I'm due for my next 'getaway' soon. I was to have made concrete plans to go away for a long-ish weekend to my hometown to find myself again. Ok, maybe not 'find', but 'reclaim' my sense of self. To reclaim a social life as well, i suppose.
It hasn't been done, the 'concrete plans'. Partly because i kinda forgot, partly because the hubby isn't too keen on my going away again. And it does present a bit of a dilemma - it may not be too fair on him that i need to be away for 2 or three nights just so i can have a chat with friends. Also, going back means having to stay with the folks, and, no matter how much you love them, you'll always feel that sense of teenage rebellion when you're there alone, i.e. without the life partner who mitigates all your 'growing-up baggage' so well. Ok, maybe not you. Maybe not everyone, but i do. Plus, since mum uses my old room now, it does put a bit of an imposition on them.
But nothing that i can't handle. Their constant need to feed me, though, is another matter entirely. Lots of fried stuff, lots of afternoon snacks, tea, kuih, coconut milk-drenched local desserts... i am blaming my current large tummy partly on that. Partly, coz i do need to be fair - it's also due to the bloating (not so much to the erratic binging, of course not!). Uh-huh.
I've started on the negative again, haven't i? Why, o why can i not focus on the positive? Sigh.. Maybe i'll try that for my next entry - thoughts on visit re-written. Right.
I have been away for a while. I have lived away for close to five years. In those five years, the visits have been infrequent and short. The sights viewed limited and predictable.
This time around, i explore a bit more of the island-state i once called home. This time around, i see things that bring me back to reality, and crack the illusion of rose-tinted memories.
I love coming back here. Old friends can only be old friends of youth. There is nothing quite like the feeling of seeing people you don't see often, some of whom you have not seen in years and years. Sometimes the people you meet again are newer versions of themselves. Sometimes they are the same. Some are happy, some not, but always, they'll bring something to the table, to the encounter, and sometimes you realise it's not only you that have been living in your coccoon. Some coccoons are smaller than others. Some are broader, populated by other people, but static and unchanging circumstance.
.. to be continued
Wikipedia: In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight.
'Unexpected' it is. Ironic that i want and not want the same thing from the same person, but at different times and in different contexts. I want to not be 'smothered', i want to not feel like i'm being watched all the time, like tabs are being kept on me and my every movement, like i don't have a moment's peace, that i am not alone.
And yet i want his thougts to be on me all day. I want a text message in the morning not in reply to mine, but an own initiative of his. I want to be made to feel like my feelings are being taken into account. That i not be snubbed in an email conversation by him having it in a language i do not understand. I want to know that i matter more than the looming deadline or the blooming client.
How long a separation is needed for that to happen?
Tell me your stories. I want to hear them. So you lose your sense of mystery and i lose my foolish thoughts. Perhaps it works the other way around as well. I tell you my stories, and i get off your pedestal. I think that's how it works.
This is a good idea.
Old friends. The kind that you grew up with. The kind that you shared your life with, when you were young. They leave an indelible mark on your life. Maybe even on your soul.
What do you do when an old friend comes back into your life? You embrace them, and marvel at how life has changed them. And you. Old friends make you nostalgic... for old times, even for the old you. The old you of your youth. How much have you changed? How much is that change good? Or bad? The ideals that you had in youth - did you live up to them? Are you now, inside, who you thought you'd be? Or have you become a sell-out? A sell-out to yourself, to your youth?
The body aches. Two days of painting has come and gone. Two full days of .. wiping walls, moving furniture, moving contents of furniture, getting paint spattered on hands and arms, moving furniture back, moving contents of furniture back...
Ok, you get the idea.
The actual act of painting itself was quite fun. It's yet another form of immediate gratification, that is so pleasing to our psychie, i guess. Rolling paint on a wall, seeing the new colour eventually covering the original colour on the wall.. Perhaps a sense of accomplishment was derived. It's not the same as cleaning - cleaning only restores things to a state of cleanliness, which, for some reason, escapes some people. Painting a room a different colour makes a dramatic statement. Well, dramatic if the colours are.
Yesterday we changed a dark blue and orange room into a sky-blue and orange room. We didn't touch the orange, but the difference is stark. It took on a cool hue. Cool blue and warm orange. A bit of a mis-match, perhaps. But it could be said that we ourselves are one. It looks a bit off, but you could live with it. We will.
We changed another room from a bland off-white to a warm yellow. The warmth is palpable. Interesting what a change of colour can do. It remains to be seen if it has any effect on work and the processes of work..
Tiredness takes over. I admit defeat and make my way to the bed...
Moods, they're so unpredictable, aren't they? It's not like you want to get into one - something triggers it and wham!, you're there. Whether you like it or not.
