Hobonichi wisdom

"Everything I've seen and heard in my life.

The things I've done.  The people I've met.

I'm now going over it all, counting it up.

That's what ageing is all about."

                                                      -- "The Silver Words of Safety Match

I am so lucky.

I live in a world where people are mostly kind; where friends and family are always thoughtful, always giving and always have my back.  In my part of town, we always love and are loved in return, even when we least expect it.  

This year, I had the privilege of spending time with all those I love and then some.  This Christmas, friends gave me the heavens and earth and hope and I stood, in the middle of the night, too stunned by gratitude to weep.  This New Year, my cup runneth over.  

Thank you, Universe, for showing me the peace that's been there waiting all along. 

Happy Holidays, everyone. 

Cactus Tree

"You know, I think if I were so inclined, I would easily be a junkie," I tell my friend, Kit, over dinner.

"Me too!"  His eyes widen in agreement and I know he understands.  We're both one kind of addict anyway.  Worriers, chewing obsessively over the same thought night and day.  Kit's learned to compartmentalise but I'm not as intelligent.  

I have to make do and since I can't be a user, I find other manias to build my life around.  Unfortunately, unlike drugs, they don't always come in steady or reliable supply.  Nothing gold can stay, I found myself thinking on my twenty-minute walk to work today, as the smell of newly-laid tar and drying cement steamed up around me, and I felt an indelible sadness.  

After my ex well and truly taught me how not to cling to people, I started to cling to things thinking that they couldn't possibly ever mean as much.  Except, it turns out, they do.  And things, too, change and end and maybe I'm just too worn out for one more set of goodbyes.   

In recent weeks, I'd been up late at night playing a game in which one tries to memorise all the countries in the world.  Then I moved on to memorising all their capitals.  Each round, after the timer runs out, I find myself reaching to restart it, to get one more hit of soothing routine.  During the day, I carry the names in my mouth and head to stave off withdrawal: Honiara, Belmopan, Tegucigalpa, Chisinau.  I repeat mnemonics and create mental imagery and tell my friends and cram my attention with lists and lists of places because one who feels so full couldn't possibly also feel hollow.  

I'll be done with it eventually.  But you know what they say.  Once an addict, always an addict.

And lying in bed in the dark, I recite the names of capitals over and over again, just as if they were prayers.

Europe, Episode 8: Nice, further inland

Apart from walking the beach at Nice, Bear and I spent many hours getting lost in a maze of market streets and squares.  Under the Mediterranean sun, the buildings were more garish than those in Avignon, bolder reds and oranges and sometimes with ridiculous trompe l'oeil cornices.

Over two afternoons, we walked beneath buildings frilled and painted like gaudy cakes and explored shops crammed with herbs and salts and soaps.  The streets, at time cobbled and sharply sloping, thronged with people sitting on folding chairs and drinking glutinous wine. 

Of course, we celebrated the discovery of a chocolate shop by noshing on truffles for tea and Bear ordered a glistening dôme noir filled with layers of untold vanilla, dark chocolate and biscuit-y glory.  As I savoured a richly-melting sea salt caramel, Rebecca discovered that her preferred coffee in France (where she had previously been receiving watery crap that she reviled) was a sufficiently strong baby café crème.

For breakfast, we devoured full sets of flaky pain au chocolate, bread, jam, omelette and what, in my eyes, is the ultimate morning luxury: both coffee and orange juice.  Thus satisfied, we took our time wandering through the narrow alleys and people watching.

For me, the most fascinating part of the walk was emerging into a tightly-packed market square redolent with the heady odour of wet feathers and sun-warmed fish.

The air was thick with seagulls, raucously flapping and fighting over fish guts and splattering droppings over everything.  I had never met such big gulls before, and Bear and I stood there for nearly an hour switching between fascinated staring and horrified ducking and running.  (I am particularly fond of the last seagull photo above - the bird looks like he has just said goodbye to his parents and is setting off to find his fortune with an aspiring look on his face.)

