Yang.

It's been a long time since I've seen her like this. Glowing with different sets of colors, vibrant and rich. She's passionate, I could see it in her eyes. And the man standing behind her could barely sense this. He's like this tiny box, unfitting for her spreading blasts of colorful beams. It just feels wrong. And I could see, in glimpses that she's feeling rather unsatisfied. His humble gestures were no match to her brilliance. She's an angel--no, a faerie--on a short leash, unable to fly.

I'm In Love with My 2-year-old Nephew

Oh wow, I just got home from Bintaro. Just visited two houses of my relatives. I met my favourite nephew today, his name is Carlo. He's only 2 years old but man, he can take my breath away. :D We didn't get along quite well at first, he kept running off from me. But once I have my mom's digicam in my hand, we became best buddies. But take this, most toddlers like their pictures taken. Not Carlo. He loves taking pictures. He got really high when he clicked the shutter and the flash went off. Trouble was, he put his fingers on the lens so all you got is red-ish pictures.

that's him, and one of the pictures he took

Unlike other 2-year-olds who keeps whining and weeping all the time, he didn't cry ONCE this evening. He just kept running around, showing everybody his daddy's car, comparing it to the cars he saw in a magazine, learning new words and practically absorbed everything I taught him. The funny thing was when I pointed a picture of Noordin M Top on Tempo Magazine and I asked him who it was, he answered "Papa."
It's fatalistic to mistake a crazy terrorist for your father.

Today I'm reminded of how much I've missed out. I love my family. Both sides. My father's side, well, they're more relaxed. I can connect with them in no time at all. They don't gossip much and they don't ask the exact same questions each year we see each other. Well, some of 'em don't. The old ones still do. My mom's family are mostly women so you know what you'll get. But I'm a bit closer to them so I know almost everyone.
They all have their kinks but, hey, whose family doesn't? I find myself making more effort to communicate with them and the more I do, the more I enjoy being around them. Well, maybe once or twice a year is the perfect amount to see that big of a family. You really get to like them. Spend more time than that, you might get irritated.

I think I'm lucky. In a way.


On the ride home, seeing the streetlamps of Pondok Indah, I was reminded of a fragment of my past. Hmm. Then I thought about Le Babouin. I miss him so much I could die.

Surgical.

It's a little past eleven and already the sun is searing hot. And I mean ho-oott! Second day of Syawal, I've been busied all morning with houseworks and Murakami. Yep, I finished the Murakami. What do I think of it? Hmm. Otherworldly, I guess. Reading his book is like exploring through a series of subconscious experiences, like being in one of my dreams where everything's distorted but you can see a lot of different things in there. Every emotion is projected a certain way. Like this dark corner of yourself you never thought you have but you always see when you're sleeping. When everything else is dark. That's how I feel about Murakami. One of my friends once mentioned about how he couldn't seem to enjoy Murakami's novel because he couldn't find closure in the end. Maybe that's what it is. It left you.. lingering. Like when you find yourself looking through the window to an open sky and just stay there for a couple of minutes without any thought whatsoever, as your eyes began to get unfocused and everything else around you blurred out. You thought you were waiting for something to appear, but you settled just by gazing absently.

Yes, it got me this emotional. I don't know. I think I need this kind of reading. Not just meaningless tweets or obligatory news stories. Makes me wanna write. :)

Today I might be doing my round of silaturahmi. Visiting relatives, driving around the empty streets of Jakarta. Maybe later I'll drop by to the nearest bookstore and go grab Dan Brown's new fiction. Hmm. Another conspiracy story. Nice. I can't wait to go on an adventure with Robert Langdon again.

I'm in a crossroad. I think I can feel myself building new walls, slowly but ever so sure. I feel the presence of Ms. Cristina and Ms. Yang again. They've been gone for a while, but now they're back. Arguing again. I hate them. I want them to go away.

Yang : But you need me, Cristina. You need me now more than ever.

Victorious.

And at last.. here we are. The end of Ramadhan, in the eve of victory. The time we always spend with our family. The time when I have to drag myself to my kitchen and make myself useful. The noisy night, with a bunch of kids praising God on the speaker. The most familiar time. Blissful.

So with this, needless to say more, I just wanna ask your forgiveness, for my misdemeanors, my false presumptions, my thick head, my sharp tongue, .. my wrong doings.

Cheers,
Kalista Cendani

PS. I might do a feature on this event, probably post it on UPIU. wish me luck!

How to Force Myself Out of Misery.

Hello. I just got home from a movie in Djakarta Theater with Le Babouin. Funny movie. Entertaining, despite the fact that we got there late and I was distracted most of the time. No. NOT doing "stuff". Something else.
On the way home, for the 700th time, we got a flat tire. A screw screwed into the tire mercilessly, creating a bang. So we pulled over and started to look for a tukang tambal ban. We found one, rather quickly too. As I look around, I noticed something. Hey, isn't that a tombstone? There's another one. And another one. And another one. Oh. That's a graveyard. That oughta be rich. Ha. But no, nothing incidental.

Murakami update : getting interesting. I think I'll finish it in a couple of days.

I feel rather down tonight. Le Babouin is going away for holiday and I'm kinda left with a trail of pain. Sometimes I think to myself : how did I get into this? Lately, the pain has become unbearable. And I HATE BEING THOUGHT OF AS SOMEONE STUPID. I'm not stupid. I know more than everybody thinks I do. It's just weird. It's like biting your lips to endure the pain, but it's still there. It got worse and the cut got deeper.

I don't know. Maybe I just want someone to say :
"Even though you stay quiet, I can tell you're crying. And I'm sorry."

