Day too soon

April 2008


It was just silently splendid to walk inside A'dam. 7p.m. and the sky was still bright. Only wearing high heels and short skirt could prevent me from jumping out onto one of the boats by the Amstel, the way from Waterlooplein to Muntplein. It was lightly shining, the light yellow of a dash of honey. The beauty of Amsterdam, sometimes can only be acknowledged by being in tranquility. Then, in that state, you are aroused with everything and every sense you can take into your body, your heart and mind.

I couldn't remember if I ever walked alone on this path. In a few hours, I had to be home again, with some people, luckily the people I want to meet. Yet, walking there was something just for myself. (I took a lot of pix with Ngan on this road, almost 3 years ago already!)
I was glad that I didn't go with him or take another metro to go to his place after 2 seconds meeting him on the metro that I did not mean to take. I had no cell phone to call him back, to tell him that I could not go home; my brother took the keys with him. I had almost no money with me either. Yet, I was happy I chose my own path, to walk along the Amstel river, with myself only.

I saw a poster of Kate Winslet in The Reader. I saw sand in pink. There was gold sunlight bordering old Amsterdam houses. There were only shadows of people, together. And there are sometimes things that people who are wise and who are too 'human' are unlikely to understand.

There are different directions.

(Spring break 2007)

I am now at the train station again, to get to the airport, in less than two weeks. The other one was getting to Chicago. I was late at that time. I missed the train and had to catch another one which was 25 minutes later. This time, I will have to catch the one which is 1 hour and ten minutes later. I say to myself, it will be okay, I’ll get to the airport on time. Last time I got off the bus taking me to the check-in half an hour before the plane was leaving. And this time, I don’t know. But I feel normal, there’s nothing to be rushed. There’s nothing to be worried. I’ll wait. It’s not that I don’t want to loose 25 bucks calling a cab, it’s just that I’m even, or sober or whatever it’s called.

I sat beside a guy. He was reading The Economist too. And then he started talking on the phone. I heard standard deviation, valuation, nominal interest,… Before that I got out of my bag a book. I always carry a book or a newspaper. That’s perhaps why I have gained a lot of things waiting for public transport since I came to the Netherlands. And my eyes ‘ve got worse. I didn’t concentrate. Not because of that guy. But because I was thinking. I don’t know why my imagination is so vivid. Last time when I was late for the flight to Chicago, I told myself if I couldn’t catch it, I would buy another ticket. I couldn’t miss meeting Dominotism and the lunar new year I had been looking forward to. And now, I’ve started thinking I would buy another ticket, but not to LA. It’s not my first thought. I check the price ticket to that place once in one or two weeks, even before getting out of the almost-empty campus today, I checked it again and it was more than $500. Crazy me, I did thing that I know it wouldn’t happen. I can imagine me getting in the airport with the ticket to LA, and then I started rushing toward the gate (like two weeks ago). The stewardess would not see my ticket clearly and then I would get on the plane where I don’t even know I want to get there and whether I’m expected or not.

Oh, I didn’t know that writing is really killing time. I write fluffy thing, talking to myself. Poor a poor soul. I’m now seeing the people at my school. I like my school but I don’t like those kids much, honestly. They are rich or to be precise, their parents are rich. But they still have to go to the train to go home. That’s like me. When I was walking uphill with my suitcases to the bus stop to go to the train station, I thought myself ‘I’m not the person who can bear poverty. I’m spoiled.’ I didn’t know that. I was totally ok when first got to the Netherlands. But I was not ok when I got here and sometimes sitting on a bus, I’m not okay. There’re black people. I work and play with black kids every Friday morning. I like them and they like me. But still black people on public transport and me, in Baltimore. I was used to be in the car, beside my … That spoiledness in me, it doesn’t even happen with my parents. At home, I’m the older sister. I wasn’t spoiled at all. But I was indulged, my mom did me almost everything. My little brother bought breakfast and gave me when I got up late. How spoiled I am, I’ve just realized now.

I didn’t know that I have the ability of talking nonsense. This is how I talk to myself. But I talk to myself more than this. I couldn’t and can’t tell a person that I miss him. I told Ngoc. It’s funny. When I miss her, I told him and when I miss him, I told my other soul. I usually do what I want, without thinking about the effect. But now I have to restrain myself, from what? From talking with him or whatever, even thinking of him. It only makes thing worse when we meet each other. Friends, it’s always fun and a lot of laugh. I said that I knew how to be a friend, to him. But I don’t think I can, indeed. Too many puzzles in a person, it takes a lot of time for those puzzles to be put together before a picture can be seen. I like playing jigsaw puzzle but I don’t think he likes. We’re such different people.

I imagined me today, calling him and telling him that I am heading to the place almost nobody want to be. And he'll go pick me up. Yeah, I should be thankful now I’m free, you set me free. But my mind are not absolutely free though there were times I thought it was. I was sending a msg “I’m going to L.A.” when I missed that person so much. I sent my mom a short email just to let her know too. Yesterday, we were talking about family, what a family in both biology and sociology in class. People mentioned about support, financial and emotional, about love, intimacy,… I said about security and safety. Then we were asked if there were anyone else that we have or feel those things besides family and I raised my hand. Just for a variety of reason, I put him in the group family in my Y!M list. I don’t change. I did but I can't stand that. I can't see change so I put him back again in that group. Now I don’t do those stupid thing. I don’t know what he is to me. Sometimes nothing and everything are just the same, I thought when I was walking out of the dorm today.