Above the clamour and cobblestones slick with fish juice, a man warmed his arms in the sunshine.

When a seagull nearly flapped into our faces, we decided it was time to move on and plunged back into the fray.

Rebecca and I found this woman so attractive that after hiding behind a pillar and watching her argue with someone for ten minutes, we finally plucked up the courage to ask if we could take her photo and she sheepishly agreed.  (As Bear says, people in the south of any place are very nice.  They usually said yes to us taking photos after making jokes about having to put on make up.)

Having walked through a park filled with romping children, we decided that it was time for yet another meal and that we would retrace our steps to a restaurant that we had found selling oysters earlier that day.

Oysters were an acquired taste for me but I eventually grew to love them and I remembered greatly enjoying heaps of shellfish in large melamine crucibles on top of metal tripods with my mother in Cannes.  The restaurant in Nice served seafood in a similar fashion and I had subconsciously latched onto the idea of having dinner there.  Unfortunately, we had walked so many kilometres that we were completely lost and we were about to give up on the idea when we turned a serendipitous corner and ended up smack in the middle of hundred of diners enjoying alfresco seafood feasts.

Right then and there, I sat down and had one of the best meals I have ever had in Europe, or indeed, in my life.  While Rebecca had prawns and fries, I ate six gigantic oysters that were so insanely fresh and cold that I felt like I was smoking some kind of sea-flavoured crack.  I slowly savoured each dripping, savoury, piquant one, knowing that it would be some time before I had access to such good oysters again.

Then, groaning at our fullness and good fortune, we took a long, slow walk back.

When I look at pictures of us from that time, I see two very happy, healthy campers.  In hindsight, I realise now that I really appreciated the two days of just slow-walking and eating.  We emerged well-rested, well-fed and well-prepared for what essentially became ten days of stair climbing in thirty-five degree Italy.

Most amusing of all, my diary entry for the day reads: "Bear and I have managed not to kill each other yet."

Well, it is a city called Nice after all.

Europe, Episode 7: Nice, the beach

Much as I loved Avignon, we were there in the height of a swiftly warming Spring and at night, the house that we lived in swarmed with mosquitoes.  In the heat, I could hear Bear creaking frustratedly on the top bunk as they gathered along the wall, looking for all the world like tiny cloves.  Each time I fell back asleep, the pneumatic whine jerked me into wakefulness.  By morning, our cheeks were covered in tiny red bites.

Thus sleep-deprived, we trundled over to Nice where we settled ourselves in the bright purple-and-white guest bedroom on the fifth floor apartment of an immaculate man called Yves.  After an afternoon of walking, we split a cheap bottle of peach wine and crawled under the sheets at nine.  The next time I opened my eyes, twelve hours had passed and the cool, white morning light was streaming in through the window on soft birdsong.  Bear and I shuffled round in bed, looked at each other simultaneously and burst out laughing.  "What the hell was that?"

Turns out that Nice is some of the best sleep you may ever have.

_______________________________

Everyone we told about Nice said that it was way too crowded and touristy and that there wasn't much to do.  I suppose that wasn't exactly wrong.  But it reminded me of Cannes in the best way possible, the voluptuous meals, the hot scent of rocks and tar on the air, the clean blue sky.  I spent days in Cannes walking around by myself, listening to music and delving into the kind of difficult thought that comes with easy places. 
 
So in Nice, even without itinerary or incentive, I enjoyed strolling the long boardwalk and following the coastline with my eyes.

On one end of the shore, gaily-painted boats bumped gently along the dock.  I amused myself by trying to read and translate their names as Bear took pictures of children playing along the concrete gangways.  (I realise now, three months of classes later, just how awful my French was when I was actually in the country.  I'm surprised waiters didn't shuffle away quickly to hide their laughter each time I ordered.  And there's still a long way to go, so I suppose another trip is on the cards!)

We followed the pathway out of the harbour and out along the pebble beach where children were playing in earnest.

