"Love you.... Always.... World enough.... And time...."

"And Clare, always Clare. Clare in the morning, sleepy and crumple-faced. Clare with her arms plunging into the papermaking vat, pulling up the mold and shaking it so, and so, to meld the fibers. Clare reading, with her hair hanging over the back of the chair, massaging balm into her cracked red hands before bed. Clare's low voice is in my ear often.

I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet I am always going, and she cannot follow."

"I am suddenly aware of myself standing thin and upright in a Meadow where everything has flattened itself down and so I lie down hoping to be unnoticed by the storm which rolls up and I am flat on my back looking up when water begins to pour down from the sky. My clothes are soaked in an instant and I suddenly feel that Henry is there, an incredible need for Henry to be there and to put his hands on me even while it seems to me that Henry is the rain and I am alone and wanting him."

"Love you...."
"Always.... "
"World enough.... "
"And time...."

Sunday, March 06, 2005

lit pick of the week: the time traveler's wife. i have a feeling it's gonna leave me in tears, somehow.

and was i right.

I've never cried so hard over a book in my life. it now joins the ranks of nicholas sparks' 'a walk to remember' and 'message in a bottle'.

this book has changed me; if not permanently, then at least for now, for a moment in my life, i truly understand love/i understand true love. i sit here, wondering if my life would've rambled on unknowingly and without meaning had i never laid hands on this book.

by the time i was done and my sniffling subsided, all that remained was the book cradled in my hands and the tell-tale stains that stared accusingly up at me from my tshirt. besides being left with swollen eyes (the crying started from somewhere around the 3/4 mark, on and off until the end), there was something embedded deep inside of me. the sort of feeling you get when someone tells you a secret, this sense of knowing...

i shan't get all "go read this book, it's fantastic. you'll love it." or "i recommend this book..." that just sounds annoying. if you want to read it, do. if not, don't. actually it's better if you don't, then i get to be selfish and keep it all to myself. heh.

my DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES to do list reads:
[thank you JL for giving it to me]

to write about everything and nothing
(all at once)

hmm. let's see.

i realise i hate wearing clothes at home. *grin* it's not what you think. i meant proper PROPER clothes. i say pyjamas are the most comfortable things to wear IN THE WORLD.

all in favour, say aye. aye.

i love to lounge around in my glow-in-the-dark pjs, or the one with angels printed all over, or my favourite favourite one, the periwinkle blue one with stars embroidered on the top. this particular set has thus been christened my 'comfort pjs'. whenever i am feeling particularly sad or depressed, i put them on. in a way not so very different to that of a security blanket or bolster.

however, i find solace in another one of my pjs- for completely different reasons. i stole (under supervision from aunty ivy) a huge pink polo shirt from grandpa's cupboard after he died. i don't know why but i needed something from him, something that once belonged to him, something to say "hey i was here." that he was here, part of my life once. that it wasn't just a dream that somehow faded away. that i didn't wake up from that dream, remembering nothing and feeling that inevitable and unexplainable sense of loss.

it's easy to forget, isn't it? if you set your mind body and soul to it, the ultimate sense of forgetting can be attained. i could forget every single person that was once part of my life; be it someone who crossed paths with me for barely a minute, or another whom i grew up loving and respecting and looking up to. but i remember. i'm not certain if i choose to, or if i just do. but i suppose that's what sets me apart from those who choose to forget. i remember.

see what i meant when i said 'everything and nothing (all at once)?'

i just stepped out of the bath. i feel like the exact opposite of those buns fresh out of the oven. they are hot and their aroma wafts through the air inhaled by hungry passerbys. my skin is cool to the touch; though my body's fast heating up, the way it always does- i could stand still in an aircon room right after a bath, and still sweat- and the only way you could smell me is if you stood near enough for the lingering scent of lavender to approach you.

my bed lies unmade behind me. the blankets are strewn all over. this is how i like it. why can't we leave our beds unmade all the time? isn't it comforting to know that it has been slept in? compared to looking at a neatly made bed every night, questioning yourself "did i sleep in this very bed last night? it sure doesn't look like it."

i am writing, typing more like it. facing the window, i've actually drawn the tulip patterned curtains back [self-professed: allergic to sunlight/heat/humidity. it makes me PMS-y] and the fan is blowing the translucent white ones as it oscillates round my room. back and forth.. and back and forth. the wind chime above my window is gently swaying, producing this magic-wand-glitter-and-stardust type of sound. i hear the rolling sound of thunder. i am ecstatic. do i sense a storm approaching?

the soothing sounds of 'songbird' appease me.

before this, i was having a catnap on my living room sofa. when i woke up, my hair was all mussed and stuck to the side of my face, (no evidence of drool, thank god) my body was aching- not bad aching, just aching from lying in the same position for too long- i felt as if i had awoken from a deep slumber. it was a dreamless sleep; or perhaps i did dream, i just don't remember. my fever had gone down and i was feeling like a woman cured.

it's dinnertime. but before i go, one last afterthought.

i think sleep should be the cure to all illnesses. the remedy of all remedies.