Toads (Amongst Other Things)

I am in a strange little orbit today.

Oddly washed over by a sense of tranquility (which is altogether unbecoming, considering that I have a contract exam tomorrow) that I haven't felt in quite a while.

Maybe it's the jazz music. And the breeze and the trees.

Or maybe it's because when I can look back on what has passed with an element of wry amusement (amongst other various emotions, of course), I know it's going to be okay.

We'll all get there someday

A Little Bit; Of Your Heart and Mine

Loss is explosive.

At that particular instant, your emotions scurry like pathetic mice in frantic disarray.

Fast, faster, fastest.

Until something deep within the recesses of your heart explodes; a quiet sort of violence; an irrevocable sort of violence. With a tremble, and then, a sigh.

Sometimes, loss is customary and so nothing changes. Only the ceasing of a heartbeat that was so quiet, you forgot it was ever there in the first place.

For-get-table. Forgettable.

Loss makes the Heart infinitely larger and yet, indescribably smaller, all at the same time.

Engorged with grief, the irony is that it is only in our loss that our capacity for pain increases. Yet loss incessantly gnaws away (the result of which is a Dull Ache) and a small hole appears. Sometimes the hole is merely enlarged.

We’ve all been told that we have an infinite propensity to heal. And we are fundamentally forgetful; our muddled conscious can only sustain but so much. But the hole, the gaping hole. Does it ever actually close up? Or does it merely cease to bleed?











I don’t know.

When I Talk To You; Leunig

Dear God,

We struggle, we grow weary, we grow tired.
We are exhausted, we are distressed, we despair.
We give up, we fall down, we let go.
We cry.
We are empty, we grown calm, we are ready, we wait quietly.

A small, shy truth arrives.
Arrives from without and within.
Arrives and is born.
Simple, steady clear.
Like a mirror, like a bell, like a flame.
Like rain in summer.
A precious truth arrives and is born within us.
Within our emptiness.

We accept it, we observe it, we absorb it.
We surrender to our bare truth.
We are nourished, we are changed.
We are blessed.
We rise up.

For this we give thanks.

Amen.

I thought I knew, but I didn't. Help me not to forget this time.
Thank You.

We Stand Up; We Remember

I'm really curious as to why they included that the door is decorated and that there is a plant outside.

Hi Bimin,
whoever said we weren't happening Obviously Wasn't In The Know.

Summer of '69

hello to all,
especially those who are away,
you'll be alright.

Words, Beauty, Mine, Yours

God give us rain when we expect sun.
Give us music when we expect trouble.
Give us tears when we expect breakfast.
Gie us dreams when we expect a storm.
Give us a stray dog when we expect congratulations.
God play with us, turn us sideways and around.

Amen.

- Leunig, When I Talk to You

Hi, Moonie

For some strange inexplicable reason, I felt like that tonight.
And even stranger, she seemed to know more than a year ago, that one day I would need to hear it again.

to ponks:

sometimes monstrous things lurk in the depths below.

the sky around you's a reckless mess

and you're upset because although you see the white teeth that gleam occasionally,

you can't gauge the extent of its owner's ferocity. whatever that thing is.

but turn your face higher up!

and you'll realize that the sky above is infinitely bigger than the waters below.

sometimes it needs to get dark before you can see the stars, and the first ray of light only comes after the blackest moment.







and then if you look further to the right,you'll know the moon's always there too. (there, where the pen points. it's just hidden in the corner.)
-moonie

She Sells Seashells By The Seashore

I learnt today that the bravery, it seems, is not in knowing precisely what to do and doing it.

For it is uncertainty and the possibility of error and futility that we fear most, and there is no bravery in the absence of fear. It is in an apparently dogged and foolish perseverance despite the constant clumsiness, the fumbling and falling; and the audacious belief in what is apparently contrary to all that we know and feel.

Courage, is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. (Good old Mark Twain)

Help me not to dwell on yesterday, or worry about what will happen tomorrow; But to live each day for You, in all things, big or little alike.
Let not the dust of the earth blind me to that that has true and eternal value and put perspective in my eyes that I may have the wisdom to discern the important from the urgent and the bravery to do that which I must.

