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The Life We Forget We’re Living

summer days

Sometimes I wonder which part of my life I’ll desperately miss one day.

It’s indeed a strange thought to have while doing something completely unremarkable: chopping carrots to make chicken soup, leaving Claire Keegan’s Antarctica face down on the sofa before getting myself a cup of coconut water, looking out the window sometime around eight pm, noticing our made-up white curtain swaying in the gentle wind and realizing there is still so much light outside.

Nothing is really happening.
Or maybe, on the contrary, everything is happening.
Right here, right now.

I feel like I have lived long enough to know that these are exactly the kinds of things my memory likes to keep. Not necessarily the days I carefully planned. Not always the birthdays, holidays, achievements, or places I thought I would remember forever.

Sometimes what comes back to me years later is much smaller: the sound of someone’s familiar footsteps; moving around in the kitchen; the slow walk to a 24/7 mini market for a midnight snack; that Atmos Bloom’s song I played too many times one summer; a long ride home from a date, sitting in the back of the cab, feeling cold from the air conditioner but warm and giddy with hope and possibilities; the smell of coffee, ginger, and milk from a street-side stall; the particular way the afternoon light entered a room that doesn’t belong to me anymore…

And suddenly I miss these moments with an intensity that feels almost ridiculous; unreasonable.

Can we miss a life we didn’t even know we loved while we were living it?

***

We spend a surprising amount of our lives waiting for life to become memorable. Well, at least I used to.

I waited for the trip. The finished manuscript. The right person. The good news. The weekend. Summer. The version of myself who finally has everything a little more figured out.

Meanwhile, a Monday afternoon quietly passes.

I make lunch.
A friend sends me a voice message.
I water the plants.
I wipe the kitchen counter while listening to Deftones.
I complain about how hot it is inside the house.
I sit at my desk and do some work while soaking my feet in a bucket of cold water.
I wonder what to cook for dinner.

This is life: it is mostly made of days in which nothing really important happens.

***

Is nostalgia mostly about wanting the past back, or is it the shock of finally recognizing the value of something after we can no longer relive it?

Magically, memory has removed all the errands and discomfort, impatience and inconvenience. It only leaves the light, the warmth, the embrace, the familiarity, the sweetness.

And years later I think: “I didn’t know.”

I didn’t know that was a good time, a good year.
I didn’t know I would miss this place.
I didn’t know we wouldn’t always sit next to one another and pour our hearts out for hours.
I didn’t know I would be grateful for both the hellos and the goodbyes.
I didn’t know those versions of myself—confused, unfinished, anxious, insecure, worried about completely different things—would someday become someone I wanted to visit again.

Probably that’s why looking at old photographs can hurt a little. Everyone in the photograph is simply standing there, not fully realizing that once the moment is captured, we’re already inside a memory.

***

There are things I’m waiting for. There always are.

Things I’m trying to finish. The person I want to become. Things I haven’t figured out yet. The people I want to know more deeply.

There are mornings when I sit down at my desk and wish I were further along. There are afternoons that disappear into work and errands and things that need to be cleaned. There are dinners I make without thinking very much about them, just scraping together whatever I can find inside the fridge.

Books left unfinished beside the bed. A bottle of water here and a cup of tea there. Random songs playing from another room. Dried clothes that need folding. Drum sticks that rolls under my bed.

The familiar mess of everyday life.

And lately, sometimes, in the middle of all this, I try to look around.
Not because I need to make the moment special, but because I want to notice that this—all this—is happening, too.
This unfinished, unremarkable, slightly messy life is happening, too.

Maybe years from now, I will remember this summer for something I cannot predict. Maybe I’ll miss the view from this particular window, even though right now I feel like the sun is too strong. Maybe I’ll hear a song and immediately remember what it felt like to sit at this kitchen table, even though right now the table is a mess. Maybe I’ll find an old journal and be surprised by the things I was worried about, even though when I reread it, those things may feel like relics of the past. Maybe I’ll listen to the song I proudly make today, even though one day I might actually find it mediocre at best. Maybe I’ll miss this version of myself, the way I sometimes miss the old versions of myself… I don’t know.

And perhaps that’s the point: we don’t get to know which moments will become precious or which ones we won’t even remember a year from now.
We only get to be here now, while they’re all still ordinary, just another moment, another day.

***

This summer, I’m trying something.

Every once in a while, I ask myself: If I could come back to this exact moment ten years from now, what would I notice?

The long summer nights, when I walk home happily after a cold beer and kaasstengels in my summer dress? Those hours spent inside the studio, practicing rudiments and making music? Those sweaty days dancing at music festivals or having iced matcha during a morning rave? Those random conversations with friends and strangers on a rooftop terrace past midnight? The person sitting next to me as I type these thoughts? My own hands, lifting a dumbbell, pressing lemons, writing a letter, carrying groceries home? Those spontaneous scooter rides to the other side of town? The sight of the neighbors’ black-and-white cat in front of the elementary school? Or the strange privilege of simply being here, in a life that is still becoming something?

