honesty

I haven't exercised for a month. I find this incredible since I used to track more than 10km of mileage per week. Tomorrow, if weather permits, I may swim again. But I am still afraid and I am not sure what of. When I drive past the familiar running route I always recognise that anxiety and guilt that used to pass through my mind. It seems almost automatic and terrifying.

After the whole ordeal, if I put it here in very vague terms, I find that I can no longer bear to go back to the way things once were. Because I see so blatantly my hypocrisy and selfishness. I think of the 5am yoga stretching and all those futile attempts to feel something, to feel worthy (of what, I do not know and probably never will). I think of buddhist teachings and how it says to renounce everything and live in emptiness and I feel genuinely sick. The past few sundays mornings have been spent in church, ironically. It is a beautiful one with red bricks and mosaic glass windows and church organs, it makes me feel at least some sense of safety, because I can no longer trust myself with my life. And yet the pastor speaks of Christ's warnings to those who recognise his presence and yet refuse to become his followers. All the atheists and agnostics like me sink lower into their pew seats.

where did time go?

I am so relieved I just finished an essay on international conflict.
This weekend I:

1. baked chocolate crinkle cookies, diabetes-inducing
2. hardly slept and felt sick and nauseous
3. made a sunday morning breakfast souffle
4. threw a party (it was sister's birthday)
5. did a lot of math
6. attempted the pomodoro technique, and failed

There was a phone call from san francisco from an old friend, apparently it is the malayalam onam festival today. So my epic productivity plans (which were already crumbling) were suddenly halted and I found myself cruising down the sunny highway to her place for lunch. It was wonderful. V had just left the army, he looks ostensibly older with a newly-groomed beard and haircut. The night before after a drunken bout of partying he crashed through the glass fixture on the balcony and cut his wrist, twelve stitches. We had a quick comparing of battle wounds: I won on grounds of resembling harry potter, he won on grounds of having sheer skill - not a single drop of blood spilled along the corridor before he reached the bathroom. His brothers haven't changed, and somehow just meeting them again filled me with warmth that I seem to have lost these few days. There is something very endearing about the indian community, the door is always open and everyone knows everyone. Lunch was a feast, made with so much love.

régence by regards

le grenier

billet

kogu

Had a minor emotional breakdown after receiving a letter from the police force asking me to turn up for an inquiry yesterday, which I clearly didn't. Having failed to comply I have apparently violated clause 5 or something and in effect committed an offence. Culmination of the day's miseries and now this official-looking government document stating that I have apparently breached the law ended in tears. Fortunately Mother worked her negotiating skills and all is well, I will be heading down tomorrow morning.

I feel marginally better now. Today was not a good day. This is not my place and I'm not sure who I am anymore. Everyday there is a conflict in my mind of goals, between my insecurities/my fears/my need for control, and what I should do/what is right for me.

Pessoa always has something relevant to say, if I may quote,
"I'm lost if I find myself; I doubt what I discover; I don't have what I've obtained. I sleep as if I were taking a walk, but I'm awake. I wake up as if I'd been sleeping, and I don't belong to me. Life, in its essence, is one big insomnia, and all we think or do occurs in lucid stupor."

and always some what comforting,

"Let's sit down here. From here we can see more of the sky. The vast expanse of these starry heights is soothing. Life hurts less as we look at them; a whiff of air form an invisible fan refreshes our life-wearied face."

i don't know what to do with my life

I am torn between

a. studying law in hong kong and becoming rich

b. going to a laid back art college in the united states and becoming (possibly) happy

I promised myself I wouldn't lapse back into daily despair. But being around people I used to know has a way of changing me into a person I don't really recognise. I see this most ostensibly every day when I reach home, looking like a wreck, stumbling on the couch, sleeping. It has barely been two weeks since I returned to school and the circles around my eyes have found themselves.

It is true that it is much easier to be sad than to be happy. There is a boy that I got too close to just to see what it was like to give myself away, emotionally. Now I know all his secrets. Now I have stopped talking to him almost entirely while maintaining a facade of happy ignorance. On bus rides his fingers fidget and in my heart I smile - for once I am no longer in a position to be hurt by someone else's actions. On the contrary my inaction is cutting. When I read his words on paper I gag. When I see him now and smile his eyes seem full of regret, even fear. I feel like a bad person but I have nothing left to lose since I have already lost everything.

It is close to 11 and I have worked up a huge sweat in the kitchen making the most epic breakfast cookies (something like a cross between angela's and jacqui's) It has the goodness of apples + carrots + bananas almonds + walnuts + raisins + coconut + oats + flax seed + cinnamon. I am buzzing with energy, probably conserved from the whole week of inaction. I could run a marathon, but my shoes are bloody.

