Childhood

After the Twilight saga, I couldn't find anything worth reading. Yeah, well, I tried reading The Host by the same author, but I didn't feel the chemistry for Jared as I did for Edward Cullen. What can I say, I love vampires?

Anyway, now I'm just dipping my toes into Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, his childhood memoir.

My love for memoirs is only exceeded by my love for childhood memoirs! Till now, I find it exciting and nostalgic to read Roald Dahl's Boy and Going Solo, and would recommend it to anyone, young or old. I love reading about the adventures he went through as a kid and of his kismet in life. It's really amazing how his life turned out.

Bill Bryson's childhood was during the period just after the Great Depression and war. America was full of promise and buoyed by consumerist habits. It was a happy time, especially for a young boy from a good family.

Reading the book makes me want to start my own little journal for the Moses. As if I have the time!!!

Security

We just came back from a family holiday in Langkawi where we hired a car for two days to get around the island.

Well, it was a junk actually, complete with broken locks, rattles, hums and a tiny steering wheel which made maneuvering rather difficult.

At RM70 a day, it was quite an expensive junk. Well, I guess, business people have become the daylight robbers of this 21st century.

During one outing, after having parked the car, I remembered to ask Zane whether he had locked the car.

"No need to lock the junk lah. The whole island is one big lock," dear hubby responded.

His witty remark just lifted me up to a whole new perspective. I love his unique take on things and skewed observations!

Anniversary breakfast

For our second wedding anniversary, my husband took me out to a nice dinner in Bangsar. Yesterday, it was my turn to treat him.

My treat was a nice long breakfast at Biba's Cafe, Mandarin Oriental, and it was the best breakfast I'd had in a long time! At 8:30 am, while everyone was in their business suits rushing to punch in, the two of us walked hand-in-hand against human traffic towards a breakfast feast! Were we the envy of KLCC executives that morning! :P

For RM56++ per person, the buffet was fantastic with international fare which included dim sum, Japanese noodles, soups and sauted stuff, the typical Malaysian options of nasi lemak and roti canai, steaks and salads, all kinds of eggs and beans, pancakes, waffles, several types of bread, muffins, pastries, breakfast cereals, a nice spread of fruits, yoghurt, fresh fruit juices and a selection of tea and coffee including lattes, cappuccinos and hot chocolates.

We certainly breakfasted like kings that morning!

Crash

Last Saturday, in the middle of the rainy night, we heard a slow, sliding crash. From our upstairs bedroom window, we peered into the dark, fearing that it was the hillside opposite our house had crumbled. We saw nothing.

Zane went down to check and came back about fifteen minutes later. He had a sad smile on his face, shrugged and whispered, "We were lucky tonight. The pergola crashed."

Yes, we were lucky, because some nights, we would be sitting under that very pergola, enjoying coffee, a chat and each other's midnight company.

Lucky, it was not that night.

Still, we were very sad. The pergola was built in the first year we were married. And I remember Zane scoured the neighbourhood looking for wood to do it. The next big problem was to find material for the roof of the pergola. He experimented with many things before he got it right with old, split bamboo.

He installed it while I was away in Sweden and when I came back, I totally loved our pergola. It felt like our own little throne palace from which we would command the rest of our lives.

But now, it is no more. I wonder what we will do next.

Stress

We'll be leaving on our family holiday in a couple of days' time. I am totally stressed out already! Haha!

I wonder how other moms do it -- packing for the whole family, making sure I don't forget anything, wondering if I can do without certain things, etc.

If I had the luxury of money and some muscular porters, I'd want to bring a sun pod, a travel high chair, a baby car seat, etc.

But as it is, it'll just be me, Zane and Moses. Let's hope we'll all be on our best behaviours!

Dread

A couple of days ago, I got stuck at the Old Klang Road on my morning run to work. There was a little jam and as I inched forward towards the intersection, I saw what caused it.

It was a collision between two motorbikes. Three men were standing around the crash site and one person -- I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman -- was lying on the road, motionless. One of the three men was frantically on the phone, probably calling for help.

All the cars inched by, and none did stop. Neither did I, even though I passed right by it.

I was torn whether to stop or to go. I wanted to help but I was afraid of getting involved. As I left the scene, so many questions entered my head -- what if it was me there? would anyone stop to help? would i get to the hospital alive? what if it was zane? or moses? why didn't i stop? why didn't anyone?

The scene haunted me the whole day and I wondered about the people involved in the accident, whether they were safe.

I felt bad that I didn't want to get involved. I just couldn't shake the awful feeling about that.

Holiday

It feels like ages since I wrote here. And even longer since I took a holiday. Well, we are going to Langkawi next week, just the three of us, hubby, moses and me. Will it be a holiday for me...?

One part of me is looking forward to leaving the office. Another part of me is dreading the whole "ordeal" of packing for the family (especially the tonnes of stuff I need to bring for moses), our schedule there, the heat (or will it be raining?), our sleeping schedules, diaper changes, feeding times, etc.

I think that zane and I will need to sit down and plan out our duties during this trip. Luckily, we have some money to spend on a nice room instead of a shack (like that place we stayed at the last time...*shudder*). We will be staying at Frangipani, one of their garden villas. It's more money than I would have liked to spend, but zane said we can afford it and we should have a comfortable room especially since moses will be with us.

At first, we wanted to stay at Sunset Beach Resort at Pantai Tengah, but they were all full. I suggested Mutiara Burau Bay since I've always wanted to do the walk to the nearby island at low tide and relive my Famous Five moment! But Zane said it was too far from the "happening" area of Pantai Cenang. We tried to contact Holiday Villa next, but the online booking agent never responded to us, so it was Frangipani then.

I hope it's a good place.

Happy Mundane

Red suede maryjanes.

All the Kipling bags.

Cherry tomatoes.

Toffee nut latte.

Just yum.

It's Friday, I'm in love!

Supersexy superslim colleague complained that she looked fat in her pants. I rolled my eyes and texted to hubby:

So, what does that make me?

He sms-ed back:

That would make you look like my pretty sexy wife, an intelligent, hardworking editor, and I love her.

Gajillion brownie points for my hubby who can come up with priceless gems like that!

Brightened up my day!

Ladida!!!

Happy mundane

Things that make me smile these days:

Tiny organic alphabet pasta -- the Moses' first taste of Italian grub.

BFM 89.9 -- good music for now, great conversations later. The re-birth of talk radio.

Twilight the movie -- ten days and counting!

Late night black coffees with hubby.

No school = no jams to work.

Yeeha!

Small

Am feeling a little lost today. Can't find my fit in this little universe. Nothing feels right.

All because of the prospect of being alone the next few days...

Zane will be leaving on another trip up north with some artist friends. He is rallying up support from the Malaysian art industry players for a group collaboration he's planning for next year.

Tomorrow morning, he will leave with Suhaimi and Lennon for Parit, Perak, Penang, Langkawi, Alor Star...perhaps in that order, perhaps not.

All I know is I'm feeling a little inadequate in this world without him around.

Pump it up

Right this minute, I'm attending a blogging course with Susannah Gardner who is an author of some of the Dummies books for blogging and buzz marketing.

We're doing a little exercise on creating a blog, but I already have one...so I thought I'd update, instead.

Whenever I attend these courses, I have a tough time trying to coordinate my timing so that I don't miss out on my milk pumping sessions.

I've been pumping everyday but Musa seems to be gulping it all down, the voracious monster!

My milk supplies are running low at home, and I've given intructions for my mom and Tita to feed him as much and as often as possible.

But here, at this 2-day course, I've already informed the necessary people that I'll be popping in and out frequently for my pumping sessions. They all seem to understand my situation, so that's great.

Oh, but I just received an email from Rita Rahayu from Moms Little Ones who said that my boy, at 10 months, can take some juice, so that's an alternative should my milk run out these two days. I don't want mom or Tita to have to open that Isomil pack.

Dear God, please grant me with overflowing abundance of milk for Musa. Amen. Thank you.

Happy morning

Every Friday, I send the Moses to my mom's house. So we leave really early in the morning, at 6:30 am. Which means that Zane doesn't get to see the Moses till that evening.

This morning, as I was getting ready, Zane lay down next to the Moses, just staring at the little chickadee's sleeping face.

"Can I wake him up?" he asked hopefully.

"Better not, Sayang...he woke up at 4 am this morning to play and he just only got back to sleep...," I said a little carelessly.

Then as I was brushing my teeth, mulling over my response to him, I felt a little guilty. How could I not let the father play with his son for a little while?

I popped out of our bathroom and said, "Okaylah, you can wake him up, but you jaga dia while I get ready okay..."

