Keep A Peek

“You are so shy that you always need someone to kick you in the ass from behind.”

- BG

There will never be a wrong time to say this, but I really do think you are shaping up as a fine young lady. There are still some kooks and kinks burrowed somewhere under that impeccable camouflage of yours which perhaps you’re still figuring out how to refine, but if there is one thing I am allowed to tell you, it’ll be this - nothing that could be taken away from you you cannot learn to live without. Preconceptive fear included. Are your preemptive measures against failure stopping you from taking risks? You’re a tough lass, you’ll suck it up just fine. Don’t silent the rebel in you, I like her. You are fickle and impulsive, too loud, talk too much and have the tendency to be self-righteous. I’d ask you to tone down all of those traits but you already know that, don’t you? You care too much and too abundantly, I’m still undecided if this is a gift or a curse. You know that voice in you that tells you to be rational and cautious? Yeah. Don’t listen to her. When you worry about being too fiery, too fast, too furious, bring along some friends, they’ll cushion the impact. They’ll hate you but they’ll still love you because they are awesome. And what the hell happened to your penchant for mischief? You should get back your groove of getting into trouble, just for the heck of it, y’know. Before you’re too old and too jaded. Sometimes I think you are a tad too … squarish, you know what I mean? Let loose a lil, you owe it to yourself. Your dreams and ambitions are too precious to be traded with money or status or any of those societal normalcy bullcrap. You’re not cut out for that. Read more, write more, sing more, play more music and stop eating crappy food. Celebrate your wit and spontaneity, but wish upon yourself also the wisdom to live and let live, the capacity to embrace kindness, the magnanimity to forgive humanely faults and the courage to laugh in the face of danger.  Live a little, breathe a little, dance a little, love a little, laugh a little and you will be just fine. I’m not going to wish you a smoothsailing year ahead, but I do wish you the strength to overcome all adversity, the tenacity to piss in the wind and the guts to stare down the barrel of a gun. Oh and, stop biting your nails.

Happy birthday.

There are two kinds of cities in the world - one that takes your breath away the minute you set foot on it, and one that cloaks its charm behind a facade of blandness which, if you are careless, is easy to dismiss.

Ankara was the latter.

I didn’t have much expectation before I went there, as people have been telling me how the city isn’t much of a charmer. And turned out I wasn’t disappointed either. It was all true - Ankara was all about the concrete buildings, dusty streets and organized architecture. Though somewhere among those unexciting and flavorless order there were glimpses of a city pulsating with shy enchantment and hidden gems. It was also interesting to witness the refreshing secularity of a country so deeply rooted in religion.

On the work side, Ankara exceeded my expectations. The school was a success and I actually enjoyed teaching more than I thought I would. So it is true that we learn the most when we are teaching. I was reminded of my childhood dream of being a teacher and I think I still have it in my blood to be an educator.

Marvellous food, Raki, Salgam, Turkish hospitality, Lokum, Baklava, crazy cab drivers, Atatürk, mysterious mosquito attack, lazy after-meal conversations about everything and nothing, table tennis, (re)new(ed) friendships, changed perceptions, scattered discoveries and all, Ankara now resides quietly in one of my memory boxes, uncategorized but weighty.

. . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be all right, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

- Douglas Adams

In case I haven’t made it clear before, I love Douglas Adams. Puddle-thinking and all. Yesterday I woke up thinking, yes, today. Today I am gonna get a water gun. Nothing metaphorical there. And then I couldn’t find it, I spent hours trotting up and down tortury lane and the damn gun eluded me. I accepted defeat without much coaxing, which surprises me a lil. Two hours later I was having hot chocolate and sandwich, and the world seemed just like it was before I decided to get a water gun. Maybe even a little better, because I relaxed and laid back, because I took an unexpected turn, because I opened up a new eye, because I gave up control. Nothing revolutionary there, of course. I merely wondered about things for a while, like… choices and circumstances, and what if I had stubbornly pursued a water gun.

My existential crisis just got to a whole new satirical level.

A messy start to an allegedly magnificent year.

Why am I always stuck in a perpetually paradoxical situation? I hate the connotation of anything remotely conventional or stereotypical, nor the futile effort of trying to prove otherwise.

My head hurts. My heart hurts. Every pore of my existence hurts. There is too much ambiguity in the present tense and I long for a moment, yes, just a moment of pure uncontaminated

Peace-

Like a giggle. Or a lollipop.

