perkaraperkara

On Sunday’s breakfast;

The question of a favourite author, this I cannot pinpoint. I like words which read to me like a symphony, something that resonates at that point in time given a certain circumstances. They evoke me precisely when they mean to. Thus it is easier to mention authors I have liked than it is to  to name authors I have always liked (as a favourite). To re-approach an author, to give him a visit, is to then ask, have I departed? A book or a novel to me is then where I dislodge memories, events that surround me when I read them, give rise to a framework, a state of mind, an arrival of truth.

(P/S: Terima Kasih kerana meminjamkan buku – buku)

*

The feeling of space as it surrounds you. Vastness, in a small solitary room. Where everything seemed strangely symmetrical. Suffocation, as you descend the elevators of that new mall into KL Sentral. Among movements, there are pauses – people who stop to stare at each other, people who wait with their phone clutched in their hands, the clueless tourists who drag on their luggages pondering over breakfast. School kids on a Friday evenings with a small duffel bag.

(In the words of Malte, “I am beginning to see“.)

Other things to love: The brushing of shoulders.

It is easy to get lost once you don’t record things. Life passes by so quickly; you go to work on Monday then there’s the water rationing and then the phone calls then the movies and then an interview. The coffees every morning, and the familiar faces on the train and suddenly it is the end of the week. There are instances and movements but they all fall into routine, eventually. What was once extraordinary becomes ordinary and suddenly everything become still.

Usually there’s someone I address all my writings to, at least subconsciously, the imaginary audience (a personal one) but of late I feel as if there is no longer any point to it. I read L’s 40-page book (journal? jottings? reflections?) and wonder how is it possible to amass such words in a course of a few months. Odes are odes, lovers are lovers, but still they require time, and effort.

Sometimes it is better to sleep early, to forget everything, to not read, not think, to be un-stimulated and unperturbed by the happenings of the world. I want to forget, to not participate, to not care in a lot of things, people and whatever there is in the world that it has to offer.

Only certain things and people make me happy now. The cat that appears in front of the bathroom early in the morning.   Watching sunrise from the train. To lie still in a completely dark room before going to sleep. My brother. Otherwise I tread the world rather carelessly, airlessly – conscious to myself and of my the surroundings – yet with that certain uneasiness that things. just. might. overwhelm. me.

Terrible coffee; a lousy blop of white foam in the midlde with visible coffee grounds at the bottom that leaves a bitter aftertaste. One shouldn’t dream of drinking coffee except when you pay a premium price for it. Give me limau ais and I’ll just be as happy. I do not know how those people can afford to drink at Starbucks (with a side salad or banana bread, no less) every single day together with their favorite book.  As if books should be tied forever with food and cafes to give a sense of identity.

Speaking of books, I have not had the pleasure to read as much as I wanted to due to a fault of my own. There’s a vast difference between trying to accommodate your own needs versus the needs of others, even if they are your own family. Then, I used to have the liberty to go out at nine, walk to the gardens, find a nice tree and just read while enjoying the view downhill overlooking the sea. Then, I would feel like I wanted to borrow books and then head out to the city to find some nice food at the grocery store. To arrange things according to your own needs.

Of course, there’s a certain lesson of selflessness to be learnt here. To efface your own needs (to some extent, of course) for the needs of others. Efficiency is key too, to find/allocate  time to read and to write consistently. To not be satisfied by the little that you do and feel you deserve some sort of time off after that. Most of that time is of course to browse whatever social media that exists, but of course, everyday I am getting constantly disillusioned by the ridiculousness of things. There is much to learn and most of the useful things cannot be learnt by the simple scanning of images and words on screen. It is time to efface one’s self.

But efface too, is a strong word.

In a week, I shall start working. The prospect of working is interesting but the amount of interaction between people required on a daily basis sort of bogs me down. The generic conversations, plus the range of people and their ecosystems to accommodate to. I should hope to breeze through everything, adopting the general attitude I have maintained from high school, but this no longer should apply.

“The Height of the season,” said Bonamy.

The sun had already blistered the paint on the backs of the green chairs in Hyde Park; peeled the bark off the plane trees; and turned the earth to powder and to smooth yellow pebbles. Hyde Park was circled, incessantly, by turning wheels.