Zane was like a little boy all over again. Gleeful at the prospect of playing with his son.

While I was in the bathroom, I heard him gently wake the Moses up, "Musa...hello Musa...good morning Musa..."

It never fails to amaze me how much Zane is besotted with the Moses. A happy smile always beats in my heart when I think of the bond between father and son.

Take five

Happy mundane: Being told I'm beautiful when I least felt like it!

Something not-so-nice: My car not starting just when I needed to reach home super-quick.

Current dream: This little studio.

Repeat this track: If there is something, Roxy Music

Recent gift: A simple "real deal" pendant inscribed with "like the moon left on all night" by hubby

Beautiful

I've always thought of myself as the ugly duckling in the family. Unfortunately, I never grew up to be any swan either. Beauty was such an issue with me as a teenager and though I'm not so hung up about it now in my adult years, occasionally, I do feel insecure about my looks.

I think I only truly feel appreciated by my husband. Sometimes, even that is little consolation to me as he's always been out of kilter in his tastes and views.

But this morning, when I woke him up from slumber, he rolled over, blinked back the sleep from his eyes, and sighed, "You look so beautiful..."

I kissed him goodbye and glowed all the way to work!

On the 5th day of Raya, my lover gave to me...

Raya this year was not Raya at all.

On the first day of Raya, we drove back to Zane's hometown in Parit, Perak. He was sick from the moment we pushed off and it just got worse over the days.

On the second day of Raya, he told me to practise driving his car in case he still wasn't well enough to drive us back later. I managed to go forward and reverse. It was a huge task, driving that car!

On the third day of Raya, alhamdulillah, he was well enough to drive and we came back to KL.

On the fourth day of Raya, Musa pulak caught a fever. The Doc said it was due to teeth eruption. It was the first time he really got sick. I was at a loss for what to do.

On the fifth day of Raya, everyone was well and I actually got a breather from taking care of sick people. I chowed down on a burger at The Daily Grind and went shopping. It was heavenly.

Happy Raya, people.

Song in my head

Some things just linger on in the mind. Since last night, it was Roxy Music's If There is Something which was part of the Flashbacks of a Fool's OST. I kept on rewinding to the part where Joe Scott (blue eye shadow and glitter jacket) and Ruth Davies danced to the song.

I guess it just reminded me of those times my sister and I watched all the British acts on Top of the Pops. Those Brits. Those years. Now that's what I call music!

I would do anything for you
I would climb mountains
I would swim all the oceans blue
I would walk a thousand miles
Reveal my secrets
More than enough for me to share
I would put roses round our door
Sit in the garden
Growing potatoes by the score

Shake your hair girl with your ponytail
Takes me right back (when you were young)
Throw your precious gifts into the air
Watch them fall down (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
You used to walk upon (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The hills were higher (when we were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The trees were taller (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The grass was greener (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
You used to walk upon (when you were young)

Rindu

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go made it on the Times list of 100 best books but I wasn't a fan. I just finished it and found it to be too meandering the way bits and pieces of events were revealed here and there. Plus, I didn't really like the voice of the narrator, Kathy H. Still, I'm wouldn't doubt that many other people would appreciate such stories.

On another note...maybe it was Sylvan and all her talk about going to the islands. Maybe it was Zane's painting of the shadows creeping into the sea, still plastered on the wall, unfinished. For whatever reason, I'm just pining for the islands. I long for the water to rush and swirl at my feet. I miss Pantai Cenderawasih and all the hanging mobiles made of dead coral, and the sacrificial altar that some voodoo fans erected.

Seriously. When Zane and I were there, we made friends with a Greek tourist. We secretly called her the Bohemian lady and Zane even did a painting of her after we got back from that holiday which he called Bohemian Sunset.

How we got to know her was that she would always walk back and forth on "our" little beach next to Rajawali resort which was being constructed at the time and thus not many people ventured there except us.

Apparently, she passed our way each time to get to "her" little beach over on the other side of some precariously placed boulders and shrub. Sometimes, when she passed by, we would exchange hi's. Another time, she gave us a whole piece of mango which was heavenly if you eat it in the sea! Yet another time, we gave away some bottles of mineral water.

That was how we got to know each other and learn about "her" secret beach. She invited us over and one evening, we did. But instead of walking down the path and crossing the boulders as she had, we snorkelled over there. It was quite far away and Zane and I had to stop snorkeling and just paddled the water at some point.

It wasn't such a huge beach but it was very quiet and private. The sand was white, dead corals lay on the shore and the trees and jungle stood quietly in the back. The boho lady and a couple of her traveling companions were, horror of horrors, in some form of nudity or other!

They had made the beach "theirs" by decorating the place with sea "sculptures" -- some were made of dead coral stacked one on top of another, some were done with sand and water to create fascinating forms, and there were mobiles of dead corals, stones and bits of coloured glass hung on trees. They even made an outdoor shower by channeling a tiny stream to their shower post!

Further in, we were shown a little temple that they had built complete with an altar and dolls, and some inscription of promise and love. That was when I gave a look at Zane that said, "These people are crazy..." For all I knew, we may have been lured here by her mangoes and all so that our heads would be chopped off and eaten!

Needless to say, we quickly put on our snorkeling gear and paddled off as fast as we could!

Heh!

And now, I miss that beach...I miss watching the sunset from the dilapidated pier. I miss the banana pancakes which I can never get here. I miss the evening barbecue and meratah on sweet lips fish. I miss my morning swim in the little bay, so quiet and calm. I miss chasing after those huge majunga Napoleans.

I miss it all...

Oh, Hentian...when will I get to be with you again...?

Ode to my socks by Pablo Neruda

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted with her own
sheepherder hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as if they were
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and the pelt of sheep.

Outrageous socks,
my feet became
two fish
made of wool,
two long sharks
of ultramarine blue
crossed
by one golden hair,
two gigantic blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so beautiful
that for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that embroidered
fire,
of those luminous
socks.

Nevertheless,
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as scholars
collect
sacred documents,
I resisted
the wild impulse
to put them
in a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and chunks of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle
who hand over the rare
green deer
to the roasting spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the
magnificent
socks
and
then my shoes.

And the moral of my ode
is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it's a matter of two
woolen socks
in winter.

To listen to the poem being read, go here.
For notes to accompany this reading, go here.

Eyed wide open

Early this morning, I attached Pak Latiff Mohidin's Kalau Kau Mahu poem to a passionate email (as below) to a friend of mine, Mr. Beary Bear, a self-professed lit-slacker. I thought it was an appropriate poem to send seeing how caught up he is with work that he hardly has time to play with his two daughters.

With numerous readings, the poem will reveal its many layers to him eventually...and I really hope he loves it as much as I do!

Dear Beary Bear,

Sometimes we get too caught up in work that we forget that we have a life to live. I think this is what happened to Ms. Funky – she’s been working too hard that she simply “disappeared” from the social circle. That’s why I only got to see her after 10 over years at the reunion the other night. Before, when I try to find her, I googled her on the internet. She wasn’t even in cyberscpace! It’s like she didn’t exist.

But thank goodness for artists, writers and poets from long before and who are still alive now, from all over the world. Because they are the ones who observe life and write about the everyday, mundane things in life for us, the 9-to-5 slaves, to read and appreciate when we finally wake up from our paper-chasing, bureaucratic nightmare.

They have documented for us what a sunset looks like, the feelings evoked by putting on a pair of socks (yes, there is an actual poem out there by the celebrated Pablo Neruda on this topic – I will send it to you when I find it), what it was like to really experience eating an ice cream, about the beauty of a snail making its way up a tree, etc.

Thank goodness for books – where writers permit us to delve into their minds and read the fascinating stories they weave or conjure up. Some of these writers have fantastic minds that they can create such vastly different worlds from our very own. How imaginative, how clever of them!

If we continue our lives clocking in and clocking out at the office like this, going on clockwork, we would be like robots, you know…and God made all these beautiful things in this world for us to see, smell, appreciate…If we are cooped up in the shopping mall, house or office all the time, what a waste it would have been for God to have created all these things for us – the rivers, the mountains, the jungles. It’s in the Quran you know that this earth was made as a carpet for us, with the clouds to shield us, for us to harvest the fruits of this world for our own pleasure…I forget the verse name, but I’ll find it if you want. *

Oh well, after this “sermon”, I too am guilty of being ignorant of the world. But this is a reminder for you, for me…that there is a whole world out there, outside of this office, this home, that is just waiting for us. Life is more than this existence man has created.

