sakura season. harbinger of spring; of a time of departures and meetings, farewells and hellos, old things and new, in japan. there is something hauntingly beautiful about these flowers. perhaps it is in their transient beauty. or simply the ghostly white-and-pinkness that speak of things both happy and sad.

unlike most people who rush to see these flowers when they are in full bloom, my favourite time of the season is when they begin to wilt, when the wind catches them and the petals start swirling all around you like flurries of snow… there is a japanese term for it – 花吹雪. such a lovely expression, hanafubuki. if you take the three characters apart, they would mean flower, blow, snow. sometimes, the japanese ability to put so much into so little blows me away. just like how they manage to say volumes with just three short lines in their haiku.

many people have been asking me what it is like to be in japan again, and i can do no more than shrug. the truth is, i cannot, as yet, feel anything. beyond the initial disappointment at the dormitory (which, after a long self-lecture on being spoilt and the realities of life, i’ve since come to accept), beyond the niggling fear commingled with anticipation at doing research again… beyond these, i feel somewhat numb. if anything, i miss home. i miss home comforts, home cooking, and family warmth. i miss the weekly rituals of singing and singing, battling new music, and laughing non-stop during dinner. i miss the people, the sights, the sounds, the smells of singapore. but that is not to say that i am depressed and homesick. how do i put this across…? well… i feel more singaporean than i ever did, more of a foreigner now than before, perhaps.

there is a word that i’ve always liked, epiphany. i wouldn’t be so vain as to say i’ve experienced one (although i’ve always wanted to, just so i could use the word!) but in the long rambles i’ve been taking every day since i arrived, i have managed to sort out certain things in my mind (the result being that i lose the way home more often than not), see them more clearly, and i think, am all the better for it. this, at least, i am grateful for – the time and opportunity, at last, to put down all work and just walk, think, sleep.

i picked up a couple of new books that i really enjoyed, but i think i will let the juices sink in a little more before i write about them.

these sensations of homesickness are so surreal i cannot help but submit to them. is it age, hormones, or something else altogether?

the impossibility of bringing everything i have with me has finally sunk in; bit by painful bit, i remove pieces of myself from the trunk and put them back in the closet. it is rather difficult to explain why there is something so immensely personal and sad about this process. after all, i will be back here before half a year is over… but how can i convince anyone that it will all be the same, and yet different?

9 years ago, change was exciting. change was, then, a little like a roller-coaster ride – something you dreaded and looked forward to all at the same time. but it may be that these years have wrought too many changes; somehow, somewhere along the way, the bright-eyed wonder became wide-eyed fear. adjustment and ‘dealing with it’ became a chore rather than a challenge, and change… you start to wonder if you are simply looking for trouble. it really isn’t a necessary evil, is it?

just a personal moment, really. for all the innocents who have perished in all the senseless acts of violence, minor and major (although no such act could really qualify as being a ‘minor’ one), at any point in human history.

i felt incredibly guilty last night, because as others had tiptoed around in wide-eyed fear, wishing only to live past the moment of terror… i had been out laughing and having fun. reading the news is always a guilt-trip. you wonder if the ability to continue with your own life (joyously) is a sin; if it means you are a callous and indifferent person; if you would somehow be punished for being happy; if you should try much harder to do something rather than sit around talking about how sad it all is.

lots of activists talk about how even a single person can make a difference. it is true, and sometimes we can. but when faced with something as mammoth as peace, as deep-seated as intolerance, as insurmountable as power, i feel helpless and cynical. i cannot believe that any of the efforts made by an infinite number of activists and volunteers are making even the smallest ripple in the still (stale) waters. we talk about raising awareness on issues, and i daresay we are so much more aware than we ever used to be. but the issues only grow in number and size, and none of the old ones ever come close to being resolved. how to act? what to act on? is it actually possible to be one of those everyday heroes?

so today, as i laughed and joked and made plans for christmas, i wondered if i should feel guilty after all for living my life, for worrying about my little worries, for making my little memories. i can, after all, help no one by walking around moaning about the state of things or praying for a better world. still, i cannot put aside this nagging feeling that i have missed something – that there is still a chance to do much good with this life of mine, and that maybe, somehow, i really can make a difference.

i was woken up at half-past three in the morning by the gentle whooshing of rain outside. i left my windows wide open, snuggling into the blankets as the wind swung the curtains this way and that.

