An Orange and Black Dichotomy
When I am 21, it will have been ten years - a whole decade - since I first learned to walk.
Oh, certainly, I learnt to walk when I was one, but until I was eleven, I walked the same way other people do: saunter instead of stride, leg and hip moving leisurely, air coalescing instead of rushing past.
Then my father made me get up and taught me how to walk again. Maybe he’d begun to feel lazy, sitting sedentary in a banking office all day, or perhaps he always had it, the same way I think I always did. But we went to the jogging track behind our old house - you reach it by cutting through roads, HDB blocks, and past a small and slightly astonishingly positioned Chinese temple, with a canal moving sluggish brown water along - and walked along to the end, which, interestingly enough, comes out into the main road off which we’d later find our present house.
I wish I could say extraordinary things happened when I went walking, but nothing much occurred except my own imagination in my head, which, being eleven and still enamoured with any and all books, I had spades of. Once I encountered a Swastika graffiti, which confused me, because someone was either trying to be stupid and anti-establishment, or had copied the Hindu symbol incorrectly. Another time, I thought I saw a headless body, or a bodyless head, which seemed to float along until I deduced it was caused by a shirt or shorts that bled into the background. Mostly I spent my walking time sauntering along, dreaming about imaginary things and getting caught out by my father, who claimed I walked like a granny.
We moved house towards the end of the next year, and where we were was practically a forest sanctuary. Instead of the ECP facing us we were surrounded by trees, dogs, and occasionally maids with very small children. Walking was easy, here; all you had to do was climb the hill and get to more flats, or go up a winding path into Sunset Way, which also had more flats, and then a park, and then swanky looking landed property.
For a while I preferred to go out in the early evening, at about five-ish. On a sunny day, blue sky gentle with clouds, dry breezes, it was good to feel the Vitamin D bubbling up in my skin. On the other hand, though, around five-ish was when people returned from work, clogging the roads and making me feel more exposed than usual. And the regular joggers, too - most of them mid-thirties to old-fogey, taking their daily sprints (scary marathoners), jogs (health freaks), walks (people like me, who give exercise too benign a name - but try walking at my speed, is all I say) and saunters (aforementioned old fogeys, with similarly doddering hearts). I generally avoided their eyes, trying to look inconspicuous in baggy shirts and baggy shorts and a general pervading bagginess and myopia. Most of this purposeful exercise-like activity increases in frequency near the canal (possibly the same one as that near my old house - it seems to continue across the road, where the old jogging track stops). Here is where the delight of striding along in the sun diminishes, because in the daylight it is clearly obvious that the canal has taken it upon itself to resemble more closely a sewage system - brown unidentifiable muck, and indifferent greenery along the edges.
Walking along past twilight, however, takes on another dimension. Colours melt into shadows and along roads an orange-and-black dichotomy pervades, with the streetlights acting as cold sentinels. Light behind pushes your shadow out ahead of you so that you stride not once but many infinite times out into the street, sweeping beyond one streetlamp into another’s cycle. In this semi-dark you are not required to recognise any face that looms out of the dark at you, and it generally gives one the advantage if the bagginess returns in full force. The canal begins to give itself airs, and looks not so much an intestinal mess as a mysterious black murk, making me (if I feel particularly romantic that day) think wistfully of Venice (the canals! The numerous body-disposal methods! The gondolas, which may or may not be carrying dubious people and/or goods!). Lights in the prosaic HDB blocks nearby reflect off the canal’s opaque surface, which no doubt adds to its ego, and the scene is suitably interesting, or at least cloaked from the visibly mundane.
