Words in Air

I am reading a heavy book as my cousin describes it. Seeing it on my coffee table, she lifted it briefly and said, how can you hold it up for a long period, too heavy.

Well, for the record, my ability to tote it around and strain my faux designer handbag (who buys real when you can get a Tod's Bag for 45 ringgit in Chinatown?) is purely for the sheer delight I take in its contents. The extended exchange of letters between two poets, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, spanning the time they met in 47 to the time he died from a heart attack in 77, is an intimate potrayal of friendship and love, marked by mutual respect and regard for each other's life and work. Its extraordinary; and remembers one to shared ideals and values, the remarkable dedication to the truth that poetry demands. I have already spent many hours on rainy evenings, my reading hour between 4 and 5 daily; and as I please, on weekends, being drawn into the chatter, the discussion, the gossip, the critical questioning and comments exchanged between the two.

Of course on Sundays, it pleases me no end to spend part of the day, reading. Often a book and the weekend e-editions of Times, Guardian and some gossip stuff from Marie Claire or quick bits from Yahoo News. My coffee sits beside me, cold now. Today, the rain fell early, just before noon. I had gone swimming at 9; but the pool was besieged by more then 40 young boys after I swam for 20 minutes, so I desperately finished off another 10 minutes before leaving the happy splashing at the shallow end. It would have made a wondrous picture, the simultaneous sprays that formed a line of human fountains; much embellished by the morning sunshine forming jewels of light as they rose and fell to the shouts of joy.

I came home to my rice today. I had hungered for steaming rice today; and had put some sliced Chinese sausages, rice wine, fresh ginger and dark soya sauce into a pot of rice, to cook, while I went to the pool. When I returned and after my shower, I sliced Chinese cabbage and stir fried it with lots of garlic and ginger and a pinch of Himalaya salt. I cut green chilli padi, tore some coriander leaves and splashed generously, light soya sauce and roasted sesame oil to go with the rice. I boiled water and steeped pu-erh tea. And I sat down and listening to a story about baseball, about a miner turned famous pitcher who honed his skills by throwing stones at tin cans daily for fun, on National Public Radio, I ate my rice and cabbage. It was quite a tale and the food ever delicious. Baseball and sausage rice - I must be plebian after all, although I have seldom have declared myself otherwise. Comfort is where we find it.

Chapel and perms

It has been a predictably tropical day. Heat and a reluctant breeze and the glory of brilliance at sunset. Right now, it is gold everywhere, as though a way of seeking forgiveness for a harsh twistingly hot day. I am beautiful, be tolerant. The way of life.

I spoke to several school friends today. We are bound by a memory as tenuous as one can imagine; at least three decades of life have separated many of us. Still, I never fail to comprehend this that binds us. We revert for most part, to speaking to each other as though we were sixteen again. The same banter. The same tone. And voila, we show ourselves to be the same persons we were. There's the agreeable one, the tough one, the irritating one, the bitchy one. A motley crew. Ah, but we love each other, in an unforgettable way. A completely irreplaceable way.

The occasion was a high tea. A fundraising event for the school which started as an intention to fund repairs to its tired facade, lately rendered irrelevant by the receipt of a large sum of money, amounting to RM 560,000 from the government. A gesture to make up to all mission schools for the long running neglect. A sort of discrimination that's outlived its origins actually; because there are no "real" mission schools anymore. They are pretty much nationalized. No pastors conduct prayers; no nuns or brothers sweep through the corridors anymore, instilling the stern discipline that's shaped many a child who have passed through their hallowed halls.

I remember the American pastor, Rev Paul West who came to conduct chapel classes with non Muslims. My eagerness to recite John 3:16 so I could win the coveted bookmark of the day. I remember raising my hand, being called and being handed the bookmark by the genial Rev West, his dark rimmed glasses perched on his aquiline nose; his blonde hair brushed carefully aside, his blue eyes lighting up at my earnest recitation. For God so loved the World...

His wife, Mrs West, was dark haired, cropped short and wavy enough to look suitably fashionable. We who had straight dark hair could never achieve her casually chic style unless we created voluminous waves with a perm. My mum agreed to pay for a perm for me once, and it was disastrous. I looked as old as the ladies who walked out of Ah Kwan's perm parlour, my mum's favourite haunt at that time when I must have been eleven or twelve years old. It took a while before my hair became long and straight again. At sixteen, I tried another longer perm and it still did not work. I think I was in my late twenties when I stopped perming my hair, trying to achieve that casually chic look Mrs West had, which fired my imagination so.