Waiting room in nature

I think I found the best way to pass my waiting room time here in Singapore - just exploring whatever’s left of Singapore’s forests and parks, and maybe even reefs.

Recently, the forests of Clementi, Maju, Gillman, the southern island reefs of Singapore… all slated to be removed or reclaimed. Our nature in such a small island had always been in danger of being lost. The reason had always been “Singapore is such an ultra-small island nation so we can’t afford to feel precious about what we have now or built before.”

Everything runs at the pace of economic development, even Mother Nature. If it gets in the way of housing, industry or commercial profit, it just has to go. And this is not without vocal citizen voices. We voice out, government goes ahead anyway, most of the time. Sometimes they give scraps from the table to placate the dissent.

But development waits for no one.

What happens to your sense of rootedness when everything you grew up with is torn down or will be?

You stop feeling this is home.

Perhaps that’s why the new rootedness is consumption.
But that’s a story for another day.

Maybe that’s why exploring what’s left of Singapore’s nature is such a fitting activity while I’m waiting to leave. It’s just an extended farewell, to see it as you remember it one last time, before all your memories lose all their physicality and turn truly into just what’s in the head, as distant, abstract memories.

A perfect way to say goodbye.