Don’t you hate it when you dream of something and the minute you open your eyes, you forget what it was about?
The next 10 minutes is usually a time I try to recall whatever I can.
Well, the only thing I can remember of the dream is me complaining to someone about how I didn’t see local artists around looking at stuff.
Which then made me recall a trip a year and a half ago in London where you’d just find an artist, budding or pro, here or there, in little corners, squinting, using their pencils to help them visualize proportion.
Which then made me think about my first trip to the US. In between terms at university. Alone and feeling a little penniless in New York, I decided to try something that New Yorkers do. People watch.
I had taken a long walk from Brooklyn to South Street Seaport. I found a bench and I just stared out at whatever. Whatever being what I assume it was what people watchers watched.
It was fairly awkard. Looking out at nothing in particular. And I was uneasy with what felt like a waste of time.
After about 10 minutes of this, my mind went numb and blank.
Soon, I started to notice what people did. The patterns of action. Of living. Of motion. And then a German tourist came by with his wife and kids and, commenting on me, said, “How can they do this? Sitting around looking at me.”
For that one second I was a New Yorker. Then I decided to move on.
This memory then triggered another. My first Italian sausage hotdog in New York. As I was a student without much in my pocket, I’d basically been subsisting on $1 hotdogs a day. Usually boiled. Probaby Sabrett.
But after a few days, I’d gotten hungry. And I was starting to look at other hot dog choices. The Italian sausage was $4.50 or so. I went for it. It was a gorgeous piece of sausage, cut out from a bigger link. Fried and split with a knife. On a third of a large baguette. Wrapped in foil.
As usual, I had everything on it. Onions, green peppers. I can barely recall what was actually on it, or where I had it. All I remember is it was some greenery around, probably a park, next to a body of water. And I know that’s not very helpful in a place like New York. But hey, that was almost 20 years ago.
I remember being embarrassed by the size of that hotdog. Embarrassed by my greed and hunger. Warm and huge. I couldn’t even wait to get back to have it. So I found a bench and ate it there and then. It was so big, it was only after two bites that I got to sausage.
As I was eating it, I recalled this kid in Ang Mo Kio who once passed me when I was eating chilli fishballs from a plastic bag when I was walking past some shops. It was after some ECA and I was remarkably hungry. She loudly said to her mother as she looked at me “Ee, so dirty.”
Which made me annoyed, because then I also thought about the many times when I’d take my dog out and kids want to pat it and their parents say “No, very dirty.”
Which was my thought as I lay down on the grass at the Bunker Hill Moument. Actually it was, “wonder who will come and say I’m dirty”. That was November 2005. My second visit to Boston nearly 15 years after my first one.
There were people relaxing on the grassy slopes, barefoot, barebacked (men) enjoying the afternoon sun.
I decided to join in.
As I tried to relax on what seemed like very pokey grass, I felt my body stiffen. I tried to relax. Enjoy the grass. People watch around me. Think about stuff.
15 minutes later I realised. Damn, I’ve become a bloody Singaporean.
Everything outside seems dirty and everything else except working toward some specific goal seems like a waste of time.
It’s funny how forgetting dreams can make you remember so much more.
How do I get back to before I was this way?