longing

today. i feel melancholy. i long for kalamazoo. the cold beckons. the sea of white snow flakes seem like a blanket of warmth. my heart aches for it.

jacqueline du pre's Cello Suite no.1 Prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach fills my being. the sorrow call of the cello enveloping me.

there is so much i miss. so much i long for. a touch. a look. a gaze. a smile. without warmth. i seek refuge in the winter cold.

werk

i'm back at werk this morning. n luvin every moment of it. =)

definitions?

a subject of recent preoccupation. love.

i must admit. i am a creature of simple pleasures. one of the simplest pleasures i've oftened indulged in is the pleasure of loving. i love liberally.

recently, this subject has caused me to lose some sleep. how liberally do we love? how liberally can we love? how much affection can we pour on objects of affections in our lives that the very sanctity of the word-love- becomes lost in the crossroads between appreciation, adoration, affection and admitting to being in love.

i looked it up.

affections (plural, noun) : feelings of liking or love

what is feelings of liking or love?

love (LIKE SOMEONE) verb [T] to have strong feelings of affection for another adult and be romantically and sexually attracted to them, or to feel great affection for a friend or person in your family

love noun 1 [U] strong feelings of attraction towards, and affection for, another adult, or great affection for a friend or family member:2 [C] a person that you love and feel attracted to

like (ENJOY) verb [T] 1 to enjoy or approve of something or someone:

a creature of habit. a creature of affection. and i find the definition of affection and love entwined in a neverending loop that doesn't answer the question. where doth the line begin and end that separates the two. affection is to have feelings of like or love. but to love is to have strong affections which could be like or love. and what a thin line that demarcates the boundaries between the two.

i think. i've over simplified the emotion. in loving liberally i've reduced the sanctity of that meaning. i admit to loving when perhaps it is just something much reduced and in showing affection based on often indistinguishable traits of like or love. i've confused. perhaps even misled. not just the objects of affection. but sometimes myself.

Sometimes when you look back on a situation, you realize it wasn't all you thought it was. A beautiful girl walked into your life. You fell in love. Or did you? Maybe it was only a childish infatuation, or maybe just a brief moment of vanity.
Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

but it isn't about definitions is it?

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), "On Reading and Writing"

i am a creature of habit. lessons may have been learnt. but alterations will not mend my set ways. i doubt i will every stop loving liberally. i know only to love and to open my heart to all.

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

the trick though is the latter.

To my dearest dearest jagi. confusions aside. deep down inside. i know. so what if tomorrow i wake to realisations of childish infatuations or brief moments of vanity. it is in this moment that i live. this heartbeat of memories that go on forever. that it should always be like this.

to the moon and back. and even further. nel chigum chorom.

missing mersing

mersing. a sanctuary of the senses. actually. it dulled my senses completely. all i really did was to snooze the day away. read. snooze. read some more. snooze on my hammock. in my lil kampung sarong. reminiscing the 'good ol days' of days filled with nothing but the sound of nyamuk kamikazing into your left then right then left ear again.



traipse around on the muddy beach. almost got swallowed whole by black oozing mersing monsoon mud. fall over. save my best friend from death by mud. and of course feast on the many kampung delights available. lovely roti canai in a thick dhal with a dallop of glistening chilli paste. thick coconut soaked nasi lemak. water convulvors fried in chilli. squid in plum sauce. tiramisu disguised as trifle. the list goes on.

it was a wonderful time. u cannot put into words how important moments like these are. when you can relive moments of adolescence with friends who have grown alongside and with you.

mersing will always be a treasure trove of girlish giggles embedded in my mind forever. forever missing mersing.

intellectually humbled

phnom penh.

it was certainly an experience never to be forgotten. it wasn't so much the sights and sounds. certainly the hustle of a crowded street with parisian built apartments looming over a street, otherwise dull and grey, but now coloured by people, cars and hawkers with the wares, will linger on in my mind for longer.

it was the friends i made. datuks from malaysia. pengeran's from brunei. directors from cambodia. doctors and nguyens from vietnam. eminent persons from Myanmar. the list goes on.

people who take my thoughts and opinions seriously. willing to discuss at length issues of history, politics, architecture and art. happy to poke fun. to see the lighter side of things. oh there was the work. believe you me. but what happiness to balance work with such great recreation.

one person left such an impression on me that i dare say i will never forget him. Dr Than Nyun. remarkable. well-informed. cultured. gentlemanly. my short time with him left me intellectually enriched and humbled at the same time. i certainly look forward to his eminence calling on me come the new year.

i look forward to many more of such experiences.

butterflies

butterflies in my stomach. i've butterflies in my stomach. its not as if i'm not accustomed to it. my leaving for weeks, months even has never been an anomaly. and yet. without fail. every single time i prepare to set off for a journey. no matter how long. how short. how near. how far. i would feel an anxiety sweep over me. as if it were the first. again.

perhaps it is the anticipation of discovering something new. perhaps it is the discomfort of leaving a sanctuary of comfort. perhaps it is a fear of an unknown. an unfamiliar. perhaps.

Phnom Penh....will not be just another stamp on the pages that infiltrates boundaries...a record of journeys.

Phnom Pehn....will surely carve its own place within the walls of my heart.

my love affair with austen

love. i fell deeply and everlastingly in love at 13. eversince i laid my hands on my very own abridged version of perhaps my greatest love story. i grew to love more than Mrs Bennet's nerves, Jane's sweet disposition, Elizabeth's independence and Darcy's righteousness. i grew to love the woman who penned the words. she who dreamed a world and made it reality for those of us so deeply immersed that we couldn't bear to part with the virtues, ideals and wonders of her world that seem so lacking in our own existence.

but who was she who carved dreams for countless others with a stroke of her quill? who lent her characters strength and determination, will and countenance, grace and humility?

"If you can think me capable of ever feeling -- surely you may suppose that I have suffered now . The composure of mind with which I have brought myself at present to consider the matter, the consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful exertion; -- they did not spring up of themselves; they did not occur to relieve my spirits at first, -- no, Marianne. Then , if I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely -- not even what I owed to my dearest friends -- from openly shewing that I was very unhappy." Eleanor, Sense & Sensibility

i fell in love at 13. not just with a book. but an ideology. perhaps romantic. perhaps even old-fashioned. but how i wish i was her muse. now. i feel the same.

i wish like eleanor. like jane. like elizabeth even. to be with sense & sensibility, without pride & prejudice. among others...

the namesake

i read Lahiri's interpretor of maladies, a collection of short stories, more than a year ago. it was spell binding. i remember my heart pounding away. my breath short. i'd slowly easy myself back, draw a deep breath, hold the book close to me and sigh. a blissful sigh. the last words read lingering in my mind, not wanting to roll of my tongue.

the namesake was equally intriguing. an entire world of dismissed possibilities.

names. merely identity markers or greater determinants of destinies. i symphatised with gogol but certainly could not emphatise with him. unlike gogol, i would have no other name to call myself by.

i have no namesake. i am my own. unique. a product of crossroads between traditional religiosity and modernity.

lonely

the striking beauty of a lone bicycle on a city street.
where its been...
where it'll go...

the haunting beauty of a lone bicycle on a quiet street downtown busy chicago...

welcomed and welcome

After much much apprehension, I've decided that I had to venture into this world that prior to this had seemed like an elusive publication of a language of expression so private that the mere thought of it proved unsettling.

I tip-toe. One foot at a time. Cautiously....

Each step generating an excitement that rushes through my being leaving me invigorated and yet perplexed.

Welcomed and welcome...