Entah kenapa hari itu, common sense lagi ambil cuti: aku langsung naik saja taksi pertama yang berhenti, tanpa mengecek warnanya biru berlogo burung atau bukan.

Kalimat pertama yang si pak supir ucapkan, setelah tujuan ditentukan:
“Non, saya tanya ya, situ cines kan?”
“E? Maap pak, apa?”
“Cines? Cines, cines, itu loh, orang cina?”
“Ooo..hh, iya pak, kenapa?” Pertanyaannya sudah cukup aneh dan sangat terus terang, sistem pertahananku langsung naik…

Terus dia nyerocos tentang temannya (lebih tepat disebut mantan teman) di Bandung, seorang Chinese, yang banyak si bapak ini bantu saat masih di akademi militer.
“Kalo ada apa-apa dia itu minta bantunya ke saya lho” “Tapi terakhir ke Bandung, kok lagaknya acuh kayak ga kenal gitu lho” “Masa kayak begitu, padahal dulu sudah saya anggap keluarga sendiri”
Aku manggut-manggut dan mengerutkan kening sepantasnya di kursi belakang, tak tahu dia bisa lihat atau tidak. Defense mechanism full sekarang.

Pertanyaan selanjutnya: “Nah sekarang pertanyaan saya, apa semua orang cines itu begitu?”
Setelah menunjukkan sikap tidak setuju dan mengatakan bahwa temannya (ex-temannya) bukan karena Chinese jadi tidak tahu diri, tapi karena memang pada dasarnya tidak tahu diri, orang seperti itu jangan dianggap teman pak; aku agak lega karena kelihatannya si bapak puas dengan jawabanku.

Di tengah macetnya bunderan menuju perhentian bus, dia bertanya lagi, tentang politik kali ini.
“Kalau situ, nanti pemilu presiden, bakal milih siapa?”
(Alarm di kepala bilang, ‘hati-hati’)
“Wah, kalo saya sih, masih nunggu ya pak, kampanye mereka nanti ngomongnya apa.”
“Ah, kalo saya sih ya, jujur aja, udah nentuin pilihan langsung, pasti SBY.”
(Alarm berhenti, lumayan lega denger jawabannya.)
“Ya habis yang laen tuh ya, Prabowo dan Wiranto kan militer, bakal kacau jadinya.”

Tepat hari itu baru dikeluarkan pengumuman daftar harta cawapres, dengan Prabowo memiliki aset paling banyak sebesar 1.7 triliun rupiah. Si bapak bilang, “Ah nggak mungkin segitu.”
“Lebih banyak ya pak?”
“Ya kurang lahhh” (nadanya menguliahi anak SD) “Coba situ bayangin, kalau diperiksa lagi setahun ke depan dan kekayaannya cuma nambah sedikit, kan ga akan dicurigai, padahal sebenarnya lebih banyak tapi nggak kelihatan.”
Dan dia memberikan analogi karung yang seolah-olah gembung tapi isinya udara–saat karung itu benar-benar diisi emas, orang tak akan curiga.
“Menurut saya, asetnya yang saham itu juga tidak benar… pasti dia mbantu pengusaha terus dikasih saham kosong, begitu…”

Saat ini kecurigaan sudah berubah menjadi keheranan dan kekaguman pada si bapak supir taksi.

“Coba saya tanya, situ kerjanya di bidang apa?”
“Properti pak.”
“Nah coba pikir, kalau situ ada proyek bagus, terus JK yang pengusaha mau juga, dia bisa pakai kekuatan militer buat ambil dari tangan situ. Kan jadi situ yang rugi.”
“Ya iklan boleh bilang dia bantu rakyat kecil, tapi buktinya mana, malah kekayaannya yang nambah.”

Aku manggut-manggut. Mengiyakan. Sepanjang jalan, sepanjang 45 menit kemacetan jam bubar kantor di Jakarta, aku mendengarkan, manggut-manggut, dan belajar banyak tentang politik militer Indonesia.
Dari seorang supir taksi sederhana.
Yang ketajaman pikiran dan kehausan akan pengetahuannya lebih dalam daripada kebanyakan orang bergelar sarjana yang kukenal. Yang kecintaannya pada bangsa tidak membuatnya berpahit-pahit dalam kesulitan hidup. Yang dalam pekerjaannya mencari nafkah, membuat perubahan dalam hidup orang-orang yang ditemuinya. Salah satunya, aku.

Aku menanyakan namanya, kalaupun tidak akan pernah bertemu lagi, setidaknya untuk disimpan dalam hati.

Di manapun bapak sekarang, pak, semoga Tuhan pelihara selalu. Mari sama-sama berdoa semoga presiden baru nanti bisa membawa Indonesia lebih baik lagi.

