Walk · Jurong Lake Gardens

Dragonflies and a Mind That Wouldn't Hold Still

3 May 2026 · written by Aisha

I took the long loop on purpose — past the grass mound, over the bridge, along the water where the city sounds thin out and you can pretend, for twenty minutes, that Singapore is mostly trees. My shoes were the wrong ones for walking, canvas flats that let the heat in through the soles, but changing them would have meant going back upstairs, and I wanted to be already moving.

The afternoon had that pre-rain heaviness that makes everyone's pace slower except the joggers, who treat humidity like a personal challenge. I wasn't jogging. I was doing that half-speed stroll people adopt when they're technically exercising but mostly thinking — phone in pocket, no playlist, just the sound of my sandals and occasional bicycles ringing behind me.

Dragonflies started appearing near the reed beds — blue bodies, wings like stained glass held up to a torch. I stopped counting after seven because counting felt too much like work. One hovered at eye level as if checking my credentials, then darted sideways without warning. My mind did the same thing: a worry about Monday's meeting, then a memory of primary school field trips, then the unrelated question of whether I should replace my kettle.

Every dragonfly turned mid-air and my attention turned with it — no single thought lasted longer than a wingbeat.

On the boardwalk the wood was warm under my hand when I leaned on the rail. Below, fish shadows moved in slow arcs. A couple took photos of each other with the Chinese Garden pagoda in the background, adjusting angles with the patience of people who have time. I felt neither envious nor lonely — just adjacent, like a bench you sit on without joining the conversation.

I thought about how this park didn't exist when my mother was my age — how the lake was built, the gardens opened, the west side slowly greened. She walked here last month with her walking group and sent me a photo of ibis near the shore. I hadn't noticed ibis. I noticed dragonflies and my own inability to finish a single line of thinking before the next one hooked me away.

Near the exit a boy asked his father whether dragonflies bite. The father said no, they eat mosquitoes, which seemed to satisfy everyone. I wanted to add that they also eat attention, but that would have been strange. Instead I drank from the water fountain, too warm from the pipe, and walked toward the bus stop with my hair sticking to my neck.

On the 335 home I wrote fragments in my phone: blue glass wings · reed shadow · kettle still fine probably. Not a poem. Not an essay yet. Just debris from an mind that wouldn't hold still — which, I'm learning, might be the default setting out here, with the water close enough to hear when the windows are open.

I didn't solve anything on that walk. I moved through a park I am lucky to have near my flat, and I came back slightly damp and slightly clearer, which are not the same thing but sometimes arrive together.