Somewhere in between my third gum of the day and applying eyeliner I decided to let it go. The game is getting confusing and I am bored. The murmuring lips screams for a color so red, I should have seen all the warning signs. There was nothing innocent about the breakfast invitation, I dissected the message behind that tug and twirl like a seasoned detective. We smeared my eyeshadow while trying to look into eachother’s eyes, I blame shu uemura’s smokey eye effect. And the cocktail dress. I remember the circling movements on my neck and the angry phonecall from 1000 miles away. The blusher was irreversibly superfluous.

I will miss you, you know?

I know. We should be friends.

He smiled. I applied the last touches to my lips, wiped off the remnants of charcoal below my eyes and my overclouded (overcrowded?) heart, slipped on a little black dress and stepped out of the door. Should all acquaintance be forgot?

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On a night like this, when everything is quiet when it shouldn´t be, I wonder if somewhere beyond the vast abyss there is a parallel universe where habitual chaos transcribes into tranquil lucidity. The traffic outside my window, the clicking of the mouse and the warmth of the laptop against my lap seem all too familiar and languid for a festive season like this. For the first time in many years I am staying in on a christmas day. The fully booked movie theatre resulted in some disguised blessings in the form of a hearty homecooked meal and some long overdue cuddles. There was once a time when I thought it criminal to be idle on a day like this, the wild and reckless debauchery were perhaps masked fear of loneliness, which on hindsight, never really curbed my hungry-soul syndrome. I am happy now, in a simple, bookish and perhaps even boring way. A friend just called from Spain with season greetings and a long-awaited good news, there is an abundant of warmth and love in my life, the shoulder next to me is steadfast and determined, he is twenty seven today and still looks at me the way he did seven years ago, the smell of scented candles and cakes and a smiling Elmo and a 1979 edition of brave new world, a pair of blue gloves and the seeds of unwavering friendship. The pendulum of sanguine melancholy is momentarily suspended on the upside of this roller-coaster ride, and christmas is suddenly more than just a jolly Ho Ho Ho.

I know that I said before that I would like to write more on this space, but so far I haven’t been keeping my promise very well huh have I. The thing is, the more I want to write, the harder it seems for me to really put thoughts into words. God knows how many unfinished posts I have in my archive which might never see daylight. So, this is a friendly reminder to myself to keep this private space alive.

I have long gotten past the concern of having strangers (or sometimes, friends) reading me. I can be an open book sometimes and fiercely private at other times, but being a veteran blogger (ha ha), I know how to strike the balance. Afterall, writing is something I love. And I have this platform to do it, and that, at this age when freedom of speech is still sorely out of reach in some parts of the world, really counts for something, ain’t it.

I don’t want to be hardened by the world. I don’t want to be cynical and overly protective. It’s one thing to be street smart and not gullible, but it’s entirely another story (and a pretty sad one) when  I can’t find it in myself  to have faith nor trust in anything nor anyone.

A friend told me the other day, that hope is something that we should never lose. So…. hi everyone, my name is Ling and I am a hopeful realist.

Totally disappointed with the outcome of Copenhagen. Brokenhagen, indeed. China really is such a bitch sometimes.

Sigh.

When the contours of the last rapid movement settled into my subconscious, I suddenly realized I have been lying to myself all this while. I tried to trace back my steps, like what we learned in school whenever something is lost, but I never found that last piece of puzzle. I still do not understand what happened. I pulled out strands of glittery memories, but everything is fudged, everything is broken, everything is entwined within everything, and it will never go back to being the same again. How did I come so far? I tried holding on to the umbilical cord of our last valid existence, I nestled myself comfortably within the warm safety of ignorance, sucking greedily at the emotional opium. It’s all binary, he’d say. And I’d snigger. I like grey areas, they remind me of possibilities and excitement and indefiniteness and mischief. Ambiguity is like a half written thriller, I climax only at cliffhangers. And then all that is left is silence, and our remarkable ability of forgetting and moving on. But perhaps they are all meant to be like that. Like cheeseburger on a drive through. Like autumn leaves on the roof. Like 3am conversations. Like sex with a stranger. Like love at first sight. They are fleeting. And mythical. And we’re doomed. I can see myself like a mirror, the clarity is cold yet reassuring. And I might even learn the rules of one and zero.