I'm writing this sitting on a sofa in Santiago, while Jacob quietly washes up our dinner plates with Bach on in the background. Santiago is 11 hours behind Singapore, which means my father is probably either eating his breakfast of toast and marmalade or drinking his coffee after waiting for it to brew as strong as he can stand it. It is past midnight in the UK. Jacob and I are about as far away from the two places we call home as we can be and we won't be back any time soon.
We left Singapore on the 29th of December, and ahead of is a roughly six month travel stint. We hope to get from Chile to Mexico, which is 8,318 kilemetres as the crow flies, but will be longer with the detours and adventures that will inevitably happen along the way.
Why this, now? Last year the bond I had with the museum expired, and Jacob's teaching contract expired at a similar time. That was always going to be a moment when we had to make a decision - do we stay in Singapore, or do we return to the UK? Both of us loved our jobs, but after five years of teaching Jacob had experienced bouts of bad burnout last year. I'd had up and down periods with my job, and ironically was enjoying the most I ever had last year, but also saw that if we were to move to the UK a period of rest before that was necessary. We also both thought - when might we ever have a chance to do this again? This period - between the end of our jobs in Singapore and the start of the new school term in the UK in September - felt like a rare gift of time and we wanted to use that to adventure together.
The two and a half weeks between my last day at work and my last day in Singapore passed in a whirl. There were so many people to meet, to hug, and realising that many of these moments were the 'last' for a while was hard to comprehend. I tried to savour the special things we did, like going on an intertidal walk with friends from work, or a kayaking adventure kindly gifted by our small group, as well as the every day moments: saying 'good morning' to Dad (we are still the morning people of the Yeo household), running the trails in Rifle Range Park, eating Holland Village's bee hoon. Things felt emotional in a blurred way and I'm not sure I truly 'kept up' with my feelings. I wanted to somehow stop time, and live on in the familiar, loving world I knew and yet also set out on this great adventure.
One of my bright moments (and it's always a bright moment with this lot) was a poetry gathering with our book club. I chose to share a poem called 'Blackberry-picking' with the group. This time in Singapore has been a time of ripening: of friendships, of learning how to operate in a workplace, of learning more about marriage, of grief. Trying to pick out and contain all this simply can't be done. It is past, and it is precious, but it is not to be held on to. Also, I don't want to paint the past six years with falsely rosy tints because I also chose this poem for a strange ambivalence I've felt in those last two weeks. In that time I noticed a sparkle come back into Jacob's eye that hadn't lived there for large parts of the year, and I noticed myself feeling like I had more space for people than I'd had in a while. I have questions in my mind: have these years shaped me into a better person? What is the state of my soul? Are the things I think are good and normal really so? Do I hold on too tightly to things that, perhaps, aren't serving me? Already I think this time will be good for teasing out, if not the answers to those questions, then a direction for where I want to go.
Blackberry-Picking
By Seamus Heaney
for Philip Hobsbaum
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
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