[Bali '09 Day Three]

I think I’m a bug magnet. A grasshopper [or some other closely-related insect of similar size] hopped onto my nose last night on my way back from the Blue Bar where I’ve been tapping internet access from. Insexual harrasment in the dark, I say.

Monkeys are everywhere in Bali. They’re like the Indonesian equivalent of ‘roos, wallabies and wombats in Oz. Wild, free and road-loving. And one monkey did in fact take some man’s glasses on the footpath to the Kecak dance area this evening.

That said, the dance was my highlight of the day. Thank god for my ignoring the dampened mood. This family has never been and never will be made for holiday. And when I mean holiday I don’t mean sitting in the hotel room and staring at the bloody teevee from wake of the dawn to the high moon.

So. Kecak dance. It’s hard to explain. It involves about fifty men, and the dance is mostly done seated with non-stop body movement and acapella sounds. It’s amazing despite the 500-something throng of crowd. Of course, any one-hour traditional show has to have a story. It’s the story of Ramayana, I think. I’ve forgotten my History – so Google will become your and my saviour.

The holiday ends tomorrow. I’m still dreaming of that volcano hike and lake kayaking… Oh and shopping with some girlfriends that I’m missing terribly. I wish they’re here to rummage through shops and turn them upside down and try on dresses without buying much. I want that kind of holiday, see. But I guess, better than nothing, hey?

Shots of the kecak dance coming up soon. Probably the only proper shots of this whole holiday. The other three hundred-odd images are of the villas that I shot for whoeveritis.

Wonder where we could possibly go tomorrow. It’s clear that both boys of the household are completely content in sleeping in, eating and staring at the teevee some more.

p/s: I hate cellphones during holidays.

[Bali '09 Part Two]

I am not kidding you.

I finished off the snorkeling session today blissfully, towelled myself and changed clothing. I knew I was tanned at the back, but check this out…

We stopped by a restaurant for an early dinner and I made a trip to the ladies’. I had to check out my bum because it started having that mild burn sensation midway through the 4-hour journey back to the Southern part of the island.

Yes, yes. My buttocks are indeed burnt.

Well, okay fine. Just half of each, since the swimsuit covers the other halves. Mamma mia.

That aside, that’s another item crossed off the list of must-dos. So – big grin plastered across my face!

p/s: I think the Illy Frap I glamorously had last night stole my sleep. Would truly be the first time coffee steals away rest from my body. Ah strangeness.

It’s not even a lane. You take up a bloody shore of memories in the head…

Let me try to explain myself.

So I’m on holiday, and I know for a fact that many would kill to be in my position right now. Free fast wi-fi (you don’t know how happy this makes me, thinking about the crap service I have in my Jakarta residence) connection in a fabuous resort hotel in Bali, sipping Illy frappucino at the hotel’s lounge with good live music and few people after a long day of photo shoot.

That spells like b.l.i.s.s.

Okay, so this is a family holiday but I’ve managed to steal little me-moments. Like now. But what I didn’t realise is that quiet moments leave me with more room for supressed thoughts to surface… and it doesn’t help by the fact that where I am – people go for the sun, sea and sand.

The three elements still remind me of you. In fact it reminds me especially of you because you were my beach boy. The whole lounge-around-with-music-in-the-summertime? You. Written all over it. Like anthrax lacing on a sweet present. Damn.

That aside, this holiday stint’s also allowed me to re-organize my head and make updates, reviews and re-distributions, so to speak. I am fully (and finally) conscious on how badly I was being treated for something that I had no power over. It wasn’t as much about the ending as much as the method of delivery. And I know I have my case won in this one – no room for arguments in this.

I deserve better. And for some reason I am confident, if for the first time in my life, that my time will come. I am paying my dues and one day it will be my turn to find a gem truly worth keeping, and that the feeling will be mutual and that will be it. So I’m paying my dues now and that’s okay. Because that’s how I ‘do’ my life. Have to get through the ‘non’ before finding the ’si’. Ah.

So there. First Bali reflection – and hopefully not the only one. Images up in Facebook soon perhaps.

Tim McGraw’s She’s My Kind Of Rain started playing and I couldn’t help but think on how far I’ve come. Just so happens that this realisation comes at impeccable timing. My mind is pre-occupied today as it has always been since the moment I touched down in Jakarta that 17 August. But I found myself pre-occupied by another matter altogether… and I don’t know whether to be relieved, or to worry. Or should I, do I have to feel anything at all?

I’m feeling that good old all-too-familiar greenleaf anxiety when I finally acknowledge that something new is settling in. I try not to get my hopes up. Doesn’t mean I can control the jitters the way I do my hopes.

