Glass smilies

... that's because smilies was 2 days ago.

... I dunno, I have a funny feeling that memory is pretty much burnt in...

*****
I remember looking through the looking glass as she traced smilies on the surface; i remember the little smile on her face, and the way her hair was pulled back, and that look in her eyes, which words will never, ever be able to capture. I remember the way she glowed.

I remember catching myself smiling that same smile as I reached out and drew in a blob of a nose.

Yeah, that memory is pretty much burnt in.

A play with words

... we shall play tomorrow

*****
And then it strikes me what makes the assassin so lethal to myself.

She plays - we play - with words, with thoughts, with language, with situations as they crop up... and it's so easy to just laugh, or to smile...

... and then we lean in, and the play stops...

*****
... after all, a play without words is a mime.

... == Learn the Words ==

In good company

I remember disagreeing with a friend once upon a very long time ago, seated in a very small chair in her South Kensington apartment that activities were less important than the company you kept.

She, the pint-sized energizer/stress bunny, hard drinking, party-animal with the minuiture furniture and tatami mat (presumably because she was already so near the ground when standing up that lying on a mat made sense) asserted that it was all about doing exciting stuff; nevermind who tagged along. (We travelled in packs in those days, it just wasn't the done thing to go on dive trips or ski trips alone.)

I remembered a then not-so-distant time when lunch / dinner conversation, or just talking on the telephone could be... just about magical, and maintained that in the right company it didn't really matter what you did, at all, and only that you did it together. To my mind it extended beyond romantic love between partners, even to agape love between friends. Company outweighed activity.

Time passed and the years came and went, and with each new relationship / parting it seems a part of me weathered away; with the last ex it became apparent that activities were extremely, extremely important; up to the moment of... near / indiscretion - confessed from her own mouth to have stemmed from boredom.

Through the looking glass, and out the other side - suddenly activities were far more important than company alone; it only seemed natural that the only way two people could endure the mundanity of everyday was an expensive getaway somewhere exotic once in a while, or an out-of-this-world special activity of some form... some form of spice to liven up life; otherwise everything becomes mundane, no? As comfortable as it is to rush home and die in someone's arms, or to go out to all those shops every so often and buy girly stuff, or to watch the odd movie, or the odd meal... it isn't enough. I lamented what all us foreign returnees constantly harp on about : there's nothing to do or see here, in Singapore, except eat, shop and... eat.

And then this past week, just lying with her head on your chest listening to her speak, or sitting across from her watching her eyes sparkling as we eat, that random argument from another lifetime comes back to mind, and something strange seems to have happened to time.

Fallen

You look pensive, she says.

He looks into her eyes, and silently traces the arch of her brow, the curve of her face, that small half-smile of hers with his gaze; then smiles and says but that's just the way my face falls...

*****
When he was young, he used to dream of falling; just falling through space, with the wind in his hair, and all around him, plucking at his arms and legs, caressing his face.

Dry Christmas

So here I am, stuck in my jail cell on Christmas Eve, thinking :

Get me out. Get me out. Get me... out.

Lust, caution

L, in her usual fashion advocated caution. Remember the past; beware the crazies.

I'll admit I'm not usually terribly cautious about things; thinking back I realise it's because (ironically) I wanted to be happy; I wanted for those... strange, yet precious moments to revisit me. I chose to be precipitous in the past - everything is a gamble anyway, and with nothing left to lose, what harm can it do?

There is something amiss this time though; the colours are inverted, the polarities reversed. I bite back the words but once in a while they slip out...

words and thoughts that intimate that I miss her presence when we are apart - even when the parting is but for a ludicrously short while. That indicate a certain... distraction, and memories that burn to remember.

Changed

Until recently, I thought life was about making memories.

The memories I wish to carry with me are the good ones; I suppose this is termed having a selective memory.

I remember us at Chatuchak market; wandering through the puppies and the kittens, and being disturbed by the frightened squirrels; I remember eating in the little shop; but strangely the most vivid memory in my mind was of you sharing a green mango with me by the roadside; I suppose it embodied the best moments of you, and of us, in our relationship. You, sharing things with me, showing me things I didn't know, and taking joy from watching me, wide eyed in my sua-ku ness, enjoying things that gave you pleasure too.

I remember us in korea too, slipping on the ice as we walked late at night through the "snow", sharing moments of wonder with each other. And Coimbra, too, holding hands and walking slightly unsteadily uphill in the heat of the mid day sun after a refreshing roadside beer, and chancing upon a cat curled up on the wheel of an automobile, and laughing.

