I’ve probably said this a million times already, but I absolutely abhor Subang traffic. Or PJ traffic. KL traffic. Traffic, period. I get tetchy and aggro and impatient when stuck in jams, mostly because it involves me pumping the clutch up and down repeatedly and my left knee is my bad one; on bad days my knee clicks everytime I press down on the clutch.

But for this morning, it was different, somehow. Mainly because traffic was so bad–coming out of my row in USJ, there was an immediate traffic backlog all the way up to the main road. And this was at 7:55am.

As I crawled up the road along with the masses of other irate drivers (not too many cases of driving on the wrong side of the road–which surprised me, considering how there was no policeman at the Nightmare Junction (friends would know what I’m talking about)!) with my mellow music CD on, I found myself appreciating the little things I haven’t thought about, in a long time.

Like how pretty the trees look in the early morning sunshine. Like how the droplets of dew hanging off the leaves sparkled like crystals. Like the cool tinge in the moist air, soon to be polluted beyond belief by fumes and curses. Like how funny Chinese grandmothers that go for morning walks look, in a sweet way, wearing their matching floral print top-and-long-pants combinations with Nike jogging shoes.

All the way to uni, crawling along in traffic (I never once went up to third gear!), I found myself dreaming–something which I actually don’t recommend while on the road, because of the high chances of getting into an accident!–and listening to Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now.

And it struck me how those simple lyrics, drawing parallels between clouds, life, and love, were so pertinent. Life is an illusion, and no matter what we do, how high we rise or how low we fall, we don’t really know life. It is so impermanent and changes so much, so fast.

I listened to it over and over again, and on some level the traffic soon faded away and it was just me. Just me and the clouds, and love, and life. Because really, that’s all there is.

***

I am addicted to Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. I want to slow-dance to this song at my wedding with a thousand fairy lights twinkling above me and a soft sea-breeze in the night air..in the arms of the man I love.