Life’s in the parking lots; everybody leaves something behind and nobody cares about shadows because nobody’s a ghost.
-Tony Tost, Invisible Bride
It has been a day of sorts, ending (but not quite) with the longing for the night to be as long as the road ahead. Be careful of what you wish for; travelling down empty stretches of roads can be therapeutic, with the invariability of streetlamps patterned rows after rows lending a sense of stability, yet it comes with the pinch of a hefty forty-two dollars cab ride.
A somewhat senile taxi driver bundled in his cap and windbreaker is making a living, living a chance, by operating late night rounds despite his number/age. It is easy to get impatient with his incessant questioning, roundabout routes and the jumping cab meter, but here is a man who believes that each route deserves a try, a chance and that these two meters below my block makes a difference, hop on, because the night is dangerous. He remembers to say good night, asks me to cherish life. I laughed, thinking what is ‘life’, what is ‘cherish’ and responded: Uncle, you’ve eaten more salt than I’ve eaten rice.
Happy Birthday, Ah Boy.
I do cherish, I believe birthdays have to be happy-as-can-be affairs, its lifting melody rising above the up-tempo and flurried clapping of a birthday song beat. On hindsight, perhaps this year I shall stop crying on my birthday and break this habit (it is safer and less problematic to term it as such) that shrouds and fits the psyche so contently.
The other day, someone asked me if I think I’m “skating on thin ice”, and I was immediately lost for an answer. To have a single correct answer in the world’s multiplicity of questions can be considered fatuous, but mainly I did not know where first to look at - the infinite sky above, the loving hands holding mine, areas behind me that I’ve left behind, the vast magnitude of ice ahead, even the (cracking) ice beneath my skates, distanced dry-land if there is any, or inside of me. I wanted to flip a coin, the coin-flipping decision-making method (flip it as many times until you get the side you know you want) taught by Guan and Tiong, but it would not work when there are too many options, or when my hands are frozen.
I am whipped, yet this tiredness embodies a quintessential ‘unbreakability’ for I know I cannot get away, not at this time. This lethargy is a perpetual reminder that I will not wake up the next morning in a hammock on an island where deadlines are banned and assignments non-existent. Or in a country cottage’s rocking chair, to a tea-and-scones breakfast. I cook up little fantasies with gusto, despite the awareness of a peculiar restraint, pinching, that reality is spinning even as I dream. Mind that I don’t fall asleep at my keyboardddddd
It is fine to indulge in occasional melancholy, for far gone are the nights of careless spending on money and time. How we used to game and walk about aimlessly. Frivolously carefree, the trouble from missing the last train hops me and us onto a cab after midnight. Always leaning on the left window, planes of thoughts sailing by, savoring the luxury of endless empty roads and the imagined sensation of eating air whipping by (even in an air-conditioned contained space). All these, along with the ache and fear of going home because the night has ended too soon. To twist the key to a darkened and hollowed living room, with relief I greet the avoidance of nasty confrontations tucked in bed.
A friend told me once: when she cannot sleep at night, she would walk to the window and look downstairs, searching for someone, anyone she knows.
We have all grown up, this I realize as I surveyed dimly-lit faces around a dingy street spot. An Aladdin rug, friendly neighborhood insects, smoke mists- and exploring the methods of heart-felt conversation. Invoking the unsaid, reading thought-bubbles; these two jelled together like legs tangled under a blanket. Our conversation is a break from solitude, yet also a revisioning of solitude. When it is time to go, it is still your own thoughts pounding in your head.
From rebelling without a cause to fighting for/against something to accepting and surviving the hard facts, is that growing up or growing small. Tell me about faith, chance, change- loose terms yet important enough for holding on tight to.
This morning, in attempting to hail a cab, my arm flopping pathetically in lack of practiced assertion, I stood helpless by the roadside as minutes ticked by, watching metal bodies speed by. Consumed by the velocity of these vehicles and array of red-lit signs, I had the urge to pick up my phone and call someone. A redundant move, on second thoughts.
When I’m alone, massive streams of traffic and people can kick off an impulse in me to squat and cry, due to this compelling sense of loss. (I am reminded of the night at Shilin Night Market.) But as everything and everybody keeps moving, I too, try not to think about stopping. I just keep walking, badly scared but still madly trusting in something.
