i know it's very much not like me to privatize this place, but at least for now, perhaps until after EOYs, this place will be just friends (: add me if you want to read!
The leadership course we attended asked us to rank the top five values that were closest to us, out of a list of fifty. I chose
- "Adventure", to explore what others have only seen
- "Love", to treasure each person for who he is
- "Creativity", to challenge myself and my limits
- "Integrity", to be true to myself
- and "Wisdom", to understand what others only know
i know i'm usually indecisive and all, but recently i think i really have lost sight of what i believe (if there were anything in the first place). I've been asking around, in the hope that i might find something worth latching my heart and soul on to.
L believes in God, or rather, in the fact that He must have put us here for a reason, and this reason will give our life meaning, so we can trust in Him even if we haven't found the reason yet.
L believes in Love, (it doesn't matter if it sounds corny, she adds) in the happiness that sparks in near-perfect friendships and the moments that make everything worthwhile.
A believes in Hope, that there can always be something better. W believes in Life, that the experiences count. R believes in Things That Are Right, that set standards for us.
N doesn't know, because he hasn't had time to think about it.
I think the best answer came from P, though, who told me that
"what helps is to be yourself no matter what. right now, 'yourself' may not be defined by beliefs, but there is a 'you' and as long as you do not suppress it everything will all fall into place. 'you' will find exactly what it needs.
let it grow."
I'm Hoping that things will turn out like that, and maybe on the way i'll find Love and Life. I might learn to do the Things That Are Right, too, and perhaps learn to find God and know Him.
Sometimes it takes a friend to show me
how wayside branches of bougainvillea
become stretches of heaven that accidentally
drip through the clouds in the hour
that sun meets highway
to paint bridges a dusty shade of gold
or leave a poem on the railing.
above photo and few lines were taken/written in the light of that golden hour when suddenly everything has a halo and the beauty of the evening strikes you with an untold vengeance. i was sitting on the railing of the overhead bridge between rj and braddell, with my feet dangling with the bouganvilleas and doing math.
thank you for the treasures you showed me today - you know showing awe and wonderment isn't one of my fortes, but you also know it was love at first sight for me when i saw the place.
morning's expedition to clarke quay was highly productive, both in terms of the exploration i did and the studying at macs. the fragrance of the dumplings and chinese herbs, the names of old and forgotten associations, the dingy art galleries on varied second-floor studios - there is an unimaginable richness in these old shophouses.
i found the settlers' cafe that zhenyu told me about last time (: must check it out in the evening! HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUANYIN if you're reading this (:
finally to end off - something that pat showed me today -
“Before you can grow up, you must fall in love 3 times.
Once you must fall in love with your best friend, ruining your friendship forever. This will teach you who your true friends are, and the fine line between friendship and more.
Once you must fall in love with someone you believe to be perfect. You will learn that no one is perfect, and that you should never be treated as any less than you deserve.
And once you must fall in love with someone that is exactly like you. This will teach you about who you are, and who you want to be.
And when you’re through with all that, you learn that the people who care about you the most are the ones that you hurt, and the ones that hurt you are the ones that you needed the most.
But most of all, you learn that love is only a concept and is not something that can be defined, it is different to each person that experiences it. And you will learn to respect each and every person on this earth, knowing that everyone only wants to be loved.”
it isn't really a neighborhood in the sense of an estate - i'm actually talking about the stretch of road along upper thomson road that's crammed with eateries, small shops and other interesting things. there's a taoist shrine right next to an ocbc branch, for example, and a burger bar called fatboys.com (: [or something like that!]
here're pictures from the tour :D
by Marc Daniel Nair –
I am constantly on the look-out for poets,
chain-rhyming, five-stanza-a-day poets,
palming their pencil and notebook in back pockets,
lighting up lines with the practiced ease of habit
I search for them in sunlit corners of trains,
between shelves of public libraries.
I find them pacing and waiting at bus-stops,
stubbing out the ends of pencils,
flicking ashen words onto paper.
There is no mistaking the poets’ scent;
the tangle of joy and fear
to exhale a word and
stub
out the idea before the bus draws near.
Sometimes I peer over the shoulders of strangers
when I see them turn serious and begin to scribble.
But often, it’s a list of things to do, groceries, accounts.
These everyday words are safe: they don’t give me
a rush from breathing in someone else’s simile.
Where have all the serial poets gone?
Those who only smoke unfiltered; huffing hard packs of dense
images that incite the potential to kill or cause intense emotion
when the burning tip touches the fragile prose of skin.
