this one's for you

And so, another year has gone by and I'm no better as a blogger. I had one resolution for 2016, which was to get Facebook, and I didn't. I feel that when I verbalise my goals to other people, I'm less likely to do them. So there's nothing on the agenda for 2017.

New Years Eve found me cleaning up one of the storage closets in our house. My parents and my younger sisters are in Sri Lanka, and since they've left, my older sister and I have been selecting various corners of the house daily and cleaning them. I don't know if this happens to everyone, but I find that once you've settled in a house for a long time, it's near impossible to keep it pristine. There are corners of our house we just can't clean, because we don't have the time and energy on top of our daily routines. But with the most of the family gone, my older sister and I don't make a lot of mess, and it's the holidays, and we like cleaning.

And we accumulate. I feel that this comes from my mother's side. I have been told that her mother is a hoarder, who never throws anything away. I think my mum is similar, but only a part of it is due to attachment; mostly, she has a lot of stuff that she never gets back to. So in this closet, amongst many, many bags (is that weird?), I found a couple with her papers. Stuff to do with studies and whatnot. And one with her obstetric history.

It was... surreal. I know most of her history. I know she's had two miscarriages and one abortion, because of some miscommunication with the healthcare professionals involved. I know she must have had complications with sister number three, because I remember the visits to hospital, how ill she looked, jaundiced and drained, barely there. I've asked my parents for the stories, what it was like, how did they feel. I am increasingly curious about the lives of my parents, my aunts and uncles too. For a long time I wasn't, just because I had unconsciously accepted that they wouldn't have the types of stories we saw in movies. You know, awkward first dates, prom, romantic marriage proposals, fairy-tale weddings, drama, sacrifice, that sort of thing. I knew we were the products of arranged marriages, parents who seemed to have had a strict and boring upbringing. What was there to hear?

As it happens, I think... somehow, at some point, I realised that however different the time and place was, my parents, my uncles and aunts - they're all human too. They were kids once. Adolescents. They had hopes and dreams, fantasies. Crushes. Hobbies. Favourite celebrities. They made mistakes too. They have stories. And when you ask them about this stuff, they melt a little. You close the gap. You realise you're not so far apart. 

Where am I going? I don't know. I started looking through all the paperwork. Innocuous appointment schedules, routine check ups, blood test results. Referral letters from the doctors. Charts, before and after birth. The labour documentation. The ultrasound of myself as a fetus, as well as my sisters. Something just snapped, and I started crying.

I am not usually so sentimental. Actually, I am quite soft, but I've never been the type to look at a photo and cry, or something like that. But to see this, everything my mum went through, the entire rigorous process, the complications, three out of four kids in a foreign land, by herself, it was just. Something. Tears brimmed just noting the 'interpreter required' sticker on one of the hospital forms.  

I'm not entirely sure why I am sharing this. It's been another year, and it seems sensible to share the highlights, of which there have been a few. But this is what is on the forefront of my mind, so this is what I have for you.

It's just that the more I get through life, the less I seem to know. Is this a popular platitude that everyone's already heard of a million times already? Perhaps, but it's certainly one I personally attest to. 

I remember being so very strongly opinionated in high school. I still have certain values and causes that I am devoted to - I still bleed easy for humanitarian crises. But I remember that I was so passionate, dogmatic even, about how I argued the contexts of these issues, particularly the political side of things. I was so sure. And now I'm not. There are no heroes versus villains in my world anymore. Nothing is simple. Everything is murky, fogged up, twisted, complicated.  We have so much access to information, knowledge, and yet there is no way to know what is real and what isn't. Who is telling the truth, who isn't. What version of the truth is the right version. Is there a right version. And what do we do. How responsible are we for everything and everyone.

I feel a little hopeless, a little small.

This was not meant to be a dismal post, though. I suppose, I don't know, you spend your life trying to find your purpose or whatever. 'The meaning of life'. Who you are, what you're meant to be doing. I guess, in realising how complicated the inhabitants of this world are, I'm trying to balance... I don't know, forgiving their flaws, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but then, not depending or expecting too much. Acknowledging that there is always more to a person. Still devoted to the humanitarian cause, but no longer from the top. I want to help from the ground up, do big things but do them quietly.  I'm a little sad that I don't have convictions anymore, makes me feel a bit insubstantial. Perhaps they'll come back, perhaps they won't. 