Amen…and yours sincerely,

Ena


* Here it is:

From Al-Baqarah, 2:22

"The One who made the earth habitable for you, and the sky a structure. He sends down from the sky water, to produce all kinds of fruits for your sustenance. You shall not set up idols to rival God, now that you know. "

"Dialah yang menjadikan bumi sebagai hamparan bagimu dan langit sebagai atap, dan Dia menurunkan air (hujan) dari langit, lalu Dia menghasilkan dengan hujan itu segala buah-buahan sebagai rezki untukmu; karena itu janganlah kamu mengadakan sekutu-sekutu bagi Allah, padahal kamu mengetahui."

Shopping made easy

For years, my sister was such an e-bay shopaholic. I never got her fascination for online shopping until I had my chickadee lil Moses and realised that time waits for no mom!

Of course, I miss going to shopping malls and all that, but it's become quite a hassle. Every time we go out, we have to pack a truck-load of stuff for Moses -- his diaper bag, his stroller, his sling and him.

Then when we get there, we'd have to unpack everything in reverse order. Between Zane wanting to shop for his stuff and Moses wanting milk, I get no shopping done.

Now, all I ever do is shop online. Of course, most of my needs now are centred around the baby so I always check out online baby shops. In the past eight months, I've bought baby clothes, nursing clothes and bras, baby books, and breastfeeding stuff like milk storage plastic bags.

I've spent hundreds at one time on my online shopping, but to ease my guilt, I tell myself that these are all necessary purchases. Really.

Okay, except for that one splurge from Mimpi. But it looks so exquisite, I will forgive myself for this one indulgent sin.

I'm waiting for the package to arrive either today or tomorrow. I can't wait! Heheh...

Jazz and Rock

There was a recent period in my life that I didn't listen to music in my car. This went on for many years. I don't remember when it started. Probably about the time Wow.fm stopped airing.

But I do remember why I was fed up with our Malaysia radio. It was the cringe-worthy ads that made me swear off radio forever.

However, recently, I've been tuning in to a couple of favourite stations again. The ads, sadly, are still there, as awful as ever. But the music these days have saved my sanity many a time during Malaysia's infamous traffic jams.

Songs like:

Starlight by Muse
Pari-Pari Bawah Angin by Meet Uncle Hussain
Mawar Khayalan by Laila's Lounge
Viva La Vida by Coldplay
Apologize by One Republic

"You suka tak lagu ni, sayang?" I asked Zane, as Mawar Khayalan was being played on youtube.com.

"My taste and your taste different," was all he said.

Right. I should've known. Heehee. After all, this was a man who listens to Klasik Nasional in his vintage car.

In some ways, Zane and I are worlds apart. Our choice of music, books, art, expression, poison, fashion.

But for all the things that count, we are of one heart.

The East Coast Chronicles

Yesterday, Zane showed me the books he bought for me. They were Daler-Rowney sketch books with beautiful art cover and exquisite ivory pages inside made of acid free paper.

Yes, both of us can get pretty excited over mere books!

He loved them so much, he borong all seven of them from the art supplies store in Ulu Kelang. Some will be for him to do his drawings. Some will be for me to do my writings. The original price was RM50 (art supplies are never cheap), but because it was old stock, the books were tagged at RM22, and because Zane offered to clear the stock, he got them for RM17 each.

But believe me, I've seen Zane spend thousands at a time for a whole year's worth of canvas, paints, brushes and an assortment of art-related stuff at Nanyang Art Shop in Penang.

Anyway, buying the sketch books was just another step towards realising our East Coast Chronicles project. Actually, the project doesn't have an official name yet (the two of us haven't had a decent length of time together to actually discuss the details of the project yet). I just created that on the fly. It might change later on...knowing how fickle I am about these things!

The project started out as something we dreamed up over lunch some weeks back. It fits into the larger picture of us wanting to expand our art business, me wanting to quit my day job and focus on The Art Room, our little studio-gallery-home, and him making his art career fly.

Since I started working in this tourism line, and since Zane has this uncanny ability to find some amazingly beautiful places and experiences, we've really found Malaysia to be a real gem. I'm not just saying that to promote Malaysia as a holiday destination, though I reckon Tourism Malaysia ought to pay me more for this free plug.

We've really seen so many nice sides of Malaysia, places that need a little effort to get to, but all worth the trouble. On our holidays and mini detours, we've inadvertently found some treasures -- a secret beach at Hentian Kecil, a really great kway teow soup food stall and delicious mini nasi lemaks for only 50 sen in Langkawi, and a beautiful sunset view in Penang.

Both of us love the east coast and we just know that there are many secret, unexplored, ignored places there that are just waiting for us!

So this project will see us traveling to the east coast and documenting our journey -- both in writing and drawing. So many of the places in the east coast Zane had painted before no longer exist due to development, erosion or some reason or other. And so, we just feel that it was important for us to make a record of our journey -- Narrations in prose and painting (is that a possible exhibition title?).

At the end of the project, we hope to put up an exhibition, mainly of his paintings, supported by my writings.

The details of this project, like I said, have not been worked out yet. But, one by one, we are making efforts towards realising this dream.

For a start, I'll have some 40 days of leave next year to apply to go on this journey! Yay!

Fibroids

When I was pregnant with Musa at about three months, I suffered from excruciating abdominal pains and had to be taken to the emergency room.

I thought I was losing the baby.

After the medical examination, I was told that I had multiple fibroids growing everywhere in my uterus, my cervix, behind them, etc. Like I said, they were everywhere. And they were feeding off my pregnancy hormones and getting bigger (which caused the pain) and crowding out the fetus.

When she first counselled me about my condition, I was about three months pregnant and, due to the fibroids, looking like five! She told me all the possible risks and possible pain and possible outcomes. They all involved losing the baby, losing the mother, and more unbearable pain.

I cried some tears that day...and I was scared sh*t.

There was one particular fibroid she was worried about...the one that was at my cervix. Because of its location, she wasn't sure if I would be able to have a normal delivery (as opposed to C-section). Well, as it turned out, I managed to push the baby out through the "door" as was intended.

Today, I went to see Dr. Reena again for advice. After some nine months, the fibroids were still there, big as ever.

She told me the options, none of which was appealing: let them be or take them out. With the latter choice, there was risk of hemorrhaging which could lead to a hysterectomy. Of course, if I let them be and decide to conceive again, it would be, in her own words, a "stormy pregnancy."

I'm leaning towards "not doing anything about them" because I'm too chicken. But then, would I want another baby, and if I do, will I be able to handle another difficult pregnancy?

I'm kinda at a loss here.

Kiss!

The little chickadee, Musa Hashim, got his first kiss on Monday!

Before buka puasa, I took him for a short stroll to say hello to the neighbour's kids, Tala, Tia and 2-year old Kayla.

The kids loved Musa so much and couldn't get enough of hugging and touching him. And Musa, was equally ecstatic to have friends his age for once (he'd been spending too much time with adults all this while).

Musa babbled and laughed and was just making so much eye contact with them. Then the kids took turns holding him.

When it was time to say goodbye, they all kissed him. Kayla was so fascinated with Musa that she came back again and again for more kisses.

One parting kiss they shared involved some tongue action some more!

Aiyoh, my boy dah French kiss at just 8+ months...with an older woman pulak tu!

Heheh....

A poem for Simin

I first read this poem in Roger Housden's "Ten Poems to Change Your Life" which I got from the bargain bin at a booksale and which I just love to bits. I think it really sums up Simin's courage and I hope that a "stretcher will come from grace to gather us up."

Zero Circle by Rumi
(Version by Coleman Barks)

Be Helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

Courage

Last week, I got an unexpected email from an old friend. It said, "Ena. I am in KL. This is my number. Please call me. I love to see you. Simin."

The first time I met Simin was in Tehran, Iran. At the time, Simin was a journalist covering the event I was there to organise.

In the crazy bustling streets of Tehran, in between press conferences, in cafes sipping sugary sweet drinks and between the bookshelves of so many bookstores, we bonded, Simin and I.

She showed me the Tehran she loved. At first, it was terrifying to cross the seemingly lawless roads, to be driven in a taxi that swerved at un-Godly speeds, but I got used to it. So this is Tehran...like Petaling Street on speed.

When I left, I never thought I would see her again. Somehow, I always remembered Simin. She really went out of her way to make me feel welcomed in her city. And then, the email appeared and last Friday, we met after two years since our first meeting.

When I entered her hotel room and saw the amount of luggage she brought, I couldn't help but say, "Simin, you have your entire life here in those bags sitting on the floor of this hotel room." She could only smile wordlessly.