Breathe it in, and out, read it once, and again, and again, until
Lips chafe, lungs burn, eyes gasp red and dry.
I want a poem to sear miracles of metaphor in my brain.
I don’t want menthol lite concoctions of neat little verses
with pop song end rhymes that carry little deterrents from the poet.
I want to smoke a poem that doesn’t bow to warnings,
that knows it’s dangerous and makes me dangerous, and
therefore – cool.
I want to smoke a poem, make sure everyone knows
every word in inhale is poetry, not prose.
We became linen
curtains – swinging but not
touching, stirring the sunset
with the fingers of the trees.
I thought you laughed but
it was a trick of the light,
that danced across the room
strummed my guitar
sat in my window
brushed past my memories and
kissed me on my forehead when
I bade you goodbye.
please, take care of yourself -
these used to be blackmail lyrics (remember?) but some parts are really applicable x)
Slow it down
Make it stop
Or else my heart is going to pop
'Cause it's too much
Yeah, it's a lot
To be something I'm not
I'm a fool
Out of love
'Cause I just can't get enough
The sun is hot
In the sky
Just like a giant spotlight
The people follow the sign
And synchronize in time
It's a joke
Nobody knows
They've got a ticket to that show
Yeah
I'm just a little bit caught in the middle
Life is a maze and love is a riddle
I dont know where to go I can't do it alone I've tried
And I don't know why
I'm just a little girl lost in the moment
I'm so scared but I don't show it
I can't figure it out
It's bringing me down I know
I've got to let it go
And just enjoy the showSometime today I realized if I
looked up hard enough,
I would see my eyebrows –
and harder still my fringe, curling
fog-like on the outskirts of my
little patch of sky;
dimming out my heaven with a
grey and downy veil, so that
chunk of the milky way
had a bit of me in it. I
ran with this discovery to
where my mama stood but as I
tiptoed where she was to tell her
what it was I’d found,
she stepped into the blue and blocked the
view from all around.
However hard I tried, from
whichever way I peered,
I couldn’t find the cloud that had
my thumbprint on its face so I said:
“mama please, move aside
I want to show you what resides
up above where God decides
where I live and set my sights” but
she didn’t seem to hear so I tried
pushing her and shoving till my
arms turned into wings and
suddenly I found myself
up above and flying, soaring
in between her finger-cracks
to my little patch of sky.
Did you know that cherry liquor
only makes the best chocolate if
you take it in the cool of a French gallery
hidden above a flour warehouse
across from the temple with the peacock and
after an iced jelly at
the sweltering tables downstairs
where the old couple sips
coffee from the same
plate as they always did and
ground chili swirls around you
because hidden among all those
layers of shophouse are the quiet romances
of five-foot-ways and there you find
chocolate tasted just so you know
what being in love in time
is like.
posts something just gives
way emotion is scribbled
everywhere like rain
in a crying alley tell
me why tears fall
and hearts burn
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
hey all (: consider it sacrilege if you haven't read this wonderful poem by Rudyard Kipling, and take a fragment of it for your life!
headed down to club street on tuesday afternoon to explore the area but chiefly to see BooksActually and Polymath&Crust, the former recommended by laura. since i was early i ended up making a side trip to Blackmarket, which (ironically or not) is just across from Arab Street. visited victoria street wholesale market on the way back, and found a shop that ground and sold coffee the traditional way. wonderful places - comfortable, smelling of time past, and giving one the sense of kampung just inches away from singapore's busiest city district. these places ought to be remembered and kept, in actuality rather than just in memory.
a snapshot from club street:
as usual, a poem from the road -
a world aging
here is a world aging
in the thoughtfulness of ground coffee,
every roadside latte the hue of experience
dripping slow roast made bitter
by life’s simmering sweetness. in
a matter of a moment time
pauses, journeys halt, doors open and
dark fades with a hint of milk or a
sign of a life to be kept
on the tip of the tongue
and perhaps thoughtfully
swallowed.
go visit those places (: you won't regret it. anyway, to end off,
just recently yin posted this gem:
"Again and again"; Rainer Maria Rilke
Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.
travel post tomorrow, but i wanna thank someone wonderful for the umbrella that made today possible (:
you will not hear the sunset flee
the married stillness of the lake but
only taste the cicada’s click
that turns day into dusk; before your eyes
the scent of shadows rises from the soil.
