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3 years wiser: The silver lining.
Bitched on: Saturday, December 27, 2008
Time: 12/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
I have this bench which I love to sit after I go to the gym. Its at this park beside my neighbourhood and the park surrounds a canal. Time: 12/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
Nothing fancy about that canal the bench faces. The water is gross and murky-green. Smells unpleasant on certain days (Note: I said 'canal'. Singapore has no river... just concrete-laid canals; even the Singapore 'River' cannot pass off as a river... its more like a stream... a concrete-laid stream that is).
But back to that park. Nothing special about the park too; there is the playground with noisy kids and equally noisy maids looking after them, or the occasional joggers (detached from the world by their iPods) running past and retirees taking their excruciatingly slow stroll.
I just love to sit on that bench. And not to observe these people, oh no no, neither do I sit to admire the heavily-polluted canal, I sit down there just to imagine.
They say most people have somehow lost their imagination by the time they become adults. Even the word 'imagining' itself I feel has been replaced with a very condescending substitute: 'daydreaming'. Call it whatever you want but I sit on that green heavily-vandalised bench to imagine I am in the most beautiful of beautiful places, breathing the freshest air and admiring in awe the most spectacular sights.
I try to imagine that I am once again surrounded by snowy Alaskan peaks or that I am on top of one of those peaks feeling the cool fresh breeze. I try to imagine that the horrendous canal is the bluest lake I have ever seen in Canada or one of the beautiful beaches along the Great Ocean Road.
I try to recall, I try to imagine. And I try to see them once again, even if its all in my head.
Many things I have seen this passing year and some of these I swear are unbelievably gorgeous and unforgettable. Which is why I sometimes use that time on the bench to imagine these great sights once again... Its a pity if all you have are just photographs of these places and not the memories of how they look, smell or feel real to you.
Speaking of smells, I will never forget the smell of my primary school. Its not actually the physical smell of the school per se, its just a combination of everything: the smelly kids, the canteen food, the fresh textbooks, the smell of correction fluid and smudged ink, the freshly cut grass on the field...
And all it takes is one sniff of that 'smell', to bring back all the memories in an instant. It transports me back to a time when I couldn't even tie my own shoelaces. It feels so real, so wonderful that memory. And if one takes time to sit down to imagine, to think and reflect, the memories come to you. These good, beautiful memories.
I have been blessed to have so many of the beautiful memories cramped into this single year. But never once did I not think about my family. I missed my family the whole entire time and I feel sorry that they missed out on all these. I stop to wish that it would not take 23 years before my beautiful niece see a single snow flake. That it would not be too 'old' for her to make her first snow angel or catch a snow flake with her tongue.
Speaking of my niece...
What a perfect gift God has graced me with this year.
Have you ever loved someone so much you cry tears of happiness just looking at her beautiful face? Have you ever loved someone so much that when you kiss her, you never want to let go? Have you ever loved someone so much, it doesn't matter if she loves you back as much?
I have never loved someone as much as I love my niece. And I never imagined in a million years that this year would be the year I have someone I truly truly love.
Thank you God for her.
And thank you God for the people I have met and befriended the past year. For the people I have come to love and miss so much. The memories I have are not just of the places but of these people. The people who have made those places more beautiful and memorable than they already are.
The people who have welcomed me into their lives. And shared a part of them with me. I am truly happy to have met every single one of them.
Every single one of them.
:)
So back to that bench which I frequently sit on. I would look up to the sky too as I 'daydream'. Cos the sky is the only thing consistent in all the memories of these places. The vast sky is everywhere, no? Plus looking at the sky always reminds me how small I am, or how big the world is. I know that kinda sounds cliche but its true.
Somewhere in another part of the world, someone else is looking at that same cloud or that same shinning star. Another person on another side of the globe is admiring that same moon or feeling the warmth of that same sun. And all these at the same time contradictorily makes you think how small the world is.
No matter how far you are away from that person, separated from the huge vast oceans or continents, the sky is the one thing that connects us. I have to admit that I always sleep with my windows open and I position my bed under that window so that sometimes, when I'm missing someone or someplace, I would look up to the sky and know that I still have something in common with the people I have left behind.
Its nothing to be ashamed of to be thinking of these sappy 'theories' and neither is it embarrassing to cry buckets when you miss someone. Its how we cope with this. And this year I have cried as much as I have laughed (well almost). Cried when my niece was born, I cried when I left my family to go the States, I cried when I left my 'family' in the States to come back home. I cried for so many reasons.
But I am not going to cry over how bad my grades are, oh no no. What is there to cry about? There are a million things in life worth crying for. Moreover, I have seen so many beautiful things, met so many wonderful people, to have this one speck of failure to ruin this perfect year.
Or worst, I could start blaming people and myself for this misfortune. I could blame the f*cked up education system, how there is a lack of creativity pulsating in the school's curriculum and that I am one of the uninspired students under uninspiring tutors.
But have you ever stopped to think that you yourself is in the system? How you yourself is contributing to the f*cked up-ness of the system with your self-pitying f*ck-care attitude? I'm not talking about the education system per se, I'm talking about in general, in life. How sometimes you think, oh boo hoo, poor me, when all you do is nothing?
Stop, smell the rose and move on.
That is why I need that time on the bench to escape.
To sit down and run away.
To be alone with no one else.
But the shadow to accompany me. Yes, I said my shadow. The forgotten companion who is always behind you rain or shine (or in front, depending on the light's direction... or when it gets completely dark and you can barely make out your hand in front of you.. but that's a different story).
Lemme ask you this question, when was the last time you looked at your shadow?
For years I have not thought about it until I was left stranded alone at some airport. The sun was perfectly angled and I happened to look down... and I broke into a smile. For the first time in years I noticed my shadow. And believe me when I say this I instantly felt not alone anymore. I felt so foolish that after all these years, noticing my shadow was making me laugh... (Gosh... this entry is making me sound incoherent and probably senile...)
I know I sound like I'm spewing hogwash, but all these things go through my head when I think, when I'm imagining. And I hope that if you can connect to certain things I have said, you have done my babbling justice.
So today, there I was on the bench, looking up to the sky. It had just stopped raining and the sun was peering behind some of the dark menacing clouds, that's when I saw it. A relatively small dark cloud with a perfectly glowing outline.
It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. But this time time I didn't have to imagine it. It was right there above me. And it would have been a shame if I was the only one to have noticed it, to have admired it. Just imagine, a dark storm cloud with the sun's rays radiating around it. How poetic is that?
While every other cloud around it might not have a silver lining, I found mine.
I found my cloud with a silver lining. And I hope that all of you who are going through some difficulties in your life will find yours too.
Thank you for accompanying me the past three years with this ol' blog of mine.
PS: If you go down to the park often, maybe you might be accustomed to seeing this lonesome guy sitting on this bench, looking up into the sky, inhaling deeply the stench from the nearby canal while all that time grinning at his shadow.
That guy is most probably me.
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