I was awe-struck as soon as I walked in. Aisles, rows and rows of them, stretched into the distance, each filled to the brim with foods and goods. We spent almost an hour browsing through the store, and still that didn’t seem enough. All these brand names, all these choices and alternatives, all the combinations of recipes and meals you could make. All those calories and all that sugar.
Kosher, diet, Thai, low-sodium and low-fat. Ready-made, canned, to be microwaved or served cold. Chops, cookies, crab and cream. Bread, (I-can’t-believe-it’s-not) butter, biscotti and boiled egg in brine. Tylenol, tangerines, tulips and tomatoes— diced, cubed, sliced, whole, soaked or sun dried. For every taste, every need and every preference there seems to be something on offer. And all at almost unbelievable prices and in unmanageable quantities. There is an almost insidious lure to shopping and binge and bulk buying that I cannot understand.
I looked around at the people in the store— in fact I only have to look at my relatives—to see the result of uninhibited consumption under the constant spell of special offers, buy-one-get-one-frees and coupons. How much do you have to eat really to sustain your body? What are we putting into our mouths and bodies? What are all these “colourings” and “flavourings” that are mixed into enticing sweets and snacks? Why do the vegetables look so green, healthy and sparkling in the dense of winter? Do you really need to have six dozen brands and flavours of ice cream in buckets of a gallon each?
I am not sure what I should be feeling, if anything at all. I woke up, just like any other normal day. Outside, since the night before, a snowstorm had poured down over 30cm of snow. I thought coming south would be an escape from that winter cold.
I feel such a world away from the events that unfolded two years ago. I had to re-read what I had written to get my mind and heart back to that moment, even though it was a moment that will be defining for the rest of my life. The flight home, the anticipation, anxiety, the gradual realisation and reality of death...
The snow has stopped now, save for the few flakes falling from the heavens. A world of white stillness and serenity.
Every generation Blames the one before And all of their frustrations Come beating on your door I know that I'm a prisoner To all my Father held so dear I know that I'm a hostage To all his hopes and fears I just wish I could have told him in the living years Crumpled bits of paper Filled with imperfect thought Stilted conversations I'm afraid that's all we've got You say you just don't see it He says it's perfect sense You just can't get agreement In this present tense We all talk a different language Talking in defense Say it loud, say it clear You can listen as well as you hear It's too late when we die To admit we don't see eye to eye So we open up a quarrel Between the present and the past We only sacrifice the future It's the bitterness that lasts So Don't yield to the fortunes You sometimes see as fate It may have a new perspective On a different date And if you don't give up, and don't give in You may just be O.K. Say it loud, say it clear You can listen as well as you hear It's too late when we die To admit we don't see eye to eye I wasn't there that morning When my Father passed away I didn't get to tell him All the things I had to say I think I caught his spirit Later that same year I'm sure I heard his echo In my baby's new born tears I just wish I could have told him in the living years Say it loud, say it clear You can listen as well as you hear It's too late when we die To admit we don't see eye to eye
Left home in the dark of 4am. Didn't sleep at all, only laid down an hour, eyes closed, but my mind and thoughts were wide awake. I ended up talking to a friend, which didn't help induce sleep, but at least helped confront my fears and causes of my agitations. Is a life of travelling and living comfortably from day to day without meaning? Is the pursuit of happiness or making someone happy more important? As with all these kind of deep, existentialist conversations, the only reply was an empty echo at night (and the muffled sound of my neighbour snoring next door).
I rode to the airport, and for the first time, checked in at the priority line reserved for "loyal" frequent fliers. I was feeling the effects of the lack of sleep, and it got worse as I queued the US immigration. A model of the Statue of Liberty stood next to tall flags of the Land of the Free, and she seemed to be mocking the hundreds of travellers wondering whether they would be able to catch their flight. I was taken aside for a moment, though I had no idea why. Was it because I couldn't recall the last time I was in the Minor Nation of the US and A? I really couldn't, perhaps I had gone so many times last year. Only after being taken into an empty hall did I remember that I was actually in the US in October to transit. The wonderful experience must have escaped my mind. Bizarre as it may seem.
But it turned out to be a false alarm, despite the fact the US border guard had miraculously managed to fish out my two suitcases from beneath the ground within minutes.
