eating the newly baked raya cookies, there we sat with our bellies full of mapotofu and stir fried green beans and kung pao chicken. i have succeeded in my kuih bangkit and semperit endeavors, and strive for something else. c praised this productivity phase of mine – calling me a great hostess. i say, i feel like mrs dalloway, who smiles at dinner parties and buys flowers and cakes but has actually resigned herself to her fate/role.
lately my weekends have been spent at n’s where it feels more like a refuge from the outside formal world and people and a chance to sink in and feel more like myself. i am finally comfortable and take comfort with my newly found acquaintances, to stay up until three or four in the morning, to laugh and talk about anything, and wake up and have breakfast together before we leave to our own affairs.
it was f’s birthday last week, and like the great hostess i was, i had enough energy and enthusiasm to surprise him with a gift he can never top – visit from friends. i am feeling quite pleased (or the lesser meaning of this word), that i managed to summon enough interest and friendship from our former university friends to come down to this town of ours, despite corona and the illegality of it all brooding over us. whether out of boredom, the promise of fun, friendship (to him or me, ist egal), or the prospect of mobility, they came nonetheless. i even bought these stupid lamps that you hang over, so in the mood i was.
and when all was over, the lights have gone out, the photos taken, the furniture in their own place, the dishes and bottles sorted out, and the gradual goodbyes over morning coffee and reflections – there is void and then silence. suddenly the distance multiplies and i am weary of everything and the world and this life.
perkaraperkara 