by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra:
Enough said here.
Currently Playing: Radical Face – Wrapped In Piano Strings
I’ve just returned from a weekend away in Terengganu with a massive headache, courtesy of my dad speeding down the winding roads of Karak highway. The East Coast is always a beautiful place to visit, except going there around this time of the year means treacherous waves not suitable for swimming or water sports, so we settled for cycling by the sea instead. We got caught in the rain the first day and had to rush back after only half an hour of exploring, but Alhamdulillah the weather was perfect the second day when we set out again. The air smelt of salt but felt fresh, and the strong wind flapped our hijabs about, but the best was the sound of the powerful waves crashing into the beach just next to us as we whizzed by. We could hardly hear each other, our voices so drowned out we might as well have been swimming.
I was reading Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things (a collection of short stories and poems) on the journey back home this evening, and my sister asked me how it was possible to read when the ride was so bumpy. I think I can account that as another reason behind this headache. Absolutely horrible.
As for Gaiman’s book, I’m still in the midst of it, but so far I’m finding it easy to relate to his obvious love for storytelling, which is quite apparent in his book, perhaps because I enjoy stories just as much, having about 4 or 5 tumbling out of my head during the most inconvenient times. In some strange way, you could also say I can’t help but enjoy them, having spent a substantial part of my childhood reading fairy tales and fables, and not the Disneyfied version either. In The Flints of Memory Lane, Gaiman writes:
“I like things to be story-shaped. Reality, however, is not story-shaped, and the eruptions of the odd into our lives are not story-shaped either. They do not end in entirely satisfactory ways. Recounting the strange is like telling one’s dreams: one can communicate the events of a dream but not the emotional content, the way that a dream can color one’s entire day.”
He likens fairy tales as the currency that we share with those who walked the world before we were ever here, and in his poem Instructions, he composes, quite simply, “a set of instructions for what to do when you find yourself in a fairy tale”. In almost every line of the poem, I recognised something from my childhood. Ever heard of the 12 months who sit around a fire, warming themselves and telling each other stories? Or the ferryman doomed to ferry people across a river forever unless you unsuspectingly take the oar that he offers you, a gesture which would leave you to take his place until you’re able to give that oar to someone else? Or the princess who liked to play hide-and-seek, and would only marry the suitor whom she eventually couldn’t find? I wonder whether my parents knew that the book of traditional stories they gave me as a child stretched my imagination in so many ways. Now that I’m so much older, sometimes it feels like I’m struggling to retain that sense of wonderment about the world, and it’s difficult when you’re so aware of the injustices raging in practically every corner you turn to that all you can be is realistic, hardened, worldly.
Of course I’m not saying that knowing fairy tales is the only way to have a sense of wonder, and I’m not about to say we should all start retreating into our own heads, make-believing magic and pretending we don’t have responsibilities to tend to, issues to play a part in resolving, changes to effect – it’s just that it was so much easier to be amazed at things when we were younger, and I believe stories played a part in that. Nothing fazes us now. Technological advancement and smart gadgets, that’s the new magic.
Maybe for people like me, our adventures are our travels, our dragons to be slayed are our inner demons, our damsels-in-distress that need saving is our faith in a world bereft of any, our knights-in-shining-armour who rescue us are the ones we meet who give us hope that mankind’s sense of humanity is not dwindling as we would think. And the best part, always the best part, is that good wins and conquers all in the end.
Fairy tales just never taught us that it isn’t going to be easy.
*
Strange Little Girls (New Age)
by Neil Gaiman:
She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon.
You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.
She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.
*
Enough said here.
I wrote the below sometime in 2010 during office hours. It was one of those times when I just couldn’t help myself. I don’t know what makes today so different that I’m sharing it now, it isn’t even much.
I’m trying to remember what happened that day.
2010:
I’ve never cried in front of people before, and I’ve never publicly admitted to crying. It’s hard for me to break down, even when I’m under intense pressure. I just bite it back down and move on.
It’s definitely not something I usually share.
I don’t know what makes today so different though.
So many things went wrong today, and after a phone call that was it. I bent my head in front of my computer and everything came out quietly, as it always does. I was horrified at myself, but at the same time it was like I needed to push so many things out of my chest at once. Why is it that we keep it all in, reserving a proper time to let it free at a later, scheduled time? In control, always in control.
My firm has an open-door policy, and I’m seated directly opposite my door. I ducked behind my computer, which I can now appreciate for being anciently gargantuan, and just waited for it to be over, trying to clear up my face in the process.
It was then when my boss stepped into my room. I looked up, and he asked whether I was sick. I told him sorry, I wasn’t feeling too good, it could be a flu, but I could handle it, and asked about work.
It reminded me of the time I was so sad in 1st year uni that I cried in the corridors away from everyone and when I went back my roommates asked why my eyes were red and I said I had had dinner and bit into too many chillis and they said “we know you love chilli L, but take it easy, and here, have some water” and I smiled and had some water, and that was that.
And now my tissue has just fallen into my coffee and is swirling around in it and I’m staring at my cup, torn between laughing and crying some more.
And now I’m just laughing.
*
Enough said here.
Currently Playing: EITS – Look Into The Air
When we were kids, did we know those years would be the most carefree time of our lives? When we were seated atop trees, or hiding in the bushes or swinging as high as we could, did we know that there would be a time we’d never feel the same again?
Maybe that’s happening now. Maybe these years, the now, would be the best years of our lives. And we don’t know it because we’re too busy looking to the past wistfully or looking to the future hopefully, like the present is just some kind of preamble to a much better story, or an epilogue to the best it’ll ever get.
Maybe in the future we’d be looking back on now, remember how amazing it was, and wonder how on earth we let it slip by without paying attention.
Just a thought.