I went towards the boarding gate directly, as I had only ten minutes left. I skipped the lounge completely, in the hope thatw my "first time" would be a memorable experience. Once on board the plane, I closed my eyes and entered the world of sleep until the roar of the engines woke me as we hurtled down the runway and skyward.
The dawning light tore through the cabin of the little Canadair Regional Jet. Even with my eyes closed, the brightness of a whole new day tempted me to look out of the window. The frozen land below slid by as the plane headed towards Newark.
I wanted to go in to yoga one last time before my long trip. A friend had suggested that it will do me good, especially having to sit down in a cramped space for over 16hours (even if it is broken up into two sectors...)
So I went in, and was just on time. The place was already quite crowded, surprisingly for a 16.30 class, as I assumed people would still be working (well, I'm not...). I found a place in the back, squeezed between two middle aged ladies, and had a really (really) big man next to me. I looked at the image in the mirror in front of us, and it looked like an extreme version of Laurel (me) and Hardy (him).
The class began, and I slowly got used to the heat. The clock counted down... 90 minutes to go till the end, and the instructor's voice urged us to exert all of our effort and energies. Since I started, I do feel much better about myself every time I finish. Even if not physically, from all the sweating and stretching, then at least mentally I feel I accomplish something significant after every class.
More than half way into the class, with some quarter of an hour left, I started to feel breathless. I never felt that way before, and as hard as I tried to follow the postures and the instructions, I couldn't. I was light headed and felt nauseated. Not like I wanted to throw up, but just like I have just gone for a spin without realising it, and am now reeling under the aftermath of it all....
So I had to stop and just lie down for a moment. Gradually, I felt my hands numb... a creeping sensation of numbness climbed up my arms and into my fingers, slowly and slowly taking control of my hands (right one was the worst)... Soon I last all senses of my hands and fingers. I tried to curl them, to control them, but just felt pain, tingling, bursts of electricity and impulses shooting and running throughout my hands and fingers. I felt overwhelmed, like I had lost control of my hands, like I had lost my hands. All the while, the voice of the instructor droned one, and we were already one posture further and closer toward the end of the class...
Then suddenly, an imaged flashed across my mind (terrible, since in yoga we're supposed to be concentrated fully on the breathing and movements of the body...) The image of my mum's hand, and my fingers reaching out to touch hers. I could see my mum lying there, asleep, after complaining about the numbness and pain she felt in her fingers and hands, because of the sideeffects of the chemo therapy. So is this excruciating sensation what it feels like? This pain, this severe numbness and inability to control the fingers... is this what mum has to go through every time she has poison injected into her body?
I closed my eyes, and tried to surpress the the pain and tingling sensations. Tried to watch those sensations, and thought of mum, and her ordeals...
At the bookstore to pick up a gift for my cousin, I picked up something for myself too. Randomly I walked through the shelves, and saw a cover with a big black lady with butterfly wings and the title "Precious". A friend had told me to go watch the movie, which is based on the novel in front of me. But then he described briefly what it was about, and I cringed, and subconsciously have avoided the movie since it came out...
But somehow at the store, I was tempted despite the subject matter. I flipped through the book, glancing at the (purposely) misspelt narration of the "I" character Claireece Precious Jones-- an overweight (legal and politically correct term: "heavy-set"), 12 year old Africa-American girl, growing up in the poor and abusive environment in Harlem, NY.
I was hooked. The simple words, swear words, doodlings, and dialogue captivated me. In the quick metro ride I had already read 20 pages, and cannot seem to put it down, even though the subject matter is very sensitive....
" I'm twelve now, I been knowing that since I was five or six, maybe I have always known about pussy and dick. I can't remember not knowing. No, I can't remember a time I did not know. But thas all I knowed. I didn't know how long it take, what's happening inside, nothing, I didn't know nothing."
When I read passages like that, I have to close my eyes and breath deeply. Something deep inside echoes, and feels her pain, feels her suffering...
"...I just fall back on the couch so full it like I'm dyin' and I go to sleep, like I always do; almost. Almost, go to sleep [...] I just lay still still, keep my eyes close. I can tell Mama's other hand between her legs now 'cause the smell fill room [...] Go sleep, go sleep, go to sleep, I tells myself. Mama's hand creepy spider, up my legs, in my pussy. God please! Thank you god I say as I fall asleep."
