You Are My Fear

If I never see you again underneath the lights and lanterns, faces of eerie colors reaching out to us in a place of uncertainty, of too many words, of references alien and irrelevant to the needle which draws pain on your skin for a minute at a time--too quick for it to sink in and yet you feel drained for you have sat still for too long, in anticipation of meeting someone you will not scorn when you walk away to your solitude--What will I do?

If I never put my hand on your shoulder again to take a deep breath and close my eyes so I can picture the blue sky breaking against your hair, the sound of your voice encircling me and my dress, a passer-by quickening his steps on the pavement in the morning quiet where we must decide if we want to stay or to go because you can no longer keep up your pretense before me and I want to hold you until you splinter all over my skin --What will I do?

You are my fear. Now stay.

Tonight The World Is Mine

Tonight I throw away what's left forgotten for too long. Possessions I only pretended to hold onto when only events, rather than time, existed and I had my eyes closed until they were open and I did not even know it.

Now I am still oblivious to the world turning. Maybe it will stay still because all surprises are short-lived and hope should not be hope.

I shall wait in freedom.

The Heat

My poet friend Steven in NYC has started an online creative writing workshop for aspiring writers. Check out the details here and feel free to pass it around.

As for me, I'm taking a brief blogging break. Thanks to my relentless procrastination--hanging out with people, day-dreaming to poetic conversations in my head, or just lying in bed in silence--I'm now swamped with work that I must finish or I shall be doomed.

My nomadic existence--inside and outside--finally has some value. In the last few weeks I've written a decent draft of a short story, snippets (improvised to jazz music) for future use and started a new story tonight that is heading towards a rather particular direction.

Just so that you know, I'm doing fine. Pretty fine despite the humidity and heat in Hong Kong and it makes my cotton shirt cling onto my skin all the freaking time.

After Snow White

Trang is my girl friend in Melbourne. It was probably nine years ago when we met online. Or a friend of hers--a boy whose identity eluded me from the start--was a reader of my diary and passed it to Trang. Apart from my words there was a picture of me at 20, one that is now forever damaged. To her the image was revealing of my personality: a young woman, alone, perfectly aware of the sum of her toughness and vulnerability, unafraid of flaunting it.

That was what Trang wrote when she sent me an email after reading me for several months. To me Trang remained a mystery for much longer. Back in those days her words were bits and pieces of a life that was starting to take shape: a law major who retreated to the background as her outgoing, competitive classmates carried on the discussion; a young girl who shied away from the crowd while her boyfriend drank and got rowdy with other boys; a Vietnamese girl who dreamed of music, literature and drawing, drawing the skeletons of a world she had yet to find and enter.

'I was always out of place,' Trang said to me when we started to chat online later on. By then I had already visited Melbourne to spend time with a guy, but Trang and I did not meet because she was not ready. I did not see a picture of her for a long time either. A self portrait of Trang, not smiling, her hair flying against the bright sunlight; looking into the camera at a moment of certainty, a private side to herself that few people saw. 'I don't win on looks,' Trang said before she sent the photo. But Trang looked pretty to me, quiet, determined, striking.

***

The confusion of our youth went on. I traveled between her town and mine on a rollercoaster ride of joy and hope, doubt and finally shattered prospects of a happiness that was never meant to last. Trang and I met in real life at a moment when we were both leaving someone we had loved: I never to return to Melbourne, Trang soon to leave for voluntary work in the Philippines, her birthplace before her parents moved to Australia.

In Manila, a city of perfect chaos and friendly souls, Trang held herself together through insane paperwork and negotiations in and out of office, and laughing children in English classes. At night she hung out with a colleague for a smoke on the rooftop, or an artist who had a hammock hanging from the balcony of his (if I remember correctly) 23rd floor apartment. Sometimes she danced on the top of a loudspeaker at a local disco. Everyday Trang walked down the streets to people coming up to her, saying, 'You're so beautiful.'

Despite being three years younger, Trang always had a kind of gravity I did not have, not until last year when I decided to live in patience. When I saw an abyss or an end, she saw room for people to reflect, grow and act out of their true selves. Trang believed in time: time for wounds to heal, truths to unfold, love to return. If hope is ever lost there is art. In her space she draws, paints and takes pictures. We have always sent each other music--it is our way of building friendships with kindred souls.

***

One curious change that has happened to our friendship: Trang and I have grown more similar in the last year. As I have overcome my impulsive self to leave room for life, Trang has fine tuned her slow-moving streak to become more decisive. What stays the same is that we are women who live for love and art. For my birthday Trang sent a card, two mixed CDs that are captures of her memories and feelings over the years, and tickets to see Preljocaj's Snow White.

I went with a writer. The set and costumes were amazing as choreography was expressive--and very tender in parts, especially the scene where the Prince tried to revive Snow White in a frenzy of love and despair. For a minute or two I had to refrain from crying. I told Trang later on: I wonder how many people in the audience, or those who existed outside of the space we were in at that moment, would cry to this? How many people would live this perfect openness to art, the surrender of one's self?