No books, no soft toys.

(You guessed right… this post has nothing whatsoever to do with caterpillars)

Is what the my surgeon told me. After my sinus surgery, it is imperative that I live in a very controlled environment–no stray dust or mold or mites can be allowed. In the olden days before Kindle, I would have squirmed and protested. No books on my desk? No books on my bedside table? No BOOKS? I can’t imagine a bedroom without books. Those who know me well know that books have a tendency to appear and accummulate in my bedroom. Over the course of any one week a half dozen books seem to have teleported themselves to my room.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I was told I was to live in a bedroom without books. That is, if I hadn’t had my Kindle

With Kindle now on my bedside table, it’s like sleeping with piles and piles of books in the room, with barely enough space for the bed. Imagine a heavily-curtained reading room, Victorian style, with big heavy books in tall wooden armoires, and me cuddled with a blanket in the middle of the books. Only, there are no books. Just one Kindle.

Someone has to tell Jeff Bezos that this is another accomplishment to be written on Kindle’s FAQ: Sinusitis-safe, rhinitis-safe, recommended for post-septoplasty-turbinoplasty-surgery care.

I’m not saying anything about the girls being underage or not, but here are the hard facts I know:

• My grandfather (who was born in China and later immigrated to Indonesia) didn’t know his own birthday, not even the year he was born–I don’t believe the Chinese bureaucratic system has changed that much to allow for perfect accuracy in signing birth certificates and stuff.
• My aunt is 5′ and 77 lbs. She had given birth to two sons.
• Asian girls tend to have menstruation later in life than American girls (I think it’s something in the American diet of fried chicken, burger, and frozen meals that affect Americans’ growth hormones) thus they still grow taller even after they’re 16 years old.
• Asian people look younger than their actual age if judged base on Western standards. I’m 26 and people still ask me whether I’m a junior or a senior in college.

Discovery channel has a coverage about Chinese school for gymnasts: the school doesn’t accept kids over 4 years old, and they trained them for a year before determining whether or not they have ‘promising’ talent. The untalented ones get thrown out, and their parents said goodbye to the tuition fee. So 5-year-old kids are trained ruthlessly, 24/7, their bones and muscles twisted and bent and turned and trained in such a way that they almost always cry in pain; they go on in this fashion for 10 or so excruciating years…to win gold medals in the Olympic Games. And along with their gold medals, $100K and lifelong support for their family from the government. Should we criticize and demean this way of life by accusing them for being underage?

Kalau orang Indonesia belum bisa (eksplorasi migas), biarin aja minyaknya diem dalam tanah!

Kwik Kian Gie, sebagaimana dikutip oleh Chatib Basri (tangan kanan Dr. Sri Mulyani, Menkeu Republik Indonesia) (maafkan untuk segala kesalahan dalam penulisan nama)

Kalau Indonesia masih sebegitu primitifnya, untuk selalu mencurigai setiap kucuran modal asing yang masuk, ngga heran negara tercinta ini ngga maju-maju… Exxon, BP, Itochu… bukan berarti perusahaan multinasional hanya memiliki motif mulia untuk melakukan eksplorasi di negara dunia ketiga. Ledakan pipa gas di Afrika (Shell), corporate IRresponsibility, dll. Tapi sikap seperti itu, bukankah termasuk fundamentalisme? Kesempitan pikiran, harga diri yang mengarah pada arogansi.

Tapi dunia semakin rata (mengutip Thomas Friedman), globalisasi membawa semua orang sebagai individual memiliki kekuatan untuk bersuara, berkreasi, dan mensabotase.

Siapa sebenarnya warganegara Indonesia? Pendatang dengan hati yang mencintai dan ingin memajukan Indonesia, ataukah anak bangsa yang dididik di luar negeri dan tidak lagi mencintai tanah air? Jawabannya terserah Anda. Toh di dunia global sekarang ini, kita semua adalah warganegara DUNIA.

Death marches with Time, its shadows lengthening with each year that we pass.

The first experience of Death might be a great grandparent–as young children, we don’t notice the details. It just happened: they just passed away. They simply are NOT anymore. Life is too full of other things to learn, too full of pretty things, Death is just a mere nightmare for children.

By our second experience of Death, it’s starting to flex its grip on us. We accompany a loved one through stages of Death: sickness, hospitalization, episodes of goodbyes, and the end. It started to dawn on us that death is a reality, and it’s ugly. But deep down we still think that Death is still a long way away. In our 20s or 30s, our health is a good distraction, banishing the shadows of Death to a corner.

By adulthood, Death plays a game of catch-up with Time: one-by-one, like leaves falling in the autumn, we see our friends leaving us, and Death intimately shares with us its darkness. And we begin to expect it to come down on us anytime.