And then, I continue with my day. Because perhaps the life we’ll miss one day isn’t waiting somewhere ahead of us. Perhaps some of it is the life we’re forgetting we’re living right now.

hanny
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We Forgot the Ice Cream (A Sestina)

we forgot the ice cream: a sestina
A sestina is a thirty-nine-line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end-words in six stanzas and an envoi. The form is as follows: 1. ABCDEF – 2. FAEBDC – 3. CFDABE – 4. ECBFAD – 5. DEACFB – 6. BDFECA – 7. (envoi) ECA or ACE. The envoi must include the remaining three end-words, BDF, within the three lines so that all six recurring words appear in the final three lines. [ Poets.org ]

***

Summer heat wrapped around them as she caressed the cherries,
silently pulsing in the supermarket aisles. She sipped her drink.
He, too, was thirsty. Someone opened the ice cream
freezer, breathing frost into his pores, but the bar of chocolate
he held had started to melt inside its wrapper. We need some eggs,
she said, for breakfast, and for a soft, fluffy omelet: milk.

The afternoon was charged with sweat. She cradled the milk
close to her chest as if it were something to be cuddled. The cherries
murmured among themselves inside the brown paper bag; six eggs
stirred awake inside their pulp packaging. She offered him her drink,
their fingers brushing. She noticed a trace of melted chocolate
on his wrist and said maybe they should have bought ice cream.

They drifted into her apartment, retreated to the kitchen. The ice cream,
he said he could get it if she wanted. She put down the milk
inside the humming fridge, the bottle inched closer to the chocolate
he had placed near a water-filled bowl for the swimming cherries.
For now, just rest and relax a bit, she said, and have another drink.
She leaned over the counter, leaving there the throbbing eggs.

He asked her if she always had breakfast with eggs.
Only on special days, she said. Now he thought of that ice cream—
he should probably get it—told her this, finished his drink.
Let’s just make it, she said. Sticky and sugary condensed milk,
thick, heavy cream whisked into perfect peaks. With cold, ripe cherries
between their lips, she unwrapped and broke the chocolate.

It was dark outside, the onset of a storm. To curl the chocolate,
slide the scraper at a 45-degree angle, she showed him. The eggs
shuddered as he leaned in, their shoulders touching. A few cherries
slipped from his fingers to the floor, splitting open. The ice cream
needed to freeze overnight. The air crackled with the sweet scent of milk.
She asked if he wanted something else to drink.

A deluge of rain. The condensation on the can of his drink
dripped onto his hand. Around them, curls upon curls of shaved chocolate.
Summer rain, she said, time for something warm. She heated milk
inside a copper pot, sprinkling it with cinnamon. Later, two eggs
burst open from their shells, impatiently waiting for the ice cream
to harden. Two a.m.—the floor was slippery with squashed cherries.

Breakfast was a leisurely pour of milk over coffee to drink
with leftover chocolate, an omelet with four eggs,
burgundy stains of cherries, no trace of ice cream.

hanny
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, ,

We Used to Say We Wanted to Be Rock Stars

we used to say we wanted to be rock stars

In our teens, we formed a band. The lineup was based more on who was in our circle than on musical skill. Maybe there was someone you liked, and even if they didn’t play any instruments, surely they could shake the tambourine.

We listened to songs on a duct-taped Sony Walkman that once belonged to someone’s older sibling, rewinding or fast-forwarding by inserting the 2B pencils we had used on multiple-choice exams into the cassette spools so we wouldn’t have to spend money on new ABC batteries from the roadside stall across the parking lot.

We already spent more than we could afford to rent a rehearsal studio at the other end of town. Someone skipped lunch, someone lied about needing a math textbook, someone saved pocket money for two weeks, and someone else had rich parents and paid the rest. The room was damp, the carpet stained, and there was always that smell of cigarettes and wet shoes—even though we weren’t supposed to smoke and had to leave our shoes outside.

Then we started playing.

The drums,
the bass,
the keyboard,
the rhythm,
the lead guitar,
the vocals.

And unlike us—yawning through civics, reading Shoot comics and Sweet Valley Twins novels in biology, writing unsent letters to our crushes in economics, ignoring geography because we didn’t like the stuck-up teacher—this time we were focused, determined, completely immersed. We watched each other for cues, counted under our breath, nodded when we almost got it right, and laughed hysterically when we didn’t. We wished the staff would never knock on the glass and tell us our time was up.

We packed up in a hurry; it was late. Most of us had to be home before our parents did, but we carried the day’s homework in our heads: lyrics to memorize, drum fills to land, guitar solos to smooth out… and tempo—everyone, tempo.

Of course, later in life, we realized we hit the notes hard but not right, that we were often out of tune, off-key, off-tempo—full of far more enthusiasm than competence.

But did that matter on stage, in one corner of the tile-walled school hall—with its uneven platforms, terrible acoustics, flickering lights, and cheap speakers?

One boy gripped the mic too tightly, hoping the girl in the third row would understand this was actually a love letter; one girl, her fingers so used to years of classical piano, ecstatic to play the keyboard far louder than she was ever allowed to at home; one boy at the back, failing almost all of his classes, hit the drums so hard as if he were trying to prove something to himself more than anyone else; one girl, doing her best to shake the tambourine during the chorus because this was the closest she had ever felt to belonging.

We used to say we wanted to be rock stars, but I don’t think we meant the stage, the tours, the lights, the fame, or the applause. I think we meant the moment right before the song starts—when someone counts in, when everyone looks at each other in anticipation and nods, when the air is electrically charged and reverberating with a mix of anxiety and excitement, when, for a second, it feels like something clicks and things might actually come together instead of falling apart.