it is a lovely feeling to be awake at that time of the night (when you are not dead tired, that is). to be conscious as the world sleeps; to feel safe and cocooned in the midst of a storm; to let your mind wander far and wide as you take your time to fall back into unconsciousness, rocked to sleep by a cool tropical storm.

after many months of sleepless nights spent rushing through senseless translations, i am enjoying this rare lull in work pace (although i might not be saying the same if it goes on. after all, one has to eat to enjoy anything at all). i mean to savour this time, even as i try to silence the voices that play on loop in my brain night and day, day and night – when will i know about the scholarship?

but there are many things to be done in the meantime; i cannot allow myself to fret over things i cannot control. news to catch up on, (text)books to dig out and fresh ideas to give birth to, music to learn and love, bridesmaid duties, movies, birthdays, blogs… a whole country to get myself re-acquainted with – to try and understand, all over again, the physical and social fabric that makes singapore, for it is the understanding of self that feeds the understanding of others.

yes, it should be an exciting few months ahead.

i feel almost normal for the first time in two weeks. there are remnants of physical discomfort, and the world is wont to start spinning at the most unpredictable moments, but for the most part, i’m back. at least, i hope so.

because too much work has piled up in the meantime. shampoo bottles to be translated (one of my more interesting assignments in a long while), music to be learnt, a voice to recover, and… school! school! is it possible to look forward to something and yet really dread it at the same time?

i couldn’t sleep well last night, and fell into a restless dream about having to study physics and maths again, alongside my own research work. physics! maths! talk about ghosts of the past. all those old, familiar feelings of repulsion towards these subjects came flying back and i could do nothing to help myself. no matter how i tried, i only ended up failing test after test after test. i wish i could have woken up before i decided to withdraw from school (in my dreams, that is); that sense of fear and despair may not have stayed with me throughout the day then.

so much of life is about conquering fear. perhaps, because i am who i am, so much of life is simply about fear. a cough could always be more than a cough, vertigo and nausea more than just reaction to antibiotics, and the exhaustion that wouldn’t go away a harbinger of… well, something. what if i don’t get that scholarship? what if (knock wood) something major happens at home while i’m trying to be doctor so-and-so? what if i have to drop out of school without getting that final degree of degrees, and never get to become doctor so-and-so? what if (gasp) i never sing again? what if i never get over the bitterness of these four years and never feel the excitement of having a crush again? (is that possible at all?)

these days, the fear is forced upon you even if you have none to begin with. you could pick up a piece of chocolate and wonder if it’s loaded with melamine and become the very last piece of chocolate you ever eat. you could be taking a daily jog (as you have been for the last x number of years) and it could be the very last jog you ever take. you could be going to work at the same time as you have been doing for the last x number of years and find that you no longer have a job (or worse, that there is no longer a company to go to).

but that is why so much of life is about conquering the fear. i tell myself this as i read the news, as i learn to sing something both beautiful and trying… even as i get measured out for a bridesmaid gown (trust me, those numbers the seamstress was jotting down – scary). i fight to keep my world stable. spin if you have to, but never out of control.

ever sat down and thought about your principles? the shining beacon of light that you base all your decisions on, from marriage to… things as trival as what to wear to work? i had a revelation of sorts, the realization that i don’t seem to have any such principles. or it might be that i am guided by a principle of not having any principles. and that.is.bad.

i know i used to pride myself on being tolerant; i thought i was living by the adage live and let live. but i’m not sure if i am somehow translating that into a cold indifference of some sort. perhaps to live and let live is not simply an ability to accept the quirks and foibles of friends and strangers, but rather, the ability to ignore… and it is disturbing to know that i can now do that quite easily.

you know those biographies of famous people? every single one of them seemed to have this… defining quote. the quote that explains why they did things a certain way; the quote that made them what they were; the quote that generations of people will try to live by so as to emulate their successes. the quote.

i don’t have one.

what would i say if someone were to interview me today? what do i believe in? (procrastination and panic actually give birth to little flashes of genius…?) what is my defining beacon of light? i feel so shallow all of a sudden. i cannot even say things like ‘follow your heart’ with absolute conviction. ouch.

