Ramadhan.

The new moon brings a change in the atmosphere tomorrow: a word which when translated to English means “arid”. The theory is that the heat removes our excesses to make way for better things like peace and serenity. We are to restrain our heady impulses, Cephalus said. But why?

I shortened what was written in six paragraphs into six lines. I need to learn silence.

The Milkwoman.

I managed to catch The Milkwoman at the Japanese Film Fest 08 at the National Museum. To put it simply: it was sad.

I loved the setting. The National Museum is one of my favourite buildings. The town inside the film was adorable: a confection of small cubes sprouting from the hills first before they came to pave the streets and fit the concrete steps in between. Every day a woman would walk up and down these steps to deliver milk to homes tucked cosily amongst one another.

They lived mundane lives. She lived her life in perfect regularity without a hint of someone who enjoys pleasure, save for the books. He lived a quiet life on top of a hill with a dying wife in his hands and milk delivered regularly at 6:05am.

There’s a steady rhythm of a ticking clock in the background which made the days stretched longer inside that two-hour movie. Hollywood would have taken that plot and ended it in half an hour. Ogata Akira gave it justice, and sought to torture you with the minutes and the seconds of their lives. Ogata captures the tiny details of a day and let it linger on screen longer than the plot like a letter of a dead woman in her hands, the twinkle of her mother on the passenger seat of a bike and the labored breaths of a milk lady in the cool morning air. They were awkward people. Their words were stilted. Silence spoke for them and the tick tick tick filled the pauses the quiet cannot fill. Walking out of that movie felt like I have aged as long as the time frame the movie encompassed which was roughly 50 years, 3 months and 4 days.

The only thing that kept me awake was the wonder if they’re going to get it together. No, not if, when. The synopsis revealed the entire storyline. I knew the beginning, middle and end. No one knows when it’ll happen. So sadness stretched in silence and in certainty, dying with a solemnity of a dead man’s smile. That was just gratuitous alliteration but it sums up the movie. It was close to an Aristotelian tragedy. Close.

Walking out of the theatre, I was tired. The seats were so close to the screen that my neck was stiff from keeping still. He said in tragedy, there is catharsis: a state when all emotions are expunged.

Yeah, that’s about right.

Five Down, Five To Go.

Do you remember this?

I can most definitely cross some of these out and make new ones!

1. Release 99 red helium-filled balloons
2. Smile at The Handsome Cute Little Stranger on my bus train DONE YESTERDAY!
   
3. Watch all 6 of the Star Wars movie
4. Live in all 6 continents (Antartica optional): in progress…. 2 continents, 4 to go.
5. Read a novel entirely in French I read the Little Prince =D Now I can read the original!
6. Help the old lady by my bus stop When I got back to Jakarta after writing this list, I rarely took the bus and she disappeared.
7. Run a mile I am getting there eventually
8. Fantasize about starting up a waste-management company done fantasizing
9. Ask a boy on a date - this one was a little contentious as to what exactly constitutes asking and what is generally meant by a date, because i think I may have done it long before I wrote the list.
   
10. Watch Death Cab For Cutie concert - and it was amahellazing!

Five down five to go!

How To Charm a Girl on a Train.

It’s just another story that begins with two pairs of eyes locked across a crowded room. He’s sitting in front of me. I’m standing in front of him. There are only footsteps in between with pairs of legs and other limbs swaying to the beat of a speeding train. I was lost inside the music in my ears. He was munching a biscuit.

I caught his eyes first, dark and doe-eyed, which comes with a pair of button nose like a small woodland creature. His munching mouth lay open as he held my eyes as though the mouth and the eyes cannot work together at the same time. My cheeks lifted and curled the edges of my lips. He gave me a smile rimmed with golden crumbs. I looked away, he nibbled on. I did it again and again and again until both of us are grinning for no reason at all.

Oh he was cute with red flowers on his shirt. He was also four years old. I was making eyes with a toddler, flirting without words. It was harmless fun and the sweetest ending to a Sunday evening. I held his gaze and gave attention which is the most that any stranger could do. We transferred to another lane of trains. His hands were lead out of the carriage but his head kept turning to look for me as knees, tunnels and elevators separates.

