Ode to Singapore, the lover I overlooked.
Her water is clean and drinkable, still and
luscious to the lips and skin, pure, an intimate encounter with my virgin insides
and my fragile chords.
Her sparkly flashing bits work, all of
them, and do what they are supposed to
There is logic and reason, passion and
diligence, correctness, in form, grammar, substance, action.
I know the rules and the rule makers know
me abn know that I know the rules.
It is a place to behave and do the next right
thing, as every city should be, but she reminds me of it, hourly.
She is elegant, charming and lovely, but
also quirky, effective, swift and oddly direct.
Our first time, I was fleeing an island
somewhere tropical, bitten by magical evil fish. My foot expanding rabidly just after the
tsunami. I hobbled through the sparkly streets for a day and Changai airport
for an hour, carrying my shoe eventually, because it was so painful. There was
something on the news about a tsunami. No one knew how big it was at that
point. I got on the plane in agony, staring at my foot. My partner gave me
oxycodone and about 9 glasses of wine.
By the time I got off I was in a wheel chair and the airport was full of
reporters awaiting flights back from Tsunami affected areas to talk to
survivors. Somehow I got mixed up in it all and everyone assumed I was in a
wheel chair because I had climbesd a plam tree or something to avoid the
wreckage.
Somewhere in there I was fined $200 for
having an apple in my bag and was in no shape to argue. I went straight to
hospital and spent the next 5 days on a drip with my mean aunt telling me I
would have to have my leg amputated. One new years eve the boys brought a
formal dress and an eski to the hospital and carried me down the road to a wild
party at Iceland where I could lie on a couch with my foot up and be door
bitch. I was allowed home but had to go to hospital every day and was otherwise
bed ridden. When I could walk again I was free.
“But I liked having you home and taking
care of you” my mum said sadly. “It was nice to feed you and help you to get
around. I liked when you were my broken little bird again.”
T The next was with Mum, Simon’s wedding. We
chilled out, shopped, went for cocktails and ate well, we lived, it was one of
many trips for the two skinny ladies.
It was Simon’s wedding and my mum and I
decided not get bogged down in anymore official family events than we really
had to. It was a great wedding at Raffles and all the British side of the
family were there, the ladies sporting decadent and bizarre indoor hats like
they did at every Sinclair wedding. After the party I convince the bridesmaids
to go skinny dipping I think..
Years later I would return with the Lover, that
in-between land with at the end of our backpacking adventure, a place of
questions…
We
stayed with Tony Hall, who I had not seen since I was a child. He and the lover
stayed up till 3 am drinking wine and blaring opera. Something about Tony’s
house yelled ‘bachelor pad’ and I decided he needed mushroom coloured sheets, a
plant for the bathroom and other random cr*p from spotlight to feminize the
place a bit. He also needed cheese and pesto, to go with the stick of celery
and 5 bottles of red in his fridge.
“But it is a bachelor pad?’ he said
confused when I explained the mushroom sheets and plants and pesto. I wanted to
know where I stood with the Lover. He told me.
Each time I visit SG I remember different
facets of our relationship, the Tsunami foot being the first.
I look at her shiny skin and I love that she
does not mince words or waste my time. I appreciate it now more than ever before.
She is the gift of time, for she holds The
Lover and she is the place I want to make my home, to take the next step, carry
out the next journey. Perhaps, in wellness, it is the most important journey.
She has places to pray and places to be.
Places to eat, watch, drink coffee, smell,
think, write, sunbathe, be hot, be
alive.
Eating next to him we yabber away and I am
conscious that it has been a while. I miss him to the high heavens and I am in
his town, he knows the rules and the traffic, the subway and the customs. This
is really cool, it is new to me. When we say goodbye I cry, and I try not to,
but it’s impossible. My home is in our relationship, wherever in the world that
may be right now, and I need to do my bit by fronting up and being present,
living well, making a world.
To the city, she is my new home, my most
desired, an aerie perched on a hill in paradise, with crystal clear and clean
water coming out of the taps, in a space
station above a hill, a window seat spanning a sparkling vista. An indifferent relationship now resolved, she
is where I want to be.