“The height of the season,” said Bonamy sarcastically.

He was sarcastic because of Clara Durrant; because Jacob had come back from Greece very brown and lean, with his pockets full of Greek notes, which he pulled out when the chair man came for pence; because Jacob was silent.

“He has not said a word to show that he is glad to see me,” thought Bonamy bitterly.

The motor cars passed incessantly over the bridge of the Serpentine; the upper classes walked upright, or bent themselves gracefully over the palings; the lower classes lay with their knees cocked up, flat on their backs; the sheep grazed on pointed wooden legs; small children ran down the sloping grass, stretched their arms, and fell.

“Very urbane,” Jacob brought out.

“Urbane” on the lips of Jacob had mysteriously all the shapeliness of a character which Bonamy thought daily more sublime, devastating, terrific than ever, though he was still, and perhaps would be for ever, barbaric, obscure.

What superlatives! What adjectives! How acquit Bonamy of sentimentality of the grossest sort; of being tossed like a cork on the waves; of having no steady insight into character; of being unsupported by reason, and of drawing no comfort whatever from the works of the classics?

“The height of civilization,” said Jacob.

He was fond of using Latin words.

Magnanimity, virtue—such words when Jacob used them in talk with Bonamy meant that he took control of the situation; that Bonamy would play round him like an affectionate spaniel; and that (as likely as not) they would end by rolling on the floor.

“And Greece?” said Bonamy. “The Parthenon and all that?”

“There’s none of this European mysticism,” said Jacob.

“It’s the atmosphere. I suppose,” said Bonamy. “And you went to Constantinople?”

“Yes,” said Jacob.

Bonamy paused, moved a pebble; then darted in with the rapidity and certainty of a lizard’s tongue.

“You are in love!” he exclaimed.

Jacob blushed.

The sharpest of knives never cut so deep.

Jacob’s Room, Virginia Woolf.

The kittens have gone missing. 

It was only yesterday when I was parking the car, shooing the cats to another spot, that the mother decided to walk to another house. While cooking dinner, the usual accompanying sounds of meowing is not heard. Worried, I walked down the road, looked every nook and drain, but they were nowhere to be found.

Mother says the cats have merajuk because she forgot to feed them the day before. 

But I am not, like Murakami’s characters, about the embark on some mysterious trail to find these cats; they come and leave as they please. The goal is to be ahead of all parting. 

The pakcik fixing the lamps will come in half an hour. I told him yesterday I studied electrical engineering but know nothing about wiring houses. I couldn’t even distinguish the red, brown and blue (?) wires. He just laughed as we tried to figure out which screws go where. Modern lamps, he says. 

“One must be absolutely modern”, says Rimbaud, 

These days, I spend my time cleaning up different parts of the house, one at a time, recycling things that needs recycling, amassing clothes that no longer fit or wanted into several boxes, applying shellac (?) on the wooden floor, using almonds to polish wooden things, deconstructing shelves, rearranging books that seems to clutter every now and then. The usual affairs.

Every weekday mornings I would bid goodbye to my family one by one as they leave the house, then I would do the dishes and clean up the living room. I shower, I change my clothes, have my breakfast, finish all the tea or coffee available, then do the laundry. I say hi to the cats and check the litter box.  Then I would go about any affairs of the day or just read.

It does feel nice staying at home.

And then the wedding. Everyone seems to be busy arranging these affairs; from the pelamin to the door gifts to the food to the khemah and the kompang. I seem to weary easily of these things, there’s a whole bunch of people (family) to be pleased, a string of things to be tied and arranged. To seal perfection for one moment.

Sigh.

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

the year in lists.

filem : Millenium Mambo, Hsiao-hsien Hou.

siri tv : BBC’s Pride and Prejudice.

dokumentari : Simone De Beauvoir, diarah oleh Josée Dayan, 1979. (saya gemar cara ia difilemkan dan diaturkan).

novel: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway.

puisi: The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot.

penulis: Roland Barthes. Tahun ini saya agak banyak membaca Barthes untuk menghiburkan hati. He he.

album : Phoenix’s Entertainment. 

tempat : Kyoto, Japan dan Glebe, Sydney.

