cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night

True love is not about shifting the focus from taking responsibility for our own lives to taking responsibility of another.We can’t immerse ourselves in the drama of the other, and certainly self-love is important.

This is why… it’s better for us to step back again and reconsider what we want..

I think the close friends who are readers of this blog, are really gonna be bewildered at this sudden turn/ twist of events (again). Words are not enough to encapsulate how I feel.. so this is highly truncated about what really happened.

I like your growing maturity. I like your jokes and your identical wavelength with mine..

But because I know you so well, I know our current goals are too different to be shared. My greatest desire is for you to grow to understand you can make a difference and contribution to others, instead of wanting, needing more. Because wanting and needing more, is grasping in the wind if it doesn’t lead to change, growth and sacrifice.

So as much as I love you, I think it is better to let you go.. so that you can truly discover yourself. I know that I am important to you. But it’s important for me to consider what I want too. I don’t discount the fact that we might be eventually together again.. but for now, it’s better for me to keep a safe distance. Too many outings, too many phone calls, too many prayers, too many shared ideas..too many emotional revelations… it all leads to like a relationship on steroids.

And by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I enjoyed seeing your family today. I am quite sure I can make a difference to your life. The problem is, I am not sure if you think you can make a difference to my life? I know you can, but you don’t seem to think you can.. That’s where the path branches out and I need to walk further down this path on my own.

The dating game is so… tiring…. Who on earth do I acquaint myself with now?

I watched 500 days of Summer with J who raved about it. He was watching it as he felt it brought him elucidation about love.. but I was more wide-eyed, pragmatic about it. He says I am always skeptical. I say he is also always skeptical.

I also don’t know what is it I am ambivalent about. It seems, on the surface, like the sorta movie I would like.

Indie British pop, check. Offbeat, check. Likeable, slightly self-deprecating characters, check. Good unpredictable plot, almost. check.

I think I was uncomfortable with the way love was depicted as random.

After a mere few days of meeting Summer, Tom is a hopeless romantic who gushes 

“It’s official. I’m in love with Summer.” Like huh?

He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. (Well, good for him! How come I never knew anything?!) Tom Hansen believed in The One and he would never be truly happy until he found the One.. His sister rightly cautions him that , “Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn’t mean she’s your soul mate.” Sometimes we are so intent on finding the right one, we invent all kinds of excuses to make believe that this is the  right situation.

I’m really all for love. But I don’t believe there is The One. I think God wisely gives us a range of permutations and combinations and respects our free will.  We, on our part, wisely or unwisely choose to end up with one person, or none, out of these permutations of The Ones..For while there is rain in a season, preparation and so on, what happens is that the ground only yields fruit in a particular moment in time..and if the gardener was at the right place. I think even if the choice made is not always suitable, God to a certain extent allows it, but we live with the consequences.

I think what I cannot stand is Tom Hansen looking all dopey eyed until he found The One.. Living with glassy eyes and reporting listlessly for work all day long.. fortunately he stood up to it and achieved his dreams of architecture in the end.

I also cannot agree with Summer’s views. I think they are very sweet and funny..their courting and dating at Ikea, pretending to be a family residing in a house.. daring each other to yell out tabooed words in a park (Josh dared me to try it in Macdonalds but I ignored him) J’s favourite lines are Tom saying, “Darling, I don’t know how to tell you this, but there’s a Chinese family in my bathroom.” because while canoodling and cuddling on an IKEA bed, a family browsing stuff in the bathroom appeared totally shocked. Hahahah.

 To me their activities would have been very sweet and unconventional.  But I think her views of enjoying the moment, without compartmentalising the moment, while appearing spontaneous and romantic, are also a bit scary. By prioritising only her feelings, she did what was possible for some– separating intimacy from love.  Later, she got married just because a man picked her up by asking her about Dorian Gray she was reading.. so she “just knew”.  Huh? Just knew? So simple? So, I guess the movie acts as a cautionary note for myself down the road as well of some uncertainty. Popular culture is popular after all, even when it touts to be indie and exclusive..

