I like looking at the sea. I like looking at non-human organisms and things. Humans are all too much trouble, too complicated for our own good.

I’ve heard about family members disagreeing over the amount they need to each pitch in for their parent’s funeral; I’ve heard about family members pulling their purse strings tight when it comes to throwing a birthday party for their 70-year-old sibling; I’ve heard about sons and daughters striking long feuds and becoming lifelong enemies over their parents’ heritage.

I don’t want to keep banging on and on about YOLO, but it’s true. Your parents will only die once, your siblings will only live healthily into old age once, you family members are the only ones on Earth who will love you unconditionally.

What is so hard to grasp?

I stand here now. I could be standing here at this very same spot, at this very same time tomorrow, but nothing will be the same.

No one told us that to live, to live again, to reignite that spark for life, we must first die, fall a painful fall, crushed bones and heartache and all. Some tell us to make lemonade in desperate times, even more tell us if adversity doesn’t kill us, it will make us stronger. We think we understand these well-championed phrases of advice or motivational quotes; we realise we have been clueless all along until we are confronted by the fork road: maintain status quo, or dive into the unknown?

When you finally make that dive into the unknown, your mind winds back to all those times when you were invited to make these life choices that have the power to turn your life into a vicious cycle or to transform your life for the better. Like a pop quiz. Except that then, in those circumstances, it didn’t seem like a pop quiz because you weren’t ready to see the alternative way of living, of moving forward, by exploring possibilities that are hitherto unknown to you. Now you know, for your heart is open. But you regret nothing, because then is then, now is now.

It was old every morning while we were in Amsterdam. The only difference was whether the heat packs in my trousers pockets were warm, or if they succumbed to the low temperature. But it was cold every morning.

I’m still reminiscing about Amsterdam, almost a month since we took the flight back to Hong Kong now. It’s as if my mind struggles to come to terms with reality — the unpleasant reality of unpleasantness of such complex nature that one with a full-time job cannot afford to dwell on much.

Roll on Christmas.

To make a living out of creativity one must keep travelling, if not to meet new and all kinds of strange and ordinary people, then to visit foreign places from the most manicure of cities to towns where the old and new, the familiar and alien, the conventional and unorthodox are thrown in a mishmash, excitement and anticipation up for grabs.

The British chef who knows to use star anise to enhance the flavours of his Italian meringue served with apricots is one who has the humility to transcend the national border; the writer who writes about Olz hanging the lantern in the stiff mouth of his dead wife is one whose mind never sleeps, watching out for the peculiar and the less so.

That window up there, it was breathing. It curved outwards as if exhaling. I swear it did.

On the third of February we will be holding a birthday party for my eldest paternal aunt. I admire my efficiency in securing venue booking on Saturday, but then all it took was a few back-and-forthWhatsApp messaging. Should I set a reminder on my mobile calendar? But who would forget about the event anyway?

Soon it will be February. I’m already looking forward to Christmas. Christmas, when I get to get away. It seems almost unethical to will one’s life away, but time flows like quicksand regardless of my preference anyway.

I haven’t been lovely or loveable lately. I’m wretched. Inside, I’m a tragic train wreck, survivors zero.

I feel like I have been brutally removed from my habitat, then hurled randomly into a pond, left for dead.

I have my husband to be grateful to, for loving me nonetheless. Undeserving of his love, I am.

Today, I discovered the joy of watching pigeons sleep.