SWORDS

Walking means pain Because my feet are full of scars Because my feet are full of scars - Or because the roads are full of nails? Because the roads are full of nails - Or because I walk barefoot?

It took one random urge to force me to go through my past on one random evening. As if my mind was telling me that what I was looking for lies there in the past, a moment that I didn’t realise I missed. Then I went through my old writings, even the ones I almost deleted, but for some reason kept in drafts where nobody has an access to except myself. And that was how it happened, how I encountered the old me, the younger me. I can feel the length and width of her mind, how much she tried to dive into the depth of almost everything she encountered along her journey into something so blurry she called the unknown . I can narrate precisely how deep her longing was to understand, and I could even feel her shaky legs - because the unknown is wild, and to turn it into the known meant leaving everything behind, to challenge her unsteady self, but to stay meant to rot. I felt sorry for her, that years after that, she still couldn’t fathom the meaning of her own daily life, but also glad, beca...

Written on my birthday, as a reminder/gift to myself:  A desperate man was alone in the middle of a forest, surrounded by abysses, wild animals, and trees higher than five stories buildings. He couldn't ignore the fear that slowly creeped in as he realised; he was lost. After some thousands steps he couldn't tell where exactly he was anymore. So he cried for help. When nobody answered, he cried even louder - that was when he heard someone cry back for help. He ran looking for the voice, until, after a while, he realised it was his own echo.  Before realising that it was his own echo, who was shouting back at him, this desperate man was, for a little while, cheered, knowing that somebody else was there, no matter if that somebody was there to help him or that somebody was simply there. Loud to the universe, my birthday resolution is to start to reverb only beautiful echoes within the walls of my body, or simply be there. For me. 

To want something and to want something back sit on two distinct poles but they’re breeding two somewhat similar outcomes. It is safe to say that things often become not quite special after we got the chance to hold on to it. That beautiful expensive armchair in IKEA, after some weeks, becomes merely a spot to stockpile my jackets and pants, no matter how I, at first, planned it to be a hygge spot to read my books in, before I decide to read on my bed before sleep - just like thousands days before the fancy armchair. But to want something back includes the experience one has had, it also includes promises to change and make it different this time, because if not, I would just let it go, my armchair would end up in some flea market, looking for a new owner, I would have realised at that time that I would no longer need the armchair, no matter how expensive and fancy it was to me. No matter how I once worked my ass off to be able to afford the armchair. Once it doesn’t mean anything any...

Nina Simone, was it And what about God? Nobody can’t take away? or was it  And what about God? Nobody can’t take away. or was it a journey, a question mark turned into a period? One second rest before the refrain, a moment to give that one sentence a chance to linger for one more while in the listeners’ heads. Or, I prefer, a moment of surrender. Until... Dang! I got my hair, I got my head I got my brains, I got my ears I got my eyes, I got my nose I got my mouth, I got my smile I got my tongue, I got my chin I got my neck, I got my boobies I got my heart, I got my soul I got my back, I got my sex I got my arms, I got my hands I got my fingers, I got my legs I got my feet, I got my toes I got my liver, got my blood I got life, I got my life I got my freedom, I got life! Everything begins with nothing, between these two poles is a verb: surrender. And this whole seeing, is beauty. 

I am in the museum of the earth and this all had happened before So long before that I start to forget how it does look like And how it does feel to be in its curves and cuts in its highs and lows The museum ticket costs me a lot, for the experience iss promised to be real And it does feel real So real it feels weird Celebrations and emotions and I even make friends We talk about how weird the tour guide looks when he talks Should we have taken the unguided tour and experience the museum ourselves? Some of my friends have gone after they thought it's enough for the day while I am still in the museum of the earth for old time sake Reminiscing the way the air feels as I try on different feelings It was delightful but some day it has to come to an end What's left is the stories, packed in a giant museum Then we turned into historians of our lives

The only thing stays constant is change, we all have heard of that (if you haven't, now you have). It's as clear as if you're pointing at a tree and telling someone, "it's a tree". But yet seeing that my life is about to change still creeps the hell out of my shivering bones. I know for a fact that many things would change sooner or later, but often my heart gets attached too quickly to certain moments that leaving them would cost me tears or/and uneasy feelings, which sometimes last longer than my mind allowed. Somewhere along my life journey, a month after my 25th birthday, I decided to have my own adress and move into a new place (which I, by the way, feeling very much comfortable in). Everybody who has at least once moved to a new place in their lives knows this last breath they take while looking around the old place, as if the moments ever happened in that place were playing on rewind in their heads. That's the corner where I once spilled the coffee,...

The sakura tree in front of my house starts bloom this time of the year, which is kind of my primary sign to estimate what time of the year I am in this land of four seasons I wasn’t grown up in, in which I sometimes still feel strange.  Nothing much has changed in the outside world since the last spring due to COVID-19, but I am sure there has been a lot going on in the department of emotions and your thinking mind, hasn't it? 

