The Flip Side.

Some people will be forever caught up in the past. A place where the heart & the head are not connected. A place where you are not thinking straight. A place where memory is your image of perfection.

For many, looking back in hindsight is like proving to themselves that they were not always as blinded by the trappings to which they now succumb. It's like your mind is holding you hostage and your heart repeatedly tells you to surrender. In many ways, we are all like Rozencrantz & Guilderstern. Perpetually flipping for a coin for answers, because we have simply sinked that low.

There is an extremely experimental element to this approach to life, an approach which becomes dangerous as soon as the intial emotional stimulation has surpassed. So in an unusal sense, I have grown to be very much like you. But in this scenario, I have become very much unlike you.

My past, is my requiem. It was a poem I once wrote and a song noone will ever sing. It is simultaneously bizarre yet reassuring for me to realise that I am a cynic at heart, that I can now lay suspended within this bulletproof glass, carefully observing you as you continue to flip that coin.

Peaches in Wonderland

Part 1 : (Appearance vs. Reality)

A very wise friend of mine told me today that she only found emotional stimulation from characters in fictional novels. No, she is not an anti social bitch - and neither am I (I might add), for I find myself in very much a similar position.

It is given that our personal taste of life is often shaped through the myriad of individuals we encounter. From these characters, we are splattered with vivid recollections and retellings which slowy & steadily after time, become: one part reality and two parts appearance. So in many ways our personal history becomes our personal fiction, because it is constantly being retold through our emotional attatchement to particular scenarios. We are like old soldiers comming out of a war, some experiences we speak of, other we chose not to. However, it is the stories which remain untold that realistically come to shape who we are. We do not avoid stories of this second kind because they are sad, they are simply a legacy from our childhood days upon which only WE are allowed to reminisce.

I am lucky enough to say, that my grand inspiration in life has already come and gone. When I was fifteen, I sat in the middle of a forest and declared to my best friend that if I ever found myself in an emotional maze, I would always remember that I was fortunate enough to be handed the gift of life. It seems unbelievebly sentimental for a teenager, but this was simply a message my childhood friend left for me.

(Part 2: House of Whispers)

Jenny was 4 years younger than me and we played together when we were children whenever our mothers sipped green tea and complained about their husbands. She had curious, clairvoyant eyes - always analysing, always watching. Like Simon from The Lord ofthe Flies. She would talk to me almost in whipsers, and unfortunately I was probably not listening. Calling her smart is perhaps borderline insulting, for she was not only smart, she was too smart, unbearably smart for this life - So she spun out our realm when she was six years old, falling down seven stories like a flying cherub.

Since then, approximately a decade has passed, yet I still find myself holding onto Jenny, holding onto her pearls of wisdom - whispering them to myself in times of defeat. I thought of her last year when I screamed to be taken away with her, only to find myself being carried away and leaving only a diamond trail of useless tears. I thought of her after the passing of my Grandpa - wondering whether they knew the domino effect of suffering that they had left behind. It sounds like a twisted cliche, but I even thought of her after I lost my virginity, thinking about daily generalisations about pain - wondering whether she, had felt pain.

The most honest questions are those which are posed by children. So I believe that in many ways, I am still very much a child, a child narrating upon grand narratives of life, always finding myself on the verge of answering such eternal questions, but never comming close. In my novel, I am a kaleidescope of sweet and sour. My fictonal name is crazy Peaches - my sidesick is my little sister Jenny.

Pick me up

Existential dilemmas perpetually plague my mind. While a lot of people believe in fate, I believe that life is more about “Yuan,” chance, rather than fate. Unless you entirely stopped thinking for yourself, it would be absurd to say that you were simply fated towards one decision rather than another. Many distinguish human beings from animals simply because we have the rational mind to choose. As such, individuals’ journey through life is based upon particular choices from the chances we are given. There’s an almost mathematical element to this ideology – when we choose one event over another, the outcome will thus differ. Fate is eternally undefined.

There are two men in my life – one I could almost call a boyfriend and the other I could almost call a brother. If I could find the formulae to eliminate the “almost” in both parts of this so called equation, perhaps I would have it all. This assertion would perhaps appear ridiculous to you, laughable even, for I am a terrible mathematician. But being the dreamer that I am, I take this thought one step further - if I then had the mathematical capabilities to be find a way to place a (+) between the boyfriend and brother, you might even become quite jealous of me, for I would have it all. If “pick me up” is the message of someone who is about to fall, then these two were the only ones who were listening. There is a difference between fate and chance - Do you see it now?

Storyteller

If a misogynist and a princess were to produce a child, would this be a recipe for success or a recipe for failure? With the blood of these two extremists running through my veins, apparently this combination isn’t as bad as it may sound. However, Van Gogh was an extremist, and so was Syliva Plath – Van Gogh cut off his ear...and Plath stuck her head in an oven. Perhaps It’s no wonder that some might interpret the word extreme as a prerequisite for insanity. It’s almost like the exact opposite of a euphemism.

“Thinking too much should be interpreted as a gift” was what I said yesterday. Perhaps the word I was looking for was “curse,” rather. With this in mind, why does a person who is extremely analytical fail miserably when hurdling through life? Being guileless leaves room for this endless creation of euphemisms. Being sensitive leaves room for your imagination to run wild.

If for every individual on earth, there is one story which encapsulates their entire personality, then mine is a story which involves fish. There’s a game children play in the markets in Taiwan, a fishing game where tiny baby fish are placed in small pools of water and fished out by children – for a prize. As a five year old, I refused to take part in this game, no matter how much adult persuasion was involved. “You used to say this game was cruel and thoughtless” my aunty told me as we wandered through the labyrinths of the market, “While the other children were laughing and playing, you were too busy contemplating upon how the baby fish might feel.”

