on fairies and faith

one time, my youngest daughter asked me:
"are fairies for real, mom?"
i then looked into her eyes, into those round pools of innocence, untainted yet by the scars and wound of growing up, and saw hope and belief there.
i told her, in the nicest voice i could muster:
"they are real as you believe they are. they would be there as you believe they'd be there."

was i lying to my child?
i believe i was not.

faith is something you believe that gives you hope.

for my youngest daughter, now 8, fairies are the sources of all the good things in life.
they are the sources of her smile at night, the sources of the safety that she feels.
should i destroy that?
i don't think so.

there will be time she'd come to know the more complicated work of the world
but as for now, i'd just let her belief in fairies.

and who knows, perhaps they are for real.
we just could not see and feel them because we have ceased to have faith in them.

realization smacking you in the face

sebuah percakapan di malam hari:

+ dek, cermin ini bikin orang jadi lebar ya?
- engga ma. klo pinggirannya iya.
+ ah masak? kok mama jadi ndut banget gitu? emang mama kayak gitu?
- lah, mama emang begitu.
+ ah? coba kamu sini dek, berdiri deket mama.
(mama berdiri dengan si adek di sampingnya. tidak tampak ada 'efek khusus' dengan bayangan adek di cermin)
+ hm...
+ jadi mama emang gendut begitu ya dek?
- ya iya sih. tapi aku seneng mama begitu. asal jangan makin ajah.
+ .....

djegardah

sunny afternoon, 
in a city full of dust. 
wonder how they dance, 
those people suffocating with dirt? 

(sore cerah di jakarta, april 23 tahun 2013)

a room between your heartbeats

there's a room
between your heartbeats
where my soul resides
and as you die
it dies

(thinking so deeply about my dearest hubby)
(Jakarta, in my own space and time, AD 2013 on the twenty-third day of April)

(un)burning bridges

when i walked away from the things in the past, i thot that whatever connection i had with it is severed.
like burning bridges. you can no longer reach the place, though it's still there.
this is what my thinking was, about 15 years ago when i left my first job.
it's finished. the book is closed. people will forget me as i forget them.
my life was moving forward, and they would not be part of it.

how so wrong i was.

past is not something you can ditch, even when the bridge is no longer there.
it is very much still there.
some people don't simply forget you, as when your life and their live collided, you made yourself part of their life. whether you are a significant part of it or not, it's irrelevant. you were there, being a part of their vast reference of life.

this is a realization that came to me just recently, when someone from the past was looking for me.
i thot first, something is happening to him. something not quite good. why else would he be looking for me.
turned out, it was for the memory's sake. for the past. that i made it part of his life.
and that i should not run away but be part of his present too, albeit in a very dim way.

so now i'm unburning my bridges. trying to reach those distant place.
because what was there made me what i am today.
what i met there is part of my life reference today.

and you know what? it always made my day to know that people remember me.

so perhaps it would make their day if i remember them, too.

everyday brutality

living in jakarta, you are bound to face brutality.
have an open mind when referring to the word 'brutality' or 'brutal' in this entry, dear readers.

it's a brutal city, jakarta is.

picture this:
if you are a driver or passenger of a personal car, in the peak hours, you'd need 1 hour to cover a mere 4 km. that's the speed of regular healthy people walking. WALKING!
that's one brutality

if you are a rider or passenger of motorcycle, you are bound to have to compete with busses spewing deadly and poisonous smoke. you'd slowly have your brained fried and your lungs toasted.
that's another brutality.

if you are a passenger of a public transport modes, your list of brutality would just be awesome.
it starts with the brutality of walking on the non-existent side-walk, or trotoir.
even when it exists, the space that should be used by pedestrian is taken by either street vendors, or motorcyclists.
even when it exists and NOT taken over by street vendors nor motorcyclists, i bet more often than not, you still cannot walk on it due to: holes, uneven surface, pots of plants, trees, or what have you.
and once you actually lodge your butt on the seat of the public transport, it's yet another brutality: either the seat is too small, the one next to you is too big or sits with legs apart, or if it's not both then at least it would be grimy beyond help.
and i just start with the seat. lemme walk you through the interior of our public buses (non-trans jakarta, mind you). it would either be plagued by rusts, or decorated with holes. and it would definitely adorned with rubbish. the driver of this fascinating ride machine would be a reckless, harsh brute who has no concern with passengers what-so-ever. all he's after is the meager 2000 rupiahs that we hand over to another brute, the conductor. riding in a public bus in jakarta is bound to make you more spiritual, what with all the prayer you send to heaven to keep you arriving safely at home, or at least to not contact any contagious illness in the bus, or not the be rained down when it's raining out there due to the many holes on the roof. put simply: brutal.

