I’m leaving for France this afternoon. Slight fear has kept me company since yesterday. Spent the day with friends and family; running from one Dutch city to another to enjoy their company and say my goodbyes. It scares me how everything is changing so quickly; it left me inert. Like a train coming into a station, it rests for some time but it knows not too get too cozy because it is leaving again in a couple of minutes. It’s tired but time is ticking to its next schedule. Before it has to leave again to another world, another reality.

I guess I am still rather scared, I have to admit, but I think it helps when I realize that I myself is the conductor who set the schedule. The one and only person who are able to write the time and destinations on the board. That no matter how hard it may seem at the time, I wouldn’t have it otherwise.

A funny thing happened last night when I was waiting for my train back to Rotterdam. It wasn’t coming for another 20minutes so I decided to be a loner and sit all the way at the end of the perron. It was before I took my seat that I noticed that the red plastic seats are lightly engraved; travelling quotes to accompany travelers as they wait for their trains. It quickly amused me, and before long I was reading through it with a smile. It was what I needed, and the unexpectedness of the encounter baffled me, leaving traces of joy in that cold, rainy and windy night in Holland.

I think I am ready to go.


--

The soul of a journey is liberty, liberty to think, feel and do as one pleases. –Unknown

How strange it is for one can feel at home when someone is around, regardless of the geographical location? When the country, the flat that you call home for 2 years suddenly become where you wish you are not in.

The train rides were pleasant, quiet but pleasant. I had hoped that silence would prepare one's self to be away from another. I hoped and hoped. As the train drove along the Rhine, through the mountains and little houses on the river banks, I had to stop myself from looking, for I know there is nothing but an empty chair next to me.

Everything reminds me of you. The walk back from the station, the short trip to do groceries, even a casual visit to the post office. I came home to an empty flat filled with memories, with things as the way we had left it before our trip. Everything seemed to be the same but I know it is not.

At that point, one's brain decided to rationalize. To pack the day with chores, anything to occupy one's brain as not to think. But can one really do that, can one truly exclude memories that kept on shoving itself back to one's mind? I think it's possible, yet dissapointed at the gap between how strong I would like to be and how strong I actually am.

Perhaps it was self-defense, that my brain started to lay down the facts. That we are not that far from each other, that it is only temporary and surely we will have the time of our lives in our respective countries. Rationalizing is what one is trained to do, yet for once emotions hold one captive for the time being.

I wanted to get some cheese and saw a pack of mini-mozarellas. I turned, but there was noone grinning, hinting his explicit love for those soft cheese balls.

I wrote, watched TV, read, ate, laughed, talked, smiled, unpacked, packed, cleaned. But just as I thought that I am OK, that the worst is over did it start again. The longing, the gripping feeling of homesickness.

Is it possible for one to be homesick not to one's home, but to someone that makes one feels at home? Is so, can one still call it homesickness? Or is it mere exagerations, simple tricks one's mind falls for when blinded by emotions? Of missing someone and wishing that one can wake up, stretch one's arm to realize that the other is still sleeping soundly even when it's time to be awake?

It feels like a disease. A disease evoked by certain details, certain images and memories. It took hold of one's heart, making it feel like some part is missing, a little part of void.

I will be stronger. I want to be stronger. Bit by bit, I'll try to bridge that gap and hopefully learn something from this. Because I believe that life goes on. On it goes, and oh how wonderful it is and will always be.

Du fehlst mir.

Danke.

As I watch you in the other room,
playing with your kitten
patronizing it

Böse Katze, you said playfully.

I sit here and type
as I try to preserve that in my memory
with the idea of leaving looming in mind

I began to dread each passing hour
for it reminded me of the trainride back
the trainride away
to a room filled with memories.

I think a part of why I am so koala-bear-ish today
is because I realized that

you are going to France soon.

I know.

This is why girls buy jeweleries

"Ketut percaya takdir?"

"Tentu. Agama saya mengajarkan begitu."

"Hmm..."

--


When I was in Bali for a mini vacation with my parents last week, I made a spontaneous visit to a medicine man in Ubud. I wasn't sure why I went there. I have to admit my intentions were purely out of curiosity; he was the medicine man described in a novel which was recently made into a movie. I arrived in his house sometime after lunch time. His house was typical Balinese, greeting visitors with the traditional brick-doorway. I walked in slowly, unsure of how to behave. His house was surprisingly spacious with little huts where one can sit on while enjoying the calm Balinese air.

Curiosity filled me as I walked into his open house. His pet birds chirped harmoniously. Suddenly I heard a voice saying hello, a voice that instructed me to come in and sit on one of the open huts. It was Ketut Liyer, a 96yo traditional Balinese medicine man, obviously focused on carving a brass piece with some Balinese transcriptions meant as a charm for a newly born Balinese baby who wouldnt stop crying. He asked me to sit next to him, smiled sidely and asked for me to wait for a second.

"I will finish this first, only little time wait please. Very sorry," he said in his broken English.

I sat talking to him for nearly 2hrs while he finished the charm. After he was finish with the inscriptions, he laid out a piece of white cloth, put the brass piece on it and folded it into a little pouch. He worked timidly for someone in their late nineties. He did it all himself, even the tricky business of inserting the end of the thread onto the needle before he started sewing steadily. I offered to help but he laughed and said that it was not necessary. "Saya harus latihan, must practice my eyes."



