Chapter 1

Have you ever read 'Hopscotch', by Julio Cortazar? I picked it up from the library a few years ago after a recommendation from a lecturer who specialized in Latin America. It is a curiously structured book that you can choose to read conventionally (Introduction is followed by chapter 1 is followed by chapter 2 and so on until you get to chapter 155) or unconventionally (chapter 1 is followed by chapter 37 is followed by chapter 102 is followed by chapter 9 until you finish all of them - there is a line at the end of each chapter suggesting which page to turn to next, not the one which follows numerically). It is a brilliant idea, to let the reader assemble the story as s/he will, and to have it fit at the same time is masterful. I digress.

Monday.
I watched as many movies as I could stomach on the plane, as I always did. Put on my face in the cramped, slightly disgusting airplane bathroom because I refuse to look a mess getting off. The queue through immigration is unusually long, and slow. Collect baggage. Queue again to get through customs with my white card and passport in hand. The official checking the ticked boxes on the card waves me through and for the first time, after countless struggles with getting heavy bags onto the x-ray machines for 4 years, I get a free pass.

He was waiting in the arrivals hall. No surprises there. Those came later. The usual exchange of pleasantries follows, how long have you been here, sorry to keep you waiting, work-talk, accept compliment, weather-talk. Kingsford Smith has a new addition to its infrastructure - a multi-storey travelator in the carpark. It is on the travelator that he surprises me first, although I can't say that I wasn't half-expecting it. Oh the uncertainty, always the uncertainty! I think that's what gives me, us both, the rush. That potent mixture of fear, anticipation, uncertainty, defiance.

There was a light drizzle that night. The roads from the airport to my place were the same as I remembered, semi-familiar landscapes.

Later, I found myself in a room that had been mine but now wasn't. Almost everything seemed the same - the same furniture, the same people (at least the two who were around), the absolute silence of the apartment. It was a strange feeling, being somewhere that had been a home. Another curious thing was the lack of emotion I felt. I was sorry for him and would have done anything to help, but not angry or hurt or any of the hundred things someone in that situation could have been. How complicated human relationships get and how much they can change with time. But then, this was never a solid matter to begin with.

Introduction

I'm back

I know I was only there for 12 days, but those 12 days seem both like a lifetime and a blink of an eye. Where to begin?

To begin with, 12 days was too short. In between meeting up with friends and shuttling the family around, I didn't get half of what I'd wanted to do done. Despite my best efforts, I missed out on going to the beaches (too cold), seeing the Botanic Gardens properly (too big), taking the ferry from circular quay to anywhere, taking the train anywhere, digging through the library for books (definitely not enough time. and it's being rearranged. again.), and taking a full walk through uni. In retrospect, I would have needed a month to be even remotely satisfied.

I did however manage to make it to the Opera Bar after dark, to the art gallery for a final(?) visit, to David Jones food hall (where I found my sister looking staggered by the sheer amount and variety of food available - "I need help... can we stay here all day?"), to the fish market for seafood and the best oyster I've had (ever) to catch up with Duncan over coffee (and listen to him complain about his 1st and 2nd year students. and to be amazed once again at how much he has achieved by 30), to walk along the racecourse from my old flat to uni on a beautiful, sunny-sweet day (after a not-quite-dark-but-far-from-bright-night), and, most importantly, to laugh, listen, reminisce.
I also graduated (officially), which was quite fun.

A lecturer once told me not use a sentence as a paragraph. He was right. But this isn't an essay or an article.

Does that count as a start? I certainly hope so.

in an anonymous cafe

dear family at the next table,
nothing says illbreeding quite like staring. i hope you take this into account while raising your toddler because you have clearly missed the boat with your teenagers.
love,
jeen

random but not

Somewhere in my head space, there is a gallery of sorts where I have stored the most important, most intense, most unforgettable moments in my life. They aren't memories of events, but brief moments in time - maybe a second or five, rarely more. Most of them are solitary, few have other people around, and even less have other people occupying more than incidental positions.

One or two are chance sightings of something unexpected and beautiful. I remember catching a glimpse of the opera house with the evening light glinting off it while I was on the train pulling into circular quay station. I happened to look up for the briefest second and was struck by the sight. That was one of the things that made me love Sydney.

There are a few that I remember and keep deliberately for the sense of peace and fulfillment I felt then. When I was backpacking through Vietnam and Cambodia a few years ago, we stopped in the mountains for a night or two. I remember a breakfast of the sweetest mangoes I have ever eaten, purchased the day before from a street vendor and chilled in the mini-bar overnight, and hot, strong, Vietnamese coffee at a tiny cafe/house. I could want for nothing more.

There are a couple of moments that maybe I would forget if I could but cannot because they are ones which make my heart ache for what might have been but was not.

And then there are those that are so intense, the first time they arise unbidden, I shudder involuntarily. During a lag in the conversation, or a quiet moment, the memory of these moments almost consumes me and transport me away to a different place and time.

If I were to try and count them, the sum of these moments might number less than my fingers. I don't know because I cannot count them - I get confused as to which are and which aren't - but I suspect that they are that few and far in between. It's odd, but most if not all of them happened elsewhere. Maybe life here is too familiar for anything to hold that much significance for me. Or maybe I'm not meant to live in my birth country.
I should just be a nomad.

sydney shopping list

strictly food-related, this one

harissa
truffle paste
olives
dark chocolate
tahini (if its cheaper there)
maldon salt or murray river salt
jams! strawberry and champagne, sour cherry, plum

crunch

is the sound stupidly healthy, borderline tasteless pretzel crisps make as I try to keep from falling asleep at my laptop