It's a quiet night here

Black black quiet with dabs of tungsten...

I did not think much about the sea while I was in Paris, nor about the HK weather. But when I got home, I realized how I had missed the sea. (My sea, to be precise). My sea and the rain at night. Or the typhoons! With the furious winds, crashing waves and rain, relentless on the windows. Have you ever felt this: on returning to something familiar you feel such joy and relief that you realize how much this things (or person) is a part of you. You did not even notice their absence, but their return makes you realize how much you love them, home and warm blankets.

…
Recently I have realized my capacity to feel multiple emotions. What I mean is, in the past what usually happens is that I get consumed by one. But now I can be happy and angry and scared and hopeful. This became especially clear for me during the last week of term, when I got rejected from Lecoq and my grandfather died.

It sort of went like this: I was upset (I wanted/expected to get in), scared (am I no good?) and angry (how dare they let people less deserving than me in?)… but at the same time I really had had a great year and didn't want to overwrite or throw out how I feel about the school, teachers and my classmates. It was the last week of term and I really wanted to affirm and conclude with people all that we had been through. But I also needed to acknowledge my anger/fear/uncertainty, because repressing or pretending it doesn’t exist is not a good idea either. So I just let them all exist and orchestrated them like layers of music: the bass, the melodic line, the harmony. In doing so, I realized that I have a very large capacity to accept all these emotions.

Because of this capacity I was able to be there for other people, both for the people that didn’t get in (I was a positive role model and someone who could empathise and acknowledge their feelings) and of my other friends who did (and I was happy for them).