Home Life
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Home Life
I think I'm gonna stay home
Have myself a home life
Sitting in the slow-mo
And listening to the daylight
I saw the little crystals forming outside of the plane window, the background was a vast grassy plain of blue grass. Maybe if I looked hard enough enough, I might be able to find those playful brown children you drew while you were still a kid. The crystals looked like little cracks on the windows, and I pictured the windows shattering due to the sudden change in pressure, the cabin erupting into a narrow tube of chaos, like a barn in the eye of a tornado. Masks hang from the top of the cabin like dead bodies hanging from a tree - dead bodies, like what we'd soon turn into. Papers flying in the air, the air stewardesses are screaming. The man next to me grabs hold of the armrest, with his eyes closed and prayed for the chilly wind to blowing into his face, the smell of his impending doom. But the wind doesn't stop, and neither does the screaming in the cabin. Children are crying, mothers are crying even harder. We are about to die, about do die in our frozen tombs thirty thousand feet above the South China Sea. We were all about fall those long frightful minutes from the sky, thinking how it'd be like when we hit the surface of the water. Then the body of the plane rips apart, ejecting the passengers out from their seats and into the atmosphere, at a height too cold for anything to survive. We start to fall, fall closer to the surface of the water. We braise ourselves for impact, prepare ourselves for the pain. We are wondering how long it is going to last, if it is going to take us all the way to Heaven - or Hell, for some. We are terrified, but we cannot scream. Not now, not anymore. The wind in our faces swallowed our voices, and we are still falling, still falling, still dying.
I think I'm gonna stay home
Have myself a home life
Sitting in the slow-mo
And listening to the daylight
I saw the little crystals forming outside of the plane window, the background was a vast grassy plain of blue grass. Maybe if I looked hard enough enough, I might be able to find those playful brown children you drew while you were still a kid. The crystals looked like little cracks on the windows, and I pictured the windows shattering due to the sudden change in pressure, the cabin erupting into a narrow tube of chaos, like a barn in the eye of a tornado. Masks hang from the top of the cabin like dead bodies hanging from a tree - dead bodies, like what we'd soon turn into. Papers flying in the air, the air stewardesses are screaming. The man next to me grabs hold of the armrest, with his eyes closed and prayed for the chilly wind to blowing into his face, the smell of his impending doom. But the wind doesn't stop, and neither does the screaming in the cabin. Children are crying, mothers are crying even harder. We are about to die, about do die in our frozen tombs thirty thousand feet above the South China Sea. We were all about fall those long frightful minutes from the sky, thinking how it'd be like when we hit the surface of the water. Then the body of the plane rips apart, ejecting the passengers out from their seats and into the atmosphere, at a height too cold for anything to survive. We start to fall, fall closer to the surface of the water. We braise ourselves for impact, prepare ourselves for the pain. We are wondering how long it is going to last, if it is going to take us all the way to Heaven - or Hell, for some. We are terrified, but we cannot scream. Not now, not anymore. The wind in our faces swallowed our voices, and we are still falling, still falling, still dying.
I woke up from that dream, my head against the side of the cabin with a blue colored pillow tucked under my head. The sun was still blazing outside the window, a spot on my left arm was burning as if a kettle was placed on top for a minute or two. The circle of light was on my arms then, and I closed the windows to prevent a sunburn - wouldn't be fun to get a sunburn on the plane? How ridiculous a story would that be? The man next to me has three layers of clothing worn, and I started to wonder how it is possible for this man not to suffer from some form of heatstroke, especially for the fact that we departed from Singapore which is about three hundred miles North of the Equator. Perhaps the story of getting a heatstroke would be a better story to tell over a few mugs of cold beer. Perhaps that is also why the man next to me had a strong body odor. I hoped for somebody to find out that he was in the wrote seat, that somebody to be some pretty lady who speaks English - a lady of any race or age. But he remained with me for the entire four hour journey back to Taiwan - back home, where I belong.
