Why it matters? (revisited)

I, recently, saw Blue Valentine. I was bugging myself to find a copy of the movie anywhere I could, to a point of driving up to Wangsa Maju at 2 am checking out at a pasar malam there. I even almost wanted to subscribe to Netflix using GE's office IP address - stay up late in the office and turn on the Netflix. And I finally found it at Low Yatt - duh! It was worth the effort. Such stellar performances from both Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams supported by a talented kid, Faith Wladyka.

If there's only thing I've realized or found from this piece is how scary or frightening life could be out there. Brutally honest on the most possible reality in relationship of human beings, the piece offers a refreshingly honest perspective of situation in which "happily ever after" is hard to be sought after. An autopsy of a failed relationship (or marriage in a certain extent), in contrasts the giddy honeymoon beginning with the heartbreaking and wrenching sad denouement after dysfunction has devastated the groundwork of hope and newness.The whole storytelling, for me, is driven by a majestic performances and brilliant lines (rumors say that most of them were improvised, more credit to the performances). There's a great deal of intensity in the acting and some of the confrontations between Dean and Cindy are difficult because of the amount of feeling brought to their roles by Gosling and Williams. It is so packed with honesty of the actual character's feelings. Audience may say that Gosling and Williams are just being themselves, but i've gotta prove them wrong if they have done some acting before.

The kind of movies or piece of arts, I like to see, is the kind that leaves something in me after i walk out of the venue. It makes me think or question the reality of my life - note, it ain't just from dramas. Blue Valentine comes on like a bittersweet cautionary tale. A story, I supposed, I've gone through, not literally, close enough not to be able to pull myself out of it for quite a while. A searing portrait of failure of not just a wonderful and hopeful relationship, but more importantly, the love that once fueled it.

The two

Ghosts that we knew

You saw my pain, washed out in the rain

Broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins

But you saw no fault no cracks in my heart

And you knelt beside my hope torn apart

But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view

And we'll live a long life

So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

Cause oh they gave me such a fright

But I will hold as long as you like

Just promise me we'll be alright

So lead me back

Turn south from that place

And close my eyes to my recent disgrace

Cause you know my call

And we'll share my all

And our children come, they will hear me roar

But hold me still bury my heart on the coast

And hold me still bury my heart next to yours

But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view

And we'll live along life.

Lovers eyes

Love was kind for a time

But now just aches and it makes me blind

This mirror holds my eyes too bright

But I can't see the others other in my life

Were we too young and heads too strong

To bear the weight of these lovers eyes?

I feel numb beneath your tongue

Beneath the curse of these lovers eyes

But do not ask the price I pay

I must live with my quiet rage

Tame the ghosts in my head

That run wild and wish me dead

Should you shake my ash to the wind

Lord forget all of my sins

And let me die where I lie

Beneath the curse of these lovers eyes

There is no drink or drug I've tried

To rid the curse of these lover's eyes

But do not ask the price I pay

I must live with my quiet rage

Tame the ghosts in my head

That run wild and wish me dead

Feelings

It's been forever but it stays the same.
I guess it has never meant to be for me.
I guess nobody has never meant to be with me.

Kindest regards.

Peach

Bathing,

in the blossom

of our love,

I am suffocates by

its rotting.

It happens

that it happens.

When a man and a woman

first meet,

they are at their

kindest,

most polite,

most

considerate.

Never again,

from that moment on,

will they be

as sweet,

or will their

smiles be

as genuine,

or will their longing be

as pure

or as powerful,

as on that first

accidental meeting.

It is as although

a heart that falls

in love

were

a peach

at the peak of

its ripeness;

plump

and velvet to the touch,

but destined

to decay

and decay.

Would it that

the heart could love

a lover

with as much

conviction,

and as few

conditions.

as when it loves

a friend.


   by Yasmin Ahmad

Night rambling

Just got back from watching Side Effects. It was an expected twisted storyline with carefully-picked shots, colors, locations etc, by Soderbergh. Quite entertaining. Well, I went to BeBop for a bit for a glass of Duvel accompanied by superbly-amateur jazz band, including a violin-lady who was trying SO HARD to 'get into the groove' the whole time.