It’s funny how I found my love for the big city (very truly captured above) after I left it. Twenty-four-hour flight away. And it makes me choke everytime I see images of the city. The setting sun with the snow piling on the ground and the branches of Central Park. The setting sun over Williamsburg Bridge after a blistering day. The non-exhaustively breathtaking skyline.

My heart has grown. And I’d like to believe that it’s finally beginning to receive the treatment it deserves. It’s a slow and (I’m sure) painful process but what a friend once said is true. It could only get better from here on. And so I’ve noticed.

So I think I’m finally stumbling upon diamonds in the rough, one by one. I just have to figure out what to do with them…

… Even though I know that chances are they will eventually fall off of my hands.

The Monster That Killed The Day

six-fifteen with the sun rising
yes, I’m up up awake
putting distance to the cotton-stuffed bed

no gym regime today
collapsing on the busted spring bed
a natural instinct – a quick fix

seven, then eight ay am
up up up, no excuses
a fair notion – I’m almost procrastinating

but oi – I faced the book quarter to nine
and was shouted at two minutes in
my ‘help’ was required… right

when really, who needs three pairs of hands
detaching the hose off the hand pump?
and there goes my practice test

seven days looming
no mercy, no time-buying
no escape and no one to understand

because it’s all so easy, isn’t it?
taking an exam after years of absence
then you go and say are you sure?

clearly nothing satiates
so forgive me for destroying your pretty dream
you should’ve seen it coming

ten years and seven months ago

I hate waking up feeling
the need to sleep another wink
optional schedule to face
unwanted world to greet

You have become a norm
like eating breakfast
washing my face
you, thoughts of you

Some days I’m convinced
by what accord, who knows
when my blue moon rises
I feel you thinking of me

Sixth sense, illusions
soul mates, connections
my first thought, and my last
do we have to remain in the past?

Rob Thomas – Her Diamonds

Oh what the hell she says
I just can’t win for losing
And she lays back down
Man there’s so many times
I don’t know what I’m doin’
Like I don’t know now

By the light of the moon
She rubs her eyes
Says it’s funny how the night
Can make you blind
I can just imagine
And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do
But if she feels bad then I do too
So I let her be

[chorus]
And she says oooh
I can’t take no more
Her tears like diamonds on the floor
And her diamonds bring me down
Cause I can’t help her now
She’s down in it
She tried her best and now she can’t win
It’s hard to see them on the ground
Her diamonds falling down

She sits down and stares into the distance
And it takes all night
And I know I could break her concentration
But it don’t feel right

By the light of the moon
She rubs her eyes
Sits down on the bed and starts to cry
And there’s something less about her
And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do
So I sit down and I cry too
But don’t let her see

[chorus]

She shuts out the night
Tries to close her eyes
If she can find daylight
She’ll be alright
She’ll be alright
Just not tonight

[chorus]x2

***

I’m not particularly upset. Not particularly happy. Not anything much, really. All I know is that the calendar just turned to October and I’m that much further away to the adventures of the earlier part of the year – and as Americans would say it, I’m flippin’ out.

I hate to say this but I’m beginning to realise that I am a person who will never be satisfied. I’m that girl who sits restless until tied tight to the chair. The other side of the lawn will always be greener – and here’s the biggest catch: home is where it’s not the most comfortable of places.

The only rule to the game is that the place has to keep me on the edge of my seat. That means enough art and creative atmosphere, amongst many other ingredients.

So here I am. Getting more complacent by the day… and turning yellowish green like a wilting vegetable.

I don’t know what I’m suppose to do so I sit down and I cry too (but don’t let her see).

Places. People. All. Nothing. In between.
Nothing to lose.

Not quite enough for now, but it never will be.
So I rest my case – and hold on to what I can.

I really don’t have much to say at this moment except for the fact that I’m in Singapore for a teensy weensy while. Far far away from the remnants of Melbourne winter I was basking in a week ago.

And I suppose, just like the heat and humidity, I find myself in a sticky situation. Annoying, bothersome, and worst of all – naturally unavoidable.

Ah the bittersweet life of an unemployed workaholic graduate.

