perkaraperkara

  
What I imagine I look right now. 

F made me do a list of thing that make me happy. We highlighted all 21/43, saying indeed I am happy for the past few days. 

Let today be a glitch in an otherwise ordinary streak of life. 

I received the original letter from Germany today. Recycled paper and all, with those german symbols on vowels, signed by the man who interviewed me. 

It excites me, actually, to go there. I worry about my inadequacy but will fully utilize myself once I get there. 750 euros a month, heated clothes, Milka chocolate, the Danish border, international class, isolation, nature, the port, the sea. Two years. It’s not exciting London perhaps, where you have events and interesting people, but it’s Europe. 

My father says I need to be more excited about life. Excited and grateful. Most importantly, syukur. Grateful that;

1. I’ve aced every single exam I had.
2. I don’t have debt.
3. I studied overseas on a scholarship.
4. I have my own room
5. I travel quite a lot for free and blessed with opportunities
6. I have a cute niece
7. I earn good money
8. I am not disabled, poor, homeless, sick, hungry, traumatic, abused.
9. I got published, twice, perhaps, in print. 
10. I married F, the one I love and loves me more.
11. My mother and father are well
12. Blessed with great friends
13. I live in Bangi, a nice place to chill when you really think about it. 
14. I am smart
15. I survived depression and idk, suicide, when I was 15. (Even when I always come back at these low points).

Tuhan, ajarkan aku bersabar, bersyukur, dan redha akan ketentuanmu. 

 
Aku pandang mercu tandamu,

Sekilas lalu, 

Sebelum aku diusung dari acara ke 

Acara majlis ke 

Majlis manusia ke

Manusia yang buat aku lelah dengan dunia.

I spent the day today, being married and all doing these;

1. Making pancakes with F
2. Made him tea
3. Went to the library with him and took silly pictures.
4. Solat together.
5. Goreng keropok lekor with him.
6. Went out lunch with his siblings.
7. Went shopping with him and ask for advice.
8. Made hot chocolate for him.

 

 

I have never been one for the present. I see things not in what they are, but what they could might be. This can be a flaw of course, because I always want things to become better, potentially better, that I seem to regard whatever I have, own, possess, surrounded by, loved by, seem so inadequate. As a result, I shall always be striving for things beyond my reach, precisely because I do not make fully of what I have now. I do not enjoy the company that I have, the time given, the faculties and money and love showered.

I need a slap to the face to make me fully come to my senses and simply… be present.

(F is sitting next to me writing for a job application to UN)

 

 

 

It’s been fifteen days since I’ve received new of my admission to a German university. I’ve been speaking of it for the past 6 months and to have closer come to reality makes it feel that I am trying… in life.

I realize that while pursuing a postgraduate studies won’t solve any problems I have of late (all inconsequential, actually), but at least it offers a temporary reprieve from reality back home.

I talk to Fand A (I have now become of the married ones, heh) and all they speak of trying to find something they can do and want to do. I myself am clueless but the fact that I have a job that pays somewhat well, I try to offer them tips and some information.

I think that the problem with us was that we have never tried to go discover things outside of ourselves and the comfortable path that was laid ahead of us. We were just, carried along the way, able to make mistakes because somehow we just know where the track lies. The track being a structured education since primary school – a string of exams, a scholarship, then university. but then what?

So yes, here I am again, trying to string my head and my heart together in wanting to make sense what is it that I actually want out of life.

 

  
F insists on wearing matching clothes, at least colour-wise. As we recall favourite moments, I say I love our commute the most; to be able to talk to him about anything and everything and knowing that each commute ends at some point, leaves us room to roam about our mind on what has been said and what has been left stirred. 

Everyday I see my old office and am reminded of a lot of things. It’s been six bloody months, and I must move on. I left for what I wanted but did not quite found what I expected to be found, so it hurts a little. 

Being married makes you more secluded that you ever expect to be. The way people seem to shelve into one category of people you can no longer disturb on a regular basis, or can be asked out for coffee, I don’t know. 

I now look forward to Germany, and that is all. As to what happens between these eleven months, I have not yet a clue, but to pursue things as I see fit. 

Reading has left me. Writing has left me. And I must regain it all, and swim against the tide of surrender, else I fall into insignificance. 

  

Pantai Puteri, Melaka, 2016.

Saya kadang kala ingin melarikan diri daripada tanggungjawab, tetapi saya sendiri tidak dapat bertanggungjawab atas keberadaan saya, jadi mana mungkin dapat saya berdiri dengan sendiri? 

Tiupan angin di Melaka sangat kuat, apatah lagi kalau anda berada di atas. Saya pejamkan mata, kemudian mendepakan tangan dan menghadapkan diri saya dengan pemandangan bumi Melaka ini dan rasa bahagia sementara. 

Di sebelah saya F, yang sedang menunggu lif untuk turun. Saya pandang mukanya dan kadangkala merasakan kami berdua ada pendapat berbeza untuk soal kebahagiaan. Kadangkala saya bertanya, untuk apa saya berkahwin dengan dia? 

Cinta, barangkali. 

Atau saya percaya kepada sebuah idea dan ingin melihat pengakhirannya sehingga saya puas. 

F and I agree to move on from this particular occassion, for we shall look forward to the future, and refuse to let things long in the past continue to haunt us. 

So let this one slide, for no two people are the same, and each their own person.   

Sometimes I think memories, often bad ones, should never be recorded. And then I wait for things to become good again so that I might be able to share it, but then I cannot warrant myself enough enthusiasm to even speak or talk or appear.

It is always nice to arrive home, after going away for a long time. I was in Singapore for the weekend, and I was terrified and in awe and a bag of emotions when I returned.

There’s this sense of uniformity when one arrives in Singapore; that everything is too well planned that it becomes boring. Houses are marked by blocks and numbers, east and west, differ only in colors but not in design. I am perhaps more terrified by the lack of personal space in the city. As if one cannot act out any differently lest the cameras shall catch you. At the elevator alone of a normal residential area where we stayed there were 4 cameras, several do not signs, and any ads were either about community services or messages. A person is a citizen, a functioning unit of society, and all paths shall be laid out to him like carefully thought-of branches that the only thing to do is to follow.

 

Anyway, no postcards this time as I did not have the time to do so.

*

That quote by Rimbaud, strangely I read the day before your letter came, and it made me all teared up for some reason.

*

 

This year, the thing to do is to tread slowly, and grow silently. No matter what has happened in the past, it is not a cause for immaturity in the future. I tell myself to not take offend on the immaturity of others, but it will always hurt to be perceived badly, no matter what. I look on, by the sidelines, and move on.

*

I want so many things, but dare not to speak my desires

*

RS’s Brazil –

F questions whether this is a normal thing that Fixi does or just particular to the author. I said, it would never be published if it was not him. Sometimes I wonder if one can just write a novel out of a series of actions and details – A does this then B and took 2 spoonfuls of X into his mouth and proceeded to take line Z to station number 3 in order to purchase G. Repeat for 150 pages and then sprinkle with your analysis on sastera-ha. Well, it is now answered in this novel. From the moment it becomes somewhat interesting then mundane to the point of why bother. I suppose he does this from a very objective perspective – to record merely what has happened, but nothing more – for any interpretation comes from the reader, not the one who writes – If the characters speak he speaks to another person, not to the reader, not to himself.  Only on the things that has passed does subjectivity occur – my memory of my father, my dialogues (churned in the mind – only left to be told).

I am tired anyhow of the experimental.