flaring in new year's Day

a year, oh, what a year.

 

discovery unforeseen.

situations unprepared for.

shocks uncalled for.

details i don't want to speak of. not anymore.

too many there are.

i didn't know what i wanted to do this year.

i only know i wanted to see the year quietly pass.

 

and i know i wanted to see them.

~the flares~

no seat? wait, there's one.

wet seats from the earlier rain? no problem.

plastic bags from the supermarket where we'd gotten drinks onto the chairs.

problem solved.

 



the camera, it was the camera!

 

and there they were, silently, magically, one after another,

starting from the east. a blast, a flare, a blast, a flare.

fourteen there were. i counted.

rising above into the darkness of night.

quietly they drift... from starboard to bow, their orange flares illuminating like precious jewels in the night sky.

as if bidding one a fond farewell and a silent hi and hello into the other...

starbucks And sushi

Afternoon visiting hours are over.

And so you come down to the lobby for a bite of lunch.

This is one place where everyone- staff or patient or visitor- gathers at some point in time. This is where you come for snacks and drinks and meals. A few times already I've sat here waiting, and that's for this one situation alone. A few months ago, I came down more often, particularly when it became too warm to wait upstairs in the lounge where the seats were hard and the heat was burning through my brain and it was stuffy and it was just so uncomfortable that I couldn't even pay much attention to whatever was showing on TV, whether it was a game show, a variety show, a TV drama in English, Mandarin or Tamil.  

I'm here at Starbucks again.

It's crowded here this time. Less crowded that it was the last time, but there're still plenty of people. Staff come here for meetings. Relatives come here to have a drink and discuss each other whilst discussing the medical condition of the patient upstairs. Students bring their books here to study, biding their time between visiting hours. Others open laptops and tablets to get some work done.

I've had a drink at this Starbucks the last time I was here.

Not this time though. I'm waiting for lunch, and we've already decided what we're going to have.

Bowls of Don. :)

I could have trays of salmon sushi, or bowls of Udon. The in-house Umisushi offers me both. I could also have the bento sets, but in the last couple of times I've gone for the bowls of Don instead. I've tried the beef with its runny poached egg on top but today I'm going for Oyako Don. 

It's hard to describe it in words, but this gives me a strangely comforting feeling after having come down from the wards. Maybe because the meal is served really hot. Maybe because there's a roundedness to the whole meal. Here, the rice is warm and fluffy and filling. There's scrambled egg on top which is done just nice and below that are the strips of well-fried chicken dribbled with mayonnaise. And I get a bit of soup on the side with a touch of seaweed.

the Hospital at changi

Twice have I been here.

Twice have I seen the same lobby and gotten lost in it. It's shaped a little like a hexagon and so you find yourself wondering whether it is this direction or the other and where is the d*** pharmacy.

It's funny how all the floors look the same. I don't even remember what number it was the last time I was here. It could have been the other side of the lobby. It could have been downstairs.

There's a lounge area here though, with really, really comfortable cushioned seats and air-conditioning and you can kick off your shoes and curl up against the chairs. The other lounge didn't have that. What it had was a row of chairs and two revolving fans that blasted out hot air, and a TV and where visitors had to swelter it out.

It's been a week or so now. So far it has been all tests and more tests, and what it's like is basically someone coming over to say that this test was done and that test was done. This time the assigned bed is near the window, and from the window this is the view.. 







from one big hole in the ground it starts

It's a huge hole they're digging down there, I say. That must be some building coming up.

I look around at the others in the room. Across me is a male filling in a couple of forms. Besides me is someone with a basket of chicken essence that someone brought up. Next to him is a lean-looking, neatly-attired mister sitting quite upright on his chair. I hear oldies music. Someone here has brought a radio.

He'll be here for that op. It's one that has brought about some sort of discussion about instrumentation and raised the differences between GA and LA and whether one should do one or the other, and why, and raised questions whether it can be done in the first place or not and what will happen if it can't and that's how it has been over the last couple of days.

a long time, oh a LONG time

Guess what, oh guess what.

Four, no, five months it has been since the last post. Not very effective, isn't it? It's as if nothing has been happening in my life but it's not true at all.

Stuff happens that you say you will write about it, but then something else crops up and then you forget and then you remember and then you forget again.

Something has obsessed me. It has taken over my life to such great detail and it's all for the sake of perfection, for the sake of attempting to face something that I never bothered to face before and till now, one and a half years later, I still don't know why I cannot accept it for what it is.

I'm just taking it as if it's a quirk of mine. A quirk that is individualistic and that all of us have, in one way or another, and which we can either choose to embrace, or escape from.

I choose to embrace.

And I'll make a comeback. :)

just Cruisin'

It is you that I'm thinking about every time this song plays on my playlist.

Is it your sunshine?
Is it your space?
Is it your hills?
Is it the square that greeted me each morning when I looked out the window, wondering how the day would pass?
Is it the metro?
Or the homeless with their supermarket trolleys? 
Is it Rite Aid? 
Is it the fact that somehow, despite the many broken dreams and pressures and politics and speed of Hollywood, there's still an element of hope that bleeds out from your blocks and buildings and lanes and beaches and boulevards and sidewalks?