I noticed his eyes which was strangely blue. I found it fascinating, a solid contrast to his dark brown skin.

We talked about little things in general with nothing in particular to begin with. At one point, he asked why did I come to his house. I couldn't answer for I know little of the true reason myself. I said I was just curious, I read about him in the novel. He laughed and said that he's afraid. He said that he didn't write the book, which propelled him to fear that he might not be what others went seeking for. What others expect to get when they went and see him.

I smiled in complete agreement, and we talked some more. Suddenly he looked straight at me and said: "Nanti kamu saya ramal ya." I was surprised. "Oh baik," I somehow responded. He continued working on the little pouch-charm as I sat there and listened to him.

All of the sudden, I was filled with a strange feeling. An infliction of shame. I realized then and there why I was there. I read the novel, and by myself was filled with an expectation that he will say things to me that will somehow change my life. Words or prophecies that can provide comfort and change when there is no particular need for them. An instant answer for a question that I do not yet have. Curiosity propelled by an expectation.

All these realization made me think. How could one seek an answer from an almost toothless medicine man that have never met, know nor think of us beforehand? I sat there thinking to myself. I came there with an expectation that I was unconsciously filled with, an expectation based on no reasonable basis. I did not even have a particular issue I'd like to talk about. I felt slight shame of my unapparent intentions.

Human actions can somehow be driven by such unconscious motivations that surprises one when one stop for a while and think of it.

When he was done with the baby's puny white-pouch-cloth-charm, he turned to me and read my face, my palm and my back. I listened respectfully. Something my sister said during one of our random late-car-ride-conversations struck me. It is the process and not the destination that really counts. The acknowledgement that there will be no instant solution coming from a merry-eyed medicine man in Bali for the questions or problems one may have. Those questions are reserved for me and myself only, something to talk about with my heart.

He told me that I have two very fragrant lotuses on my back, I am very lucky. "You very lucky!" he said, "harus berhati-hati. Must be careful! Dengarkan hatimu if make decision. No regrets."

I laughed.

--

The next day I went to a jeweler and bought myself a little silver lotus bracelet. Something to remember him by. Something to remind me how lucky I am. On the car ride to my grandmother's house, I was filled with thoughts. I looked outside, lost in my thoughts. As I rolled the gemstones on my bracelet, my thoughts were on my breathing. It is indeed the process that makes life so much more interesting.

D: HAU! You're finally online! :)

H: I know! How are you?

D: Am good. You?

H: Just want to let you know that I just killed a fly.

D: Ew.

H: ? No something white came out!

D: EW.

H: ! It was pregnant!!

D: Ewww Hau! You child murderer!

H: Sabrina said the exact same thing. U FREAKS!

D: Imagine the child's future... Shattered due to a brute Hamster. If it was a boy... Imagine its little female fly bride... Its first steps... First wing... Imagine the look on the fly mom's face when she saw him first fly :'(

H: If you want it I'll drop it in your mailbox later.

D: You're not burying it?? Omw... Imagine the fly dad... Wanting to bring flowers and visit his brutally murdered wife and son... His world shattered...

Imagine him sitting alone at the corner of your room, singing.

Aaaaaaaall by myseeeeeeeeeeeeeelf...

H: I think he's moved on to another woman.

D: ...dont wanna beeee...

...all byyyyy MYYYYYSEEEEEEEEEEEEELFFF...

--

Tu me manques :)

Someone told me once that time is relative. The concept felt familiar, yet completely new in hindsight. People always say that time flies when we're having fun, while ticks excruciatingly slow when we're inflicted by adversities. I have always felt it as well, yet never explicitly thought about.

Time, or the lack thereof, always in a way scares me a little. I always imagine a giant sand-clock, draining inevitably, steadily. Attempts to make it slower is futile, for it is beyond one's control.

Last year I read this novel called The Time Traveller's Wife. Now I rarely read Romance, let alone Fantasy-Romance, but I found this book interesting. The girl, Claire, fell in love with the guy when he time travelled to the time when she was 9yo. He came from the time in which they were happily married in the future. He came because she described to him how they met, how she fell in love with him without even knowing by then. For him, time travelling is like sneeze that one can't control. The way it works is that he basically travells to moments that are dear to his heart, moments so precious even without him realizing.

I like that concept.

The idea that moments, memories have some kind of a pulling force. Our lives gravitating around it, defined by it. I find this intriguing.

One of my bad habits is that I think too much. Running around in my head in the attempt to make sense of it all, to find meanings beneath the surface. In a way I think it's a defense mechanism that is unfortunately clipped in me. It is an addiction that I have been trying to battle out of fear. Fear of thinking, of peeling for meanings, any meaning, when there is none. When one should merely be in the moment and nothing else.

When it's meant to be, then it's meant to be. There is nothing one can do to escape it. No point in trying desperately to prolong it, let alone hasten it.

If my heart is meant for you, then it is meant for you.

If not, then the end becomes merely a moment. A moment that will one day makes me think, hopefully with a smile etched on my lips. But for the time being, let me just be in the moment.