Another thing about walking in the dark is the houses. When I come back home, I take a right into the winding rabbit warren of streets within Sunset Way that contain a deal of interesting architecture. The first thing of note is the three-story front of glass on the right house to the right side of the road - so ostentatious I’ve stopped noticing it. Then on straight, and upwards into the road like an inverted bell curve, the one that leads you upward, shows you the happy downhill, and then gives you an uphill to struggle over. At the dip of the road is a house that my father and I saw once at night, brilliantly lit, with guests milling around, Great-Gatsby-style*, and a gorgeous swimming pool sparkling with lights. The next day I walked there before it darkened, and experienced what was possibly one of the greatest amazements of my life: the house was more or less a shabby shell, modeled after a tall-and-stilted sort of manner, where the rooms all appear elevated on long pillars. It might have been the aftermath of the party, but there was nothing spectacular at all about the way it stood around, awkwardly. But I remember the way it looked at night, which is why I often prefer walking after sunset. It’s the same with quite a number of the other houses - at night, walking along a two-toned road, alone, the light in the windows of the houses of either side is a reminder of both comfort and alienation. I will never know who these people are, what they do for a living, what they’re having for dinner, if they’ve got a dog. Being outside these circles of life is like humming Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence to yourself while walking - conspiratorial and excluding at the same time.
Today was particularly hard when I went running. It could have been the slight temp rise - I went about half an hour before sunset, and believe me, in Texas it makes a difference - or it could just be a fluke. But everything was harder: after the second stretch, I actually had to stop and catch my breath, and I detest stopping. Even walking at snail's pace is all right, but no giving up. I've had a thing with running actually - more like unrequited love. I always imagine how wonderful it will be when I'm flying along the pavements, running easily, but of course it's never like that. Every step is one more painful burn in the lungs, my legs move awkwardly and weigh lead, and my heart is about to give up.
But I think the feeling of satisfaction when I do finish what I've told myself I will is considerably. Pretty much worth it, actually. I already promised myself I'd start running when I turned 21, and at least that resolution seems to be working. Not that 21 was anything great - I suppose it was more a reminder that more than ever now I'm responsible for myself.
I would love to pretend to myself that I'm doing this because I need to prove to myself that I can, and that it's for my own self-esteem. But it's true that certain people have expressed a rather indulgent amusement at the fact that I walk - like a geriatric - and I know I can do better than that. Or I'd like to prove that I can, to some people as well as myself. And then there's always the fear that I can't run. But considering the fact that I'm here at all, after a hella lot of skill on some people's part, I should probably be glad I can manage this much. Then again, I refuse to limit myself. And I can be bloody stubborn, sometimes :)
Also, I have a theory: if you want to be able to do something, sometimes you have to pretend to be really good at it. Confidence is half the game, isn't it?
Oh, certainly, I learnt to walk when I was one, but until I was eleven, I walked the same way other people do: saunter instead of stride, leg and hip moving leisurely, air coalescing instead of rushing past.
Then my father made me get up and taught me how to walk again. Maybe he’d begun to feel lazy, sitting sedentary in a banking office all day, or perhaps he always had it, the same way I think I always did. But we went to the jogging track behind our old house - you reach it by cutting through roads, HDB blocks, and past a small and slightly astonishingly positioned Chinese temple, with a canal moving sluggish brown water along - and walked along to the end, which, interestingly enough, comes out into the main road off which we’d later find our present house.
I wish I could say extraordinary things happened when I went walking, but nothing much occurred except my own imagination in my head, which, being eleven and still enamoured with any and all books, I had spades of. Once I encountered a Swastika graffiti, which confused me, because someone was either trying to be stupid and anti-establishment, or had copied the Hindu symbol incorrectly. Another time, I thought I saw a headless body, or a bodyless head, which seemed to float along until I deduced it was caused by a shirt or shorts that bled into the background. Mostly I spent my walking time sauntering along, dreaming about imaginary things and getting caught out by my father, who claimed I walked like a granny.
We moved house towards the end of the next year, and where we were was practically a forest sanctuary. Instead of the ECP facing us we were surrounded by trees, dogs, and occasionally maids with very small children. Walking was easy, here; all you had to do was climb the hill and get to more flats, or go up a winding path into Sunset Way, which also had more flats, and then a park, and then swanky looking landed property.
