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Showing posts from 2011

2011

Hwell well ... year of 2011 was the most tiring year I ever been through. It was the year of lost and found. The loss taught me how to survive, the found taught me how to learn myself again and to believe there was always hope. Somehow the lost and found made me stronger now.  2011 was also the year of getting back home, the year of fixing up domestic matters literally and tidied up my emotion to their respective shelves. That was why, for some, I was hard to find. Because I folded in my wings and put my priorities only to closest people who kept me stronger. 2011 that was, ... the year of hitting the lowest point yet gave me the highest bounce so far. I loved it.  There are some highlights I want to share, yet I see it as a learning not regret.  On marriage After some rocky era I finally decided to let go of it. It was sad however, to realize both of us were in love when we were young but then grew apart when we grew up. I tried, my best, but it is always takes two to tango. We

The day I doubt my dream

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Today is December 1 st 2011, the day when a parent got very sad because of their daughter was cancelled to enter the Elementary School because of a stupid reason: he is the daughter of an HIV+ father. But me, I cannot believe myself what I am holding now: an acceptance letter of Malicca joining a school.   To tell you the truth, I fell in love with the philosophy of the school from the first time I came to its Open House. I think it was when Malicca was about two years old. Being pessimistic about its tuition, and so I thought getting to the school can only be a dream. But like people say, don’t ever underestimate the power of dream. And from what I am holding now, yet I still think it is a dream. Is it coming true? Is it what is best for my son? After all these years of looking, is it the best one I have been looking for? Is this it? Is it the one? Up to this moment, I still do not know the answer whether it is the best school for my son, or not. The

Knalpot UFO

Kejadian ini terjadi saat aku lagi anterin Titan ke sekolah naik ojek pagi ini. Tiba-tiba dia tanya: T: Nda, UFO itu ada knalpotnya nggak? Me: Ada (being sok tau) T: Dimananya? Di bawahnya kan pintu masuk. Di samping-sampingnya, gitu? Kecil-kecil di sekeliling UFO-nya?  Me: Hmm... nanti bunda cari tahu dulu deh T: Nanti kalau udah tahu, telfon Titan ya Nda! Me: hmmm (mikir) A few hours later, I called him from the office. Me: Titan, aku belum nemu knalpot UFO-nya niy... jadi belum bisa jawab.  T: Nggak papa, nanti kalau udah ada telfon lagi ya. Me: Iya, bunda cari terus lagi yah.  T: Iya. Dadaaaaah Oh, ... how empathetic a 4 years old son can be? I said to myself. And this is what I love about having kids, little people to grow with. They give reasons to catch up with things I'd never thought I need to know. After a few hours of Googling and you tube-ing, I finally found that UFO is predicted to have exhaust pipe although it is not like the one we know. Yes, it was not literally

Rainbow and the magic pond

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He had deep hazel eyes, tanned skin and feet as skinny as a bean stalk. He was an orphan and was very lonely. His best friends were the golden grass in the savanna. The forest ferns, the morning dew, the smell of rain when they touch the soil, the chirping birds, the bright blue sky and blinking stars, the marching ants and caterpillars, and other beautiful creatures around him. When the morning came, he woke up and greeted those wonderful things. He walked slowly and chanted beautiful prayers to them. One day, it was raining and it washed away the colours of his surroundings. The green leaves, the shocking pink flower, the soil, the black tarantula, even his own skin had became dull. What was happening? The boy wondered. Not long after that, the rain stopped and the sun came out. He came out of his shelter and looked up the sky. ...he saw a colourful painting in the sky he had never seen before. It was a rainbow. He mesmerised of it