Finally time alone, undisturbed by either sickness, fatigue, or people.

It is the last night and I am not moving into that sentimental direction of leaving this place in which I have lived for about three or so years. The neighbour next door thought it was a neat idea to have the road lighted up with candles. So three rows of candle lights. I have never celebrated Christmas Day not a day in my life. Seeing people shop about and lighten up their houses at night seems a fun thing to watch. The two dollar shirts seems to make me happy anyway.

For the past two weeks or so I have spent time with my family. To take the train alone and walk for 25 minutes to the airport to avoid the airport charge and watch the super moon emerge by the lake. The arrival, the greetings, the catch ups. Father carries a walking stick around anywhere now. It seems contrasting to my tendency to walk at any chance I have (I measure distances by the minute), therefore the car has to be borrowed around. I still cannot drive a manual and don’t think I want to (unless absolutely pushed to the edge of necessity). This and many more.

There’s a lot of things you have to think of when travelling with other people. Budget first comes to mind, then comfort, and then safety. All else is patience (and therefore, speed). Perhaps other’s preferences would be different, and to strike a balance between all three would be difficult. And I think travelling in threes or fours would be nice.

I still haven’t planned for that trip to Jogja. I might have to add space for books to be bought.

There are several things that I wanted to do before I go back, and perhaps only one is not fulfilled. I have went to the beach where there are wild kangaroos abound (with curiosity too), I have walked that 26 km coastal walk at the Royal National Park  I had wanted to. Uluru comes to mind, but it is just a giant stump of rock in the middle of the desert. I have not seen a whale, and they are not in migrating season anymore so I am sad. I saw migrating bats though last night, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions crossing across above us around dawn, so that will do. Ehsan and I watched Blackfish yesterday, and we now somewhat understand why can’t you keep whales in zoos.

I haven’t read anything in a while except bits of The Second Sex here and there and the first fifty or so pages of Spring Snow. Simply because those are the only two books I have in my possession right now. The rest are all shipped in a box, all 45 kg of them, perhaps 100 or so books. I heard that they guy lifting my box complained of its weight and of reading books in general. Let them. I shall only want my books safely delivered.

As for writing itself, I hope the two months break I have before I start working shall become fruitful, sort of. There’s the apartment to find, accounts to open, classes to be attended, people to meet, cookies to be made (for the wedding), and everything else.

I am sorry.

I fly back tomorrow.

But I shall take a swim first.

Goodnight.

Merry Christmas.

Again, the inability to write here. Staunched by other people (otherness, the presence of others, movement, noise etc), reconciled by none. It is in the sea we always find our joy.

I swam twice; once at the pool, once at the beach, then went to La Perouse, a sort of beach. Contact with water always feel nice, also a sort of primal joy rediscovered when we run and jump carelessly over rocks and cliffs. Or maybe it was myself having just drank coffee.

As the sun set, there was a lighthouse blinking at the far end of the island. I do not understand it’s message. I haven’t read To the Lighthouse, either. The poet (here) seems to derive his work from Woolf. His words make me drowsy.

Can – I
Dissolve – my
Self
Into the sea

Glen Hansard once told where he and his friend got so drunk in Dublin they got on a boat, fooled around, and was suddenly adrift to the rocks by the lighthouse. ‘See the lighthouse, is a warning, so you don’t come near then‘

So there they were, somewhat knowing death is pending on them, waiting to be smashed. And just as the waves brought us to the rocks, they too moved us away from death.

And then he went home, wrote a song inspired by that incident. And I too, went home, from the Opera House, alone no less.

I re-read Ariel on the bus and sometimes I think Plath isn’t really a good poet save a few – I think that good poetry demands immediacy – and the few that I liked are Lady Lazarus, Tulips, The Applicant, Cut, The Moon and the Yew Tree (always), Years, Kindness, Edge, A Birthday Present.

‘I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.’

I have been carrying around a batik colouring kit and I hope it is made today.

Good morning. Goodbye.

I have a job interview in less than three hours and I have not prepared. I wonder if working out at train lines and transport logistics would be interesting, a sort of dream job to be finally shift into the urban environment side of things. But the city sometimes mortify me, with all its noise and movement. I prefer quietude.