… and then she spoils the moment of intense reflection and possible enlightenment with yet another stray thought – how to lose 5kg in less than 2 months, just to be a ravishing bridesmaid.

the tiny bird that has forgotten how to fly. (really makes you want to change “tiny” to “fat,” doesn’t it? well, for me, anyhow.)

one of misia’s songs – just another one of those japanese ballads that i actually like. incidentally, i am going to watch her perform live in two days. my virginal rock/pop concert experience! i hope it will be horrendously flashy and unforgettably loud, yet more in tune than most pop singers manage to be when they sing live.

but that was a digression… my point is i do feel like a (fat) bird that has forgotten how to fly… “at some point in time, i have lost sight of something,” and i wonder when i will find ”happiness as great as the pain born of my wounds.” so many things, and so much pain… if i ever do, i think all that happiness will just overwhelm and kill me instead.

aren’t lyricists amazing? for some reason, at some point in time, at least one of them seems to have gone through exactly what the rest of us are going through, and managed to pinpoint our exact sentiments. brilliant. but i suppose the human journey is, by and large, universal. it is sometimes just… i don’t know… ego? self-indulgence?… that makes us believe our suffering is unique. maybe, just maybe, that belief makes us feel better, and we simply do not like others to empathise and say i understand (i know i don’t!); we do not believe they can.

not that the knowledge of my own self-centredness bothers me, really. is it all that bad to live for yourself?

head. aches.

i’ve had a record number of headaches this year, and none that panadol could cure. i might believe that it is because my bed is in direct view of the room door, or i might not. it is a rather chinese/fengshui thing to blame everything on the door (apparently, bad things always enter through the door, but don’t you just wonder, why not the good things?), but… i don’t know. sometimes, it’s easier to just believe these things; sometimes… sometimes… i don’t believe in anything. it is so easy to be cynical these days.

sunday nights. i hate them, really.

sundays have become an endless carousel of work that i cannot say no to, and when night comes… when night comes… all the old, familiar emotions come flooding back, and i just want to crawl into bed and let the music flow over me – scant comfort, but comfort, nonetheless.

i have given up trying to give titles and tags to my old entries. it is not worth the time doing that just to satisfy some silly, anal need for uniformity on my blog. it’s not as if anyone will actually notice… i thought about putting my blog up on facebook as part of the entire coming-out-of-the-closet thing, but lost my nerve somewhere along the way. do i really want to wear my heart on my sleeve like that? what would it be like to actually have people reading this blog? as with many other (bigger) things in my life, i can’t seem to make a decision… it’s so pathetic… i’m so pathetic.

i did read through all the entries though, but maybe i shouldn’t have. they brought back too many memories of failure and depression, and emotions that i have been trying so hard to keep locked up – if i cannot learn to deal with them, i would rather hide from them. it is not the most praiseworthy thing to do, but at least they wouldn’t be able to destroy me that way. but what a colourful couple of years these have been! how i have grown… and changed… and yet, stayed just the same.

sunday nights. i really do hate them.

some lead right back to where you started.

i was wandering around the financial district today and getting rather hopelessly lost, as always. that was when this post happened.

you know the movie sliding doors? i think about that sometimes. where i might have ended up if i hadn’t done a certain something in life. let’s say i had not listened to mum 15 years ago, and studied french instead of japanese. i might speak a little french now, but i don’t think i would have ever made it to france. i think i would have stayed in singapore and gone on with my studies at the school of communications and stayed in the publishing line.

or if i had cleared that writing test waaaay back in 1999, i would never have gone to japan. i might have gone to leeds, had a lot of english tea, and come back as a journalist instead.

or if i had, say, read the papers just a teeny wee bit more and passed that other test last year. i might be coming up with tv documentaries for a living now. i think i would still very much like to do that if life had turned out differently somehow.

or if the ministry of education had not decided that my japanese degree meant that i had insufficient skills in english to teach the kids here (and look! i don’t even use uppercase! how right they are!) i might be in teaching college right now, learning about pedagogy and such, and looking forward to moulding the future of our nation.

but most of all, if i hadn’t taken a series of turns and unintended crossings, i may never have met a certain person. i may never have been both happy and sad (people you love do that to you. it’s the law). i may never have returned to singapore two years back, nor may i have wanted to leave again. who knows? i might even have met sundry other people and allowed one of them to make me both happy and sad for the rest of my life. i might have been bouncing a baby on my lap as i type this.

if. such a powerful word, full of endless possibilities and dead hopes.