Lentera Langit

"Dulu, dulu sekali. Langit begitu terang benderang dengan kemilau bintang. Semua saling beradu jauh melemparkan cahayanya. Tidak, mereka tidak akan membutakanmu. Cahaya mereka begitu terang, namun juga begitu lembut. Cahaya gemintang itu akan terbias di bola mata mereka yang kamu sayang saat kamu memandangnya. Di langit yang dulunya terang itulah duduk seorang peri di ujung biduk rembulan dengan cahayanya yang temaram. Sendirian dan kedinginan, ia memandang ke kejauhan. Di belakangnya, menggantunglah lentera-lentera langit malam yang biasa kamu sebut bintang. Dan peri dengan sayap kecil inilah yang menjaga agar lentera-lentera itu agar senantiasa bercahaya. Sayap kecilnya telah mengantarnya menjelajah angkasa selama jutaan tahun lamanya. Ia berkelana mencari bintang-bintang yang mulai temaram. Dan jari-jarinya yang mungil akan menggosok permukaan setiap bintang supaya kembali bercahaya. Dan ia akan mengecupnya, supaya apinya kembali terang. Seperti dulu. Tiba – tiba s

The blog of mommahood

Hello, here comes my other blog :) a blog that is made to share my joyful days being a mother of Malicca titan . enjoy y'all! :)

Finding alternatives

First of all, I am not an education expert. This writing is based on experience and mostly, assumptions. I am not a lifetime learner I want to have double or triple degree after my name. I believe I don't have enough space in my brain to commit myself for another long-term study. My neurons died long ago. This writing is a piece from a mother who is still looking for best alternatives for his son's education. Here the story goes.  I have a son who is going to enter his early education program in the near future. He is four now. Based on some literatures I read, age of 5 is the ideal age to get formal education. So... yeah, I basically have another 6 months before he reaches the age of 5 but I practically have lesser than 4 months to decide which school he'll be joining.  I don't know, much, about education and its system in this country. But I do know exactly what I don't want. That is, I don't want my son to get stressed about his school things.

Titik terang

Hari ini.  Sebuah sinar membias di jendela Dari satu titik yang terang di luar, menembus panel jendela dan menyelinap tisikan tirai Terburai menjadi salur-salur yang kadang ada lalu tiada Kadang emas, kadang putih Kadang panjang bersambung, kadang pendek dan terputus-putus Mengendap dan menyelinap Melemah sampai akhirnya ia kalah ditelan ruang Besok. Berharap sinar yang sama akan datang kembali Makanya mala mini harus bersiap-siap Membuka daun jendela dan menyingkap tirai Biar dingin menyelimuti hanya untuk semalam Yang penting, pasti Hangatnya sampai ke wajah Dan membangunkanku dari mimpi

Let's talk about being single

Without having much to say, being single means having a simpler life. Happier? It’s another thing. Happiness is somewhere hiding on which angle we want to see. Hence, happiness is relative. But simpler life as a single is an absolute. Being single has every meaning of having much time to think about our self. To decide and responsible for your self. To broaden or shrink life options on your own hand. The era when the world evolves around us. The self centered phase to glorify the ‘me time’ moment. If you are a single now and life is complicated enough for you, maybe you should take a detour of your life. Having someone with an expectation he / she will to help you tosimplify your life; is obviously and definitely not the answer. Afraid to be alone? Well, some of us do. But why do you have to feel alone when you have yourself? You have your dreams, you have things you love to do, you have your feet to bring you anywhere you possibly go, you have your mind to take

Me. Now.

Lately, I have been hearing some friends of mine (and to be honest, including me) are busy asking their friends and (of course) asking themselves, whether they are going to stay in advertising industry for (at least) another five years. While some others have started to grow their own business, we are still trying to figure out what we would do in our old days. Still we haven’t figured out yet, let alone of making the first step. If I were asked why I jumped in to advertising, all I can say is … it’s a coincidence. I always want to major psychology, but one day on a lovely day, I read a poster about this newly opened major in University of Indonesia: Advertising, and I found some interesting subjects in it. So, I stripped down my choices in majoring psychology in Atma Jaya and let go my privilege in joining Mandarin literary in University of Indonesia and jumped myself in to the advertising subjects. The question itself, leads to another question: why is it copywrit

