The rain came back to Mother Earth in an unrelenting crystal curtain - water never forgets who it is beholden to. Wayward dancing shards momentarily defied the confines of gravity and flew horizontally under the canopy, before smugly hugging its target surface: my freshly made-up face. And my new shoes.
But an overdue date with the girls must not be deterred by heaven's sprinkler party. With dogged determination, I dialed a cab company again. A friendly drone informed me that all the taxi services had better things to do than to attend to me.
I'd squeezed into a new backless dress and 4-inch heels - no way was I going to crawl back home because of over-enthusiastic atmospheric moisture, which kept trying to fling itself at me even as I retreated further and further inside the porch canopy. I dialed another cab company, which this time decided to forgo the automated faux friendliness and simply ignore my call.
As I blessed the phone with my richest expletive, a soccer ball, apparently also trying to defy the laws of physics, zipped past my left foot, missing it by 2 inches. Its pint-sized owner scampered to retrieve it without casting me a look, before proceeding to accelerate the 22-centimetre particle through various other vectors.
As the gleeful riot of rain gathered in strength, I glanced forlornly at the time. I was hopelessly late. A loud thump to my right made me feel lucky to be alive while children are playing soccer on the porch. I attempted to book a cab again - the sooner I away with me, the less likely to experience death by ball.
Just as another irritating engaged tone emanated from my phone and my feet started to scold me for donning screw-me-shoes after a long hiatus from high-heels, I looked up in time to see the offending black-and-white sphere hurtling my way again. As I artfully dodged the soccer ball of death, I opened my mouth with the intention of curdling the child's blood with my verbal prowess, when a flash of red brought light to my rain-darkened world. The scarlet Volkswagen came to a halt and the knight in shining white shirt emerged as I jubilantly surged forth to meet him.
"Dad! Pleeeeaaaaase give me a lift?"
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Beauty, joy, and ghost tears
My heart is full upon being part of my dear Joy's wedding, which was smashing to say the least. Seeing her so happy, having a ball of a time with my best friend and her loved ones, and having been there at such a special time at such a place of beauty has filled me to the brim.
And I discovered that when your heart is full, you truly feel the undercurrents churning, and you realise that repression does not keep a tempest at bay.
Being at the wedding among so much joy pretty much made me realise what I had to do shouldn't be dragged on much longer, and what I truly need isn't anywhere in the vicinity. I don't want to waste weeks, months or years sticking to the easy, 'nice' path, because 'nice' will turn into 'polite', which will turn into 'toleration', and I don't want to have to find out what the next metamorphosis will be. All of us deserve more than that.
Yesterday, we drove into Patong for a quick jaunt. Whilst the rest of the trip had been a ball so far, driving through the raucous streets of Patong brought an unwelcome feeling of recognition, right before I realised why. Years after I was, and still am, over the f***er who bailed on the rest of our lives (and turned it into the rest of my life), the memories of our special moments still hurt, and Patong was witness to the very best time of our life together; for goodness' sake, his profile picture in some social networking site is still a photo I took of him as we sat in the coloured darkness of Patong's night scene. Even passing by the cabaret reminded me so acutely of those blissful days that turned out to be tainted with deceit at such a fundamental level.
I wish we hadn't gone to Patong (but am still very thankful to our kind friend who brought us there).
It hurt to think of the life I'd lost, and the life I know I want that isn't reachable currently. As we traversed the steep slopes that took us away from Patong, it took the blazingly stunning red disk of the setting sun and the resonant laughter of friends to ease the transient dull ache.
These four days mark the tail end of a long contemplation. What I'm about to do is so difficult, but the more time passes, the more the need digs its claws in.
The sadness of loss and readjustment, the liberty of having done the right thing. How does one weigh their life?
I want to choose fairness over comfort. We've done enough thinking and talking - months and months of thinking and talking. It's time to do, and do cleanly.
Somehow, all this sounds more objective than it feels.
And I discovered that when your heart is full, you truly feel the undercurrents churning, and you realise that repression does not keep a tempest at bay.
Being at the wedding among so much joy pretty much made me realise what I had to do shouldn't be dragged on much longer, and what I truly need isn't anywhere in the vicinity. I don't want to waste weeks, months or years sticking to the easy, 'nice' path, because 'nice' will turn into 'polite', which will turn into 'toleration', and I don't want to have to find out what the next metamorphosis will be. All of us deserve more than that.
Yesterday, we drove into Patong for a quick jaunt. Whilst the rest of the trip had been a ball so far, driving through the raucous streets of Patong brought an unwelcome feeling of recognition, right before I realised why. Years after I was, and still am, over the f***er who bailed on the rest of our lives (and turned it into the rest of my life), the memories of our special moments still hurt, and Patong was witness to the very best time of our life together; for goodness' sake, his profile picture in some social networking site is still a photo I took of him as we sat in the coloured darkness of Patong's night scene. Even passing by the cabaret reminded me so acutely of those blissful days that turned out to be tainted with deceit at such a fundamental level.
I wish we hadn't gone to Patong (but am still very thankful to our kind friend who brought us there).
It hurt to think of the life I'd lost, and the life I know I want that isn't reachable currently. As we traversed the steep slopes that took us away from Patong, it took the blazingly stunning red disk of the setting sun and the resonant laughter of friends to ease the transient dull ache.
These four days mark the tail end of a long contemplation. What I'm about to do is so difficult, but the more time passes, the more the need digs its claws in.
The sadness of loss and readjustment, the liberty of having done the right thing. How does one weigh their life?
I want to choose fairness over comfort. We've done enough thinking and talking - months and months of thinking and talking. It's time to do, and do cleanly.
Somehow, all this sounds more objective than it feels.
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