Fly

Photo courtesy of Merlin. Post, one week overdue.

The day began with a typical Sunday weather befitting for those doing their champagne brunch thingy with lovely dresses, Jimmy Choos or perhaps if you are in my unpretentious circle, flip flops, tank tops and jeans. Then it started raining. At 1900 hours, the rain still hasn’t receded, the last ray permeating the pregnant clouds and in turn casting an unhealthy yellow sheen around. Bad enough this country is plagued by jaundice and now this.

Oh no. No more I’m a progeny of a mixed parentage and can’t seem to find my footing in what is otherwise classified under political correctness a very benevolent, harmonized society when it is, in actual fact an antithesis of that and please, racial politics died along with Martin Luther King, is still prevalent but who cares when eco-activism along with its celebrity compadres is the new vogue.

Let’s start again.

Got up at 12, read 100 pages of Satanic Verses. Oh joy. Dozed off and rolled around.

No wait.

Got up thinking about the weird dreams I’ve been having. Was bowling and ended up frustrated with every throw because the ball kept spinning into the gutter. There was the threesome with another woman, both of us clad in black lingerie. She told me to strip her so I ripped her panties off only to notice blood on her panty liner and got disgusted. The scene never got to the ménage tois, or you would have a sneak preview on first paragraph. Lots of Freudian analysis that can be deduced here, I know. But I’m a legend when it comes to odd dreams. Maybe have been wanting to have a threesome but the thought of eating pussy is still a primary revulsion. Oh yes, dreamt of headless bodies, and getting to touch Viggo Mortenson’s naked bod, and no, he’s not part of the headless troop. That has somehow got to do with Eastern Promises over the weekend. Or maybe I just need a bleeding therapist.

Had lunch, which left me nauseous. Watched Annie Hall (again) whilst doing work stuff-stuff too mundane to waste precious office hours over but still had to do it. It was an ok Sunday. Got enough time to myself, played with the cat who, until now has to deal with some sort of identity crises with five different names and is finally off her hormonal rage and yeah, where was I? Yes, the kind of normal me time Sunday.

Today is also the one week anniversary. Last week, S’s mum passed away and I got up to a similar Sunday of today’s type only to read the sms and I can just see S crying and texting it out. S’s mum is the kind of mum I’ve always wanted to be. S’s family is the kind of family I wanted my family to be made of. Pious, god fearing, jubah wearing, turban spirals, kohl lined eyes, not forgetting the nicely trimmed 3inch beard but with an open mindset to globalization, OC, premarital sex. Etcetera. S’s dad sat her down when she was 11 and went through the bloody menstruation business with her. At the age of 12, he was openly discussing sex. Imagine a bin laden doing that. No? Ok, let’s move on.

S’s ma was also the one to gently rebuke my mum who was openly criticizing me to everyone who’d listen (and that, is one long list) for taking off the hijab. “It’s not time yet for her. Let her have her fun sister,” she’d say while gently patting my mum on her back. She was the first to visit and console my mum, and you can imagine my rage when mum refused to visit her in hospital because the chemo she had to go through is not good for my mum and that is doctor’s orders. But that woman is dying, I said. And even on her deathbed, she asked for you and sends her regards and she was the first to visit and comfort you when you were sentenced with the same kind of disease. And then I argued with Dad who refused too, and the rage just turned to 40 minutes of awkward silence for my father, who, never used to such blatant display of emotion had to endure heart wrenching sobs from his daughter who was already mourning for her.

S’s mum died with 20 cents-sized cancer lining the perimeter of her lungs leaving behind a family who’s never smoked, is bursting with gaiety, love and filled with a sunny sunny disposition.

Last Sunday, last Sunday, last Sunday. Din din came over and I opened my drawers to reveal my hijab collection for her. We laughed a little, and went into a giggling fit possibly to repress the mounting sadness while I struggled to pin the tudong up for her, I mean after all both of us loved playing the swing outside their place and have S’s mum serving us iced milo and fried fritters after school back then. And it was always her place – our meeting point, our central perk. Her house was the first port of visit when I had my hijab on the first time round. I was clad all in black, in her tudong and she came out of the house, all pearly whites and radiant and happy. “You look so beautiful,” she said.

The house was packed, Din din turned the engine off, we got out of the car, prayer chants in the distance, my sweat plastering the black kurta to my body. Got into the house, went through the kitchen and pushed our way to the front to pay our final respect and a word for God to take this lovely, kind and gentle woman to his paradise. I can’t imagine just a couple of weeks ago she was grimacing and crying, asking for my forgiveness, before rewarding me with a look that owes its credence from all angelic metaphors. She lay on the ground beatific, smiling even. I uttered the Al Fateha and, despite having grandparents I loved with all my heart, dead before this and going to countless funerals owing to a large extended family ever since I was young, I cried for the first time at her funeral. Maybe there is a reason, but I can’t think up of why and I won’t. But I was glad the tears that came as a sudden shock to me came rolling, and it never cease when I knelt down beside her to kiss her on the forehead - all decked out in a black hijab, just for her: final prayer and final goodbye to the mum I’ve looked up to and will try to be.