It's all very vague, but there's something in there that is starting to make sense. Still be spiralling out of control, but trying to go with it.

Peace in,
Laila

Rant of a Caged Bird

Welcome, 2015.

I feel like whoever is reading this can already sense the bitterness. Is that my imagination? Maybe it's because I'm already in a grumpy mood, I can see the grumpy in everything else too.

There were no fireworks for me in the last transition between years. It's not really that big a deal - the fireworks are pretty overrated. It's really just the atmosphere in the city, all the people, no cars, and these beautiful celebratory warmth. But again, not being allowed to go to the city for fireworks night is not that big a deal.

I've been trying to refrain from doing this rant because I'm trying not to rant in general, and I don't like to burden people with my insignificant problems that aren't even that big a deal...

But a) it's not like I have such a huge readership to burden, and b) I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE.

I am not a bad kid, I think. My parents have always only been mildly strict. They have their limits, but I've never been into the crazy party life, so wherever I ask to go, they let me. And if they say no, the most I ever do is cry, and then get over it. That's all.

Everyone who knows this says I'm passive. My sister can go anywhere anytime, because when they said no, she went anyway, and then my parents just got comfortable. Like, okay, she's back in one piece, that wasn't so hard. She, too, has no interest in the wild side, mostly it's just lectures and stuff anyhow. I guess they don't like the idea of sending their girls out alone into the world, but then afterwards, they realise it's not that bad.

But anyone who tells me that I need to take a leaf out of her book, I just say that it's not me. I admire how my sister can be a powerhouse, how she gets things done. But I've always been a goody-two shoes, it hurts me to rebel against my parents over trivial things like going out one night. I don't like yelling at them, and how are you supposed to have fun somewhere, knowing your parents are mad at you?

Lately, though, lately it's been a different story.

As you know, I'm a walker/cyclist. Well, I hope you know that. I generally do a walk/bike ride a day. I don't go over an hour. Most people consider that healthy.

My mother is convinced that I walk 'too much', that walking is making me weak, that I'm going to lose too much weight and keel over and die. Mind you, besides my one hour of daily exercise, I usually spend the rest of the day dawdling around at home, reading, moping, you know? It's not like I have an otherwise active lifestyle. 

HOW CAN YOU WALK TOO MUCH, HOW IS IT SUCH A BAD THING??? YOU CAN'T EVEN LOSE THAT MUCH WEIGHT FROM WALKING. AHGHAG.

And really, that's all I ask from holidays. I don't need to go out all day everyday, I'm happy to do family trips, and I can just spend time at home. I'm usually a homebody. I just like my daily walk. Is that too much to ask for?

But now, on top of not being allowed to go walkies, I basically can't go anywhere, unless my older sister is in the mood, which is basically never. For example. The other day, my parents had to attend this nikkah that we weren't really invited to. She said that us three - my sister, my cousin, and I - could go chill in the city until they were done, and they'd pick us on the way back. My sister said she couldn't be bothered. So my mother decides that she'll leave my cousin in the city, but not me. She wanted me and my sister to go stay at our aunty's house - our aunty who was also attending the nikkah. So we were just going from our house, to another empty house. One prison to another, to what purpose?

I asked her why I couldn't just be dropped in the city too. My cousin and I used to do it quite often during the uni year. And it's not like my sister would take it personally, she just wanted a quiet place to read, maybe watch movies. But my mother just kept insisting that unless my sister was going, I couldn't go. Something about it not being safe. How can three be safe, one be safe, but not two?

And that's happened umpteen times all holidays. I can only go wherever my sister wants to go.

HOW IS THAT FAIR? WHAT, SO MY VACATION DEPENDS SOLELY ON MY SISTER'S MOODS?

I don't blame my sister, for once. She doesn't have to be my babysitter. What I don't understand is why I'm being put under lockdown. All these things that I've been doing constantly, until now, are suddenly forbidden, and I don't know why. I used to think that it was because of the climate - as in, with the shooting, and the Sydney siege more recently, they were worried about my safety. But how does it make sense when I'm not going alone?

