Angel Heng

Days by the Carousel

2012-01-12T18:49:00.000-08:00

" Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way."

From childrens' eyes the carousel was as real and enchanted as a mechanical bull was to an aspiring rodeo. The grating, repetitive music that emitted from its speakers promised of the faraway land towards which their valiant steeds galloped.

Children never tired of that music that their parents likened to fingernails on chalkboards. We never tired of watching their gleeful squeals as they mounted their rides, embarking on their journeys to encounter fire-breathing monsters and lumbering giants. If you watched closely, you could sometimes hear the faint thudding of gigantic footsteps.

Many a lunchtimes ago, the carousel provided background music to our chatter. Sometimes it was the only thing we heard as we sat together, sharing a silent camaraderie, enclosed in a coccoon to which the outside world was oblivious. Yet through occasional lulls in talking, we never ceased communicating.

Today I woke up to that carousel music stuck to my head. Funny, isn't it, how some things never really stay at the back of your mind where you put it? Once again, with the music playing in the background, I am transported back to that time and place, with them by my side. A family occupies the table next to ours, and I coo over the baby's azure blue eyes. Someone's overflowing tray clanks as he tries to keep his meatballs safely piled up in his plate, and your eyes twinkle as you repeat that story about me and my tray to my great chagrin and their amusement. We never tire of it.

You get up and bounce over to the drinks refill station and come back bearing your signature cheeky grin, and as we try to figure out the ingredients in your soft-drink cocktail, you reach for another piece of french fries.

Through it all, you talk. And complain. And we nod and offer a few half-hearted replies as you give us blow-by-blow descriptions of things and people and places, and animated conversations ensue as we start picking apart their love triangle with gusto.

As we drift in and out of conversations, he yawns, stretches, and wakes up, threatening immediate need to relieve himself. We fuss over him, our little terror, bundle him up in the trolley and make a mad dash to the exit and onto the grass where he forgets his immediate physiological need to answer nature's call and scamper around on the grass on his tiny chubby legs.

And we laugh. We always do. Time stands still when we are together, and our routines and habits blend into one clear memory on a background of carousel music and mirthful laughter, dubious soft-drink cocktails and too much black pepper on french fries.

For need of a good friend

2011-09-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

Friends are different, I told you. We don't have to meet every day, week, month, year, or decade, and nothing would change.
And then there comes a time when I need someone to listen, to whom I can tell things I don't tell myself.

That's when my mind turns to you, a friend whose ears never tire of my incessant what-ifs, maybes and what-abouts, whose words never judge, or criticise, or direct.

What if? Maybe...? What about? But ...

And you just listen and listen and listen while I dump everything on my mind on you. From amid the debris of jumbled words and incoherent thoughts you always manage to string together a pearl of what I was trying to show myself but couldn't find.

And through the what-ifs and buts you stand stoic, not on my side, not against me, but solidly close enough for me to lean against should I need to.

And even when I do need to lean against your strength once in a while, you manage to help build one for myself.

I am thankful for you.

But a Decade Old

2011-03-19T02:45:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to a special little Angel, with a kiss and hug.

May you learn about love, darling, and hold it in you forevermore.

Hold your head up high, child,

You're but a decade old.

The big wide world's out there, child,

Don't close the door just yet.

You were born a princess,

but raised a pauper's gift.

Don't stop hoping just yet, dear,

There's so much more to see.

I saw your head droop, child,

you never shed a tear.

Yet I heard a crack, a tear,

I knew it was your heart.

I can't make them love you,

I can't make them see;

That you, my wide-eyed cherub,

Are folding your wings, to hide.

Hold your head up high, child,

You're but a decade old.

I can't make them love you,

but here's what I will do.

I'll smooth your hair and hug you,

and look into your eyes,

and answer your million questions,

and spin you around to fly.

For you're a little angel,

and I love you so.

For every Love there is a Heart

2011-03-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

"For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it."

When Stroke struck her the second time, not even her children understood the magnitude of his devastation. Yet somehow she survived, and the loss of control over her body distressed her less than her loss of power to speak. She would smile, as she always did, as relatives and visitors fussed over her, patient in her serenity, her eyes curved into little crescents saying, "Thank you for coming."

Yet she was a prisoner in her body. So many words thrown unceremoniously and without trial behind the bars that held her brain, and power of communication. She understood every word they said, yet for her to produce a single "Yes" drained her of energy.

Only he understood. He who never spoke much, he whose smile not many witnessed, he who thought words were a waste of time, he who was strong, and silent.

He who, through the years, listened, and was quite content to let his wife speak, now bent with age, callused through the years, his hawk-like eyes mellowed - but not quite, his gait slow, stooping.

And he spoke. He spoke at length, to her, all through her uncomfortable, sometimes painful, physiotherapy, he spoke to her. Words she always knew were there now flowed, and she listened.