Anywho, I stepped into the apt and had this sudden smell of chicken soup that reminded me of Ramadan bazaar in Malaysia and the only song that came out in my mind was Hometown Glory. Then, my college life, my climbing addiction, my Vienna's chillouts and so on.

All of these pulled me back to read back my previous blog. Going through the posts, I, now, remember how I used to be. I was this person who was young, ambitious, adventurous, loving, and to a certain extent religious and naive!  And I used to pen-down ANYTHING I wanted to.

I have now become this person who tries hard to block or secure myself from anything that could harm me, which also translates in my little behaviors like writing. Mariana Fernandez, a stunning actor, once commented on a photo of mine that goes "Whereever you are. There. you. ARE." I truly understand what she meant, but there's so much in me wanting to go back to my college life.

I am rambling.

Nite!

All along

We were at the beach. It was not as sunny as we were hoping it would be. But, the excitement contained in ourselves, after weeks being apart, shunned the gloomy day away. We were trying to find the best spot to get two of those long-beach benches. Of course, taking price into consideration too. It is one of his innate personalities I, memorably, will never forget.

Satisfied with the bargained price, we got a decent spot. He kept complaining on how loose his swimming short was. I never really cared how bad he looked like. I had known him enough not to care the way he looked, but rather embraced his, sometimes, innocent heart, and tremendous generosity.

We dropped our stuff and dived into the sea. I do not know how to swim that make me always afraid of being in a deep water. It was terrifying especially with big waves. It was his nature of protecting and of making sure I was fine that pulled me into the big waves. Those, together with his mad face when there were a few surfers catching the waves near us made me felt really secured. I had never enjoyed being in the sea before that.

We lay down on the bench. He immediately fell into a nap. It was one of the greatest feelings I have ever had that is to be able to feel I had everything with me, especially with him next to me, facing the long sea horizon in front of me together with the waves it carried.

It was a great blessing.

It surges out like an ocean tide

A human hand is made with 27 bones
some apes have more
a gorilla has 32, five per finger
a human has 27.
If you break an arm or a leg, the bone grows back together by calcification
your arm or leg can therefore become even stronger
but with a hand fracture it will never get quite right.
In every battle and with each punch you will think of it
you'll be careful
but once in a while the pain will come back
like needles
like glass splinters

Potent

Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.

I have loved you so long

ANY CASE

-  by Wislawa Szymborska

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Closer. Farther away.
It happened, but not to you.

You survived because you were first.
You survived because you were last.
Because alone. Because the others.
Because on the left. Because on the right.
Because it was raining. Because it was sunny.
Because a shadow fell.

Luckily there was a forest.
Luckily there were no trees.
Luckily a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A frame, a turn, an inch, a second.
Luckily a straw was floating on the water.

Thanks to, thus, in spite of, and yet.
What would have happened if a hand, a leg,
One step, a hair away?

So you are here? Straight from that moment still suspended?
The net’s mesh was tight, but you? through the mesh?
I can’t stop wondering at it, can’t be silent enough.
Listen,
How quickly your heart is beating in me.

A less defeating path

Falling to the ground
I was anxious to be found
You can always go home
To the safety of your cloud

All he wants

This song breaks me into bit and pieces. Again. What does it mean when people say their hearts are broken into pieces? It is that moment in between you can't hold yourself up together and your head is held up high; and you're totally down on the ground unable to move into the direction of happiness and anything that comes along the way.

Again.

Out of water

Will a shark
be as fearless
in a
forest?
Can the devil
survive
in heaven?
Will a tiger
still roar
on the face of
the moon,
or will it
whimper
more meekly
than
a lamb?
If the moon
can linger
on a morning
so bright,
why can't
the sun
do the same
at night?

