last words

yesterday szu asked me what were some of my favourite books, and it got me thinking about how i used to choose books at the bookstore based on the last paragraph or last few sentences of the book. i recommended to szu “on chesil beach” by ian mcewan. i wouldn’t necessarily say it’s my ultimate favourite of all (though it is one of), but it certainly has the best last paragraph i’ve ever read.

This is how the entire course of a life can be changed – by doing nothing. On Chesil Beach he could have called out to Florence, he could have gone after her. He did not know, or would not have cared to know, that as she ran away from him, certain in her distress that she was about to lose him, she had never loved him more, or more hopelessly, and that the sound of his voice would have been a deliverance, and she would have turned back. Instead, he stood in cold and righteous silence in the summer’s dusk, watching her hurry along the shore, the sound of her difficult progress lost to the breaking of small waves, until she was a blurred, receding point against the immense straight road of a shingle gleaming in the pallid light.

it still gives me the chills reading it now.

never too far away

it’s been a long time coming, and i’m reaching out to You again

thank you for meeting me more than halfway

God on a dirt road walking toward me

I once listened to an Indian on television say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze. I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face.

- excerpt from Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller

feeling.

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested on the edge of a table.

I spent my life learning to feel less.

Everyday I feel less.

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

- excerpt from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

who may ascend the hill of the Lord?

we bow our hearts
we bend our knees
o Spirit come, make us humble
we turn our eyes
from evil things
o Lord we cast down our idols

so give us clean hands
give us pure hearts
let us not lift our souls to another

o God let us be a generation that seeks
who seeks your face, O God of Jacob

who may ascend the hill of the Lord?
who may stand in His holy place?
he who has clean hands and a pure heart
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false
he will receive blessing from the Lord
and vindication from God his Saviour

- psalm 24:3-5

like a splash of ice-cold water

it shocked me that i would find the whole thing to be so horridly repulsive altogether. and never had i felt more certain that it is not something i could ever be able to deal with.

there comes a point when you realise some differences simply cannot be reconciled. sometimes, some things, you can tolerate; sometimes one can choose to close an eye. but when the matter stares you straight in the face, in all its starkness and realness.. .

it could be that i’m not strong enough, too insecure.

or you could call it a kind of self-righteousness. i suppose that wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

chance

“And what if you hadn’t met me?” he would ask her. “I don’t know, but you’re here, you see . . .” For some reason the answer made the question worthless, it showed the logical basis of ordinary common sense. After that Oliveira would feel better able to resist his bookish prejudices, and paradoxically La Maga would fight off her disdain for scholarly knowledge. Thus they went along, Punch and Judy, attracting each other and repelling, as love must do if it is not to end up as calendar art or a pop tune. But love, that word . . .

- Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar

maybe for the last time..

i will stop wondering what would have happened if i got there earlier.

neighbourhood scenes

i love coming home in the evening to see children playing.

today as my car pulled into the usual spot by the roadside, a young girl is walking her dog around the periphery of the playground opposite my house, where the neighbourhood boys are playing football. my next-door neighbour is watering his plants outside, a jogger nearly runs into me as i clumsily step out of my car.

it is a familiar feeling that reminds me of growing up in our old neighbourhood, taman hussein. such were often the scenes around that time of day, right before sundown. just before moms come calling for their running, cycling, hopscotching kids to come inside and have dinner.

i am grateful that it is not so very different almost 20 years later, here in bandar utama.

i suppose this place will yet become home to me.

where i left off

although it is already one-and-a-half months into the ‘new’ year, it was only this past weekend that i felt in my heart the significance of a new year. of beginning a new thing, and having closure to something of the past.

one of the events that led up to this was probably the journalling programme we’ve embarked on as a church. it may only be the third day of journalling today, but i’ve already felt so blessed by it and encouraged to delve deeper into His word. to take His word and internalise it for myself first-hand, allowing the Spirit to Himself inspire me.

and on that note i have decided to change the look-and-feel of my blog, to signify this new beginning. the header image is from a photo i took in Thira, Santorini last summer.

yes but no but yes

i would read the signs
but they’re hidden in your eyes

sometimes this beauty is one
that eludes, as it
slips into the horizon
all that i know is shrouded

morning, rescue me.

pursuance

not so long ago happiness was having you as the last thing on my mind, and going to sleep knowing i was the last thing on your mind, too.

it has been a long and tearful struggle, both internally and with God. i am rethinking my priorities, my allegiances, and my idea of ‘happiness’. a wise person once said it is not a thing to be pursued and grasped. much like a lovely, elusive butterfly. the danger is that it can become a frustrating wild-goose chase. the danger, for me, was that for so long i was not able to give up my claim to my right to myself- my right to my own self-centred idea of happiness.

and as for you. you were the happiness that came to me, but never was mine to keep.

relativity

being here at times it feels suffocating.

in london i could go outside. i would be alone, and i would feel a sense of emancipation. the largeness of nature, of the outside would swallow up everything else. there would be perspective to be gained, and escape.

it could be a vastness of green grass lined sparsely with trees. a solitary bus ride where the destination didn’t matter- only the journey did. it could be standing on a bridge over the thames. learning lessons from a plastic bottle being tossed about and displaced by the current, only to find that, really, nothing of significance has changed in the larger scheme of things.

but here one feels almost trapped. there is no larger space to which this intensity can dissipate.