I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a square
I used to be in my M-Z now
You'll never find me cause my name isn't there
I can tell you this much
I will marry just once
And if it doesn't work out
Give her half of my stuff
It's fine with me
We said eternity
And I will go to my grave
With the life that I gave
Not just some melody line
On a radio wave
It dissipates
And soon evaporates
But home life doesn't change
I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a square
I'd love to walk to where we can both talk but
I've got to leave you cause my ride is here
Home life
You keep the home life
You take the home life
I'll come back for the home life
I promise
I am not a nomad
I am not a rocket man
I was born a house cat
By the slight of my mother's hand
I think I'm gonna stay home
I am not a rocket man
I was born a house cat
By the slight of my mother's hand
I think I'm gonna stay home
I've been waiting for this trip for a while, though I don't necessarily need to come back to Taiwan. That was what I said to my mother when she proposed to go back in August, which I declined because I had, and have, everything I need here in Singapore. My friends are here, and it is not like I haven't got places for good food. Besides, my father constantly brings food back from Taiwan, so the taste of home isn't exactly a rarity either. But the end of the year always does something to me, or even to everybody else I am sure. It's not Christmas definitely, because it is a festive season that I dislike quite a bit. It is the tradition of coming back home every December, a tradition that hasn't seen a break ever since I came to Singapore at the young age of five. Every single December during the holidays, the family would be packed and ready to make our way back to Taiwan. It was a month back then, but the visits became shorter and shorter throughout the years, and it is going to be merely ten days this time around. But I am not complaining, because ten days is better than a day in the year not spent staying here in my homeland at all.
Naz and Jeannie were nice - and bored - enough to see me off at the airport earlier today, something which I have never experienced in my life ever since my childhood friends sent me off to Singapore when I first came here in 1990. To tell you the truth, I wasn't exactly encouraging of them to send me off without doing anything else constructive at the airport. So we had lunch, and of course the company was brilliant as usual. Naz and I successfully tricked Jeannie into believing that Chewbacca is a brand of chewing gums with hairy wrappers that they sell at major candy stores. It was just the three of us being the three of us, and they reminded me of why I'd like to stay in Singapore for the majority of the year, most of the time. It's the company which I do not get in Taiwan, the familiarity of the place and the people. Still, there is always that sense of suffocation, no matter how much you love a place. You just want to get out of there every once in a while, go back to the place where you came from and breathe the air all over again. So there I was at the departure gate, hearing the bad English of the air stewardesses all over again. Their English hasn't improved by a single word over the years, but maybe that's why I love my country, my home. Because in this place where my home life is, things just don't change no matter what.
I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a square
I used to be in my M-Z now
You'll never find me cause my name isn't there
Home life
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life
I spent the majority of the time on the plane watching Memento on my Mac. The beauty of a laptop - or rather, a Macbook - and the beauty of ripping movies into your computer for your viewing pleasure. It all adds up to the ultimate traveling experience, and the man next to me stared at my computer in envy as he ran out of shows to watch on his own little television mounted at the back of the seat that belonged to the passenger in front. I adjusted my seat a little backwards, and I heard the woman behind complaining about not being able to eat properly. I felt like turning around and telling her that everybody had their seats pushed back, and I can't eat properly either. So push your own seat back and stop sulking about it. But of course, I was too busy entertaining myself with the movies and the free peanuts. Besides, the movie was awesome as usual, and I had a blast taking apart the jigsaw puzzle onscreen while the plane sailed on by the milky clouds.
I looked out into the distance, the afternoon sun was blinded me for a split second. Still, I could make out the familiar sunken cities underneath the cloudy sea, the way the towers of clouds looked like ancient buildings, swept away by the waters and hidden forever. Also those smaller clouds, those handful of clouds, like sheep running on a big blue field. Not to mention the cotton clouds, the cloud that looked like a bull, that other one that was shaped like Australia, and that other one that looked like...well, any other cloud. I closed the blinds again and got back to the movie right after I had the thought of the plane crashing all over again. It happens every time I fly, a fear of mine which I hope will never come true. Anyway, I wonder how much of a difference a plane crash like the one that occurred in my head would make a difference to you. Yes, you - the person who wanted my return so badly the last time I was on my way home. I wonder, how much of a difference, it would make to you, right now.
