in the gardens

in the gardens
i wrote something for the first time in months, maybe more than a year, while sitting out in the sun in the gardens. i think it's the first time since i was about ten that i've chosen to sit in the sun on purpose. funny. i guess there will always be some of malaysia in me, deep down, no matter what happens. it's only natural. why would we want to sit in the sun when we get so much of it? but the past few weeks have taught me the value of sunlight and warmth-in moderation.

anyway. this was what was scrunched up in my fmt module notes on the back of my formula sheet.

"I am happy, sitting on a sun-warmed bench of blackened wood, made smooth by the friction of years. Reeds and water plants droop over the stream as it rushes over pebbly granite rocks, and pale purple flowers bend shyly from their stems which emerge from a corolla of round, dark green leaves. The wind is cool but refreshing, not stifling as it sometimes was back home. I can understand the people and places that I have read about now--the people and places born under this pale sun. The puddles shimmer as trainers squeak past and the images of the trees flicker and steady again. Cool water gushes and whishes all the time and I wonder what life, or non-life lurks in the depths. Gleaming brown, speckled or moss-green movements and glimpses, hiding from the sun who flirts with the clouds like a shy seventeen-year-old, tantalising us with moments of warmth like the touch of soft fingers. Even under the sun there are shadows and cool places where the sun's reviving rays never venture; they are the reminders that all light and warmth in this land are transient and to be treasured, for this is the North, where the stories of misty glens and deer and red-haired, blue-eyed Highlanders were born. Am I really here? So far from the skies I was born under, yet I am happy."

verbatim. it's no good, but i want to remember what it was like that sunny afternon when i discovered rowan berries (tolkien's "rowan fair!") and there was the scent of roses in the air.