While friends are bemoaning their obsessive-compulsive tendencies for studying that warranted external physical restraint from more than 3 hours of math practice, today I went to the japanese dollar store and picked up:

1. a sushi teacup
2. a ceramic dish with 'delicious' written in pink glaze
3. an onigiri maker
4. a chopstick warmer for lunchbox

and shopped for clothes:

1. a black zara cardigan
2. an over-sized pink chiffon top, which doubles up as a dress

and picked up lunch from cedele for sister and I :

1. organic apple juice with wheat grass, pineapple and lemon
2. roast chicken and avocado ciabatta sandwich
3. rice salad with squash, sesame seeds, parsley, olive oil

"The whole house is infused," says Mother. If there is anything I wish I could do for the rest of my life it would be to run an underground kitchen. I find myself lapsing back into old mental processes, judging my day's worth based on what I have accomplished. Today would have ranked low - I have been far too indulgent. Studying was a mere two hours spent on Dickinson critical readings, though in the living room afternoon sunshine over french press café au lait. Tomorrow morning I will go to church, and I will promis myself that this will not warrant any form of guilt.

11:11 seems like a foreign friend. I have missed this time for weeks.

today has been tiring & i should be sleeping

I had the privilege of being noticed by the principal and board of school directors today. One of the ladies said to me "I hope there is an interesting story behind that". The bandage across my forehead has attracted quite a few stares the past week and I enjoy watching the expressions on people's faces, ranging from concern to mild horror. The good thing about having gone through the whole ordeal is that after a while some things cease to be a cause for worry any more.

I ran into a person I thought I had forgotten, but when she held my hand and told me "be safe" I remembered what I used to love most about her, even if for a fleeting moment. there is still sunshine left in her but I can no longer feel that same sense of illumination as I did a year ago.

When I got home I was exhausted and nauseous and my head was pounding, fortunately an hour long nap and a warm shower was enough to make me feel happy again. I had a happy afternoon snack of sliced pear and raisins and walnuts, a few slices of cheddar and a heart-shaped milk chocolate from Mother. After that I went for a long walk with her around the neighbourhood. We saw a lovely grey cat and a labrador named Bear. I don't remember ever talking so much. I must have been very happy. The scar on my forehead has healed, what is left of it is a little indent. A reminder of having lived. I'm just glad to have my bangs back again.

There are shoes outside the apartment next door! It is always nice to have new neighbours. I have yet to meet them, but apparently they are an american family who has been living out of their suitcase for the past year and they have two sons aged nine and eleven. Time to send over a box of warm cookies

Dinner today was pizza, salad and wine. I recall december last year in the freezing cold of beijing we found a little corner cafe serving exactly that, all of us huddled on a plush armchairs around a small table and behind us rows of books (in english!) for browsing. A warm moment in the heart of wintery china. I will put up pictures of it soon.

takashi bakery

andersen

I just had a brief moment of déjà vu, feeling quite distinctly the sense of having given away too much here, once again, and maybe one day I will regret all of this. But this is not the time to speak of regrets.

First day of school on hindsight was mostly characterised by me smiling too much too hard, until at 3pm when I reached home and crashed on the couch I felt like a stranger. Only after an hour long nap did I regain some sense of myself, fortunately.

Today I looked in the mirror: skin slowly turning pallor, withering frame. Hair still falling away in the shower. I have accepted the latter as part of the healing process. I am determined to be kind to myself physically and mentally.

what is real

Lazy mornings spent with Mother and Sister and Martha nine months too late, she is celebrating last year's christmas during this tropical summer. Freshly squeezed orange juice tastes like love in my mouth. Martha busies herself with baked stuffed clams and salted cods and ritz crackers dipped in a chocolate mint coat and scented candles in glass jars and felt christmas tree wine bottle cosies, her effervescent smile and flip of blonde hair keeps me safe for an hour as I nibble on 菠蘿包 and think of home and how I will be there in a matter of months

The only thing that keeps me alive these few days are dreams of past travels
-
It is back to school tomorrow. I can't decide if I am happy or not.
Well of course I am happy. Every day I am happy to be alive. And i can choose how I want to live. The past week has been like a hazy dream, stuck in my small world although I am beginning to get used to the routine. But it is okay, I will be okay, I just need to remember that the moment is now and it is up to me to make the present a past worth remembering and a future worth living up to. I just need to stop thinking and start breathing, and I will be safe

i'm still very much afraid of going back to the way things once were and at the same time not being able to

