it stung like a violent wind, that our memories depend, on a faulty camera in our minds / the last moments

i came to say goodbye to you. as with most other goodbyes, i pray it isn't, it wasn't, the last. chatter steadily filled the room as more people entered. our conversation dissolved into theirs. they were asking me all these questions and i was giving them all these answers, but my gaze was on yours. yours was on things not seen, but most definitely felt. a tear broke free from your right eye and poetically traversed down the lines on your face. you summoned what little strength you had then and uttered the next few words slowly and purposefully.

"shireen. i feel very sad. you are leaving." i wiped your tear away, that precious tear, and told you that i would come back and that i would see you again.

"mmm," your standard reply as you signalled your acknowledgment. it took too much for you to talk these days, i treasured every word you spoke. i treasure every word you speak now.

the truth is, we both didn't know whether that was the truth. the truth is, my heart was breaking through my reassuring smiles. i don't know who i was trying to reassure.

but you let me go anyway and we promised to always say a prayer for each other. i gave you a hug and kissed you. it was time to leave, there were bags to pack and a plane to catch.

i replay this scene over and over in my head now, fiercely clinging onto, protecting, preserving, every moment we shared. time plays tricks on us and memories always seem to blur into one, but i resolve to never forget you.

i walked into a beautiful church the other day. i remembered your words. "light a candle for me whenever you enter a church." the grandeur of the church and the simple candle set alight, it couldn't have been more fitting. our insignificance is, in reality, surrounded by and drenched in divinity. a simple prayer for a beloved grandmother wafted into heaven then. three days later, they tell me you're unconscious and haven't stirred since. yet, there's a quiet calm because i know that heaven is with you in that silence.

but one thing is true and this is for certain. i love you, amama. thank you for everything. you couldn't have been more perfect and you did good. you did great.

i pray these words will somehow reach you. i pray that God preserves your beautiful heart, clothing it with peace and his glorious love, even as your life here slowly fades.

again, i love you. i love you. thank you.

strength

i've learnt that feelings, no matter how intense, fade.

you, who made me think the world of you until i shrunk into myself. if i let the feelings pass on by, i will finally see you for who you are, and me, for who i am.

you, who disarmed me with your squinty eyes and broad, child-like smile till it was the only thing i saw when i closed my eyes. if i let these feelings pass on by, perhaps i will see that you are still a boy.

three seasons in a day today. the sudden bout of winter hail, gusts of autumn wind, the spring-like evergreen trees that line my street. summer sun, come warm these bones.

i get stronger everyday. i will.

rock and water

it really blows, sitting here and waiting for you. sometimes, i wish i had no one to wait for. my love comes in glorious waves, ready to drench and overwhelm. it slams straight into the hardest wall you've ever seen and scatters into a million little droplets. broken, and the droplets are all mixed up. slowly, i ebb away and retreat into the vast expanse of insignificant little molecules. and as time goes by, i start to feel brave again. i think of what is waiting for me at shore. i gather strength, courage. the waves begin to crescendo, and with confidence, i head to shore to seek you and drench you with my love. and you're not there. just the hardest wall i'll ever meet. i become a million little droplets again and dissolve into myself. again.

perhaps you were never really there to begin with. my head hurts.

lessons from running 

the truth is, sometimes, it is best not to think of the finish line, especially when you're running a 21.1km race and you're at the 14.23948km point and everything in you and of you is screaming, "what the hell am i doing here? i don't think i really need this. i could be somewhere else, having a snooze, watching tv, having a nice sunday brunch,  yadda yadda yadda..."

because in all honesty, at that point, sometimes the weariness, inertia and sense of defeat and discouragement you feel outweighs just about every promise of glory, joy, admiration and all that jazz.

rather, at that point, i have found that the best thing to do is to just, keep going, keep running, keep breathing. don't think about the finish line (it will feel unreachable then). don't think about the people around you running faster or slower than you. don't think about how unglamorous you look right then running lopsidedly, hair all over your sympathy-inducing face, your t-shirt drenched from inefficiently hydrating yourself at one of the water points earlier. don't think about who was not there for you. don't think about what you should do with your whole life after this. don't think. about anything else but that moment. just keep running. you already sorted out why you were doing this over and over again before, it's not the time to do that now.  now is the time to just remember why, even if it sounds like nonsense, and run.

