This tiring roller coaster... brought us back to a levelled plane.

Last sunday, I painted a portrait of him by the beach where we had sandwiches and apples. I was nursing a cold and the sea breeze wasn't helping much yet it was one of the nicer sunday i could remember in a while. I just wanted to paint something, anything. He convinced me to try painting him. I don't know how many times i refused but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Just try"

I was worried about getting it wrong. Doing a bad job and wreaking the painting. Worried about being laughed at for the sorry attempt. He insisted it would be fine. If anything, he would help me with it. Amidst all my protesting, i started to sketch and erase away my mistakes. Half-muttering to myself that i couldn't do it, he reached over and took over my canvas. I couldn't see if there was any likeness but he thought it was getting on fine and helped me to refine whatever i had on the canvas. By the time i started to paint, the need to be "correct" got alittle less. Before long, both of us were painting on the same portrait. I am not sure who paint what and where or who corrected whom but it became fun and enjoyable again. The mounting pressure of doing a "good" painting in the beginning slowly dissipated. He never once told me that i was doing a bad job and i stop looking at him as though he knew what he was doing. He was just trying, just like me. And what made it work, was that both of us tried without faulting each other in the process. It took a while for both of us to finally stop because there always something we wanted to fix, be it the eyes, the mouth or the rocks. We were so carried away, sitting on our little straw mat beneath the tree. I remembered what i knew of him from before. He could never quite tell when to stop for a painting. I think i'm quite the same way.

I can't say that the portrait of him by the beach was any good. But i can see a certain resemblence. I can see the rocks that both of us just gave up on and decided to go for the "impressionistic" method, the highlights on the face which we couldn't quite leave alone, the funny lips and the over-corrected eyes and the curly italian hair. I could see how the yellow streaks resembling matisse were not there.

"Maybe next time" he said. It was only a joke dear.
He never once laughed at me.

Would you like me to put the painting up?

If you would despise me, I would be eternally grateful because then, I can feel free to despise you too.

Nothing like some balance in the world to make everyone feel good.

Do i think it would work?
Do i think it wouldn't?
Right now, who cares what i think anymore?
Right?

Just need to quell this mounting anxiety and panic.
It will be over soon.
A cold turkey sandwich is what i am having for lunch.

I feel like a person who has lost all sense of touch.

Sometimes i fear losing you.
Other times i fear losing myself.
More so now, i fear being alone.
But still, look at what i've lost?

It doesn't matter as long as i am still here.
Some parts of me at least.
I am still here.
Just me. Here.

A colleague remarked that i talk too fast.
"Breathe Alice, breathe" she said.
I noticed that too... this quickening of pace in my speech.
Words tumbling over one after the other, in a hurry to outdo each other.
I pant and gasp for air at times, feeling my throat going to give out on me.
Losing my voice.
I don't know why am i in such a hurry these days.
Or have so many things to say.
Or say them so quickly to people.
To be heard, more than to hear.
I can't wait nor stop, like a bull-dozing locomotive, i wait for nothing.
Not even for my next breath.
Squeezing all the mileage from the air in my lungs,
I stop for nothing.
I just want to let it all out, get it all out.
Afraid of being buried, not being heard.
Fear of losing my voice, myself.
I pant and gasp for air.
I know i talk too fast, too loud.

"Breathe Alice, breathe"

17/07/03 Thursday

I brought my mom to watch Fei Yu Qing on the first night of his performance. Incidentally it was also the singer's 48th birthday. Not that it mattered to my mom, she just liked his music and so do i. My dad has been complaining on the phone from china about missing out on his concert but it was just too bad that only my mom was back in singapore at that time.

The indoor stadium was totally packed and my mom could not stop remarking on how popular Fei Yu Qing is, even after so long. The act opened predictably enough with the singer crooning some of the familiar ballards with the ever glizzy backup dancers and life band. He sounded pretty much the same after all these years and surprisingly, i could singalong with most of the songs that night. It is the second time that i have watched him perform.