When you are gone

But if only God
would grant me
a piece
of His courage,
I might face
your absence
without dying.
But if only you would
take me
with you
wherever you go,
I would find
home
in a million different
places.
And I would sweeten you
in a million different
ways.
Before you are sleepy,
I will have already placed
a thigh
under your falling
head.
Before you are hungry,
I am already peeling
onions.
When you are
angry with me,
I shall
kiss you.
When you are not,
I shall kiss you
twice.
If you should die
before me,
I shall lie down
beside you.
Whisper a joke
into your half-listening ear.
Promise
the ultimate promise
of eternal companionship.
When you are gone,
I do not die,
But I am forever
dying.

Well, you know that's a lie

A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you're willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you've spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don't see coming, when we don't have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that's when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.


 

So why d'you have to lie?
I take it I'm your crutch
The pillow in your pillow case
It's easier to touch

What's the point of this song? Or even singing?
You've already gone, why am I clinging?
Well I could throw it out, and I could live without
And I could do it all for you
I could be strong
Tell me if you want me to lie
'Cause this has got to die

Don't look back at this crumbling fool

  Didn't I give it all?Tried my bestGave you everything I hadEverything and no less

Love IS a battlefield

There is no better film to watch other than In The Land of Blood & Honey, after I get back from Birotatanegara Camp (sorta a boot camp but less military). As Angelina Jolie's directing and writing debut, the piece gives a perfect reflection of what is happening intricately in Malaysian politics, nowadays, and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am gonna leave that to my fellow Malaysians to observe it in the film.

If you look at her portfolio as an actress (The Tourist, Salt, Wanted, Tomb Raider, Original Sin, Mr. Mrs. Smith), you’d never thought of seeing this piece from her. As her first time directing and writing, Angelina has an artist’s eye, strong personal vision, and a masterful command of her stars.

It is 1992 and tensions between Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia were escalating to frightening levels. Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), an artist and a Bosnian, agrees to go out on a date with Danijel (Goran Kostic), a cop and a Serb. They meet at a club and as the evening progresses, dance and flirt with each other. Their date ends when a bomb explodes in the club killing many people. Ajla and Danijel survive but they are now thrust headlong into the center of a war characterized by a newly designated term, “ethnic cleansing”.

This piece highlights the savagery of the Serbs. Danijel has been given the position of running a military camp by his father, Serbian General Nebojsa (Rade Serbedzija). When Ajla is one of the women rounded up to be a sex slave in his camp, he saves her from rape. Danijel keeps her away from his men and takes her as his lover. Having a Bosnian Muslim for a lover and protecting her, is highly dangerous for him.

Zooming out to the actuality of the war, this ruthless movie puts a human face on a conflict that was all but ignored by the rest of the world even as it encompassed the worst genocide in Europe since the Nazis and horrific war crimes from mass systematic rape to the use of civilians as human shields.

Of course I have heard about “ethnic cleansing” but this film boldly and bluntly puts it all out there like an untold story. The rape and humiliation of the women and Nazi-like behavior of the soldiers is harrowing – important because it happened in the 1990s. The Serbian soldiers killed civilians as ruthlessly as the Nazis. They took people from their homes with the same violence shown the Jews during Hitler’s reign.

If there is one good reason why this piece lost to the Iranian masterpiece, A Separation, in last year’s academy award, it should be the direction in acting and weak script. While I am sure that romances such as the one depicted in this movie do occur, the movie is unconvincing. What happens on the screen seems impossible, despite a good many things the actors and technical people do very well. Even the good choices Jolie makes, such as her insistence in casting actors unknown to U.S. audiences and having them say their lines in their native Serbo-Croatian, are undone by the terrible love story at the movie’s core.

Never less than competent, it’s clearly the result of a sincere, long-harbored desire to raise awareness of these horrific, dehumanizing events. It is frequently said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it and, with that in mind, it’s an almost entirely noble endeavor. The film’s treatment of Serb characters – most of whom are portrayed as monsters beyond redemption – has already proved controversial and divisive for many in the Balkans as they look to move on from the past.

