A comment in Facebook account has ruined his dreams – or rather, made his life a little bit miserable. His girl asked for a clarification for a comment made by their female friends in her Facebook account, he though it a foolish things – your private life to be determined by a silly comment in Facebook –, and the girl went up mad and everything was broken. Strangely enough that he did not feel sad about the break up. May be it was the uproar of his current surrounding that made his mind and feeling distracted so that he did not feel the loss.
But, to be honest, he had been long enough felt that there is something wrong with their relationship. He was always a shy man, tends to draw himself unto the backward and does not talk much. He was the man who will be thankful if he was left alone with himself in a room with his laptop, Internet and a couple of books. Meanwhile, the girl is just at the opposite direction: talkative, pretty, hungry for public attention. Negative and positive, they said, will make a great couple. But after he knew that the girl is capable of the maddest rage, he had settled himself: once a momentum arisen, he’ll quit.
It was only yesterday night. The pain weren’t coming in yet. And he doesn’t feel free either – free of commitment, of the hard moments when he had to withstand the barrage of the girl’s rage. He just felt flat. But he knows that he had more freedom. He even thought that he would never again have a commitment with a girl. But no: he has not decided anything yet. For now, he just wants to wait for the other 10 days and build everything again from scratch in Yogya. But now he can only wait and hope that there would be never any contact made with the girl. ***
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
A Time of Test
It has been 10 hard days for him. And he still has at least another 10 hard days to bear. But he’s glad he done it for people that he love. He never liked Tangerang, an industrial region full of factories, pollutions, heat, poverty, ambition, uproars. He can’t find a safe, comfortable place for him to be alone with his works, with his hard work to earn some money, to feel the most the writing can give.
His mother’s house was too small to bear his wide imagination and ambition. In the night, he can have the entire front part of the store but at the afternoon he has to shrink away into the small bedroom of his older father and mother: a tiny room of 3x3m, without sufficient ventilation. When he came here 10 days ago, he thought that he can write and work in the tiny bedroom.
The small desks that he had bought two or three years ago were still there and he thought that he could write by sitting on the floor just like usual. After he had changed the lamp, the lighting is sufficient enough for working but the heat was unbearable. He often had to take his shirt off because even the electric fan was not able to sweep the heat away.
His cousin, a mother of two small children, was living with his parents in the house. She was going to divorced and he had brought her smallest son along. The child was a nuisance for him: he, that loved the silence, has to bear, everyday, the juvenile of a small child. That cursed devil gave him a big test: on the first day he had been able to share his laptop with the child for a session of online game but on the next days he didn’t want to do that again because if he did it then he wouldn’t be able to work.
His girl at Denpasar added to the test. The woman’s jealousy, caused by a friend’s comment in his Facebook account, raged and he had already thought to end the relation. But this morning he text the woman and apologize for his last night attitude.
His Internet connection was another nuisance. His data plan ended last night and this morning he can’t contact his agent. Fortunately, there was an Internet café not far away from his mother’s house. The payday still two days away and he was to shy to ask some money from his parents, even if he had to count the money as a loan.
There is still another 10 hard days to come. He puts his headset on and reaches for the laptop. The music bang in his ears and he feel secure – and lonely again. Today he will work as hard as he can. ***
His mother’s house was too small to bear his wide imagination and ambition. In the night, he can have the entire front part of the store but at the afternoon he has to shrink away into the small bedroom of his older father and mother: a tiny room of 3x3m, without sufficient ventilation. When he came here 10 days ago, he thought that he can write and work in the tiny bedroom.
The small desks that he had bought two or three years ago were still there and he thought that he could write by sitting on the floor just like usual. After he had changed the lamp, the lighting is sufficient enough for working but the heat was unbearable. He often had to take his shirt off because even the electric fan was not able to sweep the heat away.
His cousin, a mother of two small children, was living with his parents in the house. She was going to divorced and he had brought her smallest son along. The child was a nuisance for him: he, that loved the silence, has to bear, everyday, the juvenile of a small child. That cursed devil gave him a big test: on the first day he had been able to share his laptop with the child for a session of online game but on the next days he didn’t want to do that again because if he did it then he wouldn’t be able to work.
His girl at Denpasar added to the test. The woman’s jealousy, caused by a friend’s comment in his Facebook account, raged and he had already thought to end the relation. But this morning he text the woman and apologize for his last night attitude.