With a blink of your eyes

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"Momentum, momentum, momentum. That is all you need to win a chance." Said my CEO in my previous office. For a real businessman like him, maybe predicting a momentum is an art. To analyze the timing of when to pull or push barriers toward chances. To juggle alternatives and quickly make a decision. Then with all the guts, do the maneuver to get what we intended. . Snap! Only with a blink of our eyes, things change. Only in a split seconds, we could fall in love. Only with a sip of a coffee cup, you might get an idea to start your own business. Only with a blink of my eye that beat my eleven years experience doing the safety driving, I hit a truck. There is always a first time for everything. Today, it took me a blink away.

Talking to a Venus citizen

How long have we, man and woman, live together? Why until the day I am standing still, it is so hard for me to understand what a man is saying and why is it so hard for them to listen to what we are saying? Why when we meant good thing it many times end up contrary. This is why ‘How to’ (in this case: talk) to people (in this case: a woman) is important. And to all men in the world, I will reveal you one thing about woman: women love to be asked, either it’s a simple question or a hard-slap one like “How are you feeling?” or “In what stage is the life you are living now?” If only word comes in a tangible, soft and easy to shape like play dough, it would be very nice wouldn’t they? No matter what you want to say whether they are I love you, I am sad, I am disappointed, I wish you did that, I am happy or whatever, the shape and the colors of the dough is what most important. Because words are only words, and we do not have enough vocabularies to describe what our brain says or wha

Contact Report

For those who work in advertising and its related field, I bet you know what a Contact Report is. For those who listen this phrase for the first time, I will tell you what it is; as simple as I could. Basically, contact report is a meeting report that is made by account service department after the meeting and will be sent to all the meeting participants, usually through e-mails. Contact Report is made so everyone in the team aware of what has been presented in the meeting, what are the comments and what are the next steps for the next meeting. Everyone can shout any disagreements in the contact report before 24 hours after it released. That is the theory, which much different in reality. So you see how important a contact report is. But to tell you the truth, many of us related in the Contact Report thingy, take the Contact Report itself for granted. It is often abandoned. Neglected. Many times, everyone feels enough with their own notes on the meeting and just delete the c

Is this love?

I thought it was just another morning; to wake up, dive into Jakarta's traffic and finish piles of job requests before deadlines. But I was wrong, the morning was not as freezing as it'd been. I woke up and see the sun's ray get through the curtain and it gave me a little warmth on my cheek. My eyes were blinking, like a hamster awaken from its longest dream. My fingers run to the window pane and softly touched it. It's warm and clear. To my surprise, summer comes sooner. The little warmth this morning ignited a little idea in my head. It tucked me over and over like shoulder panes that sticking out, ready to be wings. Like saliva coming through my lips through a softest kiss. Is this love that warmth my day? Is this love? The idea of forgiving what happened and embrace the nemesis in me and in other's that infected my life. Is this love? The idea of keeping the hope alive and keep it protected from the ancient whirlwind that kept hunting it. Is this love?

18:45

Ada saatnya dimana segala sesuatu tetap tidak bisa mengisi relung yang satu itu Yang akan tetap mendengung lembut saat angin mencoba merasuk hingga menimbulkan rasa tertusuk Relung yang tetap merindu, dimana debu tak bisa menyapu gurat wajahmu meski dalam bayang Relung yang tetap bernyanyi melafalkan satu nama dan sebait doa untuk angin agar angin menghantarkannya ke seberang.

souls in shadows

menyapa sopan jiwa-jiwa yang kelam yang bayangnya ingin kupinjam hanya malam ini saja toh dia akan meninggalkanmu dalam gelap dan melayang, mengembara entah pergi kemana dan akan kusemat dia di sela jeda antara detak yang teratur saat surya menyapa dan bayangmu harus kembali  kan kuhembus paruh jiwaku kepadanya dan lahirlah aku di bayangmu agar saat gelap merayap dan dia pergi meninggalkanmu kamu tidak sendiri ada aku di sini.
Yuk terus berirama,  dengan tetap menyisakan sedikit ruang ketidakpastian.

