1. The beach. Don’t you just love going to the beach? This one is the view of Natsepa beach in Ambon, Molucca. We can sit side by side on the sand, enjoying a plate of the famous fruit ‘rujak’ and spend the rest of the day island-hopping on a speedboat.

2. A cup of coffee. This one is a cup of hot Balinese coffee, with its delicate sweetness and gentle acidity.

3. Pastries. A great company for a cup of coffee (or we can substitute the pastry with… #you, and that would be as sweet!). This one is taken in a small restaurant in La Rambla, Barcelona.

4. An old typewriter. Probably because you’re good with words—or your daily ‘proximity’ with words. And somehow I have always pictured you as an ‘old soul’: someone with such maturity beyond your years, as if you’ve lived for more than 100 years. This one is a vintage typewriter I came across in Triwindu Antique Market, Solo.

5. Artworks, paintings, and galleries. You have a love of art, and it shows in the way you view the world, the way you appreciate beauty unconventionally. This is a picture of a wonderful mess in Hector Fernández’s gallery at Double Beates, Barcelona.

6. Rain. From the black low-hanging clouds to the smell of the wet soil, from gazing at the droplets and listening to the calming sound of it. This one is taken from behind my working desk. The rain had just subsided.

7. Sunset. Because we share the love of capturing it. This one is taken in Telunas, Sugi Island, Batam.

8. Clouds. You know you’re happy at heart when you’re gazing at the funny-looking clouds and a smile appear on your lips. This one is taken in Lagos, from the balcony of the beach house. Do you see the huge cat-head below?

9. The sky. It makes me feel close to you. At times, we probably are looking at the same sky, at the same time, without actually realizing it. This one is taken in Sevilla (and–oh, look at those birds!)

10. A small café or restaurant. This one is taken in Lisboa. Look closely and you’ll see a man and a woman inside. One day, there will be you and me, meeting up for a late lunch and enjoying a small talk over our meals, discussing the most trivial things.

11. Beautiful light patterns. This one is taken in a winery in Jerez. The sunlight peers through the ‘grapevined’ roof, making those beautiful light patterns along the walls. Or maybe you simply reminded me of anything bright and beautiful.

————
*) a posting to celebrate 11.11.11

When he told me that he’s going to tell me a very sad story, I said: bring it on. Here you go, he said. It’s a story about something you’ve left behind…

***

They met in an unlikely circumstance. She was tired of having too high of an expectation. He was still trying to recover from a recent heartbreak. She glanced at him, trying to catch his solemn eyes. He glanced at her, trying to catch her halcyon eyes. As the gap between them grew smaller by the minute, she realized that she wanted to know more about him and he realized that he wanted to know more about her. And that was exactly when (just like in any other sad stories you knew) their time was up. And they had to part.

She didn’t realize it until she left. As she sat there waiting for the plane to take off, she realized that she had left something behind. He didn’t realize it until she left. As he sat there looking at his computer screen, he realized that she had taken something away from him. Both were not looking, both were not searching—which explained why, when they met, they didn’t realize the fact that they had actually found each other.

But life had taken its toll, and there was nothing they can do except to move forward, secretly finding ways to meet each other again, and kept missing each other until the day they meet again.

***

The saddest part is, he said, when they parted that day they didn’t realize that they would spend the rest of their lives, trying to find each other again. Don’t you think it’s sad?

It is sad, I answered. But I think things like this happen all the time in all parts of the world. It makes you feel like we’re all actually longing for something. And when you’re missing someone, thousands of other missing souls reverberate with you, creating a wave that is so big, so loud, so strong, it will somehow rub off on the person you’re thinking about.

On a cloudy morning, when you’re missing that someone so much, just remember that the thought alone will rub off on him. He might have just woken up, feeling bad, sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of hot coffee to start the day and suddenly he would feel this immense warmth blanketed him, filling him in with a lovely nostalgia like a carefree memories of distant summer days, and before he realized it, he would have found himself smiling.

Of course he couldn’t explain the reason of this sudden lift of mood, but don’t we all know the reason?

Nevertheless, let’s just keep it a secret.

