Twilight

Wait! It’s not about the movie/book. I mean the time of twilight, the transition between day and night. Not evenings, evenings are soothing and for tea, snacks, and chatter. Twilight, when darkness takes over light. My least favorite time every day. The feeling of time running out, especially if I haven’t had a productive day. I can already tell that I won’t be handling my twilight years well.  The worst is twilight on a Sunday, or the last night before you have to fly back from a vacation at home.

This Sunday, the anxiety was a bit too overwhelming, so I took a stroll. Little India looks lovely – Diwali decorations are still up, and Christmas lights have joined the show. Some retail therapy (that may or may not have included a Barbie-themed sticker set) and a Toast Box breakfast set later, instead of staying in and reviewing my long pending monthly budget, I realized I was probably just hungry. I don’t particularly enjoy the weekend crowds, and I can’t help but notice that its mostly men. Why is it that I am the only woman uncomfortably waiting to cross a very crowded street? I’ve noticed this so many times back home as well – the proportion of men out in the streets, especially later in the day, is far higher. Maybe it’s some sort of self-reinforcing phenomenon. Reminds me of the sassy dialogues from Four More Shots Please! and Darlings. Don’t get me wrong, men are free to go where they want, when they want, wearing whatever they want. I just wish women were as well, everywhere in the world.

At the café though, I was distracted from my journal by this table of two families. At first, just the middle-aged fathers discussed cars – their childhood luxury favorites, the down payments that would be needed to acquire those cars now, which medium-range cars they could afford. I wasn’t eavesdropping, they were loud enough. Basically, a lot of money talk. Then, the mothers walked in with the kids (of course). One little boy requested a brownie – just one brownie. Enough to trigger his dad’s seemingly well rehearsed monologue - of how kids these days don’t value money, how that little boy ate 12 falafels which cost him xx SGD, how the boy needs to now stop crying and cheer up so that his dad’s mood isn’t ruined. I felt so sorry for the little boy, a tiny brownie was such a treat for me too, at that age of eight or ten. The whole group then trudged along to have dinner at an expensive restaurant, and I wondered if that was a lesson in self-restraint only for the young one.

I probably enjoy observing human interaction more than conversing myself. Not nosing around, more like a wildlife photographer. The couple in the café at the Museum of Natural History deciding how to split the last piece of pie they ordered, the daughter taking her aged mother around describing the various works of art within Gardens by the Bay, the little toddler watching the sights from the MRT window with awe in his twinkling eyes, the 7-11 workers giving each other life advice while I am trying to checkout my sad cold lunch. It’s like watching a tiny snippet of each person’s life, listening to their story, and wondering what the history behind their presence could be. Did their great grandfather travel to this country just with a suitcase in search of better pastures? Did their parent fly here for a temporary job, and fall in love with someone in the city and make it their home? Or are they just here for a quick stop-over before flying to Sydney? As my dad says, I do waste a lot of time with my head in the clouds - which explains why I had a scraped knee for almost all my childhood.