If I think back, I remember the others before as well; that's just the way it goes. We all have pasts, each and every one of us, and I want to take the best moments with me; I want for things to have meant something, because if I fixate on the worst moments all I'll feel is a lingering pain and sadness. I don't want to want to forget my memories, or to have to hide from other people.

I remember holding G close at the niagra falls, almost enveloping her with my jacket as the fine spray hit us from all around, as we shared the wonder of the lady in the mist, and the power of the niagra falls. I remember wandering along the top of it with her, and marvelling at the rainbow that hangs there, permanently, like some strange three D hologram.

And if I want to, I'll remember more -

- but something is different now; watching the assassin's eyes watching mine as we cup each others eyes with our hands, without need for words; sharing a moment of... almost childlike silliness...

life isn't about making memories anymore.

It's just about living the moment. And feeling happy when someone you care about smiles; even feeling happy, and just smiling of my own accord.

Life

I remember now why we didn't put labels to anything, why it was all very unspoken, why I called it the roller coaster.

I remember common, base feelings in the aftermath... regret. Confusion. Loss. Wondering what we had been, if anything at all - that eclipsed the memories of the moment, which were exhilirating... precious and special at the time, which should not have been corrupted in the aftermath, but were by my own dark nature.

This is the moment, now :

No desire to create boundaries with words; no need to. An almost-fear to... or a burning desire to... once mouthing the words silently against her neck, or blurting them out in the intensity of the moment, or hearing her, just the once, speaking my mind...

... there's no need : no need to think. No need to say. No need to understand, just to live.

No wish to spoil it all, by saying something stupid.

Too fast too furious

From xena :

So i was just at the supermk. The guy in front has problems w his pin. The cashier tells him : "Harder. Enter Harder."

Distracted, too

"It's so easy to spend time with you..."

"...It's so easy for me to spend time with you, and be happy."

*****
"It's strange, it's so easy to talk to you... sometimes thoughts complete themselves... but it's impossible to say certain things to you..."

"What kinds of things?"

"Things that mean too much"

Distracted

Uncharacteristically slightly incoherent for the assassin : sometimes... distracted at work, thoughts about... wondering what you're doing.

He : Yeah.

Unspoken : And I... if you only knew.

The First Day

Three indelible moments in time now, seared into my mind

*****
The First

She, half-turning in her front passenger seat to face me in the rear seat, her hair undone, streaming with wild abandon down over her shoulders, her eyes on mine.

Her eyes : filled with that strange, infinite, yet gentle sadness, somehow still encouraging, and forgiving.

*****
The Second

She, lying on the bed as I stood at the foot of it, gasping for breath, gasping, just gasping. All words exhausted now, all anger spent; all doors closed. There was nothing left to do, nothing left to say. Her brow furrowed in agony, her eyes on mine.

Her eyes : streaming, wet, filled with pain and darkness, and perhaps hatred, perhaps fear, perhaps other dark emotions I won't guess at, silently voicing what her lips were about to say.

*****
The Third

She, a dark, vaguely blue and grey striped silhouette in my car leaning forwards across the divide, her forehead on my sternum, my hands clasping the back of her head, clasping the hair bunched up at the back of her head, holding her forearm; feeling the droplets splattering one by one onto my forearm, left, then right, and feeling them turn cold as we sat in silence.

Her eyes : I couldn't even see her eyes. And yet the moment burnt in. How?.

Falling Stars

I remember the moment.

We were under the open sky; I seem to recall us standing just outside my bedroom door, and suddenly there it was; the first shooting star.

Look! we said, and we reached for each other's hands.

And as I clasped yours in mine, I thought to myself :

I wish this could last... for a little while longer.

*****
This is the kind of ramble that only happens late at night, perhaps only on select nights when you've stumbled upstairs hoping to catch a glimpse of something special, and come away unsurprised by a hatful of sky, and a skyful of clouds instead.

I was so young once.

There are so different many kinds of love. In my youth I knew I had blundered onto a powerful experience - and being the black and white thinker that I was, the logistician, I knew 1 - that was love, and 0 - other things were not. Perhaps I even judged the people around me by that same scale, if I did I was stupid for it.

Love comes in so many different flavours, I see it now, coupled with so many different ways of saying I love you.

There's a wondrous kind of love, the soundtrack of which might sound something like this :

I love you? I love you. I love you! I... love you? I love you!

It won't make any sense to anyone who hasn't walked that path; but it's a very young, very fragile, very childlike thing. Very simple, and perhaps in its own way, pure. I did it once, a world and countless timezones apart from a wonderful girl, and we shared a feeling that, in that point in time was special.

