I woke up in the morning, hit by one powerful realization. Whether it was timely (it has been exactly a month since I returned) and I am due to move on with my life, or it was simply a serendipitous coincidence - I don't know. But for once, after a while of drowning in the stupor of grief and resentment - I feel like my vision is clear and my enthusiasm to live has sprung to life again.
A couple of days ago, I was scheduled to be in KL reuniting with my friends and catching up over our times shared together. But I didn't make it then. For some reason, I believe my absence was meant to be. I don't think I was ready to build the bridge connecting my old self - the one my friends knew so well - with who I've become today. The truth is, I wasn't sure if I am ready to plunge into the new life yet, one with the currents so strong it might wipe away the core of my being.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Unnecessary disappointment
What is better to fill a holiday than Andrew Bird and Louisa May
Alcott? Andrew Bird's raw voice is intoxicating it lifts you up into an
altogether different universe, while the story of Jo and her sisters are
refreshing enough it keeps you grounded in the reality of life.
There is little about the life of unemployment to be recorded nowadays. Apart from the usual reading, writing and pondering, I do nothing else to qualify my stories worth writing about. I wanted to write about the past, but the cheerful thought of them is tarnished with the grim prospect of my life at present - so I chose to preserve them where they belong. When I'm in a better state of mind, I'll revisit them again.
As for the future, although they warrant the most sparkling enthusiasm - I am reminded to be careful of unnecesary disappointment. The application is nearly complete, and I've begun to read and write for the proposal. However, since my life at the moment seems to move at a rather slow and disconnected pace - believing in possibilities is proving to be difficult.
There is little about the life of unemployment to be recorded nowadays. Apart from the usual reading, writing and pondering, I do nothing else to qualify my stories worth writing about. I wanted to write about the past, but the cheerful thought of them is tarnished with the grim prospect of my life at present - so I chose to preserve them where they belong. When I'm in a better state of mind, I'll revisit them again.
As for the future, although they warrant the most sparkling enthusiasm - I am reminded to be careful of unnecesary disappointment. The application is nearly complete, and I've begun to read and write for the proposal. However, since my life at the moment seems to move at a rather slow and disconnected pace - believing in possibilities is proving to be difficult.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Spicy curry and heart-stabbing smile
Sometimes I could taste memories. The frothy cappuccino and our hearty laughs. The salty sea and the trickle of our sweats mingled together. The spicy curry and a heart-stabbing smile. The refreshing mints and the sound of the beautiful song. I swear sometimes I could taste memories.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A vagrant's friend
My head was lolling to the music when he came, I was partly drowsy
with sleepiness - battered from the 10-hour journey from Down Under, and
partly anxious at the thought of seeing him after all these while. But
when I faintly heard my name and I turned around to see his face
breaking into a big wide grin - I felt light as a feather.
Friendship is a strange thing, I must concur. It grew from the least expected, and sometimes against the continuum of space and time. People always say the best of friends grew out of thick and thin, for better or for worse. But sometimes magical moments sprouted out of the driest and the barest of all lands. Sometimes an utterly honest manifestation of what a soul is capable of can only be seen in one spontaneous second - unplanned, and uncharted.
I am a wanderer, a gift of friendship is something I don't have at my continuous disposal. A floating and an aimless vagrant, I hold on to the memories of beautiful moments like a tramp hogging bare shillings on the floor. Like that one perfect morning in the terminal, they're hard to come by.
Friendship is a strange thing, I must concur. It grew from the least expected, and sometimes against the continuum of space and time. People always say the best of friends grew out of thick and thin, for better or for worse. But sometimes magical moments sprouted out of the driest and the barest of all lands. Sometimes an utterly honest manifestation of what a soul is capable of can only be seen in one spontaneous second - unplanned, and uncharted.
I am a wanderer, a gift of friendship is something I don't have at my continuous disposal. A floating and an aimless vagrant, I hold on to the memories of beautiful moments like a tramp hogging bare shillings on the floor. Like that one perfect morning in the terminal, they're hard to come by.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Re-acquaintance with home
There is a strange associated lethargy when I walked through town yesterday. It was the first time I stepped into the shopping complex since my return, and as usual the complex is packed with young people. Most of them just hanging about in groups.
It's been more than ten years since we moved to Kelantan, and somehow throughout all these years I'm yet to fall in love with the state. I've never really had the time to get acquainted with the city. I spent most of my teenage years living in boarding school, and then I went off to college. Until now, I've fallen in love with many cities and make them my home, but somehow Kota Bharu never made the cut.
In bleak comparison to Randwick, let alone Sydney - the sight of litters, roadkills, and lousy drivers are growing to irritate my presence about the town. Daily survival is becoming a trial nowadays. I woke up full of hope one morning and determined to start the new chapter of my life with enthusiasm and productivity, only to find my optimism diminishing to bare minimum at the end of the day. At night I dream of my life in Down Under, and sometimes the thought of what was once mine made me clench with bitterness and despair.
It's been more than ten years since we moved to Kelantan, and somehow throughout all these years I'm yet to fall in love with the state. I've never really had the time to get acquainted with the city. I spent most of my teenage years living in boarding school, and then I went off to college. Until now, I've fallen in love with many cities and make them my home, but somehow Kota Bharu never made the cut.