His Internet connection was another nuisance. His data plan ended last night and this morning he can’t contact his agent. Fortunately, there was an Internet café not far away from his mother’s house. The payday still two days away and he was to shy to ask some money from his parents, even if he had to count the money as a loan.
There is still another 10 hard days to come. He puts his headset on and reaches for the laptop. The music bang in his ears and he feel secure – and lonely again. Today he will work as hard as he can. ***
Monday, May 23, 2011
Agate: Remains of a Past Culture
The agates lied silently upon the white table. I hadn’t met the ghosts that dwell inside those stones tonight. I thought that it was because I didn’t get sleep. Oh, I had a chance to get very sleepy and hence slept only for a while -- from 10 pm to 1 am. But there wasn’t anything special. I was woken up because of a call from my girl. We didn’t talk much on the phone and I couldn’t get into sleep anymore. But there wasn’t anything special from my brief sleep. I slept with the usual restlessness when I get vey tired and there is no ghosts or spirits haunted my dream.
My father gave me those stones yesterday afternoon after I showed him my cheap, white agate stone. I didn’t have a chance to boast my agate, including the class under which my stone falls, namely “Mata Kucing” or the eye of the cat. When my father asked me whether my stone had a “content”, I told him it was a cheap agate bought at Malioboro. Then I asked him whether he still had his collection of agates. He instantly produced his collection from the drawer. There were at least four of them with various colors. I took the red and white color because I think they would be like the flag of the country.
My father said that the red one is able to help drawing fortune for the wearer. But the wearer should not bring the agate to a funeral because when the wearer touches the corpse, the corpse will come to life again. The white agate is able to draw other people’s love to the wearer.
To make my father permit me to try wearing those red and white stones, I put each of them behind my ear just like the way my late grandfather always do when he wants to know whether a thing has a “content” or not. Of course I don’t have the ability to “feel’ the presence of a “ghost” inside a thing like my grandfather. I did it in front of my father just to win his approval for me to try wearing the stones. I also took a cup of water and put those agates in. According to my friend, if you put an agate in the water together with a snail, the snail will react, or make a slight movement, because the agate produces a kind of energy.
I never witnessed the actual test but I did as my imagination told me although of course I couldn’t get a snail for the current test. My role play worked though and my father gave his approval. Last night I slept alone in my parents’ stall with a hope to dream of ghosts come in my dream to communicate with me. There was none. And in fact I couldn’t sleep until 4 o’clock in the morning after I was woken up by my girl’s call.
I didn’t know how I feel or how I should think about those agates. They are the remains of a past culture. Modernity and science had brought them to their end but in fact they still live, at least in the imagination of the people -- and in my imagination. My father had been a communist who was involved in the Indonesian ’65 tragedy and hence he was actually an atheist. But things had changed him after a 10 years exile at the Buru Island. I think he had come back to his Javanese roots. He even often talked about religion too.
I don’t think I want to try meeting the ghosts in the red and white agates tomorrow night. At least I won’t try too hard. If they are -- the ghosts -- really want to communicate with me, let them make the first step. I want to put my spare energy and time for more productive things.***
My father gave me those stones yesterday afternoon after I showed him my cheap, white agate stone. I didn’t have a chance to boast my agate, including the class under which my stone falls, namely “Mata Kucing” or the eye of the cat. When my father asked me whether my stone had a “content”, I told him it was a cheap agate bought at Malioboro. Then I asked him whether he still had his collection of agates. He instantly produced his collection from the drawer. There were at least four of them with various colors. I took the red and white color because I think they would be like the flag of the country.My father said that the red one is able to help drawing fortune for the wearer. But the wearer should not bring the agate to a funeral because when the wearer touches the corpse, the corpse will come to life again. The white agate is able to draw other people’s love to the wearer.
To make my father permit me to try wearing those red and white stones, I put each of them behind my ear just like the way my late grandfather always do when he wants to know whether a thing has a “content” or not. Of course I don’t have the ability to “feel’ the presence of a “ghost” inside a thing like my grandfather. I did it in front of my father just to win his approval for me to try wearing the stones. I also took a cup of water and put those agates in. According to my friend, if you put an agate in the water together with a snail, the snail will react, or make a slight movement, because the agate produces a kind of energy.
I never witnessed the actual test but I did as my imagination told me although of course I couldn’t get a snail for the current test. My role play worked though and my father gave his approval. Last night I slept alone in my parents’ stall with a hope to dream of ghosts come in my dream to communicate with me. There was none. And in fact I couldn’t sleep until 4 o’clock in the morning after I was woken up by my girl’s call.
