"April is the cruelest month"

  T.S Eliot famously wrote that "April is the cruelest month" - as a young student, one is automatically taught to recognise the irony of it - for isn't April the beginning of spring, all that is good and beautiful? Representing hope or even I dare say the buds of love?

  But, I know now why April is the cruelest month. Just as, December is my cruelest month. It is when you are meant to be happy but cannot be - that happiness becomes cruelty.

  I have not written in a while, because I have always promised myself this - if I write, I must be honest. And, the month has been too quietly painful, that all I could do was tell myself "do not feel".

  And so, my birthday passed.

  There was no miracles. A flock of birds did not arrive at my windowsill and burst into song. The dead did not come back alive. I had known this since I was twenty - there is no miracle in growing older. You find your own beauty and claim them as your own miracles.

  Maybe the miracle lies in never ceasing to believe that life is worth living - even if that belief has to defy death itself.

  But, still some part of me, found that little bit of drive left to write, and so I shall share this with you, with the hope that slowly one finds a way to transfigure pain:

 

Photography Credits: Kelvin Koh (Lightedpixels) 

Just a while ago, at the ridiculously busy junction around work, where you have to cross two streets just to get to the other side of the road, I watched an old man and old lady cross the road. The old lady's back was hunched and she was leaning completely on her husband for support. The old man, supporting her, walked calmly in a straight line. They made their own slow rhythm across the road - neither heeding the crowd bypassing them or the blinkering green man.  

I laughed then, because they were so clearly ahead of us. Farther than we would ever be. If growing older was like that, then time please wait for me.

Bangkok (Day 10) - The Ride Home

"After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by trains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest; I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out of sight."

- Mark Twain, My Watch: An Instructive Little Tale

     After the plane landed, I walked with my backpack and oversized carry on green plastic bag full of the knick knacks I could not fit into my suit case. I decided to head to the ladies before I was outnumbered by the baggage I had to physically carry.

   There were three cubicles. One for the handicapped, one was being repaired and the middle one had a children cubicle attached. I went into the middle one and for a moment I was bewildered by the technological advances in the washroom. It reminded me of how long ago, in Japan, I had problems figuring out how to make the toilet bowl do one specific thing: flush.

   A wave of nostalgic washed over me. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry that of all things, it was a toilet bowl that triggered yet again a strong longing to visit Japan. It was not only that I enjoyed being in Japan most of all, but now it was the one place I could not go. I had promised ZM that I would not visit Japan till we bore all our children. In a moment of weakness, ZM said we could fly to Tokyo because I was so sad. But, I couldn't in the end bring him to Japan when I saw how neurotic he was over the radiation.

  I didn't know how or when, but now the longing for Japan coalesced with the longing for my mother. Both places so out of reach - one spanning oceans and time, the other set adrift in the space of infinity.

  Oh, many people have given me an escape clause - tried to rationalise how going to Japan will be no more harmful than say (insert parallel universe Japan example). But, escaping was never the point - it was always about not escaping. About respecting people's inner fears about the great unknown and figuring out the best way to live, despite all the potential fallouts and harms along the way. It is not yet being a mother, but trying one's best to figure out how to love something or someone I could not yet comprehend.

   ZM and I always laughed that we were couples out of time - that we lived in two different time zones. I taking the earlier flight booked by my company, and he taking the later cheaper flight an hour behind. Silently, I walked past the duty free shops and headed to the arrival counter where nothing makes you feel more like a local than enjoying benefits that foreigners do not.

   I was back. Back from the ten days in Bangkok - the last place my family visited together, a place honestly I would not have probably gone back so soon if not for work. I saw you everywhere, as if we were a film, and it was still playing in a theatre quietly as the world moved on. I imagined you greeting me as I stepped out of the gates back to Singapore, or one of those family members tip-toeing at the glass ledge and scrutinising the people at the luggage belt.

   I read many stories while I was in Bangkok. One of them had an ending where the main character anticipated for a day when a scar stopped hurting anymore - it would just be a reminder of what it was, but it would no longer hurt. I thought grief would be like that, but it isn't. It is the lack of a scar that is my grief- the lack of anything to latch on or to grapple with. That lack of... anything.

   This middle-aged lady asks each person at the taxi stand two questions. "How many people are you travelling with?" and "Chrysler or taxi?" I am bemused. I wonder if there are other countries in this world where you are asked if you would like a Chrysler or a taxi.

  She points me to number 13 and I roll my over-sized luggage over. We fit everything into the boot. The radio plays the kind of chinese songs that always makes my heart hurt. I tell him our address and fall back into the seat. As the roads and flowers roll by, I realised I am glad to be home. 

#2: that you

   Today, surprisingly, was a day better than most. And yet, more than most days, I felt adrift. I've learned acutely again and again that it is on the happiest days I miss you most.

 My favourite moment in Avengers was when Hulk (finally) transforms and he says his secret is that he was always angry. I felt I knew him in that moment.

  When I was younger, I could almost always cry on cue. It's not that I could cry when I wanted to, but I think I was always irresistibly moved by the world.

