The first day of the new year with love

And so another year has come and passed. We always say this but still it fails to sink in how these days whip by in a fury and disappear into somewhere I hope where all these past days, past moments still live with some kind of resounding meaning in our lives, that I am certain, at least it is a hope of mine. Days both good and bad, still have significance somewhere in time, in space, in memory, perhaps? Who knows.
2007, a jump in a number that adds up to these increasing years of our lives, and this one has come with a kind of calm. I was at Embercadero where they had a giant clock tower just like the one at S'pore river's Victoria concert hall, they had firework, a lot of cheering, and muddling around in the crowd, I see crazily high teenagers on top of a portable toilet jumping and grooving and felt myself rooted in relative calm watching the fireworks blocked by trees and heard an very loud and drunk "Why are there so many fucking treees?", a drunk girl trying to stuff porno down a woman's handbag. Very bizarre but really I felt calm. It was just standing there looking at that big clock watching that minute hand slowly inching up up to the number 12, and that wave of excitement that sweeps the crowd. There are so many things different about this year's countdown and yet at the same time there is so much that remains the same.

That was last night.

And there is that thing I realize about all these new changes and myself, so many things are still the same. There are still those rare moments I'm thankful I am alive (thankfully). Today. Sitting in my Uncle's car speeding down the freeway with the windows drawn down all the way, giantic gulls floating somewhere on the periphery of my vision and the wind whiping my face, a tinge of salt air of the Pacific. I enjoy these moments as a passenger, as a traveller, between two points. Between the start of my journey and the destination, between leaving and arriving, that state in between when you're on the road. I still remember that road to Pallisati in India. The drive from the Singapore airport that very first time along Treelined streets with sunlight streaming in like a fairyland. All those taxi rides in silence at night in S'pore. I loved those moments of calm and a kind of freedom to lay back and just watch things go by. You're not doing anything really, just being there. And then there was that very magical ride when I sat on the MRT and on the opposite side sat a whole row of women of every conceivable stage of womanhood. A pregnant woman, an old lady, a little girl, a student, a baby, all so strangely packed one next to the other, and had no diea how strange and wonderful looked from the other side. They must have wondered why that girl on the otherside was staring at them like that with such a strange smile or maybe they just thought I was weird.

So what is relevance? Not much really, I guess. But last night at the countdown, I wondered, why did all these people gather here to celebrate the coming of another new year? What for? Why do we celebrate it, welcome it with joyful expectance? Other than the fact that it is more fun than being at home, why stand vigil and await its arrival together? I guess it is all those moments like these, the random episodes in between our arrival and departure from this Earth which another coming new year promises, and the bloody surprise of it all. And that clear statement " I've been there."

Happy 2006/7 people, we've all been there!