Trang should have new answers this week: new faces, conversations and openings, and her birthday dance at tango, which she recently took up. After Snow White, the dance goes on.

Colors

Brian spreads several prints of his paintings on the desk. He knows I do not like most of his compositions--the textures are missing when there should be more thought, or the details elude me when I expect them to stay. 'These were sold out at my last solo show,' he says. 'They're not your kind of painting. But I'll keep showing you so that you know my voice.'

Out of all the artists I know, Brian is one of the few who would keep showing his work to people who do not buy his sensibility or expression. When we first met I went mute over not liking his work as much as some people do. Soon I started to question. Still I put together an album of images of his work and show it to others, because that is how much of himself Brian has shown me.

'Does it make you feel I don't understand?'

'You see different aspects and focus on those, that's all. You go quiet on what we agree on.'

We whisper in the morning. The candle makes a crackling noise. It is bright like the blood-red river Brian paints, creeping in, creeping in.

Light

'Do you want me to go to sleep?'

'No, keep playing. Are you sure it's okay for me to write this?'

'You feel like writing. It'd be fun to see what you write.'

'Play some more Bach.'

It's 4:30am and Clyde is playing his classical guitar by the windows as I am writing in his studies. Clyde calls me at any hour of the day when he comes into town on a business trip or to see his family. In the morning, waking me up to go to a wildlife park; late afternoon for an excursion to the island; late at night for music and conversations. We have been close friends for so long that he knows I do not say No to people I like, or they can bring out the best in me as long as they ask.

Tonight we watched a Cassavetes film. One moment I looked outside the windows. The trees on the hill were swaying in early summer breeze. After the film he played music. I sat in a bean bag to watch him. Soon the world grew dark: both Clyde and I have had to cut people off in recent days. His story is his so I will not tell. Mine is mainly a close friend of five years who was once the stability in my life.

It makes no difference how long I held these people close to my heart: I was there for as long as I could be. The moment they pushed me over the edge my affection for them was dead. It makes no difference how much I understood their pains, how much I wanted to leave room for things to fall into places because I hate to judge. They turned into a blur: I still see their faces, but they are devoid of meaning.

'Do you still feel sorry for them?' I asked Clyde when we were in his lounge earlier.

'For misreading you. Yes.'

'All my good friends think the same...when I talk to them these days.'

'Always!'

'That's you, Clyde.'

Clyde has suffered the accusation more than I have. But Clyde is a rationalist and he does not try to overcome himself. ('What a nice way of putting it,' he says.) I envy him for his attitude towards things. If I could only have some of his resolve, I would be making much better use of my time. ('If you're that girl you wouldn't be here right now,' he says.)

The light is breaking.

Trouble

Alan and I have known each other for ten years. Alan is my kind of womanizers: the kind of men who would, like my father in his youth and my friend Clyde, go up to a girl and look at her in silence for a minute to see if she would break or if she is real--and they would take her offer of friendship if it is born out of that moment because there is always another woman, plenty of room in life to see what unfolds. The kind of male friends who say, 'Write something about me' and with such a genuine intention that I cannot turn away from--I am most giving when people are straight.

'You can't blame anyone when you have 'Do Not Disturb' written on your face half of the time!'

Alan said to me one night four years back, when he was driving us to dinner in the countryside. We were brushing past endless trees, old houses and a pregnant dog bouncing on the pavement. Alan is a wonderful driver: swift and steady, humming to music, though his legs always seem too long in his car--at 6 2', he is very tall for a Chinese guy. You would have thought he was a basketball player or a swimmer, but Alan's passion is soccer--he played so hard in his teens that he needed surgery on his knees by the age of 21.

'Do I?' I asked.

'Yeah, like you don't need the people around you.'

'They don't have to do a thing. I don't want much at all.'

'You're cursed, my young lady.'

I gave him a squeeze on the arm. We laughed.

***

Besides womanizing, playing soccer and driving around town, Alan loves to go horse back riding. A few years ago when Hong Kong was gearing up for the Olympic equestrian events, Alan signed up at the Equestrian Federation for lessons. A woman he was interested in--a tough and bubbly lady who would bitch to his face--was a great rider and Alan wanted to know what the fuss was about. Alan is game for just about everything, as long as he has the time and means.

'Are you sure you don't want to come with me?' he asked me.

'It's too expensive for me, and I'm afraid of falling,' I said. 'It'd happen sooner or later.'

Alan fell. He suffered an elbow fracture and had to type with one hand for a long while. His parents were aggravated. In their 60's they had enough of witnessing all these injuries to their boy. 'They can't hold anything against me!' Alan said to me during his recovery. We were having a coffee in a Starbucks near his office. 'I grew up with three sisters; I always had to go look for other friends, boys on the island.'

Alan grew up on a remote island in Hong Kong, though remote island is as good as any crowded district in my town with all the shopping, entertainment and tourism. I have met his family a few times. I seem like a good and sensible girl to his folks, who wish I could exert some positive influence on Alan.