Aku ingin ambilkan kamu bulan

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Aku ingin ambilkan kamu bulan Supaya orbitalnya berpindah kepadamu Dan kamu akan selalu berputar di sekelilingku Aku ingin ambilkan kamu bulan Supaya kamu tidak hidup di dalam bayang Supaya aku bisa menelusuri garis wajahmu karena kini kamu berdiri dalam terang Aku ingin ambilkan kamu bulan Supaya aku tidak perlu lagi menunggu malam hanya untuk bertemu kamu dalam mimpiku Aku ingin ambilkan kamu bulan Supaya hanya kamu yang bisa menarik gravitasiku Dan air pun memasang hingga asin bahagia berurai di mataku Aku ingin ambilkan kamu bulan Tapi sayang, … aku tidak bisa.   Karena aku menghitung demi purnama Hingga akhirnya ia mengizinkanku untuk bertemu denganmu

An interlude

"Can you sing real? Utter what your heart is really feel, instead of saying things that I want to hear. It is the only way my broken heart be healed."

Investment to be alive

This is a note to myself #2 People usually do invest on money to survive. But like investing our money, we can actually invest on ideas. Little by little, we do it every day in different forms, and we will see in the future which ideas have grown and survived the evolution. This is what I call an investment not only to survive, its to be alive.

Living a pie chart

This is a note to myself #1 The holy bible said that things will be beautiful on its own time. Some of us might think that momentum will determine everything, that when the time is right then everything would be beautiful. Yes, that is true. But, what if we see it from another angle. Why don’t we make something beautiful at every time? So it is like living a pie chart; when you diver your day into little chunks and you do different things you love in each chunk. Yes, you will not finish a project in a day, but at least you start many things little by little in every time. So the focus is not on the object you are doing, but on the subject instead. Focus on keep doing things.

A little thought for the future

Of all the things I am worried of growing a child, what I worried most is my child’s formal education or it’s what we usually call school education. Not to mention their emotional and spiritual growth is not important, but school education is something you need to think thoroughly because you can’t ever flipped back the pages you and your kids been through. Once we entered the system and that would be the path of how our kids deal with at least for a whole year through. To add with, we can’t ever forecast the future while we need to fill in our kids through education, for their future. I am one of the Indonesian massive public education graduates, and I am sorry to say that my times during school times were stressful. Not because I am too stupid, but in contrary, everything was based on academic and I was too stressful to maintain my position in the top scorer league. My objective was how to give perfect answers to all quizzes I had back then, not to understand of how things went lik

Cawan Rindu

Kamu dan aku, dengan gelas di hadapan. Milikku adalah panas menggelegak dengan sebongkah gula manis tenggelam di dasar cairan pekat tapi masih tembus pandang. Beberapa kuntum melati kering mengambang di permukaannya. Aku pun menunggu hingga kepulannya mereda hingga bisa kuseruput dengan ujung-ujung bibirku yang mulai mati rasa. Milikmu adalah segelas besar dengan asap yang juga mengepul dan butiran-butiran keringat meleleh di dindingnya. Juga pekat namun masih tembus pandang. Sekilas seperti minuman di hadapanku, tapi bukan. Ada sedikit buih menari-nari terombang ambing di permukaan mengikuti ayunan tangan sang pemilik gelas. Kuseruput pelan minumanku. Oh, minumanmu pun terguncang lagi. Ia mengalir membasahi bibirmu yang membiru di musim dingin dan mengguyur ujung-ujung syaraf di lidahmu yang kelu karena nikotin. Milikku juga mulai mengalir membasahi tenggorokanku, juga melalui ujung-ujung syaraf di lidah yang juga beku, rindu saling menyentuh lembut, bertaut dan berpagut. Ada

