..."

                                                                                         - E.E. Cummings 

       G & ZM were heading to Utrecht with me. All of us didn't know each other. We had friends in between, and had an awkward hello, all three of us, in the cafeteria. We didn't speak in person, thereafter. Leaving it to the numerous email chains to sort out the accommodation, the visa, and the air tickets. The question of "what kind of person are you" hung in the air, unanswered, deferred to after, after everything else, after it finally starts.

     When Y found out that ZM and I were heading to Utrecht, she was positively ecstatic. Despite our very different backgrounds and personality, we had both ended up with the same choice. Y enthused, "You are going to end up together."

    "We are going there together, but we are not going to be together."

   And there started the round-a-bout tongue twister game between Y and I, as we played with all the verbal permutations of how two people can be together but not be attached.

   I remember begging Y not to say the things she said to me to ZM (although I suspect she did), because it will be vastly awkward for two people, who have never met, to bear the huge weight of someone else's romantic expectation. It would be like a blind date, which will go on interminably for one year.

      Inevitably, something will fall, but not our hearts.


    And, so it went. Curiosity did form within me, since Y, close to my heart, thought we would like each other tremendously. But, I never took it seriously because one thing was always clear, ZM did not read. And, how could I love someone who did not read?

  
    As I write this now, I remember Y and I more than I remember ZM and I at this moment. For, ZM did not exist yet, only a figment of my imaginings at that point. I remember all the friends who so sweetly came to send me off. I remember Y coming for both of us - when she came, she excitedly pointed to a dot from far, "There's ZM." And, then she dropped her voice into a dramatic stage whisper, "His ex girlfriend came to send him off as well."

   I laughed, "That does puts a damper in your plans."

   "But you are better, " Y insisted.


   Y and I were closest before I left. We used to meet every week at the Children's Home and discuss the world's failings and feelings around us. She had this wonderful way of being profoundly distressed and moved by the world at the same time. Y, then, seemed always divided on whether to trust the world or believe in advance it was determined to disappoint.

   It didn't occur to me, all the things I would lose, before I went away. I thought it was just that - a journey away. Not a journey that I could not return from. It is only a few years later, looking back, that I slowly see all the intimacies we lose, when we become someone's else.

   "Come visit us if you can," I said as we hugged.

   "I will, and if you are not together by then, I will ask him why he has not fallen in love with you." 

Z & C (1)

All she knows is that someone fell, and that everything beautiful began after. 

                                                    - Everything Beautiful Began After  by Simon Van Booy 

         "Do you know ZM?" asked Y (also known as Peaches). She asked me that question often as we volunteered at the Children's Home for the first two years of our university life. ZM was the guy she knew who was in the same law school I was, and slowly she grew the idea that we should really know each other. 

       "No" was my first answer, my second answer as well as my third. But, she asked me often enough that I finally had an inkling of who was ZM. That vaguely chinese guy with big eyes in one of the lecture rows. To be sure, I asked, "Is he the guy that looks like kerokeropi?"

   Kerokeropi was a japanese cartoon character. A frog. She paused. Then laughed, "Yes. Yes, he does."

    That was it. Or, at least that's what I thought. But, Y told ZM that I thought he looked like kerokeropi. So, I became the girl that thought he looked like kerokeropi and he became the guy who looked like kerokeropi.

   Ever so often, she would ask if we spoke. Or met. Or said hello. The answer as always was no.

   It would always be no, I told her. As I could not fathom any reason for why we would speak or have to. Well, maybe at your wedding, I remember laughing.

     Y told me that she hoped we would meet, because ZM said he wanted an interesting girl for his girlfriend, and I was the most interesting girl she knew (haha). I remember telling her that wanting an interesting girl for a girlfriend is actually a very generic description - because don't we all fall in love with someone who interests us?

