Raat din gardish mein hai saat asmaan. Ho rahega kuch na kuch ghabrayen kya.
Day and night the planets are in motion. Something will work out, why worry ourselves.
– Ghalib –

A wanderer told me once:

You can’t fill a glass that’s already full of water to the brim with wine. The wine will just continue to spill out. You need to emptied the glass first. The emptier the glass, the more wine can be contained. The more wine can be contained, the more wine can be poured in. The more wine can be poured in, the more wine can be sipped. It’s actually quite similar to your heart. When it’s full of past memories or future expectations, it just can’t contain the present love that is coming your way. This new love will continue to spill out. You need to emptied your heart first, ensuring that you have let go of the past and stop worrying about the future. Let your heart be vacant for a while and give a chance for the present love to fill you in.

The wanderer is right. I emptied my heart last week, and you came like a downpour. You are too sweet to be true, and I find it hard to refrain myself from being addicted to you.

I am lost in you.

The gravitational pull of your thoughts draws me in. It envelopes me in such a dreamlike mood: the world seen from a lover’s eyes. Everything’s amazing when you’re around. The sky is pink and purple. The clouds are watermelon marshmallows. Everywhere I turn, I see beauty. Everywhere I go, I see you.

I am lost in you.

Lost in thoughts. Lost in the spiraling current that is drowning us to the core of each other’s hearts. Both are lifeboats, floating in a deserted ocean, somewhere in the midst of solitude. The sweet-scent of the mist delivers our longings, wafting through the stormy seas, bursting at the tip of our lips: May the universe be with you. May all beings be free from suffering.

I am lost in you.

A distant world where things are inaudible and invisible, where every touch is sunlight and every kiss is raindrops. I might have resided within you, you might have breathed me in. In quietude, we caress the divine countenance of midnight. We are the whispers of the winds on drizzling evenings. We are the silence that breaks at dawn, saluting the rose-tinted sun. We see shrines of gold colors lining up, showing an uninterrupted path from here to there, from me to you: Hi, handsome…

A very simple and perfect recipe for a rainy afternoon!

Choco-Apple Pancake recipe:

• 1 cup of flour
• 2 tbsp of cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp of sugar (you can add more sugar if you like it sweet)
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 3/4 cup of chocolate milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp of melted butter
• slices of apples

Steps:

1. Whisk 3/4 cup of chocolate milk, egg and melted butter
2. Pour the liquid mixture into a bowl of dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder. Stir well.
3. Heat your non-stick frying pan, test the heat by sprinkling a few flecks of the batter onto the pan.
4. Pour about 3 tablespoons from the batter to the center of the frying pan.
5. Flip the pancake gently when you have seen bubbles popping around the edges.
6. Serve hot with slices of apples.

You can enjoy this pancake with an addition of honey and some sprinkles of cinnamon, accompanied by a cup of hot sweet tea! Happy tea-time! ^^

Today, I stumbled upon an article in The Jakarta Post from the year 2005. I was surprised when I spotted my name written in the article—at the time, I was still 22 😀 I didn’t even remember how it got there in the first place. I think it was a short interview for the commemoration of National Heroes Day, and the journalist asked around, trying to find out who people considered to be modern-day heroes. Below is my answer:

Generally speaking, I believe a hero is simply someone who is willing to help others without asking for recognition. I also believe there are real-life heroes among us, but that we are often too busy to recognize them.

I once saw a street musician help a middle-aged woman who fell from a moving minivan. A vendor helped a friend of mine who fainted inside a train, and even found a car to take her home.

And a friend told me of her cousin who wanted to commit suicide, but changed her mind after hearing the song Heaven on the radio.

These people offered help not because they wanted recognition — how could the DJ know the song would help my friend’s cousin — but simply because they were at the right place at the right time.

So I think a hero is someone who never considers himself a hero, and perhaps does not even realize they have done a heroic deed. Most of the time, a hero is simply a stranger who gives you a genuine smile and brightens your day.