There is nothing much preferably done in winter than waking up between 11 to 12 AM to a warm cup of coffee without thinking it as one of the greatest guilty pleasures in life.  To be sorry is a very humble thing, but I wonder if it's at all necessary. To never feel sorry or to never having to say sorry might very well be a good challenge to take on as a new year resolution, which comes soon enough to be pressure. It might not be as hard if you just hear it once, but to never have to say "sorry" requires you to be always right and to be always right means not more than to never do wrong and there are two ways to never do wrong in life: 1. To behave just exactly the way society expects you to behave 2. To never regret every little detail that you decide to do The latest one has somehow made its way to be "in" nowadays, mostly in the West. I personally think that this is a beautiful way to live the life. Nevertheless, a tricky one because we tend to forget the reas...

It's safe to say that 2020 is one of the most depressing years all time, at least that's the impression I get from social medias and some conversations with people around me - and this isn't only because of COVID-19 which definitely limit our free wills. Happiness or gratitude suddenly become the things that we need to look for, because it doesn't happen just-like-that anymore. So, instead of waiting for good things to happen, we are forced to create or look for them. "What makes you happy?" ...was the question I hope I could answer with a list of activities. After realizing that it I could not begin with anything, the question reformulates itself into... "What used to make you happy?" Maybe that's the question I should start with.  Of course I (or we all) am not always this gloomy. We were all once those kids whose good moods could be triggered simply by cotton candies or playgrounds. The cotton candies now have turned into carb diets and the pl...

  On my latest trip to Amsterdam, I saw I guy singing while he was riding his bike through the streets in a crowded city of Amsterdam. After wondering how it feels to have that kind of self-consciousness, I started to wonder, how would a person like that handle a heartbreak? This blog contains a lot of heartbreaks. I’ve been blogging for about 10 years and have shared a lot of my personal heartbreaks and those of people around me in this blog of mine. Not always directly “you guys, my heart’s broken”, sometimes in other forms: stories, poems, or even happy poems and happy stories. Through those years, I acknowledged that heartbreak has a wider spectrum. It could happen not always in a relationship, but also in losing a friend, in hormonal changes, in rejections, in being totally afraid of not knowing what could happen next, in a massive confusion about life and all the possible meanings it may have. Not only that, heartbreaks also showed me that it’s not about how heartbroken I am....

I was often told of Kalong Wewe back when I was a kid. I have never seen a Kalong Wewe but this Kalong Wewe should be an old and mean witch, who liked to kidnap children. Kalong Wewe would start to look for children as the sun goes down. That was how "go home before dark" became one of the most important rule for the children, at least, in my neighborhood. Little did I know, in Japan, especially in public places, there's a song that will be played at the same time everyday as a reminder for the children that's it's late, and that it is time to go home. Is it not a very beautiful thing, to have someone/something telling you, that it is enough for today, that it's time to come home?

In the heart of Europe, a little bit to the south, I am typing this. Correction: I am typing and deleting this, typing and deleting this, typing and deleting this. This is one of those posts which have occupied my drafts for the last few months. Each word in this post has been trying to find a meaning they can call their own but sometimes things just don’t work that way.  Everything would be easier if we were all able to talk through our feelings, through no words. Words were made to limit us, I once read. But with no words, there would be no ambiguities and misunderstandings. And, come on, ambiguities and misunderstandings, at many points, often also trigger us to develop. So, what’s the limit anyway? I am writing this mostly because of my upcoming birthday. Birthdays are always filled with questions. The questions use to change from “what present do I get for my birthday?” to “what have I achieved up to this birthday?” We also change the address we send the questions to,...

Dahulu kala semesta diciptakan bersamaan dengan dua roh agung Siwarka dan Sakwari. Siwarka dapat bernyanyi dengan indah tiada tara, namun diciptakan tanpa indera pendengaran. Sementara Sakwari diciptakan bisu, namun memiliki pendengaran yang begitu hebat hingga dapat mendengar suara hingga yang paling lembut sekalipun. Sains hari ini mengelompokkan suara ke dalam tiga frekuensi; ultrasonik, audiosonik, dan infrasonik, dimana satu jenis spesies makhluk hidup hanya bisa mendengar salah satunya. Sakwari mendengar suara dalam frekuensi apapun, bahkan yang gelombangnya dapat menembus semua jenis alam. Sedangkan Siwarka, mengenali nada dan irama lewat getaran. Dari getarannya, ia ciptakan dan ia mainkan melodi yang paling indah yang siapapun bisa dengar. Siwarka dilahirkan di satu belahan semesta, sementara Sakwari di satu belahan lainnya, jaraknya mungkin berabad-abad, atau lebih. Siwarka tidak tahu dimana Sakwari, begitu juga Sakwari tidak tahu dimana Siwarka. Tapi dengan cara yang ta...

