12 months

12 months in reflection

This same time last year, I was looking at things I’ve accumulated in my apartment. Trying to figure out what was going back with me and what would be left behind, to be scattered among my friends. Red futon goes to Andrew, cream futon and blue chair to Skye and Stephen, drawers to my successor, and tomato plants to Asuka. The things I decided to take, I hauled at Ariel’s place in my 60 liter backpack. It took eight trips to fill a one cubic feet cardboard box.

Ariel offered to drive my stuff to her place, but I insisted on transporting them myself. I wanted to carry them. Slowly. I wanted to feel the weight of my possession. The way I’ve done since I was twelve. The first bag I carried was a red duffle bag. My brother helped me dragged it across Hong Kong’s airport. Before we departed, my mother forced her hands through the metal fence that separated us from her; she clung to the strap of my bag and my brother’s black backpack. When I was fifteen, I carried that same duffle bag. I walked and walked. Every step assuring me that I was heading for safety. Everything I owned stuffed in that bag, this time without my brother to help me.

Moving. Belongings. I don’t acquire only because I don’t like parting. If I buy a glass, I would want to relocate with it. Leaving it means leaving a piece of me. There’s only so much of my heart, what’s left is mine—mine to keep.

A lover told me once that he didn’t know me after three years. The imbalanced of information bothered him--the lightness unbearable. I couldn’t tell him that if I share, I would take all the pieces of me back, peel the skin where I've written.

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A new Comrade

For six months I thought Bobbi is a man. Bobbi turns out to be a tiny red head woman who has the sweetest smile. She's a book store worker at the UBC. She's also an amazing book reviewer. I met her yesterday after selling my old textbooks. In December, she caught my eyes, she said, Blackbird is the wittiest book she’s read in awhile. I love this book. Stephen and Skye came to my house with dinner and their copy of Blackbird two Februaries ago. I was lonely and sad; and they knew the perfect way to cheer me. They were sweet and unselfish, unlike me, I would never offer a book with unbroken spine. But there they were in my doorstep, Skye carrying a picnic basket and Stephen holding Basilieres’s words in his hands.

I normally stopped at the bookstore between my Philosophy and Rhetoric class. I took stocks of all the books waiting for me. The concept of meeting Bobbi crossed my mind every time I read her recent review. Yet, each time I pushed this away. It was hard enough having to explain to my family why I stood outside Manila’s red light district waiting for Sionil Jose. I didn’t want to add stalking reviewers to my list.

Meeting her was accidental. I didn’t force it.

I got giddy talking to her. Meeting someone who loves the same kind of books is rare. Book lovers aren’t like music lovers. There aren’t enough of us around.

rice papers i carry

I wrote this two years ago on my shouji. Ripped, folded and carried it across the Pacific.

David's Gray's falling leaves....in seconds he becomes alive.

I'm at Stella's and he's putting salsa on his baked eggs.
"That's the last time we're drinking that much gin."
I nod in silence. It's three in the afternoon. The sun hurts my eyes. I would have opted to stay on his couch reading a book, but he insisted on having breakfast. He kept rehydrating me to force me out of bed. To shower away the night's stench.

Normally he'd jump in the shower. But after a night of gin, sex is laborious, the same way trading words become pointless. When I got out of the shower my hair was tangled. I refused to buy conditioner and leave it at his flat. And he never bothered to shelf things I needed, the way other lovers would.

Lovers offer the strangest thing: pink purse, framed happy photos, apartment keys. In his case, he offered me Naomi Klein's No Logo on our second date. Betrand Russel's Why I am not a Christian appeared the next day on my porch the first time he spent the night in my single yellow bed.

"There's a brush on the counter of the dresser," as he looked at my dripping hair.
"Uh-huh." It belonged to his previous lover. Unlike me, she brought things in his apartment. Face cream, hair wax, conditioner. I discovered them neatly aligned in his medicine cabinet. Perhaps, they wanted permanence. Or perhaps, she wanted to look human when she walked back to her place.

I used all her stuff till they ran out. I also used her brush till I saw no point to it. I would have continued using it if it was the right bristles.

Lovers and Property. How could it be wrong to have ownership? To be claimed. To announce that you're in love. There isn't.

My relationship with him is shifting. I feel it as I sit across, watching him chew. I've seen the expiration date on the milk carton, but I turned the date so he wouldn't notice.

A friend told me that there's no such thing as soul mates. Relationship doesn't even have to have love. That all relationship is a contract. Sex is a part of the contract, so is sharing the bills. She said this so passionately, I almost believed her. Except her words didn't carry the weight of what's trully behind her heart. Like all good friends, I agreed. And we ordered more wine. Like all good friends, I spat on the architect's name that broke her heart.

Done. Finito. Tapos. Owari.

It all began with me telling myself to get out of bed in the morning. Then, it progressed to me telling myself to leave the shower. As the water pellets down my skin, I would stand there till my brown skin turns red, prolonging warmth. Now this self talk has spilled to every waking minute. I could no longer do anything without verbalization. I have become one of those that address themselves in the third person.

“Malani, go get your BC driver’s license today.”
“Malani, you don’t need that third glass of scotch.”
"Malani, you can’t have that brownie. You’ve only been studying for two hours. Reward means that you’ve actually done something.”
“Malani, you’re so lame. I can’t believe you’re giving up after five hours writing your rhetoric paper.”
“Malani, toughen up. Shove more Shakespeare down your throat.”
“Read! Study! Write! Research! Work Harder!”

The me that talks to myself is one bossy person. Good thing I don’t know many people on the streets of Vancouver. I scare myself. I don’t mind if people think I’m a little crazy. There is actually comfort to not having to pay attention to the people walking around me. Is caring about what other’s thought a form of shallowness? Hmmmm.....

Last night I wrote my last exam. My feet moved with incredible lightness as I hopped and skipped all the way to the bus stop at nine:thirty. Now, I’m hoping that myself would stop talking to me in that demanding way for I am free. Yes. I am FREE.

My Kick Ass Group

For three months, I spent countless of hours in Flex hammering out our adaptation of Lear. Our production was brilliant. Most importantly, I got to know nine really awesome people that I would have never met if it wasn't for this course.

I am really proud of how beautiful we worked together. This is enormous because I hate co-operative learning and group projects. Numerous occasions my group set aside personal issues and differences to maintain group harmony. Meagan said it best, "I didn't care what play Claire is in, I just wanted to be in her group." Heck, we all wanted to be in Claire's group. Claire, I am so your groupie. No, really, you should have seen one of the other groups. It was painful to watch them, not because they were awful, but because you could see that they did not like each other.

Well, Lear is finished and I have nine people that continue to harrass me and fill my inbox with sappy messages of wanting to get together.

UBC's Nitobe Garden

Mango Cake

Our Lear production goes on tomorrow. I'm excited, nervous, frightened, and I'm going to throw up again.