Sanctuary
10th January 2002, 1225 hours
Location: My room
Weather: cold and damp
esterday I had dinner with some of my colleagues from the Ridge at Holland Village; following
that I decided to take a walk to Orchard Road. The walk was good. The route I was taking - a simple straight line along
Holland Road - was one I'd been down many times before, and was one I knew well. The night was warm, with a slight misty
sort of drizzle sometimes - the kind you don't really feel till you've been in it for a while. The old trees cast deep
shadows across the path, and there was almost nobody else out walking at that time of night; just the way I like it. Thick
vegetation on one side of the road, a storm drain on the other; patches of darkness merged and played amid lamplight the
colour of wine. No sound save the traffic, in a low rumble like a river, and the soft tramp of my footsteps.
I watched for familiar landmarks as I walked. The new flyovers, with their ever-flowing vehicular vistas; the Maris Stella kindergarten, dark and silent at this time of night; the stripped-bare former clubhouse of the Youth Flying Club; and the narrow side gate leading to the quiet pond with swans. And then the pavement changed, becoming broad and tiled, and I passed the South Entrance of the Botanic Gardens, Gleneagles Hospital (where my brother was born) and various embassies, including Fortress America and the British Council. And then Tanglin Police Station, and Tanglin Mall and Tudor Court and that was it. I'd arrived.
And all the way I was wondering, Is there anywhere I can go to get away from all this? Is there any place that will grant me sanctuary? Any place where I can lay down my arms, and find rest? But my walk had ended, and there was no answer.
I popped into Borders for a bit, having nothing better to do, and promptly bumped into Yueh Chin. There's no getting away from people, not in this country. But the big city bookstores have always been for me shelters of a sort: places which, though filled with people, generally ensure that the people are fairly like-minded.
It was good bumping into Yueh Chin, though - knowing I was in a bad mood - she didn't hang around for very long. It's a system which generally seems to work among my friends: if someone's annoyed about something, listen without judging, commiserate where possible, then either steer the conversation in a different direction or leave before it gets to you. It's nobody's job to listen to someone else's tales of woe; we've all got troubles of our own. And as long as that understanding prevails among us, we're all fine. What was a good deal better, though, was bumping into Mayee barely three minutes later, down another aisle.
Mayee and I could talk, and did. Both of us, it seems, were walking bundles of unresolved issues yesterday night. Which meant, of course, that we were perfect company for each other. She flipped through my photos from Nepal, and we discussed our experiences abroad - myself in Nepal, she in Cambodia. From there we fell to talking about the troubles facing us. I spoke of anger, of a general misanthropic hostility to everyone and everything; and she of a sort of ennui, of sianness, of not really wanting to do anything at all. "At least you have something to be passionate about," she said. It's a little odd. She finds herself not really caring about anything any longer; I find myself caring too much, getting worked up about everything under the sun (and then some). And we've both of us been where the other is, though hopefully that doesn't mean our moods alternate periodically. And we mentioned how we both feel ourselves to be exiles, both at home and abroad, unable to really find any place to call home. So yes, we could talk. We stood there in the aisle until the closing-time announcement. "Now they're chasing us out," said Mayee.
We stepped out of the bookstore, uncertain what to do next. "Want to go for a beer?" she asked. Knowing me, she probably needn't have. And off we went to Muddy Murphy's, a little way down the road.
We spoke a good deal more, over two glasses of Old Speckled Hen. About beer, religion, family, dreams, ideologies, old demons, rootlessness - with me constantly tossing in Zen Buddhist references for good measure. It made her laugh, which was good - at least somebody's happy. "The problem is I can see the arguments on both sides," she said at the end of it. "And I don't know where to stand." "Stand in between, then," I replied. "Don't take sides. Dance along the knife-edge. It's Buddhist, you know? The Middle Way." She chuckled. "Or you could just be an academic." "Which is precisely the path I'm hoping to take," I answered. "I'm copping out." We laughed, and drank.
At one in the morning the pub staff began indicating that they would very much like to close up, and we left. She got into a cab, and went home - but I, unwilling to do that just yet, persisted in walking the broad, now-empty thoroughfares. At one in the morning there's still a surprising amount of traffic, but there're very few people still hanging about, and those generally keep themselves to themselves. In the subdued, quiet light of the nighttime city I walked, watching my reflections go by. They stared back from shop windows and steel pillars and the polished walls of buildings. And there was peace there in the empty squares, the high-ceilinged corridors, the wide pavements. After an entire day spent fighting and scowling amid crowds of people, here at last was peace. I could have danced.
And so, at last, at the very ending of the day, sanctuary. In an Irish pub and a late-night city. In the warmth and support and laughter of conversation. In the company of an old friend.
Perhaps home really is wherever the heart is.