Writing about withdrawing

There have been times in my life I have written in order to express, to share, to talk about things, and on rare occasions, to get a discussion going.

But lately, I’ve begun to sense a tendency to withdraw, as if my entire being is preparing to hibernate, as if all my energies are directed inwards. Any call outwards seems like a disturbance rather than an invitation. I would rather just sit in my room and write, thank you, and I’m not too bothered about who, if anyone ever, is going to read it. Dangerous tendency, that of forgetting the readers.

But wait, not all are barred. I do have an imaginary reader. She sulks in a corner sometimes, at others gets excited about a passage I’ve written, and sometimes urges me push the delete button on the whole damn thing. I wonder what she looks like, for I have never really seen her, she can’t be seen other than from the corner of the eye. She talks a lot though, and often makes me wish I couldn’t hear her.

I’d give anything to make her smile, her smile comes with a chuckle I can hear, and it is a sound I love. If she ever praises what I write, I swear I shall die immediately and go to heaven.

In the meanwhile, I apologize to the blogging world. There will be a post or two when the mood takes me, or if I need to get away from my room and my reader, but mostly, I’m just gonna stay in.

Blogging again after a month

Walking with a purpose: a shot from Batu Caves, Malaysia

Considering that I haven’t written on this blog for a while, more than a month to be exact, I should be full of things to write about. Instead, I find myself curiously reluctant, somewhat full, but content to be full, not willing to share. I’m not sure if that is a good thing. So I will press on, and see what comes out.

The last month has had its ups and downs, and I’m happy to report that my pen has not been idle. I have also done a whole load of Italian, spent lots of time with a good friend, cooked, baked, and wondered a little about whether I should go ahead and make some money.

But the most beautiful thing that happened with the slowing down of my pace of life was that I began to live more consciously: I thought of the wrinkles to come as the years pass on, and enjoyed the sight of my taut skin. I walked and ran and climbed, and told myself to use this body as an instrument, to use it, to take care of it, but to always remember that it is the medium, and that the message is for me to decide.

I have to use my body to do something meaningful, use my present youth and awareness to an end that would make some sense after I’m gone. So that I could say, that on this earth I not only took, but gave of myself, in however small a way…which is why I was here in the first place.

I understood that you must catch pleasure wherever you find it, and that you should treat it with an awareness not only of its fragility, but also of its worth. Not to be too taken by pleasure, and too revolted by pain. Both are parts of a duality, after all.

This could be a random morning rambling, or it could be the beginning of wisdom, I’m not sure which.

All I know is what I have always known: that the only truth is the calm blue ocean of peace inside me, untouched by externalities. I must keep going back to it, and in the meanwhile, use the time I have (4 years or 40, I do not know..can anyone?) to create positivity and celebrate it in all its forms.

If you have read till the end, thank you for bearing with my navel gazing. I promise to be more topical and entertaining starting tomorrow.

I just want to say something to two of my friends before I sign off:

To Ely: Thankyou for everything, for the food you cooked and the time you spent with me. I feel much better.

To Sarah: Though I cannot be with you in the flesh, know that my thoughts are with you  in this difficult time. I pray for courage and strength for you.

Writing, writing on the wall

Slowing down

The writing on the wall is clear. I need to slow down–doctor’s orders.

So the blogs would have to slow down as well.

Keeping in line with that, I think I’ll have to decide days on which I post on each of my blogs. I already have a Monday post on my group blog, so the other three have to have their days and that’s it. Once or twice a week on each, I suppose.

For today, I’ve done a post on my writing blog, another on my group blog (on plotting) and I’m now updating this one (however mundanely).

The only good news is that I’m writing a lot off line, and that’s got to count for something.

Writing about …

I thought I was hitting a blogging block, and I was right.

I am writing about a 1000 words a day, went to the KL International book fair and bought more than a dozen books, and am reading like a maniac. Just about the only thing I cant do is chat, blog, or facebook.

Dunno what to make of this.

Writing a daily writing exercise

For warm-up, I try a writing exercise everyday before I start my work. Usually it has no writing prompts, but some days, I will pick up a word or a picture.

The word that came upon me today is “leaving”. I do not choose the word–I pick a dictionary, point my finger randomly at any word without looking, and just go from there. And then I time myself for 10 minutes and just write, without thought, without grammar, just following my hand with an empty head.

Here’s what I wrote today:

Leaving. Such a lonely word, you say.

Leaving some thing, some place, some body.

Walking away from something

is sometimes a walk towards something else.

