Alain de Botton, 2006 | 240 pages

Ada sesuatu yang luar biasa manusiawi dari On Love. [SPOILER ALERT:] The book tells a journey of falling in and out of love. Dan begitulah yang terjadi di dunia nyata, pada jutaan kisah cinta tiap manusia di dunia. Buku ini merangkum perjalanan itu dengan manis sekaligus getir. Kita bisa membacanya dan mengenali pola-pola manis-getir itu dalam hubungan yang sedang atau pernah dijalani. Kemudian, de Botton membuat kita berpikir. Mencerna rasa pelan-pelan. Mencoba mengerti mengapa kita jatuh cinta.

Dengan gaya bertutur yang santai dan lugas, de Botton mengaitkan masalah rasa dan debar-debar cinta dengan teori probabilitas, beragam cabang filsafat, sampai psikoanalisis. Karakter-karakter yang punya ‘cacat’ masing-masing juga ditampilkan dengan sangat jujur dan apa adanya. Salah satu adegan yang saya sukai adalah penggambaran ketika si tokoh lelaki dan perempuan makan malam di sebuah restoran, dan si tokoh lelaki—melihat sebongkah marshmallow, berpikir:

Love was a sugary, puffy object a few millimeters in diameter that melts deliciously in the mouth.

Membaca On Love seperti tengah mendengarkan kisah cinta seorang kawan lama. Kita tidak menghakimi. Tidak bertanya mengapa. Tidak mendesak. Tidak berekspektasi. Kita hanya duduk di sana, diam, dan mendengarkan. Menunggu. Membuat kita lebih mengerti bahwa sesungguhnya, kita sendirilah yang menentukan kapan cinta itu datang dan kapan cinta itu pergi.

I find happiness in simple things. Like living in a small town with an 80-hectare botanical garden at its city centre—a sanctuary for more than 15,000 species of trees and plants. It’s a small town with the highest number of rainy days (320 out of 365 days) in Java (or maybe in the world?), hence the title “Rain City” (though for the sake of romanticism I prefer to call it “The City of the Falling Rain”).

But what I love the most from a small town is the absence of tall buildings and skyscrapers, as well as 24-hour  brightly-lit billboards and LCD screens that contribute to light pollution. I love it when the night is pitch dark (as it should be) and the sky is clear; so you can sit down on an open field (or in my case, the empty parking lot in front of my housing complex’s swimming pool) and gazing at the stars.

I could spend hours just sitting there, looking up into the sky, sipping a cup of hot chocolate. My heart twinkles.

A few days ago, going back home at around 11 pm, I entertained myself with the view of the starlit sky from behind my taxi’s window. It was on the highway, the last few kilometers home, with open fields on my left. The sky seemed closer. At the time, I wished I could mail that amazing starlit sky to you, so you could see it in your sky, too.

***

Around midnight, a girl arrived at her home. She dashed in, threw her bags, sipped a cup of hot tea her father had prepared, then snatched her camera and ran to the front door hurriedly, yelling: “Am out to shoot the stars!”—and off she ran to an empty parking lot in front of her housing complex’s swimming pool; still inside her working outfit with blazer and all; then she directed her camera to the sky. She fluttered around the open space, trying her best to capture the twinkling stars. Someone who happened to see her from afar might think she was dancing while looking up to the sky.

***

A few days later, somewhere far away, a guy opened his mailbox and found a tiny card with a handwritten note on it. It said:

Dear you,

I haven’t mastered the skills to capture those stars vividly, yet
(not to mention my improper handling of the camera)—but I hope,
you can still catch the beauty of  those twinkling tiny dots,
if only you’re willing to see this with just a little bit of extra love.

H.