Comme une danse. Dans une ville où j’attends revenir.
You can tell by now, that I obviously miss Paris a lot.
You like to ask me how am I coping so far, after-all a year has already gone by and I should have settled into an old familiar rhythm by now.
Isn’t it?
No. Not really.
My heart aches for Tokyo. It is often too painful to talk about Tokyo. And that is why I prefer to sing about Paris. Then I don’t spiral into the abyss of melancholic yearning.
Paris is a love story, a romantic-comedy.
Tokyo on the other hand, is a good old Kurosawa film noir. .
Never let me go.
Where I used to wake up, grab a melon-bun and a cuppa coffee and ran to class every morning.
Where I got lost in my thoughts on the streets of Takadanobaba trying not to bump into fellow cyclists or worse, old ladies with bags of groceries.
Where I was small but I occupied the city with a soul that soared, wholehearted I loved and I breathed.
When I close my eyes in bed every single night, I think about my Tokyo this way, while I bid goodnight to this almost-perfect life here in Singapore.
I miss not knowing what is going to happen next.
I miss the walks in the park in the crowded streets of Shibuya in the quiet back streets of Jiyugaoka.
I miss being vulnerable.
I miss me, when I was in another city.
2+2=5 
I understand u perfectly… Because Tokyo to you is what Paris is to me. I am someone else here, a different me. Yet i hope that when i return to Singapore, life would allow me the luxury of being 2 me’s without falling into melancholy. Comme Anais Nin a dit: Nous voyageons pour chercher d’autres états, d’autres vies, d’autres âmes.
And here I was, thinking I must be going crazy to be different me’s in different places. Thanks for clearing that up. 🙂
Ahhhhhh cette mélancolie, c’est beau, non? Paris me manque…pour toujours.
Cheer up. Time has its way of arranging you to attend to different matters during different stages of your life. When the time is right, you will return; be it as a tourist, an exchange student, or even longer.
I have been in two other cities (other than home-grown singapore) over the last few years as well. Even though my love for the first may not seem as passionate as how you seem to feel for tokyo or paris (mine is fukuoka), I liked it there very very much. And now here I am in my second city-stop and I dislike it here. No matter how many second, third, fourth, fifth…..chances I had given myself to try and fall in love with this place. But truthfully, I wouldn’t be so greedy as to ask of myself to fall in LOVE with this place; I just hope to be at ease with it. But that hasn’t been successful either.
I cried a lot in the first year, wanting to go back to Fukuoka or even Singapore. (But deep down even though Singapore is where my family is, I have this feeling in me that She isn’t the final city-stop I would want to make. I am still searching…)
Time. (oh, how much I loathe and treasure this concept sometimes!)
Well, it has not washed away my feelings of yearning – to return to the old & familiar, or to run away from the new. I guess wouldn’t want that either, because I would like to preserve in me, the pleasantness of a life I once had, even if it means a bit of emotional suffering. As long as it is just a little bit… As long as it is not too much….
Instead, time has taught me to keep these memories away and to bring them out for replays only once in a while. With this, I am able to continue to cope with the new life I have, and also to maintain some sort of hope of finally arriving in that one place where I truly belong.
Time teaches different things to different people. What I have adopted may not be what works for you. But still, I hope you find your balance point soon.
Sorry for digressing. Plus no two persons ever have the same experiences in life, so what I have been saying may be totally off point! I apologise!
Thank you Gerry your words helped..knowing that I am not insane. I take it one day at a time now. There’s no other way.
Live life moment by moment. Nostalgia is sweet, but robs us of the present. 🙂
je ne savais pas que vous pouvez parler francais. trouve votre blog sur xinmsn. j’aime lire sur votre blog. 🙂
Sharon, I am in your exact same shoes. In a top organisation, serving a bond that will finish only years later, and missing London and all it held and stood for….anonymity, crisp morning air, sunday roasts, the right to be alone, the right to get lost, the right to be found, the feeling of not being in total control was exhilarating, the feeling of being a foreign land was liberating….I feel you Sharon. Life here is nearly perfect, yet it feels kind of empty. And everyone I speak to about my experience wants me to move along. I look at my memories, the photos, the stuff I collected…and I smile. I know one day I will be back in London…again. There’s this very interesting article I read about living overseas and how it changes you forever. It was so true.
Wow. I’ve previously stayed in Japan for a few months on a student exchange programme so Sharon, I can’t claim to understand the intensity of your ache for Tokyo. But I share that same wanting to be back there, back in that country of beautiful beautiful contrasts. Where it may be marginally less comfortable (entirely subjective..) than life here back in familiar Singapore, but it was so exhilarating and yet strangely peaceful… and healthier! I loved the me that was there, too.
I had often wondered if it was my own fault for not being thankful for my lot – Singapore is not without its shortcomings, but it’s not too bad a place to be born in – and my own conclusion is that while home is where family is; it’s not somewhere to be in all the time.
And I’ll look forward to the next time I fly out again.