Who’s your modern-day hero? 😉

OK, you must have wanted to slap me since I kept tweeting and updating my status, uber-excitedly saying that I got a Lomo Super Sampler as a gift from (ak.’sa.ra) bookstore! (see, I just did it again) 😀

But, the fact is, I am probably the kind of person the marketeers would love. I don’t redeem points, I lost the cards with all those purchase stamps that could actually offer me 20% discounts on all items, I forgot to use the gift vouchers handed to me at the cashier until I found it again somewhere—a year after it was expired. And I don’t usually fill in those lottery tickets or coupons you got after a certain purchase to win something. I always consider myself unlucky for such thing.

But—earlier this month I was visiting (ak’.sa.ra) bookstore in Pacific Place in search of a cute card and a naughty wedding gift for my bestfriend. I came up with this card, pretty cute, isn’t it? Neatly depicting how many girls/boys we met along the way (those heartbreaks!), until we finally found ‘the one’ 😀

And a pack of naughty Kiss & Tell cards! You would want to play this game with your spouse on bed, trust me 😀

I have always loved (ak.’sa.ra) bookstores (well, I used to fall for QB Books’ selections, but they’re out of business). I love their products, their cards, their display, and especially: their selection of books. I always drool over the sight of some classics with lovely illustrated covers, I have no idea how they actually spotted that beautiful edition at the first place! And where else in Indonesia could I find a complete selection of Yoshitomo Nara’s illustration books?

Well, back to the case of santaploding Lomo: when I got to the cashier with the card and the gift and Alain de Botton’s book, the girl behind the counter told me that (ak’.sa.ra) was having their Santa Wish List program for Christmas. So I needed to fill in a card, stating what I’d like to have for Christmas—but the gift I wish for should be something that is sold in (ak.’sa.ra). And there are no price-limit as to which products I’d like to put on my wish list.

Usually I would just shrugged it off, saying, “Naaah, no need to…”—but that day I was not in a hurry and well, I had been wanting that Lomo Super Sampler camera for 2 years, having a constant battle with myself whenever I saw that camera on display: don’t buy it. Don’t buy it. Don’t buy it. But I kept wanting it anyway, and had always spare some time to look at it on the shelf when I was at (ak.’sa.ra).

So, I simply wrote it down: I want a Lomo Super Sampler camera. Then I put my name and my phone number at the bottom of the card.

“We’ll draw the wish list on December 25! Good luck!” said the girl, waving as I left the store.

And so I waited, waited, and waited. On December 25 I kept on checking my handphone, expecting for a phone call, an SMS, a surprise: nothing. And I have kissed my Lomo goodbye, until I got a text message yesterday afternoon: Congratulations! You got a Lomo Super Sampler from our Santa Wish List! Please claim and pick up your gift.

At the time, I was in the middle of a chat with a friend at the front porch, and I was screaming at him: “I win a LOMO! I win a LOMO!!!” and I screamed, and screamed, and screamed. I was beaming with joy!!! 😀

And there she is, I’d like to introduce you to the Blue Belle:

Thank you, (ak.’sa.ra)! :’) And happy holiday to all of you! :*

—-

More about lomography please click here. And do follow those wonderful fellows at (ak.’sa.ra) bookstore on Twitter @Aksara_Store @Aksara_PP.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 2000 (New World Library Edition) | 128 pages

I’m crazy about letters. To me, letters—especially hand-written ones, sent via snail mail (oh, and I love it even more when the letters are illustrated), are romantic. It levitates me: the sight of an envelope with my name written on it; the dampened stamp; the guessing of the sender; the hissing sound of the papers; the first sentence, the imaginary voice of a “Dear …”

I remembered myself, in such a young age, sending hand-written letters as an ultimate gift to people I care about the most. Later in life, it was also become clear to me that I feel more comfortable of writing stories and prose in the form of indirect letters. Letters are personal. Letters are the words left unspoken.

Letters to A Young Poet is a collection of letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Kappuz, a young man trying to choose between a literary career and entering the army. The letters, coming from one of the greatest poet, are of course deep and poetic, spanning over the issues of dealing with self-doubts, making choices, living life, and embracing love. Reading the letters, you would feel as if the letters were directed to you.

The book is a jewel of deep and profound words, the kind of book that you’d like to pass on to your seventeen-year-old kid as they started to enter adulthood.

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.” – Rilke.