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When I Didn't Feel Like Writing For A While

It Didn't Make Much Sense Anymore

I Miss My Mom
I came home from work the other evening, just like every evening in the last year, to an empty house. The darkness immediately swallowed my voice, as I find no one to speak to about my day, about my work, about the little disasters I’ve caused and seen happen around me. Little stories that would have brightened up my mother’s face had she heard them; because I have a poet’s cynicism in my narrations and nothing can jumpstart my mother’s laughter – for an entire semester – like my stories.

But my stories don’t have that kind of effect on my mother anymore. She doesn’t smile to me like she used to. She doesn’t brighten with stories anymore. Not even a bit.

So I hold back from telling stories to her. Then I held back from telling stories to you, too. I really don’t have much left to say, really. I’ve been offline a little too long. Been fighting for a cause that nobody really understands. Been fighting for causes that I don’t welcome anymore. I grew up and stopped believing in so many things. We grew up, and we realized that the world, wherever we go, still treats us just as half-heartedly.

"Yet, it feels okay, everything feels really okay, because that’s just the way the world makes sense and remains meaningless."

I Miss Writing Well
That’s how I’d usually write a regular post, in a normal day. I bring up the stimulant, tell you about the tiny little details, and then ask you questions about meaning. “What would you like to know? Whom do you miss the most? What scares you? What would you like to embrace? What do you believe in? What are you living for?”

Blogging has been a great source for that kind of relief. That someone out there knows about my whereabouts on a postly-basis. That someone out there is also searching for some meaning in all of this dementedness. The thought struck a goldmine of addictive relief: I became addicted to the meaninglessness presented in my writings. “Let’s burn some rubber! Raise some hell! Imprint an exotic tattoo on every inch that goddamned ivory called skin! The fuck with living!”

And it grew lame. After half a year in Aceh, after half my life spent on screaming like that, I realize that my writings have lost its thoughtfulness, my thoughts lost in the fake hostility, feeding the fake-hostile demon called anger that I pet and caress every time my fake-pride needs a fake-boost.

[Besides, spending 3-dollars-an-hour on internet connection when your entire income is just 20-dollars-a-day is just plain ridiculous. I do have to pay the not-very-fake rent, you know?]

I Miss Thinking Straight
So, maybe this when the questions are completed. I’ve asked everything that I can ask. I’ve drowned in so much longing that there’s not a crease of longing that I do not yet recognize. And it prevails. I still long for the gone, whether I am here or there, with or without you. The effect that questioning life and longing, can no longer give the relieving effect it used to have for each other; when longing relieved life and life relieved longing.

What’s left right now is just to stop writing for a good while, straighten up, and go – through the sun, through the city, through broken chains and empty hopes, through the darkness of the human mind – to work.

This is me bidding you, my reader, farewell and a very long good night. Because, tomorrow, I need to work some mud on my clean shirt, spit some blood and quit being such an intellectual pussy. This is the time to start another argument with my peers, to soak in the rain, to ache to the bones, and soil every neat reservation with the essence of human struggle in its purest form.

And maybe, just maybe, someday shall come a page written so differently, so longed for.

...I came home from work the other day, just like everyday in the last year, to find my mother pouring her attention to the hand-stitched fabric in her hands, and the soft sound of the TV in front of her, both watching after her during my absence.

“Hey, mom, I’m home,” I gently say.

She picks her head up, and looks at me the way I’ve always waited for her to. Her face brightens the room at the mere sight of me, “Hello, child, how’s your day?”

“I missed you."

Work
This is the kind of behavior that would stir His Royal Majesty King Shreedip’s violent disapproval had he seen it executed under his watch.
WARNING: Disturbing images ahead. Under no circumstances should you or anyone else try to inflict the same reputation and safety risks below.

Sitting in pickup truck tub in the middle of the day, for thirty minutes, from a place called Alue Raya to Meulaboh.

[Yes, Alue Raya and Meulaboh are still in Aceh.]
[Yes, Aceh is still in Indonesia.]
[And yes, Sumatra and Bali Islands are parts of Indonesia too.]