and before you know it, you'll be 2km away, and then 1, then 0.00032, and then 0.

i'm reaching the middle of my whole psychology honours year here in australia. i know there have been, and there are going to be way more challenging...things besides this that i will go through in my insignificant existence here. but right now, i'm a little tired, a little overwhelmed, and although i'm kind of going it alone, i'm somehow doing fine.

because at times like these, running taught me that all you can do is to just keep running despite of it all, at moments of disillusionment, weariness, jadedness and doubt, during the course of your mission and the fulfilment of your dreams.

ships are launching from my chest

i need to write again, i need to sing, i need my voice to fly into an open space and resonate with the cries of my heart! i need my keyboard, i need to be astounded by the flurry of notes swimming inside, waiting to break through the surface to show me the immensity of my spirit. i need to break free from your hold on me, i'm so far away and yet i'm not free. i will be. i will be. i....

my body, my wonderland

there is something therapeutic about physically grooming yourself. i imagine this akin to the benefits of gardening. the pruning is never complete, new weeds grow while you are plucking out old weeds, flowers fall to the ground as new seeds are being planted, a part of your white fence is browned and greyed by dust and rain as you touch up paint on some other parts.

i never really bothered about such things before, because i was vain about being vain perhaps? and also because i felt better use could be made of our limited time in this meagre existence. but as i grew older, as i am growing older,

as i grow older,

i start to take notice of my body more. what are these eyes that make up my vision? and look at these nails that cover the flesh on the tips of my fingers. oh, what is this blue black doing there? and the nail that fell off two months ago, it's growing, it's growing! and the little hairs on my skin, how they too grow (the weeds of my physical existence), i use my nifty lawnmover to eliminate them. and there they are, growing again. these lips, the softness and smoothness of them as they receive the conditioning they need from hydration. the cracked desert floors they resemble as they are abandoned to thirst. the war between fats and muscles and cellulite, the waist that expands or contracts depending on how much waste i welcome or expel.

my body is so alive, so strong and resilient, self-replenishing, self-regenerating. but yet, so fragile and sensitive to change. the pain in my left, second toe, did i injure a nerve while unknowingly kicking it into a...i wouldn't know, i was unknowing at the time. dark rings under my eyes, where the skin is so thin, because i spend hours staring at the computer or sleeping too little or dreaming with my eyes closed for too long. the tattoo on my right inner wrist that has become part of this body, how my body accommodates this change and the butterfly becomes a part of me.

i begin to enjoy this process of (rather tedious and never-ending) grooming, for now at least, for different reasons for sure. not so much because i desire to be desired, which i do of course (don't you?). but more so because, it allows me to take time to appreciate the details of my body, my gift. and the process of transforming, is somewhat liberating. as colour gets splashed on nails adding excitement to footsteps, as hair (weeds) get pulled off from their roots revealing the ebony of my skin, as hair (tendrils) gets combed or clipped into place, falling where they will, curling where they must, this body, my canvas, becomes my masterpiece, over and over again. what a strange and wonderful revelation.

i thank God for this body, his original masterpiece, and i make a little pact with Him to take better care of it simply because, it is His gift to me, and a very awesome one at that.

remembering and forgetting

i don't have to be sad, i don't have to be like you, to feel like i love you, to show you that i love you. there's too much love out there, too much beauty and life and fun, too much awesomeness all around and within me, to be sad for more than an hour or maybe even thirteen minutes. eye-bags aren't that cool anyway and you can't put loose change or breathmints in them even, they serve no purpose other than to remind you that you've spent far too much time ignoring and avoiding total...awesomeness.

there's so much to say, but right now i feel that these things won't really matter for much longer. i cried for maybe sixteen minutes. it was highly necessary, the tears dissolved into a glorious epiphany, that i was wasting all these tears and time crying over...this. then I cooked the best baked alfredo pasta i had ever eaten, cleared the wardrobe which would've swallowed my room up in time, played lots of online poker and had the most refreshing shower ever.

i get so busy healing myself of you that i always forget who loved me first. when i remember, it changes everything and i don't have to be that scared little girl anymore.

resplendent are we

well i can't really say whether my dilemma about mortality in the previous post has been solved but.

