back at last
yes it happened last weekend
i have two vivid memories of the last month i spent here in 2004 when i was on my own and k. had been in london for four months by then, and i was living with my friend a. just off ulu pandan road - and if you're reading this anna, it has left me with some happy memories of those last months - apart from my brief melodramatic evening when i reacted badly to those anti-biotics that arsehole doctor gave me on the night we were supposed to be seeing the eagles - you remember the moment when you peered over at me as i shivered and panicked on the couch and said in a slightly louder than normal and slower voice, 'do you think you're having a heart attack?' and i wimpered and whinged and generally carried on like a hammy actor in a death scene
actually i should have said three vivid memories as the aforementioned one was certainly that in a kind of cringingly embarrassing way
both these memories are fairly ordinary occurences and seem quite mundane when i try to put them down into words
i remember late one sunday night walking down from tantric to maxwell food court and, after an early morning supper, i needed to go to the atm opposite to get some money for a taxi back to pandan valley - it was one of those balmy still nights with an occasional breath of warm tropical breeze - i walked across south bridge road towards the hdb blocks and past the big area of grass that was still there at that time but now houses what appears to be a massive chinese temple - even in the early hours of the morning there was activity and life all around me - people sitting in the coffee shops, people outside playing drafts or chess, people hurrying to and fro - and i remember how good it felt to be living in a place like this where there was always life going on at any time of the day or night and how i would miss it when i was shivering in the grip of a wet and cold london winter where everything shuts down after 5.30pm and it feels too cold to walk the streets after dark and you always feel in a slight state of peril, worrying that you might be mugged or accosted by thugs for no other reason than that they're looking for trouble - the latter did actually happen to me one horrible night in 1994 while coming out of my local station and walking to my flat
the second thing i remember was driving in a taxi on my way to work one sunday morning - it was that part of the ECP which, heading east, slopes up and looks out across the water to fullerton one and the cityscape with the vomiting merlion to the right-hand side - it was a view i saw five times a week coming from the direction of pandan valley - that morning i was plugged in to my creative muvo and listening for the umpteenth time to the new R.E.M. album - the outsiders, one of my favourite tracks was playing as i looked out at this view and a familiar tingling sensation ran up my back as i thought what a great place i had been living in for nearly a decade
i suppose these were two of my goodbye moments - i was taking my temporary leave and, at the time, although i knew i'd be coming back, i didn't know how long we were going to be away - i'd spent most of my thirties here give or take a few months on either end, and it had, at the time, been the best decade of my life - it's strange that i should have left a city in my own country which is in many ways freer and more open, to start living what turned out a much more fulfilling and happier life in a city on the other side of the world which had such a nanny-state, uptight reputation - usually people do it the other way round
back to last sunday - i'm now working back in the same building i spent 2004 working in and, from the gallery hotel, taking half of the same route there - so i found myself driving up the ECP with the outsiders playing once again (this time on my ipod) as i looked across at the same cityscape - that was when it hit me - after nearly two weeks of feeling strangely displaced and not quite part of where i was, i realised, with that same tingly sensation, that i was back and i was very happy - singapore has crept back under my skin over the last two weeks and i've finally chilled out and achieved, if not quite the same zen-like disposition i'd had before i left last time, a more laid-back one
and after five months of wanderings, i'm beginning to feel settled and anchored again
i have two vivid memories of the last month i spent here in 2004 when i was on my own and k. had been in london for four months by then, and i was living with my friend a. just off ulu pandan road - and if you're reading this anna, it has left me with some happy memories of those last months - apart from my brief melodramatic evening when i reacted badly to those anti-biotics that arsehole doctor gave me on the night we were supposed to be seeing the eagles - you remember the moment when you peered over at me as i shivered and panicked on the couch and said in a slightly louder than normal and slower voice, 'do you think you're having a heart attack?' and i wimpered and whinged and generally carried on like a hammy actor in a death scene
actually i should have said three vivid memories as the aforementioned one was certainly that in a kind of cringingly embarrassing way
both these memories are fairly ordinary occurences and seem quite mundane when i try to put them down into words
i remember late one sunday night walking down from tantric to maxwell food court and, after an early morning supper, i needed to go to the atm opposite to get some money for a taxi back to pandan valley - it was one of those balmy still nights with an occasional breath of warm tropical breeze - i walked across south bridge road towards the hdb blocks and past the big area of grass that was still there at that time but now houses what appears to be a massive chinese temple - even in the early hours of the morning there was activity and life all around me - people sitting in the coffee shops, people outside playing drafts or chess, people hurrying to and fro - and i remember how good it felt to be living in a place like this where there was always life going on at any time of the day or night and how i would miss it when i was shivering in the grip of a wet and cold london winter where everything shuts down after 5.30pm and it feels too cold to walk the streets after dark and you always feel in a slight state of peril, worrying that you might be mugged or accosted by thugs for no other reason than that they're looking for trouble - the latter did actually happen to me one horrible night in 1994 while coming out of my local station and walking to my flat
the second thing i remember was driving in a taxi on my way to work one sunday morning - it was that part of the ECP which, heading east, slopes up and looks out across the water to fullerton one and the cityscape with the vomiting merlion to the right-hand side - it was a view i saw five times a week coming from the direction of pandan valley - that morning i was plugged in to my creative muvo and listening for the umpteenth time to the new R.E.M. album - the outsiders, one of my favourite tracks was playing as i looked out at this view and a familiar tingling sensation ran up my back as i thought what a great place i had been living in for nearly a decade
i suppose these were two of my goodbye moments - i was taking my temporary leave and, at the time, although i knew i'd be coming back, i didn't know how long we were going to be away - i'd spent most of my thirties here give or take a few months on either end, and it had, at the time, been the best decade of my life - it's strange that i should have left a city in my own country which is in many ways freer and more open, to start living what turned out a much more fulfilling and happier life in a city on the other side of the world which had such a nanny-state, uptight reputation - usually people do it the other way round
back to last sunday - i'm now working back in the same building i spent 2004 working in and, from the gallery hotel, taking half of the same route there - so i found myself driving up the ECP with the outsiders playing once again (this time on my ipod) as i looked across at the same cityscape - that was when it hit me - after nearly two weeks of feeling strangely displaced and not quite part of where i was, i realised, with that same tingly sensation, that i was back and i was very happy - singapore has crept back under my skin over the last two weeks and i've finally chilled out and achieved, if not quite the same zen-like disposition i'd had before i left last time, a more laid-back one
and after five months of wanderings, i'm beginning to feel settled and anchored again
posted by Tallulah Showerhead at 8:56 PM
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