Hagintha Woods

The seed of this piece was birthed amidst the chaos and cheer of a party, and the dissonant gap that exists in the spaces between laughs.

It was lighted in the moment where the celebration bubbled down to expressive chatter, where the energy of the group broke apart to split into smaller groups of society. It was formed in limbo, that second where in the spirit of transitioning social contexts and my own panicked attempt to be a ‘personable, cheery sort’- or at least as close as I could reasonably manage- it slipped out my lips as a witty retort before I heard the ring of truth.

It was the Chinese New Year, and I’d been surrounded by a number of people so high that I would’ve rejected the idea based on that alone, had it not been a family gathering.

A person whose own solitary company is too much for themselves sometimes, I was very much a fish out of water. For interacting with others, I preferred the personal, soul-touching nature of one-on-one meetings, or in certain situations, the homely essence of groups of three to five.

But there is a certain allure to the feeling of a crowd, the feel of the group forming into a pervasive mood, a manic pulse that tinges the air, that you are changed by and also contribute to, whether you mean to or not. And so, since I was already there, I attempted to both find my appreciation and not sour said mood by my presence.

My family did not have my problem.

My brother and sister mingled with the cousins that I viewed positively but didn’t have many shared experiences with, and my dad headed for a beer and the ever-present group of older men. My mother shined, going to her siblings and catching up on the latest gossip with an enthusiasm that added a certain kind of charismatic verve to her interactions. They had their variances, but they all fell solidly within the classification of extrovert, and had never quite understood my proclivities of being alone.

But if I felt any discomfort, it was at least a familiar one, tinged with the sepia orange of nostalgia. So I fixed my face into some sort of pleasant, made sure that I had the recharging materials of a portable charger and a book, and routinely greeted everyone, before I mechanically headed to the buffet line.

I found an unoccupied seat, and when people came to speak to me, I focused on them amidst the noise and had conversations that ranged from niceties to interesting ones that gave me food for thought. Whenever the silence grew awkward or their attention shifted elsewhere, I focused on the food. It was a little space I’d forged for myself, my little island from years of experienced proximity.

Soon, it was time for Yusheng, the traditional Chinese salad comprised of multiple ingredients that each had their own symbolisms and wishes for a successful, healthy (and hopefully wealthy) year ahead.

Honey and plum sauce dripped generously unto the mix, a hope for a sweet year ahead, and with cheers of celebration, we used our chopsticks to toss it, bringing clumps of it up and letting it fall. It is a celebration meant to be as loud as possible. As such, I ignored the press of bodies, aligned my attention instead to the electric current of joy and well-wishes for the future. I shouted my own wishes for riches and health, watched the colour and flourishes around me.

And when someone chucked a slab that falls on the side of my hand, I froze my face in it’s smile and kept the expression by force, consciously pressing into each muscle to ensure it doesn’t fall. I tilted my hand so the food fell off, watching it drop. It was a common enough experience. It was good that we all washed our hands.

After it was done, we passed around smaller plates and took some. The crowd then broke off, joking and laughing, and the children went outside and started playing with sparklers, waving the lights so they arced through the air, making words and patterns of superimposed light upon the night. The lights spark wildly upon their sticks, and I lit some too.

And I enjoyed it, the whole gathering wasn’t horrible or distasteful in any sense of the word, and I had some experiences I could take from it all, but I was already fatigued, counting down the time till I could return home. From past experience, there was still a little bit of time till it was socially acceptable to slowly back away, so after I singed a few of my fingertips courtesy of bad hand-eye coordination, I went to the couch and looked at the documentary playing.

Not bad, penguins.

One of my aunts noticed me, coming over to sit by me. She offered me liquor, and I showed her the packet drink in my grip. She asked me to join one of the groups that have formed, displaying ample choices of blackjack, poker and the quintessential mahjong. “No, it’s fine. Maybe I’ll watch later.” I demurred gently.

It was partially out of kindness and a wish for me to enjoy my time more, but I also knew that even though I was just sitting quietly with a relatively mild expression, my present state was affecting the cumulated mood. Still, gambling truly didn’t interest me, and this was already my most unobtrusive, a step up the past, from when I would be sulking by myself, or yanking on my parents’ arms, demanding to have an exact time of when we could finally leave. “This show is quite interesting.”

“Aiyah, you don’t drink, gamble or go out with friends. Such a good girl.” My aunt said effusively, and I knew she meant it as a compliment, but it also pointed out how I was not acting the way I was supposed to at an event like this. It also contrasted myself against my family, and was realistically untrue. I was- and am- a recalcitrant, solitary and moody kind of person, especially at events like this.

And it was that combination of feelings, with a tinge of my usual contrary nature that made me flash an exaggerated pout. “My siblings took it all,” I said, effecting a playful, childish whine as I pointed at where they laughed and played. “There was none left for me.”

It had the intended effect. My aunt laughed, patted me on the shoulder and left.

As I sat in relative silence in the bubble of noise around me, I watched baby penguins learn to swim for the first time. As if cooling after being made, the flippant statement sat by me on the sofa, congealing and solidifying into a strange sort of truth.

Because it was a joke, but like all good humour, what made it amusing was the kernel of truth at it’s heart.

My siblings came to the world first, bringing the obvious parts of the parents that made us all. My sister was organised, cheery and harmonious, able to blend and shift with the crowds around her whilst still maintaining her own identity. My brother was daring, charismatic, with a willingness to take risks and try new experiences, with a luck that meant his risks usually resulted in a positive outcome.