   And so it went, with nothing to connect us, but a whim or dogged fancy by Y. Y and I were ending our 2 year stint at the Children's Home. I had decided to go for exchange and so would be away for a year. I had picked a rather strange choice; I felt very strongly that I wanted to go to a place with a Civil Law System and definitely somewhere in Continental Europe. I chose Utrecht, in the end, because it was so whimsically beautiful from the pictures, and the Dutch spoke great English. It was such a random choice, that I had no idea who would choose to go there as well.

   A few months before we left, I realised that ZM had chosen to go there too.

   Unknownst to us, history was shifting beneath our feet.

"my heart rides at anchor"

"... and one man will single me out and will tell me what he has told no other person."

- Virginia Woolf, The Waves

toi et mot

      I know the feeling of being slowly disengaged from the world. It comes in waves, pangs. You feel so full of your own lack of strength, your own hurt, that you are unable to take a real interest in anything that is outside of you. It will be so easy to just close up one's self - maybe open again in the near brighter future, perhaps. But intuitively, we know that to give in, would be to lose.

    So, every day is a fight against being disengaged. Every day is a love letter to the world that may never write back.

Mint

   Mint is also the colour of my mum's hospital bracelet. 

Ng Ah Sio Bak Ku Teh

Ng Ah Sio Bak Ku Teh
208 Rangoon Road Singapore 218453
Opens 7 am to 10.30 pm (closed on Mondays)
Chinese
$10-15 per pax (includes drink)
Efficient & Traditional
Kick-ass soup

      Sunday was the first time we ate at Ng Ah Sio, although we have attempted to reach there a few times before. But, it's situated in a rather obscure place or some obscure turn with mysterious short cuts, because ZM always manages to miss the entrance and we end up in Thomson.

    After a week of constant take-outs, I wanted to eat food with warmth. Somehow, I always equate the warmth of chinese cooking with double-boiled soups and bak ku teh. There's always a slight bitterness in these soups, that over the years, become a heart-ache that I nourish. Like the naggings from your mother or grandmother.

   There's a chinese saying 【貌言华也，至言实也，苦言药也，甘言疾也】.  I feebly understand it to be - the hollow falsehoods are like flowers, the deep truths are like fruits. The bitter truths are actually medicine, while the sweet moving words can become illnesses.

  Coming to Ng Ah Sio reminds me of faint glimpses of my childhood - the kettle at the side to boil tea, the small bowls of rice.  The fried youtiao (fried dough stick) that is always soggy, but strangely addictive with the sweet sauce and chilli. The waiters re-filling up your bowls with more soup with such force that you feel it's going to scald you at any moment. But it doesn't. Some places just remind you of the origin of things.

   On the other hand, the menus are laminated, there are jazzy decorations on the wall, it even has its own website. Perhaps, no one wants to eat in a place that really looks like yesteryear - but I love the small brown ceramic teapots in the glass cabinet, and even the no nonsense serving staff who calculate the cost of your meal on the spot.

   I ask ZM why he always insists on bringing me here, even though the bak ku teh is good but not brilliant. It's the soup, he says. It's not just one layer. Multi-layered? He is busy with his meal, but I persist. The soup is multi-layered? No, not multi-layered. So what do you mean? He just wants to eat his meal. He turns to me. There's a flavour that stays. In some other soups, it's there at the start then it's gone. In this soup, it stays with you. It stays.

eating fire

     In the first week of February, I suffered from gastric flu and haven't quite recovered. I suspect it all boils down to stress really and a need to learn to let go. In the small breaks I have, I try to read; but then come up against my frustrating library system (non-existent). I have a glass cabinet full of books and two large wooden compartments under my bed filled with stacks and stacks of books. I can never find the books I want to read. 

   I decided to read "Eating Fire" by Margaret Atwood again; a book I've returned to again and again over the years. I bought it in Utrecht, in the first week of September 2008. I still remember that it was the first bookstore we came across, full of used books, I was exhilarated. The book was on the highest shelf and ZM had taken it down for me. That was the first day we met. 