He also spoke for her. When no one else could understand her frustrated patience, nor decipher her arthritic, jerky sign language, he read her face and understood what she wanted to say, and she would sit back, relieved, watching him translate, at the nurse who would hurry to bring her the things she wanted.

They say that you can't touch love, but I know she felt it, his age-worn fingers around hers, their wrinkles growing through the years to complement each others'.

They say you can't see love, yet it was the only thing that filled my eyes when I see them together.

They say love can't be heard, but he showed me how love can show you what to hear.

And I believe he hears it.

Going home

2011-03-06T22:23:00.000-08:00

I found a teardrop on my pillow this morning.

As I watched it disappear into the cotton, flickers of my dream swirled within its crystal prison.

And another teardrop fell, as I grasped,desperately, at the memory of the city I saw in my dreams, the city I might never see again.

The roads were broad and straight. People all around me, laughing, speaking a thousand and one languages.

The waters lapped gently against the bank.

He was still there. Playing his guitar, perhaps for the lovers who stopped to listen. Perhaps for the lonesome, who lingered, and looked down into the dark waters at his own, solitary reflection. The man whose music filled the bridge and overflowed into the canal beneath.

And suddenly I was back on the Anichkov. Looking up at the horse, I remember it all so clearly now, the wisp of warm air dissipating into the air as we laughed, the four of us, searching for the face we never saw.

Even as mundane morning routines took over, I can still hear that lonely melody floating in that space between memories and reality.

Are You Obsessed with the Right Things?

2011-03-03T22:48:00.000-08:00

It was not the poster I was looking at, but my own frustrated reflection in the glass window. Pulling and twisting my wayward hair into all directions but succeeding only to create a bigger tousle of unruly curls, the sigh of exasperation had barely escaped my lips when I noticed it.


Are You Obsessed with the Right Things? (Poster by Breast Cancer Foundation)

Talk about wake-up calls!

This message from the Singapore Breast Cancer Foundation cannot be clearer.

" The difference between a bad hair day and breast cancer is that of life and death. Regular breast checks are the best way to detect cancer. Show support for the women in your life by purchasing a Pink Ribbon."

As our everyday lives are dotted with superficial vexations such as bad hair days, pimples, and the number on that blasted bathroom scale, how often do we pause to consider the more important, yet overlooked things on which our lives depend on?

When was the last time you had a mammogram, a Pap smear, a simple blood test, or have your blood pressure taken?

When was the last time you stood in front of the mirror and looked at yourself, really looked, and realised that your best assets were much more than superficial attributes?

Are YOU obsessed with the right things?

The little flower who yelled "Look at Me !"

2011-03-03T01:11:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a yellow little bud, who was not the most blessed in physical beauties, nor in worldly possessions, nor in intellectual prowess.

Yet as the years grew on her and she blossomed from a plain little bud to a plain little yellow flower, a little conceit and narcissism well uncalled for took root, and that plain little flower, that which would have blossomed more into, perhaps, something exquisite after all, climbed onto that pedestal too high for any plain bloom such as her, and yelled to the world, "Look at Me!" .

And the world turned at look, to behold the faint silhouette of a little flower, swaying high on top that pedestal fit only for kings, and gave her not a second glance.

Yet Little Yellow Flower noticed not the indifference, and took such pride in her beauty, her possessions, her cleverness, and stayed, steadfastly, on top that forsaken crest, and sniffed in contempt at all other blossoms beneath her feet, bursting into a rainbow of colours.

She stayed there, for the rest of her life, a lonely, vain little yellow flower, never having been bestowed with physical beauties, worldly possessions, or intellectual prowess.

And as the everchanging wind caresses over little flower, she will stand, proudly, and yell for all to hear "Look at Me!" ... and all will turn to seek that little voice , perhaps even see, but never look at, that vain little wilting yellow flower who put herself onto the pedestal meant for kings.

Not Taken

2011-03-03T00:45:00.000-08:00

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

And so it came to pass that she who led the way found herself lost and torn in the thicket of beckoning fruits and merciless thorns.

Who would have thought, that behind that sparkling facade of grandeur , the groundwork crumbled slowly?

Something I left behind

2010-12-31T23:58:00.000-08:00

As the familiar images set my tears ablaze, my mind wanders back to this day yesterday.

Once upon many winters past, I looked up the skies at the flurry of snowflakes drifting down to caress my face and wished against wish for that night to never end. It did. Then that winter ended, as did many others.

Perhaps one day I will go back to this beloved land, and be reunited with that part of me I left behind.

Perhaps I will never go back, but that part of me will always remain in this beautiful land.

Perhaps this new year will lead me to a new life and new beginnings, but St Petersburg will always remain my first love .

Happy New Year 2011.

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