It melted away for me; it wasn't the kind of love that a cynic like me can maintain, or cherish and nurture, and in hindsight the dark side of me likes to laugh at myself - love? You didn't even begin to know the meaning!

But I don't think it melted away for her, in that she found it again, and so did her man, and I'm happy for them both now :) I think perhaps some people can hack that kind of thing, forever.

There's another kind of love, which is just words. I love you. Space fillers, the words spoken in comfort, in consolation, without any real feeling behind them.

I don't need to say much because we've pretty much all been there; I was there once, the second relationship of my life, stumbling through the darkness - I think it's how we learn - by making mistakes.... and for some people it's perhaps a mistake never to be learnt but to be lived by; for myself it's a mistake terrifying enough to run from, and never look back.

I can't live a lifetime by someone's side lying to myself, and to her. A lifetime... means too much to waste on lies; a lifetime better spent alone, in truth.

There're many other variants, I've lived quite a few - not because of any innate appeal to the opposite sex, but simply because I'm so old now... so, very, old. laugh. I've had a few chances, that and the fact that my relationships have by and large been short, dysfunctional affairs, and the concept of "long-term" to me is anything encountering the two year headstone, which is where everything usually falls apart.

There's a kind of I love you which is powerful, very, very dark and wrenching, very taiwanese soap opera; I laughed at Areya once upon a time (more fool me) and thought in my head : that's not love! as I watched her with her... taiwanese guy (laugh) and I saw how they brooded together.

And then I remember my hand on her (not areya. pfft!) cheek, sunlight streaming in the window as she slept, on her brow, my eyebrows creased wondering when the end would come, and knowing it would be so very soon; I remember silent I love yous while she slept, I remember the sense of loss even before the event; I remember knowing when she had betrayed me, before the fact; I remember after the fact and before the confrontation; I remember perhaps even knowing well beforehand that it would pan out this way.

I remember the tears slipping out against my will, the gentle sunlight forming a halo around her hair and face. The feel of your skin on my hand. The heaviness, and pain.

I could never hack that; I don't know what kind of psycho nutcase can, but taiwanese soap operas are enough to do a guy like me's head in.

And I can forgive, but I can't forget. I can in my weakness forgive so very much, but yes, she was right... things had changed. It's not that I would have made you remember... it's just that we were too different, you and I - I can't forget things by not talking about them, I can't un-make things by ignoring them. I can't let the world slide.

We were too different, she and I - she wrote "...I'd just tell him, I would really love for us to be friends again, a friendship with no hidden agenda, just two people who still ...enjoy the company of each other without the complications."

I would have loved that too, but to me friendship can only come to life with a mutual truth.

The "fuzzy friendship" thing that eluded her hinges on truth. Friends first, lovers second - friends who do not deceive. Even if the second follows on from the first rapidly, within weeks. And if it never does, then there's always friendship.

In the absence of truth, all that remains is lovers.. and I love yous that burn to remember, but fade with the breeze.

There's one more kind of ... I think it's love... but I'm really not certain anymore, and reluctant to put words to it.

It's that thing, that thing I knew once that I had pegged as the be all end all, that ridiculous roller coaster thing that in hindsight had been so obvious...

... only it's not. It's something that you mustn't put words to; it's something important that's just the moment, and it really doesn't matter anyway.

It's something that almost excludes the words "I love you" - not until you're very, very, extremely certain, because everything just means too much - This gleaned from a conversation with sasky...

And perhaps it never even reaches the words, perhaps it never reaches the stage... it doesn't really matter.

Perhaps it doesn't matter that there are no words that can capture it, none whatsoever, holding onto someone, or touching her face and looking at those eyes holding your own.

Perhaps there's a reason everything means too much to say things or make committments, and its a reason that's so simple it's selfish - because there's just too great a risk, too far to fall, to much to hurt if...

... and yet that doesn't matter either.

All that matters is now.

*****
I can imagine him, in mind's eye. Laugh.

Pointing at the sky with his stubby arm and saying, dramatically, And that's the Gemenids...

... and behind him cascades of stars beginning to crash through the canvas of sky...

*****
Meteor shower tonight! - ladygrey

I wish I could have been there, not here in the hospital, looking out at the clouds at three in the morning...

Cut and Break

And if I told you that I loved you
You'd maybe think there's something wrong
I'm not a man of too many faces
The mask I wear is one

*****
So hungry... forage for food...

... deja vu.

*****
For all the justifications
all the aspirations
for all the desires to be different

you walk the walk or talk the talk

I know the truth now
I wouldn't have settled.
I would have dreamt, and perhaps hoped

but at the core of this soul

We had that in common, You and I
We have that in common, YOu and I

call it what you may, commitment phobia...

