when the night is calm and unattached

The most peaceful time is being back in my home-office, having showeered and unpacked my bag, I would put on a CD, listen to a few tracks, and once the waves in my mind have subsided, I would turn off the stereo and begin to write a little something. The only light is my desklamp and the streetlights from the outside. Sometimes I drink a little hot water. Coffee or tea would be too intense for this time of the night. O, I hear a bus passing by. How vibrant is the street outside and below. How peaceful is my home-office. I do feel calm now.

So gentle is the night that I find myself in too lazy a mood to set my mind to write about a particular topic, to argue a particular point, to get others to see the world the way I see it. I do, and I often do, get a little self-conscious of my sentences. Then I think of how Sherwood Anderson wrote his stories in the kind of clunky but genuine prose that he used, and I tell myself I can just as well do the same.

Confidence to the writer, the voice in me. The more I scribble here, the more I am breaking free.

a moment on the bridge in kwun tong

ai~~ yo.
ai~~ yo.

What is love …but a word you use when you try to define your connection to this city

…but not wanting to say no when your father asks you to take a ten-hour bus ride north to visit your grandfather’s grave, and only a minute into the conversation when your father says, “He was good to you, wasn’t he?” that you were able to convince yourself you must definitely make the trip.

…but what you say about a job that allows you to speak exuberantly to young people about the importance of pursuing one’s dreams, all the while as you speak you mask your many layers of insecurities that you still retain within your shells, shadows and scars that only you know very well and think they exist.

What is youth …but the headstrong confidence you demonstrate when you announce you will not marry till another ten years passed, and that women and men around your age need not be in a hurry to make any vows.

…but the way you tell your age so openly knowing you look and act and think much younger than the number, and you make jokes about how you have two sons and two daughters and a wife who left you, and you tell this to people just to see their shock reaction.

…but the way you stand on the bridge, overlooking the evening traffic and the double-decker buses occupied by tired-after-work passengers, pedestrians passing each other by, fading into the darkening street-corner, and as you gaze into these minute details, you try to calm down after a day of teaching, your right-brain over stimulated, off the charts now; you take in a moment amidst the bustling streets and your soul is bubbling, and you’re wise not to say things like you’re destined for greatness, but you know, if you walk steadily and you keep your wits about you without running into yourself too much, and as you begin to understand this youthful feeling and this love you’re still defining, you are very much capable of doing something great.