"Language is sheer emptiness, compared to the substance of the things they name." K. Burke
I do not offer road maps. My words are fiction. They are utterances that refer to the realm of what they are not. Trust your own memories. Mine are tangled. Nor do I want your own language to help me rebuild a new vocabulary. Words to me are as mysterious as the stars in the sky. So please don't ask for definitions or clarifications, for I have none to give.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Barely awake
All three close male friends I have had, had names started with Ds. Two actually had the same name, except one said his with a French accent.
We talk for hours, forget the time…
I’m writing this at four thirty in the morning occasionally glancing at my single bed. Imagining crumpled sheets, and seeing the outline of my body snugged under a red comforter. The other day my new lover woke me up in the middle of a dream. He whispered soothing words as he wrapped his arms around me. The first time I heard that I dream was from one of the Ds. He said it to me holding a triangle egg sandwich as we waited for the ski lift to open. He told me that I was hurt. And that I cried in my sleep. He’s a light sleeper. I didn’t believe him.
Ariel and Skye speak of dreams. It’s one of their favorite subjects while we drive for hours in search of an onsen. In the back seat I grow silent. I focus on trees, rice paddies, and the sound of moving water. My only contribution is the same sentence, “I don’t dream.”
We had to share a room in our first day in the tropics. I was on my way to volunteer at an orphanage in Thailand. He had already arrived at his destination. I woke up with my arm in the air and his hand on my wrist. No words were traded. We fell back to sleep. In the morning he said that I dreamt a violent dream. I denied it and hid the imprints of his finger tips.
It’s five I could see a silhouette of a man walking across the street. I have three more papers to write and 200 pages of Mary Shelley to read. But first, sleep.
We talk for hours, forget the time…
I’m writing this at four thirty in the morning occasionally glancing at my single bed. Imagining crumpled sheets, and seeing the outline of my body snugged under a red comforter. The other day my new lover woke me up in the middle of a dream. He whispered soothing words as he wrapped his arms around me. The first time I heard that I dream was from one of the Ds. He said it to me holding a triangle egg sandwich as we waited for the ski lift to open. He told me that I was hurt. And that I cried in my sleep. He’s a light sleeper. I didn’t believe him.
Ariel and Skye speak of dreams. It’s one of their favorite subjects while we drive for hours in search of an onsen. In the back seat I grow silent. I focus on trees, rice paddies, and the sound of moving water. My only contribution is the same sentence, “I don’t dream.”
We had to share a room in our first day in the tropics. I was on my way to volunteer at an orphanage in Thailand. He had already arrived at his destination. I woke up with my arm in the air and his hand on my wrist. No words were traded. We fell back to sleep. In the morning he said that I dreamt a violent dream. I denied it and hid the imprints of his finger tips.
It’s five I could see a silhouette of a man walking across the street. I have three more papers to write and 200 pages of Mary Shelley to read. But first, sleep.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Yaletown Love
Is soooo not red hot! Thank goodness for tasty martinis and awesome commentaries from Mr. Jay. His play by play captured the essence of 30s and 40s looking for Friday night love. Some of the unforgettable moments of the evening donated by desperate housewives, Tara Reid look alike and her diamond pendant “H” bling, silicone breasts, boy bands with diamond earings (i'm still blinded by all that bling), peroxide blonde hair, men in tight shirts, silicone lips, and of course Anya’s come hither look. Thanks to her we had to relocate as some middle age metro sexual thought we were giving him the look. Mark also did an amazing maneuver. The cougars were out on the prowl and I was truly impressed with his smile and bolt routine. All in all no one suffered any casualties. Good times!