I think we meant striking a chord with people who resonate with us without translation—who nodded their heads, tapped their feet, clapped along, and heard rhythm where others heard noise; who didn’t shush us or ask us to be smaller, quieter, or better to be loved.

I think we meant those rare moments when time faded out—when your hands moved before you could think, when the sound of your voice was echoed louder than your doubts, when you weren’t watching yourself from the outside but were fully inside it; when you weren’t playing the song—the song was playing through you.

I think we meant the freedom and confidence to be unremarkable: messy, too loud, slightly off—and keep going; to have fun while making something, anything, with the people we vibed with, without having to wait until we were ready, or good, or qualified. To take up space without first adjusting ourselves to fit what’s missing.

Maybe we really meant remembering those moments ten, twenty, thirty, forty years later: us standing in a damp room, sharing one dirty pair of earphones, passing around a dented microphone, missing half the notes, forgetting the lyrics, and just having a blast: the best times of our lives.

And maybe that’s the part we didn’t understand back then: how to hold on to that unfiltered joy as we grew older.

So sometimes I wonder, did we ever really want to be rock stars, or did we just want to feel alive in a world that often asks us to settle down, to play it safe, to wait until we are polished, perfect, ready, and on track?

We used to say we wanted to be rock stars, but maybe we just meant we wanted to be alive without holding anything back.

hanny
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3 a.m. Buddy

3 a.m. buddy

I was in my twenties
when a friend asked me
if I wanted to be his 3 a.m. buddy
—one of the biggest compliments
anyone’s ever handed me.

Because a 3 a.m. buddy is someone
you trust with unfiltered
hours, way past the middle of
the night,
where everything is heightened:
sounds,
silence,
sensations,
emotions,
memories,
histories…
loneliness.

A 3 a.m. buddy knocks on your door,
red-blooded eyes in a hoodie, with
MSG-loaded snacks you didn’t ask for,
turning the TV on to play a show
nobody cares about, that
you pretend to watch anyway, or

stays sober while you’re only
two sips away from dissolving;
bravely makes silly moves on the
dance floor of the city’s most
pretentious club, so you can laugh
too hard at nothing
before
you resume crying, or

drags you out into the elevator,
messy hair, sweat-stained shirt and all,
down, down, down the empty lobby,
past the night security,
to a dim 24-hour street stall selling
steaming hot instant
noodles that taste like survival, or

sits with you on the dirty sidewalk,
bathed in the eerie orange streetlights,
next to the overloaded trash bin,
parked motorbikes, late-night taxi
queues, stray cats, no judgment, no
interrogation, no questions, just
a presence without expectations or
explanations, or

squats with you on the rooftop, waiting
for the sun to rise,
plastic spoons and cheap desserts
from the minimarket below your
apartment complex.

They don’t have the language yet, and
you don’t have the language yet, just
feelings spilling, leaking, gushing over
the edges.

These ordinary, mostly low-budget, half-asleep
moments, where your 3 a.m. buddy
holds themselves together
or pretends to,
so you don’t have to
perform,
so you can just

break

down.

So, yes, I told him,
I’ll be your 3 a.m. buddy.

hanny
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Food

Perkedel Kentang

Like most Indonesians, my love language is food.

If you’re a tourist spending some time in the country, you might find it weird that hotel staff or new acquaintances ask you if you have eaten*. It was something that originated during the colonial times, they said. Most people couldn’t eat regularly those days, as food was scarce. When you met someone you cared about, you asked them if they had eaten—if they hadn’t, you shared your food with them.

It’s something that we carried within us, I believe. Food is something we’re always ready to share with friends, families, neighbours, and guests—from birthdays to graduations to funerals, we open our house and invite everyone to just serve themselves with food from the buffet or the dining table, or we pack a little bit of everything inside those carton meal boxes and deliver them to our neighbours, or carrying the boxes to the office to share with our colleagues.

Whether we’re celebrating or grieving, we mark every milestone in life with food.

So, of course, it was only natural that my cooking repertoire expanded exponentially when I moved to Amsterdam. I relearned how to make all the things I want to eat to sustain me and my mood throughout the seasons (so thankful for the Indonesian supermarkets around me, where I can get grilled fish paste, salted egg, or lime leaves). I slowly built my confidence and, after a few successful tries, tweaked the recipes and made them my own.

Stews, clear soups, porridges, and coconut-based broths such as rendang, sop, semur, gulai, bubur ayam, and opor for autumn and winter; stir-fries and grilled/fried/steamed dishes such as tumisan, pepesan, sate, gorengan, and balado for spring and summer.

Cooking the kind of meals I crave is my way of nurturing myself.

It’s funny because my friends and I are always asking each other, “What do you feel like eating?” instead of “What do you want to eat?” as if there’s a direct correspondence between how you feel and the kind of meal that matches the occasion (but, yes, of course, there is). We’ll brave 2 hours of traffic jam just to go to a certain street food stall, or even take the train to another city over the weekend for what we call “culinary adventure”—basically stuffing ourselves with good food the whole trip. Asking myself what I want to eat, going to the supermarket, and cooking it myself is pale in comparison to those efforts.

Food heals me and makes me feel better. I am a simple person at heart.

Naturally, cooking is my way of nurturing others, too.

They said you should not make any important decisions when you’re hungry. I don’t always have the right words, but I always have 20 minutes to cook more rice, can always whip some eggs with spring onions and shallots, and it doesn’t take 10 minutes to prepare stir-fried green beans and tempe with garlic and soy sauce. Hot jasmine tea pouring non-stop into your cups. Come, sit, eat. Take out some takeaway containers from the drawers. Do you want to bring some leftovers home?

