Wednesday, January 23, 2008
I had wisdom tooth surgery this Monday and it hasn't stopped bleeding yet. I hate the taste of blood. ARGH.
So much for my plans to work at home during the five days of medical leave. I've been too woozed out these past 3 days to even read my usual leisure reading material.
So much for my plans to work at home during the five days of medical leave. I've been too woozed out these past 3 days to even read my usual leisure reading material.
# {scribbles of SM} @ 11:47 PM 
Monday, January 14, 2008
Impasse, via Elia Diodati.
One of my friends goes hiking for pleasure. She finds great joy and peace in forests, with trees, with the chirping buzzing silence of nature. I can sense her joy but cannot make the leap to share it.
This morning while walking along Upper Thomson Road, a fabulously shade-lined broadway of Singapore, I was counting my blessings in the beautiful air of morning, and remarking to the friend who walked beside me and who had just shared her hospitality the night before, "This is the kind of morning that makes me want to sing." But the shadows of the trees and all the lush vines and creepers, beside a huge four-lane motorway no less, brought unease.
It is true that there is no more grief. But, there is also no more joy. I have never gone back there, the merest thought of stepping into a forest strikes fear into my heart. I have lost familiarity with my childhood, after many intervening years of starving deprivation through which that I had loved was taken from me, one by one, each day lasting forever.
I have to learn to live, it does not come as easily to me as to most. And I had once told the friend who hikes, that there is enough desolation in my life. But instead my greatest most secret worry that there is no life to feel desolation over. Thus the impasse, a chasm. I am stuck in a world of non-sensing.
Few things make me happy, and I treasure those, with all my heart.
One of my friends goes hiking for pleasure. She finds great joy and peace in forests, with trees, with the chirping buzzing silence of nature. I can sense her joy but cannot make the leap to share it.
This morning while walking along Upper Thomson Road, a fabulously shade-lined broadway of Singapore, I was counting my blessings in the beautiful air of morning, and remarking to the friend who walked beside me and who had just shared her hospitality the night before, "This is the kind of morning that makes me want to sing." But the shadows of the trees and all the lush vines and creepers, beside a huge four-lane motorway no less, brought unease.
It is true that there is no more grief. But, there is also no more joy. I have never gone back there, the merest thought of stepping into a forest strikes fear into my heart. I have lost familiarity with my childhood, after many intervening years of starving deprivation through which that I had loved was taken from me, one by one, each day lasting forever.
I have to learn to live, it does not come as easily to me as to most. And I had once told the friend who hikes, that there is enough desolation in my life. But instead my greatest most secret worry that there is no life to feel desolation over. Thus the impasse, a chasm. I am stuck in a world of non-sensing.
Few things make me happy, and I treasure those, with all my heart.
# {scribbles of SM} @ 11:22 PM
Fresh off the NYT: The uses of the humanities, part two. By Stanley Fish.
# {scribbles of SM} @ 9:31 PM
Friday, January 04, 2008
On crowded MRT trains:
Me: It could be worse. [...] It could be 6.15: you could be standing in a crowded train AND rushing home to cook dinner for your husband and 10 kids.
Friend: I'd divorce my husband if he expected me to rush home to cook dinner for him and our 10 kids.
Friend [cont'd]: ... anyway if I were irresponsible enough to have 10 kids I'd deserve it.
Me: It could be worse. [...] It could be 6.15: you could be standing in a crowded train AND rushing home to cook dinner for your husband and 10 kids.
Friend: I'd divorce my husband if he expected me to rush home to cook dinner for him and our 10 kids.
Friend [cont'd]: ... anyway if I were irresponsible enough to have 10 kids I'd deserve it.
# {scribbles of SM} @ 7:55 PM
