danny, john, joy and i.

we had lunch after service today; felt good being together, even if john was falling sick and kind of quiet. (get better soon, pilot boy(: )

danny says we’re old now, but i think it’s a good kind of old. although, so many things have happened over the past two, three years, i have loose ends streaming here and there. i suppose some stories take awhile.

i leave soon, my usual retreat to the mountains. to think over- what, this year, last year, the past two, three years. this year was quite tiring after all. practically every year flies by and we exclaim in disbelief; this one didn’t.

according to the first page of fissions, these were what happened: john’s leaving, a consideration of the past four years, and the beginning of this. well i’m at the end now. mm and hobbamp.

danny tells me to “just write stuff in (my) journal”, and joy has just called in panic over messenger bags. travis is playing on my itunes, the last thing my bedroom will hear before i return with the new year. i think i’m done packing, getting ready to bid the year goodbye. farewell.

i get misty, just-

i’m home, for awhile, it’s been awhile.

back from anntic and ifg retreat; back from coldness and into warmth. and the usual dislocation- i don’t want to check my mail.

other news: i got stung, by something, from behind. i knifed a friend, and rummaged around her foot to dig out a hairspan of a sting a bee left in mortal agony, curling and recurling around itself. z took over after i made the incision; there are ways we still work together; we’ve always worked well together.

–

ehh, can i not check my mail till 2011?

we were at the playground near his block of flats when a plane rumbled overhead. he checked to see if i was listening. “aeroplane hiding in the clouds,” he said. then: “see purple flower.”

letter from kyoto, 27th nov

you find hearts in letters

i’ve been resting at home ever since children’s camp ended (which is a whole other story on its own), and recovering.

today i got a tad restless and to occupy me,  j asked for a letter. which, inevitably started a whole slew of happenings. hmm. i thought i once wrote a post on letter writing- hey look i did– cheers for wordpress’ search function. uh maybe it isn’t all that related after all but ah well.

this time i took out maybe 30-40 letters that looked as if they held interesting memories when unfolded- most of them are hand-given letters, so there’s no return address written at the back or indication as to who wrote them. and since my name’s scribbled at the front (in varying font sizes and decor), it’s not like that tells me a lot. some of my friends had distinctive decorating styles though. (:

i have so many letters! perhaps a couple of hundred- just an estimation, but i feel so blessed to be the receipient of each one, given by a precious friend. and some of them are quite funny, looking back.
i was hopping around the writing sphere (something i rarely do these days, but to revive an old complaint, i still wish people would write more, and more personally. tumblr users especially have lost personality; hiding behind quotes and pretty pictures. i miss thoughtful rememberances of days.) and came across a rather remarkable statement from a. she said she started writing because she wanted to have something for people to remember her by after she died. i never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. when i write, i give myself. there’s a bit of me in each letter i write for someone; it’s always been that way. the same goes for my word sites too i suppose, typing and writing through the years. someone once told me he’d read through all of chelism.b, six years worth; i was touched when he said that. that’s a lot, a lot of posts and thoughts to take into one’s being, especially one not your own.

i hope the letter writing tradition never, ever dies out. toodles.

rachel tagged me; there’s something just so smiley about it, don’t you think? (:

the mornings have been blissful, if chillingly so. i wake up to white, in white, and snuggle closer to warmth. far reaching holiday, my snooze stretches to three hours. one day i’ll sit up to winter.

i make my way to the hall where daddy finds me later on, fanless and fleeced. weak, he laughs, but it’s hard not to feel cold. i zip up my gant jacket to its zenith, and reply a couple more texts. someone bid me goodnight stranger, morning greetings i wake up to and i wonder who it is.

we’re all making things count, and i’m glad. it could be so much worse. the tentative bidding for meaning, and the hope that we will be guided. we will be guided. on a statically related note, i want a long white gregorian gown thing with a hoodie. okay, no, what i really want is a- a- posse of choir boys, i don’t know the collective noun for choir boys. but yes, i want dimpled cute-enough-to-eat cherubs with pure ah-ah-ah-ahhhhhhhh kinda voices and they can wear them gregorian white hoodies, elfin faces and bright eyes.

p/s oh, i made pizza over the weekend, dough and all. it turned out fairly decent, the family liked it and there’ll be cookies baking in a week’s time. hurrah.

it’s a lazy afternoon tailing after its balmy morning sister. i’m to call my dad in ten minutes, and at six we’ll meet my brother for dinner with our passports. sibling outing suddenly expanded at my mom’s impulse. there, in one paragraph i’ve listed every designation in the immediate family. not that that was my intention.

met d for breakfast, and now resting under two handwritten letters is a copy of the weight of glory. preparing to be blown away by lewis’ essays. in the meantime dillard languishes in another house. next year will be the sixth year of her incompletion. why?

i haven’t written in a long while; putting my presence down has gotten harder. i call my father; hearing his voice on the phone, i wonder if any of his mannerisms are inherited, if my grandfather says mm and mhm the way my father does, trailing away as conversation cedes to a close. i look through my brother’s drawers as instructed, noting the currencies with bemusement. but they make sense.

maybe i haven’t read in too long, read spurring works aside from my vulturic ventures into public libraries. today d said fulcrum and my deprived mind whipped around like a dog offered a bone. i read heaps and heaps, dead authors to japanese to epics, everything but what makes my brain think, my head whirl. anyone want holler with me as we declare nerds? d reads behavioural economics for fun, i accompanied j as he searched for, um, that dude, that philosophy dude to write a paper for- fun, again. later we sat in a white wooden shed and discussed lebanonian chocolate.

have i written enough? the day’s entering on its last legs now, the air is dusky and smells of evening light. the fan is gentle, and i am still. i get up- my father has summoned.

you know a repository is in trouble when the only things on it are pictures, videos or one-liners. or passage after passage quoted from all manners of books.

in a bid to resuscitate this site, then, i rumaged through the clutter and cleared most of it away. this place feels a bit more recognisable now, at least. not, that i think it will last past the year.

in other news, since i don’t want to end on that note- somebody took took my soul from the box and put it on the electric leaf. standing in the breeze too, see you guys soon.

for the courage to stand up, and speak out

i would like, a romper. a grown-up’s romper i can tumble around everyday.