I'm just... LADJHFAKSJHDFLAE.

IT'S NOT FAIR.

And thus, I'm going insane. The only time I'm ever allowed to go out is to do shopping with my mother, or that one luncheon we attended. Oh, or when we all go to the park together.

The thing about that is... Usually, that's fine by me. But these days, since all I ever do is spend time with family, I'm just sort of sick of it. When I'm at home, I have to entertain the little ones, and when I go to the park, I have to babysit them. And my mother still sets all these limits on how far I can walk. For God's sake. I just want a bit of free time, with people my age. My cousin can easily be that person, but no, I can't even go for a walk with him. 

I know this is dramatic, but I am dying. This house is suffocating me. It's one thing to voluntarily be a homebody. It's another thing when you're forcibly kept at home. And slowly, I'm mutating into this awful human being. I'm so moody, the slightest things set me off. I am more aggressive than I have ever been in my whole entire life. I am sullen and snarky. I keep yelling at my mother. I just... Why can't she be reasonable? I am not asking much. Just let me go for one damn walk. The world is not that terrible.

I don't know. I hope the new year welcomed you a little more warmly.

Peace in,
Laila

A Walk on the Wild Side

Nooooooooooooooooo. 
Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
Nawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. 
Pretty pretty pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease? 
PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE?

 

This is how I got myself to the city on New Years Eve. An annoying combination of agonised cries for my mother's refusals and incessant pleas with puppy-eyes at every other moment; those elongated vowels, the constant badgering so infuriatingly annoying that one just has to say yes so you can just SHUT UP ALREADY. 

It works well.

I mean, they were right to be concerned. New Years Eve is when the stupidity of YOLO is showcased in all its glory. Public transport is free, so obviously every cheapskate wants to take advantage of it, and all the trains are so packed it's a wonder there's room for oxygen. And, you know, everyone gets drunk, and it being Australia, it is rather common for white people here to welcome the new year by putting on raucous displays of their hatred for... not white people. (You see what I did there? How ironical x] ) 

So why would I want to go? Because I'm bored. I mean, school's over, I'm on holiday for about three months. I've yet to get a job (I'm trying, okay?), and not having money can really impede your outdoorsy fun options. Not just that, but me being me... I just ... crave adventure, I guess, but not just any adventure... danger. I crave danger. Thrills. Adrenaline rushes. As well as a certain ache, you know, the really good feeling you get after a long run? That. And walking about the city at night, with no parents, on New Years Eve... well, it seemed fitting.

And also, there's a kind of romance attached to it. Come on, the city at night? All lit up? It seems like a dream, doesn't it? It was.

The train ride there was as expected. It was crowded when we got on, and at each stop on the way, it just got more packed. At first I was standing - I kind of prefer standing, because you know how you should give up your seat to the elderly/pregnant/etc? I have this paranoia that one day I'll be sitting down for a good long ride and I won't notice some old person who needs my seat and hence I won't give it up for them until I get off and then I'll see them and I'll feel really terrible for not noticing them and I will forever be plagued by this guilt for putting them through such an uncomfortable ride... it's sort of irrational, but it's what I do. Stand so I don't have to be on my guard.

But this time, as it was packed, where I was standing was getting uncomfortably thronged by guys. Young guys. They were quite boisterous. My cousin -

[Side note: I should, at this point, mention that right now I have two guy cousins in my house. It's kind of sad, right, the first time a cousin came over, I was so ecstatic on this blog, and this time, I haven't done anything? Well, whatever, c'est la vie, now you know. You also know now why my mother wasn't too strict on me not going - two guy cousins to play bodyguards.]

