In Search of the Gardens of Paradise

On Saturday Morning, I went in search of instant karma. Actually, I wasn’t intending on something as momentous as that at all. All I really wanted to do was to slowly savor a bowl of oat crunch with fresh organic milk followed by a hot cup of Chai Latte while reading a whole week of e-mails at my own pace. For once, this would be a real treat for me because I have either been gulping down my breakfast or not taking any before work. There wasn’t even a drop of milk, organic or inorganic left in the house. There are some days where everything goes wrong. This is one of those times where I am going through a rough patch. On days like this, even the smallest magnitude of events that do not go your way are multiplied by a gazillion times. There is a saying about the redundancy of crying over spilt milk and probably more so for milk that never existed in the first place. Regardless of it all, I have been crying over spilt milk for the larger part of this week.

Something unpleasant happened at work this week. Actually a string of unpleasant things happened at work. But the main event resulted in the cancellation of my Portugal trip. I spent two sleepless nights measuring the implications of going on the trip and not going on the trip. It was a matter of leisure/ friendship/ money on one side and a matter of pride on the other side. I chose Pride and taking responsibility for something that I was partially responsible for.

The decision thus made still resulted in me breaking into tears every time I thought about it. In my last blog entry, I wrote about the places I wanted to visit at that point in time. They match the ‘X’ annotations as Rome, Portugal and France. Thus revealed, you can understand my disappointment. While many people have chosen to go to Spain, I had wanted to go to the lesser know places of Portal and Lisbon which glazed the magazines of Wallpaper. I have not had the chance to travel with a big group of people before other than a trip to Bali 10 years ago and I am tired of constantly traveling alone. Good company and shared memories are hard to come by or coordinate and I did not know that the trip meant so much to me until I had lost it. When do you realize the consequences of something until it is too late? I think that is how human beings are. On the other end of the spectrum, when do you even know if the resultants of your sacrifices are worth it.

I was not only filled with this sense of loss, but the grief also resulted from the fact that you know you could have avoided such a dilemma in the first place. It is the type of feeling I had when I was still a kid and I had just gotten my report book back for the year and needed my parent’s signature on it. On my way home, I would drag my feet through the muddy running fields where I’d spent too much time playing and keep wishing I had studied harder and watched less cartoons just for a few days or hours.

When the incident happened, I had the immediate urge to talk to someone, but as I went down my list, I realized that there was no one to talk to who understood me well. L was in Shanghai. W and the rest of my friends were in Singapore sleeping and I wanted to keep them in happy land. At that point, I immediately plunged deep into what felt like some desolate utopia, like coming out of a coma and realizing that every single living being on the planet had disappeared and you were alone in your decision making.

The impact of actions and consequences has been weighing hard or my mind. On Monday, the whole office watched Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ It was a sobering experience about global warming and our near Armageddon landscape in 50 years time where the melting ice lands will result in the flooding of major cities around the world. More sobering is the fact that we are the cause of our own decline through industrial emissions and also the only solution to our future survival.

Early week, I met bag man on the train again. I have met him on a number of occasions on the tube. He is very old, about 70. I can hardly see his face because his head is always perpendicular to his body, as if his neck is permanently broken. He carries a trolley bag with him and his clothes and large jacket are monotone from layers of dirt which have nullified their colours. He wears a large pair of brown boots which are two sizes too big for him. He smells and his head is covered in sores. Everyone avoids him like the plague. So I did the opposite and stood right in front of him and bravely ceased breathing for the length of my journey. After a while, he took out a plastic bag and unfolded what looked like a half eaten piece of chocolate. I wondered what happened to him and how he ended up in this state? Did he regret the consequences of his actions and behaviour in his younger days and were these the result of his current state? My heart ached while watching him pick at his crumbled chocolate bar. I wanted to pass him the 5 pounds I had left in my wallet but I thought maybe he didn’t really want sympathy. He wanted someone to understand him.

I remember telling this to someone before. I don’t need your sympathy, I don’t need a solution, I just need a hug and you to understand. And the truth is no one understands and you cannot expect everyone to. Human emotions are too complicated for one human being to fully understand another. We all settle our own problems and we carry the weight of our own burdens. That’s what being an adult is about.

So, on another consequential breakfast-less morning, I packed a single chocolate truffle as a reward, a magazine, a bottle of water and other essentials and went in search of my own salvation and sanity at the legendary Kyoto Gardens in Holland Park.

Finding one of the entrances to the Park was not so difficult even with my dismal sense of directions. I hate reading maps because I can’t tell left or right or right from left or up from down but I remember places from the sense it gives me if I have ever visited it once before. If you led me into the deep dark forest I could get myself out but if you showed me a map I would never be able to take you where you needed to go. Once inside the park, I felt a little lost and scared. There was hardly anyone in sight and I could not see beyond the trees which closed in on me. The path was muddy, laden with slippery leaves and the sweet rotting scent of a rapidly degenerating autumn. I came to a cross road with a small pond with a statue of some old dude on a chair in the middle of the pond. It didn’t make sense to me at all. An old dude on a chair in the middle of the pond? In any case, beside the pond was a map. I could tell left from right only because the outline of the side profile of the old dude in the pond was printed clearly on the map. Take the route on the right of the statue then a left at the first turn.


It was a quiet, lonely walk. I knew I should be doing some serious thinking about a lot of things and the time would come when I would have to make more decisions, but not right now. I felt completely drained from the late nights and week that had just passed. Finally,a short distance along the first left turn, I came across the steps of the entrance to the gardens. There was a squirrel sitting still and silent beside the steps and I thought he was a statue as well but he ran off as I came closer. Walking up the steps, I came to a clearing with peacocks, a waterfall and a small bridge across a koi pond where the waterfall terminated. It was almost surreal. I sat down on a bench at the foot of the pond, took out my truffle and magazine. Elle Decoration Special Collector’s Edition. Everything was peaceful for a while and I let the truffle disappear slowly on my tongue, till I got to page 30, where Casa Da Musica was featured. It looked so cool in the picture and I was suppose to be there next week together with all the Alvaro Sizas which I would miss as well. Suppose to.


I left shortly after. Back home later that day. I spent the rest of the evening in my room. The sky was as dark as ever and I suddenly felt a violent loathing of Autumn. Why did such a beautiful time of year have to be so dark? I did a bit of yoga, watched a movie on my computer which momentarily gave me some distraction, then read a book that Full Moon aka C had given me called ‘The Adventures of Captain Underpants’ by Dav Pilkey. It brought me some relief as well and I stumbled into a fitful sleep after that.

This morning, I took a walk in the park after foregoing yesterday’s walk in search of lost paradise. The crowds of people were not a mirage. This brought my impatience up another notch and I wanted to do a road runner and bull doze everyone in my way. Back home again, I took a nap to recuperate and gather some strength for the long week ahead. I woke up in a daze from a bizarre dream of a violent argument with Flat mate LP and HL over some pints of ale. The sky was dark again. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth only to realize that it was not morning.

Come bedtime, I did not want to go through another night of hiking through barren dreamlands. I decided to take drastic measures and call someone. I decided to do the unthinkable. I called my mummy.

I may be an adult, but sometimes, I still want my mummy. I still need my gas heating. I’m still too young and too weak to carry the entire evolution of the world on my shoulders. I still need a hug.