Heck, if my entire life were to be spent on rebelling against everything common and normal, this was just one of those quirks that I JUST HAD TO DO.

*****
Okay, so new my job occasionally raises questions on safety regulations (among other questionable things). But it’s not the worst job in the world, really.

I get to implement my dirty ideas on changing attitudes on village communities, and then watch how these ideas affect the lives of others.

I don’t really need verbal languages to enjoy this job, but some local words might help in setting the ground rules on the games that we play,
(…child…play…do you remember the last time you played as a child?)

Actually huge part of my working hours is spent on planning and playing games with a LOT of children.

[Yeah, children; children of conflict, of colossal natural disasters, children with a lot of issues, children who might grow up becoming like me…]



You know,
I don’t really know about other people’s children or childhood,
I don’t know if this job is worthwhile or doing any good in improving the life qualities of our tiny little beneficiaries,
I don’t even know if this job is doing anything else other than making me lose weight and develop an uncomely skin tan.

(I can feel my arms and thighs and stomach muscle tighten, I can feel my lungs open wider with every inhale, and my skin, now as dark as skin should be in the summer)

What I do know is that nowadays, ever since I started doing this job, I’ve been able to crash in my sponge-bed and fall into some serious deep sleep without the help of booze or my funny-little-bit-illegal cigarettes.

Now, that's worthwhile...

What Makes The World Go Round

Location: Immigration office in Jakarta,

He said this in a matter-of-factly tone, “The company that was sponsoring you has folded, so basically you’re an illegal alien here,”

My voice trembled, “What am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t cry, it’s alright, I’ll cover for you until your current working visa actually expires. But make sure you have a new sponsor by Eid,”

“Isn’t there an easier way to do this?”

“Marry an Indonesian,” he rolled his eyes, “or have so much money to buy the Indonesian Law.”

You see,  some currencies are so universal that you can count on and use them anywhere.

Like most of my posts here, this on is also going to be an extremely ego-centric post.

My house in Jakarta is located in one of those homey areas, where families still gather on the weekends for football matches and everybody knows everybody else because the walls are so thin and the fences are so low.

So with the cheers from the crowd watching the football match on the field opposite our residence, proudly sporting my BINGO shirt, and glowing with shameless post-orgasmic joy, I walk into my own house.

It only took 30-minutes, from the moment I waltz myself in, for the house to tremble in rage and find me hollering marching stomping out of it, still looking like a full-blown war deserter: oversized backpack, sling camera bag, cheap slippers, bruised pride and wholesome discontentment.

The front gate swings open and slams closed to these:
“YOU’RE GOING BACK TO JEDDAH WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!”
“NOT UNTIL ONE OF US IS DEAD, MAMA!”

Peachy, ain’t it?

***

Every household has its methods of disaster management.
GH2 had its quirks. RmhTbt has its shakes. And I have mine:

1. Tell everyone that you’re pissed, thus are prone to induce even more harm to yourself. The sooner someone accompanies you, the less harm you may induce.
2. Procure one or all of the following: something sweet, something to read, something to write on.
3. Sit somewhere safe, and shut up until your brain regains its normal temperature, your face and eyes its normal color, and smoke stops from coming out of your ears.

TIP: Repeating Goosfrabaaaa…is only going to remind you of the Anger Management movie and piss you off even more.

***
The welcoming ritual between me and mama wouldn’t have occurred if I hadn’t told her that I’m considering switching into Indonesian citizenship, living in Indonesia for the rest of my life, and actually loving it.

The welcoming ritual wouldn’t have occurred if our conversation didn’t reach the more substantial elements of our relationships. So sticking to cooking, sewing, and hair/skin maintenance would have been better topics to tread on carefully.

The welcoming ritual wouldn’t have occurred if I weren’t so desperate to show her of all the things that’s been making me tick and click in the last 5 months in Aceh.

Why do I still tell my mama about things that I know she just can’t understand?
Because I still long for her approval.

Why do I still need my mama’s approval?
Because I don’t really believe in the things that I’m doing is worthwhile.

