Recently, there has been a strange development in my nocturnal activities: I have started beading and making my own bracelets. Hours would past unnoticed while I try to combine colors into a harmony that I would wear and later undo the next day as I would be no longer satisfied with it. Days would past like this, elastic strings attached and dis attached, beads joined and separated once more. Happy.

Last Saturday, I decided to visit the traditional local crafts market whose name is legendary for the creative bunch that by all account excludes me; visible in how lost I was throughout my entire stay there, as evident by the number of people asking me which store I am looking for in the sincere pity for a lost duck.

I wandered around, amused by everything yet anxious of finding anything. I walked out of the last beads store in vain, ready to give up for the day, to the music of traditional Indonesian acoustic. I walked aimlessly, nostalgic from the little carts selling the simple delicacies of my childhood. I walked through the textile stores selling cloths, where the Indian and Indonesian owners called out for the wandering to pay a visit through their prided collections.

Suddenly, my gaze was stolen and frozen on a dark brown silk Batik that flows down the headless mannequin's contoured cotton body with the splendors of hand-painted golden flowers near her ankle. Despite my complete lack of basic sewing or other cloth-processing awareness, I walked in and left with 2m of it. All the while, the musicians played on in the humid heat of the outdoors.

I felt like a Javanese princess, electronic readers, it was so beautiful that this simple act remained with me until today.