This morning, I started my day differently than the others. Instead of taking the usual route from my cabin to my office, I took the passengers’ elevators and went up to Deck 11 instead. Deck 11 is an open deck where you can find two swimming pools, strategically placed at the center and at the aft of the vessel and in between the two pools is a small bar where passengers can smoke and enjoy a drink or a dish of ice-cream. It was already 9 am when I had my first cappuccino but it felt the morning had only begun. The air was sultry but the salty breeze felt good against my face. There were no other staff around as I sipped my coffee-only the friendly Philippino bartender and tanned pool attendant, meticulously attending to the arrangement of the deck chairs. I craned my neck to see if my boss was lurking nearby but a hulking figure clothed entirely in white was nowhere to be found. I heaved a sigh of relief. As silly as it sounds, those few minutes felt like an eternity of freedom. The cat wasn’t around so the mouse has come out to play.

Being on the ship, with all its rules and regulations and even more unfortunate when the bosses onboard are control freaks, could feel like very much prison. The usual technique to keep the crew disciplined is to scream at them so that once publicly humiliated, they’d never repeat the same mistake again or to give them a warning or an infraction for the slightest misdemeanor like forgetting to wear one’s nametag.

Of course living and working together within such small confines require some sort of order but with the recent Master and the Director of the Hotel Department, our lives have gone from bad to worse. They had banned us from bringing onboard any kind of food and beverage purchased ashore. We only allowed to go out after most passengers are out of the ship (in order to avoid lines and complaints) and we can’t have more than 3 people in a cabin lest we’re fined for having a ‘cabin party’. A fellow colleague got fined 20 Euros for being in a cabin where his friends were drinking beer-one bottle each. He wasn’t drinking but still he was guilty. Once, while I was having lunch with another friend in the buffet, my boss came by to yell at me because my friend’s a guy and he didn’t want to see ‘couples’ hanging around. I was mortified with his comment because if every male colleague that I was hanging out with was my partner than I’d pretty much be a slut! Unfortunately, I was rendered speechless with such an inane insult that I said nothing in my defense and left the buffet hungry. It was definitely not against company’s policies to lunch with a male colleague so I wasn’t sure what the problem was. However, ever since then, I felt like I was being watched all the time. So I’d bury myself in work and then when I’m done each day with work, I’d scurry back to my cabin hoping to avoid my boss. Whenever friends ask me to join them for some drinks in the evening, I’d refuse. I didn’t want my boss to think that I was hanging around the passenger area for no reason. I would only take a few hours off in the afternoon even if sometimes my day wasn’t too busy and I could have gone out in the morning whenever the ship’s docked. As a result, I became exhausted with fear and anxiety. I was living in a modern day panopticon. Taking away someone’s freedom could be as good as taking away everything else they have. To be able to do what one desire is a basic human right. What else is there to live for if you can’t even decide for yourself what you can or cannot do. Slowly then, I even lost my desire to go out and if I did, I’d indulge in some sort of shopping frenzy as if buying useless and expensive things would satiate the gnawing discontent within.

However, these days, I’ve learned not to ask for much. Just a little of triumph here and there, just a few full minutes of just drinking my coffee with the sun in my eyes without anyone breathing down my neck can just be as heavenly.

Last December, I flew back to KL from Paris with tears running down my cheeks. I was trying to read The Stranger by Albert Camus on the flight back as it was a parting gift, something to remember him and our relationship by, but unfortunately the tears kept rolling and in the end, I tucked the book away. He had bought me the book when we visited Shakespeare & Co in Paris-the legendary quaint English bookshop where Before Sunset, one of my favourite movies, was shot. Co-incidentally, we had watched the movie together when we traversed parts of South East Asia with our backpacks.

Recently, as I was rearranging my bookshelf, I chanced upon the thin book again and it evoked a torrent of vivid vignettes. I smiled. I recalled of the good times we had- be it in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand or France. Infact, the time that we had spent together was never awful. We never ran out of conversations and we certainly never ran out of things to laugh about. Even when we had to endure a horrendous 2 day journey by car-train-ferry-bus from Bali to Flores, we joked our way through. Despite the grimy, exhausting and monotonous ordeal, we never let the weather, nor the crappy public transportation dictate our daily relationship.

