Sometimes I was afraid to touch him,
Afraid my hand would go right through him.
But he was alive in history,
made more painful by love.
I prayed to the sky to lift our father’s head,
To deliver him from memory.
I wish he could lie down
in music he knew intimately, and become
sound, his brain flooded my melody so powerful
it would stretch molecules, dismantle thought.
…
The truth is why words fail.
We can only reveal by outline,
By circling absence.
But that’s why language
can remember truth when it’s not spoken.
Words in us that defeat,
that wait, even when their spell seems
wasted;
even while silence
accumulates to fate.
Prayer is the effort wresting words
not from silence,
but from the noise of other words.
To penetrate heaven, we must reach
what breaks in us.
The image haunts me:
the double swaying
of prayers on the trains.
The Gentle Rain
Associated with Tony Bennet
(Matt Dubey/Luiz Bonfë)
We both are lost and alone in the world,
Walk with me in the gentle rain.
Don’t be afraid; I’ve a hand for your hand,
And I will be your love for a while.
I feel your tears as they fall on my cheek,
They are warm in the gentle rain.
Don’t be afraid; I’ve a hand for your hand,
And our love will be sweet, will be sad,
Very sweet like the gentle rain, like the gentle rain,
Like the gentle rain, gentle rain, gentle rain, gentle rain
I can feel again. That sudden gush of excitement, nervousness, elation and happiness all mixed into a potion so potent once poured out you think you’d never ever be able to feel it again. I can feel again.
Like loons we travel underwater
great distances, to surface next to each other.
We burst up from water to air
to drift beside the serrated horizon of firs.
No matter where you are
or who you’re near,
we come up for air together.
No matter my pace or distance,
it’s you I surface to.
-excerpted from Sublimation, a poem by Anne Michaels
There’s a beautiful story of Baucis and Philemon in Metamorphoses, two elderly couples whose only request to the gods is for them to die at the same time. They’ve witness the power of the gods, who transformed a humble shack into a grandiose palace, yet they ask only for each other.
I don’t mean to sound contrived, cliche or plain tacky, but I am truly moved by the relationship that Mr and Mrs Lee Kuan Yew share. I can’t help but draw the link to the story of Baucis and Philemon.
The reports so far on the late Madam Kwa Geok Choo (her maiden name) have been luminous. Even the usually welcomed alternative voice sounds crass and ill-timed at this moment if it’s dissenting and questioning. Beyond politics, Madam Kwa offers a softer, human side to Mr Lee. A simulacrum (LKY, MM Lee, Lee Kuan Yew) previous to her passing was he to me, but now I feel the need to refer to him with the politer “mister”.
Still we can’t deny that this is suddenly a little epiphany to all Singaporeans, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, like his wife, will pass one day. That perhaps is the sudden sobriety that has hit our nation…or at least the media. Needless to say that the scripted eulogies have been curated thoroughly by the press office in charge…but how we mourn our leaders, how we revere them, tells of the expectations of our society. That surely can’t be curated? I wonder how contemporary Singaporean women might feel about Mrs Lee being revered as the epitome of what the Singaporean woman would be – strong, beacon of the household, happy to stay out of the limelight in support of her husband.
Change and transformation will be underway. Bu for now, I’ll just bear witness to this lesson of experienced and kept love…and hope I can one day experience the same.
2 to 3 firm ripe plums, pitted and sliced into 1-inch wedges
½ cup butter
3 eggs
½ cup milk
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Juice of one lemon (3 tablespoons)
Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. In a 10-inch skillet heat half the butter over medium-high heat until melted. Add the plums and cook until softened and golden brown, about five minutes. Keep warm.
In a large bowl whisk together eggs, milk, flour, vanilla, and salt until well combined. Pour over plum mixture in skillet. Place skillet in the preheated oven and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until puffed and browned. Remove from oven.
Melt the remainder of the butter. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Pour the melted butter over the pancake and then sprinkle with the brown-sugar mixture. Return to oven and bake 5 minutes more or until sugar has caramelized. Remove from oven and drizzle lemon juice over top. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.
Time has gone by really quickly (seems to be a mantra for me but I digress). We’ve been rehearsing for Metamorphoses for a while now, I suppose if you count the time when we started with the first script read to now, it would be about 6 months. I remember cuz it was in March, in the Substation
Metamorphoses is about change to me. Well at this moment at least. It’s really quite a layered, paradoxical piece about love, order out of chaos, chaos out of order, desire out of passion, passion out of death. It’s truly a magnificent piece as a whole. I’m not exactly sure how it will be received, but the feedback so far from our marketing efforts have been…so chim ah? I suppose if we have to boil it down to one thing that’s easily palatable and understandable, I wouldn’t know which poison I’d choose.
The play opens with an invocation to the gods to “change me” to experience an epiphany beyond ourselves. That perhaps is my own frame of reference, but those words can’t ring truer for me these days. I admit I’m feeling a bit like I’m back to square one ever since I moved back from LA. I daren’t nor think I am desperate enough to ask to metamorphose but I suppose like the half man half horse birth symbol I’ve been assigned to…I sometimes feel I have one hoof in and one leg out.
I’ve been insanely addicted to this song. Found it through a cover by the very uber cool Pomplamoose:
I suppose it’s a sign that the healing has progressed when songs begin to strike a chord.
I came across Helen Fischer while doing research for an article. She’s an anthropologist specializing in the study of love. She’s built quite a name for herself: a published expert in peer reviewed journals on the subject, contributes to O Magazine, a speaker at TED, the chief scientific advisor for Chemistry.com (a dating website).
I wonder what it’s like to study, to pick apart such a seemingly undefinable emotion. I brought her research up over a date, about how love is really just a rush of dopamine. I got a stare of disbelief tinged with slight disgust, so I quickly added, “but love is more than that right?”
In her TED talk, Fischer spoke of how she hypothesizes that our sex drive and love drive are controlled by two separate neuro-hormonal systems. And that evolutionary speaking, we’re suppose to be okay with having multiple partners.
If I ever get the chance to have dinner Fischer, I would ask her, sincerely and with earnestness, to tell me of her own story of love.
How do you look at your first crush now?
Like Neo in Matrix, do you only see a rush of neurotransmitters whenever you are attracted to someone?
When you’re cuddling, what happens?
Do you rationalize away the feeling of intimacy, perhaps to protect yourself?
Do you still fall in love?
If she has a partner, I will ask him/her:
How do you want to be loved? How would you describe the way in which Helen loves you?
Do you ever question if you’re just a wave of neurotransmitters?
What is love to you? Do you love Helen?
What is it like to study such a magnificent feeling in such a cerebral way, which inevitably simplifies?