The man and the woman

We all want to grow up. We're desperate to get there. Grab all the opportunities we can to live. We're so busy trying to get out of that mess, we don't think about the fact that it's going to be cold out there. Really freaking cold. Because growing up sometimes means leaving people behind. And by the time we stand on our own two feet, we're standing there alone.

For the past, at least, 10 years, I have been waking up feeling I am the one who holds my own choices, decisions, and consequences. Friends, best friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, people around me, come and tap all kinds of resources out of me even at the heart. I have given it all and most of the time without tapping into theirs.

However, the man of my life and my mom have taught me an essential life lesson.

That the human body is made up of systems that keep it alive. The one that keeps you breathing, the one that keeps you standing, the one that makes you hungry and the one that makes you happy. They're all connected, take a piece out and everything else falls apart. And it's only when our support systems look like they might fail us that you realize how much we depended on them all along.

There’s an endless gravitational limitation on how this man has pulled me into a force to reckon with.  Healed.

I have never fully and heartedly understood this piece, which I have once performed years ago in front of a bunch of talented performers in Movement for Actor class in Purdue Theatre. A recent ‘fall’ has reminded me that this piece speaks directly on how ‘beautiful’ this man is in accompanying me to get back into the battlefield of life.

 49

 I hold her hands and press her to my breast.

 I try to fill my arms with her loveliness, to plunder her sweet

   smile with kisses, to drink her dark glances with my eyes.

 Ah, but, where is it? Who can strain the blue from the sky?

 I try to grasp the beauty, it eludes me, leaving only the body in

   my hands.

 Baffled and weary I come back.

 How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may

   touch?

                   The Garderner, Rabindranath Tagore

Mom used to tell me that I could go out and play. Running and chasing all different kind of victories. But do come back before the sun goes down. She hopes for happiness.

I came back with a great wound.

She has come comforting me as the truest friend I have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon me; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with me in my sunshine desert me; when trouble thickens around me, still will she cling to me, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to my heart.

Thus, now, I have learned that everything is connected. Every little kid knows the words to the song. The foot bones connected to the leg bone. The leg bones connected to the knee bone. In biology, I learn it's a little more complicated than that. The song’s not wrong. Everything is connected in order for ME to stand tall. Again.

Clear cut

I've heard the all warnings and I've ignored them. I pushed my luck. I rolled the dice. I played with fire. It's human nature. When I was told not to touch something, I usually did, even if I knew better. Maybe because deep down, I was just asking for trouble. Trouble that risked the whole of my life.

It's a clear damaging cut.

All of my life I was trained to be vigilant, to chase down the problem, to ask all the right questions, to find the root cause until I know exactly what it is and I confront it. It takes an extreme amount of caution or I can't overstep myself. I can create problems that don't exist.

Because my intentions are always pure. I always want to do what is right, but I also have the drive to push boundaries. So I was in danger of taking things too far. I was told to do no harm while I was trained to cut myself open with a knife. So when I do things when I should have left well enough alone. Because its hard to admit when there's no problem to treat, to let it alone before I make it so much worse. Because I caused terrible damage.

Until I have used every single strength in every single cells in my body, I am not gonna give up. The insanity these cells brought into my soul has conjured an insensible heart, a numb heart. It is not time for a curtain call yet. Until then, I am gonna be living truthfully under imaginary circumstances - call me insane.

Then, the heart will stop.

It's one of those things that people say, you can't move on until you let go of the past. Letting go is the easy part, it's the moving on that's painful. So sometimes we fight it, try and keep things the same. Things can't stay the same though. At some point, you just have to let go. Move on. Because no matter how painful it is, it's the only way we grow.

Keep Breathing

Storm is coming

But i don't mind,

My heart is dying

I close my eyes,

All I know is

I am breathing now.

I want to change the world

Instead I sleep,

I want to believe in more

than you and me.

all i know is i am breathing,

all i can do is keep breathing,

all we can do is keep breathing,

Now.

This is it

Thank you so much.
Take care and good bye.