 More intense but funny conversations followed thereafter.. my dear.. sigh.

Ok but what I really like was this: the Narrator said, “Most days of the year are unremarkable. They begin, and they end, with no lasting memories made in between. Most days have no impact on the course of a life. May 23rd was a Wednesday. ” I liked the fact that the characters’ memories of each other were so episodic and vague.. it really characterises a lot of dating life and also in our limited ways of conceptualising memory and identity. How do you really know you really know a person? Does it really get easier? Really? Because I’m finding it so hard, so funny, cherished and intense, but all so hard. it’s difficult to be vulnerable. It’s difficult to keep trying. It’s wonderful to laugh continuously. It’s wonderful to argue. It’s wonderful to know there’s someone who will understand the subtle quirk of an eyebrow, the nod of a head. Altogether, how do these people just know?

I pushed josh to watch the Julie/Julia project. I knew it would not be the typical Fried Green Tomatoes kinda weepy girly show (I hate those by the way) or the Joy Luck Club kinda movie.

It’s about how an ordinary office worker gets inspired to cook French recipes based on her long-time admiration of a down-to-earth, nurturing chef she watched and read about in “Master the art of French Cooking”.

It did yield interesting outcomes for myself. Apart from feeling swept away by the picturesque landscapes and marketing scenes of resplendent crustacean and fish.. there was the sense that Amy Adam (Julie) was looking for a sense of identity, order and predictability in her weary corporate world. It could have descended into stereotypes but it didn’t. I also loved Meryl Streep’s Julia..

The last time I was every inspired by a food movie/ novel would have been “Like Water for Chocolate”. But that one was primarily sensual and might have been to say, a tad too erotic and skipping other aspects of gastronomic delights. Anyway, I knew that food scenes, French scenes, lotsa words, a good screenplay and expression filled scenes of British and other European-centric things would make Josh happy. So, I was happy too. I’ve always liked quaint films. Coupled with a nice soundtrack, it was like anything goes….  ya…I always thought that such scenery would be a good place to get married,  and everybody would dance about like peasantry in Lord of the Rings but unfortunately no one would attend a wedding in France, but hey, maybe that’s the whole idea.. I like exclusivity.

Every woman may fantasise to be the Martha Steward actually. I was truly shocked when I read about her fraud some years ago.  But ya, when the credits rolled I was amused to realise everybody was credited in the film.. from the inane Oyster Boy, to the Chestnut seller etc.. haha. And, it was a true story! I went home and checked up the actual blog, which can located at http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/

I was truly surprised because in today’s day and age, food blogs are usually accompanied by pictures, and enticing ones, to ensure viewership.  But such a prosaic, mundane and even self-deprecating blog won the readership of so many people… In 2002, people didn’t use the visual that well. There was like not a single nice food picture. Goodness… in 2009’s context, all decent food blogs have nice pictures. Maybe people just like things they can relate to easily.

Let’s see, who would even read my blog??

Julia Child really exemplifies her name in her child-like demeanour and humour in the movie.. I love Meryl Streep. She was penetrating, condescending and doubtful in Proof. And now, she does a different take altogether to be this well-pulled, competitive woman chef who loves her husband.

Today a friend said she has been reading and feels inspired by my steadfastness.. I’m very touched by her comment. But maybe it is actually not steadfastness..  Actually I am not as stoic as most people think, nor as nurturing. I just do what I do, guided by a voice that isn’t always reasonable, isn’t always convenient and isn’t always happy. I don’t have the right word to put it. Am well aware, that people like the obstacles sometimes, I am creating escalating commitment.. but I don’t want to be so 苦情also.. Anyway.. I really need God. I love him! Do you realise, falling in love and working as a teacher, are like such scary things without God.. because they go against the grain of something hidden in my nature..

In Julia Child’s words, ” she wants you to remember that you are human, and as such are entitled to that most basic of human rights, the right to eat well and enjoy life.”