Is it Amtrak?
Is it the orange groves flying past the train window and the accompanying bus ride?
Is it the bed and breakfast along Santa Monica and the apple trees up in the Bay Area?

Why do I think of the conference center in San Diego where embarrassingly I ran to a corner and cried because everything was just too overwhelming for a noob thrown into the sea, and I was just flapping my fins trying to look like I could swim really well?
Why do I think of the convention centers at Moscone and how one literally ping-ponged from one center to the other whilst having lunch and dinner meetings along the way?
Why do I think of Andy Serkis and his performance as Gollum in LOTR and Andy Serkis now?
And why do I think of the convention center in Las Vegas where the heat didn't get to everyone and we talked about consumer gadgets that make our lives happier and better and easier?

It's been a long, long, long day indeed.

I think of how video game technology has evolved.
I think of how motion capture and facial capture has evolved.
I think of how greens have come so long a way.
I think of layering and texturing technology.

I think of the Pacific Ocean spreading out into the horizon, her blue tint gorgeous and beautiful in the sun.
I think of seagulls flying from one end of the pier to another.
I think of a hot cakes breakfast on a Sunday morning with the TV on and an evangelical speaker bringing doom and gloom and how there's another evangelical speaker now on prime-time TV bringing a message of salvation, unmerited righteousness, undeserved blessings and finished work.
I think of martial art choreography and how it has grown and how I'll still be able to have soup dumplings and pork ribs in sweet sauce and char siew paus because there was never an intention to 'go home and get out', and it was really, really all about the beauty, strength and art of martial arts.

Like the Pacific Coast Highway with her turns and curves, there has always been a view. Sometimes the view has been frightening enough. Sometimes the view hasn't been pleasant. But there has always been a view and the ride that has taken me thus far will take me further still.

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Skies opened that Day

From where I sit, I can see that the skies are cloudy still. I can see that water droplets still hang from the leaves and buds on the trees that line our roads. i can see the puddles on the pavement that haven't evaporated. 

Maybe the nation still cries. 

It has been a week since the nation mourned the passing of her founding father. 

The very first day they lined the streets outside the Istana. They lined the streets again outside Parliament House.

In the four days following, there were sites all around the island for us to leave tributes, words of condolences, words of thanks, bouquets of flowers and to pay our respects.

But you didn't need to go to any of these designated locations to know that the country was grieving. There was a silence that fell over the entire atmosphere. There was that unifying sense of loss that affected everyone in one way or another.

And it wasn't just the people.

You walked into a mall and all of a sudden you realized that the usual crowd-hyping music had been replaced by a playlist more somber. You walked past a store with its shutters down and read a note saying that they were closed for a day out of respect to the nation's founding father. A road that was usually lit with colorful blinking LED lights shut them off for a day, leaving it darker than it had ever been before. And all the OOH- nearly every single one of them- at bus stops, malls, buildings, even at cinemas, blanked out their programming, leaving screens black with a single line of tribute.  

There were those who expressed their grief openly. There were those who tried to go about their daily lives whilst acknowledging what they felt, believing that this is what he had worked so hard for. And many queued for up to ten hours to pay their respects at Parliament House, with lines snaking past South Bridge Road, High Street, North Canal Street, Carpenter Street, then afterward when logistics was better organized, into the Padang, the WWII Memorial Park and the Queen Elizabeth Walk.

 

sunset of one's time

I went to write a few words of thanks in the condolence book at the Tanjong Pagar Community Center. Because I believed that  the constituency would feel his loss more than any other constituency in the country. I believed that there had been the place he started, and since he began, he'd not left, and so he'd been there for a very long time. I believed that his presence there had been there year on year on year and it would have been felt more strongly there (during the annual dinners, especially) than anywhere else.

Four hours have passed since the gun carriage turned out from Parliament House to UCC.

And like four days ago, the people turned out in full force, armed with umbrellas and raincoats, lining the streets all the way from South Bridge Road to Cantonment Road to Bukit Merah to Queenstown, to Commonwealth and finally, to Dover.

Despite the rain.

Despite the very heavy rain.



the voice IS still

today the voice is still
today the voice is no more
whispers none, sings none,
thunders not, inspires not,
for when a road ends,
when the gates close,
upon a life, then we see
all we have,
all we know,
rests in a life lived.

in the distance north,
in the distance south,
in the distance east,
in the distance west,
from every side,

from every corner,
whatever stands,
will still stand,
whatever breathes,
will still breathe.

the voice today is still,

to be heard no more.
the voice that was the face
and the presence
the voice that loved,
that tried to love,
the voice that in solitude
feared, trembled, struggled,
fought, argued, pained,
yet amongst others
stayed not to waver.
 

in our solemn grief

for who, whom, why, what,
ask not,
the voice is still,

do one need, we ask,
yes. no. yes. no.

one voice.

hundreds and thousands and millions.

one voice.

here, there, everywhere, anywhere.

no more.

smiles, waves, bows, nods, shakes,

see none will we now.
 

we say, we still do see

there is a whisper.

in the wind.

there is a silence.

in the trees.

there is a story.

in the waves.

a whisper that belongs.

a silence that respects.

a story that will and shall say goodbye.

grief there will be

tears there will be

for the regret

for the pain

for the sorrows

that shield not

the farewells from

voices not silent.