   Even now, when I am sad, it is not that I am saddened by something. The opposite is true - I have always been restraining not to be sad.

   But, this is my real secret, I am happy and sad because of you. Neither of the two can live apart.
   

#1: poetic possibilities

    

     Earlier this week, I bought a set of magnetic words for my office cabinets. I thought it would be fun and useful, since I don't get to write as often as I would like anymore. 

    Whenever I can, I would clear up my table and take out the small metallic box. I would look at the words and imagine, just for a moment, of the poetic possibilities of life. 

  

    Limitations are part of life. This small metallic box only contain so many words - and yet, I have not lived through all their variations. It dawned on me how we often stop trying to live out the many beautiful facets of our lives because we already assume our constraints bind us - when perhaps they are merely the sieve to bring out what is pure and intense inside of us. 

   We are our own poems. 

the envy on a train

the envy on a train

the casual way
the young girl
leaned on her mother
for support.

A Swedish Proverb / A Terrible Wish

      When the internet browser does not shut down properly, it will ask you when you re-open it - would you like to "restore" everything again to before it crashed? Yes, please. I would like my own Groundhog Day - I even know which day I would choose, and I could just live it again and again and again, without fatigue. 

       Maybe you will tell me - that is hardly the point of life. It isn't, I agree. Imagine knowing you could be mean to someone and it would only matter for a few hours and everything is forgotten again. A fact that was not supposed to exist, except it does, in your memory. You will grow old while everyone stays the same. Or maybe more precisely, they are unable to move on, stuck in this parody of life with you. 

     But this is my terrible wish. My beautiful dreamt of Groundhog Day. Where you were so happy. Where we were so happy. It would appear to be such an ordinary day to anyone else really --- but it had all the people I love, being happy. Where I could tell you I love you, and hear it back. 

       It would be like having my favourite song on repeat. 

      And, I know, I know, that there will be a point, when the melody has bred into my soul, the rhythm into my bones, the words into my words, and I will tell the Groundhog, "Thank you, but no more please." 

        Maybe, you will even ask me - but what if Groundhog Day replays the worst day of your life - every single day? Well, what if I tell you that on some days that's what it already feels like? 

Yellow River Amnesia

      (i)

   I can only see you in my dreams. And then, only rarely. Or is it because our best adventures are not meant to be remembered? For perhaps such great feelings will kill all our abilities to lead a life of the every day - leave us feeling like all the light in the world is a pale shadow for what we have lived in inside. 

  When I meet you, I forget the world I live in. In the times I remember, you are smiling. I see you smile and the world is alright again. In one moment, I am holding a camera. You hold your smile. I take the picture. I don't get to see the shot. I open my eyes and I see my room again. I don't know if I am tearing because I am happy or sad. 

  

   (ii) 

  I imagine an Old Lady with the kindest of smiles welcoming passers-by to her small shop by the river for a cup of tea. The Greeks call her the Lady of Lethe, we Chinese call her Meng Po. But, those aren't likely to be her real name - because who can remember? 

   "You will feel happier after you drink this," She will say and place the liquid you most desire in your cupped hands. 

   (iii) 

    In one particularly beautiful moment, I see you and I get to hug you --- to hug you. Every part of my senses tells me that what I feel is real. And then I remember, I remember what I have been missing, what this hug means, and I open my eyes.

   I close it again. 

   But there is no return when you remember. 

  (iv)

    I will smile back at Old Lady Meng Po and thank her, but then I will tell her - I know the meaning of your name, so I cannot drink this. 

    Maybe she will look at me with the pity that still resides in her, "That is not wise, my child." 

   ... I know.

   And maybe she will give me paper and pen so I shall be able to leave my promise to those already passed and to those that will come after me. 

    If forgetfulness is a kind of happiness, forgive me for being sad. And, every time I open my eyes, it is a promise to die ten thousand more times, just to see you again. 

   

we will meet at rainbow's end

      The most common questions I get are "How are you?" and "Are you ok?". I often say that I am fine, I am ok, I am better - even if I don't know if that is true. I can't say "No" to you, not because I don't want to be honest, but because I don't want you to feel that you have to make me feel better. I think Nigella Lawson puts it perfectly when she reportedly said, "I am not against pity, but I have no desire to be tragic" in the face of criticism that her book won an award because her husband was dying of cancer. 

      I'm very grateful to all the love and concern I received, and I don't want people to think that I don't like being asked if I'm ok or how I am (because it is nice to be asked every now and then) - but I think a truth is that when someone has lost something of great irretrievable value, that is a personal question she or he has to dive into and answer. Weighed in by the surrounding love and concern, there is an equally felt heavy prayer for the person to be "ok and happy" again - but those are perhaps separate concepts. 

    I have felt happiness, or some form of joy, even in times of great sorrow. Strange bedmates as they seem, they can exist together. But this question of "ok" may be a false question - because how can I ever be ok about losing someone I love more than life itself? There is no "ok" to this. 

