chiLdLikE wiSdOm

Grown-ups love figures. When you talk to them about a new friend, they never ask questions about essential matters. They never say to you: what does his voice sound like? what games does he prefer? Does he collect butterflies?

They ask you: How old is he? how many brothers does he have? How much does he weigH? how much money does his father earn?' It is only then that they feel they know him. If you were to mention to grown-ups: 'I've seen a beautiful house built with pink bricks, with geraniums on the windowsills and doves on the roof..' they would not be able to imagine such a house. You would have to say to them" 'I saw a house worth a hundred thousand pounds.'

Then they would exclaim: 'Oh! how lovely'

-excerpt from "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

pAst mY beD tiME..

In most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

William James

dear jess

This is probably not the best time to be writing to you. I can see that there are bags beneath my eyes, which I don’t usually get owing to my long love for the bed. As I sip my coffee at 4.02 am, threw up 3 hours ago from too much coughing and waiting for my body to wake up as it is usually is at its peak about now, I realize why I love being awake at this time.

The rest of the world; in my part of the world anyways, is dead.

No one is in your way, no one is rushing to become better than you and just for a while, that one moment, everyone is in a land of subconscious that they have forgotten or repressed in order to become part of the norm.

One more yawn, one more sip.

There’s the girl who’s gone to another country for six months yet spent the rest of her life here that says give her time before she can speak ‘malaysian English’ again. There’s the other girl that will only cook spaghetti that way because she always has been.

Growing older does not equate to becoming wiser. On the other hand it means that I will be more stubborn, more convinced that iam wise and right and who iam at 27 (I must say 27 before its too late, too soon..) will be who iam at 33, amplified and unchangeable. It’s a fact of life. Human beings eventually grow up to be donkeys. As stubborn as hell.

I cant stand it. People who’ve left this country and come back speaking like they aren’t Malaysian’s. Perhaps they need to express their deep longings of learning and experiencing. And worse still I cant stand people who don’t want to learn something new.

The scary part is that one day I wont be able to stand myself and by that time it’ll be too late.

yours creeping out of her 20's,

jess

iN pReParAtiOn Of mE

dear jess,

yesterday I met an interesting “boy” who’s backpacked across Europe for 8 & a half months and china for a year! Ironically he’s a sarawakian like my travel guru who originally inspired me to travel for good and even more so, when I asked him which is his favourite western European country? He says, Spain and nicely adds, you’ll love it “siesta and fiesta”!

the boy I dunno, knows me.

its weird. I think, at the risk of sounding like an idiot I’ve found a fellow bohemian cum traveler cum psychopath who. Once again at the risk of sounding like an idiot, i could tell from just looking in his eyes that he is waiting and wanting. Waiting for that moment when he decides to leave again, or to change his life drastically.

silent Desperation. The term made famous by our lovely neighbours at desperate housewives.

lives of those that will not be succumbed to security and constant income. The lives of those that will not allow the high paying cheque guarantee the trip for weeks to New York and come back to a continuous flow of pay cheque’s, double degree’s, white shirt and tie’s, or the nagging of family that they are doing the right thing.

the lives of those who travel and not tour. The ones that come back with more than just stories of tour guides and cabbies on what the locals were like. The ones that left the accountant job to go travel.

and so. Apparently just looking into the eyes of a finance graduate accountant who left his job in the US of A to travel for that period of time can tell me that my silent desperation is nothing but silent.

it’s inflamed, angry and waiting to come out. But no. I will wait. For that will be the essence of my passion that will bring much fulfillment. I will wait for when the west winds flies past me and takes me away. For I’m not one that will allow myself to be in a high paying job and let that piece of paper forget what my eyes so strongly tells me.

my desperation will always be shadowed by my fear, that one day, someone will look into my eyes and convince me that I should be in that job and that I shouldn’t upset my parents by my youthful idiocy.

that one day I will be overcome by the paper.

but for now somebody else’s silent desperation helps me to remain that bohemian cum traveler cum psychopath wannabe idiot I’d like to think I was born to be.

once a dreamer, always a dreamer,
jess

mY litTLe "ChE"

dear jess,

do you know, how sometimes some dreams are so good that you dare not realise those dreams? like a passion you've waited for 2 years and another 2 and when the time comes to grasp it you'd rather not? Not because you're afraid, or perhaps a little, but maybe because you're afraid that your dream would actually come true. Or worse still, it remained so much sweeter when you were dreaming.

when you waited for your first kiss and when it happens you only remember how you forgot what its like. or when you promised to see someone again that when the time arrives you'd rather not? Or that you want the job, but when its finally here, you're afraid to fail.

