Let Me See Beneath Your Beautiful
“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
― Maya Angelou
A few days ago, I boarded a flight from Bali to Singapore heavy-hearted. 48 hours spent laughing with friends, after-dark swims in the villa, styling our hair in top-knots, and unadulterated spa-ing and eating surrendered once again for life in the city.
We missed a sunset over The Rocks at Ayana because we were swimming in bathtubs full of bougainvillea (later, we’d sip our drinks in darkness and imagine how breathtaking the black seascape before us was). We missed Cinco de Mayo by a day, but made it up by gorging on the best Tex Mex on the island. We hopped out of the W to walk along the beach at night and have the most delicious drinks at Potatohead.
It was lavish, spontaneous. But importantly, full-hearted. There were frangipani in our villa which I’d collect every morning either off the ground or by gently shaking the tree (after asking for its permission). The tree’s branches hung precariously over the swimming pool.
The first thing I got home from the airport was sterilise a jar, wash the flowers, and start work on a new perfume with the very flowers I collected and carried by hand from Bali. It’s more of a gunky experiment than anything right now.
The staff at my local nursery refused to sell me more flowers to add to the perfume (“We sell trees, not flowers”), which I need to intensify the scent. Completely bummed, I began worrying and resorted to collecting some flowers that had fallen to the ground until while on the bus, I spotted… a frangipani tree. #thankyoujesus! Pink, not yellow flowers, but nonetheless beautiful. And on public property. You can tell where this is headed…
The rest of the arvo was spent in Little India, buying fresh Jasmine for another weekend project. I love the scent of jasmine, and theirs, freshly air-flown from India, carpeted the studio last night in this deliciously creamy, white flower scent. Similarly captivated by the nectar-like smell of mangoes ripening in the heat, I bought one for dessert.
After a wedding reception last night, I burst through the place, and there was a moment. Before switching on the light, you could tell there was an intoxicating scent snaking its way up from the drying table. A cloud of scent.
Jasmine flowers, including the tuberose purchased earlier in the day, were bottled then and there. Yes. Woman possessed.
My ears took delight in the mush sound as the flowers were muddled and bruised with the mortar & pestle. Sigh your last sigh, exhale your last breath.
So basically, the past week has seen me freebase my way through every flower that crossed my nose. Can’t say I don’t stop to smell the roses.
Past/Tense
I often pass the old house and wonder which organic cola-drinking/Nietzsche-reading scenesters moved in after me. Awesome suspension light fixtures, flower boxes on the window sills and Post-Its on the windows. They’re so hipster they don’t need curtains! Their light installations are straight from Salone del Mobile!
The creative history of that house can only be traced three generations back: the design firm that’s currently there (I discovered who they were after I realised they had FourSquared the location, naaaturally), myself who bashed in the walls with the laughter of my 4am houseguests, and the editor before me (with Hobbes, the cat).
Point is, I look into these windows awash with nostalgia, and see ghosts of us. Even in my current home. If you subscribe to the theory that our cells completely regenerate every 7 years, then the years between Body No. 3 and Body No. 4 have been the hardest.
Does anyone else wonder why we can’t just delete ugly parts of the past and save the rest? Why do bodies No. 3 and 4 need to carry that imprint? Revisionist history or denial?
GRATEFUL FOR… The Killers, Ayana Bali, Arnott’s BBQ Shapes, all my tomorrows.
Kindness, Above All
“People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”
― Kent M Keith
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”
― Kent M Keith
Singapore is a transient city. On the bus home tonight, I thought about all the friends that have come and gone since I’ve been here. Some can’t-live-withoutables now living elsewhere. Some returning ‘home’. Fast friends, brunch friends, party friends. As you never grew up together, they come to you in this moment, now, without a context in a weird, transplant-like cut + paste.
The thing with a place like this is that people bring with it their baggage. Old hopes, expectations. Singapore is like a Take Two for some. A reader once said there was a lot of heartbreak energy in this city. Like the rats that hopped aboard those merchant ships and caused The Plague, it makes sense that issues also travel. But this happens everywhere.
The interesting thing about making friends is sifting out common ground. Like… a mutual love for Lykke Li or swapping links to hilarious blogs & YouTubes then guffawing away infront of a computer (that’s Giselle & myself to a T). Then slowly learning their culture and what drives them. It’s only when someone remains a closed book that you’re forced to put in more effort to figure them out. Who knows what happened in their past. Who knows what they were before you, before moving here.
So we sat at that table, eating our meal, and attempted to put the puzzle pieces of Person X together. Hypotheses were bandied about. Maybe a past hurt. Maybe it’s defense mechanism. Maybe they’re guarded or their heart chakra’s severely shot to hell. Until I gave up and words fell out of my mouth: We’re just going to have to love them more. Voila. I must have been channeling my dad at that moment, but it’s true.
Even when answers are hard to come by, no matter how they’ve been treated by others in the past, they’re here with you now for a reason. Love them more.