This is what you need to know: if I ever cook for you, I actually love you.

—

*) Another common question tourists usually find intrusive is, “Where are you going?” Actually, the person who asks doesn’t really want to know where you’re going; they just want to make small talk, so you can reply with something like “jalan-jalan” (going for a walk).

hanny
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52 Questions for Your Deep Weekly Journaling Session in 2026

52 Questions

One week, one question, three deep breaths, and 20 minutes of uninterrupted, unedited stream-of-consciousness writing or typing—just recording whatever comes to mind, believing the first thought that crosses your mind and whatever follows.

  1. What makes you smile on any given day?
  2. What kind of thoughts often hold you back?
  3. What is essential to forming meaningful connections?
  4. What makes work satisfying?
  5. What makes you feel better after a good cry?
  6. What makes life worth living?
  7. What does “closure” look like to you?
  8. What do you wish people to know about you?
  9. What does it mean to love someone?
  10. What makes you feel the most alive right now?
  11. What are the things you’re curious about?
  12. What are some memories you keep replaying in your mind?
  13. What makes life not so bad at times?
  14. What makes people hurt others?
  15. What are you made of?
  16. What do you wish to know early on in life?
  17. What goes around and comes around in your life?
  18. What is going on in your life right now that you don’t understand?
  19. What are your life-savers?
  20. What do you need to be able to forgive?
  21. What are the things you still have a hard time accepting?
  22. What does it mean to see the world through your lens?
  23. What does it take to be at peace with who you are?
  24. What’s life about?
  25. What caught you off guard?
  26. What does it feel like to be in your head?
  27. What drains you of your life force and shuts you down?
  28. What does it take to make good memories?
  29. What breaks your heart?
  30. What are some things that are not really important in life?
  31. What rocks your boat?
  32. What do you wish to bless people (and the world) with?
  33. What keeps you awake at night?
  34. What are you afraid of knowing?
  35. What makes a feeling worth being deeply felt?
  36. What has slipped through the cracks?
  37. What’s not worth fighting for?
  38. What crosses your mind when you’re alone?
  39. What do you no longer believe in?
  40. What are some of your seemingly insignificant problems?
  41. What do good friends do?
  42. What role does time play in your life?
  43. What do you miss the most?
  44. What makes your world go round?
  45. What kind of conversations light you up?
  46. What are the things that give you nervous excitement?
  47. What are the things going right in the world right now?
  48. What does it take to lose yourself?
  49. What will make you initiate a conversation with a stranger?
  50. What are the things you easily fall in love with?
  51. What are your dreams made of?
  52. What have you grown tired of hiding?
hanny
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Picking Up the Pieces

Amsterdam winter night

The other morning, as I was waiting for my tram at the tram stop, I looked up to the heavy gray sky hanging low above the roofs of old houses in our street, and I saw 11 birds (yes, I counted) flying in a V-shaped formation, and I watched them until they were out of sight. For some reason, they reminded me of this whole year—a turbulent, at times heartbreaking year; it was like mourning 11 (or maybe more) pieces of my life that I had been separated from, and seeing those birds made me feel hopeful. There must be things I can do to get those pieces back—or to get them all to fly together again, so I can feel whole once again.

In a way, I felt better when I thought of myself as made of tiny little pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece or something. Because even if you’re losing a few pieces here and there, the big picture didn’t change. You could still see that it was a puzzle of a vase of flowers, of a city at dusk, of a winter forest. Even if at the moment I am missing a few pieces of myself, I could still see the whole me in its entirety. This gives me the freedom to either find the missing old pieces or, better yet, craft new ones that will eventually fit the big picture. All the while feeling like I’m not entirely losing myself. That the “me” is still here, always here, and will always be.

I guess there are many ways to make you feel whole if you see yourself as a collective of tiny little pieces. At the end of October this year, I started picking up some of my missing pieces, and I found that giddiness of anticipation, excitement, and bursts of inspiration once again—a feeling I have been missing for a while. I told myself, “Let’s collect one missing piece at a time.”

Who knows, maybe the pieces weren’t actually missing. Perhaps I was misplacing them or forgetting where I kept them, but maybe, maybe they were always here inside of me all along.

hanny
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Week 23: June 2-8, 2025 – The Book Exchange and Bookish Weekend

book exchange

Amsterdam

MONDAY, June 2, 2025

After having our morning coffee, we left early for the office to pack and ship some orders. It was pretty windy and chilly that morning, so I wore my sweater and brought my raincoat, just in case. On our way to the office, around Kinkerstraat, a police car followed us, slowed down, and an officer looked out from the rolled-down window. They mentioned something about how we drove our snorfiets in the wrong lane—that it should have been in the bike lane (it used to be that way).

I tentatively pointed to the sign on top of the bike lane, saying ‘snorfietsen niet toegestaan’—moped not allowed. The officer laughed and then nodded enthusiastically, “Oh, you’re right, good work!” before giving us two thumbs up and speeding away.

The police here were cool like that.

We had warm bread with chicken from the Waarme Bakker for lunch, and from the kitchen window, we saw someone get arrested by the police in front of our building’s door. As D said, “Never a boring day in our office.”