People keep asking me how we are, if I love him, like him. I deny. I say I don’t. I have reasons. Love to me is reciprocal. I thought that love can be a selfish thing, when I just love him for myself, so long as I don’t feel empty. But talking about feeling, when he said what he felt, the reason why we are far away, I respected it, because it’s feeling. But I cant keep that love for myself. What’s the point of loving a person and don’t say, cant say or express. Actually, I did. But what he said was more sincere, I have to say. At least he did love me and he could say it when he meant so.

I have learnt to behave right when I got home last year. Even my aunt and my cousin said I had changed, positive change, when I know how to adjust myself. Family is not a stable thing. It’s also an ongoing process. But I don’t do that to him. That’s why I have had to say I’m sorry more than one time. I never said sorry to my dad sincerely. I don’t know if he wants to get rid of me or not. But I do want to get him out of my mind. But at that times, I feel I’m empty. Positive or negative emptiness, it’s empty. I always create storm, for myself. And I’ve realized that I love it. I don’t like my childishly sophisticated self at all. Perhaps that’s what he hates about me. Everybody likes simplicity.

At the train station, people are leaving. And I still can concentrate on my writing. I couldn’t do anything because I felt something in me when seeing people leaving campus. Luckily I’m not the last one leaving. Luckily I have my friends to stay with in this spring break. Today is so beautiful but when I got out of class at night yesterday, it was raining. I was going in the rain, singing ‘Rung xua da khep’. If only it could close.

Beside the shadow of Murakami

(Spring 2007)

You know what, I would rather have you die than see you damaged, being damaged by yourself. It's the fact, everybody will be damaged, sooner or later but watching you... I don't know if you understand. This is may not for you either, I'm just talking with the person who loves me or at least once knew he loved me. I say 'who loves me', not whom I love. You and I, we're projections. You have so many faces, I know. I don't know why I believe it's you the person whom I've seen for years. You know I see everybody good and nice and you know how I see you. Are you or parts of you, by any chance shaped by the way I've looked at you? I can't say logical things and especially to you, I can't say logically. After all, what's emotional should not be rational. As I told you the day when you told me you felt good talking to another girl, you could talk things that you did not normally talk to anybody, even to me, at that moment I just felt happy for you. On the way walking, I imagined you and her, that girl. And I would rather see you, be happy with whoever will be your wife in the future, with your family because that's what I've been imagining about you since we had our first date. I also told you later that I felt as a loser but it's the feeling existing for a short time. I'm now again myself. I still smile and laugh. I still feel thankful to be in this world and I know what I want to have. I haven't changed, I don't change, I can't. And because you're the projection of me, I don't want to see you change even though I know everything does change. Time flies and people die but somehow, I still believe in 'the four seasons', the fact that everything changes and then turns back again. People after all don't change but thanks to those, they realize how precious and beautiful things are.

I told you that I would delete everything about you when you get engaged. When I delete, it's forever. Things just should exist when they're in necessity. My heart still bounces when I see you, by any means. I still can imagine I talk to you and turn away coz I can't restrain the tears inside me. I don't want you to see that because you no longer love me. You won't hold me and pull me toward you. I know my love was just a selfish thing when I was with you. I need the feeling of being protected. I feel a shelter being with you, inside you. I may have tried to convince myself that you were for me. But if it's not that... You can't hold me, you can't put me into you if you don't love me. We did not communicate much when we were with each other. Yet don't you think it was the communion when you wanted my skin to go under yours, when I breathed you while you were trying to put my body into you? One day, I thought that it would be so releasing for me if I would not meet you again. I'll forget them all. I know I have that ability. But I still have to meet you, it's the fact. We can not run away from each other for good, we can't deny each other's presence.

I probably haven't loved you. 'Coz I don't know when it started. How could I feel protected being with you the first time if I didn't know you and the 'you-and-me'. I sometimes think I can never be loved anymore. Nobody will accept me if he knows I've loved you this much, if I actually have had. People say about 'virgin', I don't consider I am as 'we are more than our physical body'. You and I, will be detached, will be without-feelings persons when we meet again as you no longer love me. It was funny when you said you could still arisen my feelings. You can't. As I said, they're projected, you can't do it if you don't have your own feelings. I'm again talking about feelings. I have, for many times wished I didn't have them. Then I wouldn't be a human any more, I would be some substance, without shape. I've gone find for those so-called 'feelings'. I've realized that I did have those, not only with you. But that's that. Those people are friends, whom I treasure too, still they're not you. I've realized that once targets and goals are set, it will be much easier to get what I'm looking for. Setting goals is somehow like turning some emotional things into rational. To get rational things is easier, a lot, not like those worthly-cursed emotions, which I have to you.

You and I, separate persons. So don't consider what I have been talking is for you, to you. I just talk to the one who knows that he loves me, knowing, not feeling. As feelings can turn their back and go for a walk, come back or not but acknowlegement is another thing. Yet, knowing ourselves is difficult, I understand.