   Eating Fire is one of the most accessible poetry collections I've ever come across, and the beauty of it is that it has stood the test of time (or approximately four plus years).  I don't profess to liking everything I read in this book, but every time I re-visit it - there will be the familiar landmarks showing no sign of wear and tear and new signposts asking you to linger longer. Those small turn of phrases that kill you - "your kiss no longer literature/ but fine print, a set of instructions". Re-reading an old favourite is always a good snapshot of your inner self - certain things may no longer have the same hold on you, but you never leave unaffected. 

  Here are some lovely bits from a poem I didn't use to like, "Their Attitudes Differ":

...

iii

You held out your hand

I took your fingerprints

You asked for love 

I gave you only descriptions 

Please die I said 

so I can write about it 

After all you are quite 

ordinary: 2 arms 2 legs

a head, a reasonable 

body, toes & fingers, a few 

eccentricities, a few honesties

but not too many, too many 

postponements & regrets but 

you'll adjust to it, meeting 

deadlines and other 

people, pretending to love

the wrong woman some of the

time, listening to your brain

shrink, your diaries

expanding as you grow older, 

growing older, of course you'll 

die but not yet, you'll outlive 

even my distortions of you 

... 

i

We are hard on each other 

and call it honesty,

choosing our jagged truths 

with care and aiming them across 

the neutral table. 

The things we say are

true; it is our crooked

aims, our choices

turn them criminal. 

ii

Of course your lies

are more amusing: 

you make them new each time. 

Your truths, painful and boring 

repeat themselves over & over 

perhaps because you own

so few of them.

iii

A truth should exist,

it should not be be used

like this. If I love you

is that a fact or a weapon? 

Let them eat cake!

Wedding gift from Rn 

    A "companionable" person is someone who (etymologically at least) is willing to share bread with you. "Companionable" is the adjective form of "companion", which ultimately derives from a combination of the Latin prefix "com-" meaning "with" or "together" and the noun "panis" meaning "bread, loaf or food". 

                                                                                              - Merriam Webster Dictionary  

    The first day, Rn and I became room-mates, she came back from lunch with a big pink box from Canele. She took out the cake and a fork. She passed me the fork and insisted I take a bite. "It's cake! Cake is meant to be shared". We became friends.

   Fourteen months later, when Rn first realised that we were not even going to be on the same floor in the new office building. She actually started tearing. I didn't know what to say at first. Surprised, then touched.

  Rn is someone who broke through my defences, because she's both vulnerable and feisty at the same time. She's warm, pure-hearted and passionate. She's rash, imprudent and quite a spoilt brat. But, she has always been there, next to me, day in and out, in our little room with the big view.

  Slowly, our periods will no longer be synchronised. We won't know where we are at a particular time in the building. We will only know that the other is not here.

  She doggedly asks after my mum, even when I keep mum. She always reminds me of the innumerable administrative things we have to do; and I'm the one who often catches her before she falls.

  The last day, when we are room-mates, is also the first time we went out alone. Far away, from the vicinity of our offices. Only group outings before; and then I got so busy with all my family stuff that it became almost impossible to coordinate. But this was planned a month ago; to celebrate her birthday. But, Rn is still Rn, more thoughtful and sensitive than most people will realise - worried that I won't have the time; etc etc etc. I told her, no, no, I am giving her this afternoon.

   We had brunch (she mocked me for eating so fast again) and I followed her shopping. I haven't shopped with a girlfriend in a long time; it was nice. It seemed like every five minutes, she would ask if I would like to get so and so for my mum, or father or family. At the end of it, when she drove me to the hospital, I fell asleep on the car ride.

  I don't know if she will ever see this. I am the more reticent one by far in the relationship. But, if companions share bread, then we are a special breed indeed. Only the best cakes, my dear Rn, only the best cakes.

go together

    Thank you for the outpouring of love. It was not entirely within my character to write about something so private, but I think I've reached a stage where I can be more open. To be able to write down everything that is so very important, to take strength from others and not always forge ahead alone. It is a strength in itself to learn how to receive; perhaps a much harder strength than just giving. We must learn to let someone carry our burdens in times of need; to not fence ourselves from the world - for we arrive alone, we depart alone, and it is in the times in between, that we find our connections.