I didn’t know how I feel or how I should think about those agates. They are the remains of a past culture. Modernity and science had brought them to their end but in fact they still live, at least in the imagination of the people -- and in my imagination. My father had been a communist who was involved in the Indonesian ’65 tragedy and hence he was actually an atheist. But things had changed him after a 10 years exile at the Buru Island. I think he had come back to his Javanese roots. He even often talked about religion too.
I don’t think I want to try meeting the ghosts in the red and white agates tomorrow night. At least I won’t try too hard. If they are -- the ghosts -- really want to communicate with me, let them make the first step. I want to put my spare energy and time for more productive things.***
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The Wanderer
Since I have yearned after the hidden heart
I am become the wanderer among the stars of this revelation
And the term of my journeying afar
Is as that of the viewless winds.
When he set his foot again on his hometown after five months of awkward, and failed, struggle to make a home in another, far town, he meant to stay forever here. But things don’t approve his plan. His girl, whom he had left back in the town that he had just been left, begs him endlessly to come again. A call from his mother from the other end of the island added to the list of the places that he would have to visit in the months to come. These, and scores of other things, made him wondered whether he was meant to drifted away like this forever.
Now he thinks that he is not a traveler, or an adventurer with fixed goal to achieve something with his life. He is more a wanderer without enough time to settle in one place, without a definite goal for his journey, without a fixed aim in any direction that he’s heading to. He is just drifting in the wind blown by other people dear to his heart and to whom he cannot resist since they are too dear to him. And hadn't he pass many things in his journey: the great and small cities of the island, the winding roads that connected them, the narrow, historic strait between the islands?
Once he often thought of the sailors of the past ages: how they had bravely chosen to put their life on bet with the nature. Some achieved a considerable success, like the ex-sailor writer Joseph Conrad, while some had ended their adventures at the bottom of the seas. They’re brave, proud men who were driven by their lust for adventure, of the necessity to prove oneself against the one-thought-to-be unsurpassable nature.
A captain’s name which he can’t anymore recall, one of the main characters of Jack London’s Sea Wolf, enters his mind. The name is not there but the captain’s actions are remembered best: a gigantic man with lush beard like a forest and a lump of toughness toward himself, his sailors and toward nature. The captain was indeed a hard man, with brutal discipline and firmness of words. He brought his ship drifted around the Pacific, from the coldest waves to the warmest regions and rarely set his foot on land.
Suddenly he realizes that he is indeed a wanderer. He is the captain in a new name and a new body with different adventure. His seas now are the distance between cities where his dearests live. The captain wanted to have the fullness of the danger, un-comforts, hidden glory of his adventure. The present captain still wants all of those sadness, hardship, and silent happiness. With this in his mind, he feels a peace coming from the far horizon, steadily coming to him, and he closes his eyes full of thankfulness for anything that life had brought to him. ***
Note: the verse is taken from The Wanderer, a poem of Australian national poet Christopher Brennan.
I am become the wanderer among the stars of this revelation
And the term of my journeying afar
Is as that of the viewless winds.
When he set his foot again on his hometown after five months of awkward, and failed, struggle to make a home in another, far town, he meant to stay forever here. But things don’t approve his plan. His girl, whom he had left back in the town that he had just been left, begs him endlessly to come again. A call from his mother from the other end of the island added to the list of the places that he would have to visit in the months to come. These, and scores of other things, made him wondered whether he was meant to drifted away like this forever.
Now he thinks that he is not a traveler, or an adventurer with fixed goal to achieve something with his life. He is more a wanderer without enough time to settle in one place, without a definite goal for his journey, without a fixed aim in any direction that he’s heading to. He is just drifting in the wind blown by other people dear to his heart and to whom he cannot resist since they are too dear to him. And hadn't he pass many things in his journey: the great and small cities of the island, the winding roads that connected them, the narrow, historic strait between the islands?
Once he often thought of the sailors of the past ages: how they had bravely chosen to put their life on bet with the nature. Some achieved a considerable success, like the ex-sailor writer Joseph Conrad, while some had ended their adventures at the bottom of the seas. They’re brave, proud men who were driven by their lust for adventure, of the necessity to prove oneself against the one-thought-to-be unsurpassable nature.
