On Chesil Beach

A simple concept, if not a taboo one.

A fear, if not an unspoken one.

A good ending, if not a sad one.

Excellent choice of words, if not a shuddering one.

A good book, if not a short one.

***

Sex is nothing, lust is everything, the act of it careless in comparison to how McEwan words it.  Where it stands and how it is, is less and more of what anyone would care to admit.

But this is not what puzzles me with this book. Why am I please with the way it ended? Even when it was not the fairytale ending.

It is perhaps the lack of seriousness by two in a moment gone wrong that can result in more dire results.

A maverick, this McEwan.

Love missed, life lessens….ahhh….the What Ifs in life….

Tennyson from New Dawn

There is sweet music here that softer falls

Than petals from blown roses on the grass,

Or night-dews on still waters between walls

Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,

Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.

Here are cool mosses deep,

And thro’ the moss the ivies creep,

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

 

by Lord Afred Tennyson (1809-1892), no title, from Poems, in The Lotos-Eaters, Choric Song no.1, published 1832

p. 339 of 481 New Dawn, Twillight Saga

Twilight to New Dawn

I am afraid.

Afraid that when the saga ends, I would be caught in a lurch. What do you do when you are living in a twilight zone and one part of your existence just collapses?

How I wish it could be as simple as sitting on the porch when twilight hits you. And you watch the last glimmers of sun rays spread over the vastness. Its long fingers trying the grasp whatever it can get its hold on to stay just a bit longer. Yet failing each time. Like sand sifting through fingers. And when the sun finally loses the battle, your legs can just allow you to stand up and walk inside to a brightly lit room.

No darkness. No gloominess. No worry. No fear.

I am afraid.

Even more so because the one existence I was clinging on to made living in the other existence more bearable.

I wake up each morning with a sense of urgency. More acutely felt when it was a weekday and I knew that the little free time I had in between work, I could escape fully and totally into my other abyss.

The abyss that made my heart race; my sigh soft, fuller, more satiated.

I was done with 2 and 3. A new moon had seen me through my twilight to be replaced by an eclipse.

I never thought a new moon could draw me in further. It existed just when twilight was becoming dull to my senses.

But it was the eclipse that permanently cut off the light in my abyss.

The twilight, the glimpse of new moon and then the eclipse.

I wanted very much to stay in this darkness. A state of oblivion. Where dreams become vivid because reality has been darkened. A dangerous place to remain where there is no light. The magic of it all would end soon when a new dawn breaks.

How would it be when the new dawn is done with. I know I would have to survive in the world of sun.

How long would I be able to be in the sun without wanting time to hurry by so that I could wallow in my twilight again? Would the day be sufficient, when new dawn breaks, that twilight becomes another state that passes by quickly. A state that does not draw me in into its grasps and holds me in, a willing prisoner? A state that would suck me in less and less into oblivion and vividness.

The thought of that is a nightmare to me now. New dawn has not broken and I am still caught in an eclipse, holding on to the one thing that started it all – twilight.

I am not ready to let go. I do not want to let go. Letting go makes me afraid.

 

From my conscious state of mind….

The books are aptly named when I look at it that way. And I think I sound like a vampire as well. It’s all so meaningful that I am beginning to believe the abyss will remain forever.

From the abyss…..

When twilight ends. There would be no ambiguity. No 2 states exist. How could it exist when 2 have merged to become 1. Nothing will be the same ever again. Forever seems timeless…..

Note from me:

Twilight – The time of the day when the sun is just below the horizon, especially the period between sunset and dark.

Twilight zone – An area of ambiguity between two distinct states or conditions

New moon – The phase of the moon occurring when it passes between the earth and the sun and is invisible or visible only as a narrow crescent at sunset.

Taken from the book:

Not tonight. Tonight the sky was utterly black. Perhaps there was no moon tonight-a lunar eclipse, a new moon.

A new moon. I shivered, though I wasn’t cold.

Eclipse – A temporary or permanent dimming or cutting off of light

Taken from the book:

The corner of my mouth turned up in a wistful half-smile. “I used to think of you that way, you know. Like the sun. My personal sun. You balanced out the clouds nicely for me.”

He sighed.” The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.”

I am.

I lie blank before her eyes.

She starts to fill me up and then clears me up again.

There is alot on her mind, I know. And her emotions must be in turmoil. There would be no other reason why she repeatedly fills and clears, action after action like a wheel in motion.

It must be something from the past that fills her mind. I try to glance and check what she fills me up with and I see many words of past tense.

Usually she fills me up smoothly and I am accompanied by many others after me.

But this time I stand alone. I am almost spent with exhaustion from being cleared so often. But I think this time filling me up will not be easy for her.

She clears me again. There are some things I guess she can never allow the world to see.

In filling, she can be fulfilled. Yet she clears again. Fulfillment will have to wait another day.

I am a paper. She is my author.

What to do? What to do!

“She has no right to comment. Yes, she is elder than me but she has no children of her own. How could she possibly understand what a mother goes through!”

“She was only thinking of what was right for your boy”, my aunty proclaimed.

“What was right for MY boy?” I literally spat out the words. “Yes, he is MY boy, not hers!”

“ Her view on what is right is determined only by her ideals. How dare she impose those ideals on me. And she has no kids, please….how dare she tell me what to do when she doesn’t understand at all what it takes to get it done.”

“It’s so easy to judge and comment and expect. She has no right, no right at all to say anything like that.”

“Hai….never mind lah. She has her own mind. If you think it is not right, then you pretend like you didn’t hear lah! ” my aunt said, trying her best to placate me.

Humpf….so irritating.

“I wish I had not come at all. To come and hear her comments, just makes my blood boil.” I retorted, wanting the last word.

“Before you were a mother, you also thought the same way she did mah. Only now you have become Mama, you understand that kids always misbehave, isn’t it?”

“Not that I never told her how different it was! Why can’t she understand? Bringing up children is not easy at all. She thinks I am not doing my best? She thinks I want my child to behanve like that meh?”

My nerves were somewhat calmer now, only to be replaced by hurt over the words of my single elder cousin.

“Have to teach loh. And continue to teach. What to do!”

She always had the last word. I had run out of things to say. She was right, there was nothing else to do but to continue to teach and teach.

***

If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

The tongue is sharper than a sword.

Once hurt, the heart mends slowly.

Teach and teach, no wonder we becomes nag-ers!

Rest comes

It has been a nightmare. For the pass 2 weeks, I had to cover 4 shifts of work.

I hope the rest comes to work today.

 

the rest – as in my other colleagues….

the rest – as in Rest being a noun….

What Joy!

“Oh, what joy it is that I am happy all alone!”

How would you read this comment?

Not that I am happy being alone but that I do not ned to rely on another to make myself happy.

In heritage living

I wish to inherit a bookstore.

Then I could quit being alive and start living.

Don’t give me cash in millions.

It might kill me.

The reason

I never thought I would be a blogger. I always wondered why people have 2 blogs.

Now I am. Now I do.

Simply because of my inspiration to write, intrigued by the play of words, enticed to jumble it all up and make something new out of it.

Exasperation simply because!

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