| name | value |
| location | Melbourne |
| date | 2025-05-31 |
| dateFormat | dd-mmm-yyyy |
| slug | 2025May |
五月一日
特別難活的時候，去讀林奕含生前的臉書文字，一種心靈上的自殘。
但其實昨天晚上難受得不行，生理上也輕輕自殘了一下。
跟戀愛相近的模式，讓我非常不適應，波動得很厲害。我想放棄。躲開這些會讓我難受的情緒和導火索。
五月二日
I’ve lost touch with all my emotions and feelings. I think it’s a protective mechanism. It will be bad to force myself into feeling things, so I am going to just ride it.
五月十一日
I am breaking. I don’t know what will happen this time, I have no faith.
L showed me his writing.
Regularly and frequently I ponder on death. My own death. Other people or cats‘ deaths. Through these thought experiments I aim to prepare myself for losing someone I love—to lose someone is also to be lost—and to gauge when is the best time for myself to leave.
Who will be affected the most? How can I alleviate it?
I don’t think I could ever have another cat after Haribo leaves us one day. If any of the people I’m close to leaves, I don’t think I can keep on living.
In winter, or just any extreme weather that’s not suitable for a plant to live, it sheds leaves, it cuts down anything that’s not absolutely necessary for survival and it focuses all the energy on the most essential parts.
I’m constantly in survival mode, but still receiving somewhat enough nutrients and light, that occasionally I still grow new leaves, even blossom. Recently I sense this dire deficit, which at first confuses me, since I don’t think I’m lacking much. Until I dig deeper into the soil. The roots are rotten. Barely is any left. No wonder, nothing is absorbed properly. All this love, so little is retained. It just passes through me and evaporates into the air.
At this point the only solution is to find a way to grow new roots, but naturally I also just want to shed leaves, cut down the branches. It feels right.
The longan tree whose trunk is hollowed out, has it fallen yet? “It might fall anytime.” The monk warned the napper, “Don’t stay too close for too long.” I froze at hearing this. I touched the trunk. “I can’t tell at all.” Monk looked back at me, having heard my murmur. “Next time you are here, more than likely the tree will be gone.” Struck by a high tide of sadness, knowing the monk was right as I wouldn’t be back here anytime soon, I almost couldn’t breathe. “I won’t ever see it again.”
I am the tree but I also have the responsibility of the monk, I should warn people. I should protect them from my falling. I shall not let my weight hurt anyone who comes close and naps nearby.
I told L that I am breaking. I wanted him to be informed and wanted to point out the option for him to just leave. It would be easier that way, no? He would have one fewer person to worry about and I would also have one fewer person to worry about. Before it’s too late.
No energy for new growth, survival is hard enough. Even though leaves are where photosynthesis takes place, without which light means nothing. But lush leaves also mean weakness, making it hard to fight against wind forces.
I’m not an ivy. I’m not a conifer. I’m not even a real plant. I’m not thriving, can you just kill me please? Spare me from this suffering.
I hope you don’t go. Selfishly I said this to L. Admittedly it is not only selfish but also manipulative—you can’t just say here’s an option but I also hope you don’t choose it. Worse yet, I’m not even giving Fei the option to leave. I’m full of contradictions. I despise my hypocrisy.
I feel like a visitor in my own body, just passing through.
She does things, without reasons but out of muscle memory. She doesn’t feel. Where is home?
Tears come down, L‘s jacket gets wet. She cries, not for herself, but for how she imagines what the people she cares for might feel. How silly, she lets her imagination cage her. And me.
I am locked in the guest room. People walking in and out, footsteps and chatters. Is she crying? She isn’t, but I am. For watching her do things without feeling any.
L holds me firmly in his arms. I bury my face in his jacket. My inside quivers as my face gets damp. Soft voice comes from above. Mild tone of concerns. I wish he had just walked away instead of turning around to hold me. I wish I had just pushed him away and we never got close.
No, I don’t want him to leave. I wish we are this close for as long as possible. Just let me be selfish.
Oh but she feels. She feels the very raw and primitive physical sensation. Despite the lack of emotions, she feels drawn to this simple animal joy. „Joy“. It’s the same thing as watching a film in order to cry. She can’t feel things and she can’t cry, but she still empathises, and so she cries for fictitious pain. At this moment she tries to steal joy from seeing him experiencing it. So childish.
The moonlight is so bright. We are walking uphill. Tall eucalypti and short ferns block out the moon every millisecond. The moon alights on and skips us. I look to my left, L walks briskly in this shower of moonlight. He looks beautiful. The heavy moment has passed, neither of us remembers it anymore. Or perhaps it’s me projecting again. Our hands are far away, he isn’t looking this way. He is just walking. I feel connected. More accurately, perhaps, I feel a desire to connect; since he’s not even looking, I can’t really tell how he feels. Then he turns and asks me what view I am enjoying. I think he knows the answer but he still asks.
Finally. I walk out of the guest room—the door is unlocked. In the next room I finally see my plant. I can’t tell what state it is in right now, I dare not size it up. It trembles lightly in the flowing air.