It seemed like her arrival here in Malaysia was unplanned and rushed, but I didn't want to intrude and ask too many questions. I was among the handful of people she knew in Malaysia. She came without a job, without a house, without many friends. And she still managed to smile. I really admire her courage.

She told me that she had been traveling independently for almost a year -- to Africa, Europe and the Middle East. When she came back to her job in Tehran, it was only to tell her boss that she was quitting.

I guess, I could understand her feelings there. It was like the time I went to North Africa and visited Morocco, Lebanon, Dubai and Algeria...I had met so many exciting and interesting people, nurtured many dreams and ideas, that it seemed impossible for me to go back to the boring life I had in Malaysia -- the 9-to-5, the traffic jam, the same thing day-in-day-out.

I had felt so free on that trip, so liberated, that coming home seemed like being imprisoned. I had yearned for a new life, a fresh start, and felt that I could fly!

Well, I didn't leave town...and I think I still stuck with the daily grind. Kinda accommodated to it, actually. Perhaps I could have had a different kind of life, but this one is not too bad, you know.

But to those like Simin who had the courage to pursue their innermost desires and ambitions, I salute you for your bravery in making the change, in jumping in head-first without knowing if you'll be able to come up for air, to go blindly into the dark, for being true to your feelings.

I am in awe.

In-between

On the 45-minute boat journey from Merang, Terengganu, it was evident which of the many islands on the horizon belonged to Pulau Lang Tengah (“Pulau” is the Malay word for island). It was the only one circled by a lone eagle, or lang, in flight.

The island’s geographical location, sandwiched between Pulau Perhentian and Pulau Redang, explains the other part of its name.

Like the middle child in a family, Pulau Lang Tengah does suffer somewhat from the middle child syndrome. It is often overlooked in favour of Pulau Redang’s famous marine park and Pulau Perhentian’s Long Beach – both having earned a following among tourists and backpackers from foreign countries.

When it comes to Pulau Lang Tengah, even the locals could only offer a blank stare as to its location.

Well, perhaps, this neglect is not such a bad thing because in the end, it puts Pulau Lang Tengah where it should be – left for the quiet enjoyment of those who would truly appreciate the peaceful nature of this secluded gem in the South China Sea. Because unlike its siblings, Pulau Lang Tengah is best enjoyed unhurriedly, like that slow sip of fine champagne or the melting of a truly fine piece of chocolate on the tongue.

Without the crowd and screaming children, you get the sense that the island is all yours. There is no one around to block the sun while you sunbathe, no one to elbow at the buffet counter, no one to fight with over the last deck chair. With only four resort operators spaced out on separate beaches on the island, there really is space for you to breathe and relax, whether on land or in the water.

Of course, when in the water, you might have to jostle about with the schools of fish, but again, that’s not a bad thing. Not when you have colourful parrot fish, silver needle fish, and sergeant fish coming up close to inspect their new swimming partner.

With just a mask, fins and, for safety, a life jacket, one can already enjoy what Pulau Lang Tengah serves up best – abundant marine life in its beautiful blue waters. Most resort operators here offer full-board 3 days-2 nights package deals that already include two snorkeling trips round the island.

Snorkeling off the beach easily offers encounters with colourful fish and corals. With a boat, snorkelers can explore the underwater world at other parts around the island like Batu Bulan, Karang Nibong and Blue Coral where the best snorkeling sites are.

Although some protest it, feeding the fish with bread is sometimes practiced here by the boat operators to attract fish and draw out squeals of delight from snorkelers. Fry fish, silvery pompano, red breasted maori wrasse, snapper and masked rabbitfish are among the common underwater denizens. The various types of coral here include table, boulder, brain, cabbage and staghorn corals. While some are still in pristine condition, other parts of the island reveal many dead corals – a kind of coral graveyard, which is a sad sight to see.

There have been sightings of black tip sharks around the rocky outcrops in the sea by snorkelers. Harmless, the guys at the dive shop say. Still, a close encounter with this shark may stir memories of another dorsal fin that struck fear in many. Besides spotting a shark or two, the other highlight would be to see turtles coming up to lay eggs on the beach at Turtle Bay. It happens, but is a rare occasion. Guests can check with the resort operator for details.

For an even closer look at the underwater world, there is diving to be done. Most of the resorts on the island have their own dive shop with PADI-certified dive guides. The ten or so dive sites around the island are colourful feasts for the eyes.

Since Pulau Lang Tengah is pretty small and is mostly covered under dense jungle, trekking into the interiors reveals a different type of adventurous experience. Trekking over steep slopes, navigating in thick jungle and scrambling over rocky boulders, one can easily find a nice spot from which to view the sunrise, with waves crashing on the cliffs and rock boulders below.

The staff at one resort recommended a pre-dawn trek to Batu Kucing in the south which takes about 25 minutes from the nearest resort there. Promises of a breathtaking sunrise makes the equally breathtaking trek worthy.

So yes, despite being the hidden gem that it is, Pulau Lang Tengah has plenty to keep its guests occupied. But then, who cares about all that when you’ve come to escape from it all.

Backgrounder:

Pulau Lang Tengah is located off the coast of Terengganu, a state on the east coast of Malaysia. There are flights available to the state’s capital city, Kuala Terengganu, and from there, hire a taxi to Merang jetty (not Marang jetty), about an hour’s drive away. Coach buses from Hentian Putra also ply the Kuala Lumpur – Kuala Terengganu route.

The boat ride from Merang Jetty to Pulau Lang Tengah takes about less than an hour. At press time, boats depart the Merang Jetty at around 10 or 11 am but it’s best to check with your travel agent or the resort you are staying at.

If you are driving to Merang Jetty, there are parking lots where you can leave your car at the jetty.

The best time to go to Pulau Lang Tengah is between March and October.

For more information, please contact Terengganu Tourism Office Tel: +609-622 1433 / 1893 or log on to http://www.islands.com.my/

Embarassed

I have to warn you that this post might gross you out.

Today I went for my ultrasound. No, not pregnant again. Just some fibroids growing in my tummy.

Before I went in for the scan, the nurse came out to ask me how much I had drunk (best to be scanned on a full bladder). I said I just had a glass. She laughed and sent me downstairs to drink the 1.5 litre bottle of water and to wait till I "tak tahan kencing" before doing the scan.

So, there I was like an alcoholic clutching to a whiskey bottle, only it was mineral water, and chugging the whole thing down in a few minutes.

Then I sat under the air-conditioner and waited for the "tak tahan kencing" feeling to announce itself.

When I was sure I felt it, I told the nurse. But she told me to wait pulak for the doctor. The "tak tahan kencing" feeling was becoming a little too overwhelming, and like a 10-year-old who wanted to pee, I started pacing about restlessly.

Finally, the doctor was available and I laid myself down on the bed while she used a probe to glide some gel over my abdomen.

I started tapping my toes together because I really "tak tahan kencing."

Are you okay? The doctor asked.

No, I'm not, I thought. I think I really need to relieve myself but if I do, then I'm gonna have to repeat this whole process of chugging down a whole bottle of water and waiting for dunno how long!

But, all I said, while still tapping my toes together, was, I'm okay.

But then she started to press down on my abdomen right where the bladder was and it took all my focus not to have "an accident" there in the room. I imagined how pathetic it would be if I had to mop up after myself...

I tapped my toes harder, knocking my knees together in the process and almost quaking the hospital bed, too!

Are you okay? The doctor asked again. She was this sweet, young thing, who probably was all manners and sweetness in real life. You know, the kind of girl you would be happy to bring home to your mom (if you're a guy, that is). The kind who would never get herself into embarassing situations like this one!

And there I was at the threshold of letting go, just seconds before it reached the point where I would have to clutch my hands between my legs...

I jumped out of the bed in a shot and hastily got dressed.

No, doctor, I'm not okay. I think I need to go now...I was almost jumping from one foot to another.

I think the doctor was just as embarassed as I was because she never looked me in the eye.

Before I closed the door behind me in search of the nearest toilet, she called out, Don't pee everything away, or we won't be able to scan properly.

Oh, great, now she wants me to keep some of my pee in! Good thing I've been doing my pelvic floor exercises, heh.

Needless to say, it was a great relief when I was able to spout the fountain from between my legs!

La di da!

Temptation

Sylvan has been coming in to the office with very dreamy eyes lately. As though she got some the night before...

And a couple of days ago, during our breakfast together, she had this faraway look in her eyes and she suddenly giggled for nothing. As though she was remembering a pleasant memory or her own little private joke.