That dream-like state... that temporary attempt at escaping from reality, at becoming numb and feelingless as in sleep. Harrowing...
"First he mess up my life fucking me, then he mess up the fucking talki' [...] But I keep my mouf shut so's the fucking don't turn into a beating. I start to feel good; stop being a video dancer and start coming. I try to go back to video but coming now, rocking under [...] now, my twat jumping juicy, it feel good. I feel shamed."
That's what it is. Shame, disgraced, wronged, dirtied... pleasure and pain all mixed into one. Hatred and love indistinguishable. Fear and relaxation dissolving like sugar in water...
Something about this book creeps into my heart, churns my memories, yet beckons me to read on. To read on in the mere hope that despite the suffering, humiliation, untold emotions bottled inside, there can be liberation and delivery from a seemingly repetitive and inescapable hellhole.
(Extracts from the text are not intended to infringe copyrights, but to indicate how powerful and worth reading the book is.)
Somehow it is difficult to pack my suitcase on this night before the night of departure.
It is not so much a problem of wondering what to put into the two suitcases I'm taking with me (there are plenty of souvenirs and gifts to stuff in... too many in fact!) It's more that with every thing I pack into the suitcase, I am one step closer to really going away. And that realisation is somewhat heavy to deal with.
Going away for how long? The ticket is for three weeks, but given my habit, it may be postponed, again and again. Especially now that mum has resumed her chemo treatment... Not that I would not want to spend more time at home... just that I feel there are some unfinished things here in Canada I should try to wind up. My thesis, my future legal status, deciding on my next career/academic step... With all these things nagging me, I know I will be constantly thinking about them while I am away, and cannot really be or feel "in the here and now".
And every time before I leave Canada, I feel I will come back to a different place. The weather will probably be different, the cat may will become different (fatter and perhaps a little depressed that I was away...), and my mood and emotions will have changed much from being away. The unpredictablness is something I kind of dread, even though on the surface I can easily come and go, come and go.
Leaving is often difficult... Going is much easier.
Just spent the last couple of hours glued (almost) constantly to my seat and writing a letter to my dad.
I've been wanting to do this a while, ever since I promised myself two years ago that every year around the time of his anniversary, I would write to him, and 'send' it to him when we hold the ceremony of worshipping foods and burning paper money. Maybe it's more self-therapy than anything... and if he is no longer '(t)here', he may not even be able to read what I have to write and say. But still, I find it's something important to do, and I guess that is enough. Many things in life don't require a real justification or reasoning...
So far, it's over a page long... mostly containing descriptions of how I've been feeling these days. Down and distraught and caught between options, opportunities and the great unknowns. The health and life of my mum figures greatly in the letter, as well as concerns and this wandering heart of mine that seems always longing for sanctuary, care, and human intimacy.
Strangely, compared to last year, I did not feel too emotional, and did not have not stop halfway through to wipe my tears. I just wrote, as if dad would understand if he read it, and as if he could answer some of my hopes and anxieties.
Two more weeks till the anniversary, and the letter looks complete. But I feel maybe there are things I want to add.
Woke up to the sound of the alarm, and felt my head and world swirling. I don't know why the past few days sleeping in my own bed and in my own bedroom I don't sleep very well. Don't have the same problem, it seems, when I sleep in the spare room.
Called mum, and for a moment I was worried because the phone kept ringing but there was no answer. Then I remembered that she might be at the new house, so I rang her mobile. And she was indeed already at the new place, and actually taking out the garbage (which comes around three times a day for some reason!!)
She sounded joyful, and was delightedly telling me how wonderful the new place is, and how well she slept in her new bed. Like I encouraged her to do, she bought a new and better bed, and she said it really made a difference.
"Are you working already?" I asked, almost afraid that she might say yes, only a few days after the chemo therapy. In fact, she was already at the office, having only rested over a weekend. But she reassured me that there's very little work for her now, and she seems to be just going in to swipe her fingers (to sign in), and sitting around reading, chatting and doing the odd chore. Her colleagues are very understanding, and her direct superior is a guy who used to be her colleague, and who is a close, good friend of hers. They told her that she's worked enough already for the last 20 something years, and it's time to take it easy till retirement. "Just as well," mum said, "As I may need the relaxed working environment as the effects of chemo sessions pile up..." Already, she said, she's been having a few days of diahrea because of the medication...