Things that terrify me, like
going for a walk at 11 in the morning in the blazing sun, careful not to walk along trails that reminded me of the past, my cap down low shielding nervous eyes. Every time I waited at an intersection my heart pounded in my chest and no matter how steadily I breathed, how I attempted to open my mind that fear still stirs inside. Walking alone feels selfish. Forty-five minutes and my limbs have barely begun to ache and I think "what have I become"

kneeling over with my head on a pillow, knees together rubbing on the yoga mat, breathing and trying to find some peace but none come to mind, just the haunting memory of how hard I used to try. In the oppressive orange light and the little crack of the window letting in stifling air, what I thought was a sense of 'fulfillment' that I used to applaud myself for feeling is at best contrived

soaping my hair after god knows how many days and seeing hair fall out strand after strand, it is that pang of fear knowing that the past is catching up to me. And I see in the mirror the face that I know too well but others have seen change over the months. And I know this has to stop to a certain extent but I can't. How many people have I lost because of my selfishness?

frozen bananas spinning in a blender and the taste in my mouth that has never quite left, it makes me sick with nausea

readings lay before me that remind me of all the fruitless efforts, this inadequacy. I need to find new meaning, there isn't enough time left for me to realise how all these that seem so meaningless now will directly impact my future

I need to get myself together from now until november, after which I can lead myself to ruin with my self-centered, self-destructive tendencies. Part of me still fears that I will never be able to find my way back here again, but why would I want to come back? Am I less happy than I was before?

every day i am happy to be alive

...and so this will be my guiding principle for the rest of my life. To live in the present moment, because the past is gone and the future us yet to come, and the best we can do now is to be constantly aware and thankful because at any moment this could be lost.

Since monday I have had some of the happiest moments of my life.

1. seeing Mother and Father's shining faces as I limped out with the nurse from my hospital ward, all bandaged and cold, but knowing that I am going home
2. friday morning's impromptu picnic with Mother by the quiet seaside, armed with the best foods from the market (food which I have deprived myself of for the past months for reasons I will never understand) and just sitting under the canopy of trees shooting the breeze and hearing the gentle lapping of waves on rocks and watching little kindergarten children frolic on the greens
3. grocery shopping with mother buying cold cuts and fresh vegetables for salads
4. freshly-squeezed sunkist orange juice in a cold glass on a rainy morning, with Mother and sister breakfasting in the dining room, zee avi's sultry singing filling the room above the soft falling of rain
5. the warm smell of melting sugar mingled with the tang of orange as I make candied orange peel from frankie's sweet treats, wrapping glass jar tops with golden foil paper, the look of delight on Father's face helping himself to the crisp slivers of sweetness.
6. simple, family dinners: with the faint smell of air-conditioning and the cool marble beneath my feet, with a huge hearty bowl of boiled peas and carrots and melted cheddar over cauliflower florets, grilled chicken wrapped in baking paper, wine and jazz on the speakers
7. my first bath in five days and my hair feeling clean for once
8. sunday morning church service at st george's, in the safety of warm brick walls, chorus of hymns to church organs, the weight of the bible, the assuring baritone of the pastor's voice
9. the first words I read with clarity
10. baking apple brown betty, filled with love, lost in the smells of ground cinnamon and toasted buttered bread and sugar-coated fingers tossing crisp granny smith slices

Things are going back to the way things were. I can't bear to think about running anymore, or any of my 'disordered', 'perfected' eating habits, all these selfish pursuits. I will promise myself to do what is best for me, and for the happiness of my family. I will be patient with myself. I will live in the present, I will accord my every living moment with respect and enjoyment, I will find in it happiness and meaning. I will let myself heal, slowly but surely, enjoy the ride and ease myself back to a manageable and balanced equilibrium.

soho

caine road

elgin street

staunton street

hollywood rd

old bailey street

shelley street

graham street

peel street

george lane

aberdeen street

chung wo lane

wa in fong east

shing wong street

-
For the past few days my eye sight has not been particularly clear. As much as it troubled me, I decided to make the best of the situation and indulge in some memories of favourite places. Lorette E. Roberts' Sketches of SoHo kept me company. Her beautiful water colour illustrations of familiar hong kong streets reminded me of all those times trekking up the escalators of the mid-levels in the brisk cold, the sights that never change, the street stalls on slanted pavements selling hot sweet soup. Every year I will come back here and it is the one thing that is constant in my life. It is my anchor and will remain so. A year spent without returning home is a terrifying thought. The chatter of cantonese that surround me is like a warm envelope reminding me that here I am safe, at home, with my family.

saveurs

caramel salé
chocolat des caraibes
café de colombie
citron
dragée
épices et fruit moelleux
framboise
menthé
noix de coco
pistache
praliné
réglisse
thé earl grey
vanille