... or a need to run.

You intimidate me.

Grey

*****
"My blog used to be called... A Need for Truth"

Moment

Her hands on his face, her eyes on his.

"You're interesting..."

"so are you"

*****
The phone rings.

"Do you need to get that?"

"No, it's a common phone for the whole house.'

"One ring to rule them all!"

Laugh

Squits

Thanks to some Bad Sushi, re-minisce is experiencing the mixed blessing of a restful day at home alternating between bed, toilet, piano, toilet and bed.

No prizes for guessing the nature of the ailment.

Thus far the Mother has forc... coerc.... encouraged re-minisce to sprawl on the sofa and listen to her playing (why is it everytime i want to play alone she appears...) all sorts of beautiful classical refrains.

I had the remarkable experience recently of conducting a matching scheme for my mummy-mismatched socks.

I now have a frightfully large collection of unpairable socks remaining. Perhaps the washing machine is a portal to another dimension...?

Heroes

The Cheerleader Regenerates.
Nathan Flies.

My Mum Mismatches Socks.

Sliding Scale

D : you were too nice to her, she took your niceness for granted...

I remembered her saying almost exactly the same thing : don't be too nice to me, or i'll take you for granted.

I believed it, for a while too : relationships are a sliding scale of giving and taking, tip the balance too far in one direction and everything begins to unravel.

It was my only source of sanity, of solace during my darkest hours - because I couldn't find any other reason. And I... wanted to bear the cross.

But the idealist in this cynic, who wants to believe that hope springs eternal, wants to think : maybe with a few people it isn't like that; maybe giving just comes naturally to a few, and maybe if two people who give by nature find each other, maybe, just maybe they create... a moment that lasts, and many gifts to remember.

Rabbit Rider

Every so often the Phoenix decides to exercise her "kitten" (that's a kitten?!?! more like a cheetah...) and leaves the Dragon struggling to catch up saddled on his little rabbit with its stubby little paws......

... it always makes him laugh.

Moment

I have many flaws... you're just not seeing them.

... I see them. Everybody is flawed; nobody is perfect.

*****
Uncanny. Words returning through time, echoes from the past.

No mask of perfection, but instead an admission of humanity.

lazy sunday morning, en route to the gym from the StanChart Finish Line



Too many calls...


Something funny in the men's change room...

Infinity Past

I remember this place.
I remember us holding each other close and shivering as the wind buffeted us.
I remember watching in wide-eyed wonder as the sky lightened around us.

I remember feeling that anything was possible, all paths were unwalked, but everything was right, right at that instant as we lay still, and shivered.

I remember this place - it is just a place, now.

*****
I put my soiled hands,
behind my back,
somewhere along the line,
i must have gone off track, with you.

*****
Falling in love is more than a feeling;
it's a decision to make, a sacrifice to take,
an admission of weaknesses,
and vulnerabilities confessed
relinquishing pride
forsaking lies
a time to be true,
a moment past concealing.

Unspoken

You have nice eyes, he said, his hands cupping her temples.

You must get that a lot...

Maybe, she said.

Unspoken : You have nice eyes... even when they're tired.

Aggressive marketing

(In mandarin)

Where did you get this done? The wizened old man asks holding up a re-shod sole, obvious distaste, bordering on contempt oozing off his voice and visage.

... Chinatown? (timidly) he replies.

uncomfortable pause.

... it's not very well done is it?

You said it, I didn't dare to say it. (literal)

I'll come back to you next time, thank you, thank you.

Gerbil

Cut it short, he said.

Shorter than this? Her eyes widened in incredulity.

It's meant to be a... surprise. It has to fit in this plastic bag.

We can do that, she said with a smile.

Tree Frog

And then as I sat holding her in her car, or perhaps she was holding me, and perhaps it was she breathing into my neck, or perhaps I into hers - presents were fading into pasts with the aging night, and it was late and we were so very tired - I knew.

I recognise the signs.

I know what it means when there always seems to be so much left to say to you and yet find myself so very incapable to expressing it, hear myself voicing mere fragments of the truths and thoughts I'd been meaning to share with you, to want to listen so much more than speak.

I know what it means to find myself gravitating unbidden towards you - not for the sake of it, nor because you asked, with or without words, nor because of intimacies we could potentially share... but simply because I'd like to see you again.

I know what it means to not dare to presume you think the same, even if your actions imply your thoughts.

*****
"Let me know if you'll need dinner tomorrow?"

Laugh.
"You know I do."

Scrubbed Text

From the blue.

"Can you remove my full name from your blog."

Silence, for a while.

"I don't have to, you know."

"I know."