For Danae

20th February 2008

i.
We forget so easily
You and I
New gold, shiny with lacerations
Sink deeper than memories
Wrought with the roses of yesterday

ii.
Such careless despair
Abandoned in cold neglect
Wrinkled sweet wrappers in the pocket of new jeans
Cast aside after the lusty satiation of a single spin cycle

iii.
Forgotten prayers from dusty altars to
Forgetful gods who frolick in the waterbaked sun
Sinking into the luxurious seat of oblivion
The roaring promises of a pink curled shell
Fragile as the skin on your sullen eyelid
Danae, wistful in the wake of her lover's golden trail

iv.
Wait, wait, wait,
It drips
The persistent leaky tap
Forging madness in its incessancy
Wait, wait, wait
But nothing happens
Because we are forgotten

v.
The dolls have fallen behind the chest- of-drawers
With only dust tresses for company and beauty
Jagged edges, the lines are spilling
The misery is not in the falling

I am amused that I cannot remember the reason for such intensity

Drip, Goes Time

Somewhere in the room below mine, someone is listening to Hokkien pop songs and suddenly, I have a strange urge to bellow a loud and cheery 'hello!' but somehow in the crevice of my exhausted mind, I think that that would be rather socially unacceptable.

It disconcerts me that it is only the third week of school because somehow there is already an oddly old familiarity to the routine. There is something significant about unrecognizable and indistinguishable faces slowly becoming familiar ones.

And yet, there are still traces of surrealism because I can't quite reconcile the (relative) permanence of the situation in my mind. It both reassures and scares me that I will spend four years in this routine; the reassurance from the fact that there is an established routine and that the macabre uncertainty is sufficiently over and the fear, from the realization of how easily we get used to things;

the thought that we are willing to give up and forget what we thought we would fight for in exchange for the comfort of a routine pattern.

I don't want to be merely settling, I want to have reason to believe that I am much more of a person than that. I did think that I could turn matyred resignation into contentment but sometimes I think I'm not really sure what the difference is anymore. Of course it can be reasoned out, intellectually and rationally. But that rarely works, mostly because I doubt I am inclined to function that way.

I figured that by deciding what was important to me and making a committment to it, there would be some sort of meaning and purpose that I could use to justify everything else. But the truth is, and I am ashamed to confess it, that the niggling notion of practicality remains. True, it is tucked away. But it remains, nonetheless. And in the face of everything else, it's even harder to ignore it. I think what's worse than being weak is thinking that you're strong and realizing that you're actually not when it's too late. I always thought that I was never one to conform but with the often sad benefit of hindsight, I've come to realize that that was precisely what I was doing with my life: conforming to expectations. Not entirely mindlessly, but sufficiently so.

I don't want this year to just be another change in the numbers on the calendar, quantifying the moments that have passed and the ones to come; a cacophony of days where each might as well be other.

Because I think, and I want to think, that it could be so much more if only I were brave enough to make it such.

And the music has stopped.

And So The Old Adage Goes

ellen says: i want a boyfriend now!

when your duty as a friend calls, it calls.
So.

Meet Ellen.
18, female and most importantly, single.
Hails from the western area of Singapore where there are many trees.
Which is a good things, considering she is actually a primate in disguise.
Is highly intelligent, can lay claim to an almost freakish SAT score of 2300 and is very, very particular about cleanliness.
Dispenses clear, rational advice in a sometimes not so clear and rational manner. (refer to below)
Likes her Long Island Iced Teas very much, thankyou.
Is not a communist, despite prior evidence.
Is actually extremely cheerful. Okay, somewhat cheerful. When she feels like it.
Has a penchant for Thailand, beach mats and "see-hups". Or it could be the other way, actually.
Likes Eric Clapton, Sufjan Stevens, Snow Patrol, Jack Johnson and when the occasional embarassing moment beckons, Shakira and her Hips that Don't Lie. Spends her time watching Grey's Anatomy and Gilmore Girls, in between being a primate and paddling in her pool. And working at a company that pays about $20/day to talk herself hoarse.
Would like a man whom she can dispatch to buy CDs (Sondre Lerch, Josh Rouse and more Sufjan Stevens would be highly appreciated) and who will listen to her whine about anything under sun. Intelligence and cleanliness are traits that are non-negotiable but level of hairy-ness can be further discussed.

Interested candidates, contact ponkleberry via this blog.