I’m pretty sure I framed it better on some hotel paper lying around somewhere in this room.
Enough said here.
“I wanted to hold happiness in reserve, like a bottle of champagne. I postponed it because I was afraid, because I overvalued it, and because I didn’t want to use it up, because what do you wish for then? That possibility, that I was intimidated by getting what I wanted, is the hardest one for me to consider, which might mean it is the likeliest.”
- Hannah Gavener
Enough said here.
A lot has happened since I last wrote,
and a lot hasn’t too.
It’s now 2012, and I’ve been meaning to post that obligatory New Year entry I usually do every year, but I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it yet. We’ll see if I can get around to doing it by the end of this month, at the very least.
Also, I’ve just come home after a great week in Indonesia Alhamdulillah. As always, the change of scene and crowd was refreshing. Sometimes you really need to get away from the familiar to gain some perspective.
I don’t know, I seem to be doing a lot of disappearing lately though.
There’s much to be said about 2011.
I’ll try and find the words soon Insya Allah.
Enough said here.
“You can’t control hearts.”
“Neither can you.”
“I never said I could.”
“So then who controls your heart?”
“Allah.”
And that answer came with no pause to weigh the question, no hesitance to consider the best reply. The word popped out abruptly with a certainty that was overwhelming.
To actually place your trust in God, doing it for real, unreserved, unqualified, unequivocal, with complete confidence and utter submission, without a shred of doubt (even if at times you feel like you’re not worthy of Him taking care of your affairs)…it takes a lot of weight off your shoulders. It’s frightening, yes, but it’s the only free-fall that won’t break you.
When you come to crossroads, people say: seek counsel from within, seek the fatwa of your heart.
But if you are unsure of what your heart says, unable to discern its messages to you, incapable of distinguishing between what it wants and what you want it to want, then ask Him to make it clear to you, and He will. It is easier to tell between good and bad, but a downright challenge when you come between good and good. That’s when you’ll need to know which path is better; which of the two to take and which of them to leave behind. With our kind of limited knowledge, we can only go with instinct and gut feelings with some logic and rationality, but it’s not enough. Sometimes even with all of the above, we don’t have an answer, so we ask the One who has authority over our hearts to plant within what we need to show us the right direction.
We don’t really have control over what we feel or what we don’t feel. It is what it is.
But we can certainly pray that whatever the heart wants is guided by what is best for it.
And Allah knows best.
Enough said here.
It’s been a week, and since then, I’ve fallen sick, welcomed my brother home from New Zealand and left my job (you what?, I hear some of you say to the latter), but more on that later.
Here is the weekend spent in JB, in pictures:
The convoy: 8 girls, 2 cars
Great day for a road trip! We don’t want a dirty windshield to mar the view.
Team Polkaswirl, led by a more chilled out pilot…
…as opposed to me. Yes, I assumed a 10-2 hand position throughout most of the drive. I become a bit more careful on the road with passengers – mana boleh drive gila-gila macam biasa, bawak anak orang kot. (My friend Awin is the only one who’s seen how I really drive, so I doubt she’ll attest to this “careful-with-passengers” statement)
Alhamdulillah, safe arrival! I knew that 10-2 hand position was a worth-it sacrifice!
The night before the big day: Kenduri kesyukuran at the bride’s place. Girl time!
Last photo with the then Miss! Photo isn’t too clear here.
The Big Day. And..simplicity. :)
Mun, surrounded by loved ones.
And they’re married!
With the happy couple.
One with the now Mrs.
The girls’ chit chat after the ‘akad.
“Take your pick, gentlemen!” I don’t know who said this, but we had a good laugh over it!
My time with Mazzy. I love this girl. We used to talk til 4am back in uni about everything, and now we’re reduced to quick snatches here and there. I don’t think many people know how similar we are in our thoughts. The conversation we had after the ‘akad still rings in my ears. I need to meet this girl proper, and soon.
And finally, the one with everybody in it.
I particularly love how Husna is trying to get Baby Safia to look at the camera here.
Photos above are courtesy of an array of friends. Haven’t done a photos-filled post in a while. This entry should be worth about 16, 000 words.
And a little more:
To my dear Mun (who turns 25 today and is on her honeymoon in Turkey), all that I’ve wanted to say to you, I’ve already said. I’m so happy for you, and even though you might never read this, I hope the people who do know how much happiness I felt on your wedding day. May Allah bless you and your husband, and your marriage and your faith in Him and your commitment to one another.
Enough said here.
Just got back from a weekend of driving to and from JB for a wedding of a dear friend, before heading off to Shah Alam for a cousin’s ceremony, and unfortunately having to miss another cousin’s wedding reception at Pulau Indah. 2 out of 3.
I’m beat, but I want to write this before I forget:
Early morning, clear blue skies, birds chirping, location: surau/masjid, doors and windows thrown open, light breeze keeping the temperature cool, sunlight streaming in, being surrounded by family and close friends sitting on the carpet with you..I think its perfect.
The beauty of something as simple as the above is just unparalleled. It isn’t magical or fairytale-like or anything of the sort, but better – beautiful and pure and unpretentious, masya Allah.
I’m glad I had the opportunity to witness this moment twice in my life so far, one up north and another down south, and both times moved me in a way that’s hard to describe.
There’s something about simplicity that makes you feel closer to God.
Enough said here.
“Reprise” by Marcelo Zarvos and Peter Vronsky is just splendid to listen to, especially when your side of the world is asleep.
**
Look at all of us, my, aren’t we loud?
And in all this chatter and noise, in between all this jumble of loud, discordant voices,
who is the one who hears you?
Who is the one who sees you?
Not the show you put on, but the person you try to bury.
Who stays behind, long after the loudness has subsided, and waits in silence until you slowly unfold?
**
Enough said here.
