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What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.- WM HENRY DAVIES
After work today, at six, I rush for an early dinner, gorge myself with some familiar Malaysian food at Malaysia Hall. I leave in an uncomfortable state - unable to find a comfortable position with the amount of food I have consumed. I had the usual nasi campur with some rendang, but in addition to that, we had laksa, tom yum soup, rojak and a side portion of ikan bilis. Just like home. Except.. in the past few months, nay, this past year, the size of my stomach has significantly reduced in size now only managing small portions of rice, being full on a large McDonald’s meal (now now you, don’t be dissing my McD’s), sometimes even missing a meal (okay that’s because of work).
Completely devoid of social graces, I announce that dinner was over. I waddle to the car feeling like a ripely pregnant penguin, unable to breath for the splinting of my diaphragm. I groggily stumble back into the house, experience the usual gastro-colic reflex and then crawl into bed in a post-prandial comatose state. This at 9pm.
I wake up two hours later, and there is a hole in my stomach, I can eat a cow I’m so hungry. I rummage around the kitchen for something to fill me up. Nothing seems appealing and I walk away feeling a strange sense of loss.
I try to fill my time with things to do while trying to stay awake. I start on nights tomorrow, I need to be up tonight and sleep all day tomorrow. Unlikely as the cleaner will probably start her vacuuming at 9am.
From the corner of my eye, I see a familiar grass-green-coloured book - My Island in the Sun, written by my grandfather. I read a few chapters and am transported back to his Penang, where children were running free with the chickens in the neighbour’s garden, or when the beaches were still untouched, or when Penang Hill was the place to go (actually recently this has come true again). I’m hit by a strong wave of nostalgia. And we all know what Suan does when she’s feeling nostalgic.. She reads emails, recent and archived, happy and sad. She thinks of old friends and new ones, of old infatuations and ongoing ones. She thinks of those she loves far away, and those she loves further away. She thinks of what could’ve been, what should’ve been and what is. And she talks about herself in the third person.
So my point is, now.. now that I have so much time to stand and stare, how do you think fares my mental state.