It turned out that she had been reading Midnight Sun and was once again reunited with her fictional boyfriend, Edward Cullen. No wonder she was happy...

At first, I tsk-tsk-ed her for reading an illegal copy of the book. Apparently, she had tracked down the scanned version of the book off the Internet. How resourceful!

But then, I dismounted from my high horse and *gasp* asked her to forward it to me! So now, I have a copy of it downloaded on my desktop.

I read one chapter and felt so guilty...it doesn't seem fair to the author. Oh, but then, the temptation to read Edward's side of the story is too great...

For now, let it just sit on my desktop for a while longer, and burn in my head. I shall try to distract myself with some other book (that could never be as compelling as Midnight Sun)...oh but I shall try...

Officially dazzled

I cannot believe it. Midnight Sun has been leaked out!

To understand the gravity of this statement, one has to realise the phenomenon that is gripping the book-reading population right now. It's a 5-book series called the Twilight Saga, a money-spinner created by this mousy little Mormon wife-stay at home mom-sister, Stephenie Meyer.

When she started the Twilight Saga, little did she know that it would create such havoc (and believe me, it is chaos when she goes on her book tours and promotional events), and that it would be bigger than JK Rowling and the rest of her little wizards and muggles.

But, too late, she wrote her stories, and they became huge No. 1s, with legions of screaming fans comprising of the young and old, straight and gay, single and married (I did a little localised research).

Okay, let's back up a little bit and give you a little history.

The Twilight Saga started with a dream.

Meyer says, "I woke up (on that June 2nd 2003) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately."

Intrigued by the dream, she sat down to write everything out in detail. That writing later became "Chapter 13: Confessions" in her debut novel, Twilight. Among fans, it would be the turning point of the whole story, and known as The Meadow Scene (yes, it's that important!).

But even as she was writing it and subsequent chapters, she never thought that there would be a second, third, fourth or fifth book. The "Saga" didn't exist till later when she got a publishing deal. And yeah, about that, she didn't even imagine she would be a published writer. Her writings were, thus far, a self-indulgent hobby. She only counted on her sisters to be her only readers!

To cut a long story short, Twilight was published in 2005, and this was followed by its sequels, New Moon (2006), Eclipse (2007) and Breaking Dawn (2008). They tell the love story of a human girl, Bella Swan, and a 108-year-old vampire, Edward Cullen. The series paints a whole new world of vampires that is far-removed from the hype created by Hollywood before this. Forget fangs, garlic and crosses. Meyer's vampires are achingly and debilitatingly beautiful, super-fast, and sleek.

Just recently, on August 4, Twilight fans all over the world were saved from serious Twilight Saga withdrawal symptoms with the release of the much-longed-for Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the series.

And to illustrate just how big this phenomena is, the book was released to sold-out Breaking Dawn concert parties in several states in the US. Twilight t-shirts are everywhere (and if you see them in Malaysia, it might just be me!) with words like "Edward Cullen is my fictional boyfriend," "Officially Dazzled," and "Team Edward" splashed across, and even Twilight rings and bracelets being made and sold to masses.

And soon, fans can look forward to the release of Twilight the movie in November (in the slot vacated by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart as vampire and human respectively.

In the meantime, fans can re-read the first four books and dream, while anticipating a fifth book, Midnight Sun, to complete the series. This fifth book is creating quite a stir among readers as it would reveal the turn-of-events from swoon-worthy vampire Edward Cullen's point of view.

Originally slated for release next year, the book somehow got leaked out on the Internet recently! Whether or not it is the authentic version, no one knows. There is much speculation over the matter -- who leaked it out? why? should we read it? should we not? but i want to...but i really shouldn't...we should respect the author...but who cares?!

Still, as these events unfold, one thing's for sure, fans everywhere have been seriously bitten by the vampire bug. They will grab at anything to satisfy their craving for more of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. And if we don't watch out, it might get pretty ugly, just like the uncontrolled newborn vampires that Meyer herself described in her books.

So, if you're ready to be dazzled by Meyer's brand of vampires, then go get yourself a copy of Twilight. But don't blame me if you get seriously bitten!

For more information go here and here for some really detailed information by Twilight Saga super fanatics.

Twilight Saga mentions in my blog:

1. A yearning

2. Candy

3. Twilight crazy

4. Romance

5. Sixteen again!

6. Weekend

Book

I dropped by MPH today to look for David Mitchell but Black Swan Green was unavailable.

All was not in vain, however, as I found Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I've heard of this author in passing (I think he wrote The Remains of the Day which was made into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins) but never bothered to look him up until I saw him listed in Time's 100 books list. The reviewer had good things to say about him and within just the first paragraph of his review, I was already hooked to buy the book.

It feels like I'm attempting one of those literary books and I'm a little apprehensive about it because I never finish reading any of the literature greats except for Huckleberry Finn which was compulsory reading in English class.

Let's hope this time is different. Well, it will have a little competition because I'm tandem reading Ishiguro and Meyer's The Host. The first is like a snobbish book, the second is like trashy romance sci-fi.

Well, may the best author win my love!

Opposed

This morning, Sylvan and I came to the very enlightening conclusion that no girl should ever be born an Aries and no boy should ever be born a Pisces.

We deduced that Arien women would be too much for any man to handle and that Pisces people are so dreamy, that only a woman could handle being one. Is that warped? But I say this with no malice or hurtful intentions to the gajillions of Arien women and Pisces men out there.

How did that come about? It was over breakfast and Sylvan was saying that she believes that she will never ever ever ever marry.

Don't say that, I said. Maybe the guy you're supposed to be with just haven't found you yet.

We became silent after that, each pondering over our own thought bubbles.

My thought bubble was that if I had never met Zane, I don't think I would ever have married. I vocalised my thought to Sylvan.

I mean, some people go through life, falling in love so easily. From one relationship to another and another. And I was boyfriendless for pretty much of my life.

Until Zane came, of course. Only he could handle my petulance, my arrogance, my selfishness, and the rest of my insecurities, and make me need him!

And the ironic thing about us is that I'm an Aries and he's a Pisces. We have our moments, of course, when our true astrological characteristics surface. Such opposing characters, he at one end, and I at another end of the spectrum.

He and his water, me and my fire.

He with his dreams, and me with my practicalities.

He with his endless tolerance for patience, and me with my irritation at time.

He with his delicate feelings, and me with my brash responses.

I'm not in the best of focus to completely write my feelings down on this at the moment. Wish I could be more articulate and write this better. Suffice to say that his love for me makes me strive to love him even better.

"Loving someone means taking the risk that they might fuck up your nicely ordered little life." Mark Haddon, A Spot of Bother.

Body

So this Sunday is a very important day for Zane. It's the launch of his solo exhibition in KL. He went over to the gallery yesterday to boss around the people there and tell them where and how to put up his paintings. No, actually, he wouldn't boss people around. He's very nice.

Well, anyway, all the paintings are up. I haven't been to the gallery to see yet, but I am sure that it would look really pretty with his waterlilies, his sunrise and sunsets and some very colourful abstracts.

Last week, he went out shopping with his "fashion advisor" to get some new clothes for the opening. A few days ago, my sis picked out the shirt that our little chickadee would wear on that day. That left just me with nothing to put on for this special Sunday.

I was a little sad. So, it was time to go shopping for me!

In the dressing room, I ached over my body! My tummy is huge people are gonna think I'm pregnant again. My boobies are sticking out like mamayas on a tree. My butt is like two huge basketballs at the top of my legs.

Since I completed my confinement period, I've been hiding behind non-descript clothes, long skirts and huge blouses. My sis tells me that I have no fashion sense at all. I've become the dreaded "aunty" I used to make fun of! Haha...

If it weren't so special, I'd probably pull on my jeans and Team Edward t-shirt. But I finally found something decent to wear. I hope I won't look too awful in it. That's the best I'll hope for.

And if I'm brave enough, I'll even put up a picture of me later. Heh.

Seberang Takir, Terengganu

In Kuala Terengganu, on the day we were to depart for Kuala Lumpur, the weather was gloomy. The clouds hung low, the sun went into hiding. There was an earthy scent, an unusual coolness, in the air.

The Editor, MazManja and I bought an 80 sen ticket for the bot penambang that would take us across the Kuala Terengganu river to Seberang Takir. The bot penambang is a quaint little water vehicle, painted in the bright colours of pink, yellow and green. It goes chug-chug-chug over the murky waters of the river. The journey took less than ten minutes but it was a therapeutic crossing for me.

