Tuesday, May 30, 2006
gonna talk about the weather so if you have no stomach for such things, you are free to skip this post and go on to do more worthwhile things.
but i'm going to talk about the weather here in Singapore and more specifically from the perspective of someone who lives in the north, in an area that was once all kampong, pig farms and gutters but now polished sanitised high rise buildings and neon blink-blink lights of a shopping mall..
today everything was in bright vivid primary colours. yellows, blues, greens. oops one of them aint a primary colour. But (who cares), for me it's been the longest time since i actually slowed down my pace and just admired the abundance of light that flooded the cross junction adjacent to the mrt tracks. it was literally the flooding of lights that made the objects on the road, the people walking, the buildings... just standing... all stand out from each other with such vivacity. The heat of the early afternoon sun was shielded by a blanket of clouds on the western horizon, leaving the eastern terrifically blue. Good weather, excellent humidity, cooling breeze. I don't know how God does it. I felt like i could walk on forever and just enjoy the afternoon that was laid out before me.
As i admired the scene before me, i realised that my thoughts no longer were weighed down by the impending demands of work or unexpected twists from a hit broadway called "school days". School is out by the way and students are having a one month break. Although i've been waking up early to return to school for consultations with students, i don't dread it. I can't wait to wake up early and see the sun already risen, the sky just turning its coat of colours over. More so, I can't wait to leave and walk under the shade of the trees, enjoying the wind and inspecting the colours while i wait for the traffic light to change. Just feeling the ground change under my slippers as i walk across grass, dirt tracks, concrete pavements is quite thrilling. I often go out in the evening on the pretext to buy groceries to just leave my house and smell the breeze.
you know the other night, as i was taking the trash out of my house.. the sweetest smell wafted through my corridors (and it was certainly not my neighbour's garbage). my apartment faces an isolated stretch of round lined with very tall trees that scale a little hill rising alongside with the road. The sweetest smell... i think to myself that this can only be frangipanis. I've never smelt anything like it before. It could have come from the neighbours' house. Afterall, malay homes always have a different smell. No racist undertones here. An Indian household with the lingering smell of spices could be heart-warming to certain individuals and if i stayed long enough in such a place, i'm sure i'll be of the same mind. But coming back to the sweetest smell, it didn't matter where it came from but it was simply a gift from God even if it came from someone's cooking pot. I called to mr yim to come out of the house and smell. He most probably thought i was mad but too bad for him.
i think it is in every place i travel to, i try to be open to such moments like these. And i would consider a vacation to be excellentand thoroughly well spent if i have moments like these? Haha. Yah and it's not just about the shopping and food mind you although they're still ermm rather important.
It's the simplest mundane things that capture our hearts. I wish the government could just understand that instead of mass manufacturing national education and drumming it in our heads. There's no other sky like this in all the world. There's no other smell, no other time, no other place.Labels: peanut facts
