Where before there was carelessness there is now sadness. My two worlds collide, and I’m a blur in between them. I often find myself moved, on the verge of tears. All the other wants fade. Yet, where before there was makebelieve there is now clarity. I’ve known how it feels to just be
An unenlightened person wondering about life being hard
Are we being greedy, counting on some being as extending beyond the one self we have. What do we gain via this belief - Hope? Defence? Power? Belonging? Antidote to disappointment? Why can't we accept - why do we fear - that there really will be a total, complete end of ourselves once these physical bodies stop. (Won't an ever-existence be exhausting?) What if there is indeed purpose, meaning, and vitalness in the pursuit of the flesh, material things, in lust, in greed, in blind passion, when we're at certain stages in life (like our existence depends on it)? What if, unless we really go for a thing and live it to the most utter depth, it'll keep smouldering in the back of our mind and we'll remain in wondering's grip for as long as we live? How else do we truly understand something other than through experiencing the opposite of that thing?
What if all choices are equal, but there's only this one chance?
2021 notes
April
I’ve been dreaming about my parents a lot lately, longing for my home in Vietnam. Yesterday I dreamt about my dad’s care - as something tangible.
June
But of course an empath and a shower would always clash.
I think the most desirable ability in life is to not have bad judgments. It is difficult to have good judgments since you cannot just be logical about things.
July
Possessing a keen sense for true intention is a blessing and a curse, like most possessions. A blessing because it helps you make many right choices. A curse because you’re perpetually disappointed. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell if someone is really completely ignorant of their own intentions, or so delusional that they have faith in their own lies, or too deceitful to ever align their heart and their mind so their intentions are ever changing.
September
I dreamt there was a man - or a boy - coming to stay. I was around and gathered a lot of my stuff for his use. Then I found out that my dress (a red floral bias cut) had been cut up and used to line his chair, and I wept at the sight of it. I just wept without protest, because I liked the dress and probably not of much else. I've thought of several interpretations, and the following is one. (In real life) this particular dress is my absolute favourite but my husband doesn't like it. I spent the first few years of my marriage emotionally torturing both of us over the slightest disagreements we had, and because I was so self-centred (and I still am, but in a more self-aware, therefore ‘healthier’, way) the conclusion I always jumped so hastily to when there was a conflict was that there was something about me he didn't accept. One day, thank God, I came to realise that I didn't really need to hold on to a certain 'dress' ie identity to feel like myself, at which point, my fears and resentments started to fade.
November
I've come to think that we tell stories about ourselves (e.g., through pictures and captions we post on social media) to ultimately self-motivate. We all need a boost sometimes to brave the journeys in life (often difficult, in different ways) we've chosen. (For younger people it's likely they're sending signals out to find soulmates, which is beautiful.) Having a sense of moral / ethical superiority is the absolute worst trait in a person. Osho has said that a poor man can be more egoistic than a rich man, if he feels he's better. I've experienced this at certain points. We're more likely to feel this way when we are jealous, and our jealously is often directed toward what we actually desire. This is why I think jealousy can be really insightful (and potentially transformative; sometimes, as you’re able to see something, you start freeing yourself from it). I also like this quote by a character in a Salinger's story: "[I]f you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way." We are all so similar.
Gọi tên nỗi sợ
Nỗi sợ của mình từ bé là bị nhìn là chỉ được mỗi cái xinh. Có lúc nó góp phần thúc đẩy mình cố gắng học và làm. Có lúc mình chống lại nó và sống theo kiểu chỉ cần xinh là đủ. Đồng hành với nó là nỗi sợ sẽ hết xinh. (Năm sinh nhật 28 tuổi Lam chúc mừng sinh nhật mình và nói là “xinh trẻ là nhất đấy” - mình luôn nhớ câu này và ngày càng cảm nhận rõ hơn ý nghĩa của nó đối với mình). Mình biết cái xinh này hạn chế mình nhiều và tạo lợi thế cho mình nhiều. Một trong những cái nó hạn chế mình nhất là mình bị lệ thuộc vào nó. Một trong những cái nó tạo lợi thế cho mình nhất là mình sống với cái xinh từ bé nên cả đời đã phải nghĩ và hiểu về nó và vì thế đã và sẽ có những khoảng thời gian mình kiểm soát được ảnh hưởng của nó lên mình.
My dates with Minh
During the five years we knew each other before the mình yêu nhau đi, our 'dates' were few and far in between. I didn't keep count, but we met - when there was only us - probably no more than ten times. With previous boyfriends, I remembered the first dates, but not much of all the rest. But I do remember each and every date I had with Minh. They were unforgettable and more special, because I never experienced the same thing with anybody else. This thing that precedes... all things? The inclusivity - our lives existed elsewhere, not in the here and now. The intensity. The fear - and fear-not. The pure heartbreak. Yet, we never kissed, nor held hands... This strange thing.
On the last one, I had short hair and wore a yellow dress, and he looked on as I was leaving hurriedly. I hadn't met him for a very long time, and I was the most unstable I'd ever been. I'd sometimes thought of him. I'd had very little information of what he was doing, so I stalked his lastfm account and learned about artists I didn't know and used some of their songs to make themed playlists. I drew him from profile pictures he set public, and I felt this really mysterious yearning to touch his face.
The night was beautiful on the one we nearly kissed but thought we might have a chance for kisses to come so we saved it (but we were wrong). I wish I could go back in time. We walked through these narrow streets and alleys, where I lost a very favourite pearl bracelet. I had glitter blush on and he told me that my cheeks sparkled.