For a while I preferred to go out in the early evening, at about five-ish. On a sunny day, blue sky gentle with clouds, dry breezes, it was good to feel the Vitamin D bubbling up in my skin. On the other hand, though, around five-ish was when people returned from work, clogging the roads and making me feel more exposed than usual. And the regular joggers, too - most of them mid-thirties to old-fogey, taking their daily sprints (scary marathoners), jogs (health freaks), walks (people like me, who give exercise too benign a name - but try walking at my speed, is all I say) and saunters (aforementioned old fogeys, with similarly doddering hearts). I generally avoided their eyes, trying to look inconspicuous in baggy shirts and baggy shorts and a general pervading bagginess and myopia. Most of this purposeful exercise-like activity increases in frequency near the canal (possibly the same one as that near my old house - it seems to continue across the road, where the old jogging track stops). Here is where the delight of striding along in the sun diminishes, because in the daylight it is clearly obvious that the canal has taken it upon itself to resemble more closely a sewage system - brown unidentifiable muck, and indifferent greenery along the edges.
Walking along past twilight, however, takes on another dimension. Colours melt into shadows and along roads an orange-and-black dichotomy pervades, with the streetlights acting as cold sentinels. Light behind pushes your shadow out ahead of you so that you stride not once but many infinite times out into the street, sweeping beyond one streetlamp into another’s cycle. In this semi-dark you are not required to recognise any face that looms out of the dark at you, and it generally gives one the advantage if the bagginess returns in full force. The canal begins to give itself airs, and looks not so much an intestinal mess as a mysterious black murk, making me (if I feel particularly romantic that day) think wistfully of Venice (the canals! The numerous body-disposal methods! The gondolas, which may or may not be carrying dubious people and/or goods!). Lights in the prosaic HDB blocks nearby reflect off the canal’s opaque surface, which no doubt adds to its ego, and the scene is suitably interesting, or at least cloaked from the visibly mundane.
Another thing about walking in the dark is the houses. When I come back home, I take a right into the winding rabbit warren of streets within Sunset Way that contain a deal of interesting architecture. The first thing of note is the three-story front of glass on the right house to the right side of the road - so ostentatious I’ve stopped noticing it. Then on straight, and upwards into the road like an inverted bell curve, the one that leads you upward, shows you the happy downhill, and then gives you an uphill to struggle over. At the dip of the road is a house that my father and I saw once at night, brilliantly lit, with guests milling around, Great-Gatsby-style*, and a gorgeous swimming pool sparkling with lights. The next day I walked there before it darkened, and experienced what was possibly one of the greatest amazements of my life: the house was more or less a shabby shell, modeled after a tall-and-stilted sort of manner, where the rooms all appear elevated on long pillars. It might have been the aftermath of the party, but there was nothing spectacular at all about the way it stood around, awkwardly. But I remember the way it looked at night, which is why I often prefer walking after sunset. It’s the same with quite a number of the other houses - at night, walking along a two-toned road, alone, the light in the windows of the houses of either side is a reminder of both comfort and alienation. I will never know who these people are, what they do for a living, what they’re having for dinner, if they’ve got a dog. Being outside these circles of life is like humming Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence to yourself while walking - conspiratorial and excluding at the same time.
Today was particularly hard when I went running. It could have been the slight temp rise - I went about half an hour before sunset, and believe me, in Texas it makes a difference - or it could just be a fluke. But everything was harder: after the second stretch, I actually had to stop and catch my breath, and I detest stopping. Even walking at snail's pace is all right, but no giving up. I've had a thing with running actually - more like unrequited love. I always imagine how wonderful it will be when I'm flying along the pavements, running easily, but of course it's never like that. Every step is one more painful burn in the lungs, my legs move awkwardly and weigh lead, and my heart is about to give up.
But I think the feeling of satisfaction when I do finish what I've told myself I will is considerably. Pretty much worth it, actually. I already promised myself I'd start running when I turned 21, and at least that resolution seems to be working. Not that 21 was anything great - I suppose it was more a reminder that more than ever now I'm responsible for myself.
I would love to pretend to myself that I'm doing this because I need to prove to myself that I can, and that it's for my own self-esteem. But it's true that certain people have expressed a rather indulgent amusement at the fact that I walk - like a geriatric - and I know I can do better than that. Or I'd like to prove that I can, to some people as well as myself. And then there's always the fear that I can't run. But considering the fact that I'm here at all, after a hella lot of skill on some people's part, I should probably be glad I can manage this much. Then again, I refuse to limit myself. And I can be bloody stubborn, sometimes :)
Also, I have a theory: if you want to be able to do something, sometimes you have to pretend to be really good at it. Confidence is half the game, isn't it?