When we got to the platform, he gave a final glance. He giggled with recognition and tugged the sleeves of his guardian. I gave a final smile and disappeared into the crowds. I walked out of his life as quickly as our eyes had broken through the glaze that separates strangers from something else.

For moments like these, I know that Other People are more than just pigments of colour and swells of mass. It’s too easy to forget that when you’re in the city, movements blurred together into a mundane apathetic grey.

Maybe this world is real after all. I believe you’re real.

The Human Stain.

I do a very good impression of someone who is well-adjusted to modern society. I do well enough in school. I think before I speak. I am sensible. I get along fairly okay with grown adults. I can rake a comb through my hair. I can paint my face like the best of them. I can type pretty fast and make highly-productive sounds. I know how to carry a conversation just by listening to monologues. I am polite. I am safe.

Once in a while I get outbursts of ickiness when life feels too dull. I crawl out of my own skin. It’s a very messy process. You can imagine the blood spilled on the floor. The stain is difficult to get out of clothes.

I kid.

Once in a while, I do very random things like successfully persuading a friend to walk a stretch of Orchard Road barefoot; or asking a taxi driver about their take on love, swapping poetry over a one-hour drive that seemed too short; or strolling the longest way home just for the rustle of skirts in the evening roadside breeze; or coaxing a randomly-picked handsome stranger to pour out their family history in less than four hours.

These stories are true. It doesn’t work all the time but when it does, people can amaze you. Life can amaze you. This city can amaze you. I don’t know why I do it. People have a habit of fading away but I get to keep the stories though. I haven’t contracted tetanus from walking without shoes and my pancreas is still intact, I think. It helps to have a head screwed so tightly on to your heart to know the difference between taking chances and just sheer stupidity.

Would you go out of your way, out of your shells and really let life pull you away from the predictable? If I stay where I am, confined in my own space, I would not get very far. Each of us live on parallel planes. It will never cross if you float along. The funny thing about humans is that they shape each other, more so than genetics had preordained. We leave indelible imprints, etched against bones and carved against flesh. The stain remains under my skin till it withers into papery decay.

Maybe this is the closest thing to permanence.

p.s. No one ever hears the stories, not in full. Who would have that kind of patience?

Summer Cleaning Spree.

When you start to suspect that your bedroom becomes the designated place where things go missing and will never be found ever again, it’s probably time to clean it. It started with a missing hairdryer, leaving my hair in a funky state all week. I couldn’t find my new pencil case full of new pens and highlighters. Various articles of clothing went missing. Epiphany came when I realized I am probably wading through them all when I climb into bed every night.

My room is messy. I’m not being modest. It really is a total mess. Most of the time it is best described like a cross between a bedroom and a tumble dryer. I’d like to think there is a special explanation for this but the simpler explanation would be I’m just lazy.

My desk used to look like this:

It’s been like that for three months ever since I left.
My mom reminds me everyday.

So all this talk about starting over, I had to actually do it. I started cleaning several days ago. Just look at the date stamp. A week ago, I set out to clean it but it never advanced beyond the picture. Last night somewhere after midnight I flicked through my songs and Laura Veirs said:

” Just look at this mess we are in
Don’t lose yourself, don’t let yourself be lost”

Moral of the story is, don’t listen to your mom. Listen to your ITunes for all the wisdom you could ever need. The song has nothing to do with cleaning your room but hey whatever works right?

I collapsed into bed at 4am. The fairies did the rest. By 8am, the desk looked something like this:

I know for some of you with strange anal retentive habits that this is still considered messy but hey let me have my moment of glory. This is an unbelievable feat because cleaning for me usually means rearranging the trash and paper on my desk until I clear enough space for my laptop to perch without tipping over (see exhibit 1).

Being part of the generation reared by Neil Buchanan on Art Attack where PVA Glue and tissue paper meant all sorts of magic, I didn’t want to spend more money for my room. I’ve already bought 16 photo frames on an IKEA sale last month. I still have no idea what I’ll do with them all.