I’ve had ménage tois, naked bod, religion and death all rolled up in a choppy, almost lackadaisical entry. Sort of stuff I have to ramble-before-getting-to-that-point-because-it’s tough. Real tough. And not worry about editing because that’ll be another tragedy upon itself. A sort of insult to the memory.

So let this be my first attempt at an eulogy, and leave it at that.

You have a good week now folks. I pray for sunny days.

Don't think twice, it's all right

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

I was at J’s last night – we had a rather intimate gathering, counting down till New Year’s and was it me or was everyone tense at the count of 10? Where did all the wine bottles go? My lips were prune from glass after glass of red red wine, and just once, I prayed for a hangover to tide me over the new day. The chimes woke me up to snuggly weather. The cat peered and yawned mockingly at me, and started thrashing about in heat. I had Buckley’s New Year’s Prayer ringing in my head, read a little thrash, ate some, threw up more, watched Talledega nights on HBO, laughed mirthlessly and sat in front of the laptop wanting to write something insanely smart and honorably witty to 2008’s aplomb but from the looks of things it’s going to be an overwrought juvenile scrawl.

I can go on in this watershed vein and most probably look back on this years, maybe months later and go berating myself from the lack of emotional censorship. And I do this all the time. Entries written back are packaged under the metal section:2001, or indie 2003, only to be unearthed and gagged upon, for similar reasons. Maybe the writing has improved, maybe I use bigger words, but the bad grammar is still there and once emo, always will be.

Someone once brought to my attention to one of Becket’s plays : Krapp’s Last Tape and how the protagonist (I know, I know.. It’s a bleeding monologue!) was an allegory of me.

The play began and centered around Krapp’s sixty-ninth birthday and, as customary, he would record and recapitulate events that has happened the past 12 mths. After doing so, he’d go back to previous tapes made and would woe and betide the (for lack of better word, since I’ve not read it yet) idealistic notions of youth, and the other criticisms in later years of that fallen self in all other recordings. In the end, all he had to call for memories were self flagellations and nothing else.

That struck me. I have been looking back and berating myself over foolhardy choices, (and composing cliché poems that leave a bad aftertaste) while not knowing that I’ve been canvassing a realistic caricature of myself: a fool.

So. Hence the question. Will I just back off and allow myself to just be? Will my philosophical decision on Self be polarized this 2008? Kant or Satre – intention or action?

This is where I come in after smoking a pack of cigarettes and say: fuck it. Back to where we left off: my self martyrdom and how I want the entire voyeuristic world to feel my pain. I’ve been tiring myself out every day –going out, drinking, and then back. Couldn’t sleep, so I read what chick lits I have left, get online, youtube, gawk at amateur porn stars giving nasty blowjobs and getting cum all over their pretty faces (make pretty good late night facial ads– would you take the, pun unintended again, load of that flawless skin?!) and jaunt on other people’s public domain because I was terrified of sleep. And when the lights are off, the sleep won’t come. I kept seeing that white room, with retro porn outfitting, me reading Murakami and turning to see him sleeping peacefully on those pristine white sheets. So peaceful I placed my book down, snuggled next to him and slept, hoping I’ll never wake up. It broke me, because for that infinitesimal of a second, I could bask in that perfect scene and kid myself that it was all real and not some botched attempt at make belief. And then, right back in my room on the other plane without my Sputnik, I’d curl up, gnash my teeth and force the tears so I can cry at the non sense and absurdity of it all and hope that’ll reduce me to a blubbering but tired self finally surrendering to sleep.

It’s not a good start when you just spend the first day of the year just bursting into tears at every point. It wasn’t a good start last year too. If you ask me to get right back up on my feet, I can’t. Strangely enough, miss-very-together can’t get a grip on herself. At this point, it just feels so much better to lie down and cry.

Anyway.

There’s not much else to say – there’s only so many times you can say crap, cry, tears in a single entry without it making look too whiney than it already is. To that someone who introduced me to Krapp, thank you. It’s so much cathartic writing all this down, knowing that in the next few months, I’ll reread this entry and forgive myself for being an emotional, idealistic twat.

Happy New Year. Here’s to better writing, Dylan, Satre and of course, Krapp. Your 69 years did filter sense, and it was not for naught.