I turned to the last page where he had inscribed:

“I hope you will like this book as I liked to know you. A book about freedom and humanity just as you are….I hope we’ll stay the best in touch of course to see you again in Paris, London, KL…wherever there a place for a stupid parisian like me and a sweet smart and nice Malaysian like you….”

The words tugged my heartstrings again.

It was in November 2010, where I had packed up and flew over to visit him. It was an impulsive trip though not more than the other trips and adventures that I had undertaken in my life. He had grudgingly thought that perhaps we should give the relationship a try, to see if we could pick up from where we left since the time we said our goodbyes once our adventures around South East Asia were over. He, the grumpy and realistic Parisian, didn’t think it was feasible but his heart had ached for an alternative ending. So he paid for the tickets and invited me over.

He turned up with a smile at 7.30am at Charles de Gaulle airport. He had even bought me welcome roses, which was even more romantic since it was in Paris. It was barely daybreak and the skies were still bathed in intense indigo but despite my jet-lag and freezing hands, I thought, there was nowhere else that I’d rather be.

I spent a month with him in his quintessentially Parisian apartment in the bustling quarter of Bastille, understanding him and his life in Paris. It turned out that he was typically Parisian in many ways (grumpiness: check, coffee and cigarettes: check) and yet atypical in other ways. I had expected to spend my time in cozy cafes and stuff myself with home-cooked French food but instead, I found myself shopping with him for frozen meals, cheese and cheap wine-to be eaten and drunk in front of his LCD screen while watching Weeds with French subtitles. It was a perfect romantic European fantasy come true with enough down-to-earth twists to keep it real.

It was in that apartment where I saw snow flakes falling in muted silence for the first time. I also bought my first pair of high-heeled boots, and walked all over the quarters of Paris with them. He caught me each time or held my hand a little tighter whenever I slipped. We visited the museums and mocked the modern art on display.We took photographs in front of the Eiffel tower with a snowy backdrop. It was my first time in front of the Eiffel Tower with a lover. He introduced me to his enigmatic and rather eccentric neighbour and we sometimes have coffee all together at his neighbour’s flat. We attended a costume party together where he went as Shrek while I went as Tweety but plans changed and I became a Chun-li Minnie Mouse instead. We also set off on an impromptu trip to London together, to visit a good friend of his, Stephane and Stephane’s fiancé. In between the highlights, there were restaurants, movies, cheese and cheap wine. We finished watching all Weeds episodes and occasionally watched new episodes of How I Met Your Mother, Season 6 (or was it 7?).

But of course, the question of the future, of what we should do with ‘us’ loomed before us as the succession of amazing days went by. The future, heavy with expectations, yet daunting and unknowable, had to be eventually discussed. In the very end, it was inevitable. He was going to remain in Paris while I had to come back to the ship. A long distance relationship whether temporarily or for the long run seems too difficult and intense for a couple who were merely dipping their feet to test out the water.

And then, it was over. ‘So. I’ll see you soon. We’ll talk. We’ll stay in touch,’ he had said, as we embraced for one last time. And then I let go and walked through the departure gates and waved. He stood there, waving till I dissapeared from his sight. In the plane I cried. Perhaps I cried too much, fell asleep with weariness that overwhelmed me and woke up with an excruciating back pain. I couldn’t sleep for three days after that. I was tormented with the question, ‘Why not? Why not?’ He had mentioned that you don’t move to a place for a lover but you’d find your lover wherever you are. My reluctance to believe that didn’t help. He is a realist while I remain an idealist.

Ever since then, we’ve exchanged a few emails and skype conversations but I had tried not to read them as anything more than a friendly conversation between two ex-lovers who have a sturdy friendship as a base to fall back on even when a romantic relationship didn’t work out. We had tried, we had let our guards down and had let romance swept us of our feet and when eventually when we came crashing down onto reality, all is not lost. We have loved and lost but memories last for a lifetime. He is still the one that I sometimes call to rant or to gossip with and for better or worse, the thousands of miles that lie between the both of us helps. For some reason, if there is true connection between two people, their presence lingers on somehow. I know that he’ll always be a part of my life; it’s just a matter of time before I turn the page and land on the one where we will meet again.

