Sentimental Journey
Singapore has been - in a word - lovely. Think I've forgotten how wonderful it feels like to walk around in the sunshine. It has been very very peaceful just perambulating around the Yishun neighbourhood in my T-shirt and shorts, stopping for lunch at a kopi diam, and then continuing to drift onwards through the shambolic mini marts, random shops selling cartoony bolsters in plastic casings, and fruit stalls. Very peaceful! Sleeping in my old bed for the past few nights has also imparted a very warm, fuzzy, nostalgic sense of self, and it's very nice!!
I know I haven't been gone too long, and indeed, many things fall effortlessly into its familiar, timeless rhythms - but some things jump out at me unexpectedly, like how taking the MRT feels like being on a train through Toy Town, with the little colourful Lego HDB flats dotted among the broccoli-like sprouting tropical trees. Everything is SO GREEN!! Everything is SO CLEAN!! Everyone seems so WELL TAKEN CARE OF!! I pass by little pockets of spaces that I haven't visited in eons, like Ang Mo Kio station which I used to live quite close to when I was in primary school, and bus stops that I used to spend hours of my student life waiting at. Everything isn't even just the same - in fact, it's hyper real! It feels like someone created a diorama of Singapore, exactly the way I remembered, and yet, not exactly.
I suppose what's doubly strange is the fact that I'm now staying at my parent's new house at Yishun, which I've never really stayed at before. I was already living in Katong with Jacob when they'd moved here - so it's not as though I'm returning home and seamlessly sliding back into a me-shaped hole I left when we'd left in October 08. So many things to think about and process and feel, like a blind person running her hands over familiar objects!
In a strange way as well, Jacob now seems to represent my new life away from home. So weird to step outside of our relationship - the very real, very immediate, the very engine of my life for the past few years - and see that this is exactly the point at which we both diverge. This is where our previous lives and memories cleave apart, and then merge to come together to become what we have back in London. It's very strange to think about Jacob (the same Jacob who has been my conduit to the rest of the world, the same Jacob who basically IS my life and my love and knows me inside out and wants me around everyday of his own life) is also someone and something apart from here. Someone who also represents my "home", and yet remains apart from this "home". Jacob, who used to be a visitor in my world/reality - Jacob, now my portal to a new world/reality.
I like the non-urgent sense of being presented with a dichotomy of my past and present lives, my past and present anxieties and ambitions and blessings, and I like knowing I can slowly unpick and unravel this in my own time over the next two weeks, and maybe uncover some revalatory gem, or a new depth of contentment and understanding. Think I shall be steeped in a rather gentle and bittersweet reverie this whole trip.
Leaving for Bali tomorrow... can't wait!
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So far, I can tick these off my list:
- Crystal Jade porridge
- Tiong Bahru porridge
- Fish bee hoon soup
- Carrot cake
- Tui na massage at Marine Parade
My verdict so far has been "oh-kay lah". Nothing mindblowing YET. But then, am saving the biggies for when I get back from Bali. Think I'm going to reserve one day for just wandering around Katong and East Coast on my own, and hearing the slap of slippers of the pavement and hearing the wind through the Casurina trees and watching the ships out on the horizon and drinking copious amounts of frothy green apple juice. Think I'll also reserve a day to go back to Serangoon Garden where my old house used to be - a house which has now doubtlessly been torn down and rebuilt into something new and unrecognisable, but I still want to do the slow walk in from the main road through the cemetary. Creepily, I'm even toying with the idea of skulking around past Adrian's parents' house at Yio Chu Kang, simply to do that walk up the stairs from the main road and into the estate. All these old walks. All these old memories. I will be overwhelmed! I must take photographs!
It's nice to be home, godammit. - especially when you don't know when the next time will be.