I put my face to the window and breathed in the scent of the river. The engine chugged lazily in a rhythmic, hypnotic tempo, and I set my pulse to it. I think I left all my worries on the Kuala Terengganu side of the river. The other passengers, so used to this life, carried theirs with them across the waters.

Only a small river separates it from Kuala Terengganu and yet Seberang Takir couldn't be more different than its capital city. We arrived late evening when the day's work had all been done, when children abandoned their homeworks to play outdoors, when time aged largo.

As we made our way around, the Editor told me about the blind poet from these parts. I have forgotten his name now.

We entered a little coffeeshop and ordered keropok lekor, goreng pisang and lime teas in ice. We got used to the presence of flies -- almost ignored them -- as we discovered the true taste of keropok lekor.

Not too far away was the sea with a new embankment of rough-red rock that crunched underfoot. We walked clumsily across it and the physical effort required shook loose a memory of walking in thick snow in Columbia, body wrapped in layers of protection.

Here, children played self-invented games with slippers and Coke bottles. Cats came out to sun themselves under cloudy skies. Two makeshift goalposts marked a football field. Down by the surf, men cast their thin lines into the waters for a lucky catch or two.

The quiet of Seberang Takir seemed predictable and safe. Life here seemed protected. We three stood there for a while, looking out to sea, reluctant to return to Kuala Lumpur.

Time

"What is it? My dear?"

"Ah, how can we bear it?"

"Bear what?"

"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"

"We can be quiet together, and pretend -- since it is only the beginning -- that we have all the time in the world."

"And every day we shall have less. And then none."

"Would you rather, therefore, have nothing at all?"

"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere."

A.S. Byatt, Possession

Black Swan Green

Run across a field of daisies at warp speed but keep your eyes on the ground. It's ace. Petalled stars and dandelion comets streak the green universe. Moran and I got to the barn at the far side, dizzy with intergalactic travel.

Pining for a real good book to read.

Am attracted to David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. Was tempted to nick it off that show-house unit at Mont Kiara. I don't think anyone would have missed it if I did!

He wrote so beautifully in Cloud Atlas. I found it complicated to read...like cutting my way through dense undergrowth, making slow progress forward with a small machete. But the way he constructed the many stories, one within another and another, with only the Cloud Atlas song to thread it all together...it was amazing. And well worth the effort.

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS by Sunil Badami (appeared in The Australian)

MANY first novels are autobiographical, coming-of-age stories marinated for years in the author's difficult childhood. David Mitchell's Ghostwritten was not your usual debut.Fizzing with originality and verve, it connected discrete narratives involving, among other things, an old Chinese woman living in an ancient tea shack on a mountain, Russian art thieves and a disembodied spirit rushing through Mongolia and its inhabitants.

His second novel, Number 9 Dream, was short-listed for the Booker Prize, as was his third, Cloud Atlas. Even when the latter became a bestseller, little was known about its author: having completed a masters in comparative literature, he moved to Japan for eight years, marrying a linguist he met there while teaching English. In this age of celebrity authors, where the novel seems indivisible from the biography, the England-born, Ireland-home owning but temporarily Netherlands-based Mitchell, 36, seems the most non-celebrity double nominee in Booker history.

"I try to keep the writer in me insulated from the 'authorsphere'," he says over green tea in his office at the Dutch National Institute for Advanced Studies, about an hour from Amsterdam, where he's writer in residence.

We are talking ahead of next week's release of his new novel, Black Swan Green, which he describes as not necessarily the best but "the least imperfect book I've written".

He praises his publishers for "shielding my anonymity and humility". "Success can be one of those things that cuts you off from the wellspring of stories that the world is."

Other writers, especially Italo Calvino and Haruki Murakami, have influenced him, as have friends, though "I don't see the point of being friends with people just because they do the same thing you do".

But his seeking to emulate his influences is "a desire to do for others what other writers I've admired have done for me". Fear plays a part too: "It's like a voice deep inside daring me to write, saying: 'I bet you can't do this, I bet you can't pull it off."'

His books, with what he calls their "symphonic sweep", reflect that. Part of the joy of reading them comes from the repeated motifs and recurring characters "who bash through the walls of each others' worlds", forming a sort of meta-novel, a diverse no man's land of bleeding borders, whose nomadic denizens somehow don't quite belong. Assiduous readers of his previous novels recognise familiar faces in each new one.

Yet his ability to ventriloquise eras and perspectives sometimes makes it difficult to find the real Mitchell in his work. Like the disembodied intelligence of Ghostwritten, his voice is pervasive and elusive. So which of his characters is he most like?

"All of them," he says with a laugh. "And none. All because they come from nowhere but my head and if a part of me wasn't like them I couldn't make them as they are. But I've never written a fictional self and I never will."

Mitchell's temporary workplace is a surreal campus of imposing houses and silent streets, where the brightest and best humanities scholars gather to research pet projects without having to teach. At lunch, our table includes the world's leading authority on Norse sagas and a medievalist specialising in Renaissance Latin.

"Sometimes I feel the poor cousin, surrounded by such intellectual expertise," he says. "Writers seem such dilettantes by comparison."

He considers every word to each expansive answer, sometimes betraying the boyhood stutterer he was -- and was, until now, reluctant to write about. "Not that I was afraid, but you learn devices to cope with it, put it out of your mind. People who wish you well won't mention it and so neither do you," he says. "Strangely, more people seem to know what it's like to be blind than it is to stutter."

Black Swan Green marks a departure from the intricate Russian doll narratives that have made his name. Set in a Worcester village in 1983 England, it follows 13-year-old Jason, struggling with puberty, unpopularity, a troublesome speech impediment and the growing tension in his parents' marriage.

He is sympathetic, funny, engaging, striving to understand the confusion inside him and in the world around him. His stories are riddled with misapprehensions and mispronunciations: the machine his therapist uses to measure his speech is "the metro gnome".

Yet despite being tangled up by hormones, schoolyard politics and his tongue, he's believably articulate. Through him, Mitchell evinces the ennui and intricate politics of small-town adolescence, interspersed by moments of poetry ("Run across a field of daisies at warp speed it's ace. Petalled stars and dandelion comets streak the green universe") and terror ("Hate smells like burnt dead fireworks").

Mitchell shies from the term coming-of-age novel, saying "it's a collection of short stories I imagined commissioned by different editors". So what's the difference between a chapter and a short story? "Short stories should start after the beginning and end before the ending."

However, the novel doesn't suffer for being read as a straightforward narrative and Mitchell is wary of falling back on old tricks. "You spend your 20s finding your voice, but you need to work out how to lose it before you can keep going," he says, paraphrasing Philip Glass. "I don't want to be the guy who always writes the same kind of novel, always known for the wacky structures."

He notes that "however breathtakingly inventive a book is, it is only breathtakingly inventive once".

In some ways it's a risk not to give his readership more of the same and it's paradoxical that many may consider this more conventional structure an innovative shift.

Mitchell says Black Swan Green is cannibalised from an aborted first novel to which he only now had the confidence to return. Why now? "A combination of different things: having children, wanting to make sense of that strange in-between time when you have adult emotions and desires you're unable to make sense of," he says. "I needed three books' experience to be able to write about that fear and uncertainty without cliche."

As with Jason, Mitchell grew up writing secret poetry in a village, but his new novel is only "38.2 per cent true", he says. "The stage is the same, the costumes similar, but the cast is different. I had a much happier upbringing; my parents are still together." Although he concedes that "if you want to write stuff that means anything, you have to try to put a kernel of truth in it", he refrained from writing in people he knew because "you still have to live with them".

The novel he's researching sees him on more familiarly exotic ground. Comprised of six novellas spanning 80 years, it's based on Deshima, the first Dutch settlement in Japan, with alternating chapters from Japanese and Dutch perspectives. He'll be moving back to Japan next year for the foreseeable future, not just for research but also so his children "can connect to their maternal culture".

As with reading his books, an afternoon with Mitchell is completely engaging: you cover vast and sometimes unfamiliar terrain, illuminated by his uncommon intelligence. And when you reach that last page, you're a little sad it is ending. However, despite his being a candid and charmingly self-deprecating subject, who can be sure if they have managed to know him? So many interviews, he comments wrily, "only have a sliver of me hidden in them".

As Kierkegaard observed, the more you pursue something, the more it retreats. It's certainly true of artists such as Mitchell, who seem to disappear into their art.

Given how much his work has had to say so far, that's probably more than enough for him. And hopefully, for his many readers.

A discovery

Suddenly, I found myself all obsessed with all things Muse. Googled it here, googled it there, tried to get every piece of their music.

One of my googling led me to a song that was so uncharacteristic of Muse. So haunting and delicate, the song played itself over and over again at my workstation.

