Second day of school, and I am gathering my stamina to embrace the life it offers now. The first week of school is often one of the best times of the semester, the introductory lectures and settling in before the rush, the long stretches of hours you get to spend with your friends, a lunch here, a breakfast there, perhaps an hour or two to stone away.

Stoning without an accompanying worry is a luxury, and ought to be treasured as such for now. How much time do we have? we look at our watches and calendars and think. In days, in weeks, then in months and years... How much time is it to the next class, the next event, to the next phase of our lives? How much time do we have left together, how much time do we take to forget thereafter? And we sit thinking of the future, of the million of next-times, lamenting the loss of the last-times, and the present slips through quietly between our fingers, unnoticed, unrelished for the simple, beautiful now-ness that is.

I love cool rainy days, the brush of wind against your face, the smell of a freshly-showered nature in the air. I love the glimpses of familiar people in the corridors and the comforting presence of friends. I love the slower, milder pace in the second day of school, where people are still able to pause, and walk slowly, and talk, and afford to while time away.

So it is not so bad after all, this briefest moment of breathing space =) Perhaps it's also got to do with yesterday's migraine loosening its hold, for the throbbing pain makes things bleaker, heightens your sensivity to light, to sound, and leaves no shield from negativity... so very tired are you from all the nonsense you had to deal with, that you are furious with the world, and the sanity that struggles to hold down your temper and your potentially reckless tongue leaves you exhausted by the close of the day. Thank goodness for the sanity, anyhow.

Started on the opening pages of Coetzee's Age of Iron, and had the pleasant sensation of losing myself in this extended love letter from a mother to a daughter, the fluidity that draws you into the text and makes you feel the relaxing sensation of sinking yourself into cool soothing waters, where the outside-world sounds become muffled, and the text, for the while, becomes your reality.

"With what slow steps did I enter this empty house, from which every echo has faded, where the very tread of footsole on board is flat and dull! How I longed for you to be here, to hold me, to comfort me! I begin to understand the true meaning of embrace. We embrace to be embraced. We embrace our children to be folded in the arms of the future, to pass ourselves on beyond death, to be transported......

To live! You are my life; I love you as I love life itself... The first task laid on me, from today: to resist the craving to share my death. Loving you, loving life, to forgive the living and take my leave without bitterness. To embrace death as my own, mine alone.

To whom this writing then? The answer: to you but not to you; to me; to you in me."

-Coetzee, Age of Iron


It's achingly beautiful, the writing, the heart in the words.

Perhaps how much time doesn't matter so much after all, so long as we love every present moment we hold in our hands =)




PS I got my media-writing module! For (only) 402 points! (as compared to the hideous 2450 points in round 2A) It's quite a delightful surprise, cos I'd given it up as a gone case until I chanced upon it yesterday... Really chanced... I wouldn't have time to even try if Jiayan hadn't had her laptop open to monitor her own bids when I met her at the forum, heh... *beams* I'm happy happy!