Hence, tadaaa:

Okay it looks pretty grody from here but it is functional. It’s made of paper and plastic boxes on top of a n old corkboard covered with a black apron from my ThaiExpress days. Next to it is my Box of Unsent Letters, mostly postcards and things that should be mailed to Canada but never got around to sending it. I’ll get around to wrapping it with some pretty paper once I find nice ones from Prints or Paperchase albeit with a smaller price tag. *GASP* wait a sec, I can design my own wrapping paper!

I’ve always wanted a way to store my bling-bling and showcase them too. This is where collecting pretty boxes of strange Korean dessert comes in handy. The desert is gone but the little cutouts they left behind were perfect for my earrings. I poked little holes and voila:

That puma watch is fake.
Its a souvenir from Jakarta to remind me of all the days when I have to wake up at 5am.

There was a time when I ran a mini little earring business in the canteen. I designed and made each by hand and sold them for my own extra funds. I loved it. I’d scour from store to store and handpick each little bead only if they’re pretty. I’d drool over Swarovski range of colours. I’d pack them into little sachet complete with a card with a logo inked on to it. It was made with love and boredom. Okay it wasn’t boredom. I made it when I was sick of school which was often when school sucked the life out of me while everyone else floated on to graduation. I now have very little respect for plastic earrings, people who think they can make jewelery even though they have a horrible sense for design and student organizations. Oh I can be shallow and I can be harsh.

Anyhow, sometimes I like the earrings too much that some were never sold. I hardly wore them out because I forget I even have them. So here they are in view. I look at them from time to time and I think about seriously reviving Tinct, my imaginary accessories label. Tinct, which means a tint of colour, was my design philosophy when it comes to earrings. It had to be simple, colourful but elegant. It took several hours to come up with one pair because I am a perfectionist. But it was one of the most costly and most loved personal project I’ve had. I get to feel so pompous about it too.

OH I had big big dreams at 16. Tinct would be part of my future empire where I’ll own my very own t-shirt factory and a fashion label. After establishing for maybe half a decade I’d branch out into makeup or maybe fragrances for the tween/teenage set eventually building an entire design house under me. Looking at it makes me feel 16 again, anal and ambitious, except with a larger seed money. It may come at the cost of my other fantasies and it would be a shame if it ever came down to another ultimatum.

Blund and this little pink bag hides all my cables and holds all the things important to me.

I won’t lose myself this year. I won’t be lost.

Home.

It took a concert ticket to bring me back. It took the words Death Cab for Cutie and some feeble persuasion before I had the guts to confirm my plane tickets for home. This was a month ago.

I thought about staying another year longer to work, to learn and to travel around the archipelago. I had a rough plan worked out. Several months in Jakarta for work and on weekends I’d explore its enclaves like Kwitang, Kemang, Tebet and Tanah Abang. When that is done, I’d travel. My family is scattered all over Java and Bali so lodging is secured. There are plenty of lonely grandaunts I can visit. My route will be Jakarta – Bandung - Cirebon - Yogyakarta - Bali. I’ll live for a few weeks and move on when I’ve had enough. I can rough it out on the public transportation system. I have enough sense to fend off people who may be attracted towards my kidneys. Elections are coming up. If I needed money I could always send my writing or my design portfolio and pray someone would employ me for projects. I’d live simply, pack light and wash often. It would work!

Wide Awake.

Have you ever stood on the dawn of something bigger than yourself, just barely at the tips of your own fingers, without any idea what it is and what it could possibly mean? This feels like it.

I can’t sleep. The last three month felt like a dream. I know it was real because the girl who left isn’t the girl who came back writing these words. It’s unsettling. But in the words of The Little Prince:

Straight ahead of one self, one cannot go very far.

I’m still who I am, just a little bit more brave. Maybe this is a different start.

