Friday, January 18, 2013

The smell of damp earth

I go home during lunch now to play with Umi, have some home-cooked lunch by Nang Vi, and express milk. Because of this, lunch breaks are literally a break for me - a pause from what I got myself engrossed with at work in the morning (which sometimes are actually guilt-filled non-work activities). Although I usually rush to finish all these lunch activities given the time constraint, I actually find these lunch breaks refreshing. Well, what could be more refreshing than playing with a 5-month-old kiddo who just laughs at the funny sounds I make?

However, as with many things, there's always a BUT. And the big BUT is that I find it utterly dragging to go back to the office after these lunch breaks. I used to run half marathons and yet I get so tired walking for about 200 meters from my place to the house. It always comes up to me, in the middle of whatever I am thinking during these seemingly long walks, that my place is SO NEAR, YET SO FAR FROM THE OFFICE! Ugh!

I told you about these different thoughts that come up to me while walking. As I walked back this afternoon, I thought of gardening. And not actually posting this activity on Facebook. I thought to myself, this Facebook has created a phenomenon. When was actually the last time you thought about something without thinking of not posting it on Facebook? I mean, even if your better judgement eventually won and you decided not to post it, you still initially considered posting it anyway.

My mental ramblings continued. Gone were the days when you do something without having to let other people know about it. I wish I can go back to those summers that were spent tilling the soil in front of our house, planting duranta along the walkway to our porch (and that rose that eventually grew and bore flowers), painting those horses from the paint-by-number kit that I bought from a nearby city, and memorizing country capitals that were listed at the back of a world map that a friend gave me. Those were just the days when there were less distractions - no mobile phones, no internet connection, and the fact that my house was not easily accessible by my schoolmates.

Those were the days, I thought, as I neared the office gate. I walked past a small garden - and wondered what the plants are - then past someone tilling the soil. And there! THERE! The smell of soil, that warm scent of damp earth, filled me for a brief moment. It suddenly brought those gardening memories at home or in school alive. Those simpler, humbler moments all came back to their crisp lives for a short instance. And then, I have to go back to work. Or start working...

Talking about coincidence? Or fate? Nah, whatever.

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