15 Minutes of Love

My neighbourhood stores my life memories. Much of them during vivid times of childhood, those I would never forget in devoid of photos. Living here for 17 years had brought me much to love the place I habitate, for the most important times in my life.

I walk home from the train station, where the sky would be a blend of violet and orange in the horizon, prelude of twilight. It's a small place, quiet and secluded enough from the bustling MRR2 beside, the crazy peak hour traffic. The canopy of trees is shady enough; upon arriving the playground where teenage boys play basketball, their shouts audible from a block away. When I was half their age, the basketball court was the place where a field of grass grows. My neighbours and I ran around, picking up twigs and leaves and digging the ground for insects and worms. Often we roll on the ground and lie across the grass, catching sunrays with our little fingers, squinting as they blind our eyes. When I was five and six, my every evening was carefree and the time for me to be a kid; to fall badly until my knees are covered with blood, to fight with other kids, to envy other kids with pets. Unlike now, where my evenings are filled with bland but important schedules of classes, classes and classes.

When I was six, Mum and Dad wanted to grow a hedge. I was excited, I remembered; following my parents to nurseries to pick the correct breed of plants, selecting soil, helping out with my plastic toy gardening tools under the sun. I often asked how long does it take to let the hedge grow my height, becoming less and less patient when the plants just would not grow taller though I water them every day. Five years later, we moved away for one year after Dad died, and nobody bothered about the hedge. Grief took over and the family was in a mess, and home was not home just, in any sense. Today, 9 years after we moved back, the hedge is as the same height as I am.

It's the same porch, as the one Dad and I shared most of the nights, stargazing. He was obsessed in space, and nurtured me the idea, explaining the Orion to be by practical stargazing, stories about the Big Bang, the galaxy and all. He bought me books, promised me a telescope, which my favorite book about stargazing and space, I still have it with me this very day. I admit being unable to share the passion, simply being lacking of such interest, but I enjoy and cherish every moment of us together; me sitting on top of the car and Dad pointing to the skies. Waking up in 3 in the morning to catch some riddiculous meteor shower, numbing ourselves in the night watching moon eclipse which went in slow motion which took hours. In 2001 NASA launched the Mars Lander along with Orbiter and Ranger to explore Mars' Highlands, he made sure our names were submitted to the database for a CD to be mounted on Mars along with Mars Lander. Those days, no one had internet access and he used that one in his office for the purpose. I never told him having the devoid in passion for space science. When we shifted house, I came across a ring file with lots of articles in it, all about space and stargazing. When I read through the details, it was one full stack of articles form the internet, all from NASA kids. All about learning spcae from the kids perspective. That was when I could not contain myself; I just burst into silent tears.

I live in the city for most of my life; and I love the place here, everything I had set my footprint on leaves happiness and memories; nobody could take them away. In those nights I dream about people I miss, the voices of those who I already forget; it's so real and vivid I hope I could sleep forever to revive the distance. But I always wake up to another day of routine life which forces me to set these things aside. But in that 15 minutes of walk from the train station back to my house, when my ears are stuff with music from my iPod, I am set free. To allow the subconscious to revisit the avenues where I miss the most, where the fondest of memories inhibit, where those who I miss and I love the most.