good atlas

In Saving Time, Jenny Odell writes: Maybe we could experiment with what feels like mediocrity.

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Some fragments on a Sunday evening:

Walking is how I spent a lot of my time in January.

Lyn and I walked in the rain from Taman Paramount to Damansara Uptown, walking the roads we used to drive by and noticing all the small details we would have missed by car. New pavements, a makeshift Hindu shrine near Tropicana City Mall, the layers of roads and terrains making up a cemetery, some warung makanan and factories all stands in what used to be a hill. Standing under a tree and watching the rain drum against the glistening road. 10 kilometers all in all.

Then another day, we walked from home to Damansara Jaya. And took a hazardous pedestrian bridge that was clearly disused and unlit, leading us to the narrowest path flanked by the LDP highway to our left and a long and unending concrete divider of at least 4 meters high. The path was overgrown with weeds and stray rubber and strings that looked like snakes in the blinding traffic lights. We ran as deftly as we can, hoping not to die.

In Kuala Lumpur, after a really delicious claypot chicken rice dinner, we walked the dark streets of Pudu. At night, the Pudu market area was desolate, save for massive heaps of garbage and stacks of solid-coloured plastic crates filled with live chicken. The road was sticky with the stench of chicken and slaughter. I don’t think it ever goes away. All of these, coloured with our knowledge of Abang and Adik. They would have lievd in any of the flats above us.

In Singapore, I walked the stretch from Raffles Square along Robinsons Road. I was whiling time, taking in the immaculate skyscrapers from which bands of suited men and women come from, walking fast like there’s always something important to do. I felt like I was in their way, just standing there, watching. All the office lobbies have an exclusivity about them, exactly as advertised in high-end property brochures using words like ‘prestigious’, ‘opulent’, ‘tailored elegance’ etc etc. At the end of the street, was my Singapore office. I didn’t go inside.

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In KL, every corner of the city holds some memory. I love it. I (sometimes) love its jumble and ugliness. I (sometimes) love that it’s some functioning sometimes malfunctioning, the mess and majesty of infrastructure on display wherever you look.

Memory speaks to you differently than aspiration. It’s a muscle memory that holds you to the centre.

Some people don’t understand why you’d want to walk the same routes again and again, but for me, it’s everything.

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