Today I Lay on a Stack of Hay.

First and foremost, I think I need to warn you about the randomness of this post. It might be severe. My mind is all over the place right now but I've made a vow to myself that whenever I feel the urge to write, I'll write. So don't say you haven't been warned.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Okay, update on the Murakami project. Loving it. So far, at least. I love how he writes and makes the monotony of everyday life feels so... upbeat. I think I've chosen the right title for my first Murakami novel : Dance Dance Dance. My kind of pleasure. Literature and the illusion of music. Hmm.

I've been enjoying my life a little bit more. Though there's a few hick-up know and again, most of them are concerning my love life. But well, I should be able to cope.
Hmmmm. I love fresh couples. I love young loves. Young, not in the context of age, but rather in the novelty of it. I love seeing people blush when they meet someone they have a crush on. How they couldn't stop talking about it even though I've explicitly told them to (no, it's not you, R. i love hearing your stories. They're magical). Sometimes I feel envious. This is how I recognize my longtime disease : Needingnewsparkizoma.

Random, random, random.
Let's see, what did I do today? 'Been sleepy all morning. I felt angry most of the day, I don't know why (or actually I know why but maybe I was exaggerating). 'Buka Puasa' with my Baboon and my family. Yes, I don't exactly like the term "break-fasting" it's like.. morning time meal. Ha. Doesn't suit me very well. That's about it. Starting to feel like my life's a big joke, but I got over it. I'm writing, aren't I? That's my purpose in life. To write.

I love reading Murakami in between classes and while waiting for the bus. Gives me solitude.
I hate traffic in Jakarta these days. Makes me wanna eat myself alive from toe to head (toe first because if I eat my head first I don't get to eat my feet).

That's all about today.
Tomorrow I'm gonna be missing Le Babouin.

'Till later.

On Being Forced Out of Love and Appreciating Everything Before They're Lost.

It's the second day I've been trying to read one of Murakami's classics. Hmm. No, I wouldn't say the book is hard to digest, but I merely need more time to read it. Like, really some alone time. I think it's gonna turn out great.
I realized a strange thing back when I was strolling through the book store with my family : I've always wanted to read Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex". That title always comes up at the top of my mind whenever I was planning to go to the bookstore, but somehow, it always ended up in the bottom of the stack of my reading choices and eventually I bought something else instead. Hm. I never knew why.

Alright. I guess I know what the topic of the day would be : LOVE. Corny, tacky and abstract, love. After reading one of my friends' post about how wonderful it is to be in love, and in retrospect read my post about how it is to be forced out of love, I gained some interesting insights.

Being in love,.. isn't necessarily blinding as people said it would. Yeah, all we see are flowers and rainbows and goofy stuff. Hear this, if we all were born a saint--a purist--then people are all essentially good, right? I think being in love, is actually the ultimate eye-opening phenomena that's ever happen to us. For a moment, a week, a year, or in some cases a lifetime, we see the best of someone and in effect (normally, that is), we try to bring out the best of ourselves. And I think that's a good thing. Living for 20 years listening to news about murder, theft, riots, unsafe neighbourhoods, I think I was forced to understand that people can be bad. People are bad. It's exhausting. Like, you have to look over your shoulders every 2 minutes, you have to maneuver your moves into society so you can decide who you can trust and who you can't. It's like a never-ending effort that never quite works anyway. Our spouses still cheat on us, our parents lie, our friends talk about us behind our back, I mean what's the point?

Being in love, I think is a gift. Because for that period of time, you can become the most positive person you can be. The only misery might be your struggle to be the best. That struggle, that fight, worth more than you can think.

Being in love is a process. Not a destination.
If only.. we can learn to fall in love with each other just a little bit more, don't you think the world would be just a little bit better?

On Being Forced Out of Love and Not Being Able to Do Anything.

Do you know the feeling when you're really devastated you can't even cry anymore? All you can do is to keep breathing, and feel every fragment of yourself vanishes as you let that last breath go. It's like giving up, but by force. It's like losing you beliefs for yourself and everything around you. Like you finally realized, the happy ending you wanted isn't for you.

As you breathe, and you breathe, and you breathe for so long it's like you're going numb. Except for that tiny tingling hint of pain you feel in every joint in your body that keeps you longing for a painkiller. That keeps the urge of crying without a single drop of tear exists.

It's like losing your options when you're ready to choose.
Like loving someone, and lose.


... and in the end, you alone are going to feel what you feel. Until your body crumbles, as you watch your soul.. walk away.

Filosofi Gula

kok kosong rasanya kata-kata itu
seperti icing sebuah cupcake yang meskipun di sayang-sayang nantinya akan habis juga.
lalu harus dimakan atau nggak sih?
icing itu kan cuma kumpulan gula, dengan bentuk dan warna
tapi memang hanya gula.
pemanis.
seperti gulali di Fatahillah
dimasukkan mulut, dirasakan manisnya, tapi cepat sekali hilangnya.
lalu coklat
coklat susu. hmmmm. ups. ternyata coklat itu pahit kan?

jadi sebenarnya buat apa?
kalau pemanis itu cuma tipuan yang berlangsung sebentar?
hanya seperti gula kah?
yang menurut lidahku juga bukan makanan yang friendly.
atau seperti seporsi makan siang 4 sehat 5 sempurna?
sehat, enak, beragam, dan melengkapi satu sama lain.



PS : ya, gue lagi puasa. jadi begini.

sweet cakes and milkshakes.

it's monday morning and i'll be missing you a whole week. say hi, dear, to my new blog. :)