Thursday, February 09, 2006
"Expectations"
(sorry this is not the painting i saw, but it'll give you an idea)
I spent seventeen hours on the train to see Monet and fell in love with Lucio Fontana. “Spatial Concept, Expectations” hides in the annex of O’Hara Museum of Art in Kurashiki. All day it listens to Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Matisse, and Renoir's admirers utter the word utsukushii (beautiful). They certainly are and deserve every adorations, but for me they dull in comparison to Fontana’s canvass. When I first saw "Expectations," my eyes immediately focused on the red sliced skin. I felt the sharpness of the knife that wounded it three times in clean deliberate strokes—violent—sleepless and yearning. Drawn I came closer and closer. Then just as by chance of my discovery, a museum attendant briskly passed by creating the slightest breeze that made the canvass move, spaces were revealed. Spaces that exemplified the constant movements between lovers: anticipation, declaration, hurt, pleasant surprise, withdrawal, desire, love, rejection.
The next day I remember running through the canals lined with willow trees, the smell of sembe (rice crackers) in the air and my feet barely touching the ground. I was running to see Fontana. I was running to see an image of love.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Rossetti's take on Love
To give, to give, not to receive!
I long to pour myself, my soul
Not to keep back or count or leave
But king to king to give the whole
I long for one to stir my deep—
I have had enough of help and gift—
I long for one to search and sift
Myself, to take myself and keep.
I long to pour myself, my soul
Not to keep back or count or leave
But king to king to give the whole
I long for one to stir my deep—
I have had enough of help and gift—
I long for one to search and sift
Myself, to take myself and keep.
C. Rossetti
In this poem Christina Rossetti yearns for a relationship. She desires “to give”, to pour herself to another, and to be taken, to be ravished. Rossetti was similar to many intellectual women of the Victorian era in that she never married because the institution of marriage meant acceptance of biases imposed upon her gender by her society. The Victorian era divided women and men and allocated separate spheres for both. This isn’t to state that the male sphere was completely without its limitations. Certainly, Rossetti’s society was unfair for both genders.
As I read her work I’m glad that I didn’t live in this period, for I wouldn’t have known how to cope with its inadequacies and limitations. In many ways I think I would become cynical, and like Rossetti develop a negative view of romantic love, “No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes then your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes.” It's sad to think beauty passes because it doesn’t. It changes. It transforms and replaces the fleeting beauty that first catches the eyes to something mystically sacred. Love is climbing trees; it’s about walking on its branches, and with free will falling with your arms open, as you descend be enveloped by the bluest endless sky, then landing on beds of daffodils with yellow petals staining your skin. This is love. This is she.
Untitled
.....and all you can do is understand that everything I ink undergoes fictionalization.
“You know you can get parasitic worms walking around bare feet,” I said as I look at the mud trapped between his toes.
“You should have told me earlier. I heard the call of crow billed drongo, I thought I could see it,” he said.
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. He reached for a knife that was under my chair. The night before he used the same knife to cut triangle squares of watermelon. He scrapped his ankle with its dull side in short repetitive strokes.
“I am going for a swim,” I interrupted the silence that has formed between us.
“Uhhmm.”
In the daytime if he wasn’t showing me new species of insects, plants or trees, his words were completely rationed. I was in his world and I followed his rules. I too prefer silence. Words often fail, corner and defeat me. We speak five languages between us but in the daytime we were voiceless.
Frederik was my first lover. I’ve had boyfriends but never a lover. I was entering a new phase of relationship. I was undergoing transmutation, leaving my earlier ideals of relationship, its hope of a future. I was leaving behind words that I scribbled on my high school binders: love, together, forever, soul mates. I wanted a new word, more sober, impermanent and fleeting. Sober in wanting companionship. I no longer wanted to be wistful. I didn’t want to push my image of love to anyone because mine had been of dependency and need to fill hollowness. My past relationships were optimistic attempts to find love; along the way they became lessons of attachments and habit. I didn’t want to waste my youth in chastity either. I wanted intimacy but not the pain of goodbyes.
I first saw Frederik when I was leaving the island of Palawan and heading to Sabah. I just spent 16 months in Luzon searching and linking pieces of stories I remember, to stories offered to me by distant relatives, their friends and church records. I was curious when I saw him at the port. I was taking a local leaky boat and wondered if he had made a wrong turn somewhere. His clothes were worn out but clean. I studied him in intervals, taking short glances, cautious not to be caught. For the next month our path kept crossing. Our eyes met as we passed each other by the road. He became a familiar face amidst constant changing landscape and transient people. It wasn’t until I reached Kuching that we traded words. I can’t remember who initialized it but we established we were heading to Bako in two days. We agreed to share a boat to reduced expense. Hiring private jetties had been the biggest cost of moving from Sabah to Sarawak. My funds were dwindling and I needed to find people to share costs.
