felt increasingly fat, so decided to go for a long jog today after
inactivity of about two weeks.
and wanted a change of environment, so walked to the nearby reservoir for a
jog around its perimeter. incidentally, that was where
I grew up too, where I spent my formative years kicking about in the lush green
turf, rolling down the gentle grassy slopes, and heck, even fractured my arm at
two places.
those were wonderful days. perhaps you don’t understand
what I’m saying. but you out there, have you lived all
your life at the same place? if so, you’d probably not
get what I’m trying to say. when you’ve grown up
someplace, spending twelve years at that place, made your friends there, and
then get displaced somewhere else, perhaps to a new home, you get a strange
feeling when you revisit the place.
it’s strangely familiar, yet unfamiliar. you know
your way around the place. you know which things are
permanent, and have been the same still after all these years, only more faded,
more worn out. yet you don’t feel like you belong
there anymore. you feel like a trespassing intruder,
disrupting the peace of the place. then you begin to
notice the little things that are no longer the same. the
new litter bins, the new poles for bird-watchers to hang their twittering pets,
the new shops that have taken the place of the old. and
yes, you feel old.
and all that came to the fore when halfway through my lap, who do I meet,
but my kindergarten classmate? that’s nearly 14 years
ago when we were classmates last. guessed he was
getting ready for ns, but it so happened we were running in opposite
directions, and so we passed each other with nothing more than a surprised hi. but a pleasant surprise it was indeed.
clocked a time of 28’ 30” for 4.8km, not bad compared to my best of 25’ for
5.0km after such a long period of inactivity and unfitness. will
have to regain that standard if I want to do the half marathon again. and at the same time I can reacquaint myself with the
splendour of the reservoir. to get the chance to feel
like a son of the reservoir again. why anything else,
when I spent my first twelve years waking up to the reservoir in my face every
morning?
what a beautiful childhood.
on another note (I’ve got lots of other
notes these days – but can’t blame, I play music. heh
lame.), I found another catch-22 situation I’m in. I’m so hesitant to let go
because I’ve held on for so many years. but the longer
I hold on, the more hesitant I’ll get because, well, it’s dragged on even
longer. so for the first time, I found the answer to a
catch-22 situation very quickly. simply let go.
hope I’ll be able to drill that into myself enough. cool.
catch-22 situations swath me. heh.
alright. I just meant to write about my beautiful childhood, so shan’t let it
lapse into another psychologically unbalancing entry. just
wanna say I love nature.
and the reservoir ranks right up there with its natural beauty.
dejectium out
20 may 2003
1945 hrs gmt +8