   What is sought is perhaps balance. I tell D that I feel what I'm trying to do is to go through the bedrock of pain inside of me, layer by layer by layer. In a way, it is an adventure, as I willingly go towards the part that will hurt me, the parts that may always hurt, and find a way to look them in the eye. For a while, I thought I should hold onto this pain forever, because this pain linked me to her. But, now I see that that's a foolish pipe dream, because why should I hold onto her with pain? When she has shown me all the colours of the rainbow? 

    And so, I face pain in the only way I know how - which is to write. I can only hope that I can show you what she was and is, and you will be able to see that when all the pain is stripped away, she is the beauty that endures. 

    

Consolidation

                                                                 Etsy: Illustrative Quotations


        It's been about seven months since I've started writing in this place and it's nice to see how much I've grown to love it. As the entries grow, I've decided to categorise some of the entries for ease of reference later:

a) Book
b) Europe
c) Food
d) Hoarder
e) Home & Decor
f) Quotations
g) Taiwan
h) Theatre
i) writings
j) Z & C
k) 我和她

    I'm not really sure how to make the tags appear on the blog (it-idiot) so I'll probably do consolidated entries every now and then. Finally, thank you for actually reading this space of mine. From the number of page views and geography of readers, it's more than likely we have never met in real life. But that's what I love the most about the written word - you write it and let it go. 

Orpheus

 

    (i)


     This used to be a field. A pure field. Only one line of mud peeking through - uncovered by years and years of feet over feet over feet.

     We couldn't walk on the field when it was wet. Not without pain at least to the white Bata shoes.

     "You are going to have to scrub that," Mum said as we ran through the wet squishy mud, knowing already that she was the one who would scrub us clean.

       Or on those sunny days, Mum would hold her umbrella and trudge forth and we would follow like ducklings behind. Looking at her back.

       Or us running forward and looking back at her. Always looking back.

      Mum and I sat down now on this field that has become a something else. The senior citizens practising qi gong, the kids running around on their little bikes and the maids sitting around with the dogs coiled around their ankles.

     "I miss the field," I said sitting here on the park bench. The ever sedentary spectator.

     "Do you remember how we used to trudge through the field?" I laughed as Mum watched Dad exercise on one of those strange yellow plastic bars.

     "You were so small," She said then laughed. "Too lazy to walk too."

    "I followed you everywhere," I protested.

     And I traced the imaginary mud line out for her. It was covered by running track material and wood now. But there it was --- one line under our feet.

(ii)

     Dad was a Virgo. To others less superstitious, this would mean nothing. But, to Dad, being Virgo was his birthright to being obsessively organised. We were pieces in his life that he had to organise in order for his world to make sense.

    "We have to organise Mum's cards," Dad said and passed me her bag and many card holders.

     Mum never unpacked her cards. "Throw Away Nothing" seemed to be her philosophy as compared to Dad's "Keep Nothing". Mum was a member of an astonishingly high number of places.

    There was only one name card through them all. Mine. I didn't even work there anymore, but that was the only namecard I had given her. It lay there among all the membership cards. One point in all her other lives.

(iii)

      Finally, Orpheus reached the depths of the Underworld. He bowed before the God and Goddess of the Underworld, Hades and Persephone. He played his lyre and sang with such exquisite sadness that Hades agreed to let Orpheus' recently deceased wife, Eurydice, return to Earth.

    "Your wife will follow you back up to Earth. There is only one condition," Hades solemnly intoned, "You must never look back until both of you reach above ground or she will return to the depths of the Underworld. Henceforth, the only time you will return to the Underworld is upon your death."

    Orpheus nervously nodded. Hades commanded him to turn around immediately and to return to Earth. Orpheus turned and began returning upwards.

    Orpheus, a man born of sound and music, heard nothing as he made his way up.

     "Are you there, Eurydice?" Orpheus cried out in desperate pain.

     There was nothing.

     At the steps of light, Orpheus stood, paralysed. When he left the Underworld, it would be forever. "Give me a sign, my love," Orpheus begged.

     There was nothing.

     He could not move forward.

     "If I cannot have you, can I at least see you for one last time?" Orpheus cried.

      He looked back.


(iv)

      I stood before my Mum's chair. I bent forward and circled my arms around the air.

      "You are hugging me too tightly," Mum chided.

      "It's the only way I know how," I confessed.

       She pointed at her feet, "My line ends here."

       She smiled at my feet, the tips of our toes touching, "Go. Don't look back."

Love Whisperings (For M)

    Love Whisperings

    They say pain is an untold language,
    only to be borne,
    like a chip on your shoulder
    embedded in the blood.
    Born out of our bond,
    it does not dissolve
    in well-meaning questions or concerned glances.
    It smells benignly,
    and sits comfortably in its own forcefield
    -- it is all gravity here.
    It keeps me awake
    as I try to make sense of the stars.
    You are my clarity,  the beginning
    of my soul.
    You hold all our worlds together,
    your laughter is the sound of all that is right
    in this world.