'Nicole always lets me be,' he said.

***

Alan is five years older than me and much more driven--he works long hours in a purchasing job, follows the news and any interesting advertisement on the exterior of a bus, talks to people he runs into in a hotel or a food market and expects to be surprised, all the time. People who lack enthusiasm or personality are a blur to him--he looks at them as if they were school students who handed in crappy essays to pass the course. At the sight of these lazy souls, Alan wants to scratch his arm, get up and go.

'You say I have no patience,' I said to him today at lunch. 'Even I have problem keeping you entertained, sometimes.'

'You respond to the moment and who you're dealing with. There you're very emotional,' he said. 'Once you walk off it's over your head. And some people think you pine for them...'

Alan pulled a sad face. I giggled and ate my salad.

For Brian

The first time I met Brian at a sidewalk cafe, he was flushed and drunk and high on having revived his identity as a trumpet player for the night. The trumpet sat on the table, a little dull, as Brian stammered the question: 'Are you guys having fun?'

Yes we were, afloat on your drunken excitement, there was nothing more we could ask for on this breezy spring night. I was looking at a blackout that would befall on my life soon enough; I was happy to have someone do all the talking.

'So you're an art writer,' he examined my name card. 'I must get in touch then.'

***

Brian showed me several of his sketches and paintings. The sketches are of monsters like the ones I've seen in Pakistani miniatures and other forms of ancient memories, and Brian's creatures have a nihilistic take. The landscape paintings are a different story: the colors are too bright, bordering on cartoonish, a degraded representation of his sensibility.

Brian is colorblind. For him colors--or the idea of colors--are something he must tear out of his system. They mean little to him, the way landscapes are impressions floating in and out of his life. Nothing stays.

'You don't need to understand my artwork unless you're to write about it, which you won't,' he said to me.

***

There's always something to understand. Yesterday I brought a CD: a mix of dark wave and neo-classical with an industrial twist, resounding in a vast mental space. Brian and I listened with our eyes closed. His apartment is small but uncluttered--he has his DVDs, artworks and paintbrushes neatly arranged in different boxes and shelves. When it was over he shot up from the couch.

'This is great! Very stimulating,' he said. 'Too bad I don't know German.'

I had nothing to say. I have listened to this music over and over in the last fourteen years. The darkness remains but the space has been filled too, by familiar thoughts and solitude. If I ever look up at Brian--or anyone else--I see a closed door when they see an opening.

***

Some memories are happier. Brian loves to drive. Back in Sydney he drove a Honda to go to work on the outskirts of the town. At dawn the highway was empty except for a woman biker in occasional leather pants. Or Brian turned a blind eye to other cars speeding past, so he could picture the woman as some random paper toy he let go of in the wind, when he was playing with his elder brother in the countryside during their childhood.

'How did you know that?' Brian's eyes lit up. 'How did you figure out all these things about me that I've never told you?'

***

One question Brian and I will always have different answers to: What does it mean when we depict others in our works? Over the years Brian has had family and lovers come to him in deep grievances: 'You've never drawn or painted me.' To him it's an important concession to make: he does not concede unless he truly cares for them, so much so he wants them to keep them in his creative space forever. I'm the opposite: the people I've loved most, I cannot write about them.

'That means you care more than you want to,' he said.

'One day even this will break,' I said.

Because we don't know this place

Photography courtesy of Cyril Genty

Because we don't know this place is a live performance of music, dance and videos created by Julien Tatham, film-video director and artist (mainly in experimental visual art) who lives in Paris. The collective and improvised performance features musician Mathieu Mirol and dancer Emilie Carayol. Julien gives an interview in English here.

As some of you know, Julien is one of my closest friends. As artists we create in different mediums and languages. Our subjects and expressions are not so similar either, or they take on quite different guises. Still, reading his interview almost leaves me feeling a little confused: his answers are exactly what I would have given to the same questions, maybe in more concise language.

As an artist I believed in slowness. Since I started writing seriously ten years ago, I have insisted on a slow exploration of my voice: my subjects and perspectives, the finer aspects of the narrative drive, the impulses and lives that manifest on the page. With every story I create I ask myself: Am I telling the truth? Am I following my intuition? Or did I write just for the sake of writing a story?

Most of the time we know the answer. Other times it comes down to craft. There are a handful of my published stories that fail my standards--I never want to write those stories again, but that is wishful thinking since we will always fail. Like Julien, I am happy to have most of my work hidden and see it as an extended 'research'. I will only present myself when I am sure of the representations.

Which is to say I am happy to stay in a dark and solitary place, when others march forward with publications and public appearances. Julien says it for me: I have limited social skills when it comes to presenting myself as an artist. I imagine this will change one day--to an extent. For now I am taking my time. As long as I believe in myself and what I am doing, I am happy.

***

In June I will have known Julien for five years. Julien is working on a project that is related to one that we started in our early days, when we were there for each other everyday and drove each other to create. From his idea I came up with the esquisse for a new character. Julien and I come from the same place.