The Brink of Tomorrow

Now, writing on the day of departure, I am all ready to leave. The bags are packed - all four of them, large and small, slung and wheeled - and the weight of twenty years of accumulated meaning is a little over 40kg. I am staying up as late as I can to facilitate the switch in time zones - a total turnaround, since New York is twelve hours behind Singapore. And tomorrow, I will pack a few remaining articles, and my toothbrush, and I will be ready to head to the airport. All the preparations that have taken place up till now, that are still taking place (as this entry is part of the process), are the final stages of the long goodbye. And in some really concrete ways, I am already gone.

The big changes in the littlest things bely the magnitude of the impending shift. I am, for example, leaving behind my old wallet, a leather number that has acquired a permanent sheen from being in continuous use for seven years, full of holes, falling apart, but still so familiar and well-used that the tanned surface feels like part of my own skin. None of the old watches are following me; rather, I am bringing all the new 21-year-birthday watches, shiny, impressive and confident numbers that I feel I have yet to grow into. On the other hand, some things remain the same, linger on for a while more. My sole literary concession to the past is Iyer's The Lady and the Monk. My faithful tote bag from the days of Taipei, the canvas having borne the dust and sunlight of many travels and memorable occasions, is also following me to New York. A heavy jacket that last saw the light of day in Lyon, France, six years ago is accompanying me as an indispensible essential item once again.

Such is this departure, then: based firmly on a foundation formed by the past, and facing the future steadfastly; I stand solidly upon my memories, in order to be fully committed to the future. I remember, to hope - and I remember to hope. And it is clear that, on the brink of tomorrow, the memories I carry with me, the mementos that linger on with me, are tools with which to construct and interpret new moments of exhilaration and new additions to my perspective in the days and months to come.

And, ultimately, the hope is to be able to make a good return: that is, to fully appreciate how far you've come. Over the intervening period, things would have changed in me, and in the places and the people that I am leaving behind for the moment; but the hope is not that the changes don't happen, but that they don't happen all at the same time, so that there remains a measure of commonality between remembered experience and the present situation. This forms a sort of landmark, a spot height, from which one can measure the full extent of one's growth, and the distance one has travelled. A good return is thus about self-discovery rather than rediscovery; it is about gaining a more acute awareness of the direction of one's life, with respect to where one has come from.

And as I stand on the brink of tomorrow, eagerly looking forward to the end of the waiting, for this new adventure to begin properly - even as I yearn, starstruck, in this breathtaking state of ignorance, in awe of the opportunities and unaware of the dangers - even as I look forward to the good goodbye that I hope will happen tomorrow - a part of me is already trying to imagine what a good return from New York can be like.

*

And so far, it has been a good goodbye, I think - a splendid goodbye, one that has let me savour it, one that I feel has done due justice to everything that has built up to this. The last few days have been absolutely beautiful, the light intense and sharp on this well-loved place, so that every vista seemed to burn with meaning, and every scene seemed to me to be yearning to be remembered, and carried away to another place in one's heart of hearts. And today started in a similar vein. It being a day of obligation for Catholics, got up early to take a walk to the nearest church, where a spartan mass for people who had yet to start the working day was taking place. It was a bare-bones mass, stripped down and therefore more incisive, I felt. And then, in the golden light of 7am, I took a slow walk back to Simei, and stopped at the local kopitiam for breakfast.

A soft morning, then, made up of a walk through the soft light, sounds filtering through the cool air softly. Soft boiled eggs and a sweet, warm drink for breakfast; soft toast with kaya. The voices of a group of aged friends lowered, soft in the trading of daily gossip. The trains gliding overhead along the concrete viaducts, the thrums and hums softened by the solid bulk, awakening memories of waking up to those familiar whirrs and clicks - mechanical good-mornings.

Later in the day, went out for one last lunch of the season. Met with C again, and went prata-hunting along Thomson Road, and between the two of us, we gave into temptation and ordered too much food, so that the heartwarming sight of a table covered in edibles became a little daunting. And after that excellent lunch, went down to Borders and indulged myself by picking up the new Theroux book along with a guide to New York. It was a sequel to The Great Railway Bazaar, a book that is fondly remembered for being my faithful companion during Army training in Taiwan. There was no question about getting it. And later that evening, ended up in a cinema, watching the new Singapore Film, Jack Neo's Money No Enough 2, with family. It was a show that was in essence a 159-minute soap opera episode, and yet, it was done with such an exuberance and eagerness that was endearing in their guilelessness. Its honest effort elevates the movie into something that is surprisingly worth watching.

And so, this day forms the capstone to the long goodbye to this place. How can I properly say how much all this has meant to me? The words are dulled by tiredness (it is 3am, and I have been up for almost 21 hours now), and also by the usual aversion to sentimentalisation. But I can say this much: now, standing as I am on the brink of tomorrow, when I look back over the instants and events of the past year, at the incredible coincidences, the unexpected surprises, the heartwarming reassurances, the people, the conversations, I am hit by an intense clenching in the chest. It surprises me that the feeling is so intense, this nostalgia for some precious thing, now past, mixed with the fear of losing this experience forever with this departure. And yet, it would be positively criminal, I think, to care less than this for what has preceded today.

Thank you all, then, for your well-wishes, your help, your teaching and your patience. And know that I will remember all this.

*

I will try to write once more, before departing, but on the off-chance that errands and real-life farewells crowd out the time to record, let me leave some details:

My new mailing address is now on my Facebook profile. I will be at Termina One from 3pm onwards. I will probably not be back until July next year. And at latest, I will write again, come Sunday night in New York.