A captain’s name which he can’t anymore recall, one of the main characters of Jack London’s Sea Wolf, enters his mind. The name is not there but the captain’s actions are remembered best: a gigantic man with lush beard like a forest and a lump of toughness toward himself, his sailors and toward nature. The captain was indeed a hard man, with brutal discipline and firmness of words. He brought his ship drifted around the Pacific, from the coldest waves to the warmest regions and rarely set his foot on land.
Suddenly he realizes that he is indeed a wanderer. He is the captain in a new name and a new body with different adventure. His seas now are the distance between cities where his dearests live. The captain wanted to have the fullness of the danger, un-comforts, hidden glory of his adventure. The present captain still wants all of those sadness, hardship, and silent happiness. With this in his mind, he feels a peace coming from the far horizon, steadily coming to him, and he closes his eyes full of thankfulness for anything that life had brought to him. ***
Note: the verse is taken from The Wanderer, a poem of Australian national poet Christopher Brennan.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Vaisak Day Offs Remembered
Yesterday Vaisak ended the four-days national day off which began in Saturday. I didn't take my vacation though: the salary for off-day jobs was twice than the regulars and I needed an occupation to keep me away from boredom. But when the work had been done, boredom regained its victim -- me -- and again I had to struggle to keep my mind sane.
On Vaisak night I told my friend how lovely it would be in Borobudur. Priests and believers would congregate and pray at the ancient giant temple under the full moon's beam. There wasn't any sign of rain or storm. The moon was rising in the east, amazingly bright and bigger than ever. I suddenly realized that nature is friendlier during Vaisak: no rain, no storm.
We consider a journey to Borobudur, right at that 9 p.m. and eventually declined the idea. We were too tired with our own problems. I think we have the same conviction about religion: you can't have true peace if you keep adhering on the formal, ritualistic religion. But of course we are not Buddhist although we have a sympathy for Vaisak.
Before I left my friend's place on the next morning, my girl called me and we were engaged in our usual argument. She couldn't live alone in her town and begged me to come. Five months had I spent there and it had been proven that I was, is, and will never be a permanent resident of her town. After tons of her angry words and my silence, the call ended.
But last night she had regained her control and apologized for the that. Things were back to normal. And this morning I woke up with not so well health but soon prepared myself for the work of the day.***
On Vaisak night I told my friend how lovely it would be in Borobudur. Priests and believers would congregate and pray at the ancient giant temple under the full moon's beam. There wasn't any sign of rain or storm. The moon was rising in the east, amazingly bright and bigger than ever. I suddenly realized that nature is friendlier during Vaisak: no rain, no storm.
We consider a journey to Borobudur, right at that 9 p.m. and eventually declined the idea. We were too tired with our own problems. I think we have the same conviction about religion: you can't have true peace if you keep adhering on the formal, ritualistic religion. But of course we are not Buddhist although we have a sympathy for Vaisak.
Before I left my friend's place on the next morning, my girl called me and we were engaged in our usual argument. She couldn't live alone in her town and begged me to come. Five months had I spent there and it had been proven that I was, is, and will never be a permanent resident of her town. After tons of her angry words and my silence, the call ended.
But last night she had regained her control and apologized for the that. Things were back to normal. And this morning I woke up with not so well health but soon prepared myself for the work of the day.***
Monday, May 16, 2011
Midnight Rest
It is almost one o'clock am. I can hear the endless voices of the night insects. The night is getting colder and colder but I am too lazy to wrap my bare legs with anything. My armor against the cold is only an old jacket, torn at the right shoulder. I had moved from the verandah where I worked on my job into my room to take a rest for a while and treat the blog.
The day has turned into Monday now and the world outside will be very busy, full of uproars, ambitions and the life games. But they shall come five hours after now. A dog tirelessly barked just now -- may be it saw a passer by in the street or a devil like what is said in the religious teachings -- but the barking had only been an intermezzo for the silence, cold night.
I don't know whether I am going to finish the job that I am working on tonight. It is a rewriting job about Bali with the material taken from Wikipedia. If finished, the article will be paid around $10. Too low for a 4000 words rewrite. But I have no option. In fact, I have to accept that at least for the rest of the month I shall make peace with underpaid jobs. There is no other way than pushing my way through these unpleasant moments.
I need a lot of money for the next month and that can only be fulfilled by writing articles as much as possible. Fortunately, the target of my regular online job at a writing firm are easy enough to reach. I can hope to earn at least $100 from the firm. Tonight's job is from another source for which I can hope to get around $50. A total of $200 a month -- to low for my English skill, even in Indonesia: but I have no choice.