Ada sebuah perkataan soal New York, begini bunyinya: hidup di New York itu baru bakal sempurna kalau 3 hal sudah terpenuhi; rumah, pekerjaan, dan pasangan. Ini bukan New York sih, tapi 3 hal itu tetap penting buat hampir semua manusia. Rumah Lagi-lagi, pertanyaan soal rumah mengusik pikiran. Sejatinya sungguh sudah jelas, bahwa yang layak disebut rumah adalah sayur oyong buatan ibu dan nasi goreng buatan ayah. Kalimat itu tentu bukan untuk diterjemahkan literally ; maksudnya, cintaku yang sebesar itu terhadap sayur oyong dan nasi goreng tidak akanlah eksis tanpa juru masaknya yaitu ayah dan ibu. Maka dari itu, sungguh rumah bagiku adalah yang tercipta dari adanya ayah, dan adanya ibu. Yang lain, hanya tempat singgah. Tapi hidup kan tidak melulu begitu, hidup ini tak cuma melenggak-lenggok lembut seperti jogetan tradisional jawa, tapi juga ngebor seperti Mbak Inul. Keras. Belom selesai dengan satu hal, udah ditendang ke hal yang lain. Begitu terus. Tapi tendangan-ke-hal-lain itulah...

The idea of rescuing life, always triggers the question of worth. The Germans, except Ferdinand von Schirach , agree that human dignity is inviolable. But, why? I still shiver everytime I see the helicopter of the hospital where I work in landing upon the rooftop. It makes a very big noise and it wasted a lot of environment-unfriendly gas just to rescue one person. One single human body. Or when an ambulance drive through the town with an unimaginable speed. The emergency doctors and nurses would then be gathered at once. When the patient enters the room, things would begin to move fast, hectic but also structured and people would talk only when needed. Every second counts in that room. My job was, at first, to stay at the corner at the room, keeping my mouth shut and just do nothing. The first step is always observing. It was in the time of observing can you really see what's going on and what's worth to focus on. My first day in the emergency room forced me to think of th...

It is getting easier each day to think that the world is messed up. *** Where I live, a bird flock would murmur loudly every sunset and every dawn. Along to the murmur they would fly in circle. It doesn't actually look like a circle, it looks more like some chaotic and random flying maneuvers, but if you look a little bit closer it really looks like dancing. I just need to step out of my house door, then I’d see and hear it, the Vögelwaltz. Being late or too early is never in their agenda. They like their patterns and they like to live with it. Pattern is nature and nature is where our souls secretly want to go back to. But the current world doesn't seem to fancy the idea of nature and routine. It moves and changes flexibly, fastly, in the way that is often unimaginable. But somehow, these changes, they burn the passion inside of us. They keep us develop, it’s fun because what’s deviant is just always interesting and curiosity is also humane. But, there’s also pattern ...

“I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth, then I ask myself the same question .” - Harun Yahya I showed my father the quote above about seven years ago then told him that the quote has really motivated me. I wanted not to be like those birds, I wanted to go away, experience and learn lots of things and this and that and everything. My dad smiled and said that maybe it wasn't supposed to be understood that way, maybe the quote wanted to tell us that you should stay. The birds were just some anecdote to tell us that nature wants us to stay. I didn't understand, or maybe I didn't want to. My wings were too big, they wanted to spread. "Rantau" is one of the old words in Bahasa Indonesia that I can't find in other languages and thus explains not only the activity that almost only the Indonesians do, but also the Indonesian culture itself. This word means leaving your home with the purpose to have a bett...

Who invented the idea to write names on the coffee cups you order? This idea is the most terrible idea one could have ever invented, thought a 27 years old white man named Sean White. Sean couldn't spell names right, except his and his mother's name. There was a gap in his developing phase which wasn't optimally supported, which plays a role in his lack of intelligence in spelling names or words at all. Sean was never good at languages. He speaks his mother language fluently, but he doesn't write. Writing is the worst. Sean can't spell right. He even spells "spell" with one L. That would be tolerable for some kid, but Sean isn't some kid. He has finished school, although not as the best, but he has finished school. He doesn't go to college, because he ruined the motivation letter with a lot of misspelled words. Instead of an acceptance letter, he got a recommendation letter to apply to some language school. He ended up working in a cafe, which is...

The meaning of freedom has shifted a little or the freedom has become overrated - I am not sure which of the two sentences presents my view towards freedom. A lot of (mostly young) people are shouting here there and everywhere in the world, demanding freedom. Some in social media, some on the streets with big posters, some in form of paintings or art installations and some in any other form you name it. You aren't a free person yet if you haven not got real drunk or smoke a pack of cigarette a day or behave defiantly. Supposed a 15 year-old-boy had run away from home because their parents wouldn’t allow him to smoke cigarettes. He felt imprisoned, then felt free the minute he finally had cigarettes in his hands. After some days or months he started having this addiction, both physically and psychologically. Now comes my question, does this addiction equals freedom? Does freedom means that he could smoke, or that if he weren’t addicted to smoking? I don’t have any idea how...