— A sunny afternoon in Jakarta, headphones on, Mera Bichra Yaar from Strings playing on repeat.

I still remember how difficult it was for me growing up. My Dad is from Chinese origin. My Mom is Javanese. Dad’s family are mostly Christians and Catholics, Mom’s family are mostly Moslems. Being a Chinese-Javanese and also a Moslem in the 80s-90s was complicated and could be overwhelming at times, especially for a kid.

I realized how I felt so different during my early childhood. I couldn’t get close to my cousins from my Dad’s side because I didn’t go the Sunday school like everyone else, I didn’t know the titles of those Chinese movies they talked about, I didn’t know how to call my aunty or my uncle properly in Chinese, I didn’t celebrate Chinese New Year, and so on and so forth. I couldn’t get close to my cousins from my Mom’s side either, because physically, I look Chinese, I didn’t join their Quran lessons every Friday, and… I went to a Catholic school.

It made all the difference.

I didn’t know why it seemed like I had to choose between being Chinese, or being Javanese. Why couldn’t I simply be an Indonesian?

Thus, during childhood, I preferred spending my time alone in the confinement of my bedroom, reading books, or just hanging around with my Mom or my Dad. Here, at least, I wasn’t being judged. I was free. This was the place where people didn’t care about me being Chinese or Javanese or both.

Some family members from my Mom’s side bitched around because I was sent to a Catholic school—where I (despite like around 12 other subject lessons) learned about Jesus and liturgy. I didn’t get it. It was indeed a Catholic school, but it welcomed students from any religion. I didn’t know why it mattered so much, why they were so pissed off. I got good grade for my Catholic religion lesson: 9 out of 10. To me, I was simply studying history.

One day, in 5^th grade, I walked to the school’s pretty chapel with a Catholic friend of mine. We went there to pray, so that we’d be doing great in our national exam.

I remembered myself asking my friend, “Can I come in? I mean, I’m not Catholic.”

And my friend replied, “Why not? We’re praying to God, and God’s everywhere. So we can pray everywhere. And a chapel is a place to pray.”

I wished I could bring her to the mosque and said the same thing. Came to think about it now, children, naturally, do have beautiful minds.

I spent my school days in the same Catholic school until I graduated from high school.

During Ramadhan, a Moslem teacher led our afternoon prayers. There was a clean room next to the school’s health unit, where we could do our prayers. While we were reciting Al-Fatihah at heart, we could hear faintly the choir team serenading Ave Maria from the room upstairs. Sometimes, when the choir team were lacking of people and needed some extras, I would be joining them singing songs from the hymn book for the masses. At times, we hanged pretty Ketupat made of Japanese ribbon in our class’ Christmas tree. I got a chest full of greeting cards from my Catholic friends during Idul Fitri and I saved some money to buy them Christmas cards.

Those were the times when I learned about tolerance. Growing up, I realized how important it was for children to meet other children from different backgrounds, social classes, races and religions; to understand from such a small age that it’s definitely okay to make friends with those who are different from us. I do believe that the world would be a better place if adults would stop corrupting the minds of young children—telling them all the nonsense there is in the world, scared them out carelessly by simply saying that if they don’t listen, they’ll end up burning in hell.

When I wrote down his name in my journal entry, I knew that he would always be that special someone. Someone who marked yet another important chapter of my life.

—

I knew how the other names (temporarily) ended: missing boyfriend I’ve never heard of again, a friend I used to have a silent crush upon, ex-boyfriend I’ve never talk to any longer, ex-boyfriends I still talk to, ex-boyfriend I still secretly think about, someone I continue to admire from faraway, old crush that I come to detest, heartbreakers who fade away in time, boyfriend material turns best friend…

But each one, each names, represented who I was, who I used to be. Their treats and personalities and the way they barged in represented the things I was looking for at a particular stage of my life. They represented passing years; they represented my biggest fears, my faintest hopes, my shattered dreams, my glorious days, my difficult times, my tacit disappointments, my wishful thinking… myself.

As the years passed and forgotten, their names were still left intact, names way back from 1998, my handwriting carefully outlining each letters (other times carelessly), leaving footprints into my present, my life, my heart.

