perkaraperkara

Of course I realize that marriage isn’t be all end all, to even begin counting the days towards the big day, as it becomes a single digit number instead of two or three. It is the anticipation towards a beginning, but one I must realize isn’t all fairy tales and happy happy things all the freaking time, but to savour the gleeful excitement is all I ask for at this moment. At this moment when I, ten days away, am I Kelantan for the whole week + weekend, leaving mother with the loose ends have not tied up neatly, to do work stuff.

Anyway, onwards.  

 

F tells me that I should keep a diary from now on, and I shall perhaps keep diligently on that on Evernote, if time permits me. I have been through some roller coaster of emotions these past few weeks, such that I am always low on energy and find the world to be a strife. Work just deludes me further on the absurdities of the whole world, having seen that the struggle as pointless and absurd. I shall no longer allow myself to be jaded and further be hardened by conventions of life.

At nights I reread William James’ Varieties, glancing through the accounts of people. I suppose these are the things I like best. Accounts of people, those furtive stories that tell of an experience. This time I read the Mystic chapter, where various people have felt the presence of god, or a supreme being,  that intuitive feeling of oneness and illumination that hurls for a minute or two but leave you feeling fulfilled than you have ever been in your life. At fifteen I once killed a fly or some living thing and told God to show whether the things I do have consequences or bearings on this life of mine. of course, nothing happened at that moment, so resumed I life.

Fast forward to this year, Suyuthi hands me a book of poems by Zurinah Hassan titled Facing the Harbour (Menghadap ke Pelabuhan), autographed and all. She had just won the Sasterawan award, and he had went to her house to interview her. As Suyuthi recounts the interview, I imagine this woman, now in her sixties (or seventies), receiving this prize, and wondering what significance or meaning this has on her, literature in a malaysia as a whole, and the fact that she was the first woman to receive the prize.

I have not read her before except a book of poetry she published last year, where I thought she was one of the good ones. Upon reading this book and the other one, there’s that summoning and declarative quality in her words that I rarely find somewhere else. Her words are simple, rooted in her surroundings,  yet sometimes very cruel and on point.

But what does it mean now, to finally, win a prize, that final nod of acknowledgement that women writers now do exist? Shall women writers be read more, and more books to be produced by women? Or shall she be singular in her achievement and pass like a blip in due time.

I suppose now we must write, and write well.

Sambil menjalani masa, kita membiarkan orang datang dan pergi dalam hidup kita. Aku kata pada F yang semakin lama, semakin sunyi hidup aku, dan mungkin setelah kahwin, orang orang akan sewaktu dahulu aku selalu berbual bual ketika sedang kebosanan atau mungkin, plainly in need for someone to talk to, semua itu akan perlahan lahan hilang.

Ini, atau mungkin aku sendiri seperti semakin ingin cuba menghilangkan diri daripada dunia. Atau mungkin aku sudah menjadi orang yang semakin praktikal dalam menjalani hidup. It is so damning, often times, that we lose sight of things once we hold dear in face of reality. 

Semalam aku melihat semula filem Before Sunrise, mendengar perbualan perbualan mereka dan berfikir, yang sudah lama aku tidak bercerita hal hal sebegitu kepada orang lain. One of course is the cynic in me has discarded all forms pretentiousness that I no longer choose to pursue my disclaim to other people – I simple do not bother. Apa yang aku sedar sebenarnya begini – aku tidak lagi marah kepada dunia, tetapi kepada diri sendiri. 

Dan aku sedar yang aku mempunyai kecenderungan untuk follow through down the miserable path, just because I am curious what will happen to myself. Mungkin pada tahap aku pilih untuk forego kebahagiaan (atau, mungkin, the most ideal and logical solution) melihat rentetan peristiwa dirungkaikan satu persatu di hadapanku. Aku selalu juga suka meletakkan sesuatu, at the very edge of the tipping point (please translate), in order to see how much things can endure. I am obsessed with my own capacity to endure, too much to my own liking. 

Tapi ini, untuk masa lain. 

