Late night call

It's not until you've been away from home that you realize how vulnerable everything is. It's true. You can only sit and pray, at the other end of the world, that nothing will be eaten away by time. And there's nothing you can do about it, except pray. Suddenly every single change matters. I told my family not to move a single thing in my room, because I want to feel like it's the same room every time I get back. I went by Orchard Road the other week, and Specialist Shopping Center has vanished. Many other new buildings have sprung up, out of nowhere, into the darkness, into the night sky. Singapore is changing by the day, and by the time I remember, it'll be gone forever. It's only the price to pay. Rumi said, 'To hear the song of the reed, everything you have ever known must be left behind.'

Sometimes, in the anxiety of self-aggrandizing, I forget how to write. Sometimes, in the anxiety of self-aggrandizing, I forget how to make films. Sometimes, sometimes. Sometimes in the still of night, I.

I told Yasmin the night before I left that I've always felt sad for places. If places are only made significant by the people who inhabit it, what happens to them when the people are gone? We quarrel and make love within these walls, and then we're gone. But the places remain, and they will remain, forever, and traces of our existence. Lives that stain each other, lives that cross and part. I've always felt sad for places.