-Tony Tost, Invisible Bride
It has been a day of sorts, ending (but not quite) with the longing for the night to be as long as the road ahead. Be careful of what you wish for; travelling down empty stretches of roads can be therapeutic, with the invariability of streetlamps patterned rows after rows lending a sense of stability, yet it comes with the pinch of a hefty forty-two dollars cab ride.
A somewhat senile taxi driver bundled in his cap and windbreaker is making a living, living a chance, by operating late night rounds despite his number/age. It is easy to get impatient with his incessant questioning, roundabout routes and the jumping cab meter, but here is a man who believes that each route deserves a try, a chance and that these two meters below my block makes a difference, hop on, because the night is dangerous. He remembers to say good night, asks me to cherish life. I laughed, thinking what is ‘life’, what is ‘cherish’ and responded: Uncle, you’ve eaten more salt than I’ve eaten rice.
Happy Birthday, Ah Boy.
I do cherish, I believe birthdays have to be happy-as-can-be affairs, its lifting melody rising above the up-tempo and flurried clapping of a birthday song beat. On hindsight, perhaps this year I shall stop crying on my birthday and break this habit (it is safer and less problematic to term it as such) that shrouds and fits the psyche so contently.
The other day, someone asked me if I think I’m “skating on thin ice”, and I was immediately lost for an answer. To have a single correct answer in the world’s multiplicity of questions can be considered fatuous, but mainly I did not know where first to look at - the infinite sky above, the loving hands holding mine, areas behind me that I’ve left behind, the vast magnitude of ice ahead, even the (cracking) ice beneath my skates, distanced dry-land if there is any, or inside of me. I wanted to flip a coin, the coin-flipping decision-making method (flip it as many times until you get the side you know you want) taught by Guan and Tiong, but it would not work when there are too many options, or when my hands are frozen.
I am whipped, yet this tiredness embodies a quintessential ‘unbreakability’ for I know I cannot get away, not at this time. This lethargy is a perpetual reminder that I will not wake up the next morning in a hammock on an island where deadlines are banned and assignments non-existent. Or in a country cottage’s rocking chair, to a tea-and-scones breakfast. I cook up little fantasies with gusto, despite the awareness of a peculiar restraint, pinching, that reality is spinning even as I dream. Mind that I don’t fall asleep at my keyboardddddd
It is fine to indulge in occasional melancholy, for far gone are the nights of careless spending on money and time. How we used to game and walk about aimlessly. Frivolously carefree, the trouble from missing the last train hops me and us onto a cab after midnight. Always leaning on the left window, planes of thoughts sailing by, savoring the luxury of endless empty roads and the imagined sensation of eating air whipping by (even in an air-conditioned contained space). All these, along with the ache and fear of going home because the night has ended too soon. To twist the key to a darkened and hollowed living room, with relief I greet the avoidance of nasty confrontations tucked in bed.
A friend told me once: when she cannot sleep at night, she would walk to the window and look downstairs, searching for someone, anyone she knows.
We have all grown up, this I realize as I surveyed dimly-lit faces around a dingy street spot. An Aladdin rug, friendly neighborhood insects, smoke mists- and exploring the methods of heart-felt conversation. Invoking the unsaid, reading thought-bubbles; these two jelled together like legs tangled under a blanket. Our conversation is a break from solitude, yet also a revisioning of solitude. When it is time to go, it is still your own thoughts pounding in your head.
From rebelling without a cause to fighting for/against something to accepting and surviving the hard facts, is that growing up or growing small. Tell me about faith, chance, change- loose terms yet important enough for holding on tight to.
This morning, in attempting to hail a cab, my arm flopping pathetically in lack of practiced assertion, I stood helpless by the roadside as minutes ticked by, watching metal bodies speed by. Consumed by the velocity of these vehicles and array of red-lit signs, I had the urge to pick up my phone and call someone. A redundant move, on second thoughts.
When I’m alone, massive streams of traffic and people can kick off an impulse in me to squat and cry, due to this compelling sense of loss. (I am reminded of the night at Shilin Night Market.) But as everything and everybody keeps moving, I too, try not to think about stopping. I just keep walking, badly scared but still madly trusting in something.
Photographed by: Marcus Palmqvist
2 comments:
mk, you write beautifully, so beautifully. i read this and i want you to be as happy as happy can be.
zq, i'm trying everyday:) it was 'lifting' talking to you this afternoon, may things somehow work out for all of us!
Post a Comment