Scribbles

This is how one month, or maybe more, can be broken down into a set of paragraphs…

Languages
I found out that English is best used in expressing neutral, technical and happy thoughts. English is used when the talk is about theories of evolution, about the way to Setiabudi Building, about the way my children greet me at the end of the day.
That’s why English is actually my writing tongue. Not Indonesian, which is my mother tongue. Not Arabic, which is my learning tongue.

Bahasa Indonesia is used when poetry slips off my fingers out of sadness and longing. It is also the language in which the superego speaks and yells. And since both poetry and superego carry the saddest, worst news, my Indonesian poems are raw and my behavior unreasonable to those with reason.

Arabic is the most masculine language I’ve ever met. Whatever the form, let it be poetic or prose, feminine ‘you’ or masculine, Arabic is only used when the argument is no longer an argument, but an order. Love, in Arabic, is inarguable. It is there to stay, to hurt and to teach. Whether or not you want to learn or love. Whether or not you agree or care. Whether or not you receive or produce it.

That’s why the most romantic language in the world is Gibberish because love is beyond the definitions of language. Those who think that French is a romantic language only think that because they don’t know how to curse in French. Like Bangla and Hebrew, which I barely can understand but have the ability to caress my heart deeper than Arabic or English or Indonesian. Gibberish is the language I use to speak with my cat and dog. Gibberish is the language used with those whom I’ve fallen in love with.

People, Loving
I saw a woman get off the back seat of a motorcycle the other day, a man was driving it. She handed the helmet she was wearing to him, and kissed the man’s hand goodbye, then walked away to the crossing bridge that lead to the bus terminal. All in plain, automatic fluent accuracy of a daily (good) habit, that I take for granted would always occur whether or not those two in good terms. I hope I haven’t laid a bad eye on them with my stare.

I’m more worried about this couple which I stared at harder and longer, partially because their interaction took a longer time. This woman was standing in front of a man who placed his hand around her nape, holding her face close to his, both completely oblivious to their surrounding. With one hand on her nape; thumb rubbing her cheeks and lips, another hand balancing the motorbike between his legs. This silent interaction might have taken a full minute, and I almost wondered whether or not I should pull out my camera to digitalize the moment.

When he released her nape and broke off the hypnosis session with a sigh, and I was finally able to take my eyes off them before falling into a ditch ahead. Looking back at them, I hated their intimacy; mostly missing that kind of interaction, when both parties bid farewell to each other at the start of a day by saying things like “have a nice day, I’ll see you later. I love you.”

Freedom
Freedom is still the overrated illusion, the mythical goddess I chase. We’re very subjective when we define freedom, because each of us has her own restraints. We’d long for one night stands when the boring husband walks in with that all-too-familiar look on his face, with his familiar cock, familiar maneuvers, and familiar sighs of orgasms. We’d be praying for the handsome prince, driving the shiny white car, offering all the boring securities and facades only a marriage could conjure up, once we’ve dated too many men and swallowed too many disappointments and crossed out too many names off our phonebooks.

Maybe freedom is just having the strength and knowledge that we have something to live for every time we reach pointlessness and ask ourselves that question: “what’s next? Where do we go from here?” Some people live on teaching, some on childrearing, some on accumulating money and power, while others are weathered enough to realize that it’s the small things that matter the most like afternoons spent reading at the side of a cup of coffee.

I’m nursing my own freedom, these days. It’s still infantile, so it’s very easy to lose my freedom’s definitions and compositions. My freedom isn’t defined by place or time, more by routine actions that are repeated in different times. After all, may it be single or married, freedom is just having and loving the things you wake up for every morning and come home to every evening.