After all the brouhaha, we’re still together.. I can’t seem to stop caring about you, or to explain why I choose you… just like choosing merriam webster over dictionary.com..

which brings me to think.. it is just love.

God, I want to love you more
Especially in a world that claims to verbalise love so easily

 God, I want to love you more
Even when I have no foresight about some matters
 
 God, I want to love you more
Life can be so simple

 God, I want to love you more
Although I admit humans seek a reward, recompense and requital

 God, I want to love you more
It’s too painful to be nonchalant

 God, I want to love you more
I thank you for the limit of the human comprehension

 God, I want to love you more
The greatest gift you gave was self-will

It has been certainly an eye-opening experience going to HK with Josh. First of all, he is mad chaotic fun @ Disneyland and other places if he isn’t worrying about his health situation. Come tues/ weds to sat, it was a different story as the concerns of the operation took over. I tried to be helpful and offered emotional support.. but there were times we were both grating on each other’s nerves. I didn’t tell him this, but I believe God was showing me a picture of what things would be like if I married him. Eating, drinking and living so closely  with another person brought warts, joys and little trivialities to the forefront while they were formerly unknown. I began to realise he was more complex than I imagined, and I was more complex than I imagined. What is the true test of knowing a person? It is when you know all, and you still stick on. We had to decide and deal with the nitty gritties, the spatial walking , the walking speed, our joint decisions on what to eat, where to go.. until today I felt maybe I should like proceed on walking on my own, for space. I guess a very close question to my heart lies in my personal level of security for myself too, as a person. And I realised the bible was right at the heart of it all: we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Otherwise, HK was exciting… I’ve trawled the streets of HK with or without him in many streets of Wan Chai, Kowloon, Causway Bay, Mongkok, Prince Edward and so on…

Pls Lord, let the residue inflammatory spots in his eyes go away, and let the air bubble be reduced.

Everything’s okay already… Thank you for explaining. I was being over-sensitive.

As usual, I will proceed with caution and God’s grace.

 was totally provoked by this 2007 movie that I caught on video tape. OK. It’s an old show.. but I only caught it tonight and was captivated by the message propounded by the show.

Through a series of unintended misreadings, 13 year old Briony glimpses several instances where she thought Robbie, his sister’s lover, was sexually inappropriate. What she saw were just broken links in a narrative she constructed, but she thinks everything is a foregone conclusion and tells She therefore accuses him of a crime he hadn’t committed, even though she had not clear evidence about what happened. Based on her frivolous but sure conclusion to the police as the “eyewitness”, he was convicted and therefore separated from his lover, Cecilia.

Although later Briony realises her mistake five years later, she never finds the wisdom or courage to make atonement or restitution for her mistakes. Robbie is sent into the British Army after his release from prison. He dies in the war. Cecilia, also dies in the war. The two are never reunited due to the rough mixture of chance and human folly. Briony never gets to clarify what happened and restore his name.

The only atonement she gets is to write a narrative that allows them to be reunited.

What I found so provocative is how we glimpse snippets of what happens in people’s lives and we come to a quick conclusion, a judgment about what they did. We may not be 13 year olds but we equally privilege our senses too much, too quickly, coming to a clear conclusion in a headstrong manner, causing potential relationships to combust where they could have fluorished under a more steady eye (and heart).

I wondered if I could have been another “Briony” in my interactions with people.
I wondered if there is restitution I can make, today, now, and not tomorrow.

a dead man stare

permeating the sky

floating out of a morphous memory

bone to ash burn

ash to ash burn

nothing lost, nothing gained

nothing to return

i guess the ash is good since

there was combustion

even if it lasted only a little while

i guess the nervy nerves

the pulpy heart ran out

none of that now

the happy withers

bones smelt into

grey compounds

and while they last

sentimental dead particles

dye the air

staining it fast

one last time

and we shall never enter there

since the heart burned up quickly

our lifespan pauses on the

most ordinary of days

You make me laugh. A lot.