for an earl grey saturday afternoon

"stranger things have happened
both before and after noon
well, i'm forming and i'm warming
to you

alone inside my forest room
and it's storming
i never thought i'd be in bloom
but this is where i start"

- RHCP's "Stadium Arcadium"

Zéro.5, Waiting For Myself

We were seated on the opposite ends of the kitchen table. With a basket of bread in the middle, we each had a plateful of spaghetti aglio e olio garnished with parsley and red chili flakes. The noodles were cooked al dente and two glasses of Chardonnay glistened in the sunlight. So much for the tangy tomato sauce I was thinking about.

"Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting."*

Startled, I stared into his eyes for a moment without realizing my mouth had been slightly open. Could he read my thoughts?

"That sounds reassuring. While you want me to be practical and disciplined to get what I want, you're telling me it won't come in the form I'm expecting? But I suppose you're right. I didn't know I'd be living like this even a year ago. Even when I was young, I thought as long as I stay passionate and hard-working, things will pan out for the better. I'm realizing more that it isn't so. There are a lot more that get factored in, beyond what I had expected. I know times are tough now, and I'm still trying to figure things out, still have dreams of exploring, discovering and... honestly, I think I'm still naive enough to be okay with failing. I'm at a stage where I'm moving things around, building from scratch. People who continue to take that socially accepted drug, even if they hinder me from constructing my own bridges and roads, I won't stop dancing to my own internal rhythm."

"But still," I continue after a sip of the wine, "things are rough, and most of the time, I just want to cry, destroy and burn things down. Or I feel trapped in my tiny apartment, a place that is my sanctuary and prison cell at the same time. It's almost a manifestation of my own mind. I'm in the dark at this stage of my life."

"Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live."*

"I hope so. I look forward to the day when I'll look fondly at this time and want to give myself a big hug and say that things will be okay. But I've got to say you're rather a sentimental guy. You've been saying really practical and realistic things today, but I also know that the things you write in your novels are much more dreamy, far from what we consider practical or realistic. You say nobody gets anything for keeps? What about the memories of your past love that stay with you, that become part of your body, part of the fortress you build around your heart? Those don't seem to simply pass."

"I spend a lot of time alone, but there are times I do long for others, like when I need help with hanging a picture on the wall and need a second opinion, or when I want to share food that I just cooked with care and excitement. Then there are times when I'd be spending ridiculous amounts of time with someone, doing everything together and not wanting to separate even if we have things we need to take care of. Most of my long-term relationships have been that way, and I loved that... but over the years, I've come to an understanding that I may never find that love, and that only true love, what I'll fall in love with is something more abstract, like art, music, beauty... It's a lonely path, but all worth it. I think most people are frightened at the idea of staying single, or they're too afraid to break their marriage or relationship because of x, y, z reasons while they know in their gut that it isn't true love. But for me, I'd rather experience the pain than be dishonest with myself. Besides, who wants to stay in a mediocre relationship? I'd rather love myself more and cultivate that, even if that means I have to nail things on the wall several times to get them straight or eat meals alone."

Then he smiled. I sipped some more wine and tightened my grip of the fork. It wasn't pity that I saw in his eyes, neither was it agreement. I waited.

"Someday you'll find the right person, and you'll learn to have a lot more confidence in yourself. That's what I think. So don't settle for anything less. In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount."*

I cleaned off the olive oil on my plate with a piece of bread and chewed it carefully as I thought about what he said. There was a tingle in the bottom of my belly, in between the toes. I felt excited and nostalgic at the same time. I took a deep breath and waited until the next thought came through me.



*The quotes with * are of Haruki Murakami, a writer.

Zéro, Waiting for Myself

I find myself sitting at someone else's kitchen table. The circular clock on the wall to my right indicates the time is 11:30, and I can hear occasional chirping of the birds outside. I turn around to see a balcony. An antique ashtray with a green lighter are neatly placed on the wooden table on the balcony. A pack of Marlboro lights--a flashback to the summer in Manhattan when I walked to lunch with J, a cool, chic lady with...

