i am a hoarder.
i needed 3 days
...get myself exorcised of spirits...from irreverent memoirs and sentimental junk hiding in my cupboard.
here was a compartmentalised Past that needed release.
i never knew i could do it but i did.
i threw away-
1. several kgs of econs, hist and lit notes from my JC days(!!!)
2. 2 kg of theories, case studies and hypotheses from 4 years at uni
3. aged stuff such old lamp-stands, sweet bookmarks and oblique toys
4. unmentionable stacks of photo-albums (dumped with kitchen vegetables and wrapped with translucent plastic to prevent possible resales of my past on the quaint and collectibles market)
and
5. most shocking of all: letters, xmas cards and birthday notes from secondary friends whose whereabouts remain unknown & untouched.
still, i re-read as much as i could...shocked by the present transformation of desire and reality, the blighted outlook to what some parts of the past can mean to me today- half my body was spaced out 10 or even 15 years back to the schools i've attended...even as my eyes tried to make sense of ruins and apparitions from armydays . ahead of me, a trail of wonder is left behind by several snapshots taken at countless uni retreats and camps.
i feel dislocated with a few.
the optimist in me wants to remember the stark and honest textures in these letters; clauses, words and sentences that impart a deep blessing, waiting to be read, received and embraced again.
for every album / 'journal' that was discarded, i selected about 5-15 peculiar moments that captured the essence of an incident/ relationship or encounter...simple notes that ought to jolt my memory home should i be struck down with alzheimers in future. as always, some things resist the bin...a memory of landscapes, yellowed letters and messages that lift a weary heart. there was a reason why i kept them the last time i organised them into existence. many were handwritten, a handful were typed. had to remind myself that those were written on days when digital cameras and emails were practically non-existent; stamped simply with old stamps and dispatched from the same island, while others were mailed from distant lands & oceans away. you don't get such a feeling everyday when parts of your soul stays lodged in the past while another strains forth to stay connected to the present.
i saw in the letters kept, a sense of giving, care and effort between friends. they were articles of truth that mirrored what i appreciated most in my friends, or a span of time when we were privileged to be there. i note the way these letters were penned...a doddle (an occasional cactus, sketches of winged destinies, one sad clown or jabs of lightsabers) dabbled on a corner. on another, cursive words that still retain an eager spring of feeling or hope for something more to our narrow lives... i intent to return some to their authors, so we may have the pleasure of renewing our loss and lost dreams one long evening, someday.
this is my latest installation in my room. a $500 chestnut-oak shelf that will stop me from buying another book for the next 6 months / years (try me?). i was stunned to realise, only now, that my throwing, sorting and packing of junk and gems amount to more than just finding fresh & physical storage space- to sift the contents of one single life, making a choice to illuminate what is dead, and what remains.
--------------------------------------------
Another place, another life, another book,
we go on without a return ticket, on the trail
of the vanished song, the elusive lines unlocking
a whole library of meaing, our lives shelved
in comprehensive order, for us who will arrive
clothed in dust and dusk, to sit at the appointed desks
and pore over the pages, search out the tread
stringing together all arrivals and departures
which our hands will tell, over and over,
as if in prayer, as if in peace.
boey kim cheng: 'another place'