Stereophonics – Dakota

Thinking back, thinking of you
Summertime, think it was June
Yeah think it was June
Laying back, head on the grass
Chewing gum, having some laughs
Yeah having some laughs

[chorus]
You made me feel like the one
You made me feel like the one
The one

Drinking back, drinking for two
Drinking with you
When drinking was new

Sleeping in the back of my car
We never went far
Didn’t need to go far

[chorus]x2

I don’t know where we are going now
I don’t know where we are going now

Wake up call, coffee and juice
Remembering you
What happened to you

I wonder if we’ll meet again
And talk about life since then
Talk about why did it end

[chorus]x2

I don’t know where we are going now
I don’t know where we are going now

So take a look at me now
So take a look at me now
So take a look at me now
So take a look at me now
So take a look at me now

Stabilo – Kidding Ourselves

And I, I wanted to tear down the curtains
To let, let in some natural light
I wake up and open one eye
And wait for the window to crack at me, alone

And I, I wanted to curl up beside you
And die, at least for an hour or more
Depending on how you react
Depending on how you respond to me
I’ll stick around

We’re kidding ourselves, kidding ourselves
So what do you want from me
‘Cause as long as there’s a payphone and a taxi cab
I’m alright ’cause I can leave home
We’re kidding ourselves kidding ourselves
So what are you waiting for
‘Cause even with a fast car and a cellphone
I won’t leave ’cause I’d be alone

So tonight, let’s be as bold as we want to
And drink, drink ’til we fall down the steps
Remember how that made us laugh
Remember how all that we did was laugh, and cry

Well, we’re kidding ourselves kidding ourselves
So what do you want from me
‘Cause as long as there’s a payphone and a taxi cab
I’m alright ’cause I can leave home
We’re kidding ourselves kidding ourselves
So what are you waiting for
‘Cause even on a bullet train or a jet plane
I won’t leave ’cause I’d be alone
And I’m lucky to find cardboard
in an alleyway that I can call home

So tonight, let’s be as bold as we want to run,
four eyes ohhh

We’re kidding ourselves kidding ourselves
So what do you want from me
‘Cause as long as there’s a payphone and a taxi cab
I’m alright ’cause I can leave home
We’re kidding ourselves kidding ourselves
So what are you waiting for
‘Cause even on a bullet train or a jet plane
I won’t leave ’cause I’d be alone
I’m lucky to find cardboard
in an alleyway that I can call home

So don’t take your eyes off me, don’t look away
I won’t be alone
At home

I’m back to where I left off as a 20-year-old student. Graduation meant little, if at all, and I left in a hurry to say the least, leaving behind a packed up mess.

Third day into Melbourne revisitation and I feel as though I’ve never left at all. The only evidence that I did, of course, is the fact that my clothes are all compressed in vacuum bags and my room spanking clean of the clutters I usually live in.

Swanston Street still stretches from the North end of Melbourne Uni to Flinders Street. Straight down. It’s a quaint city as compared to countless others in this world and I can testify to that. Even the air – the crisp dry air – smells distinctively of Melbourne. Clean, a little aged but not as tarnished, free-flowing.

Yet despite all these I find myself a little torn between the kid that I was and the person I’ve found myself to become over the past eight months. Learning to put to rest all the grandiose acts as means of defense mechanism wasn’t easy and I’m still learning to keep it minimal. Some other teenage traits that I’ve left behind have now come back greeting me in the face and I’m not sure I can see clearly with these things distracting me.

Like it or not this city makes it so easy to say “let’s stay and get back to the old routine”. Because it’s all too easy. It’s familiar. I’ve been here for four years. Shame to say, of course, I rarely ever venture out of the CBD. I know how the local systems work, I know the local greetings and common social exchanges made on day-to-day basis.

I’m weighing that against the excitement of meeting people from all over the world (or should I say the Northern world) and finding out my limits as a person in a society where anything and everything is possible. It’s choosing between two options in which neither one is good nor bad. Just different.

So here I am. Indulging in the luxury of being able to fret over which way of life I’d like to trod.

There’s a feeling that a change is coming; and I’m not entirely sure that I want to be particularly welcoming to it because letting go of the past would be a choice and I don’t know if it’s something I want to do for now.

I wonder what kind of persuasion or offer can move me right now…

[Just a thought before I once again jump on planes for the next one month]

A lot of thinking [or perhaps a little too much], energy, heartache and sweat [along with looking like a loon at the gym] have gone into the one single issue haunting at the back of my mind over the past week and a half.

There is no present resolve.

There’s no resolution. Not any that I can think of within my current capacity and whatever little sanity I have left.

So I’ve composed myself enough, I think, to finally choose to give the other party the benefit of the doubt. See things from a different light. Now I don’t know if I’ve become that naive girl who only sees the best in a male but I figured – I’m exhausted. I’m done killing myself over and turning myself upside down.

And if by any chance at all I unknowingly have ever written the L word on the [metaphorical] sand, then perhaps it’s only right to let him go.

Set him free and if he comes back, he’s yours for sure.

For now, I’m back on my playing turf, somewhat, and he’s always been in his when I came along. In the hope that the two worlds would come together in the future, I rest my case and enjoy what I have.

Because my people are all South Hemisphereans.