In bleak comparison to Randwick, let alone Sydney - the sight of litters, roadkills, and lousy drivers are growing to irritate my presence about the town. Daily survival is becoming a trial nowadays. I woke up full of hope one morning and determined to start the new chapter of my life with enthusiasm and productivity, only to find my optimism diminishing to bare minimum at the end of the day. At night I dream of my life in Down Under, and sometimes the thought of what was once mine made me clench with bitterness and despair.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Addicted to change
"People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened"
- Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail
I've an affliction with changes. At times I'm allergic to them, I grew agitated with new environments, I became restless at spontaneous change of course. But almost every time I'm addicted to them. I move on before everybody else, I take on a new course when no one else dared to. It's as if when god created me, he made the perfect concoction of contradicting forces.
Speaking of changes, I've learned empathy is a skill learned and earned. An offer of advice, when given duly out of desperation to escape from continuous rambling of self-pity, can come across as insensitive, or worse - insulting. What I learn when I don't know what to say, is to listen.
We spend a lot of time moving on a fast and continuous pace nowadays - sometimes stopping for a while, and listening in return - are all we need to slow down the world.
- Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail
I've an affliction with changes. At times I'm allergic to them, I grew agitated with new environments, I became restless at spontaneous change of course. But almost every time I'm addicted to them. I move on before everybody else, I take on a new course when no one else dared to. It's as if when god created me, he made the perfect concoction of contradicting forces.
Speaking of changes, I've learned empathy is a skill learned and earned. An offer of advice, when given duly out of desperation to escape from continuous rambling of self-pity, can come across as insensitive, or worse - insulting. What I learn when I don't know what to say, is to listen.
We spend a lot of time moving on a fast and continuous pace nowadays - sometimes stopping for a while, and listening in return - are all we need to slow down the world.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Hit the PAUSE button
“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”
— Joyce Carol Oates
I like it when I'm reading. It's as if the world stood still when I'm immersed in the story between the pages, and the only thing that matters is how the story began and how it ended. And for once, I hit the "PAUSE" button on my tinkering mind.
I also love the way books always come to me at the right time and the right place, again and again. Last night when I was reading Tony Parson's Stories We Could Tell again after three years, it finally felt right with the songs from the Beatles's Abbey Road booming in my ears. And when Ray was talking about his obsession for the years of Bob Dylan, the Doors, and Nick Drake, I was finally able to nod with solemn agreement.
Even more comforting, although I found Ray, Terry, and Leon's struggle in coming to terms with adulthood as something I can relate to then, it is still something I can relate to now. Somehow life feels like a different series of high school, a different series of college, a different series of mid-life crises. There's always the beginning, and there's always the end.
— Joyce Carol Oates
I like it when I'm reading. It's as if the world stood still when I'm immersed in the story between the pages, and the only thing that matters is how the story began and how it ended. And for once, I hit the "PAUSE" button on my tinkering mind.
I also love the way books always come to me at the right time and the right place, again and again. Last night when I was reading Tony Parson's Stories We Could Tell again after three years, it finally felt right with the songs from the Beatles's Abbey Road booming in my ears. And when Ray was talking about his obsession for the years of Bob Dylan, the Doors, and Nick Drake, I was finally able to nod with solemn agreement.
Even more comforting, although I found Ray, Terry, and Leon's struggle in coming to terms with adulthood as something I can relate to then, it is still something I can relate to now. Somehow life feels like a different series of high school, a different series of college, a different series of mid-life crises. There's always the beginning, and there's always the end.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The point of any journey was to find out where you came from
The point of any journey was to find out where you came from - TS Eliot, I wonder in reference to my own life, which journey should I regard as the search, and which destination should I consider as my point of departure. Today, approximately eighteen months after I left home to Sydney, Australia - I'm back to point zero.
In July, 2008 - I was three months away from turning 23, a Muslim, a fresh graduate who refused to work in her field, and struggling to make peace with my ever present but almost estranged father.
In December, 2009 - I am 24, a young woman who just had the time of her life in the company of citizens of the world, my faith in religion dwindling to nothingness, optimistic with my career trajectory, but nevertheless, still trying to break free from the mould of society set on me since the day I was born.
The truth is, I realized today even when I thought my journey has ended - my questions which need answering will continue to haunt me until the day I die. What am I? Where am I heading now? Why things happened the way they did? There is no textbook in the world which I can pry open and flip furiously to give me the correct answer. My strategy at the moment is - make the choice now, do it, and deal with it later.
So, the blog is an attempt at utter and simple honesty. It's going to be immensely personal, and at times provoking. But I am not doing it because I am a rebel, but simply because I am trying to be myself. What happens next, I hand it over to whoever is reading at the other end.
In July, 2008 - I was three months away from turning 23, a Muslim, a fresh graduate who refused to work in her field, and struggling to make peace with my ever present but almost estranged father.
In December, 2009 - I am 24, a young woman who just had the time of her life in the company of citizens of the world, my faith in religion dwindling to nothingness, optimistic with my career trajectory, but nevertheless, still trying to break free from the mould of society set on me since the day I was born.
The truth is, I realized today even when I thought my journey has ended - my questions which need answering will continue to haunt me until the day I die. What am I? Where am I heading now? Why things happened the way they did? There is no textbook in the world which I can pry open and flip furiously to give me the correct answer. My strategy at the moment is - make the choice now, do it, and deal with it later.
So, the blog is an attempt at utter and simple honesty. It's going to be immensely personal, and at times provoking. But I am not doing it because I am a rebel, but simply because I am trying to be myself. What happens next, I hand it over to whoever is reading at the other end.
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