My legs were bit by some invisible mosquitos. Now they are itchy but still I am too lazy to scratch them up. I will give myself another 10 minutes rest for smoking and after that there mustn't any laziness.
I shall go on.***
The day has turned into Monday now and the world outside will be very busy, full of uproars, ambitions and the life games. But they shall come five hours after now. A dog tirelessly barked just now -- may be it saw a passer by in the street or a devil like what is said in the religious teachings -- but the barking had only been an intermezzo for the silence, cold night.
I don't know whether I am going to finish the job that I am working on tonight. It is a rewriting job about Bali with the material taken from Wikipedia. If finished, the article will be paid around $10. Too low for a 4000 words rewrite. But I have no option. In fact, I have to accept that at least for the rest of the month I shall make peace with underpaid jobs. There is no other way than pushing my way through these unpleasant moments.
I need a lot of money for the next month and that can only be fulfilled by writing articles as much as possible. Fortunately, the target of my regular online job at a writing firm are easy enough to reach. I can hope to earn at least $100 from the firm. Tonight's job is from another source for which I can hope to get around $50. A total of $200 a month -- to low for my English skill, even in Indonesia: but I have no choice.
My legs were bit by some invisible mosquitos. Now they are itchy but still I am too lazy to scratch them up. I will give myself another 10 minutes rest for smoking and after that there mustn't any laziness.
I shall go on.***
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Once, and After This
The first thing that should be maintained when you are writing a blog is consistency. And that is the very thing that I don’t have in my possession. I can compile up a hill of reasons for that of course but now, when I have more time for myself, I think again about the writing and blogging and finally I decided to make a new blog for my life. After so many failed Net ventures to make money, but not yet surrender of course, I found that blogging can ease my tense mind even when I have to write in English.
I am not a native in English but once I had an education in an English Literature program study in a public university my city. I never earned the degree of course because like the idealistic students in Yogyakarta, I know well that most of my lecturers aren’t capable of teaching the subject they taught before the class. In fact, I devoted myself to reading and writing in my student days. I obtained a certain level of English mastery although it is never extraordinary and with such English skill I set out to dedicate myself to writing.
It had been ten years since I knew the richness of English. Now I am 31 and had not yet set off from the financial level of those days. Thanks to my English, I can find job in a writing agency and am able to perform well enough with my current trade, at least enough for myself. And now I write this blog in English, the very language that since December 2010 has given me sufficient money to withstand the harshness of this world, for more personal feeling and stories. And also for thoughts that are too dangerous to be written in Indonesian: the tolerance level in this declining country is pathetic.
Well, of course I also have a personal blog in Indonesian but I think I can manage two blogs as long as I can find sufficient time to be alone with myself. So far, time is the most expensive thing for me because my girlfriend, who loves me with all of her heart, does not want to leave me alone with my thoughts and myself. I appreciate her love and indeed I too love her, but you have to manage your feeling otherwise you won’t get in in a harmony.
Since December 2010, I live in my girl’s city, namely Denpasar, the capital of Bali island-province, the largest tourist destination of the country. I couldn’t bear to live in the city, though, because the cost for daily needs is beyond my thin wallet. So, after much debates and angry shouts, I returned to my native city, Yogyakarta. My girl obtained a leave from the hotel where she works and came with me. We argued about something and I broke her. In fact, I let her return to Bali herself. However, the next night she called me and we were back again.
When my girl eventually resigned from the hotel in which she had worked for almost three years, she had two vacant weeks before starting to work in a new work place -- newly built a villa. It is only yester-night she returned to Bali. I miss her and had some bad hours. However, I could take the positive side of the story. Without my girl, I can have more time for working on my freelancing jobs and may be I can save some money. I am getting older and my parents have too often asking me when I will get married.
I’m not resisting marriage but I believe that one has to be prepared enough before entering such un-lonely bond, even with the person whom you love. I mean “prepared” in financial term of course. And that is also something that I don’t have. In fact, I’m on my way for getting it.
I know that there won’t be too many people reading my blog but, honestly, my first intention in writing this blog is to release the feeling, thoughts and stories that are too sensitive if written in Indonesian. However, when there is someone responds to this blog, I surely appreciate it and I promise to give the same appreciation. Now I must work: read, think, write, rewrite. Technical English skill indeed, but it gives me firm ground to stay writing. ***
Note for the pic: A shoot from Candi Songo Temples complex. I shall write about this historic complex later.
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