When the time comes, how will I cope with Death?

Some go in and come back out / Some go in to stay for a while / Some go in and come out incomplete / Yet others / They go in to pass to the other Side

“Hospital”

The last time I went to visit my boyfriend, somehow I managed to get engaged.

I said “I managed” (instead of “we managed”) because of a theory I recently thought out. I hypothesized that:

1. The culture we belong to influences our dating style (for the sake of simplicity, I made a Great Cultural Divide between West and East)
2. Western guys (the bules) tend to resist falling in love; Eastern guys tend to find ‘the one’ fairly easily
3. Eastern guys, however, after being in a relationship, tend to shy away from lifelong commitment; Western guys fall into that status fairly easily (provided they already found their lifemate)

I know a bule who dated an endless line of girls during high school and college, and resisted staying in a relationship for longer than 6 months. Then suddenly he met a wonderful girl, decided she’s his love of a lifetime, fought for her, overcame differences (and his allergy for ‘exclusive’ relationship), and off he married her. The chain of events seemed to go in an uninterrupted flow.

I also know a Chinese guy who dated his high-school sweetheart for 11 years, never experiencing on-and-off periods (like other puppy love couples), but still felt he’s not ready to commit himself to marriage. In the end the girl got tired of waiting for him and married another guy.

So, the next stage of my hypothesis goes as follows:

1. Western guys stay in their boyish mindset UNTIL they meet their lifemate; only then would they start maturing up
2. Eastern guys stay in their boyish mindset UNTIL they decide to get married; only then would they start maturing up
3. (Although, to be honest, I never believe that boys can be anything other than boys

Going back to my opening statement: because I haven’t figured out the real reason both categories of guys decide to ‘take the next step’, I concluded that it must be due to some external force. In my case, the ‘external force’ would probably be me. Although what exactly did I do, I don’t know…

Ah… but all is well.

Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?

Love is the ability to make the invisible visible and the desire always to fell the invisible in one’s midst.

From “My Name Is Red”, Orhan Pamuk

It’s not some far-fetched scientific romance or Huxleyan novel. We live in parallel worlds, with its own governments, its own social order, its own miseries and victories.

Say I’m a young career woman working in shopping center management, I like reading and writing novels, and I participate in a choir. So my parallel worlds consist of: workplace (further divided into: retail industry, Indonesia region, management), art community (with subcategories: writers, singers, photographers),  and status (under: career women, second generation Chinese Indonesians, the affluents). Not to mention oddball categories like: people who are good in analyzing data, people who lived abroad, etc.

Within those worlds I have a separate identity, I occupy differing social order, I attain certain status. Am I making you confused? Maybe the simplest way to break it down is this way: each world has its own CELEBRITIES. In my singers world I worship world-class divas and I don’t count much as a photographer, but in the clique of career women, people look up to me.

So a person who is nothing in world A can be a celebrity in world B. The worlds can be as narrow as you make it (appendicitis surgeons, hurricane hunters, non-profit workers in Mali), and it will still have its own social order.

I think it’s born out of our need (that is, us self-centered humans’ need) for recognition. It may not be conscious, and in itself it will create nothing (just a craving to be famous maybe), but a collective unconscious create these parallel worlds, so we can excel in at least one of our parallel worlds.

yep.worklife is affecting my mind.cut my brain and it’ll look like some rorschach monster.it’s taking too much memory space,i’m running out of built-in RAM.i lost my writing mood,i lost my chatting mood,i even lost my calling-boyfriend-mood.

I saw a school of butterflies, flitting up and down around a tree crowded by red blossoms. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, blinding me sometimes, shielding the delicate yellow wings from my sight. They flipped, flirted, three-some-ing and enjoying the gentle breeze that almost seemed to blow them away from their flight.
I don’t know what they meant. More than anything, they’re a good omen for me. It’s not weather change. It’s not good weather. It’s not pretty blossoms. It’s not fragrant flowers. Maybe it’s a foresight of a good day ahead that attracted them.
Their wings sprayed pollens of tenderness, every flap a tranquil whisper of peace. They know only to fly and feed on sweet nectar. They know not despair, or sadness, or envy. And at least at that instant, they know not pain. If only we could live like the flight of the butterflies. Weightless, carefree, a mirror of happiness, total surrender to God, at peace with everything.

Recently I’ve been thinking about all vanities in this world. Fashion, status, knowledge, even health. Accumulation of which doesn’t mean a thing. At the end it will be a straight line, a nothing. Zip. And what matters is not who we are for others, not who we are for ourselves, but who we are in front of Him who judges everything with justice.

You gotta know / this much is true / I love you / to my best knowledge / of what love means
And I’m learning / to love you more / but this love of mine / is for who you are at heart / not outwardly / not emotionally
I love you