I feel happy. Genuinely happy. For this brief moment I don’t remember anything and don’t want to, I think about nothing else. I just want to be happy. It is temporary I know, and I am tortured by it not lasting longer. For I always fall in love with things that are ephemeral, and grieve for what feels like eternity.
It will be nice if I die right here right now. I will just disappear into the dark. L can drive away. Fei will not know.
I love you. I say it as I feel it. I am actually feeling it. Guilt creeps up again, at remembering the three times I said it without truly feeling it. Little white lies. It wasn’t completely untrue, in my defence. In the will to love, who can say there is no love? In rationally analysing the situation so as to say and do things not to harm someone who loves, how is it not love? Love exists even when it is not felt.
月光好亮。沒有別的光源，只有月亮，我們的影子在地上好清晰。樹林裡除了風聲，鳥聲，昆蟲聲，還有桉樹樹幹發出的吱嘎聲。月光躍過樹影在L身上跳。
Wouldn’t it be safer, if I had never seen your eyes? Wouldn’t it be easier this way, knowing I will be forgotten one day? It’s too late—I should have kept my heart distant, never got close. I wish I will never miss you, when we part ways.
In this dream I just woke up from, I was holding a dagger, trying to stab my heart. Then I realised how weak I actually am. I should get a gun, I thought. But where from? Too bad that microwaving one‘s head is no longer an option with machines built safer these days.
L now kisses me whenever he feels like. I think I have written this sentence before. I have got used to it. It is unrealistic to be in sync; we are two disjoint beings. I accept it. Because I love him. Love exists even when it is not felt. I know we live in different timelines, but I have no way to know where exactly he is—where anyone else is.
I am constantly surprised by how much I love. I love you more than I have ever known. People love in different ways. No matter how the mainstream media likes to portray a universal concept of love, people love in vastly different ways. There is no point in measuring. To weigh my love against yours, such a scale does not exist.
Another dream. Perpetually driving through tunnels.
This is precisely why things are difficult, that I love too much. I wish I don’t. It would be easier if I could dial myself back to the state where I only love people who are physically far away and have little access to my life, or death. But living that way is still not easy. I am now too good at still staying close to someone I love despite the physical distance. Is this me trying to root myself? Can I trust this soil? If I root here, will it erode me eventually?
Can I root here?
Or I should just hold on to the nutrients and light as much as possible, grow a few leaves–don’t waste energy on blossoming though–at least have some photosynthesis going, so I don’t die right now. But I can still just naturally die when I don’t have anymore energy income. No roots to unroot when the day comes.
I want to root here.
I’m so full of contradictions. The will to love and live versus the will to not love and not live. How funny. It sounds like it’s not my depression that makes me want suicide, but that the suicidal wishes conflicting my loving nature is what makes me depressed. Too complicated. I am overwhelmed. I want to sleep again.
Parting is inevitable, it’s only a matter of time. It would be convenient if it happens naturally, without any pain. We just gradually fade out of each other’s life. There won’t be much pain then, but it is painful now to think this is what might happen. It is a losing game from the very beginning. Why did we choose to play? Why do we still stay?
五月十二日
「愛只是愛，再偉大的愛情到頭來也只是愛。」 「愛到最後還是要分離。」
I sit on the floor, back against the couch. Haribo takes the centre seat of the couch, making himself comfortable. A light touch on my back, I turn around and find a paw on me. It doesn’t bother me, I turn back and keep watching the film. A bigger blob of warmth is now on my back, his loud breathing sounds like a little engine. His head is now on me. So warm. My chest vibrates as his motor vigorously runs. Warmth, peace, trust, love.
He’s too close to me for too long, now he smells like me.
五月十四日
Now that I’ve gained back in touch with my feelings, I feel so much. The three weeks of drowning has finally passed. Books speak to me again, no longer muffled by the thick water suffocating me.
Tizzy Bac: To know love first you need to understand harm To know life first you ned to understand regret
五月十七日
The shock leaving a person inflicts is like an earthquake. The magnitude scale measured by how much you love them.
五月十九日
意識到有些詞真的沒有辦法跟L傳達，因為語言的關係。「落空」和「心愛」，中文的搭配像一個悄然的懷抱，沒法以同樣的簡潔性用英文傳達。
As I didn’t want to accidentally inflict anxiety or stress, when I wrote the text I cut out a few other things that were bothering me. Now reading the text, it felt like I completely missed my own point. It felt weird.
What I really wanted to say, is that I wish we never went this far. And I wanted to ask, what if I say now let’s dial back to just platonic friendship? Or simply climbing buddies when we happen to be both at the gym?
Instead of me speaking, taking the lead to express, I actually really wanted to know, what did you want in the first place? Fleetingly, you said that you would never not initiate anything, having heard me saying the reason I never had sex with people I loved is because I never initiated and neither did they. If we didn’t do all these things, would we have been as close as we are now? Actually having done these things, I felt somehow not as close to you as before.
