My cerulean heartbeat

Malaysia's beauty equates only to that of my dreams. Flowers drape from chandeliers and lights hang from the already mystical looking trees. Nature is fighting back and slowly winning, climbing up massive towers and wrapping itself around the concrete as if to suck the life out of it. I need some of that, some more nature, a more symbiotic relationship with myself. I feel like here my heartbeat is cerulean (I am trying to expand my color vocabulary), as it pumps out neon signs and round faced woman behind head scarves, prayer calls and public transportation I feel totally and 100% transparent, sort of gliding through this country, slipping in and out between conscious levels as I become aware of my alone-ness and slowly emerge from feeling lonely. Some moments are hard so far, when my heart aches to be filled with memories already created, like my mind has been overwhelmed with new visions, new temples to rest itself, new merchants to trade with, new museums and people to learn from, that it automatically reverts back to safer times to escape trauma. The thought that I am gone for a year hurts me sometimes, but then I reconsider reconsidering that phrase. I chose this. I chose this time, these new things, I chose to leave, and I am not gone. I am here, and my grandmother (my goddess) years ago drew a circle around this very place that I would be today, making it safe for me to feel these feelings, for my heart to bleed blue and for me to turn my skin inside out like the fishies and cow heads that I saw at the market the other day.

I hate sitting with emotions. I want to cuss myself out when I force myself to do it, I want to black out and feel other people's emotions, their terrible and empty insides, instead of having to traverse my own Amazon...the piranhas of my memory are very snappy recently and I would much rather canoe out than let them nibble on my already feasted-on body. It's like I literally have to take all that I know, all that I have and throw it on my back and walk step my step to the emotional landmarks that I want to go to. Metaphorically enough, I got rid of some of my extra baggage today. I really thought I was going to miss Grey Shirt and Blue Tank Top, but then I let it go. I have to do that, I suppose, and sometimes it sucks, more than eating entire baby fried and salted fish for breakfast. Yup, it can suck more than that, even when that fish is accompanied with rice and peanuts and fire (aka spice).

So, sometimes, when I eat spicy food here, I feel like I might die. It's not a sudden death, nope, it's calm, cool and collected, much like Malaysians are. Like repelling into hell blindfolded. That's how Asian spice here is. Not like Tapatio and Cholula spice, which, compared to this, is just pogo-ing in and out of wildfires, breathing in ice air each time you jump. And definitely not like African pepper spice, which is like sitting in a jacuzzi full of fire balls and watching your epidermis slowly fade away. This spice is much worse, but the thing is I love it. And I love it for breakfast, even though it sucks. How does that work? This spice makes me laugh because people will put a small plate of jalapenos next to my plate of devils' breath to cool me down and it works. It makes me laugh because, like my experience here in general, I will be going along, thinking my green and orange and brown meal is totally fine and delicious and then WHAM! I drank all my lychee drink before I got my meal and now I can't breathe. To make that analogy more clear, so far in Malaysia, I have had at least 7 experiences where everything has been great (“It's only a one hour bus ride”) and then all of a sudden WHAM it becomes 5 hours with 2 connections. And I drank all my water in the first hour. And I have to pee. I love it! How can I love it? It makes me feel raw, it really makes me feel like my skin is inside out. And I can't fight it, I cannot do anything about it, and I have nothing to do. It's the most surreal feeling.