and let's move on the only mass transport available for commuters: the TRAIN. THE train. commuter train. my experience with that beast is somewhat limited, but i've got my share of brutality alright. the fact that it's always jammed packed beyond its maximum capacity is common knowledge. the fact that despite THAT fact it is still favored by people commuting from depok/bogor is also a common knowledge. the fact that you may get your feet crushed, your head banged, your arms twisted, and whatever belongings you have in your bag squashed is, perhaps, not so common knowledge. and the ultimate fact that trying to get into a carriage in rush hour is a brutality similar to gladiator's arena is, well, you just gotta have to try it to know it.

the above are only a tiny examples of how brutal jakarta is.
i am clueless on what life would be for those without money or means. forget about getting into a train. they don't have even enough money even to eat.

so let's stop at just that. and be thankful that on every and each single day, we survive brutality with more or less our sanity intact.

live long and prosper!

norwegian woods - the pain, the loss

i just finished reading norwegian wood by haruki murakami.
it gets to me. the prose, the story, the pain, all the losses.
i never imagined that growing up could be so heart breaking.

i could not recall the pain growing up.
not when i was 17 to early 20's
perhaps it was a period too insignificant to me
or perhaps my memory simply failed me

or perhaps, my memory refused to remember
maybe that's why the book gets to me,
coz the loneliness resonates with me

i was never an okay person. i suppose.
i was living in this glass cube, so ever delicate
but you couldn't see me that way, delicate
you saw a fierce young lady, temperamental,
almost fearless, and a bit of a loner
a lady with her own way of thinking, of handling things,
her own way of looking at things
a quite beautiful lady, in fact, oblivious to her own beauty

i grew up thinking myself so ordinary, and yet so out of synch
i get alone by choice, always preferring solitude to crowd
i could only manage small group, when my audience was 2 people, max
more than that, i'd disappear into the back ground.

i was always scared of being wrong, for not being able to conform enough
while at the same time i cling to the uniqueness in me, that i shall bow to no consensus
being with people actually scared me.

so that was it, i guess, the core of me growing up
so insecure, so timid, and yet putting up a brave front
a storm of doubts within, headstrong without
i wonder if i had succeeded in fooling myself more than i fooled people

no one, taking  a look at me, would ever thought for a second
that i lack confidence
but that was who i was growing up
lacking self confidence:
confidence that was fragile like butterfly wings
shattered at the slight of wrong touch, elusive all the times

isn't it good, norwegian wood?

mutant ants

i truly believe those ants in our home are mutants.
need some proofs?

here's some:

1. they can eat through plastic
2. they can eat their way through the rubber insulation of a jar

examples:

• most snacks are packed in plastic bags. more 'modern' snacks may be packed in aluminium paper. so far, the metal ones are found to be intact. but the plastic ones? nope. we put our snacks in a cupboard. those snacks were still neatly and (supposedly) safely contained in their plastic packaging. lo and behold! when we open them, ants were all over the snacks; some package we opened even contained a sort of dust nest. yikes. but awesome as well. in their bid for survival, they've managed to evolve (no, mutate would be a more appropriate word. evolution needs a very long time, mutation does not) from munchers of all things natural to munchers of whatever. let's hope their mutation does not continue to munch all things metal, too. 
• we were content in our thaugt that glass jars with their rubber insulated metal cap are safe from this fascinating creatures. we were so wrong. we opened a jar of peanut butter, neatly contained in glass jar and (supposedly) securely topped with screwed-on rubber insulated metal cap. and there we found ants. swarm of them. happily trodding on the oily surface of peanut butter. close look reveals that there are paths in the rubber insulation where the ants have munched their way. clever creatures!

so, that left us with how to keep our snacks safe from them. lock-n-lock is one way. so now i'm a big fan of their products, and pour whatever snacks that come in plastic bags into them. they are safe. 

for now. 

hope they don't mutate enough to become lock-n-lock munchers. 