I am aware that my persistence in finding an answer to these things is partly stemmed from the traumas I’ve experienced, and I shouldn’t let my past have such deep and negative impact on our presence. Unfortunately reality is slightly harder to control than I’d liked.
Timing is key. I suppose it’s a good thing that I’ll be away for a month. So perhaps I could sort this out on my own first, before I burden you with my own problems.
In my most recent failed friendship I kept wanting to solve problems. It didn’t go well. Now I’m on the other extreme that I just want to give up at every corner where I see a problem. It’s taking me some convincing and self-talking to be a responsible person and not just disappear and ghost you. I say this not to ask for credits but I need to acknowledge it for myself. I find myself wallowed in those really pessimistic thoughts, wanting to leave abruptly, meanwhile pretending to be in your shoes and think how easy it would be for you to treat it as if I’ve never entered your life. For instance, I tell myself that you’ve never introduced me to any of your friends, they could easily affirm that I never existed.
The worst thing is that what I feared seemed to have become our reality. We don’t seem to talk much anymore. You don’t tell me about your days, and you don’t share things with me anymore. Obviously this is not something I can force, even mentioning it feels wrong to me.
五月十九日
I even tried to reassure him so he wouldn’t be worried or stressed. And he treated me with this passive aggressive silence.
I don’t understand. Did you decide to have a no phone day before or after you read my texts? Was it because they overwhelmed you so you had to take a break? If not, then why didn’t you communicate as you made that decision rather than apologising as an afterthought? Because the fact that you didn’t tell me as you decided indicates that you didn’t think about me when you made the decision, but deep down you know it was going to have an impact on me—otherwise why would you have apologised? I hate that when people do it. It’s the second time that you decided to not engage with my texts much and then apologised for it. I’d rather you just did it without apologies if you had valid reasons for it.
I can have this conversation with you, but also I don’t want to. I’m so tired already. I just want to give up and leave. It’s been wonderful meeting you and knowing you. But I’m exhausted. It’s better we parted ways now than later.
Suddenly I understand why S behaved the way he did. I too am compelled to do the same just because I’m too exhausted.
This is a scary thought. Just thinking about how the relationship S and I had progressed into something quite unhealthy, and that I finally could resonate with (rather than just understand) some of his behaviours… I don’t want to repeat those mistakes. Don’t be that person.
But no, I am not that person. I actually communicate well when I will be busy and where I have to pivot my energy to. I always make it clear if I sense any room for ambiguity that might cause insecurity.
五月二十一日
I shouldn’t be so harsh. I should let L know that he shouldn’t hold a standard that’s unrealistic to achieve, and there’s no shame in it.
But I am not harsh at all. I showed him. I told him there really is no shame at all and I am willing to face and overcome these problems with him. Together. Only if he cherishes it as much as I do.
导演一部戏，不是从和编剧讨论剧本开始的，也不是从与演员或作曲者沟通相关的工作中开始的；而是始于自由制作电影的人或曰导演设定内在冲突而产生了这部电影形象的那一刻：可能是一些细节片断，也可能仅仅是应呈现在银幕上的表现手法或情感氛围。只有对自己的思路了如指掌，并能同摄制组一起将其完整呈现的人，才能称之为导演。不过，这一切并未逾越寻常职业的轨道。在这个轨道上有艺术所需的很多东西，但要令导演成为艺术家，它还是不够的。 只有在思想里或影片中产生独特的形象结构及关于现实世界的思想体系，才是成艺术家的基础。导演将自己的思想体系交给观众审判，并与观众一起分享它，就如分享最为珍爱的梦想。导演只有具备了看待事物的独特观点，成某种哲学家时，才能成艺术家，他的电影也才能成为艺术。当然，这里的哲学家只是相对意义上的。 记得保罗．瓦莱里是怎么说的吗？“诗人都是哲学家，就好比海洋风景画家都是船长一样。”
五月二十二日
If I have to hold myself back, then what’s the point?
五月二十七日
好驚險的一夜。鑰匙落在了電車上，連小羊家的一起。一路追。沒追到終站，但小羊追到了。 我在電車回程的路上也攔截到了司機，她告訴我鑰匙已經送去了depot。最終小羊載我去depot拿到鑰匙之後，一看時間，居然在一小時內解決了危機。
中間決定給L發信息播報，也算是嘗試拉近我們的距離——我們一天也沒說話了。結果他果斷不回我消息了，說什麼在忙。
其實從我給他發消息到得到一個結果，不過40分鐘。就這樣他也不能陪著。
我中間還摔了一跤。
那條信息他都沒有很快回。再回的時候那句，I wish I could cuddle your pain away已經毫無意義了。
五月三十一日
在樟宜機場轉機。
My tropical roots are awakening in me Seeing these rainforesty plants, I do miss "home" I guess The place where plants have massive leaves, evergreen, which people from where I currently reside call "house plants" because they don't survive well outdoor naturally
What was that memory deep in me about the large scale mangrove forest again?
And it reminds me of this somewhat forgotten writing project I have, about... home, plants, self-imposed exiles, adapting and not adapting...