But for now, I put the book back into its place and think of what to wear for this evening.

‘Live in the present. Savor friendships. And, at the right time, let go. For our days are few, and there are present bonds to strengthen, loves in the here and now to nurture. The void ahead is onrushing, and will spare not one of us.’ Jeffrey Taylor

I’ve probably told myself a thousand times over that someday, I’m going to apply the same kind of commitment I have towards putting on make-up everyday before work towards my blog, but as you can see, months have passed and still not a scribble nor an anecdote on my stale and forgotten blog. It’s un-ac-cep-ta-ble.

WHY I DON’T BLOG ANYMORE

1) Most of the personal events happened  in my workplace. I’ve literally spent years living and working within the same space. I’m afraid that if I blab too much about the involved culprits, I might be fired from my job.

2) Internet is scarce onboard. It costs me at least Euro 0.50 per minute. Despite my 200 Euros allowance per month, it’s still not enough to hang around long enough.

3) I have an attention span of a 5-year-old and a penchant for shiny new things like a troll. To write something insightful can be tedious (don’t tell anyone that I’m an aspiring writer) and this old blog no longer has that magnetic quality on me anymore. As I’m not connected to the Internet most of the time, I don’t have a support network to keep me going, thus succumbing easily to procrastination and laziness.

4) I like to fantasize and make things up. I don’t like to think and psychoanalyze myself and put them into words. Most of my best work are fiction while the non-fiction ones don’t talk about me. Perhaps I’m just not a very thoughtful person-haha!

5) Work is demoralizing, exhausting and continuously draining my creative literacy juices.

You could say that I’m one of those girls who lives a semi-charmed kind of life: one who has been blessed to have that sort of job where he or she is paid to wake up in a different country everyday actually-that’s only a fringe benefit), one who doesn’t have to make up tales or overdramatize situations just to make her life sound a little more interesting, whose life (in retrospect) looks incredibly interesting at a glance and where her reality is usually stranger than fiction yet despite of all that, I don’t feel the burning desire to update my blog on a more frequent basis.

Instead, I pen ranty and usually grammatically incorrect emails to my friends who have long become my virtual audience. They armchair travel through me while I seek catharsis virtually in return.

However, there are times when I feel that my continuous bombarding of emails sometimes turn them off hence…

I SHOULD REALLY CONTINUE TO BLOG…..

1) Whenever I do get a chance to surf and lurk around other people’s blogs especially those stellar ones that quenches my thirst for knowledge, gossip or wisdom, I feel the urge (purely egoistical) to do the same. To put myself out there, warts and all, to the world and be read. To write in order to share would probably give me the most pleasure but to be read is kinda nice too, don’t you think?

2) I’m an aspiring writer. I’m trying to finish up a novel. What sort of writer am I if I don’t write? Also, as a writer, I must have some sort of portfolio. A personal blog is a great testament to one’s discipline and capacity as a writer but I’ve been doing piss all about it. It’s time to put my foot down and get over myself.

3) I sit in my room

imagine the future

sunlight falls on Paris…

Trafalgar’s fountain splash

on noon-warmed pigeons…

Gold dolphins leaping

thru Mediterranean rainbow

White smoke and steam in Andes

Asia’s rivers glittering…

- Allen Ginsberg

I could really relate to the verse by the beat writer Ginsberg. Friends somehow have imagined my life to  be something like this: me sipping macchiato in some random war-torn country while I type away on my Macbook-which is not completely untrue except that, instead of updating my blog, I was surfing Facebook or doing something equally inane and non productive. Now, if only I could capture that soft wintry sunlight in Paris or that double Icelandic rainbow into words, my blog would have been rich with sounds, sights and smells. I may not have been that great of a writer but I could at least try.

THE CHALLENGE

At least a blog post a week. It’s a realistic and feasible goal and I don’t think I’d die trying. It’s a challenge for the lazy but it’s still a start. What do you think? Who’s reading me?