When I wrote down his name in my journal entry that night, it marked the day when I started to see things from a different perspective, the day when I stopped guessing, or having too high of an expectation, the day when I was no longer holding on to mementos. It marked the day when I was free and liberated, the day when I could say all the things I want to say, do the things I want to do, the day when there was no holding back, the day when there was no regret.

He represents the possibilities there are in the world: new experiences, new encounters, new opportunities, and all the hidden places underneath the sun, awaiting to be found.

—

In my dream that night, we were seeing each other again after quite a long time, knowing that nothing had changed, nothing had evolved, nothing had dissolved. It just happened to be, that one day, he lost something; and I left something, but none of us was really searching. We simply coped up.

So, in the dream, he closed his eyes and I closed my eyes, and off we went our separate ways, hummed along to the indistinct sounds of summer.

One cloudy morning, a friend of mine left a link to this short movie in my Twitter timeline. I opened the link and my eyes fell instantly to the movie description at the bottom. It said: Every day, so many opportunities to connect… what if you took just one? Even before I watched the movie I knew that it would bring some tears into my eyes. The what-if. The saddest word in the world.

— SPOILER ALERT —

A guy shyly stole a glance at a woman sitting across him on a train. When their eyes met, he pretended looking at another direction. When the woman got off at a station, the guy realized that she had left her pocket camera behind. He brought the camera home, and started looking at the images the woman had captured. From the shots he found out that apparently, the woman had just had a farewell party. She was going to move to another city. And how surprised he was, when he found several candid shots of himself, taken by the woman during the train-ride! Startled, he tried to find the woman. Following some clues in the woman’s pictures, he finally managed to locate the woman’s apartment—only to find out that the woman had gone.

What if he said a simple hello on the train that day? What was the worst thing that could happen? What was the best thing that could happen?

I used to live with lots of what-ifs, especially when it comes to relationships. I was naturally shy—and back then, glancing a smile or saying hello to a guy was definitely not something I would do. Not to mention starting a conversation and exchanging contact details. I always thought that I wasn’t good enough, not attractive enough, not interesting enough. I was afraid of being rejected, afraid that I would humiliate myself. And because of that, I chose to live my life in numerous what-ifs, because it was a saver option. Because I didn’t have to hear ‘the painful truth’—and not knowing the painful truth means: I still had hopes. What didn’t register to me at that time was the fact that there were happy sides of truth! The kind of truth like that-guy-actually-liked-me-but-he-thought-I-was-not-interested.

I lived in what-ifs until I was 25. That was when I decided to find out about the truth—the truth I had been avoiding to hear for years. After a long time, what-ifs became really suffocating. I couldn’t breathe with it, and I just have to let it out. Surprisingly, when I finally found out about the truth, it wasn’t a painful truth! It was more or less standing on the happy side of truth! And I couldn’t stop cursing myself. Why didn’t I find out about the truth sooner? So I can live my life happily, not having to be burdened by the question: what if?

We only lived once. And I was lucky that I could survive to 25 (and now 28), to find out about the truth; to discover the answer behind the what-ifs. But again, what if we only have today?

Things like being rejected or being humiliated don’t scare me as much these days. I know that the worst will pass, and the best sometimes appear only once. Lately, whenever I found a reason to connect, I decided to take the chance. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still shy 🙂 But recently, I met a guy that I found slightly attractive—and I, shyly, asked him to write down his contacts before we parted. I couldn’t believe that I actually did that, and I was surprised knowing how liberating it felt! 🙂 At the time, I thought: maybe I’ll lose interest in a week, maybe he’ll find me annoying, maybe I’ll never contact him again, maybe he won’t reply if I drop him a line or two…

But, came to think about it: who cares? We only live once, and it was great knowing that we have no regrets; that we don’t have to spend all our lives questioning: what if?

So, this is my first short movie video project with Nanath, called “Sequence”—that falls under our independent movie project Sunday & Sunflowers. I did the shots with my Canon 550D camera and developed the story/script, while Nanath took her part as the heart-broken girl in the movie and did an amazing effort in editing and deciding on song selection.