A came over to help us with shipping in the afternoon, so I had some time to rush through my Aboulela’s exercise for class. I realized that when I created this two-page exercise, I always had a bigger story inside my head. I felt like I had to hold on to some information so I could gradually reveal it when I wrote the whole story—and in the end, I spent so much time thinking of the entire story instead of focusing on just the 2-page opening. This was always a bad idea. And it was a bad habit. I always needed to remind myself, ‘This is just an exercise.’ This is just an exercise.

chicken porridge

We came home around 6, and while D went out for a run, I took a nap. I felt like my brain was overheating.

In the evening, D prepared dinner: spaghetti pesto as our first course, and chicken cordon bleu with beans as our second course. For dessert, I made myself a cup of milk with arenga sugar, then went to my room/studio to quickly update my weekly journal.

I wanted to read something light, so I opened One by Sarah Crossan on my Kindle—a middle-grade story about two conjoined sisters, told from the perspective of one of them (Grace) in verses.

 

Amsterdam

TUESDAY, June 3, 2025

I was sobbing as I finished reading One by Sarah Crossan; it was so sad and beautiful at the same time. What an excellent middle-grade book!

D went out to have dinner with his friends, so I made my chicken porridge again, using leftover rice, but in a street-food style this time: with grilled shredded chicken (marinated in yellow spice), kerupuk (crackers), and of course, onion sambal. It was so good, and I felt like I was transported home right away!

I read more from Orbital (my new reading light just arrived!). I was reading slowly because I was so afraid this book would end. Then I continued with a little bit of Call Me by Your Name, and I realized my problem with it was primarily due to how they had labeled it as “the greatest love story of all time.” If only it weren’t labeled that, it wouldn’t be as problematic.

orbital, pocky, one

Amsterdam

WEDNESDAY, June 4, 2025

D told me he would take me to a surprise spot before going to the office, and we ended up at The Book Exchange. I loved this second-hand bookshop, and I used to come here a lot when D and I were still dating, but I hadn’t visited it in years. I could have taken hours selecting books there, but since we needed to go to the office, I managed to choose my books in an hour.

I found The Mortgaged Heart, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and The Haunted Boy by Carson McCullers—she was one of my favorite authors, and I would read anything she wrote. I also found a classic copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style—I had bought so many copies of this book over the years (university/work/courses/trainings, etc.), but someone always borrowed my copies, and I ended up not having any. So, for EUR2, I snatched it. It was just one of those books you needed to have on hand.

On one of the top shelves, I saw Writing from the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo, which, as I flipped through the pages, reminded me of Natalie Goldberg, so I adopted it for those days when I needed inspiration and comfort. I took Miller’s Death of A Salesman for my study of the play’s dramatic arc, and Ginsberg’s Howl, Kaddish, and Other Poems—for when I needed some inspiration for something raw, energetic, charged, and spontaneous. I also discovered Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris, and I loved her work as a comfort read for cold, rainy autumn or winter days. It was like knowing I was in good hands, and I would just be transported into the story, wherever she decided to take me, and it was always a good journey.

And last but not least, I got this first edition of Salad Anniversary by Machi Tawara. I had never heard about this book before, but I had a feeling…

The Book ExchangeThe book was wrapped in plastic (since it was a 1st edition) and there were no blurbs at the back, so I couldn’t peek inside or find out what it was about (or maybe I could if I asked the staff to open the plastic seal, but anyway…). I could Google it, of course, but it was like robbing myself of the fun. So I decided to try my luck and just got it. I was overjoyed when I opened it at home and began reading, and then I went online to find out more about the book. It was my kind of book—I could see myself swallowing it whole as a 20-year-old hopeless (or should I say hopeful) romantic: a poetry-prose on love, heartache, and longing.

I wanted to flip through it and read it some other time, but I couldn’t stop myself from starting to read the whole book.

“You love boiled tofu for dinner.
Remembering,
I bought a little earthen pot.” (Tawara 19)

“Late afternoon—
you and I gazed at the same thing
as between us something ended.” (Tawara 22)

“Parents claim to raise their children
but garden tomatoes turn red
unbidden.” (Tawara 109)

“The day I left for Tokyo
Mother looked older by all the years
of separation ahead “(Tawara 144)

“Three-thirty p.m. in a noodle shop—
listening to the whisper
of frying tempura” (Tawara 183)

Tawara, Machi. (1990). Salad Anniversary. Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. Kodansha International.

 

Amsterdam

THURSDAY, June 5, 2025

We read “Sestina” by Bishop in class yesterday evening, and since then, I have been obsessed with creating a sestina for my Bishop exercise. The rigid structure excited me, and I realized how limitations could stimulate my creativity.

I made a cucumber, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with cream cheese for lunch before heading to the office. Today, I managed to get the number of processed orders down to 89, which was a huge relief since this was more or less our “normal” open orders compared to the 400+ open orders at the end of last week. I think this was the first day I would have a good night’s sleep since we returned from Italy.

I grilled my pesto-marinated salmon in the oven and prepared rice for dinner while reading Orbital on the couch. After dinner, I continued to tinker with my Bishop exercise. It was gratifying to become so immersed in something that I lost track of time.

sandwich

Amsterdam

FRIDAY, June 6, 2025

I took an off day today and spent the whole morning working on my sestina for class, while also replying to emails and completing some administrative tasks on the side. I created my 3-month checklist on Notion yesterday, so I felt a bit calmer seeing everything laid out that way, knowing I could check a few items off each day (although new items tended to slip in from time to time).