Ashaari tells me to write of the 40km coastal walk we took last week, one consisted of 14 hours of walking and talking and jumping and hiking and eating and drinking river water. Dead birds along the coast. He tells me to write it in Bahasa Melayu, so he can read it, and left me the next day with a note of ‘Terima kasih menjadi kawan yang best’. I feel compelled to honour this request but haven’t had the time to write down anything yet. Yet here I am procrastinating.

Curating the account has left me with the desire to tell. Dish tells me I am doing a good job, but I simply am following the way my lecturer has taught me (bits of it, at least). I saw her yesterday. While I was in the library reading and borrowing some other stuff. She was returning some books at the entrance (I saw her from the second floor, and the sight of her pleased me). I couldn’t help but smile, and knowing she would be in the literature section, I went to add stacks of Plath to be read later. She was talking to some other lecturer, wedged between the shelves, getting excited about a poem. I didn’t know if I should say hello. Maybe an email of thanks, after the results are out.

I got your mail today. Some parts of the journal made me sad. The guilt of never reciprocating.

Did you know Yukio Mishima died by committing seppuku in the end?

 

(continued)

I read a translation of Danarto’s Orang Jawa Naik Haji. They did not have his other copies available (It is in Storage, for all I know), and sat between the musty shelves at the second floor of the Fisher Library, drying my feet and my skirt. Rain suddenly poured, and I was left but no choice but to dash to the Quadrangle. A man came running to me, holding out his umbrella, muttering “You might need this“. I said yeah. I took shelter somewhere beneath the stairs where no one would pass and wait out the rain to calm down, but then an old man saw me and remarked, “You found yourself a nice dry spot there“. I said yeah. Yeah is all I say these days. 

The translation was okay, I found the phrase ‘Danarto has turned into cotton’ quite interesting. Marked here and there, it was either some undergraduate thesis or some other. Out of time, I read it in bits. It is interesting to find Mina in 1983 covered in filth, where people ate, shat, slept, and prayed in the same spot. Is this all part of the trial purposely put to make us reflect, or are we just being neglected by authority? He then tells of the Safa and Marwa, where somewhere along the way, some old person made a mess, and the officers had to make a circle to clean it up, thus even constricting the already congested path. The money-grubbing Arabs. “To give as little as possible, and to take as much as possible“.

Then I leafed through the random books available, from Goenawan to Latiff Mohidin to some of Chairil Anwar’s poems (this is the first time). Poetry baffles me sometimes. Poetry as the art of reduction. Barthes calls classical poetry merely an ornamental variation of prose, the fruit of an art. To be poetic, he says, doesn’t evoke any depth or domain – only the ability of expressing oneself more verbosely, artistically, than that of a conversation. Modern poetry, is however absent of all these aesthetics, ‘a quality sui generis and without antecedents’. If classical poetry is born out of thought, the modern arrives at a thought, to an ’emotional density’.

(That is what he writes in ‘Is There Poetic Writing?’ from the book Writing Degree Zero, anyway.)

A came around four thirty, thirty minutes before the library closes, and we went upstairs to see some rare text exhibitions. She left me before to study physics. We looked through all the brains and muscles brilliantly sketched at the pages and at some 12th century scrolled text. Probably written in Latin. We went to dinner after that, at one of the wives. Her house was twenty minutes away from the university, and so we walked, passing through the already finished street fair this morning (despite the rain), the vendors closing each of their stalls. I heard Quizas Quizas Quizas playing, and a pakcik Melayu (who sold satay) remarked ‘Dah habis baru nak pasang yang ni‘. There in the park, was a monument erected in the name of the Glorious Dead. Is there anything glorious about the dead?

The wife’s house was one of those classic terrace houses in Sydney, built probably in the late 19th century. I always wanted to go inside on of them and sit at the balconies, and sat we did, eating ice cream, while inside the men watched KL Gangster 2 on TV and the women hurdle around a photo album. The wallpapers, windows, furniture, are wonderful to look at. The idea of the porter suddenly made sense, as the owner rented the second and the third floor to other people. Downstairs, I peered into the living room where the walls were lined with shelves full of books. The owner is probably a quiet person, I said to our host. She said yeah, and we said our goodbyes on the landing and went home.