Its true. We are our hardest critiques. In life and in love.

I couldnt live with myself if i wasn't good at what i do. If i was mediocre. And yet being just that is what i want sometimes. When i fail and suck, i hide. Nobody knows if they're positively the best at what they do, and sometimes its better if they didnt.

The time has almost come. Like a little girl risking everyone laughing at her for the hope of just a glimpse of what could've been, for the moment when looking into that light coloured eyes will bring back flashing memories, for the moment of reality, of realisation that maybe, just maybe letting it remain a sweet, sweet, dream was the best decision i should have made.

some dreams were meant to remain just that,

jess

ciAo bAmbiNA

dear jess.

Its the Sabbath, well sorta. I should be in bed early but I’m here gulping saliva. Sitting down pondering on the situation I’m considering of throwing myself into.

I’m about to soak head, feet, eyebrow and just about everything in a situation that might just bring me remorse and a lot of sadness. So I sit here and anticipate, consider, think and everything else to little avail.

How do you stop everything you’re doing, go on a plane, pack, pay, leave and go see someone you haven’t in the last half a year, without having pre-expectations and wants to be filled?

Gulp.

And then there’s the other option of not going, and never knowing what a blast or a crap time I might’ve had.

So much for rubbishy theories of no expectations.

I got to have a story to tell the nephew and grandnephew's, right? Catch me when I fall. Please…

yours sighing,
jess

tAkiNG thE tRaSh oUT!

Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them… life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

dear jess,

Anger makes me progress. Yes, others get into gang fights and road rage. I? progress only with strong emotions. Fortunately and unfortunately. Today. Today was the final straw. I hope.

One thing sparks another. Its time to throw all the trash out of my life. Or at least attempt to. The bad habits, the inferiority complex, the excuses and most importantly the people I’ve been patient with for far too long, the ones that prioritize movies and hommies above my company.


As I sat there and listened to him tell me stories of how his experiences with directors, actors, scripts and the lot, my life went into flashback mode of a time when I was there and yet wasn’t. A time when I wanted to tell others the same stories but I didn’t. the times when I should’ve spoken out, but didn’t.

The greg’s, john’s and adam’s in my life have got to go. My security, my space, my cling’s of what coincidently have been given male names.

Anyone’s got a big bag to spare?

yours sneezing,

jess

iNcOGniTo

dear jess,

My favourite moments swinging on the hammock and talking about dogs that we think are evil to mutual friends. Friendship is a funny thing. It’s a marriage without the sex.

Swing right.

She tells me that someone says I’ve changed.

Swing left.

I laugh thinking back, just in case I have without realizing it.

Swing right.

Apparently I’ve become more sarcastic.

Swing left.

Laugh in the midst of swinging.

Swing right.

Feeling rather giddy now.. maybe I should stop swinging.

That’s when it hits me. The balcony that stops my swing. And.. me.

We only know the people we know, because that is exactly how we want to know them as. Let me repeat. We make our friends become who we want them to be and not who they really are.

We hide the fact that we are party animals in front of the friend that would judge us for it, we become less sarcastic to people who hate us for it. We become lesser of ourselves, sometimes to people we are closest to.

And then, when we finally meet someone who lets us be ourselves; our friends say we’ve changed. In actuality, we are just revealing who we really are.

The legacy of hypocrisy brings itself to another level.

The real me?
jess

eNgLish LesSoN #101

we interrupt the flow of the letter writting to bring you a collection of words, terms that are inconsistent with the english language, unique and fun. may or may not be included in future letters... remember you heard it here first :)

-dictionary of jessense (jessica's nonsense)-

look left syndrome

generously contributed by a certain serani boy.

1.
a. to employ ones sight in the given direction.
b. to search

2.
a a phrase to describe a temporary syndrome suffered by girlfriends only when they are in the passenger seat of cars belonging or being driven by their boyfriends, causing them only to be able to look left, no matter how boring the scenery is. Caused by something the boyfriends did or did not do, the syndrome will only disappear after being coaxed succesfully. Syndrome can last as long as it takes.

ps. note to boys - dont ask her whether the scenery is nice.