But it can also be a letting go and not stopping.

Letting the breath take you,

carry you with it

for you to float nameless and without address,

without friends or foes,

without relatives, acquaintances.

Just fall, fall, free fall away

and take it from there

to wander in through the window of one house

to float out the door,

to rise and kiss the tree-tops,

to skim the oceans,

to lie suspended over a snow-capped mountain,

to become one with a star or a grain of sand on a white, lonesome beach,

to be carried backwards and forwards upon the waves,

to be a plant drinking in from the soil,

to be a fruit ripe to the bursting,

to be a breast lovingly squeezed in a harem,

to be the gurgle of a baby,

to be the movement of the muscle on a woodcutters arm,

a cake baking in the oven,

a piece of music escaped from a violin,

to be a grandfather’s tears for a grandson lost,

to be grass munched in the mouth of a cow,

to be a soap bubble floating up from a tub of washing,

to be a tale sleeping in a book,

to be a fish born in an aquarium,

to be a taxi-driver chatting with a tourist,

to be a mother slapping her boy,

to be the toy he has lost,

to be the words in the mouth of a poet,

to be the honey in a hive and the bee that carries it there,

to be the prey and the predator,

to be fire and water, sleep and awakening.

Leaving is not a lonely word.

It is the joy of being alone, of being one,

of being all, and also nothingness.

Writing about a dream

I woke up this morning and stumbled on this video. It made me smile, and somehow the blue fog swirling above my head for the last few weeks has dispersed.

Thanks to Susan Boyle, who is 47, never been kissed, and sings like a dream.

If you do not know who she is, watch the video.

Writing about a break

Take a day off writing your blog, then make it two, and somehow it becomes a week, and even two weeks.

Lately, there has been plenty in my life to blog about, but most of my energies have gone towards writing in my notebooks. This blog, my writing blog, and my links blog have all suffered as a result.

When I have free time nowadays, I like watching the rain as it pours. It poured relentlessly all evening yesterday. And today the afternoon rain has clouded out the view for miles around.

I think I am in a blog fog, a place where blogging feels banal, unimportant, dispensable. So let me try and post this before I decide to delete it

Happy Easter, and here’s to a healthy blogging week for one and all! Let’s hope that includes me, sigh.

Writing about Singapore, then and now

Well, I’m hardly going to write. Instead I’m going to post two YouTubes, one of Singapore in 1938, and one of the city in the present day. How times change, and how fast a city can change with the times!

Singapore in 1938:

Singapore in the 21st century:

Writing about Luigi Pirandello, English, Italian

Eleven Short Stories- Undici Novelle- Pirandello

I’m reading Eleven Short Stories or Undici Novelle by the Nobel Laureate Luigi Pirandello. It is a dual language book, and for a lover of Italian and of short stories, a rare piece of indulgence.

What I love about the book is not just Pirandello’s masterful storytelling, somewhat reminiscent of Chekov, but also the lyrical quality of the Italian, when I read it just after the English version. With English you have to make an effort to make your lines sound lyrical, spoken Italian is music itself.

Here’s an excerpt from the short story Citrons from Sicily, or Lumie di Sicilia:

He leaned his head forward so he could observe the illuminated room at the far end, and he saw a great number of gentlemen in tailcoats talking confusedly. His sight grew dim; his amazement and agitation were so great that he himself didn’t realize that his eyes had filled with tears; he closed them, and he shut himself completely in that darkness, as if to resist the torment that a long ringing laugh was causing him. It was Teresina laughing like that, in the other room.

Sporse il capo a guardare in fondo la sala illuminata e vide tanti signori in marsina, che parlavano confusamente. La vista gli s’annebbio’: era tanto lo stupore, tanta la commozione, che non s’accorse egli stesso che gli occhi gli si erano riempiti di lacrime: li chiuse, e in quel buio si strinse tutto in se’ quasi per resistere allo strazio che li cagionava una lunga squillante risata. Teresina rideva cosi, di la’.

Writing about tiredness

Writing when tired is almost never a good idea. You can feel sleep creeping up your limbs, your mind is more or less a vacuum, and if you’re like me, you might have skipped a meal or two because you were trying to finish something.

But then, sometimes vacuum is one of the best spaces to write in, and out of nowhere, bone-tired after a 16-hour day, I’ve suddenly got an idea how to finish a short story. I wonder I did not see it coming all along, and now that it has come, I want to put it down on paper rightaway.

So, off I go to do some writing. On another note, I have started writing more now that I’ve stopped keeping count!