Ada apa dengan aku dan tulisan

Ada apa dengan aku dan tulisan-tulisanku belakangan ini? Kemana kata, kemana rima, kemana cerita, kemana rasa mendayu-dayu yang menguras air mata dan mengusung keagungan memulung serpih cinta? Apa iya kata-kata indah harus berpangkal rasa yang menyakitkan? Apa iya rangkaian makna harus berasal dari asa yang patah? Apa iya aku telah melewati itu semua sehingga semua perbendaharaan kata pun raib dengan mengeringnya air mata? Kalau memang iya, aku tak tahu harus sedih ataukah bahagia. Tapi aku tetap menulis, meski kini tulisanku lebih banyak tentang hari-hariku yang mungkin tak lagi puitis. Mungkin kata-kata sastra yang dalam itu terlipat diantara gurat-gurat rasa yang kini tak lagi melulu terungkap melalui tulisan tapi juga tertuang melalui sentuhan dan curahan perlakuan yang tak berkesudahan Ada apa dengan aku dan tulisan? Tetap mencinta, hanya saja bentuknya sedikit berbeda.

The hardest part

If only we don’t need any secure feeling, Maslow would not put it in the basic pyramid of human’s needs. But he eventually did, because he knows that secure feeling was very important for human beings, more importantly for their relationship with others. If we don’t need any secure feeling, we would easily trusted everyone who encountered our heart, and would always think that everything would be just fine even if we had to lose someone. If we don’t need any secure feeling, we would not be wondering. What about? … hell yeah about anything. “I just want to make sure.” Someone said the other day. “You just want to make sure that I love you, right? That I do need you, I care about you and I want you.” The other said, but it was only a heart whisper. "And if you are not sure enough that I love you, then nothing in this world can make you do." The other half heart whispered too. If we don’t need secure feeling, we would not be afraid of getting hurt as the linear consequence

In one of those days

One night, Titan was excitedly played with his new Mercedes coach bus I bought him that day. It was about seven o'clock he hadn't got his dinner. "Titan, it's dinner time. Let me prepare your dinner, okay?" "Yes, checked!" He said. Titan is still on the early stage of being bilingual, and he is a visual-oriented type of kid. A checked mark sign means okay for him, therefore he sometimes says "Checked" as in the meaning of "Okay". Then I started to prepare his meal. Tonight's menu is chicken soup and tofu croquette. Oh, I got starving as well. But it is a big no no for me to feed and eat at the same time for I would lose my appetite. But oh la la, soon as I finished preparing the meal, Titan suddenly said "Titan maunya scramble eggs aja. With cheese." Listened to what he said, I was very upset. I felt a bit tired that night and Titan needed to respect all kind of foods his mother prepared, I guess. "I have

Sekali lagi tentang cinta

Seorang perempuan terburu-buru memasuki rumah. Menaruh tas, duduk dan mengambil segelas minum dari dalam lemari es. Tak pernah rasanya ia sehaus malam ini. Dalam setiap geluguk air yang masuk ke tenggorokan, matanya pun menelan serpihan yang tersisa dari jelaga memori tentang rumah ini. Kemana mereka? Tanyanya dalam hati. Apakah aku terlalu lama di luar sehingga aku tak lagi menyadari adanya kehidupan di rumah ini? Tanyanya lagi. Lalu perempuan itu menarik nafas panjang. Terlalu lama mencari aku hingga kamu dan dia terlupakan. Katanya dalam hati. Sekarang satu sudah ketemu, tapi yang lain hilang. Seketika itu pula apa yang sudah ditemukan langsung terbang melayang.  Sendiri. Lagi. *** Seorang lelaki terus memutar filmnya, layaknya ialah sutradara sejati dan terbaik saat ini. Matanya lurus menatap ke depan seolah tertuju di satu titik. Di jari manisnya masih melingkar cincin pernikahannya dengan seorang lelaki lain yang sudah berubah menjadi seorang wanita, namun kini menghancu