 - had been standing in front of a seat, not taking it I think for similar reasons to moi. Noticing that it was getting crowded, he offered me the seat (again, actually, because up til then I was showing some bravado about not needing it) , and I took it. It was a tiny cramped singular one, tucked away. My cousin stood in front, to block me off from any other creepers. I spent the ride trying to figure out where to put my eyes. Have you ever been in this situation, where you're in a crowded space, and everywhere you look, there's a face, and you don't know these people, so you don't want to be caught in that awkward moment like you were staring at them, when you weren't really staring at them? So you sort of look up, but if you're shortish like me, that takes effort, so you look down, but you don't want to look depressed, so you're not looking all the way down, and then, after some time, you realise you're actually staring at... people's derrieres, or their legs, or something like that, and you feel mortified because you think that maybe other people think that you're a creeper, so you find yourself hurriedly shifting your eyes again, looking around to see if anyone saw you...

... and it repeats. That was my ride to the city.

We got there at 7ish, if I remember correctly. It was lovely. So many people, but so few vehicles, because most of the roads were blocked. But people still felt inclined to stick to the footpaths and stuff, and so you just had these empty roads that were so clean, and we just wandered through them.

That's the only thing about us going out. My cousins and I, we go places, but we lack purpose. Everyone's in groups, walking HERE or THERE, you know, SOMEWHERE, and we sort of just drift. But it's a nice sort of drifting, that lose yourself in the crowd, in the city. It was twilight, the sky was a dark blue, still tinted with gold from the sun, and the city was lighting up. It also - despite the crowds - in my head, it felt kind of quiet.

So we walked without purpose, going this way and that, trying to figure out what to do. My parents would probably never let us do this again, so we wanted to make the best of it, but how?

In the end, it was just walking, talking, admiring the buskers, the views, bemoaning our lack of a good camera, just killing time slowly. We looked for the perfect place to view the fireworks, but then got hungry so we left it to find food. We tried to get back to the place, but we were swept up by the crowds, and somehow time escaped us. So we hurriedly found another place, and soon it was those final moments, everyone looking to the sky, just waiting.

I was a little sad because we didn't get to do my favourite bit - the countdown. The few times I've been before, in the final seconds, everyone starts counting down, and its like the voice of the city itself, it's that unified, that loud. But that night, we waited, and the fireworks just exploded out of everywhere.

My cousin, a few seconds before, he said: "Just watch, everyone's going to take out their phones and cameras and start filming."

He was stating the obvious, but I wish he wasn't right. I mean, it's right there guys, right in front of you. That's the beauty of the moment. If you wanted to see it through a screen, you may as well have stayed home and recorded it off your TV. I could do a whole other rant on how meaningless photos are becoming these days, how we're not really preserving memories, because there's really not much to preserve anymore, how the moments that are worth remembering are the ones that stay in your head, and yes, they may get distorted over time, but that's what makes them so worth it - because it's a reflection of how you felt at the moment, not really what happened. But I won't go on about that now.

So we stood there in this crowd, we watched the fireworks, we lost ourselves in the ooohs and aaahs. We bemoaned our lack of a good camera again. It was nice.

Then it was over. People hugged. They loitered. They started to disperse. The paths were clogged, the bridge was blocked, so we could only imagine what the trains would be like. So hung around, leaning against the bridge. This apparently drunk (I couldn't tell) walked by, offering free high-fives, and my cousin leaped forward - literally - and seized the moment. The drunk guy grinned broadly, saying, 'You are a good man. You know what? You get a bonus. You get a discount. You can have a hug.' He then embraced my cousin somewhat passionately.

We found our way to the water again, and just sat there. There's something about that, you know, just sitting there by the water, in the city, at night, and you know, the reflection of the light just glitters on the surface. I don't really consider myself the meditative type, but I could just lose myself in it.

Eventually, at about 2pm, the bridge started to clear, and we walked back to the station, which was still filled up. We couldn't take the first train, and me and one of my cousins were just happy to hang around for a few hours until the whole place cleared up, but the other one (I really ought to give them names, huh?) insisted we get on the second one. We had to wait, of course, and oh, in that time, there was an almost fight - two guys getting all buff and shouting and then their girlfriends interfered.

Then we squashed onto a train, with a whole bunch of others - it really did feel like a kind of wrestling match. I wasn't fussed about a seat - I guess I was in a zombie-state, so I just couldn't care - but my cousin had once again saved me one, and I couldn't care to argue either.