Then I notice water is boiling in a pot on the stove. Strands of spaghetti noodles are set aside on top of a cutting board while three colors of paprika are lying loosely nearby. One would have chosen linguini or fettuccine if she had known me better. I ponder this until my mind jumps to the next question, what's the sauce going to be? I wonder as my mouth waters imagining the hot, red color of tomato sauce with specks of Parmesan cheese I haven't tasted since 2010, sprinkled on top of a mound of spaghetti.

"You are 27 or 28, right?"*

"I beg your pardon?"

"It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure."*

"How... That's not my age."

"I have sympathy with you."*

"Sir, I don't know which culture you come from, but it's not very polite to presume one's age. Besides, age can be so arbitrary. It's just a measure of comparison, isn't it? It's a measure for how far you've come, how much you've accomplished, what expectations were fulfilled, what more to be fulfilled. For example, I graduated with honors in a subject that would secure me with a good enough job and I entered corporate America by the time I was 22. I felt somewhat invincible then, taken out to fancy restaurants, ordering the most expensive drinks on the menu, searching the hip bars and clubs on weekends, buying clothes that costed well over three-digit numbers on Melrose. But every day, I was miserable. I took public transport in Los Angeles on purpose because that was one of the few things that made me feel human in the city. A colleague of mine said, "Why do you take the bus? Doesn't it smell?" I was well-paid, I could afford expensive gym memberships, people nodded when I told them my profession, but it was like a highly addictive drug that was killing me, slowly but surely. It was the drug everyone else was taking, but people thrived on it except for me."

"Most young people (are) getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be an individual."*

"The scariest part about this drug was that it was socially accepted, but that wouldn't be the first, would it?"

"I want to be an individual, too. No, I can't help but be an individual. No, let me try that again. I choose to be an individual. That seems to be the most sensible thing for me, but I'm not sure what that means anymore. I feel like I've been lost for a long time, aimlessly wandering about. There are things I enjoy, feel passionate about, even. I have my moments of clarity although... they're rare. I think I have the right ideas, but I'm not sure how to go about applying them. Sometimes it seems like it's too late, or maybe I'm meant to be... stuck like this. A girl who dreamed but simply dreamed of the impossible and stayed asleep, forever!"

"You're not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life."*

"Yes, but..."

"You can start again. If you want a cat all you have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It's simple. It's your right."*

"It seems all simple to you, doesn't it? What if I want to become a millionaire by next year? Let's make that a billionaire while I'm at it. Shall I start robbing banks or selling narcotics or try to seduce someone with billions of dollars? Or, to parallel with your idea of having a cat, what if I'm allergic to cats but want to have a cat so badly? I suppose I could constantly take allergy medicine..."

"You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed."*

"You certainly are de-romanticizing my idea of being a writer, but please don't say you don't write while having an espresso with a cigarette between your lips with crazy hair in your study, or maybe at a posh cafe somewhere in Tokyo."

"They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical."*

"Speaking of practical, what's for lunch?"




to be continued...


*The quotes with * are of Haruki Murakami, a writer.

cold feet, cold hands, heavy head

the curser blinks.
it's nothing new to anyone who wants to write, who thinks of writing.
i babble my beliefs, thoughts onto the microphone. i voice record myself, my secret thoughts that should only be spoken, never heard. my existence is at the mercy of salvaged dreams.

patricia highsmith is said to have preferred the company of animals to that of people and said, "My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people." SPEAK to people, NOT seeing people or smelling people, or being around people, she said SPEAK to people. words, words, our easiest way to communicate with others. imagine a world in which people are speaking in gestures, facial expressions, languages based on the sense of touch and movement.

dare to dream, helyeona, dare. to. dream.

currently my skin is sinking into a feeling of incompleteness- i wish the world didn't focus so much on romantic love between one person and the other, specially a heterosexual one. "it is what sells," Disney would say, many movie producers would say, writers of books that are read only on flights and airports would say. when i was a child, i viewed it simply as a distraction from seeing the truth, experiencing the truth. i still have hope in people, some are irresistibly wonderful. i'm the one to be blamed. i'm the one who's not opening up enough, not looking enough, not searching the right places, too afraid to take a turn, too afraid of the unknown, fearing being unaccepted, fearing becoming an outcast and becoming a nobody.

i'm looking at the wrong places. at the wrong time. in the wrong people... i meant the mirror. the wrong mirror.