reisende

hey, I come on and off, but this will eventually be taken off. please add me at dening (LJ). I do like to read my LJ-friends' journals from time to time, and it makes it easier with just a click.

I
A finger poises--
our introductions under
blankets of grey snow.

II
Man from Del Monte
smiles charily atop the din--
a pink blossom!

III
A puffin takes flight
into the autumn cool. What
about the other?


it would not matter how horrifically bad my haikus are if I could only coax a smile from you this early, quiet morning.

Pain is easy to write. In pain, we're all drably individual. But what can one write about happiness?


addendum [10 april]:
the comments an apt quote could incite!

I am happy, and that is the point! how does one write about happiness? how can I convey it strongly enough to match my feelings? and, without veering into solipsism? for I am blissfully, incredibly, sappily, and madly in love.

I bought a little bottle of sea salt recently. but it has been sitting there, unopened. there just isn't the time to use it. to cook. if only time was transferable!

tomorrow I will be going somewhere far far away (in geographical-distance calculation). I half wish I were on the plane back already! because there will not be ipanema beaches or joao gilberto songs...

in december I thought it was just another incidental rush-to-the-hospital situation, so I did not think too much about it. then I heard granny was really not doing too good and was warded at the CCU. I got myself down to the hospital one lunch time. no aunt was around - they were all working - and when I got to her room something in me.. just gave way.

maybe it was the mess of tubes and beeping machines framing her. or perhaps I was really very selfish and crying for myself. but I would like to think it was something more. I cried for my foolishness and for the pain my granny was in and for all the years lost I did not spend seeing her more often. that I did not hold her hand and walk her about the garden and talk to her in whatever hokkien I can, when she still could walk about.


she slowly got better after that, though not without complications and a few hiccups. I visited her everyday, interrupted by the short trip to HK, but not before I wrote her a christmas card in english telling her I remember so much of her: her fascination with arabic numerals and that her favourite number was '3', the way she would protect me from canings, our walks together through fields of lalang and I would help her pluck some, and most of all I love separating brown rice grains from the opaque white and translucent white, the opague white rice grains tipped (and disappearing) into a hole of the most fascinating manual stone mill - she with her legs hugging the circular granite and me hunched over on a stool watching intently - and out came watery rice flour and sometimes the very afternoon we would get rice ball dumplings with black sesame for dessert.

I did not care that she did not understand a word of english and that she was unconscious most of the time. I held her hand with my sanitised hand and told her I love her and told her about my day all in english.



when she got even better I bought her whatever she felt like having that day - soya bean drink, bean curd, porridge. I saw her every evening. and it was difficult, having to lip-read, and in hokkien, because of her tracheostomy tube which took her voice away. against all odds, and I mean against all odds, she pulled through. I am so damn proud of her and so happy.


one sunday afternoon I bought soya bean curd and went to her ward, only to find her bed empty! I was miffed and so happy at the same time - she had been discharged that morning (and aunts forgot to inform me!). I went to see her that evening.

and tuesday I got her orh-nee and whatever soft, traditional hokkien/cantonese stuff I could get from town, and saw her again. on friday on her request I got her chicken rice, and when I got to her place, I saw that her tracheostomy tube was out and her trachea was stitched up! I was deliriously happy to hear her voice again, after all these weeks. she ate her chicken rice heartily and complained with equal gusto that I did not get any chilli sauce for her.



here's to my granny. I love her lots. grannies will always look grumpy and moody to everybody else, but to their grandchildren they will always occupy a very big space in their hearts.

I'd be really selfish not to share this. the damage today is $14.19 which isn't too bad. if I am to reason it, it is actually excellent as it is a martin amis and recommended by a fellow david mitchell fan! I cannot ask for more. that said, please don't blame me if you need new shelves like I sorely do.

reflections are key during christmastime, not resolutions. one lead to the other, of course, but as they say, resolutions should be and can be made anytime, any day, at one's own pace. the twinkling baubles and fake snow and madding crowd are the ones that always make me think.

2006 has been, contrary to how I thought on 31 december 2005, a good year.

happy christmas, you all.

these show what I had been busy with:








an optimistic red m&m on one side.
I noticed that there are more red m&ms than blue ones - has it always been the case, like how blue m&ms are harder to come by in a typical pack, or is it an underhanded, erm, slip of the machines? heh.


in any case, I have finally my own (and very first) digicam. well, sort of. let's just say... that I've watched casino royale twice over the weekend. a very good weekend. parkour! spiffy tux! texas hold 'em! craig and his gadgets!

life is pretty darn good. 4 and 1/2 hour shut-eye/night aside, and the accompanied slugginess in the mornings and workworkwork and aching legs, hey-ey, I daresay I like petting cuttlefish while diving at dayang island, enjoying a date so much I did not admire my food nor properly taste it, and running fast and hard and long.