there are also these other days like today when i feel a little more courageous, a little more excited to, as they say with the fullness of latin gusto, seize the day. on days like these, i feel that this universe, this world, this life is my oyster or pizza base or whatever and nothing fabulous even has to happen to make me feel this hopeful. these moments surge through me like splendid little shooting stars in the deep and dark blue space of my spirit, little glimpses of eternity and heaven and perfection.

yet, with insufficient sleep and tired eyes, even smiling upon shooting stars can turn into such a chore! the time is near and now, i place my dreams in your hands and take off to sleep. goodnight. :)

these sounds will never leave you, will be there to receive you

some days, every thing in my life seems to be slipping through my fingers like sand and it hurts to hold on to anything and anyone at all. i wrap myself in layers of solitude (so that i won't have to think about how much i love everyone and the eventual end that awaits us all and how someone will have to go through all my or your excessive amount of photos and clothes and that wooden box containing the shell of a soul i cherished and adored making its lonely sojourn into the merciless flames, oh it is all so final) and everything becomes two-dimensional and so, so unreal. i become merely a shell long before it is supposed to happen.  i shiver in my bones from the fear of losing everything.

so, i dive deeper into everything, i give everything, i have numbed my mind, i don't feel loss. i don't feel love too.

and all i really want right now is to be madly in love and fearless, you know?

do you like taylor swift?

do you ever find yourself getting bored by the sound of your own voice and then quickly trying to finish up what you're trying to say because you don't even know what is the point in what you're saying anymore and if you've lost it, what more the listener/s? i think i just lost you there and yet, proved my point.

so....

martin says: (AM 01:19:53)
do u like taylor swift

Shireen says: (AM 01:20:02)hmmm
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:05)ok la
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:12)i mean, neutral (trying to be polite, just in case martin likes her)

martin says: (AM 01:20:16)have u heard of this guy called victor wooten
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:27)no but he has a cool surname
Shireen says: (AM 01:20:37)who's that?

WHO'S THAT??? well, someone less boring than i am! just watch this!


and all done on a bass guitar, mind you.

and then, i found all these! (where have i been???)

one guy, TWO guitars. faint.




two guys, ONE guitar.



as for this next guy, in the words of a youtube user:
"Flagged for making all other youtube videos look like shit."





i apologise in advance if the above videos (and related ones) have reduced your productivity for the day due to you sitting in a shell-shocked state infront of your computer screen, wondering whether those fingers are really fingers and whether you should quit playing the guitar, or even bother learning, if you haven't started yet. :|

p.s.

Shireen says: (AM 01:54:45)and why the hell u ask me abt taylor swift
Shireen says: (AM 01:54:49)then ask me abt wooten???

martin says: (AM 01:55:02)learn pop songs is to bluff girls one

Shireen says: (AM 01:55:14)lol!

martin says: (AM 01:55:16)i wanna see can bluff u or not hahaha

i am the most confusing person you'll ever meet 

if you ever took a walk around my mind, you'd find me there right smack in the middle of the most monumental tug-of-war you'd ever see. maybe then you'd understand how anyone could be so...so quick to hate, then, so much in a hurry to love. so easily angered and moved to tears, then, so impatient to forgive. so hasty to drop everything, then, so eager to pick them up all over again. so, and so. 

but that doesn't matter because you only need to know one thing:

the only side that ever wins is the good one and i never really give up, even when i break down.

my technicolour streaks of lightning amidst a vortex of swirling grey clouds. :)

yes, i actually did it! took the photo above with my e71 and bad room lighting since 2 bulbs have blown and i'm ever the procrastinator! ok shireen, you cannot be blaming the lousy camera or the bad lighting for your shoddy painting skills!
(look, i did say that i'm no picasso, so you were duly warned! and are only allowed to say nice things.)

goodnight!

falling in love with the most unlikely subject

all said and done, i would still choose to be me if i had to live my life all over again. the flipside of those woeful emotions that befall me is an amazing richness and depth in the way i experience beauty, love, joy, faith, magic, peace, passion, life....and i wouldn't trade that for anything (well, hopefully with a little more self-control on the angry-sad-hate side). it's really a package deal, take it or leave it. but just so you know, i love myself, i love being me, and,

i actually don't think there's anything wrong with that.