'we are ants. resistance is futile'

a vacation called medical leave

nobody wants to get sick. it's sickening to get sick. it's tiring, and definitely uncomfortable.
and for a mega lover of comfort like me, being uncomfortable is enough to make sick sicker.

and yet.. I just 'enjoyed' a long sick leave that felt almost like a holiday. [this was in november, actually]

it started with diarrhea. not a pretty condition - a condition that one would rather hide than tell.
i got it for three days before i saw a doctor. she gave me anti-biotic and diarrhea stopper. it did not work.
after another three day, i saw another doctor, a specialist. he gave me stronger medicine and diarrhea stopper. i was getting worse.
on the third day of this stronger medicine, i started vomiting. i saw that doctor again. i lost 1 kg in 3 days. i was barely eating, and i started to feel cramps in my leg. he told me to be hospitalized.

and thus the medical holiday began. i checked in a VIP room due to the Class 1 was full.
i was hooked on IV drips. bombed with IV-ed heavy medicine. saturated with potent anti-nausea that was used on cancer patient.
going yet another 3 days and i still had them: those nasty diarrhea, vomiting, plus rumbling stomach.

okay, that baffled the doctor. he proposed endoscopy and... (forgot what it's called), as to be able to see the whole of my digestive system. but then, he poked my stomach again. and then we found it: appendicitis.

how funny was that? that lengthy Gastroenteritis turned out to be chronic (and acute) appendicitis.
so, more examination followed, including the 'barium-contrast x-ray' that I avoided. yep, appendicitis it was.
so then i have may laparascopic appendicitis.

how could that be called a holiday?
this is how: coz by staying for 8 days in hospital, i had my escape from the office work. there was a lot of me-time. i am a master of doing nothing, and when i was hospitalized, there were a lot of moments of doing nothing.

okay, honest be told, staying in hospital is no holiday. in holiday, you won't be woken up in the middle of the night to have your dose of medicine, despite it's being put into the IV drips. you don't got poked every day by doctors (yeah, since it was found that i got appendicitis, i was handled by 2 doctors). you don't wake up feeling a mix of emotions as the one next door was literally howling in pain. and you don't get to see people rushing as someone condition worsened and they reeled him into the ICU. nope.

but yeah, there were some perks, too, like the heated operation theater bed, the heated blanket for post-operation, the bed that can electronically be lowered and adjusted, and the choice you were offered for your meals.

and as in all vacation, sometimes you'd rather not know how much you pay in the end. insurance covers some, but not all. cross my fingers i'm not breaking my banks for this.

adab yang tak teraih

saya pikir, dengan makin beragamanya orang, makin bermoral lah manusia, dan makin baiklah akhlaknya

saya salah, rasanya

mesjid yang semakin banyak berdiri, bahkan sepertinya di jakarta setiap RT punya mesjid sendiri, tak juga membuat orang lebih baik. lebih baik bagi saya diartikan dengan lebih menjaga perasaan orang lain, lebih membantu orang lain, lebih bersikap sopan pada orang lain, dan mengakui serta menghormati keberadaan orang lain. orang yang lain dengan mereka, orang yang lain dengan kita.

yang kasat mata adalah toleransi yang menurun, pemaksaan yang meningkat, ancaman2 baik halus maupun terang2an yang makin merajalela, dan moral yang tak juga membaik, serta kesopanan yang luntur.

hal2 sederhana seperti menjaga kebersihan (= menghormati diri sendiri dan orang lain), mengantri dengan baik (= menghargai hak orang yang sudah lebih dulu datang dari kita), mengucapkan terima kasih, meminta maaf, mengucap 'permisi' adalah hal yg tidak cukup seksi untuk diajarkan di mesjid2. tidak glamor, tidak megah. menaati peraturan yang dibuat manusia demi keamanan dan kenyamanan bersama nampaknya tidak menjadi prioritas, peraturan Tuhan saja yang perlu.

apakah lupa bahwa sebelum bertemu Tuhan, kita hidup bersanding dengan sesama?

tentu salah berkata bahwa semua orang seperti itu
tentunya banyak yang betul2 baik dan betul2 apik dalam bersikap
tapi hari ini saya memutuskan pesimis dan berkata: orang2 seperti itu semakin dikit jumlahnya, dan semakin tak terlihat.

dan negeri ini akan semakin tak beradab.