tomorrow

A friend tells me she is trying to find the good in life. I tell her she has always, always been the good in my life. So in honour of that, happy memories. Glimpses of good. The lightest moments of all these yesterdays. 

1. 24 June

I am having lunch with someone I’ve only seen on TV. We are in the home of her very good friends, strangers to me until two hours ago. There is an old dog asleep next to us, so old that he’s gone a little blind, partially deaf. He’s sweet but according to his owners, sometimes grumpy. He visits the hamsters that live next door every day. 

Lunch wasn’t even supposed to happen. We were scheduled for a shoot — time in the kitchen, some follow-up interview questions,. Now here we are, sucking off chilli oil from prawn shells, drinking 8-year-old homemade umeshu. The meal opens with a bottle of fizzy grape juice and finishes with buttered Malaysian-style bread. It lasts almost 3 hours.

2. 25 June

On a whim, N and I are breakfasting at Chu & Co., our kinda neighbourhood bakery that we visit only when there’s a car at home to hijack. We pack a picnic mat and split four fresh, generously topped pastries, plus a loaded cheese toastie. We almost finish everything too! The breeze is light but the air cool. The clouds are on our side today. In front of the counter, visiting dogs take turns to sidle up to say hello to the staff. They’re really waiting for their treats but look, so are we, all of us crowded on cafe grounds biding our time with food. One dog gives up waiting and zips right into the kitchen. 

To my right, a floppy haired boy hosts a live commentary of a snail making its way across the grass. Because the picnic mat we’ve brought is more than 20 years old, the morning’s rainfall seeps from cement, through mat, through shorts, finally sticky onto skin. But what good decisions we have made this Sunday morning, all before 10am, without a plan.

3. 1 July

A picture of unbridled joy: my dad with both hands high in the air, shouting yay! after trashing everyone at Mortal Kombat. He does this repeatedly throughout the night.

I love seeing it each time.

4. 3 July

On a site recce this morning, we bump into an old client whom I know through his wife. I yell his name while he’s withdrawing money at the ATM, and soon we are taking a photo to send to his wife. She’s in London for work, he says, though he thinks she’s there for Primark. He tells us how work is going and jokes about a client. When I was first getting to know him, he told me that in another lifetime he would never be working the job he has. His wife later said he would rather be a comedian. It shows every time I speak to him.

I am losing track of our conversation. We’re in the middle of a memory — London was the first overseas trip he took with his wife, then girlfriend, he tells the girls. “I know, she’s totally out of my league, everything also out of my league, but this goes to show that you can get what you want if you’re serious about it. Nothing is impossible!” He evangelises with an enthusiastic fist pump.

It’s true: we accept the love we think we deserve. We just have to get past heartbreak first.

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I turn 35 on Thursday. I am finally feeling better about it.