Just 3 weeks ago, I had met someone, another traveler, and he asked me quietly and sincerely about my dreams and shared his. One of his was quite amazing to me, besides the typical dream of wanting to start a family, he wanted to play classical piano all over the world, and I think he can do it for sure! For me, I realised I could not think of any dreams I wanted, to my surprise and sadness. Later, I remembered that in my early 20s, I had received a postcard from an old Swede, who traveled around on bicycle. This postcard was of a small town in Norway where you could see the aurora borealis. And it became my dream to see that, one day.
After my stay in Malaysia last year, I wanted to contribute in some way to the area in Melaka where I spent many relaxing and happy days on my own, a solo journey. Actually, my dream was to paint a wall where I can put some sort of interesting image to just make people happy by seeing it =) My penpal, a Melakan, pooh-poohed this idea when I put it across to him, he confidently said that "no one would want me to paint a wall in Melaka"
And as you can guess, I'm halfway on this journey to make it a reality. And the penpal has to eat his hat.
After knowing a nice friend who has helped me with encouraging words through the "jobless and moneyless" state of my life that was just a few months ago, I came to depend on him, sharing many of my intimate thoughts I had never dared to bother anyone with. However, I think there was once he felt irritated at my moaning and sternly told me, "just be happy". Just be happy? How can I be, when the new job is like the kiss of death to me, I ask myself what am I doing here everyday in a place like this... How can I be, when I am suddenly plagued with some scary health condition I have never even heard of before... ...and a hundred other small stressors that really add up.
Just be happy. Hmmmmm...
I analyzed my blue mood that has been hovering over me like a raincloud for way too long, and I start to realize that each period in my life, I did something creative to kill the Boringsss zombies and ultimately renew myself, my sense of self.
At this point of time too, I started doodling. I always drew cats and now I always draw this guy some animal drawings, wishes for his life, drawings that would SURELY make him smile when he sees them - and it also gave me much joy inside my heart to do this and present it to him!
He doesn't smile much, preferring a serious expression, although he has a naturally smiley face. =)
He doesn't know it, but the simple act of telling me to just be happy, actually equates to a wall being painted in Melaka by me, with some cat and a lion I have drawn to look like him, the wall is located in a UNESCO world heritage area and right in front of a guesthouse at the start of the road of a popular weekend night market.
So in this way I am going to immortalize the whole essence of ... being happy, and being able to realize my one small dream. He is also being immortalized as a lion, heehee. I'm not sure what his reaction will be if he realizes he is being painted on a wall in Melaka!!!
It's tiring for sure, because the bus journey up is close to 5 hours and I am using my weekends to do it, possibly for the whole month I will be traveling up and down. But it's worth it and I can just imagine seeing the joy on other people's faces when they see this painting.
And this keeps me alive, my sense of self, until I can finally be in the place where I am free.
Initial sketch drawn on my moleskine:
First 5 hours, the outline is complete!
To be continued, my next trip to Melaka is in the first week of July.
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