It turned out that the name of the song was mis-spelt "Muse" when it should have been "Musee Mecanique's Under Glass."

Apparently, the song that I had been playing to death was Musee Mecanique's Under Glass which was re-orchestrated for cello by another talented group of people who call themselves the Portland Cello Project.

Pretty good stuff.

Gitanjali No. 19 Triptych

If thou speakest not

I will fill my heart with thy silence

and endure it

I will keep still

and wait like the night

with starry vigil

and its head bent low with patience.

The morning will surely come,

the darkness will vanish,

and thy voice pour down

in golden streams breaking through the sky.

Then thy words will take wing

in songs

from every one of my birds' nests,

and thy melodies will break forth

in flowers in all my forest groves.

Rabindranath Tagore

jika engkau tiada bertitah

akan kuisi hatiku dengan senyapmu

dan menanggungnya

aku akan diam menunggu

seperti malam menunggu

dengan pengawal yang berbintang

dan kepalanya bertunduk sabar

pagi pasti akan menjelma

gelap akan lenyap

suaramu akan melanda langit

melimpah ke dalam arus keemasan

kata-katamu akan berkepak

bagai nyanyian

dari setiap sarang unggasku

nyanyianmu akan terbuka

bagai bunga dalam hutanku

Translated by Latiff Mohidin

jika engkau membisu

akan kuisi hatiku dengan senyapmu

dan menanggungnya

aku akan diam menunggu

seperti malam menunggu

dengan di awasi bintang-bintang

dan kepalanya tunduk sabar

pagi pasti akan menjelma

gelap akan lenyap

dan suaramu melimpah turun

dalam pancaran keemasan

menembusi langit

lalu kata-katamu akan terbang melayang

dalam nyanyian

dari setiap satu sarang unggasku

dan iramamu akan memancar

pada bunga dalam semua rimbun hutanku

Translated by Nordin

In the spirit of the Olympics

I've never been much of a sportsman. In fact, I hated PE classes coz I always felt so awkward and uncoordinated. Hockey practise seemed like I was shoveling dirt. Badminton was too wimpy to count as sports. Netball made me feel like a clown.

Growing up with athlete friends made me envy their energy, their health, and their popularity. Things I didn't possess. I was more a bookworm. A loner. A misfit. Heh.

But, in the spirit of the Olympics, I thought about what kind of athlete I'd make. For sure, if I was an athlete, I would definitely fight to be in the Olympic Games. I mean, that's like the Grammy Awards of music, the Oscars of film!

So, when the topic came up between Zane and me, I told him, without hesitation, that if I were an athlete competing in the Olympics, I could definitely see myself kicking ass in the 100m sprint and the 100m butterfly.

I think I may have surprised myself with my own answer and evaluating it, it only became apparent why I would naturally, instinctively, say that.

First off, both events require sudden spurts of energy. They are not long-drawn out affairs like triathlons and relays. There is the element of challenge -- I consider the butterfly stroke as the most difficult in swmming. There is fierce competition because everyone is at the starting line, waiting for the gun to pop. They're not wimpy like archery or shooting. They are popular events with guaranteed audiences. The competitors are individuals and not groups like synchronized swimming and volleyball. To succeed requires physical strength, speed and pure adrenaline, rather than strategy, endurance and wits like the relay events.

In other words, its purely an Arien thing! I want things fast and I want it now. I can't be bothered with anything boring or something that takes too long. I love a good challenge. I like success to depend on my own ability rather than a group's. I love the attention. I like to outdo others, and myself, too.

I rest my case.

And Zane? What Olympic events would he rather compete in? Well, he'd rather not compete. There is not an ounce of one-upmanship in him. And therein lies our difference.

But, if pressed, he would probably go for booger flicking and farting.

That is so Zane! Case closed.

Dating

Ever since we got the maid, Zane and I have been able to spend more snatches of time together. It's lovely...to be in the car with just him alone, my arms unburdened by the weight of Musa; to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee with him at a nice cafe; to joke around like we used to.

We miss each other so much these past few months. I truly and deeply love him. Feel extremely lucky to have him as my partner in this life.

Yesterday, we wore matching t-shirts, just a declaration to the rest of the population that we were "together," you know. I know, it's so juvenile, but hah!

I love you, sayang. So very much.

Sombre

The mood this week is pretty sombre.

Firstly, my cousin, Tab, is barely holding on to life as he lies perfectly still in ICU. One by one, his internal organs are failing him until he has to be kept on life support for now. His once stocky, stout body is now a dead weight on the bed. His face is bandaged to keep the blood from oozing out. The doctors told us to prepare for the worst.

Every single minute of the day, Kak Yati, his life partner stands by him. I don't know how she's taking it -- knowing that there are just days left for her and her husband. Knowing that the inevitable will happen. I don't know what her internal dialog is but I can imagine all the kinds of thoughts crowding her head. Or maybe not. Maybe she just feels numb.

Her daughter, whom I'm very close to, is a skinny shadow of her former self. We hugged and cried in the ICU. She had been there for too many hours, and perhaps because of it, felt some relief to leave the ICU behind, if only for a few minutes to take her lunch with me.

I left with a heavy heart and the image I couldn't shake off from that afternoon's hospital visit was of Adik, the prodigal son, putting his face so close to his dad's, and looking at his old man with a kind of longing look, as though waiting for his father to miraculously open his eyes and smile.

The second piece of news that is disturbing me is the one that's made it on all the front pages of our major newspapers. My boss was arrested by the ACA on Wednesday morning. We all certainly feel the loss. I have worked closely with him in the past few years -- on sales missions overseas, attended interviews and press conferences with him, wrote his speeches and letters, etc. He is a fine leader who knows the industry inside and out like the back of his hand. He rose through the rank and file and can summon any piece of information regarding the industry from as far back as 20, 30 years ago as though it were etched in his brain.

Things are topsy turvy these days. Again, it's like the juggler has missed some balls and they're all crashing down to the floor.

Listening to Muse. Time is running out. How appropriate.

Weekend

So much has happened in the space of a weekend. But since I'm too lazy to write about them all, here are some notes:

1. Zane has gone off to Kuala Besut and the Perhentians...without me! I'm a little miffed because it's a mini road trip that we were supposed to embark on before our next-year-road-trip.

2. My maid has finally arrived. I waited till 4 am at the airport to get her. She's okay but I can already see that I'm gonna have to rein her in frequently. I so don't know how to be a Ma'am!

3. My period's back after breastfeeding for 7 months. Eww...

4. I just got my copy of Breaking Dawn...and can't wait to be reunited with the Bella-Edward love thingie. At Kinokuniya, with The Star coupon, the paper-back version was just RM30 something.

5. Sylvan and I actually made Team Edward t-shirts to wear. I made one for Zane too...but they're not ready yet. Will post them up when they are.

The one left behind

Zane is leaving for Kuala Besut without me this Friday. I was supposed to go with him but tonight, we made a decision that it would be best if I stayed behind with the lil chickadee.

I was a little heartbroken and just shrank on the bed, my heart hollow.

I lay like that for a few minutes alone, going through a mental list of who I could call for some sympathy. I didn't find anyone.

I'm just a little sad. But knowing me, I'll get over it in like 10 minutes.

Wish I could spend time wallowing in self pity but I've got a load of laundry to do.

Kalau kau mahu

A poem for those days when I'm aspiring, yearning, wanting something more.

kalau kau mahu

kalau kau mahu
ada langit biru yang lain birunya
ada awan putih yang lain putihnya
ada cara lain merenung purnama
matahari ungu di musim kelima
pagi yang lain sinarnya
malam yang lebih pekat hitamnya
pejamkan matamu sebentar
di sini kita bernafas tanpa kalendar
ingat tangis pertama disertai ketawa
manisnya pedihnya bila mulut dibuka
akan kukirim seekor rama-rama
dari desa tak pernah ditimpa cahaya
atau segenggam kapur biru
dari gua digali dengan kuku dan lagu
sungguh akan kukirim padamu
kalau kau mahu
sebuah perahu tanpa nombor dan waktu
naiklah teman-teman tak beribu
ada pulau biru yang lain birunya.

latiff mohidin
hong kong, julai 1970

Road trip

Zane and I hatched a plan over a three-course lunch at Cova, The Gardens, today that had me blissfully dreaming about it all afternoon.

To be honest, it was something that we both had been dreaming about all those years, and somehow managed to postpone for one reason or another. It's our long-overdue road trip to the east coast in our old buggy. We had wanted to do it last year, but of course, I had a happy accident which we later named Musa.