I’ve heard that the words “second” and “chance” apparently do not belong in the same sentence. So is this what my life has come down to, to this day – the loss of a chance to be a carefree spirit? I simply want to be compassionate, thoughtful and giving – except I find myself pivoting from overly analytical to overly sensitive. I simply want to fall, and know that someone will be there to catch me, carry me, and then fall down with him – except where is my knight in shining armour? I simply wanted to play and laugh, and win the soft toy prize – except I was faced with the cyclical nature of cause and effect for the first time. Now am I am left in a state of reverie. If I just listened to the adults and enjoyed that fishing game, perhaps I would have turned into the exact opposite of how I am today, an extremist of another kind. Unfortunately right now, I am left at being extremely sensitive, and as childish as it may seem, I will continue equating this as a gift rather than a curse, in the hopes that my second chance is still yet to come.

Gracehawk

Although I have not been in many relationships myself, I confidently believe that relationships are like intricate tapestries. If you start rushly knitting yourself, you would soon start to realise that although the piece was large in size, it is only large loose threads which hold the fabric together. On the other hand, if you started knitting slowly and carefully, while the piece would turn out insignificantly small, it would be delicately held together and tightly bound.

People can spend an eternity boasting about how they romantically met. A flirtacious glance from across the room, a smile which was love at first sight, or the highschool sweethearts brought together from two different worlds. At at end of the day, initial desire or plain excitement are feelings which will eventually become threadbare. I had never once heard in my life that being impetuous was the secret of a succesful relationship. It certainly didnt work in Romeo and Juliet, so why would it suddenly start working now? It is comforting to know that after the countless times my father played the "Cinderlla" cartoon to me as a child, it had no more than a " killing time" affect for the both of us.

While my romantic meeting this time is not one that is set against the backdrop of a Classic Walt Disney's novel, it is perhaps one which can be interpreted as romantic on its own level. Maybe the time we first properly had a coversation can fall under that category...it had an almost, awkward sweetness to it wouldnt you say? Or the times we walked to buy almond magnums together before realising we had much more in common than our shared love of ice cream. Or was it the first time I woke up with you holding me, where my good morning kiss which started off as an experiment turned into an almost "ground breaking" realisation for two friends. "I actually liked that," were your exact words I think, before kissing me back. While our "official" first kiss will remain dateless, this kiss was one which epitomizes the many more which were to follow. My favourite memory of all is when you made your carebear puppet show to stop me from crying, imitating the pink bear (as you), piggybacking the purple bear, (as me), in the most adorable way imaginable. I'll take a wild guess, that in your mind, it was perhaps the time I came knocking at your door at five past twelve, with three cupcakes and an orange birthday card.

After all that has been said and done over the last few months, it is the most ordinary of ordinary pieces which holds us together. It is childish at times, but I often have to remind myself that it is pointless idealising upon romantic visions of the first meeting. We are all part of a bigger tapestry and although our story is not what you would traditionally consider romantic, our story is so, so much more. Our story is what I envisage as, Gracehawk.

Two extreme views upon love

It would be difficult to argue that the word “love” didn’t entail a significant amount of universal pertinence. And I believe that this word is embedded within two extremes– love as a drug and love as a ticking time bomb.

Two lovers at the verge of a split are living like they are combating against a war. Living in the fear of the next explosion, they clutch spitefully at every small move. Not calling when advised and not paying enough attention become blown out of proportion -Love becomes a manipulative tug of war game of give and take. Each will try to gain from this war as much as possible, like the conquerors looting the defeated. Both parties become accustomed experts at playing these foolish games, but in reality there is no winner. Once the time bomb stops ticking – then explodes –both sides have lost because both hearts have simultaneously been shattered.

A pair of lovers in a happy relationship are inseparable, and this is not in any way catalysed though mere obligation to be with one another. Spending time together becomes part of their daily routine and they will nap together like an old married couple. Knowing how to create a smile is simply an intuition- and they will rub their cheeks together after a kiss as it comes through second nature. Baking cookies together past midnight becomes their own invented custom – one that only the two of them will share. After all that’s been said and done, although the pair may not be in love, love is a drug because there is an essential difference between obligation and addiction.

Vertigo

There comes a point in one's life where they experience what id like to call the aftermath of "vertigo."

Vertigo: Fear of falling. Therefore, the aftermath of vertigo is the aftermath of such a fall. There are countless reasons why one might fall, in the figurative sense. Perhaps your heart has been scattered into pieces, the passing of one you have grown to love maybe,

losing your job, losing your money, losing your sanity.

Whatever that reasoning might be, the effect of vertigo is very much the same. Up until its buildup, individuals clutch onto anything to which appears valuable to them. Material objects to which they have attached their own personal meaning. Photos, mementos are what appear MOST valuable up until this point.

Life becomes like a time capsule, where memories can be individually packaged into tiny compartments and labeled accordingly. In many ways, we all sashay through life like miniture reflections of Narcissus, in denial about what lies beyond the surface. However, people who are lucky enough to remain in such a deluded state of equilibrium are the token few. And the aftermath of vertigo, makes you realise that what we once naively interpreted through the lense of significance become worthless. Underneath the surface of symbolic value masquerades a harsh reality. You see, vertigo is a kind of force, and without this kind of force, people will not even slighty change. Force in the literal sense.It is a kind of darkness which forces you to examine the "inner" as opposed to the "outer." Perhaps my assertions are too cynical, but as it goes, what goes around comes around, so Fuck you for breaking me, but thanks for pushing me over the edge. I have to rememberyou somehow right? So I might as well give you credit for teaching me first handedly the lesson of

vertigo.