I was introverted, hesitant, and didn’t typically share my parents’ values. I had my mother’s sensitivity, and my father’s impish nature, but no strong trait that would make someone exclaim in recognition: “You’re just like your parent!”

And yet, I was them.

I took the budding realisation home with me, cradled it within my skull, till it matured and grew into it’s body.

I see familiarity when my mother sulks at me when she wants me to do something she wants, hoping I’ll appease her. I feel my father smiling through me in the way I’ve a penchant for following what people say instead of what they meant, the little trill of joy in my stomach when they curse in frustration, and yet cannot find fault.

The stronger, more conscious and front-facing parts of my parents were expressed in those before me. What was left for me was the dregs of their union, their insecurities and subconscious patterns. It’s like when it was time for my excision from the womb, my little hands ran themselves along my mother’s uterine walls and gripped whatever they found in the crevices.

What if their children stayed in all the time instead of going out? Looking deeper-what if they were alone?

What if they went off the beaten path, refused security for an improbable unknown? What if amongst all the hustle and bustle, the privilege they had, they used it to dream?

What if they let go of the tools they’d been using to climb the ladder, tried to fully sing the song of themselves and how they were meant to help the world, and trust that society would see it too and catch them?

What if they believed that people were kind, loving and creative souls? What if they had worth, even when they weren’t working for a paycheck or moving?

I was the sour one at family gatherings, the one that wasn’t fun, couldn’t take drinks and cut loose, couldn’t sit at the table and hedge my bets. I wasn’t even a good conversationalist most of the time, an awkward fixture hovering awkwardly around the food or the resident pet.

But I chase what makes me happy, despite the fear.

What if I’m not the person meant to succeed from what sets my soul alight? I breathe through the anxiety, devote hours and hours upon the altar of my writing. I take a breath and I leap from an adequate and safe future into an abyss that I have no real plan for, only the burning in my intestines that twists and screams: “There is more to life than this.” I do so with the full acknowledgement that I might plummet and crash before I ever see the sky.

What if people don’t like who I am? I cut the relations with those I don’t like anyway. I sit through being alone, take the time to find people who feel like mirrors of my soul, with whom time spent feels like an expansion of reality as I know it. Time warps and bends with them, hours smuggled into what felt like minutes, days folded into a blink of an eye.

What if I wasn’t tied to anything, even my vision of myself, changing my inclinations with my seasons? I give up too quickly, dipping my toes in a myriad of waters, then listen to my intuition and bring myself out just as quickly, whilst still being thankful for the feel of water upon my skin. I stay longer than I should, just to prove that I can. I hold my hand out to the fire, if only to see how long it takes till something primal takes the reins and snatches my body away.

What if I took life too lightly-held it gently with my pinky finger, swinging it in circles as I walk, like how I would a plastic bag with my groceries? What if that is my form of reverence, reveling in the cadence and precision it takes to keep my treasures from falling out as I transition through the cycles of each step?

What if I moved forward and trusted the universe to catch me? Moving forward on a tightrope, faith in the world gripped in one palm, trust in my own ability to bounce back if necessary cradled lovingly in the other.

What if I moved too slowly, as slowly as I needed to to not leave any part of myself behind, and trusted the world not to leave me obsolete?

These aren’t personality traits so much as the quiet parts in one’s head that echo louder in the night, but they are my parents nonetheless. I see it when they talk about what could have been with a gleam of regret in their eye. I see it when they push aside the cold, the headache for another day at work or to help a friend. I witness it through the ways in which they pour over the finances, the ways in which they encourage me toward the ‘safe’ jobs, try their best to stack the odds in my favour.

And I love them for it.

I’d spent many years fearing my own shadow, hating how I couldn’t just fulfil what they wanted and just be a good, safe daughter if I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be anyway.

However, that day, surrounded by people in my own lonesome, I now saw how my darkness stretched back and melded with theirs, who also held the experiences and fears of the people that had shaped them.

It had always been a part of us, I was just one of the few that had turned to look at it in the light, caressed it’s face till I found that it had my worries, but my mother’s childishness, my father’s consternation.

Faced with that realisation, how could I do anything but view what I found with love? I’d felt a little disconnected from my family before, but how could I feel that way now when I alchemize my very self from its’ shadows?

I dance through the discomfort and things they turn away from, become the wraith in their peripheral vision they can’t quite blink away. I don’t know where this life will lead, but I surge forward nonetheless in the living of it. I celebrate the transient as they call for permanence, and choose to feel the highs and lows as they come instead of numbing myself into some form of stability.

I rejoice in the ugly, not because I wish to embarrass anyone or drag secrets to light, but because it is only through harmonizing with our monsters that we find that they were trying to show us what we need to admit to ourselves in order to fully live.

On the day of my birth, I came out humming, my heart drumming the rhythm of songs they didn’t even remember they’d forgotten.

I continue, now, to do so for myself, because it is the only way I have known myself to live, but now with this realisation, also to honour those before me.

I do not need admiration or praise. However, I do hope that because of it, if others one day find themselves swaying their hips to that beat, if they look around and the darkness looming behind them to be too overwhelming, they will remember that I’ve been singing that song all along.

That they can look to me, awkwardly hunched over a plate of food and know that the path has been walked before, my presence a challenge to the notion that the only way to handle it is to push it away and run faster.

That they can do it too, if they only choose to learn the steps.

That a life can be lived this way.

And if they already can drink and socialise and gamble, that they would be able to do it in a way that even I haven’t mastered. But if they can’t and want to…

I can direct them to my family for that.