"But if you want me to I will, because we loved each other once."

"Z, Why did you use my full name?"

"I don't know."
I guess I just always thought of you as your full name, I don't know why. I guess, somehow you were more than just a first-name to me, or perhaps you were just different, in my head.

And yes, of course I understand how important it is to you - now that everything stands on the brink, now that the Rest of your Life is beckoning.
But I don't understand what kind of foundations you can build forever on, if you have to protect him from the truth, from the heart of the matter.
If he loves you, he will accept all your truths, and all your previous untruths; he will teach you truth, and forgive your past.

The truth of the matter is that truth always finds its way to the surface, one way or the other. And discovery of an intentional absence of truth is a harsh, harsh thing.

I wish you well, truly, I do.

*****
I remember hugging your father hard, man to man, in silence, fighting back the bewilderment and pain in my eyes, trying to beat back the deafening cacophony of silence in my head, trying to smile.

Goodbye, uncle.

I remember as I sat alone in the pathetic, dingy little airport hard plastic seat, staring out into the night.

And then the message from your mother :

"In my heart, you are already my son."

*****
You must be a wise hunter, your mother said.

And as I passed her the red box with my last gift out of time to you, whom I knew once, I knew her for a good woman, and I knew she was right.

I must be a wise hunter.

I must hunt prey that are... right for me.

Just a dream

*****
Watching her gazing blankly at the countertop, occasionally glancing up with those oversized eyes into mine.

"And sometimes, you know, it feels like it never happened... all that time together..."

"I know." I know. I know...

"... I just knew that there was no way forwards except marriage..."

Deja vu.

"I knew that I couldn't do it for the rest of my life... the arguments which ended in his not calling me for days... until sometimes I'd cry. Towards the end I found myself pressing the auto-redial button on my phone, and going about the daily chores... checking on the phone now and again to see if it got through... just to make the effort, you know?"

"I know."

"And then the final time, he realised after a while that I wasn't calling back, and then he called me and was angry with me at first, and said I hurt him, and I thought all those times you made me cry... what, was it just to teach me a lesson?"

She looks up with those beautiful, liquid, sad eyes of hers.

"You're right, you couldn't have done that... it's the rest of every day of your life."

"But I miss him, you know?"

"How will you feel if he moves on?"

"Wah I tell you man, I'll cry...... I don't want to wake up one day, and you know, listening to you... Don't want to be like her, I don't want it to be too late, you know?"

"It won't be; it's totally different... I think you deserve someone who's better for you, someone who won't control your whereabouts, who won't expect you to stay home all the time doing housework, someone who'll give you space and make you happy."

"I want to be... me."

I am the Keymaster

un-surprised

Ah well, all the more soup for me.

ruelful laugh.

Equality

Equality to my mind has always been nothing more complicated, nor less simple than just two people.

Two people, sans the bells and whistles of the attendant circus of the rest of the world.

Two people who understand each other, who laugh together, who dream together, who walk, just walk together. Who are decent to each other, and good for each other. Who respect each other, yet make each other laugh. Who forgive, and are forgiven for their trespasses. Who may not think in perfect tandem, but are able to think together. Who share and communicate the truth, and are stronger for it together.

It's never had anything to do with power careers, with family status, with wealth or poverty, or even with perfect compatibility.

Perhaps in my youth I was extremely hung up on a more superficial equality, of thoughts, of minds, of humours, of wits, of communication.

It was because of Her, because we were similar - and I pegged equality as precisely that. Similarity; near clairvoyance, common language, common turns of phrase to the extent that thoughts need not be completed, that sentences could be read before they were spoken.

As I aged so too did my convictions - perhaps this is the vaunted maturity of years - and my convictions of steel, my black and whites melted into something... wiser.

And so it is that everytime I fall in love with someone - which happens rarely - I burn for equality, and it starts that way - it always feels like an equal. Because if it didn't, I know from experience now when to pull out and escape - Self preservation, and preservation of others.

My friends sometimes chide me after the fact for perceived "inequalities" or incompatibilities, but that's not the way it works at all.

The truth is, while I'm in it with someone else, equality is only about her and I. And only for her and I. Everyone else, family, friends, acquaintences.... well their opinions are important at some level of course, and it's important to hear them out. But really they really don't matter.

Equality only breaks down when either party in the relationship perceives it. Or when they prove it.

*****
"You two look good together."

A remark, from the blue.

Dashboard ornament

Aww a little stuffed toy dog...


and then it moves...


Carpark @ work

Dawn - Eyes rheumy and back aching, walking with leaden feet...


Dusk - Eyes aching, back rheumy, walking with leaden feet...