Sharing tea with everybody was wonderful. The moment I presented them with a little packet of four teabags of different flavours, their faces lit up and they couldn't stop sniffing at the packet. That night I received a text message announcing tea appreciation and the next morning I had people coming up to me, smiles and all, with their sweet little declarations of having tried the tea. The tea affair was the sugar to my week (unbeknownst to me that more honey was on the way).
Meaghan and Nisa visited this week, and I got to speak with juniors regarding ELDDS now and I'm dying to return to the warmth of the club. Friday the 13th cannot be further away.
The best part about Friday was the evening that I spent with Fiona, Anisa, Audrey and Mavis. We circled Bidadari park about twice, and covered approximately 3km. It was a beautiful day, the air a little still but cool, and it was definitely not hot. It was a comfortable run, as we admired trees that looked like hazel locks, pretended for a moment that we were all cats and teased Audrey for the tufts of grass that resembled her hair.
I climbed my first tree. It was not physically outstanding, unlike Brenda's birdcage tree, or the lone coconut tree, or the canopy umbrella tree. It was a tree that stood off a little to the left of the route we were taking, it's branches "climber-friendly", if I may quote Audrey. One could easily hitch his foot up and start swinging himself up the Y-shaped supports and scamper to the very top. It was a tree that left my limbs quivering in anticipation and I hurriedly took off from the path to sink my foot in the dip of the sturdy trunk. I made it up about three tree steps, before I got stuck, clinging to the branch above me for dear life (even though it only was a few feet from the ground). Audrey, of course took to the climbing like a natural and I quickly found my guts (I think they sort of fell off some way into my half-climb) and gave it another shot. This time I made it much further up and although I could have gone even further, I felt like I was on top of the world.
The feeling was sensational. I had the nerve to put faith into my feet and shoes to carry me some way up. I felt the rough bark scrape in contact with the ridges on my shoes and oddly enough, I found the friction comforting. I found that the bark made marks in my skin, mine seeming as folded as Mr Tree's was. Black spots flaked off the tree and onto my arms that I flung over a line of ants. I was plastered to the tree but I honestly didn't mind the dirt and insects. I felt the tree move beneath me to inch me higher, and I scaled the tree with nerves drowning in adrenaline. It was a daredevil moment.
As I dropped from the tree, good as new, I felt much older than I was before.
The loveliest part about Friday was that the five of us just stretched out on the grass and stared up at the sky. Even as the grass pickled my skin and the loggers stared, we just laid there in silence. The sky was the most glorious blue covered in parts by wisps and little cotton balls of clouds. It wasn't the country side of course. There were rows of terrace houses some way ahead and the main road on the other side of the park, but still far enough for silence. It was the most intense peace I've had in a long while.
Fiona, Audrey and I laid side by side, eyes closed, with our hands tucked under our necks to prevent the grass from itching up and Mavis and Anisa sat up, plucking at the grass and watching us. I closed my eyes and paid close attention to the other senses. It reminded me of being in Stanislavski mode, except instead of having my sunshine and bliss exposed to my mind's eye, I was living that moment.
I experienced the gentle breeze that reached up under my jaw, one that would have been missed if I had been complaining about the heat. The birds were deep in conversation, one to either side of my head before they flew off to the left. How I groaned in my mind when I realised that I had become acutely aware of the grass and its occupants. I didn't want to feel icky about being in the grass. I didn't want to think about ants running down my back or crawling under my knees or into my nose and shirt. One did crawl up my neck and I brushed it off, at the same time saw that a little green bug was crawling along my thigh. Of course, I wasn't going to be able to get rid of all of them, so I flopped back down and closed my eyes once more and let the little fellow roam.
When I opened my eyes to the sky after what felt like eternity, I found myself staring up to the clouds that had not moved. It was the same stillness that looked back at me. It was fascinating to feel that time moved slowly, or not at all; that when we opened our eyes, nothing had changed. In that moment, I felt we were just five people between the sky and the earth, everything else existed not. Not the work we had to do, not the relationships we had to deal with, not what people would have to say, not even the thoughts that did not center on then.
Of course, it was before long that we had to return to our mundane lives. I, for one, was confronted by my own miserable situation as soon as Fiona and I washed the pickles off our skin. Still, the overhanging daze managed to cushion the harshness of life. Everything jumped out at me vividly, my vision enhanced by the adrenaline. My reckless, careless self even smiled in return to her smile. We seem never to be able tear away from the stare. It evolved into the cautious lifting of the mouth's edge, but it was meant to be a smile nonetheless. Let's keep it up. I honestly have no reason to behave otherwise, if not for the fact that I thought something good would have come out of nothing. She's yours for the keeping.
So I say this with a pinch of doubt for myself, but I don't have two ducks to give anymore. Just one. Or maybe one and a half. I hope you like the sauce though.
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