Rob Thomas – Mockingbird

Here we stand
Somewhere in between
this moment and the end

Will we bend?
Or will we open up and
take this whole thing in?

Everybody else is smiling
and their smiles don’t fade
And you don’t even wonder why
you just don’t think that way

[chorus]
Maybe you and me got lost somewhere,
we can’t move or we can’t stay here
Well maybe we’ve just had enough,
well maybe we ain’t meant for this love

You and me tried everything
But still that mocking bird wont sing
Well man this life seems hard enough
Well maybe we ain’t meant for this love

Take my hand
And I will lead you through
the broken promise land

Yes I can, ah yes I can
I can be there when you need it,
I’ll give it all till you can’t feel it anymore

I don’t wanna love you now,
if you’ll just leave someday
I don’t wanna turn around,
if you’ll just walk away

[chorus]

[Instrumental Break]

[chorus]

Maybe we ain’t meant for this love
Maybe we ain’t meant for this love

——————————————

I’ve mostly been living in bags now. Most of the belongings that I currently need or have a use of are stowed away in bags. The bare minimum of my clothing items (and other which I don’t actually need) have been graced some cleared-out space in my late grandma’s dilapidated in-built wardrobe. It’s no wonder my head is all over the place and I feel like an intruder in my own childhood house.

After all the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and my family (from both sides) have a long history of nesting habits.

I feel better today what with the awaiting photoshoot and gear-shopping to distract me in major terms. I am unprepared to say the least. I have only my guts and whatever little knowledge I have of architectural photography to back me up.

[Because sshhh, I think I'd actually need a Hasselblad, Mamiya or Minolta medium format to do those shoots - but that's not going to happen within the next two days.]

I’ve decided to just leave my emotions be. Run amock if they wish so to be. I’ll deal with it when I’m not alone and (un)willingly doomed in a familiarly estranged place.

Rob Thomas – Snowblind

[chorus]
I think we’re snowblind
We’ve had a hard time
and we can’t see where we are
Spending our whole lives
Walking the same lines
and it doesn’t seem to stop

This is our life
It’s all that we get
The days are all numbered
and the nights are all spent
Losing our focus
We’re starting to drag
We’re running in circles
and we start to feel bad

But it don’t mean that this ain’t right
We just both need a little more time

[chorus]

He’s taking my throat
You’re melting my hands
You cause me to wonder as much as I can
I feel it all over
It’s starting to lack
We’re spinning our wheels so hard
It’s hard to turn back

[chorus]

Oh, but when the night falls down on this place
I will be the one to hold you
When the tears run down your face

[chorus]

I think we’re snowblind
We’ve had a hard time
and it doesn’t seem to stop

So at the end of the road, I can safely say that I’ve done certain things I thought I’d never do and unfortunately still never got the chance to experience other things.

I’ve been packing my short life up in the past two days and making friends with people whom I thought would remain passing acquaintances.

There wouldn’t be much emotional suicide after all because one half of the party decided to take the short cut out and bailed on Wednesday at one o’clock in the blind of the night. I guess that adds on to my old crusty never-ending list of people who couldn’t stand holding my hand through the fire and the snowstorm.

I just finished my final batch of laundry.

My clothes came out of the dryer smelling of pot. [And you know I don't deal with substances.]

If this were to be my final entry in the United States, then perhaps I should wrap up by saying that I have indeed had a good run. A little too many ups and downs packed in seven months, especially the second half. But life runs its own course, doesn’t it?

Adieu from the the Northern Hemisphere… for now.

overlooking, listening
chatting – then you hold my hand
the sun falling behind the sand
we swerve… around the bend

Missy Higgins – Where I Stood

I don’t know what I’ve done
Or if I like what I’ve begun
But something told me to run
And honey you know me it’s all or none

There were sounds in my head
Little voices whispering
That I should go and this should end
Oh and I found my self listening

[chorus]
Cause I don’t know who I am, who I am without you
All I know is that I should
And I don’t know if I could stand another hand upon you
All I know is that I should
Cause she will love you more than I could
She who dares to stand where I stood

See I thought love was black and white
That it was wrong or it was right
But you ain’t leaving without a fight
And I think I am just as torn inside

[chorus]

And I won’t be far from where you are if ever you should call
You meant more to me then any one I’ve ever loved at all
But you taught me how to trust myself
And so I say to you, this is what I have to do

Cause I don’t know who I am, who I am without you
All I know is that I should
And I don’t know if I could stand another hand upon you
All I know is that I should
Cause she will love you more than I could
She who dares to stand where I stood
She who dares to stand where I stood

***

There is resignation and defeat in my head.

So I guess this is how it feels entering
into a family.