D made lunch today; he prepared a salad with beans and schnitzel. He went to the office to help ship some items while I stayed home and worked on my final leg with the Bishop exercise. I made sure to read the piece out loud several times to ensure everything flowed the way I intended. I decided to wait a day or two before submitting my assignment, to re-read my sestina on Saturday and Sunday and see if there was anything I wanted to change.

When D came home, we tried to decide what we wanted for dinner, and since we just used the ‘winner-picker’ wheel for the shop’s raffle, we decided that was how we’d choose. We ended up with “sushi” winning this dinner raffle, but when D went to the sushi place, it was closed. Next door was a new Korean place, Cham, that we had never tried, so we chose that. D got his bibimbap, and I got my spicy tofu and vegetable deopbap.

 

Amsterdam

SATURDAY, June 7, 2025

I finished reading Orbital and Salad Anniversary today.

Both were so good, and I felt so happy I finished them. Orbital was terrific; it deserved its awards. I always read a few parts out loud because the language was so lyrical, and they truly read like spoken word poetry. People said they had trouble identifying each astronaut after some time, but I didn’t have that problem. The characters of each one were pretty apparent to me, with their memories and quirks, so I was never really confused about who was speaking the whole time (I loved Chie’s lists! I made lists, too!).

Salad Anniversary was so heartwarming, and the way it carried the Tanka tradition—honoring it while also making it contemporary—was inspiring. I also read how, upon its publication, the writer, Machi Tawara, received many letters from readers writing contemporary Tanka to her, capturing their feelings.

That was, I believed, the highest compliment a writer could receive: how their writings inspired and moved others, in the spur of the moment, to write and express themselves. In the evening, we made nachos with cheese, homemade guacamole, and tomato salsa along with store-bought aioli, and ate dinner while re-watching The Big Short.

deopbap, jeon, kimchi pasta

Amsterdam

SUNDAY, June 8, 2025

Another rainy and windy day. I needed something wholesome and light, so I reread my childhood novels, Mallory Towers, while eating oatmeal with banana and berries, and then finally finished Call Me by Your Name.

My opinion held for this novel: it should not be labeled as the greatest romance or love story of our time. If only this novel hadn’t been advertised or marketed that way, I wouldn’t have had such a hard time with it. If only, at the end of the book, either Elio or Oliver could have looked back on that summer and realized something, understanding what was wrong (and what felt right), and we were shown how their thoughts/feelings had matured—now that they were adults in their 40s or 50s, it could have been a good enough resolution. Sadly, it didn’t happen. Gladly, I slipped into The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano and sighed in relief, knowing from the get-go that this would be good and memorable.

We went to visit E and R at the open-air market where they sold kimchi and pajeon. It was cold and windy, and when we arrived, it was pouring. Everyone tried to hide beneath the tents of the stalls. Then the wind blew so hard that some people’s stalls almost toppled, and their boxes and packages flew away. D bought me a super bright and playful yellow gilet from one of the stalls—he knew I was always in need of a bodywarmer!

We came home with two packets of kimchi, and (please forgive me, Italians) I made my creamy kimchi spaghetti (using a carbonara recipe of whisked egg yolks and pecorino). I liked how the sourness of the kimchi made the whole creamy and cheesy pasta taste lighter.

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Week 22: May 26-June 1, 2025 – Dutch Pen Show & Birthday Dinner

parma

Parma – Albiate

MONDAY, May 26, 2025

We left our farmstay in the morning, and as we walked down the rocky path to the main road, one of the cats followed us like a dog until we hopped into the van. It was so cute and heartbreaking at the same time!

The sun was intense as we stopped in Parma for lunch and a little sightseeing before heading home. I went inside the Fiaccadori bookshop from 1829 (located near the Duomo and the Baptistery), admiring some beautiful canvas-covered editions of great works; the size would fit perfectly for my regular Traveler’s Notebook cover. I also visited the Art Nouveau post office, Palazzo delle Poste, housed inside the Riserva building, which was used to host guests of the court, nobles, and courtiers. I licked my pistachio-bacio gelato near Borgo dell Gallo, feeling a bit nervous because I hadn’t touched my assignment for the writing class. I was supposed to submit it that day before 6 pm.

fiaccadori parma

parmaWe left Parma around 4:15 pm, so I whipped out my laptop from my bag and started typing like crazy inside the van. I already had a general idea about the story I wanted to tell, but I had no time to think things through or polish the characters and dialogue, so be it.

I submitted my exercise at around 5:40 while we were still on the road. I was amazed I didn’t vomit from typing all the way home. After carrying our luggage upstairs, D treated me to a cup of granita maracuja from the gelateria across the street.

 

Albiate

TUESDAY, May 27, 2025

It had rained so hard last night, starting around midnight and continuing into the early morning hours. Temporale, Mama said. Lightning woke us up now and then with flashes of bright light, and it felt like the room shuddered every time we heard the thunder. Somehow, after some time, I fell asleep despite all this.