Did you know that I believe more in the narration of a story than to adhere to my own wants and needs? 

dear pots,

i cleaned out my closet today, and managed to get three bundles of jeans, shirts and skirts that i have barely worn or never worn. its amazing how they accumulate over the years. i even changed my dressing table’s cloth with a new set, the one Mei (I have forgotten his name) gave me in Japan. this was before you came and passed the letter. hours later i drove to seksyen 4 and tossed it in the charity bin.

i only opened your letter at night, when i have turned off all the lights except one from my phone, and began reading.

i haven’t had the house to myself in a long while. it feels odd, to suddenly have a big space to maneuver in. the house were i rent now, feels large but the space you truly occupy is this yellow mattress. some nights amal and go out to different places but otherwise we talk for hours into the night or watch an episode of breaking bad, thanks to your projector. she is a darling to me, but sometimes i get tired of people.

i cherish my mornings, sometimes i shower early and just stare out the window, look at the bleak sky, overlooking the mrt construction, try to peer into other people’s bedroom, and make breakfast – which consists of only cereal, by the way. some mornings i write, but what i write no longer seem to be coherent. they are all either the things i would like to do today, or the things i have planned or wish could happen.

it is not a feeling i would call feeling empty or depressed. i am aching from something i have yet to name, but perhaps it is this, i am suffering from the practicalities of life, that i no longer choose (or rather, have neglected) to focus on how i, truly feel about the way of things. this might purely be a reaction from last year’s terrible mess i have made of myself, that i chose to avoid addressing myself, not in relation to others but solely concerning the self.

i suppose this is why i feel so lost. of what comes next, of whether i will become this hardened person, swept over by these practicalities and realities of life, that i am consuming myself in the process.

i will be married to F in less than two months, and i am happy for this to come. i seldom write of him here because (as I have often said to him), that love to me, to quote Bloc Party, a private kind of happiness. that love needs no proclamation but a quiet resolve that is understood between each other without those words to pass and reach each other.

then again, i am always so terrible with words, that i give myself this excuse of a reply.

but i think i am somewhat doing alright.

well then, till next time.

sleepy people in cramped cubicles with the florescent lights shining down on stale air. she wondered whether this will be her situation for the next two or three months as work begins to settle in. Amal handed her Murakami’s Pinball book last night, to read his prologue, as they talk and talk about the people and lovers from the past and how the present situation presents itself. it is like therapy, to be able to talk about the same feelings over and over again that you seem to find little bits of memories suddenly float on the surface in form of a panda bear or elaborate words or a photograph.

i forgot to turn off the lamps again last night, and couldn’t start my car. the people at tesco seem to relax after 10pm, everyone is in the mood to talk to strangers and smile and take more interest in their surroundings. we walked to far end of the parking lot and several men were vaping (is this a word now?), i asked for a hand and off them bros go to start the car.

new towns and neighborhoods are always nice to explore, to climb in and out of roads and junctions and trails and reach the unknown hill. i attribute my fondness for exploring to pokemon, where one seems to move endlessly in every direction without hurrying to the next town.

i know not what has become of me lately. i must find the will to write, and must be consistent at it, but things and people they pop up so often and constantly but i no longer seek to flee. writing can no longer become a form of escapism for i have embraced my surroundings gladly (maybe i have finally phased out of the awkward teenager phase). i can no longer subscribe to Rilke’s words that i would die if i do not write.

“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”

i know now that i will not die, but must i write? yes. i see it as the only form that truest expression of myself can be found, but sometimes the truth can be fearful to be written down. one allows oneself to become vulnerable, the longer one writes and lingers on paragraphs that they tend to become nasty and therefore un-reflective of what i show to the world.

but no matter, no matter.

I wonder if these vignettes, half baked thoughts should ever emerge in this space, only to be looked upon much much much later, only to be puzzled upon what gave such an idea for it to be written down?

Here and now, I seem to drifting from one place to another, in search for a thing which cannot be named. 

Going home for raya this time feels different, knowing I would not, oftenly return to the same houses. The good side would be I have a concrete answer as to when I am to marry, but as each year folds into another, you notice the minor differences everytime you visit your Opah and Atuk. He no longer makes roti canai for you, while Opah needs help to stand up, her son arrives with a daughter and a wife to stay in together.

