My Confession

I remember very vividly the scene in 2046 where tony leung's character screams silently into a hole, in some temple? in some wall? was it his character? was it the right movie? The older I get, the more my memories seem embellished. In my memory, I watched it with D, and I told her I would always be her hole. Sometimes when such memories come to me I don't scold my younger self for making such brave declarations promising eternity, I scold only myself for not fulfilling them. How many of us have promised forever only to have time outpace us?

This entry is actually not about 2046 or D or about holes. Well, not entirely about holes. But back to the scene, the idea of having a hole, somewhere you can say all your painful and sad things, or perhaps somewhere safe to keep all the painful, sad but precious things, somewhere to put all your hurt. So a hole may seem kind of useless - empty space and whatnot, but it is an emotional safe. I've kept this confession in the emotional safe for a while. Playing the if you don't say it out loud, it does not exist trump card.

I was losing my conviction that I would actually write a book one day. From secondary school, I think, I have been telling my friends with full certainty that I would write a book one day and give it to all of them. I didn't know what I would write, I didn't care about the money, even more horrified of fame. Already at secondary school, I was conceiving pen names. Although I'm quite sure my fourteen year old self never imagined her older self would have forgotten the pen name already. But such is the fate of anonymity.

My dream, my deepest dream, was to a write a children book with illustrations (my own!) that children and adults will love. In the spirit of the books that gave me my love for reading - a great definer would be The Little Prince, or Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl's books, more than any other books, fired my imagination. To me a rat is always a potential witch and every chocolate hides a golden ticket. I wanted to be as smart as Matilda and make the craziest inventions.

So, yes, I was thinking that I wasn't going to be able to fulfill my dream. With modern technology, I don't really even need lots of money or even a publisher. I really just needed words. However, my dream, was not just a book. A 100 page, double-sided, font size 12, stapled, binded, document with my words on it. I always imagined the book to exemplify a part of my soul. Yes, as corny as it sounded, I always thought that the book, however bad it would be, would represent a bit of me. However, the words I've been writing felt foreign to say the least.

I don't imagine that by saying out loud my fears will magically go away. I will need to check my Roald Dahl stories to see if that is actually literally possible. But, this is me, taking it out of the hole, and trying to tell myself, don't give up. Confessions are rarely given to other people, in reality they are always given to themselves. To admit things they rather not admit, not really because they don't want to hurt people, but they don't want to hurt people's impressions of themselves. Confessions are our little monsters.

So, I was all ready, even after the incident I described below after meeting TY and TYu to hang up my writing cap, when during lunch one day. It itched. The writing itch. Some word in a conversation had triggered a connection in my brain and even though I was still participating in the conversation, my mind had flown off, completely absorbed into this new idea. I was going to take leave, one month or 3 weeks, fly off to some place I've been to before, peaceful, languid, and simply write. Although I have never been to a log cabin in a forest, I could see it already - that log cabin, that desk with the shitty lamp and very functional (but ugly) notepad, a simple bed, one of those really old fat televisions and creaky chairs. Was I actually dreaming of a cliche? But I didn't care. Outside, there's a wide lake... and there He is fishing with his bucket of worms I will not touch. I will sit next to him, probably with a shawl, with my ugly notepad or maybe a book. We'll talk or stay in silence. The two of us have the most comfortable silences. There'll be nothing important to see, nothing important to do. Just groceries and finding clean water and food. It'll be nice if we are near markets and second hand bookstores, the kind just like the one in Holland where the book seller always give me a discount, so my books are so cheap that I always leave them at the places I finish reading them, believing they will meet new readers. We'll maybe do jigsaw puzzles, but I will give up half way, like i usually do. Then finally remember that I came here to write, and I did write, but here and there, on various scraps of papers, and maybe receipts, especially napkins, and hope they will all end up in some kind of poem. Be some kind of beautiful.