So what was the trigger this time? I can't say, really. The mood is too general to pinpoint - a general discontent. With life, with people, with myself.
A surefire sign of this mood is when i retreat to Sarah McLachlan's Building a Mystery. That should tell the world what kind of mood i am in. Though, i'm not sure if one person in particular would have an inkling.
Moods, the tried and tested route to miserable times. When no retreat is possible. When space is unavailable. When shared spaces seem too cramped. When the world seems too small yet too large and scattered at the same time.
January has always had special meaning for me – it was the start of the new school year, and believe it or not, I actually looked forward to school. Well, minus the first couple of days of kindergarten and primary school, but which kid didn’t get separation anxiety, right?
I was saying, special significance. New school year, sometimes new school - you know, transition from primary to secondary to JC. The uni starts mid-year, so it wasn’t so much a January thing. Though January would still be the start of the new school term, and new modules meant you did see new lecturers and new subjects and new people.
And though it seems as if my life revolved around school a lot, which I’m not denying, I think what made that so enjoyable was the friends. I’d hang out with friends a lot. And January meant that I could go hang out with them again, after the December break. School breaks were spent mostly at home, when I was younger. My parents were the sort who thought fraternising with friends during the hols wasn’t such a good idea. That’s another story.
So back to January – it was about a new beginning. New year, new things to learn, new people to meet. And it was also my birthday. I was born very early in the year. And the new school year sometimes fell on my birthday. I didn’t mind. I wanted to go to school. Not that they’d throw parties or anything. It wasn’t that sort of school. Or people. I went to a public school, so no special anything – you just went to school on time, brought the requisite books and workbooks, and sat quietly to listen. At recess, you’d play with your friends, grab a bit to eat, then go back to classes. At the end of the day, the wait at the bus stop was actually quite a treat.
Ah, bus stops. The place where my teenage life revolved around. In my mind, it isn’t as pathetic as it must sound to you, the reader. Though, if you’d been to my school, or the school next door, you’d probably know what I mean.
This was secondary school, of course. I mostly walked to and from the primary school I attended. But secondary school.. ah.. that was a different ball game altogether. I was a bit older, a bit more independent, a bit more grown-up. It was a huge chunk of my teenage years – years thirteen through sixteen. The years when lifelong friendships are made, when shared experiences mean you’ll always be able to understand the friend you spend most of your waking life with, the years that still cling to your memory as maybe the best years of your youth.
I have gone from 'so busy, can't stop to breathe' to 'hey, how come nobody's updating their bloody statuses on facebook so i can comment?!'
Yup, it's gone that far. Writing this now, panic slowly rises. Deadlines loom, deliverables are owed. Then why, o why can i not concentrate?
It doesn't help that i'm on an eating binge of proportions hitherto unknown. Lunch meal was light - a rice noodle fish soup. Nothing, really. Then it started going downwards - because that was a 'healthy' option, the brain thinks its entitled to more. What else did i have? A kiwi. Green tea and kuih koci. A whole pesto ciabatta. Some pickled mango and nutmeg which had been in the fridge for months and months. I stopped at the 3-in-1 coffee, simply because i know it wouldn't be good. But starbucks is across the (tiny) street, with several flights of stairs separating us. And stairs are no friends of mine.
o why can't i find the wonder food that would satiate the soul? Or at least the tummy.
Something happened today to remind me just how much this city irks me.
Twenty minutes in the sun, me in my usual black, waiting for a cab. Some do come and go, but others from across the road snatch available ones away, while I simmer away.
One finally stops. I get in, grateful for the semi-cool air-conditioning. My arse touches the seat for barely 2 seconds, and the scream "Pegi mana? Pegi mana?". Cooly, I say "Bangsar Baru". And the retort? Another ear-shattering scream of "Tak boleh! Tak boleh! Saya mau balik!"
And i go "Can you not scream at me?", of course, with raised voice. And what do I get? A very forthcoming "C*** B**!"
So what do I do? Why, i scream it back, of course.
Now, let me enumerate the many factors that caused me to lose my cool. Firstly, literally, my cool was lost as there was no proper shelter to wait for the cab. No pretty trees to provide cooling shade. Typical of KL in general, this first point.
Secondly, some cab drivers - and i say some, though i manage to get most of the kind - seem to think they are doing us a favour by picking us up. Nevermind that cash exchanges hands, and by definition, they are performing the service.
Thirdly, cabs in the suburbs of KL seem to suffer from a condition called 'no servicing-no cleaning-jutting cushion springs-whacked out car suspension-ities'. You can imagine the comfort the ride provides, and the pure, unadulterated joy the service brings.
Lovely.