There love like a couple
carrying children on their backs
melts into the dark.
it took me some time to decide on the title for this one - even though i eventually picked 'eventide', a suggestion for 'even if' was thrown up, and the dear lady who suggested it said: "this poem gives the sense that even if life is at its worst, there'll always be love in the air". thank you (:
asking someone to pray for something you want for yourself doesn't let him pray for what he wants for you; what if what he wants for you is what God wants for you? in any case, if someone cares about you he will pray for you in his own benevolence and discretion, without you asking; and it is this sincerity that i think we should preserve because after all, it is God's hand that will direct what is truly and finally good for us.
something really short to share today, please comment!
shelter
The umbrella in the corner blushes
with post-storm glow; I take
her hand in mine
and forget that it is raining.
i'm already starting to miss the late nights watching "balls out" or "v for vendetta" and i'm not ashamed to say that i can't wait to go back in again. monday night here i come :D
two poems-
Widow
in the dreams, she
ran because she could
not trust his reassuring
presence in her consciousness,
love like an empty
room full of promises
made her only lonely
within his felt absence.
she loved the – way
his features bled the
wall where they framed
time and monochrome memory,
where thin sorrow dripped
him and quiet familiarity
onto her pillow. Here
a family once slept.
Oversight
In the shadow of the window,
white walls abide
without whisper, simply hallowing
time with their presence and
living in acceptance
of the existence we cannot bear,
one that goes against
our loud nature.
Unlike us, they
tell without speaking the
truth of their existence,
yet we who die telling
the truth of ours
place their quiet reality
in the background
of our walk.
The first is a friend whom I've wronged and received forgiveness from, for which I will always be grateful. We were talking online the other day and we began to share quotes about love, quotes that are simple and beautiful and sum up this indescribable emotion almost perfectly. The second is a sister with whom nightly confidences are growing more and more rare. She asked me - quite some time ago, actually, but it only came back to me last night - what i thought love was.
Here are three quotes that queenie shared with me today, and i think they tell love from my perspective pretty well (:
"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."
- Antoine de Saint-Expuery
"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
- Robert Heinlein
"If i could reach up and hold a star for every time you made me smile, I would have the whole night sky in the palm of my hand."
- Unknown
remember this, dear?
today afternoon i was at national library doing chinese project and reading and writing and the weather was being very nice so i went over to bras basah complex. went to my favourite shops again, then went to CAT SOCRATES which is the nicest shop ever. well, one of the nicest. emmerlyn if you're reading this i'm getting your bday present from this shop so you can go take a look if you want but i'd advise you to keep you in suspense.
this shop has a little cafe at the back with about six tables, and wonderful music plays, and sunlight streams in from the window in the way that all artists love. no cash so i couldn't sit there to think about life, but i sure will if i have a windfall of $3.90 anytime soon (hint hint).
as i walked past the space outside raffles city today i saw the poem below. rather i saw the scene, and here's what it became in my mind.
Outside Raffles City, men
are smoking as if
they can be measured in
the space of cigarette-clouds, grey
specks forming
communities of leftover thoughts telling
secrets to the evening
reclaimed intimations
become fragments
of the path home, dust
to dust
highly coincidentally, i talked to two very important people today about waiting. to one i spoke of not waiting any longer, and to the other i spoke of waiting as long as it takes. both of them will probably be reading this, so:
to the first - thanks for these (almost) three months of waiting, i think you've taught me more in letting me wait than in giving the answer i would've killed to hear. this space in my heart won't ever be hollow again, so thank you (: it wasn't an ordeal at all!
and here's the verse which i sent to the second; it's taken from one of the most beautiful love stories in the bible:
"And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her." - Genesis 29:20
not waiting for anyone gives a sense of liberation, but i'm hoping that when this inexplicable thing comes round again i'll learn to wait.
Sometimes I wonder what lies ahead
How long till my hunger is fed
They say it's hard to make it in this part of town
So many people on this merry-go-round
Some folks try astrology
Some turn to crystal balls
To find an answer,
To get through it all
I just fall on my knees and I try to pray
In the silence I can hear Him say
The river runs and the river hides
Out to the ocean and under the sky
I promise you, the answer will come
Hold on to patience and watch for the sign
Everything in its time
I often feel like I'm two steps behind
Somebody must have moved that finish line
There are a thousand reasons
Why I should give up
But I'm stubborn in the things I believe
The river runs and the river hides
Out to the ocean and under the sky
I promise you, the answer will come
Hold on to patience and watch for the sign
'cause maybe there's another plan
One I still can't see
A little surprise, like your love in my life
Funny how time changes how we see
The river runs and the river hides
Out to the ocean and under the sky
I promise you, the answer will come
Hold on to patience and watch for the sign
Everything in its time
Everything in its time
- Corrine May
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
beloved_places- beloved_places
Syndicate
