Memories…will they rain down 

On me. By the time I hit thirty?

Will they thrive on

Lonely nights

And silent walks

Or will they trickle down

Like water in my hair?

Solitude.. to learn to

Love my company

And savor the vaulting expanse:

This consciousness you give to me.

Words, to pierce my heart

And to sting my eyes with tears:

Salty drops igniting  

The glowing embers  

of my soul.

Spirit, to cleave to you 

Water, over which to walk to

You, through the storm.

And music…        

Music to hear the lovesong

That you sing over me. 

I stumbled on this poem I wrote in 2010… at that time I had moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film-music composition. I was bright-eyed and bushy tailed…I had a heart filled with hope and a head full of dreams.

I had signed up for a certificate course in Film-Scoring in UCLA-Extension where I learned how to create film-music using virtual instrument libraries. I learned orchestration, composition, counterpoint and synthestration and worked with professional sessionists who had the ability to sight-read and play orchestral parts with precision and near perfection on their first read. The best part is that they played my compositions! It was like a dream come true!

It was a truly phenomenal time in my life. I met so many great people and musicians. It was a period of intense growth and learning with respect to music. My film-scoring class was made up mainly of male classmates. I was one of two female students in class, but it was still really fun. I made some wonderful friendships that have lasted till today.

After graduating with a certificate in film-scoring par excellence, I tried working as an independent musician for many years. But it was hard! I had a lot of trouble putting myself out there and networking. I didn’t know how to build a business from scratch and I knew nothing about how to negotiate. I didn’t know that many Film Directors have no conscience and make use of composers expecting them to work for free to get IMDB credit.

Did I mention that I poured thousands of dollars to get a top-notch virtual instrument library? Where do these blood-sucking directors think we get our tools from? Do we tell virtual instrument makers to give us their instruments for free?

No, we pay them with our hard-earned lucre.

*Le Sigh*

Anyways, I had to tutor to supplement my income as a musician. In the end, I felt like it was too hard wearing so many different hats and playing so many different roles, while trying to eke out a living while paying for rent in a high-crime neighbourhood. So I gave into a 9-5 grind, working as a HR coordinator and later as a HR Compliance officer. It was f***ing boring. Thankfully I could at least listen to an entire library of audiobooks while performing mind-numbing work.

C’est la vie!

I moved back to Singapore in 2018 because my mother wasn’t doing well. She had cancer for the 4th time and this really triggered my anxiety and fear of losing her. I knew that if I did not come back and be around for her in her twilight years, I would never be able to feel at peace in my heart and soul. So I quit my HR compliance job at the National Football League (NFL) in Los Angeles on a Friday and flew back to Singapore on the following Monday (SGT) to make it for my mother’s operation to remove a malignant tumour in her gut on Tuesday.

Today I’m hunting for my resume so I can make some changes to apply for some freelance writing work. As I was digging around in my hard-drive, I found this poem I had written a while ago and decided it was worth sharing.

Hope you enjoyed it!