I can’t see where I will be in a year or so. There aren’t any productions to stretch my patience. There aren’t any publicity jobs I’d want to work in. There aren’t any student organization with a worthy enough cause. My responsibility is me and everything else I’ve swept aside in the last 5 years for busyness. There are bigger and better things worth caring for, I think.

So that’s it. If I had a placard as big as an elephant, because elephant-sized placards are most helpful, it’ll say: Under Renovation Something Awesome Coming Your Way Soon. That should do it.

So what so I’ve got a smile on
It’s hiding the quiet superstitions in my head

Don’t believe me
Don’t you dare believe me
When I say I’ve got it down

Dynasty.

Friday afternoon ramblings…

me: eh Adinda Bakrie’s wedding reception’s tonight at Hotel Mulia. She married some dude who’s apparently one of the richest men in Singapore. Let’s go crash the party!

Mas Bayu: Bakrie’s cousin right?

Mas Iwan: The richest man in Singapore?

Me: well no.. son of one of the richest man in Singapore

Iwan: So that means the cousin of the richest man in Indonesia is marrying the grandson of one of the richest men in Indonesia

Me:…..yeaaah probably.

Oh hello nosy Indonesians looking for gossip on socialites! Let me save you the trouble: I don’t write about them here. I don’t even know Adinda Bakrie! This was just a piece of silly talk on a slow friday afternoon. You are better off staking out her house than to go look for her here.

Batavia.

Dear you,

You make me feel like one pre-menstrual mess. You place my closest relative two hours and a traffic jam away. Grandmother is only 5 hours away. That’s only about 2 additional hours, give or take. Do you realise how close I am to jumping on a train each weekend to run away from your neon lights?

I know I’m stubborn to insist on walking on your streets despite running into a pathway of flies and rubbish, rebelling against a land development authority that doesn’t exist. I skip the potholes and the rubble you call a pedestrian walk like it’s a game I used to play on colored tiles. Grey means safe. Black means I just walked into a pile of trash. But I still do it just because it gets me a little angrier each day…. which inadvertently makes me happy.

Like a nanny, you take care of the kids and the lazy on the sidewalks of your junctions. So you raise resilient children, living on the margins of your capitalists, wanting the very same things. And every year or so when they feel like playing around with economics and welfare by increasing the profit margins of their oil companies, your roads are swarmed with demonstrators without a cause. You can do better than this. How can you let the machinations of these emperors run?

Still, you do things each day that tilt my head skywards with every passing skyscraper. I’m transfixed by the glass panes which in the morning seem to absorb dawn’s rainbow coloured skies and in the evening seem to preserve its turquoise and blue afternoons within its panes. The little things you do: a row of flags flirting with the wind in jewel shades across the highways to greet the coming of another president and another trail of disappointment. How will you break our heart?

At least this empty house contains my hollowness. And I know when I leave it’ll follow me there. It’ll contain all the things you make feel and you make me feel so angry, giddy, alone, frustrated, enchanted and overwhelmed. I think it’s called feeling alive.

I want to be in five places right now, at the same time. But that’s half a lie.

I have 11 days left and all those 11 small little days would rather be spent here within you.

What’s Wrong.

I’m not writing as happy as I used to be. It could be deadlines. Wherever I go it’s tinged with this pervasive kind of sadness and futility. It chokes you in odd moments. And I cannot understand where all of this is coming from.

I was in a taxi last night, going home for the second night in a row with my laptop. I had my empty lunchbox beside me. My taxi slowed at a junction close to Tugu Tani. A little street girl in a grubby yellow t-shirt pressed her nose onto the windows. A seat and a taxi door separated us. She was asking for money. I waved my hand away as usual. She looked down and saw the little purple bag. She asked if she could have some, whatever was in the bag. I turned my head away. There were two uneaten oranges inside. But she wouldn’t have seen them. I couldn’t move.

In that moment, I don’t understand why I did what I did. I would have given her the oranges but I couldn’t move. In a rewind, I may have rolled down my window. I’d give her the oranges. She’d run off into the concrete sidewalks amongst the headlights and disappear out of my life forever.

But she stays with me, hands and nose pressed against glass just looking with her empty eyes and wanting things, not even knowing what they are.