It's not just any old road trip, though, that we envisioned. It would be an artistic documentation of our journey to the east coast, through history and time.

Think Motorcycle Diaries meets Little Miss Sunshine. A journey of discovery, documentation and chaos!

We're thinking of taking the roads, trails and paths less travelled by and let serendipity surprise us. Though we are planning on a loose itinerary, we'll probably go on the fly most times.

Zane, the ever-diligent dreamer, wove his dreams into my own thought bubble, ever expanding it with happy visions and possibilities...until, by the time dessert came, I was already smiling in gleeful anticipation of the trip. It involved paintings, sketches, some prose and poems, and hand-bound books of our journey...and possibly an art exhibition of it to follow.

"We'll have to plan this right," he said, thinking deeply. "You know what car would be nice for this trip?"

I shook my head.

"A 4 by 4...with camping equipment and space in the back for Musa to crawl."

"Not the wagon?" I asked.

"Nope. Makan minyak banyak," he said. Then as an afterthought, "A kangoo would be nice too."

We stared off into our own thought bubbles...wondering....dreaming...

"It would be nice to take a long leave. You know how long we should go for?"

I eagerly put up all ten fingers to his face.

"No...more than that..."

"Two weeks?" I started to moan. I didn't have two weeks of leave.

"No...a month!"

Perhaps I could take no-pay leave...hermmm...

Well, this is just the beginning. They all begin with dreams anyway. Let's see what happens next.

The stories I carry with me in this life

You think in words;
for you, language is an inexhaustible thread you weave
as if life were created as you tell it.

“Tell me a story,”
I say to you.

“What about?”

“Tell me a story you have never
told anyone before. Make it up for me.”
Prologue, The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende


Our entire life is a story, no, multiple stories unfolding all at once. There are the heartrending tales of the great love of our life. The full-blown drama-minggu-ini detailing the ugly family feuds. The comedy – yes, in hindsight – that is our tragic personal life. Some of our stories are long drawn out sagas spanning many years. Some have quick unfortunate endings. Still others -- making them the most difficult ones to bear -- are left to fester without closures.

Everyone has a story to tell, whether they realise it or not. Some have poignant tales that haunt us for days on end, others have happy anecdotes of a full life. From having lived, and in some cases, endured, their lives, these people weigh the words in their mouth and tell of fantastic fables and fantasies, exaggerated lives and inspiring parables.

Many of the people I’ve met have been candid enough to tell me their stories. I would like to think that I am the reason for this frank disclosure. That I somehow give off an aura that they could trust, that their confidences would not be betrayed, and that judgment -- the deadly sword of human thought -- would be sheathed and withheld. But, the truth is that, it is not my doing. It is they who I credit and respect for their forthrightness, for their capacity to share, hurtful though the memories may be.

Sometimes I feel that I should reciprocate the gesture by opening up to them with stories of my own. But the thought of exposing old wounds and leaving myself vulnerable again to people's judgments as well as to feelings that I’ve buried away make thise merely a fleeting thought.

So, instead of spinning a tale about some long-ago lover or the crappy best friend he ran away with; the first taste of snow or the last supper in Provence, I lend you my ears and perhaps my shoulders, too, so that your life stories that you choose to share will have more meaning in the telling. So that the weight of your words, and of the life it tells, will be borne by this mind. So that some part of you will be carried eternal in me.

*

On the 12-hour flight to Paris, we huddled under our blankets as other passengers slept in reclined seats and semi-darkness. You, who commanded an entire continent with your marketing strategies and who everyone respects for your work ethics, told me about what it was like to lose your first, long-awaited, child only months after he was brought into this world. I saw your sad eyes -- twin pools of regret and despair -- and that faraway look in them. As though you were re-living the moments again. The death could have been avoided, but it had been written in fate by the hand of God, and that was how it was to be. As you told it to me, there were no tears in your eyes, only in mine.

*

In Africa, there came to me the tale of a magical child, who for the first nine years of her life, would suckle on nothing but her mother's milk and the water from the holy land. Any substitute of a lesser degree would not suffice the thirst of the child. This was told to me by the father who commanded a fleet of airplanes around the world to stock barrels of the holy water from the land of Mecca. The child, now fifteen, has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and is blessed with a keen sense of storytelling.

*

From many years ago, at a time when our hearts were young and easily set a-flutter, you, my dear friend, told me of your lover. A boy who not just made your heart thump that much faster, but set it raging and on fire. A boy you were afraid to bring home to meet your parents. Not because he was the typical "bad" boy, but because you were already promised to someone else.

*

On another flight, I sit with rapt attention listening to how a diamond was lost, never to be seen again for the next eight months, and found intact in another state. The ring had somehow slipped off Datin's finger without notice and the following months were spent in prayer for the return of the stone. Trips to Mecca were made and special prayers were offered in which it came to her like a dream, the knowledge that soon, the diamond would once again be in her posession. With nothing more than this flimsy assurance to hold on to, the Datin returned to Malaysia, to be greeted with the news that indeed, her ring had been found and returned. What began as a RM300k investment has now been valued at over RM1 million. A whopping figure for a 6.3 carat diamond with a story to tell.

*

An Egyptian guide who works hard, talks fast and seems to have time to spare for everyone, was married to an eternally patient woman. His work takes him from city to desert to forests half a world away and back. Passport stamps and a ready suitcase witness the life of this traveller who leaves his wife at home for months on end in the name of work and comes back only to kiss her goodbye again. It was discovered later by the wife, from examining his expired passports, that the man and wife were together for a mere three months in their entire married life of twenty years!

Midnight by the surf

Sixteen again!

I'm 34 going on 16. Haha. And so is Sylvan. Thanks to our obsession with Edward Cullen. Must thank Stephenie Meyer for making us feel this way.

The first time I read Twilight, it took me two days to finish it. The second reading is taking me a week!

I've finally converted Sylvan into a fan, too. We're starting a book club and collecting members. Haha. She's given her copy of Twilight to Shahrul and we're excited to know his reaction to the book. It would give us an idea of how the opposite sex takes to it. Well, I mean, not exactly opposite sex...but close enough lah.

If he likes it, then we'll have a third member. And officially enough people to form a meeting. Just kidding. I'm not that obsessed.

Sharon, the bride to be, is obsessed enough with her future husband and so we won't impose on her. Lest she has a change of heart after meeting Edward. Heh!

Zane is too adult to be enjoying this kind of thing. Let me be the baby in the relationship. With all my giggling and scene-by-scene analysis of Twilight with poor hubby, I think he's had almost enough. I warily asked him if he was okay to listen to all my kiddy talk.

He said, okay, but don't me jealous lah.

Me: Are you jealous ke?

Him: Not yet.

Me: Alah, don't worry, Edward is just a fictional hero. You're my hero in real life.

And he melted. Awww....but I can just hear the groans as well! Haha!

Edward: If I could dream at all, it would be about you.

Lessons for men and women, in preparation for Valentine’s Day

I know I'm a little late for Valentine's Day -- or early, depends on which way you look at it -- but here it is anyway. Some perspective on matters concerning love:

A man and a woman are sitting in a restaurant arguing about male-female relationships.

The man, having been in several relationships that did not work out, observed that it was difficult to make a woman happy, saying, “...it has happened to me many times that a lady has told me that I was making her unhappy, and that she wished that she and I were dead, at a time when I have tried hardest to make her happy. It is so many years now since Adam and Eve were first together in the garden, that it seems a great pity that we have not learned better how to please another.”

After pondering over what the gentleman had said, this is what the woman replied, to help shed some light on the gentleman’s perplexing, though not unique, situation.

“Now God,” she said, “when he created Adam and Eve, arranged it so that man takes, in these matters, the part of a guest, and woman that of a hostess. Therefore man takes love lightly, for the honour and dignity of his house is not involved therein. And you can also, surely, be a guest to many people to whom you would never want to be a host. Now, tell me, Count, what does a guest want?”

“I believe,” said the man when he had thought for a moment, “that if we do, as I think we ought to here, leave out the crude guest, who comes to be regaled, takes what he can get, and goes away, a guest wants first of all to be diverted, to get out of his daily monotony or worry. Secondly the decent guest wants to shine, to expand himself and impress his own personality upon his surroundings. And thirdly, perhaps, he wants to find some justification for his existence altogether. But since you put it so charmingly, Signora, please tell me now; What does a hostess want?”

“The hostess,” said the young lady, “wants to be thanked.”

Taken from The Roads Round Pisa by Isak Dinesen in her collection of short stories, Seven Gothic Tales.