I spent the whole morning reading everyone else’s pieces for the class and giving critiques. It was obvious some of them were good with sci-fi. I made myself a giant cup of coffee with toasted almond mylk that I kept sipping slowly until lunchtime. Mama prepared a large pan of risotto luganega for lunch (primi) and grilled branzino and potatoes with rosemary in the oven (secondi). We were so full from the risotto (we had two servings each because it was so good, and risotto was my Italian comfort food), so we decided to save the branzino for dinner.

albiate cherry strawberry our wivesI finished Our Wives Under the Sea. To me, it was a love story—the feeling of losing someone gradually, and finally letting that someone go, since loving them meant wanting them to be happy; all wrapped up in an eerie underwater mystery. I started ‘Call Me by Your Name’ today and decided to skip the annotation for now.

 

Albiate

WEDNESDAY, May 28, 2025

For lunch, Aunt B took us to Etna Cafe for pranzo di lavoro—a set meal designed for workers, consisting of a first course, a second course, and a side dish, along with water or coffee, usually priced between EUR8 and EUR13, depending on the restaurant and location.

We always enjoyed visiting places that offered workers’ meals whenever we were in the area. Aunt B said this place was well known for its Southern cuisine. We all ordered different combinations of dishes so we could try each other’s plates, and everything was delicious. I would definitely go back for their pasta carbonara and norma. The portions were big, but not too heavy.

Aunt B called out the chef to compliment him on the meals, and he said he came from Naples. When Aunt B asked what had led him to end up in Brianza, he said, “Per amore”—for love.

Mamma went out for an evening event, so before my class, D took me to an aperitivo—meant to “open up” the stomach before dining—in the neighboring town, but this would actually be my dinner. I had Crodino (with lemon and ice, tasting like Aperol Spritz) and munched on chips, pizza slices, and croutons.

menu, peppina, pranzo di lavoroIn class tonight, we read an excerpt from Leila Aboulela’s short story, “Something Old, Something New”. I had never heard of her before (she was a Sudanese writer with Egyptian roots), and I was instantly captivated by her style, her flow, and her subject matter (we discussed the benefits of having a limited third-person narrator to tell a story where one experiences something for the first time). Once the class finished, I got myself a copy of Aboulela’s short story collection, Elsewhere, Home, and read the whole story. It was excellent.

D’s cousin E came over, and we crossed the street to get some gelato (I had nocciola and salted pistachio this time) and sat in front of the house with Aunt B and Uncle G and their dog, Menu. Menu loved being rubbed and scratched. When we stopped, she would lift her paw and nudge us, asking us to keep rubbing or scratching her. So cute.

 

Albiate-Amsterdam

THURSDAY, May 29, 2025

We had lunch together with Aunt B and Uncle G this afternoon before heading to the airport. I made grilled chicken with salt, rosemary, and smoked paprika. D prepared red beans with feta cheese. Mamma made a big bowl of salad with leafy greens from Uncle G’s garden, and Aunt B made vitello tonnato—thinly sliced veal seasoned with mayonnaise, tuna, and capers. We had a slice of Colomba cake afterward to celebrate my birthday earlier.

We arrived at the airport three hours before our flight, so I took the time to browse my favorite place at Linate Airport: Il Fetrinelli. I finally got my cloth-bound copy of Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (which I immediately read while sipping a matcha latte at the airport café) and Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo (R mentioned during class that it was a good book to see how a writer handled non-dialogue). I also discovered two other books by Italian writers that piqued my interest (so I grabbed them): The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano and The Lovers by Paolo Cognetti.

I read A Room of One’s Own on the plane and couldn’t stop—Woolf’s arguments and observations were spot on, and some of her points remain relevant today when discussing women writers and artists in general. I finished the book while sipping a can of San Pellegrino Clementine on the couch. One of my favorite out of many underlined passages:

“It is a curious fact that novelists have a way of making us believe that luncheon parties are invariably memorable for something very witty that was said, or for something very wise that was done. But they seldom spare a word for what was eaten. It is part of the novelist’s convention not to mention soup and salmon and ducklings, as if soup and salmon and ducklings were of no importance whatsoever, as if nobody ever smoked a cigar or drank a glass of wine.” (Woolf 10).

Woolf, Virginia.(2014). A Room of One’s Own. Penguin Group.

Later in the evening, I picked up Call Me by Your Name again. I knew what I was getting into, so I wasn’t unprepared.

woolf, plane, acimanI understood that the book’s popularity largely came from its depiction of teenage lust and longing, sexual awakening, physical attraction, the ephemeral nature of “summer flings,” and eroticism. I also understood it might seem fitting for a teenager to obsess over their object of attraction to that extent, where everything was blown out of proportion, and every ‘hello’ was over-analyzed. You were practically falling for an idealized version of your crush.

However, I was 50 pages in and curious to see how Aciman, as a straight man himself, would handle the queer representation going forward (or whether he would only offer a romanticized view of this “relationship” until the end). How would he address the obvious power dynamics, consent issues, and ethical concerns between an older, experienced man and a younger, impressionable teenage boy (or would he, again, only romanticize this problematic aspect)? Would the narrator, Elio, who seemed to be depicted as an intelligent young boy, finally grow, or would he remain one-dimensional, defined only by his lust for Oliver? Would the 1980s Italian Riviera setting matter in the story, or would it serve merely as a picturesque backdrop?

 

Amsterdam

FRIDAY, May 30, 2025

Our first day back at the office after Il Passatore break, and we were greeted with more than 400 orders to process. I felt overwhelmed—it was a good problem to have, nonetheless. I couldn’t handle the pile that day because we needed to prepare for our Dutch Pen Show pop-up shop the next day.