Overall it was a happyish conversation, and I felt relieved to hear she was doing better. At least from the sounds of her voice. I think the new house has really made an impact on her, just as I had expected. It took a while for her to be able to finally move in, but all the patience and waiting (despite some tensions and intolerable arguments on the way) seem to have paid off.
I pulled open the curtains, and despite shivering from the morning chill, felt the dawn of a new, bright sunshinny day...
... even better that I may have a "date" later! :)
The river ran under me, rapidly disappearing under the bridge. I stood, and tried to capture its fast-moving motion, tried to imagine where was the source of all this endless energetic flow, and tried to picture the villages and fields the river will pass as it winds its way to adestination yet unknown.
The sun was setting, and a pale, pale glow of crimson mirrored on the dark flowing surface of the river. Ice, in bulky blocks and thin sheets, drifted along, floating with the motion of the river downstream. I watched the countless islands ice that dotted the river, their speed too fast and dizzying for the human eye. Some were like small hills, and reminded me of icebergs which hid its deadly secretly beneath the water, away from the world. Did the adrift ice know where they were going? Did they have any say as they were separated from the ice sheets further upstream? The icy shores revealed the depth of the river, and the depth of a dark, brooding abyss that lay beneath the river.
I shivered at the thought of falling into rapidly moving river. How cold and unpleasant it must be to be caught in the motion of time flowing by so rapidly, and be unable to control your direction and destination.
It took almost a week for me to watch "Two Weeks". And it's not because of the moderate reviews that the movie received. It's more the subject matter, which strikes close to home. Literally.
Two weeks may not be a long time, but to many it seems an eternity. Especially to those slowly dying, excruciatingly slow, of cancer. The end is near, the pain is unbearable, the hulicinations are starting, morphine is losing its effect, yet the waiting, the waiting is unbearable. Even more so because it is not only you who waits, but also the whole family who has to watch, wait and wait for that final moment when life is no more.
But two weeks is a period that can bring infinite changes, bring together and bring closer a family that has been spread around, with every one living their separate lives. Two weeks can be a time to bond, to share, to cry, to remember those precious moments of times past, and to rediscover and treasure the bonds that shall never be broken-- despite of the quarrels, disagreements, temperments and set ways of an elder brother wanting to control the young sibling.
I watched the movie in installments. Sometimes it got too overwhelming I had to turn it off. The moment when the mum, dying of cancer, threw up, I had to stop watching. Partly because I was eating, but partly because it reminds me of something that is so painful to remember and experinece....
In the beginning the mum looks well, and is still very conscious of her thoughts and surroundings. Yet, with each paling shade of her face, she loses her battle to cancer... she succumbs to the proliferation of cells that are eating her body from the inside out, that have even manifested themselves onto her back in humps as big as fists.... Painful to see, and even more difficult to digest...
Even in installments, I managed to finish the movie. As scrutiating and as slow as something takes, like life all things come to an end. The moments of light comedy and satire are welcome refuges in a dark and brooding setting of death and final goodbyes. Tears flow and eventually cease, but the memories of those who have gone continue on and on.
I am reminded of my mum, and a dreaded fate that I have just seen in the movie. At least in the movie, the mother was not alone when she passed away. Can I say the same for my mum? Is there anything more painful than dying alone? Is there anything more regretful not being at the side of someone you love and care deeply for when that person disappears from this world?
Again I am confronted with a decision.... should I stay, or should I go? Should I pursue my own interests, should I seek and hope to find the happiness I came to Canada to find, or should I be at my mum's side no matter what?
Will you say when I'm gone away "My lover came to me and we'd lay In rooms unfamiliar but until now" Oh oh oh oh Until now Oh oh oh oh Until now
Will you say to them when I'm gone "I loved your son for his sturdy arms We both learned to cradle then live without" Oh oh oh oh Live without Oh oh oh oh Live without
Will you say when I'm gone away 'Your fathers body was judgment day We both dove and rose to the riverside" Oh oh oh oh Riverside Oh oh oh oh Riverside
Will you say to me when I'm gone "Your face has faded but lingers on Because light strikes a deal with each coming night" Oh oh oh oh Coming night Oh oh oh oh Coming night.