Talking to Frederik was different. He didn’t immediately ask where I was from or where I had been. Travelers at an instant will ask you where you are from and boast where they had been. I didn’t want kinship based on political lines of nationality. I was glad when he didn’t ask me. I didn’t want to explain. I wanted no narratives and he understood. I agreed to meet him at a bus station. The following day we hopped on a local bus that had no doors and windows. It was a half hour drive and when we got to the port we met a man named Abdul. Abdul was a tall man. His job transporting people from Kuching to Bako required him to spend countless hours in the sun which made it difficult to access his age based solely on his skin. Abdul spoke English to us, “One person, forty ringgit. Five person forty ringgit.”
“Let’s wait. Maybe someone will come,” I suggested.
“Okay,” he agreed.
We sat on a riverbank and stared at houses across. The stilt houses were still made of natural materials, I wondered how long before concrete and stucco replace wood and nipa. The more affluent families in Kuching had already made the shift. I made a mental note to pick up a book on Malay architecture.
Kids played nearby and I could still pick up the odd word here and there. The islands of Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia are categorized in the same family language. Distance and isolation created hundreds of regional dialects. If political lines were drawn based on language they would divide in hundreds of regions.
Luckily we didn’t wait long. The next bus dropped off a British couple and a young American man. The poor guy spent a rough night in a bug-infested hostel. His swollen body was covered in red welts. Punctured marks on his forearm and face displayed where bugs made their incisions. As we got on the boat, the first thing the British woman asked, “Didn’t you wake up when they were biting you?”
“I was too drunk and felt nothing,” he embarrassedly admitted.
Abdul started the engine and everyone grew quiet.
“You know you can get parasitic worms walking around bare feet,” I said as I look at the mud trapped between his toes.
“You should have told me earlier. I heard the call of crow billed drongo, I thought I could see it,” he said.
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. He reached for a knife that was under my chair. The night before he used the same knife to cut triangle squares of watermelon. He scrapped his ankle with its dull side in short repetitive strokes.
“I am going for a swim,” I interrupted the silence that has formed between us.
“Uhhmm.”
In the daytime if he wasn’t showing me new species of insects, plants or trees, his words were completely rationed. I was in his world and I followed his rules. I too prefer silence. Words often fail, corner and defeat me. We speak five languages between us but in the daytime we were voiceless.
Frederik was my first lover. I’ve had boyfriends but never a lover. I was entering a new phase of relationship. I was undergoing transmutation, leaving my earlier ideals of relationship, its hope of a future. I was leaving behind words that I scribbled on my high school binders: love, together, forever, soul mates. I wanted a new word, more sober, impermanent and fleeting. Sober in wanting companionship. I no longer wanted to be wistful. I didn’t want to push my image of love to anyone because mine had been of dependency and need to fill hollowness. My past relationships were optimistic attempts to find love; along the way they became lessons of attachments and habit. I didn’t want to waste my youth in chastity either. I wanted intimacy but not the pain of goodbyes.
I first saw Frederik when I was leaving the island of Palawan and heading to Sabah. I just spent 16 months in Luzon searching and linking pieces of stories I remember, to stories offered to me by distant relatives, their friends and church records. I was curious when I saw him at the port. I was taking a local leaky boat and wondered if he had made a wrong turn somewhere. His clothes were worn out but clean. I studied him in intervals, taking short glances, cautious not to be caught. For the next month our path kept crossing. Our eyes met as we passed each other by the road. He became a familiar face amidst constant changing landscape and transient people. It wasn’t until I reached Kuching that we traded words. I can’t remember who initialized it but we established we were heading to Bako in two days. We agreed to share a boat to reduced expense. Hiring private jetties had been the biggest cost of moving from Sabah to Sarawak. My funds were dwindling and I needed to find people to share costs.
