Grub and gossip

If you told me the picture above had been taken in some far-flung part of the British countryside, I wouldn't have any trouble believing you.  The truth is that the stream wends through the less exotic but no less beautiful Bishan Park.  

I hadn't properly been to Bishan Park for ages (exhausted stumbles around in the darkness after the newspaper went offstone don't count) and when I headed there for brunch before Pink Dot last week, I was really impressed by the landscaping.  

There are now bridges arcing through misty green vegetation and an abundance of fish, and I stood over the brook for quite a while, savouring the moment.  Of course, I there to have brunch with friends including my very dear buddy, Kim.

When Kim and I used to work in the same place, we often had great laughs together, sneaking off to pursue stories or have illicit lunches together.  I'll never forget the time our friend, Jamie, and I attempted to work on an undercover story while Kim drove the getaway car and we ended up screeching out of the neighbourhood laughing in nervous hysterics.

I don't think I've ever said though, that Kim was a big reason why I started this blog.  Right after the break up, I was meeting a lot of good friends and trying my best to put up a strong front.  I couldn't help vacillating between tears of despair and anger and the night Kim and I went to Wild Honey for coffee, I was a massive mess. 

I remember plastering on a smile and telling her that I was reading all these books and they were doing me a lot of good, and she calmly leaned across the table, put her hand on my arm and said, "Your books will tell you a lot of things, but your books don't know you the way your friends do.  And I just want to say, as a friend, that you are a really special person."

That simple gesture of kindness undid me - I still tear up thinking about it today - and we ended up talking for a long time about relationships and break ups and how it isn't your fault if your partner ends up changing their mind because you're not in the same place in life.  "You're going to be just fine," she had said, "after all, what are you going to do?  Curl up and die?  That's not an option."

That night was an illuminating one for me.  I walked into my house feeling peace for the first time in weeks and I sat down and wrote about it, and wrote, and wrote.

The feeling has come and gone since, but every time I feel on the brink of a breakdown, I close my eyes and go back to that moment, to the sound of the ticking engine as we sat in her cooling car in my estate, and I feel calm again.

This time round, the group of us hunkered down over coffee at Grub and talked about life and love and fear and learning and growing and changing, and friends you trust and people you don't.  And just by talking about it, we somehow set life right again.

The gift of peace is rare and restorative and I don't think I could ever thank Kim enough for it.  I do know that even though we don't meet very often, I think of her a lot and even as she goes through a new phase in life now, I send nothing but peace and love in her direction.

Plus, who doesn't love a girl with a killer sense of fashion?