Why don’t I believe that what I’m doing is worthwhile?
Because I’m doing it out of vengeance.

Why am I vengeful?
Because I’m unable to forgive.

There, the entire purpose of living in Amman, in Aceh, in Jakarta, heavy drinking, highway riding, promiscuity, psychology degree, knowledge and keen sense for power, is just to avenge the people who refused to love me for what I am.

Allow me to rephrase that,
All the explosive decisions I’ve made are just to make up for my inability to really accept and forgive myself the way I am.

Look at it this way, if I really believe in what I’m doing, if I really believe that the purpose of living is for God and self-actualization, heck, I wouldn’t have such hard time trying to convince anyone about anything.

Life really isn’t about proving anything to anyone.
Life’s so much larger than that.
And if I, up until now, still want to prove anything to anyone, myself included, then all the good that I’ve done hasn’t been worthwhile, and all the bad I’ve done hasn’t fulfilled anything but that.

(stuffing out my cigarette, chugging in that last shot of Acehnese coffee, and taking a deep breath)

You know something,
With this much of fresh anger, I’m not ready to forgive my mother.
Not yet.

But I know how to get there.
And I’m writing it down here so that if I forget, someone out there will remind me of it.

I’ll tell you when I do get there; get to the part where I am able to forgive my mother.

By that time, I would have been able to forgive myself, and you, and everyone else.

You’ll see it in the voice that I write with.
Come to think of it, maybe when that happens, I won’t need to write anything here anymore.

And you’ll just have to be happy for me.

Sue

She was the first person in Meulaboh who asked about my Southerner’s accent, “Why you talk like that?”
She was my first friend in Aceh,
She’s the only person I’ve known to be so passionate about Yoga,

…she makes a pretty model, sweat and odd poses included…

Few days ago, she sent me a message from Nias,
“I’m having some serious pork BBQ for dinner tonight,”
I thought, this is the second time that she’s mentioned eating pork to us,

So I said to her,
“I’ll remember you every time I cook, just like how you’ll remember us every time you have pork. It’s nice the way we carry each other around in our daily habits, wherever we go.”

This is why nothing in the world, not even death, can separate you from the ones you love.

So remember them well.

Returning Favors

We were running out of private places to hangout.
I can’t stand crowds, and he don’t want the word to spread.
(It’s incredible how such a small community can be so desperate for ANYTHING to burn)

So he took me in his car to a very deserted area in the middle of a pitch black palm field.
He parked his car in front of an uninhabited house, and looked at me, “You’re sure about this?”
“Doubtless,” I grinned.

He got out of the car and came to my side, opening the door and sat himself in my place as I crossed over to the driver’s seat.
I buckle my seatbelt and remind him to buckle his.
I adjust my seat, the mirrors…
…release the hand break, pick up the clutch, press the accelerator…and d.r.i.v.e.

***

After a while, he broke the silence, “You really like driving, don’t you?”
“What made you say that?”
“Your face. It’s glowing with pleasure.”

[I’m not yet allowed to drive beyond gear-2, especially in these narrow, rural roads. I don’t mind; it’s his car, it’s his classes and he’s my tutor. The only thing that mattered is that I can drive.]

I asked him to light me a cigarette. The car slightly swerved as I picked it up from his hand, and I apologized.

“It’s fine; you’re controls are improving,” he took a drag from his own cigarette, and exhaled his thoughts, “why driving?”

“For the sense of competence,” I paused to concentrate when a truck passed by our car. “Baba still drives himself on 8-hour journeys from Jakarta to his village in the Middle-of-Another-Nowhere. And on these trips, I’ve never been able to say, ‘take a break and let me drive for you, Baba,’ and actually mean it, when I really, really do want to mean it."

I took a deep sigh, threw the cigarette out of the window and continued,
"There’s a distinct sense of satisfaction; when you can tell your dad to sit back and enjoy the ride for once in a while.”

I must've looked really sad when I said this, because I felt a pat on my head, hearing him say, “I make sure you will.”
He’s one person who knows a thing or two about unreturned favors to parents.

Yeah, we’re working on it.