Hit the Road, Jack

i ran away to KL this past week, and in wanting to recount things, i realised that i no longer have a Vanilla deadline to fill with these thoughts.

oh well. oh blog.

actually, it's always the bus ride to and fro that fill me with the most extreme of feelings. it's incredible how staring out the window, at the vast amount of S P A C E these Melayusians have, the dense forests, the deep greens and brilliant emeralds, the brown cows too lazy to say How Now, the sudden brilliance of hot pink flowers at the top of a tree, with none to be spotted elsewhere...how these scenes give me alternate feelings of happiness, grief, despair and hope.

and if you have an iPod Nano with you (a gift that you unwillingly use because your husband really thought you wanted one, but heck, it's a good thing to have), shuffling songs between Gwen Stefani, The Scissors Sisters, Astrud Gilberto, John Lithgow and Franz Ferdinand, you find your emotions will soar and dip accordingly.

this afternoon, i mostly thought of the year i've had, how high my hopes were, and how quickly and hard they crumbled. how acting, the one thing i can truly say surges in my being, can destroy me. how my daughters are so much like me, and yet, i know they have secret selves that i will never know. how i just want to be a good woman, a good wife, good mother, good friend, and how horribly difficult it can sometimes be.

when Catatonia came on with Make Hay Not War, i wept, thinking of the late Krishen Jit directing me in Iron. he'd asked for a song i wanted to do improvisations with, and i chose this piece. i wept not because of the play and the "great art" i created (cos i didn't) - i wept because i always meant to give him a copy of the song, and i never did, and now he's dead.

when Keane sang The Frog Prince, i played it repeatedly for about 5 times, which i often do when i play it in the car. the poetry, the melody, the yearning and hope to be loved strangely makes my heart jump excitedly each time, and even though the singer was a coke-head when he sang it, it only proves that those of us with great personal problems can still provide some form of comfort and thought (or at the very least, entertainment) for others.

Gwen Stefani's If I Were A Rich Girl got me imagining dancing away with my nutty friends at some nutty club. or at home with my daughters. it's pretty much the same elation actually.

why it is that my life can be reduced to 4.5 hours (including immigration and 20-minute stop at Pagoh) of rubber trees and a crazy mix of music, i can't explain. why it is that sitting still on a reclining seat with the the volume on too loud leads to me wanting to relive some moments, and discard some, is an even greater mystery.

i don't really know why i feel like this, and why i'm blogging it. but i guess it's cos i know you lot will understand, and that makes it alright after all.

"what a difference a day made/24 little hours"