The song is Wish You Well by Katie Herzig (which was suggested to us by Nia). And the lyric is just awesome:

I, I want to wish you well
I didn’t watch you go
Cause I suppose I don’t know how
I, I will remember you
Not the way you left but how you lived
And what you knew

I, I want to feel your hands
I want to feel your fire burning
Right from where I stand

I’ll find my way
Cause you showed me how

I, I want to know it’s you
When I hear your voice inside my head
Inside my room
I, want to touch the sky
I want to see the stars twinkle
Like they were your eyes

I’ll find my way
You showed me
I’ll find my way
Cause you showed me how

I, I want to smell your scent
I want to breathe the air I did before
Before you left

I, I want to wish you well
The only reason my heart beats
Is cause you showed it how

I’ll find my way
You show me
I’ll find my way
You show me
I’ll find my way
Cause you showed me how
You show me how
You showed me how

Also, thanks to Daniel, our own national rugby player, for his performance as the heartbreaker 😀

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You came to me like a glimpse of soundless rain in the middle of the night. It would resemble those nights—the nights when I was already in bed, with my pajamas on, reading Murakami while sipping a cup of hot sweet tea, waiting to drift off. And then I felt as if something had changed. Like the atmosphere had shifted. It was the feeling of being embraced by something warmer. Something brighter. Something serene. Something beautiful.

So I crawled lazily from my bed, stood in front of my bedroom window, opened the blinds, and realized that it was raining silently outside.

Do you find it beautiful? The contrast view of the silvery drops of rain, glistening under the mercury lamps, pouring down from the pitch-black sky. I breathed the fragrance of the wet soil, the cold wind, the stillness… like I was never going to have enough of them.

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you.

You came to me like an old friend, like nostalgia from a distant past. There was something inside you that captivated me in an instant: it was as if we’ve met before, as if we’ve known each other for years. I knew that you’re the kind of person who would appreciate silence; and we could just sit side-by-side in a deserted beach somewhere, gazing at the horizon for hours, saying nothing. We’d be too immersed in the beauty of what lies in front of us. At the same time, I knew that shall we had a chance to go out together—attacking street food and one litre of ice cream somewhere, we’ll be cheerily and comfortably talking to each other about almost everything, leaping from one subject to the next, non-stop. The conversation would flow naturally like a stream in monsoon season, and the range of topics would just be endless.

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

You came to me like someone who accidentally brushed my shoulder as we walked past a crowded street. You didn’t even realize what had happened—and you didn’t even see me. I was just another girl walking down the street—and there was nothing special about me that caught your eyes, that made you want to slow down a bit, step back, and turn your head around to see me more closely. But I noticed you, probably way before our shoulder brushed on that crowded street. I noticed you because I could feel the atmosphere changed: like those nights when the rain was pouring down silently outside my bedroom window.

You were shining.

And though we might never see each other ever again, and though our lives had crossed path for only a few condensed minutes, I was glad for I have been given a chance to know you.

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you.
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.
-Rumi-

Sunday. My first attempt to make 12 paper cups of fruity cupcakes rather than sticking to the usual safe recipe involving coffee and chocolate. I would say that it’s a successful first attempt! 🙂 Love the fruity flavor and the sour taste of yogurt and strawberry jam combined!

Banana-Yogurt Cupcake Recipe:

• 90 g unsalted butter, softened
• 115 g castor sugar
• 2 eggs
• 155 g self-raising flour
• 90 g plain yogurt
• 2 tsp apple juice
• 2 tsp peach vodka
• 2 ripe bananas; cut into cubes around 1 x 1 cm

Beat with electric mixer, add in the banana cubes after the mixer is off, then divide it evenly into the 12-cupcakes tin, bake for around 20 minutes, 180^oC.

Strawberry Vodka Butter Cream:

• 180 g unsalted butter
• 100 g strawberry jam
• 50 g sugar
• 2 tbsp plain yogurt
• 4 tbsp peach vodka

Beat with electric mixer until it turned into a perfect butter cream. Wait until the cupcakes cool off before spreading the butter cream on top of each.