It was there, the gulf. A meter of emptiness and something else far worse.

Paralysed.

I have questions that cannot be answered, that ought not to be asked. I feel things that ought not to be felt, that cannot be touched by words. I cannot move. I cannot speak. I am suspended.

Despite the Ought and the Cannot, I’ll piece together a distant dream and tie it to a pretty cloud on some faraway sunset. It’ll float above me, tied by an ordinary plea. It’s just a dream.

We think of compulsion as the opposite of dreams. But it isn’t. Dreams are born out of compulsion. They grow out of the finite to live in the infinite. Fantasies feed on the margins of our limits, always a little out of reach like a helium balloon tied to the end of your little finger.

Maybe it’s this place. Or maybe it’s about time.
Maybe it’s you, you, you or you. Or maybe it’s just me.

This is my diving bell and it’s my butterfly.

I have plans drawn with toes grazing the ground. When my heels are firmly planted, I know it’ll be the road less traveled by. It’s alright though. I’ll be alone, mostly, and oft misunderstood.

But I think I’ll be okay.

It’s the Argh Hour of the Day

I have too many thoughts running in my head. I can’t write. I always always always underestimate how much time I need to write things for projects, which leaves so many sleepless nights caffeine-drugged and amped up by adrenaline. But when I feel like writing it just comes out, gushing out unstoppable, like it just has to be purged out of my system otherwise it swirls and swirls, dragging debris of other thoughts with it until I get a little too confused. So my hands are freezing up and I’m reading things that don’t smell like marketing or business strategy just to give my fingers a rest from trying to squeeze out coherence out of the swirling mass of confusion that’s in my head. See.. this sentence is horrible. I should re-edit it and re-edit it and re-edit it like I usually would but I don’t give a damn right now. ARGHHHHH GODDAMNIT. THIS INDUSTRY IS FULL OF BOMBASTIC CRAP AND EMPTY EMPTY WORDS. I will write this all with as much integrity as I can muster without falling into a trap of writing pompous claims masquerading under a thin veil of intellectual superiority… okay that’s ambitious. I just hope I’m making sense.

Writing is not easy. Writing that satisfies the worst critic inside my head is like taking a ball of yarn and pulling out the thread at the very center and trying to unravel the wrong way around. Except that yarn is your small intestines. And you’re pulling it out of belly button. Writing is painful and it hurts my fingers and my head. But I’m just going to continue to write until I am all typed out and all I have is this hollow chant of IKEA IKEA IKEA IKEA IKEA IKEA in my fingers and I have absolutely no other choice but to sit and squeeze all its IKEAness out of my fingers.

I’m running out of time. ARGH fuck. Is this even possible?

Ancestry.

I wrote that I’ll be leaving for a place where no one knows my name. I was wrong. They know me by a different name. I am Someone’s Daughter… and sometimes Someone’s Granddaughter.

It matters here. It matters because it’s clear to me what that actually means within this space and time. I am the daughter of a teacher’s daughter and a farmer’s son. These are my ropes for they have climbed so far above their rungs. I am the daughter of overachievers. These are my chains for I am always compared inevitably if I am half as smart, as creative, as talented or as hardworking. Their shadows are larger than life, cast against their books and echoes of distant lectures. Still, I am the byproduct of their accumulated wealth, their failed marriages, their unprofitable degrees and their nomadic life. Without them, these words would be written differently, probably with less insolence, less eloquence and less prudence. Because of the difference, I understand the indelible parts of what I am and the parts that are left to be.

Maybe if you would look a little closer and see the difference between their shadows and mine, you may see who I am.

Then you will know my name.

The One Where She Got Locked Out Of Her Own Home

Alright, I haven’t written a post about how stupid I can be in a long while. I got locked out of my house this morning. Nothing tragic. I slept over at my uncle’s house and didn’t tell my maid when I’m coming back. So I was left stranded. I wrote things in my notebook for company. It’s long. This is what I wrote verbatim as time passes, every thought recorded. Structure is horrid but it is what it is…