It is more than a sense of nostagia that i felt that night. I know the songs are familiar but never has other kind of music ever evolved the kind of feelings that 70-80s chinese music would. These are the music that never fails to transport me into a time and space which i could remember but never recall. The feelings and images of childhood that remain locked up deep in my mind except when i heard these songs. I don't recall ever listening to them or ever having a chance to but yet, they are there somehow. The images accompanying them unreachable when the music stopped. It was an almost hynoptic trance that one is in and having some memories which you never consciously knew were there.

Between the songs during the concert, i slipped in and out of having been somewhere else, being another child during my childhood. Where did i remember these songs? Why do i know how to sing them? Why do i feel this way about them? Why do i remember and not recall? Has it been the tv? The radio?

I remember the first time i've seen Fei Yu Qing. It must have been before i was 6, when i was still living in JB. It was a theatre. I think it must have been. A younger man, a smaller space and no dancers but everything else remained the same. The same songs, the same act... except he had one a long strip of pink toilet paper draped round his neck, pretending that it was a scarf while imitating Gao Ling Feng. Another memory intruded: red semi-circular velvet lounge chairs, dance floor, running and gliding and feeling the velvet chairs. My dad in a safari suit and a chinese restaurant. Was i wearing pink? So many songs playing at the same time. I felt like singing. There was just me and one other brother. The two of us running amongst loud people chatting over drinks.

Childhood has always come to me in bits and pieces. But never as clear as when i listen to the music of that era. Never with such clarity and vibrance. It is a sense of being cocoon and wrapped in my old baby blanket and hugging my smelly bolster again. To feel contented and surrounded by something safe and comforting. To remember and to recall finally at that moment where everything stood still.

I don't think anything else could have brought me back that close to my childhood.

My mom told my brother after the concert that i behaved pretty much like a excited child during the show, clapping and singing the songs. "Just like a kid" she said fondly. Perhaps she didn't know how close she was to the truth when she said that.

Its been awhile since i have last blogged and during that time, i have watched one movie, my mother has been back from Singapore and left, both my brothers came back from overseas (canberra and london) and one has already left and i have watched the Fei Yu Qing concert with my mom.

I am quite sure i must have done a million and one other things during these 2 1/2 weeks but perhaps they were inconsequential. I am not sure.

Realization no 53:

I have become lazy.

Went to STORM on friday.

Enjoyed the venue and event though there was a bit of a screw up with some of the DVDs. In particular, his kids' work was not shown and all the girls were quite disappointed. Some of the parents were there too and it got pretty embarrassing i guess. By the time they got the tracks to be shown, the girls had already left. In any case, i am looking forward to more of such events from TAV... I liked the idea of public screenings, using public spaces for artistic purposes. I guess it is something different. I am always looking forward to something different. The sandwiches sponsored for the event tasted nice too. *chuckles*

I saw
a cat with a human face
with wrinkles on her forehead
and small eyes
peering at me solemnly.

Work has been hectic with the new operational model in place at school. Students started to come in at 8.15am and the last kids to leave at 5.15pm. Basically, i had to be in classes during that duration, except for lunch time around noon. Things should become better soon once all the children have settled down after the holidays and i should have a bit more time to do my reports rather than troubleshooting in the classroom. Things are quite chaotic as we have a lot of new teachers as well as new students but thankfully, nothing unmanagable as yet, however i do foresee a more hectic schedule for the next half of the year. It seems like i am always lacking in time to accomplish what i have set out to. One thing or the other always needed my attention in the classroom. Checking up on my therapy children and helping the new teachers to prepare what they have to teach. One teacher has already thought of quitting on the third day because she was having a hard time settling into the demands of the job. Not that i blame her, the child she have is a particularly difficult child. But as my colleague and i has shared during the introductory workshop for the teach teachers before school reopened, the work is not going to be easy but there will always be help available. We are all trying our best and even the psychologists would not always have the answers. But i think, not everyone is suited for such a job and it is not something we can force people to do. It is only the first week, i guess it will take some time before everyone gets comfortable with what they are doing.

Realization no 52:

It is better not to write anything while drunk.