Suddenly I am reminded of the story Sula, by Tony Morrison, one of the required readings at university. The way the mother burnt her own son inside his bedroom, after he returned, not doing much, while the son accepted this fate of his, as if waiting for death to come his way. 

Or maybe it was one of Marquez? 

In books, do one find paralells in life. Or is it the other way around? One is then reminded of the other thing, and forget the things at present. To make smaller the real by testimony of the book. 

I guess, in small villages, far away from the city, the role of a woman becomes more fundamental. To cook, to care for your children, and to maintain the household and those occupying it. For one cannot simply move, have no means to do so, and so must content herself within the confines of her own space. But if she refuses to do even those tasks, what is then left of her? A lazy menantu, kata Atuk. 

I reflect on this and think of myself, naturally, to not be labelled as such. 

The one most fundamental question I think is how does one occupy time. It’s terrible enough that most conversations these days centre around which highway do you use to get to X, and how long did it take you, such is how we all seem to value time just enough to go home and check our mobile phones for the latest updates. 

I am tired and I am bored, really. Or plainly uninspired. Maybe it is easier to be more excited about everything where the idea of impermanence is embedded within you, not just some idea of distant death, but one that continually makes you feel restless and must, move. 

-end of raya rant

i went to another job interview last week. the month before it was another oil and gas company, for a position i don’t even want. i just tread from one place to another, trying to place myself in this world.

then i return to the office met with colleagues, who range from those who have worked from six to twenty plus years. we are like a little family, where people seem to come and go from all corners of the earth, appear for a week for some tedious task, then return to the desert for another term.

My little visit to another company has prompted a discussion on why would I want to leave.  Is it money, Z asks. No, I said. Perhaps what I seek more is excitement, and challenges. S says I should work in a power plant, but I told him I cannot afford to do that. It does not work for me, to master things in a long term in which I have no interest in. Ustaz said the job market isn’t doing well, so I must consider the future. Some women like stability. M told me I must have an end goal, and then reorient my path towards that.

I was about to tell them I want to open a bookstore (more on this later), but I said to become a policy maker instead, somewhere in the Ministry. Je ne sais pas. I go wherever the wind carries me, but it is a dangerous way to live.

People all around me ponder on what to do with their lives, and I say I am in the same situation – what awaits us after graduation, after this sojourn in Vietnam, what’s next? What to do after a work? Do we go from one thrill to another in order to forget our own misery and worries?

I know not actually, what i want to do. in a heartbeat, i would say to sleep peacefully and not worry. but life is not that, life requires us to act. we sleep precisely because we are unable to act. what’s more important, i require a meaningful act.

I’ve read this morning that happiness lies having certainty and fulfilling that certainty leads to happiness.

F is here, as I struggle to introduce F as F or as the Fiance. The one I intend to (will) marry. He is meaningful, as he acts as the constant in my life; one that accompanies me, one that is there to talk to me, one that can bear me with all my complexities, one who listens to all my ramblings on life. Therefore marrying him is meaningful.

But on marriage itself later

besok, saya ke saigon. mungkin ini sahajalah caranya untuk saya terus meyakinkan bahawa diri saya ini wujud, tidak hanya sebuah imej yang berulang saban hari melakukan pekerjaan pekerjaan yang sama sambil menunggu waktu berakhir.

kadang kadang, bila saya rajin pakai contact lens, pulang saya akan terbaring di katil sambil termenung memandang siling ataupun dinding. semalam, nama sontag muncul pada pendangan saya. tetapi saya  tidak bangun lalu mengambil buku itu, tetapi terus tutup lampu dan menghubungi F.

mungkin sahaja saya telah hilang minat membaca.

saya tidak tahu apa yang akan dihadapi esok. mengikut perkiraan saya, saya akan berjumpa orang orang yang seperlakuan dengan ex pengawas, perwakilan pelajar, presiden persatuan dan sebagainya – ini membuatkan saya agak risau untuk pura pura berminat untuk bertanyakan hal hal semua orang dan apa apa yang mereka katakan. mereka selalu percaya bahawa mereka ada benda penting untuk disampaikan. tapi saya cepat penat dengan orang orang yang baru sebenarnya. tapi kita cuba juga, ya?

ada apa pada idea membuka sebuah kedai buku, anyway?