Usage Sample: Wei see the couple there? look left syndrome!

Usage Note: only funny to her when it isnt her.

ViSiTaTioN hOUrS bEgiNs nOw..

Dear jess,

This is where confusion, anger and annoyance become one. If someone were to say to me that im a person who seeks attention, (all the time that is) and for one second id let myself believe that that is true, this will be an exception ill keep in mind. So apparently I’m sick. And someone, apparently, wants to visit me. Now with a normal person this wouldn’t bother them the least, with an attention seeker, she’d jump at the opportunity, but with me? Annoyance, annoyance, annoyance.

My sweet visitor wannabe, whom I’m sure has the best interest in heart (and I say this without sarcasm-yet) text messages my mother to say ‘I hear jess is sick, can we (who’s we?) visit her?

What’s wrong with a sweet urge like that? I’m tempted to call it blind hypocrisy, im sure God is going to punish me. She does not message me to ask me how I am, but my mother? And she wants to visit me???? Personally, im still sure she meant well, and yet im still left annoyed.

So there it is, jess’s theory three-thousand-and-twenty-two. Blind Hypocrisy- the ability to be a hypocrite, without knowing it.. This theory brings to memory people who are accustomed to wanting to be nice that its simply done out of habit, duty..

Now, there’s only one other person who knows im sick, a certain boy I was and is and forever will try to avoid from seeing, being or even remotely having to converse with. My theory (three-thousand-and-twenty-three) is that he put her up to this visitation nonsense perhaps?

Which brings me back to theory three-thousand-and-twenty-two. I want to avoid annoying boy. Boy wants to go have drink. Once im better and regained my voice, and lacking in excuses from seeing him do I :-

a) become theory three-thousand-and-twenty-two and fake niceness? Have tea, be polite, and let him think he is charming hoping he’ll never bother me again?
b) avoid him and use all the excuses I can come up with till it’s a dead end?
c) be honest. Tell him I’m not comfortable with him, and admittedly we’re not friends anymore, so just leave me alone?

You see, this is the problem with being Asian, for one, and being an Asian Christian, secondly. We fake niceness, because we’re suppose to be. And we punish honesty, because that’s ‘not nice’.

Do I have the guts to tell him to bugger off? Hell no. im half Chinese. The other half of me? That’s the culture that dodges everything, especially appointments...

*pauses to breath*

bugger off, oops I mean, *smiles* I appreciated you having read this…

sugar, spice and everything nice,
…….

i CaN gEt nO sAtiSfAcTIoN!

dear jess,

I sit in the hot sun; you’d think the rain immediately after CNY would continue, and see the poslaju man drive past, eating a goreng ketiak, I mean goreng something in his hand as he does his rounds. It hits you that feeling. That smell. That insanely unexplainable feeling of being normal.

The same smell that smells like Chinese new year or hari raya. The same one that makes you feel that its ok and good to just be me. With the exception that all I smell now is phlegm and that even yawning hurts my infected throat right now, of course.

Contentment seems to be a sin. If you’re poor, you need to upgrade your lifestyle, if you haven’t traveled, you need to do so a.s.a.p, and if you haven’t gotten married by 30 god forbid you be found to be happy.

My passion to not be me sounds pretty idiotic at times. I’m sure I’ve had moments of contentment. Having breakfast by myself in khao san road, sitting in the middle of the national theater in Bangkok watching old ladies chatter gleefully, as I later sit in a 2 hour play without understanding a single thing, sitting in a hammock on my cousin’s balcony discussing possible business ventures..

And then there’s here, in the car, watching this man eating his goreng whatever. As if in slow mo, I think there are people with a thousand lives worse than mine, and all I can think about is where I should flee off to next or what form of escapism can last me the longest and make me sound the noblest.

That doesn’t stop me from being discontented. As long as I’m human and worse still, as long as I’m me, ill always be discontented and contented with only but a fleeing seconds of contentment as unexplainable as walking down the stairs and smelling Chinese new year.

I can’t explain it, but I can smell it. My feeling of contentment has a smell! How much more original or psychotic can one get? Time to hit the hay, heal myself and smell again!


Sniffling off,
jess

my latest favourite shirt :P