One more year
Sunday, January 4th 2004, 0351 hours
Location: my room
Weather: clear
In the vase: nothing
In the glass: Dalwhinnie whisky
Soundtrack: Tony Bennett and k.d. lang, A Wonderful World
A new year. The middle of the night and I'm typing this, by the quiet light of my lamp, a warm glass of whisky by my side. The room's a comfortable mess, with piles of books and stuff all over the place. I'm happy.
Another year, and a new January. Here in Singapore, where the seasons never come, this truly feels like the beginning of the year: not snowed over or swelteringly hot, not yet, but instead a comfortable breezy warmth as the December monsoons pass. The clouds began to clear right before Christmas, passing away into the tropics, and since then we've been seeing clear skies and warm days and soft and easy breezes. On the night the year turned I looked up at the sky, and there was blackness and the sweetness of stars. They're still there tonight, wheeling toward the horizon, and the disheveled night air tastes like tea does when water first tumbles the leaves.
The year that's gone by gets the name Intermission: not that nothing happened in it - plenty did - but in the big picture it feels like a brief rest, like a pause between acts, like a chance to compare notes, grab a snack, scurry around backstage. It's a break between all that's gone before and all that's still to come, between the great thematic arc of the past seven years and all that's yet to be written. The period 1996-2002 was all about trying new things, asking tough questions, peering round corners - and, at the end of it all, about finding answers. 2003 was different: it was a year spent in waiting, in suspension, a year less about asking and more about knowing. Apart from the nasty bout of depression in the first quarter, 2003 was a year characterised by stability, by establishment, by having worked out the moves several turns in advance. It was marked by knowing the game.
And what now, in this new year? I can't say I know. I'll finish up my time in NUS, with everything effectively ending by mid-April; and what happens then? What will I do, what jobs will I take, to what universities will I apply? So much remains up in the air right now, so many possibilities are waiting. But for now I'm not really bothered with worrying about the future, nor even with thinking about life as it is. Right now all I want to do is to appreciate and enjoy what I have, in the little time there is before change swings round again. To walk down a kind of via contemplativa that may, perhaps, translate into the magic of words.
And so we come back to tonight, to the quiet stars and lamplight; songs curl from my stereo like clothes on a bed. I don't know for certain what the year's going to bring; only that there'll be good and bad, smiles and sorrow, love and life and change. But for now the music is tender and the whisky is sweet, and if you'll stay a little longer I'll dance you through the days as they roll by.