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read between the lines
the simple things am listening to jason mraz's absolutely zero now and the rest of waiting for my rocket to come (how on earth did i miss this gem of an album? just goes to show that judging mraz by his kermit-the-frog's-banjo-ripoff-sounding-i'm yours cover was an inaccurate decision...cover, hah, pun intended), enjoying my little moment of sleepiness-induced peace in my parents' air-conditioned room away from the sweltering heat of tonight, before real life (read: work! lack of private space!) kicks in. after fighting the pain that partly came from an unexpected anti-climax that last week's switchfoot asia swansong in kl left me with (they came, they rocked, they loved us like the proud-of-you-kids parents i never had), i find myself now at the stage where i am ultimately grateful for and more receptive to the simple pleasures derived from the little things in life. speaking of pain, jon foreman's the cure for pain was anything but, and in fact it was very hard to remain composed listening to "i've had these doubts for 10 years, but the water keeps on falling from my eyes" while at my rather exposed desk at the office (it's just next to the aisle where bosses and colleagues alike walk past anytime), simply because this line has so accurately summarised the story of my life that there is a painful recognition that comes every time i hear jon sing it. as expected, shortly after the above was typed, my peace was slightly shattered and i'm now sitting outside in the microwave oven of a living room and right now, i can't recall all the simple things i was able to take a moment to appreciate and thereby draw small but vital contentment from. i just remember that they were moments where time seemed to slow down just so i could capture whatever i was experiencing or sensing like a mental photograph, which would most probably pop up randomly at a later time like it usually does. speaking about time freezing, i unexpectedly wandered into one of my old haunts this evening after dinner, and the feeling of walking around and looking at the place ten years on was...a shock to the senses. there was this ghost of a shopping mall (read: poorly frequented by shoppers) just down the church i grew up in where i used to retreat to whenever i just couldn't take being ostracised by my fellow churchmates, young and old alike (which was most of the time). just catching sight of and walking towards the relatively untouched-from-the-past basement food court where i hung out was...definitely not a case of respectful remembrance but one of like, oh my gosh i think i just stepped back in time because everything looks and feels the same, even the cool air-conditioning (with the exception of the television which is now gone). i sat down at one of the two regular spots in the still almost-empty food court as my eyes adjusted to the exact same sights i saw ten years ago, which is incredible in this fast-paced world of ours. the stationery shop was still in operation directly across me, and the blank counter walls faced me to the far left (the amusement centre next to it was gone but it was always far from where i sat anyway). to the distant right, the same closed food stalls with the same signs were lined up in a row. the hair salon had closed and a malay food stall had opened right next to it, but it wasn't that obvious a change. as i settled down in the chair and rested my hands on the faux-wood plastic table, i started to remember. this was the exact same place where i sat, in this exact same position, thinking about my loneliness and why the kids were so mean to 'weirdos' like me, how dry i was finding the sermons because they were just rehashes of the same sermon every few years, and how it was kind of unfair because it's not like i wanted to skip church but it just felt so terrible that if i stayed i would cry or have to put on a mask and leave with that horrible knotted feeling in my stomach, and how it just didn't make sense because the bible painted christians as a loving and forgiving group of people but most of my church people were anything but that, and even the old people hated us youngsters as much as we hated our peers..and how i would string out all these thoughts as a form of a conversation with god, almost every sunday. for me, that food court, with that seat and that other circular one near the back where it used to face the muted television where i later got up and went round to (just to feel the wood on the table and half-sit before i had to leave) was my church, because i never felt closer to god more regularly than there when i had nothing but my thoughts, my bible and my conversation with jesus (for some reason i refused to bring any form of distraction over because i was deadly serious about spending sunday specifically with god). we talked about my future, pain, the meaning of life, death and its inevitability, ethics, the holy spirit, god's characteristics -- basically we discussed serious topics, god and i. i learnt so much from those quiet moments with god in an empty shopping mall, more than i did from a packed church during those formative years (i mean the church was really great in establishing my foundations and accepting me back when i was a 'normal' child, but once adolescence kicked in, things weren't that simple and clear-cut anymore). and now here i was, from the future, remembering the place that started it all. whoops look at the time. 5 more hours to another day of work. thank god for god.
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