I also found some delicious chips, noodles, and Pocky from Y and H to celebrate my birthday tomorrow—I loved consumable gifts! Snacking always reminded me to take a pause and enjoy a break, so having some Korean and Japanese snacks to nibble on was always a treat.

D also got me a pandan cheesecake from Koeah while he waited next door for the printing of our Dutch Pen Show signage. I didn’t know what to expect from the event. I guessed I would just bring my book to read during breaks and enjoy the atmosphere… sniffing inks while caressing expensive fountain pens I couldn’t afford!

I continued reading Call Me by Your Name, and it felt even more problematic as I delved deeper. I didn’t blame Elio for his wild thoughts and thirst as a teenager, but the fact that Oliver (a 24-year-old man, clearly an intelligent, educated, and more sexually experienced man) took advantage of Elio’s apparent feelings was disturbing, and Oliver’s character instantly came off as predatory and manipulative.

It felt like reading a retelling of Red Riding Hood, where you’re trying to convince Elio that Oliver was the Wolf, not the Grandma; knowing something bad was going to happen and being unable to stop it. It was like a horror story.

Imagine replacing Elio with a 17-year-old girl and keeping Oliver as a 24-year-old man. Visualize that girl as your teenage daughter, with Oliver working for you and living in your house. Consider that you may have suspected what was happening between your daughter and Oliver. Notice how you feel.

I was ready to give up on the book, but I also wanted to finish it to give it a fair chance—I wanted to be sure that I could defend my commentary on it, having read it through from start to finish.

However, I was in dire need of an alternative plan.

So, I’d read Orbital for now—just need to know I’d be in good hands for the time being—and The Solitude of Prime Numbers in the following days, and I would only go through Call Me by Your Name sparingly, maybe reading only 10-20 pages per day (I was on page 111 today).

 

Utrecht – Amsterdam

SATURDAY, May 31, 2025

Woke up this morning to my 42nd birthday, a cup of cappuccino with banana mylk, and a final mental checklist run-through before getting ready to go to Utrecht for the Dutch Pen Show. I brought Orbital with me, thinking I could read it during my downtime and then maybe go around to see other booths and treat myself a little.

I was delusional because, in reality, we didn’t stop from the time we arrived until closing time. We skipped lunch entirely, and I was fortunate to bring my large water bottle, so I remained hydrated. It was hectic, and we were still exhausted from yesterday’s flight, but we were thrilled to see everyone.

We saw many familiar faces, and it was like a small reunion in itself. We even saw B from HappyVintageCrafter, and it was lovely to meet her in person. She was kind enough to drop by, as I hadn’t known she would be at the Pen Show! C also dropped by several times, and she even helped me check and fix my pen nib, bringing along my pen with her to one of the nibmeisters at the event, as well as helping me hunting for a pen tray for A. D and A brought me a flower bouquet for my birthday… they were so sweet!

We met so many friends—and also new ones we only knew by their Instagram handles —and it was great to see them all. Meeting them was definitely the highlight of the event for me.

We returned around 6:30 pm, and then D and I got ready to celebrate my birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant in our neighbourhood, Testamatta—crazy head. We decided to take the 4-course Chef Recommendation menu for this special occasion (and to be surprised!). We also left it to them to choose the wine pairing for each course.

dutch pen show, testamatta 42 bday dinnerIt was a lovely evening, we took our time and talked, sipping our wine, savoring delicious and visually-pleasing dishes (the floor manager laughed when he saw me doing my little dance and shrieked as I tasted the dish—“I’ve never seen anyone so enthusiastic about a meal”), while watching people pass by Overtoom (two bikes collided and the cyclists fell but they were friendly with one another and went their separate ways with no fuss, a few loud police cars and ambulances speeding away, a man and a woman on tandem bicycle—the woman was on the back and she was blindfolded?).

 

Amsterdam

SUNDAY, June 1, 2025

Woke up early today, made cappuccino with pea mylk for D and me, then spent the morning doing two rounds of laundry, folding dried clothes, washing dishes, and unpacking our Italy luggage while listening to an analysis on Hamlet. D went running with P and C so that I could have the morning for myself.

I finished all the chores faster than I thought. It was only 10:00 when I could finally wait for the laundry to finish. I made a cup of tea and sat on the sofa with my feet up, reading Orbital. It was truly beautiful; everything was beautiful, the imagery was beautiful, and the metaphors were beautiful. I read some parts out loud, and the words and sentences roll beautifully around the empty room.

I made porridge with leftover rice and chicken from the previous day for lunch—a light and comforting dish. Then, I worked on an idea for my Aboulela exercise for a while, and brewed another cup of tea. D came home not long after, took a shower, and we fell asleep on the couch. Then, at four, we decided to head out for coffee and reading time at Coffee District.

coffee district

caption orbitalWe had rice, salad with sesame dressing, and pan-fried salmon for dinner (I cooked, D went to get groceries and washed dishes). I spent my whole evening reading, alternating between Orbital, around 15 pages of Call Me by Your Name, and a few pages from The Diary of Virginia Woolf.

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Hanny illustrator
Hi. I'm HANNY
I am an Indonesian writer/artist/illustrator and stationery web shop owner (Cafe Analog) based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I love facilitating writing/creative workshops and retreats, especially when they are tied to self-exploration and self-expression. In Indonesian, 'beradadisini' means being here. So, here I am, documenting life—one word at a time.

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