for this is love

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle in your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."- From When Harry Met Sally

Image Courtesy of |ash| on Flickr.

Sans

She kids herself by saying that the reason for this melancholy is the post holiday blues. But really she knows better.

The fact is this, He makes her smile. And being without him is like having an ice cream sundae without the cherry. You still enjoy the ice cream. You don’t need the cherry. It just tops it off nicely.

She has done this before, but somehow this time is just that little bit different and this difference is bemusing her no end.

Because the difference is that she knows they have a million tomorrows, but they don’t have today. It is the sweetest, most charming, realization that is making this, that much harder. The perfect oxymoron.

She was a little concerned a few weeks ago about how it would be spending day in day out with him. Their relationship was based on being apart. Prior to getting together they had in fact spent the equivalent of about half a day alone in each other’s company. She worried about the dynamics of it all. She wondered if being able to bounce off each other in company and being able to have the funniest, most heartfelt online chats would transcend.

She has since learnt since then that being with him was, from the very beginning, strangely natural and so very easy. She is obstinate, paranoid, and occasionally unreasonable. She is impatient, hot tempered and occasionally caustic. She is certainly far from perfect. It sparks, not because she thinks He’s perfect but rather because she likes that He isn’t. She likes his idiosyncrasies and that in these idiosyncrasies He is perfect, if only for her.

And this time it’s harder because of the promise He holds. Because this time the promise is tangible, but still just barely out of her reach. Because despite being more in control of the situation she can’t make tomorrow come any quicker. As Harry said "when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible".

So no, it’s not the post holiday blues. It’s just ice cream sans cherries.

Image courtesy of photomato on Flickr.

the language of the heart

She is English spoken this girl. When she needs to express herself she does it in English. She speaks Malay of course but does not have anywhere near the eloquence as she does in English.

But when she loves, the word closest to her heart is Sayang. Because for all her English speaking, she grew up with love in her household, and the language of that love was Malay.

There’s a certain sense of poetry, of sincerity in this language that she loves. Perhaps because it’s not language she uses to communicate her daily needs, Malay holds a certain romanticism for her.

Why is it that “tercari cari bayanganmu” means so much more than “looking for your shadow” which is what it translates to? The Malay conveys a certain hopelessness and despair which the English doesn’t.

Her head may speak in English, but her soul whispers in Malay.

And she would be lost if she never heard tender Malay words in her household.

Photo courtesy of Adibi on Flickr.

to be twitterpated

and you,
a windrose, a compass,
my direction, my description of the world.

-Ian Burgham

Most people who know her know of her silly preposterous chain of events that will ultimately lead to her wedding. These flights of fancy aside however she has been worrying lately that she has become rather jaded and desensitised in matters of the heart. She doesn't know if this is simply growing up or if she is just in some way... broken.

She used to fall helplessly, hopelessly, accidentally in love. It has been years since this last happened. She used to pray that she be made insensitive a la Jann Arden. Now that she might possibly be that, she misses what she was. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. Those lowest lows that made the highest highs possible.

She now thinks through it more. She's more afraid to take that blind leap of faith into the abyss. And because of this, when things go pear shaped, she doesn't weep and feel the raw emotions she used to. She just accepts that it wasn't working or wasn't going to work and moves on.

She feels... just not so acutely.

She still loves the sappy love songs. But ultimately the ones that reverberate in her soul are the ones that make no promises of everafter. She sees more romanticism in the ones that don't. The ones that see their human failings and hope that their personal brand of love is enough, despite those failings. The ones that are simply more honest. Like this one....

"And who am I to tell you that I would never let you down
That no-one else could love you half as much as I do now
And who am I to tell you I'll always catch you when you fall
Well I, I wouldn't be myself at all
I wouldn't be myself at all, at all"

Who Am I by Will Young

At the end of the day, for her it's the words. It's always been the words. It's not the Alexandrite ring, the daisies or the white marquee. She has moved from Frost to Donne. Maybe it's not desensitisation. Maybe it's just that now, more than ever, the honesty matters. It's the words...

Photo from the collection of Jeanine Payer.

the road to mandalay

Inexplicably, one of my favourite poems. Perhaps it's the imagery, perhaps it's the language, perhaps I don't care. It just is.

The Road to Mandalay
Rudyard Kipling

BY the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,
There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can’t you ’ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’-fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!
’Er petticoat was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green,
An’ ’er name was Supi-yaw-lat—jes’ the same as Theebaw’s Queen,
An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot,
An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot:
Bloomin’ idol made o’mud—
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd—
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ’er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

When the mist was on the rice-fields an’ the sun was droppin’ slow,
She’d git ’er little banjo an’ she’d sing “Kulla-lo-lo!”
With ’er arm upon my shoulder an’ ’er cheek agin’ my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an’ the hathis pilin’ teak.
Elephints a-pilin’ teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence ’ung that ’eavy you was ’arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

But that’s all shove be’ind me—long ago an’ fur away,
An’ there ain’t no ’busses runnin’ from the Bank to Mandalay;
An’ I’m learnin’ ’ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
“If you’ve ’eard the East a-callin’, you won’t never ’eed naught else.”
No! you won’t ’eed nothin’ else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An’ the sunshine an’ the palm-trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay . . .

I am sick o’ wastin’ leather on these gritty pavin’-stones,
An’ the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho’ I walks with fifty ’ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An’ they talks a lot o’ lovin’, but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an’ grubby ’and—
Law! wot do they understand?
I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments an’ a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin’, an’ it’s there that I would be—
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’-fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!