Woke again to dropping visibility and a severe headache. I had thought being out but indoors yesterday would make me forget the haze but it didn't work. My eyeballs felt like they would pop out of my face and I was disoriented and dropped and broke some crockery at lunch. For a bit everything had become blurry in my head. Then I waited almost 2 hours to see a doc and be given antihistamines, eyedrops and medicated lozenges. The high point of the day was a conversation with a young engineer from my husbands firm who told me how she thinks of him as her godfather. It was touching to hear about their relating and how she seeks him out when she needs advice. She was handling the haze with resilient equanimity and like many Singaporeans felt indignant about Singapore being chided for behaving like a baby. The smog cleared for a couple of hours in the evening as we rode the bus back home and it felt really good to see hope filled blue skies.
Today I cringe when I think about going out.
A friend pointed out to me that unlike what I had felt world media was reporting this haze and she is probably right. Yet I have the intense sense of the forests, wild life and this little red dot disappearing and nobody knowing or caring. World media does report more widely now but it still is selective about which parts of the world, which issues and species get more coverage. At international seminars I always seem to know more about the Western world than they know about my world and if I had not been a teacher of environmental studies for a few years I probably would know very little about the natural world. But with news online from sources other than mainstream ones it doesn't have to be that way. I have days when I want to know whats going on in the world and I diligently check out different online sources and then there are days I just go inward.
The haze has this effect of sending me inwards and its been good for writing the memoir. Things I thought I had forgotten have emerged from my subconscious. On thursday I really began enjoying writing for I began looking at those events from a different perspective and began touching what others in that story might have felt. I guess that is why I am really writing it - to get some knowledge about myself in those foggy years and recover lost parts.
There is a part of me that wanted to move towards normalcy despite this disruptive smog. But there is nothing normal about it. I have begun reading Jeanette Winterson's memoir, 'Why be Happy when you could be Normal?' Jeanette Winterson's adoptive mother says this to her when she tells her mother that she is in a relationship with another woman and happy. I think the key to what I do during these haze days is find a way to be happy and forget about returning to normalcy.
I think my husband and I will stay home today and talk instead of going to a film. He has been reading my blog and also been remembering and talking about those foggy years. I think we can put the time we are stuck indoors to good use to bring fresh life to the relationship.
There is a part of me that wanted to move towards normalcy despite this disruptive smog. But there is nothing normal about it. I have begun reading Jeanette Winterson's memoir, 'Why be Happy when you could be Normal?' Jeanette Winterson's adoptive mother says this to her when she tells her mother that she is in a relationship with another woman and happy. I think the key to what I do during these haze days is find a way to be happy and forget about returning to normalcy.
I think my husband and I will stay home today and talk instead of going to a film. He has been reading my blog and also been remembering and talking about those foggy years. I think we can put the time we are stuck indoors to good use to bring fresh life to the relationship.
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