Our Stories, Interrupted

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSunday began the way many of mine do, with a morning round — the work that doesn't observe weekends, attended to before the day could properly call itself a day off. But once that was done, I had somewhere I actually wanted to be, and that changes the whole complexion of a morning.

From there it was straight to Bukit Bintang, to Eslite, for a Ricoh GR event I'd been quietly looking forward to. It went by the name "Cerita Kita" — Our Stories — which is the sort of title that could mean very little or quite a lot, and on the day leaned firmly towards the latter. There were talks, and I settled in to listen properly, which is a different thing from merely hearing.

Zaidi Abdullah and Mitsuo Suzuki spoke, and I found myself genuinely absorbed — two photographers talking about the why of the thing rather than the gear, which is rarer and more valuable than it sounds. There's a particular pleasure in being among people who take a small camera seriously, who understand that the point was never the equipment but the looking. I sat with the Ricoh's quiet philosophy made audible, and for a while the rest of the week's noise fell away entirely.

For a while. The ER had other ideas. The call came, as calls do, with no regard for whatever absorption I'd managed to find, and the talks gave way — mid-thought, mid-sentence almost — to the more pressing business of being needed elsewhere. Our stories, interrupted. I'd have stayed for the whole thing in another life; in this one, I gathered myself and went.

It rained as I reached SJMC, the sky opening just as I arrived, which felt like the day adding its own punctuation. There's something almost cinematic about pulling in through the rain to do the necessary thing — though it loses its romance quickly once you're actually in it, damp at the edges and focused on the matter at hand. I saw to what needed seeing to, and in time the urgency eased.

By evening I was home, and dinner there felt all the better for the day's detours. A meal at your own table after an afternoon that pulled you in several directions has a settling quality to it — the day finally agreeing to stand still. Nothing elaborate, just the quiet relief of being back where the day had started, with the rain easing off outside.

And then, the proper full stop: the Spanish Grand Prix from Barcelona, which I settled in to watch with the contentment of a man who has earned his place on the sofa. There's a comfortable rhythm to a race on a Sunday evening — the noise of the cars, the long arc of the thing unfolding, nothing required of you but to watch. After a day that had refused to follow its plan, letting someone else's drama play out on screen was exactly the right note to end on.

A Sunday, then, that gave with one hand and rearranged with the other. Talks I'd looked forward to, cut short. Rain, an ER, a quiet dinner, and motor racing to close. Our stories, indeed — rarely the ones we'd have scripted, but ours all the same.

On Borrowed Sleep and an Unhurried Day

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe night before had been thin on rest — the phone seeing to that, as it does, with a series of calls from the hospital that fragmented the dark into useless pieces. There is a particular fatigue that follows a broken night on call, a sort of low static behind everything, and I carried it into the morning like an unwelcome companion.

The round itself was mercifully quiet, which felt like a small mercy granted in compensation. I was nearly out the door, congratulating myself on a clean exit, when a transfer landed — the universe's way of reminding me not to count my chickens. I noted it, made the necessary arrangements, and then, with the practised detachment one develops, simply got on with my own business. The admission would arrive when it arrived. There is no sense standing guard over a thing you cannot hurry.

Lunch was ramen at Lot 10, that reliable warren of food where one can always find a steaming bowl of something restorative. A good ramen asks very little of a tired man — no decisions beyond which broth, no conversation if you'd rather not — and gives back warmth and a brief, soup-induced clarity. It was exactly what the day required.

Afterwards I wandered into Low Yat, where the electronics live, and emerged with an e-ink tablet — the iFLYTEK AiNote Air 2. I have a weakness for these things, the quiet promise that this device, finally, will be the one to organise my scattered notes into something resembling order. I know better, of course. But the screen is easy on tired eyes, and there is a small joy in the unboxing that I refuse to deny myself.

Anita, meanwhile, had a wedding to attend in Shah Alam with her friends — the sort of cheerful afternoon obligation that sends her off in good spirits and leaves me happily to my own devices. So I went home and did the most sensible thing available: nothing in particular. I chilled, half an ear cocked for word of the admission, the e-ink tablet keeping me mildly entertained while I waited.

Dinner was a quick one at Kerinchi, the kind of unfussy meal that suits an evening when ambition has long since clocked off. I had no appetite for anything elaborate, only for something easy and nearby, eaten without ceremony.

And then, at last, rest — the thing the whole day had been quietly building towards. After a night so generously interrupted, an early surrender to sleep was less a choice than a biological necessity. I find I have stopped feeling guilty about these collapses into bed; the body keeps its own accounts, and it had a debt to settle.

So a modest day, all told. A quiet round, a transfer to absorb, ramen and a new gadget, an empty afternoon well spent, and a simple dinner to close it. Not every Sunday needs steak and grandeur. Some just need a soft pillow and a phone that stays silent. Tonight, I'm hoping for both.