The ride back was that sleepy kind of blur. You know, you can hear the noise, but it feels far away. I remember a group of guys singing that song, 'Rude', and it just kept going around in my head the whole way back... why you gotta be so rude? Don't you know we human too? Why you gotta be so rude? I'm gonna marry her anyway. Someone else kept yelling 'HAPPY NEW YEAR!' everytime the train stopped. People were sleeping. A few times, I closed my eyes, slept about five minutes - could it be longer - and then I'd be wide awake again. An old man in front of me spoke to someone loudly on the phone, and people were laughing, but in a kind of endearing way.

And then we got off, at our station. The body heat made it hard to feel the cold. It was, I think, maybe 3am? The plan was to catch a bus - we assumed there was one, that's what my dad said. Turns out there wasn't. We had the option of calling my parents, my mother did say to, but then... but then I got the YOLO vibe. My cousin got it too. The other one not so much, but you know, majority rules.

We decided to walk.

It's just over 6km. Which is... about 4miles. I don't know if you consider that long or not, but the real importance of what we were about to do lies in this one little fact: we live in Dandenong.

Okay, I can't believe I gave that bit information out. I guess I'm becoming less paranoid? Okay, whatever.

The point is, where I live has a lot of notoriety about it. It's infamous for being thug central. It's a bit of a ghetto. Star's brother, who has done this before, apparently put up an FB status after saying 'just walked home from Dandy station and didn't get shot'. Heck, our whole walk home, we were cracking jokes about drive by shootings.  Do you get what I'm saying?

Guys, it was the best way to start the year. I feel like I deserve a badge for Stupidity/Bravery. I guess you know the end of the story - we got home alive. But gosh, it was thrilling. Walking across all these empty roads, past empty houses. Not even the trees shivering, it was that much of a ghost town. Something freaky about all the traffic lights, but no cars. Oh, the occasional car was there, and yeah, that's when the jokes about drive by shootings came up. Long stretches without streetlights, commenting on the possibilities of creepers jumping out of trees. How eerie it was that you couldn't even hear, say, a dog bark.

We got to an intersection where we had the option of going along a more lit up main road, or into a darker avenue. There was a park we'd pass, one that I was told, growing up, was a hotspot for druggies. I made us go that way just for kicks (now I'm wondering why they even listened to me - I mean, I'm the youngest, so they didn't have to... huh, boys). My cousin suggested we take a nap at that park, and I reminded him of the druggies though the park was clearly empty, and we discussed the cunning and cleverness of drug-addicts these days, lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce. We made it to the next main road alive, and then it was just this long stretch home. 

Then we saw the thugs.

Okay, initially, I was sure my cousin was just jumping to the stereotype - a group of black guys, jeans hanging low and all that jazz, swaggering down the street. But then - they were ahead of us - they just seemed to be putting on this shifty show, you know, stopping randomly, crossing the road back and forth when certain cars passed, and I too got the shivers. We had to laugh though - somewhat masochistically - because we were all so broke, if they tried to rob us, they'd probably end up giving us our wallets back after putting money in it. The longer we walked down that road, the closer we got to them, and I have a habit of commentating in a really... how do you say it? Darkly humourous way? Morbid. I'm pretty morbid about a lot of things.

[Fun fact: sometimes at night, when I'm under my quilt, I like to imagine someone standing over my bed holding up a knife, poised, ready to plunge it right into my neck. I don't know why.]

But again, you know the end of the story. We got home in one piece, and none of my unhelpful suggestions about how to get out of being shot were put to use. 

I know this is the time for reflections, but looking back, it was one of those years that feel short, but in fact, are really long and it's just too difficult to pick out the most significant moments. Right now, I can only remember being at the park a few days ago, and I met this kid. He introduced himself as Yaqub. I asked him where he came from. He said something like 'Gherkos'. I was like, 'is that a country?'

And he replied, 'No, it's a swimming pool.'

He's five. I'll probably never see him again, but he was one great kid.

But it's been a momentous year, I'm glad I came out alive, and really, I don't even know what to expect from the year to come - university, battling marriage proposals, brainwashing tutoring, learning to drive.... it's almost beyond comprehension.

I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST. HAPPY NEW YEAR

Peace in,
Laila