There was nothing memorable about the couple of movies we went to see together. I wonder why we weren't fussed about the titles. Once, after watching something at Hanoi Cinematheque, we headed for some wonton noodle soup in the old quarters. I might have been wearing a short white lace dress. We were sitting on these plastic stools opposite each other on the pavement, embraced in the alluring atmosphere of a late summer's night. He teased me about my chopstick manner. I was taking an awfully long time to eat and conscious about how I looked while I was eating.
I still feel thrilled recalling the night we went to see a Nouvelle Vague concert in Oxford. On the train I was wondering aloud how the cows looked really small (and I wasn't pretending to be stupid cute, I just have this bizarre tendency to say things without thinking) and he said, isn't it because they're quite far away. In Oxford, my first time there, we met and had coffee with a friend who swore secrecy. As we were queuing for the concert he might have complemented me on my outfit. I was wearing a printed tshirt with a purple American Apparel pencil skirt. The concert absolutely blew my mind. The duo performance between Mélanie Pain and Phoebe Killdeer was one of the most magical concert moments I'd ever have. On the way back he let me borrow his coat. How would things have changed if I had gone home with him? It would have been wrong, but maybe more right?
One day, before he left Hà Nội for England at the end of his summer holiday, he asked if I could go and run some errand with him. To my surprise, I agreed. I remember following him through the aisles in a supermarket opposite Hoàn Kiếm lake. He must have gotten so absent-minded after taking his bike out from the parking lot, that he got on it, thinking I had already climbed on - while I fact I was standing behind, and drove off. I was dumbstruck (mainly with amusement). I intended to wait until he realised it himself and would turn round to pick me up, but the guards who saw the whole thing got excited and kept calling loudly after him. He got so embarrassed! He explained to me that if I had held on to him in some way or another while sitting on his bike, he would have known if I was there or not. But because I always positioned myself so further back...
We met a few times at Puku. Once we were both in a rush and our interaction was so off I wondered why we'd met at all. I was slightly pissed at him as he dropped me off at my then boyfriend's friend's shop nearby, whom I considered my big brother and hung out with a lot in those days. After Minh left my friend remarked on how good looking he was and I realised, for the first time, that this was something I'd never paid much attention to. I did message him on Yahoo 360 because I liked his profile picture and got curious over how I'd had him on my friend list, but at least for me, the nonphysical attraction was so strong, bewildering and overwhelming that the physical attraction only followed much later. Still, I keep wondering why we made our individual decisions to hold back (which, for me at least, was totally out of character) and how we were able to do so. Must be Fate's will.
If I could go back in time I would change how I responded to him the night he came to visit me - very briefly, because of the way I was - at the students' hall. He mentioned earlier how surreal it felt that I was in London, at last. I'll have this image of his back while he was sitting at my desk forever implanted in my mind. I can only comfort myself that Fate did have another plan for us.
The saddest time we met was a month or two after my great big betrayal. I was the thinnest I'd ever been, worn out, felt confused and trapped in my greed, and I could only imagine his immense disappointment. I was, unlike other times, acutely aware of the impacts the other people, who existed in our worlds, had on us. We met at a jazz pub in central London, and he took me to a Vietnamese restaurant he liked in Hackney. We ordered my favourite Southern style sweet and sour fish soup, but I didn't have the appetite for anything. As we departed at a bus stop, I told him we should catch up again some time, and he asked, what for. I went back to my life, never thinking that things would ever change, and that we'd forever remain somewhat friends, if we were lucky. But we were young and fortunate enough to have the time that healed us and allowed us forgiveness and gave us another chance.
Memories of friends
I found a piece of silver tinsel at the bottom of the stairs of our building block. It was such a pretty thing, and I knew it would make my day very special. I brought it to the nursery and me and my friends, some of whom I can still remember until this day, played wedding with it. The silver tinsel was the centrepiece, and we even rearranged all the chairs to make a carriage for the bride and groom, where we all stood on or around, feeling celebratory. It was one of my happiest days at nursery.
My saddest day in friendship was the day my best friend in high school left for Holland. Up until then, we had been inseparable. We were sobbing from the moment I arrived at her house for the farewell dinner, until our last goodbye at the airport. I don't remember who else was there, except for the obvious people - her mum, who explained to her relatives at dinner that we were closer than siblings, and my then boyfriend - 9 years older, who was nice enough to take me on his bike to the airport (I had terrible car sickness), and on the way back, was wondering aloud to me, with well-meaning concern, if this could break you down so hard, how you could possibly deal with the inevitable losses life would bring. Only until much later did I realise how ashamed I must have felt, how speedily, yet superficially, had I gotten over my grief, and how traumatising it had all been, as a result.
In secondary school I was extremely close to three other girls. They were my world, and we did as many things we could together as possible. Once we found a ball and played football on the top floor terrace of TM's house. We kicked and defended with all our might and laughed until we were exhausted. It was the only time I ever played football and the most fun I've had with a group of friends, ever. TM and I, out of the four of us, had a special bond. We shared taste in music, to say the least, and I can still remember her home telephone number until now - I could talk to her for hours on end. One autumn day we split from the group in secret and took bicycle rides around the city. At the turn to Bà Triệu street, where my dad's old office was, the road was covered in dried leaves. Hearing them crackling under our wheels, we gushed to each other how delightful it was. Autumn leaves and the sound of them rustling always remind me of this day and of TM.
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