Sakinah Abdul Aziz

Day-to-day monologue in relation to the sun. On a rare weekend evening: 'So catching the sunset' When craving kicks in: 'An excuse to get an ice cream/froyo on this sweltering day' On a Saturday afternoon: 'Time for a nap' During midday in office: 'Too hot to eat out, so gonna dapao' During monsoon season: 'Yas! Time to cycle or trek' While on vacation: 'Am forever chasing after sunsets and sunrise' Lately: 'Perfect weather to do laundry' (Is it I'm adulting?) • Thank you sun. We are almost there and then it is one full orbit when we get to meet 2018!

Probably since I was younger, I developed this goodbye routine where I would establish an eye contact, or a smile, or an enthusiastic wave, while seeing someone off. The moment I got down from a vehicle, and leaving the company of a friend or a special someone, I would search for their eyes and do my goodbye routine. And I see them off. It was funny how I suddenly thought about this. It dawned on me how this goodbye routine has faded away as the years passed by. I am doing it much and much lesser now. The last time I met someone I've been wanting to see, and that moment when I alighted, I couldn't do it. I thought it was due to the fear of goodbye, and that I'm terrible in bidding goodbye. It was not that I was terrible in saying goodbye. I was not afraid of saying goodbye because I don't believe in the finality of a goodbye, especially when today's 'goodbye's seem to be more within the context of physical separation. When it comes to connection, in toda...

The coastal regions we managed to visit in Taiwan were mostly rocky beaches which bore ferocious waves. I haven't stood before strong currents and winds in awhile, the kinds that sprinkle your lips salty and mess your hair in just one blow. I thought that if something could be represented by the crashing waves beating furiously against the rock formations that we saw, it would be wrath. I asked Nabsie to which she said, 'rage'. I held that thought for sometime before I realised that the waves would probably symbolise more than just wrath or rage. I decided that waves would symbolise passion the most. Tidal and rhythmic, always coming and going, inconsistently consistent, sometimes unwarranted and other times welcomed, sometimes quieter and other times louder, sometimes weaker and other times stronger, sometimes consuming and engulfing but other times forming calming melodies, sometimes they work with us and other times against. They take in various forms, at one time resemb...