We spent bits of one day dipping in and out of the beach, retreating to ice cream shops and pots of mussels when the sun got to be too much, and eventually, as evening fell, the sea melted into the perfectly pale tint that I had been longing to capture since we'd arrived. 

As you can see, I was also enamoured of this little girl and the adorable brother that grasped her hand right after she burst into tears.

So, like Cannes, Nice was hot and crowded and touristy, but for a short, comfortable break filled with good food and people-watching, it's exactly the kind of hot, crowded and touristy you need. 

Two days of sun, sea, sandals and a whole lot of sleep.

Regularly scheduled programming

Now that all the big hurdles have finally passed, I can go back to clearing the massive backlog of photos waiting for me and reliving our travels.

For now, this picture that reminds me of a wonderful day on a beach in Nice with the scent of searing pebbles underfoot and nothing above us but the clean blue sky. 

All I needed

Life's been full of false starts and stops recently.  I'm not upset or depressed - far from it, in fact - but I am a little bit stressed with the O levels and A levels on my tail.  

The students are jittery and I remember, with sympathy, sleepwalking through those exams; so exhausted that all I did when I came home was fall into deep and dreamless naps and wake, horrified and guilty that I wasn't studying.  Now, I was starting to feel guilty that they weren't and the relentless grind wasn't giving any of us much chance to recalibrate.  

At the end of a week of a lot of running around and very little sleep, I was invited by my good friend Sindhu to her theatre showcase.  Sindhu (or Sid to us) was part of an incubation group for young theatre practitioners for a year and for their final showcase, the group put on an interpretation of the T.S. Eliot poem, The Wasteland.  

Before Sunday, Sid told Amanda, Bear and I that we might find the production too avant garde and experimental.  She needn't have worried.  It was pretty unorthodox, but we enjoyed ourselves and I was inordinately moved at points.  

At the door, one of the ladies told us that one of the ideas behind the piece was that the actors had discovered their meanings of life.  We were to try and find ours.  I was tired, having run down from eight hours of work, and not completely ready to think deep thoughts just then, but the doors opened, and we ran with it.  

The set, scented with a smoke machine and perfumed oils, was split into sections for the performers to build little nests within.  One fragment was hung with embroidery and knitted pieces and another had books and marigolds hanging from the ceiling.  One of the actors had even filled the floor of her space with grey sand and desert rocks.  Sindhu's corner, a velvet den glowing with candles, fairy lights and a mosaic of drapes and mementos, was at once beautiful and sad, a tribute to times and people gone by.  

We were allowed to walk around the set during the performance and Amanda and I found ourselves touching things and standing, fascinated, under fishing line hung with apples and naked bulbs that pulsed and glowed.  

Throughout, I kept feeling snatches of something unfathomable.  Sure, it seemed uncomfortably experimental and possibly inaccessible, but there was also something deep and real winding beneath the surface that kept slipping through my fingers.  It was as if the stories and thoughts of real souls were woven in with the acting and if you only felt your way, you would touch something incredibly poignant. 

Sid, dressed as a faded, desperate Cleopatra, sobbed on a chair under a rich canopy of silks.  She didn't appear to see us, that is, until the end.

As the performance drew to a close, the actors picked up brown envelopes that they had secreted in corners and started to give them to the audience.  All around us, people were unfolding white pieces of paper with various "meanings of life" scribbled on them - things about giving yourself away or holding on tightly.  The sound was rising to a crescendo and people were speaking unintelligibly, tasting lines from the poem on the incensed air. 

Just as I was feeling left out, I saw Sindhu coming in our direction.  As she neared us, we made eye contact and her face lit up with a smile that felt like it was meant just for me.  In character, she knelt before us and gently pushed a letter into my hand.   

Then in a deep greeting of peace, Sid pressed her palms together and with tears streaming down her face, whispered against the backdrop of noise, "Shantih.  Shantih.  Shantih."  Startled, I felt my own eyes start to well, but before I could say anything, she sprang up, catlike, and was gone. 

In the silence that followed, with Amanda looking over my shoulder, I peeled away the envelope to find a solitary word:

And just like that, I understood.