I want to see the end game
I want to learn her last name
Finish on a Friday
And sit in traffic on the highway
I want to see the end game
I want to learn her last name
Finish on a Friday
And sit in traffic on the highway
The descent made my face hurt, like a thousand needles trying to wriggle their ways out through my skin from the inside of my head. Aside from the erupting pain in my eardrums, there was also that pulsating pain in my face, especially in my forehead and cheeks, an excruciating pain that got me hugging my face for the most part of the journey down towards the airport runway. The man next to me seemed ignorant of my situation, he still sat in his chair and was watching the comedy show he was watching about three hours ago. I wondered then, if anybody else was feeling the same way as I was, feeling the same discomfort piercing through my veins. There was an announcement over the P.A., something about the crew hoping the passengers to have had a safe and comfortable flight. I sneered, and went back to my face hugging and my moaning as the plane descended some more through the evening air. Distraction, I needed a distraction. I need something to keep my mind off things.
So I looked to the little television in front of me for the very first time during the trip, and there was a neat featured that allowed you to check out the view outside the plane through a camera mounted on the exterior of the plane. So I watched the city lights through the camera, like a galaxy of stars that fell from the skies, but still glowing strong in the craters they've made in the ground. There was a strip of light at the end of the darkness in the horizon, rows of light flickering in a pattern, guiding the plane to the runway. We were close, we were going to land soon. I slapped my forehead to get rid of the pain for the very last time, and prayed for the plane to land as soon as possible even if it has to crash land. Then I thought about the nightmare I had on the plane again, sort of like the scene from Final Destination. But this time around, nothing happened. Just a smooth landing and a maneuvering towards gate A9. I was home, I was home. So many people are waiting for me now, so many experiences too. There wasn't an urge to go back this time around, just the present and the future. You won't be waiting back there, you won't be - you never were.
See, I refuse to believe
That my life's gonna be
Just some string of incompletes
Never to lead me to anything remotely close to home life
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life
That my life's gonna be
Just some string of incompletes
Never to lead me to anything remotely close to home life
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life
There is that smell again, the smell of home. The cabin doors were opened, the air stewardesses were standing by the opening, arms crossed in front of their skirts and saying goodbye all with a smile on their faces. I smiled back, but the words from their mouths were muffled somehow. That feeling in my ears, like earmuffs being worn over my head. "This'll take a while to heal," I thought to myself. The queue at the customs was long, everybody rushing somewhere to meet somebody to go to somewhere else. The guy at the counter made some small talks, I couldn't care less or hear much because my ears were so blocked that I could only hear my own sniffing and my heartbeat most of the time. The luggage took forever to arrive, but it was soon after it arrived when I saw my father's shape in the crowd, that big dark shape like a rain cloud.
He drove like a runaway refugee on the highway, swerving through the traffic like an oiled snake. Traveling at 140 kilometers per hour, I wondered what he was rushing about. Through the highway, everything was dark on either sides. I do remember the trees and the endless farmland, but everything was dark by the time we were passing them by, just an endless land of pitch black and that sign of civilization at the very end of the horizon. I think my father was eager to show us the new home, the brand new home with that renovation we've been talking about for months now. That is not to mention the food that he found around the corner, the bookstores and the Starbucks just below the block. Everything and everything, just waiting for me to visit them one by one. The street signs hanging from the sides of buildings, neon lights flashing on and off, almost hypnotizing to my eyes. Then there were the congestion on the roads, cars driving at an equally maddening speed as my father, the badly designed road signs and the old houses on either side. Then I saw my uncle and aunt, with their dog looking for a tire to mark his territory in the neighborhood. Then there was a sudden realization.
Hey, I'm home.
I'm home.
And this time around, I'm not in a hurry to go back.
Not anymore.
I can tell you this much
I will marry just once
And if it doesn't work out
Give her half of my stuff
It's fine with me
We said eternity
And I will go to my grave
With the life that I gave
Not just some melody line
On a radio wave
It dissipates
And soon evaporates
But home life doesn't change
I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a square
I'd love to walk to where we can both talk but
I've got to leave you cause my ride is here
Home life
You keep the home life
You take the home life
I'll come back for the home life
I promise
This entry was posted
on Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 1:13 AM.
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