The Little Sweatshop of Thoughts

serendib is an old Arabic name for sri lanka. and as i sit here waiting for something to happen this hot clammy night, i can’t help but remember a particular moment i captured en route to bentota. it was a non-routine stop at a beachside area. calm and not so sunny. the waves were gently lapping the shore. but if your eyes followed them as they retreated back into the magnificent expanse of the sea, you can’t help but feel a tinge of apprehension over the azure unknown. and there my mother stood, taking in the quiet, hiking up her salwar kameez to feel the sea at her feet and the world in front of her. it was a beautiful moment. i actually took another one after that where my sister and her were trying to catch the ‘big waves’. i was too busy to soak my feet in as i was trying to ‘capture the feeling’.

i guess the second photo could use some cropping and colour enhancement but i loved what they signified. i thought they turned out pretty poetic.

as usual i am vegging out at home. not doing much but psycho-analysing my life via profound television series. so today i watched the grey’s anatomy episode that aired on thurs in the states. usually i hate meredith’s character, which is so whiny and self-absorbed. but for some reason she has become more likeable in the past few episodes as she deals with her post-derek phase.

and it made me think about something else that has been bugging me this past week. trust issues. not being able to give the trust that is needed in order for a relationship to progress. any relationship. especially when you want to be more than fair-weather friends. even when i think i care enough, i think i don’t because i care more about myself. a self-protecting mechanism to avoid hurt and unnecessary feelings.

giving out that trust opens you up. and what if they don’t like what they see?

ugh. this post sounds like a in-limbo-meredith post, like when she nearly drowned herself. double ugh.

i take pride in the fact that i have travelled so much and taken many a pretty picture of those places too. and i do want to show it all off. so i have created a page where i have added pictures, captions and little stories of the places i have been to. look to the side bar and click on the link under pages.

spent the afternoon watching the tv show, brothers and sisters, online. so i finished the first season, with a happy sort of feeling; with a sort of satisfaction that the show had the right mix of reality and that extra bit of something, which i am glad exists only in the reel world.

and it got me thinking about, family. the one word that brings up both extreme feelings of intense hate and love. i don’t have an enormous family like in the show but i think the five of us provide enough drama to keep our relationships zinging. the older we get, the more we start understanding everyone’s idiosyncrasies and imperfections, and perhaps get a bit closer to knowing them for who they really are.

and when i put the tv show in context with what happens in my life with my extended family – the tv-like drama seems so much more probable. my mother’s weekly phone conversations with them back in india allows us to be connected in the most disconnected way. those 100 minute calling cards keep the madness, the sadness and the irrational bouts of love and hate between us alive. we enjoy having armchair opinions on their lifestyles, their indiscretions and their ‘close-mindedness’ through our ‘enriched world views’. yet, sometimes we yearn for the little bits of indian family insanity that calls to us when we get tired of our singaporean mundanity. but, we double back later and breathe easy that we are happy here in non-judgemental singapore, doing our own things with the people we choose to, just because we can.

it’s quite complicated and at times, even a bit schizoprenic. but we straddle both worlds, somehow. and i think that’s what makes these bonds with them so special and sacred, ‘cos no one will understand me quite as much as the way they will.

so there you have it. my family and my anchor to reality.