i still come back and visit this place, with some amount of affection and reminiscence. im not sure if anyone reads this, i've received a few emails regarding this journal before. perhaps, these people have drifted away like fleeting clouds that perchance shadowed the path i am walking, but i would like to take this nostalgic moment to thank these people who have contacted me thanks to this journal.

thank you then, for random dots that form lines that intersect and converge, for random moments of coincidence, for random coincidence of empathy, for random words, in an unordered and impartial universe.

thank you for having shared my life.

i have a feeling its time to end this blog, perhaps start a new one to continue into another phase of this experiment in living. like a milestone in a software engineering project, this phase, i suspect, has come to an end.

my friend asked me for permission to quote a line from my blog.

i wished i died the day u left. cos it feels like... i died and didnt know it... and i continue to breathe, thinking i was alive.

ironically, i was surprised when he told me the line. i didnt recognise it. i had no idea who wrote it, nor could i even think it was written by me. it seemed like, to use a cliche, a whole life away. and such a gaping gulf between.

i think im gonna find out how to back up my blog and shut this down soon.

silver screen memories
desperate grasp, to hold
the moon so round, aglow
so near and yet, afar,
just within my seeking
fingers, empty

a nose a ear a whiff
a lick a nibble a kiss

go to sleep, she says
on my chest, my nose
nuzzling, her cheek

it all, comes back
familiar comfort, not
what i wanted, but
here it is
at my feet
and i smile,
bittersweet

a memory of silver screen
ghost of a heart yet
clinging, to a dream
of a moon i cant reach

i just saw my favourite mandarin movie for the third time tonight. unexpectedly, surfing the inane channels on television, i chanced upon it. within a few seconds of the first scene, seeing the features of a face: its brows, its nose, surfacing from beneath rippling water, reading the subtitles, i knew immediately it was said movie. based on the book kitchen, by banana yoshimoto, this movie, i can honestly and unabashedly say, is the best mandarin movie i've ever seen. everything from script, cinematography, soundtrack and actors/actresses, comes together perfectly for me. it is a comedy, it is a tragedy, it is a love story; it spans the turmoils which we so desperately try to reach across, just to touch each other even as we grasp for the ephemeral.

it leaves me melancholic, sad, it makes me laugh, it makes me tear, it makes me yearn and hope. and it reminded me of my baby. which, i think, has more to do with myself than the movie, because i saw it before her. and yet... being me, i cannot help but draw the parrallel between the silver screen and the reel of my life. i cannot help but see the actress as her... even as she on the screen says "fang gao" ("go to sleep" in cantonese), i hear the past whisper that with her on my chest stroking me, so many times.

and i cannot help but wished that i had the chance to show her this film and share it with her... i cannot help but still think of sharing my life with her.

but i am no longer sad and i am no longer the person i was, almost a year ago. and thus, i watched the movie and i watched her tell me go to sleep in mind's eye, and i smiled in my heart, somewhat bittersweet.