Talking to Frederik was different. He didn’t immediately ask where I was from or where I had been. Travelers at an instant will ask you where you are from and boast where they had been. I didn’t want kinship based on political lines of nationality. I was glad when he didn’t ask me. I didn’t want to explain. I wanted no narratives and he understood. I agreed to meet him at a bus station. The following day we hopped on a local bus that had no doors and windows. It was a half hour drive and when we got to the port we met a man named Abdul. Abdul was a tall man. His job transporting people from Kuching to Bako required him to spend countless hours in the sun which made it difficult to access his age based solely on his skin. Abdul spoke English to us, “One person, forty ringgit. Five person forty ringgit.”
“Let’s wait. Maybe someone will come,” I suggested.
“Okay,” he agreed.
We sat on a riverbank and stared at houses across. The stilt houses were still made of natural materials, I wondered how long before concrete and stucco replace wood and nipa. The more affluent families in Kuching had already made the shift. I made a mental note to pick up a book on Malay architecture.
Kids played nearby and I could still pick up the odd word here and there. The islands of Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia are categorized in the same family language. Distance and isolation created hundreds of regional dialects. If political lines were drawn based on language they would divide in hundreds of regions.
Luckily we didn’t wait long. The next bus dropped off a British couple and a young American man. The poor guy spent a rough night in a bug-infested hostel. His swollen body was covered in red welts. Punctured marks on his forearm and face displayed where bugs made their incisions. As we got on the boat, the first thing the British woman asked, “Didn’t you wake up when they were biting you?”
“I was too drunk and felt nothing,” he embarrassedly admitted.
Abdul started the engine and everyone grew quiet.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
February
This month will be dedicated to love love love love love love love love and nothing but love. I shall begin with . . .
O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
The days I used to walk in to a party and have men swirling around me are gone… actually those days never really did happen…. Today, I suffer from Bjork’s “I miss you but I haven’t met you yet” syndrome. I also just finished writing a paper on Romeo and Juliet—so this should justify my current mood. I’m in love with the idea of being in love. Scary! But wouldn’t it be wonderful to have someone say upon seeing you, “Has my heart loved till now?”
When I was young I thought love was on every corner, ready to take me on its arms and whisk me away at my convenience. I also thought that everyone would be single as long as I’m single and that happiness of the “Couple” world was a myth. This whole situation reminds me of an old friend. One day I got out of the shower and found her in the living room. She was having difficulty breathing. It was her 25th birthday and the absence of love rendered her sick. She thought that by twenty-five she would have found him. The only thing I could do was hold her. As I ran my fingers through her hair I told her it was going to be okay and that love will claim her. Love did claim her. The sad thing about this is that I don’t know where she is now. She joined the other world where people I used to know reside. I think one of the reason we lost track of each other was because she didn’t understand my lack of zest to search for Romeo.
O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
The days I used to walk in to a party and have men swirling around me are gone… actually those days never really did happen…. Today, I suffer from Bjork’s “I miss you but I haven’t met you yet” syndrome. I also just finished writing a paper on Romeo and Juliet—so this should justify my current mood. I’m in love with the idea of being in love. Scary! But wouldn’t it be wonderful to have someone say upon seeing you, “Has my heart loved till now?”
When I was young I thought love was on every corner, ready to take me on its arms and whisk me away at my convenience. I also thought that everyone would be single as long as I’m single and that happiness of the “Couple” world was a myth. This whole situation reminds me of an old friend. One day I got out of the shower and found her in the living room. She was having difficulty breathing. It was her 25th birthday and the absence of love rendered her sick. She thought that by twenty-five she would have found him. The only thing I could do was hold her. As I ran my fingers through her hair I told her it was going to be okay and that love will claim her. Love did claim her. The sad thing about this is that I don’t know where she is now. She joined the other world where people I used to know reside. I think one of the reason we lost track of each other was because she didn’t understand my lack of zest to search for Romeo.
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