Suddenly...

There are 9 more rabbits in our house.
Oh, well ....
You can read the complete story here

Hujan malam ini

Rintik yang meniti detik

Titik-titik yang menggenjot tirai malam,

Menyelimuti dunia dengan dinginnya

Dan menggelitik dengan embunnya, titik demi titik

Apa yang paling menyenangkan dari hujan? Untukku, saat bulirnya pertama kali menapak tanah lalu menyerap dan menguap membawa serta bau tanah dan rerumputan. Ingin rasanya mengumpul harumnya dalam botol, menutup lalu mendistilasinya. Akan kuhirup baunya, di suatu saat dimana aku rindu.

Waktu kecil, aku senang bermandi hujan. Berlari dan menari di tengahnya dan menengadah sambil memejam. Terasa bulir-bulir menjatuhi muka lalu perlahan menggelosor ke sela kaos dan celana dalam. Dingin. Satu-satunya cara untuk tetap hangat adalah dengan terus bergerak. Tertawa. Berbecek-becek menyiprat-cipratkan lumpur ke sekeliling. Hingga akhirnya mama memanggil dan menyuruhku mandi. Oh, tidak perlu air panas. Satu lagi yang menjadi kesukaanku. Setelah berhujan-hujan, air bak mandi pasti terasa hangat. Lalu kuguyur tubuh kecilku banyak-banyak.

Kebiasaanku menyambut hujan berubah saat remaja. Kini aku lebih suka menunggunya di teras rumah. Menunggu hujan angin yang kemudian menyapukan butir-butir air lembut ke wajahku. Lalu aku akan memejam, merasakan bajuku yang mulai lembab. Kemudian kuyup. Lalu kembali aku mandi dan menggelung di dalam selimut.

Satu dekade kemudian, aku lebih suka menyambut hujan dengan seseorang. Berdansa di tengahnya sambil mendengarkan musik kecil dari benang-benang putih yang merasuki telinga. Lalu aku akan mengalungkan tanganku ke lehernya dan menunggunya menciumku. Atau, aku menciumnya. Tak masalah.

Stop. Tidak pernah kejadian.

Pertama, karena tidak ada yang rela iPodnya kehujanan.

Ke dua, karena malu dilihat orang.

Ke tiga, takut ketagihan.

Heran betapa cepat aku menua. Karena kali ini, di usia ini, di malam ini, di detik ini, yang aku inginkan di saat hujan malam ini adalah bercerita. Kepada mereka, mahluk-mahluk kecil yang tak berdosa. Yang akan bergelung, berpasang-pasang kaki saling menumpang dan menindih dalam satu selimut besar bermotif kotak-kotak dan terbuat dari kain flannel. Lalu aku bercerita, tentang aku, tentang kakek nenek mereka, tentang kamu, tentang mereka, tentang mengapa kita semua di sini. Tentang apa saja.

Itu yang kuinginkan untuk hujan malam ini.

Have faith

Whoever found the phrase "as easy as 1, 2, 3 or a, b, c"... he or she is wrong.

Teaching how to write, to read and counting, are not easy. Let alone of the stress when we know other kids in her / his age, already read aloud. But don't ever let them put you in despair. Have a faith, that every kid has their own phase.

It took me a big fight with my conservative environment who could not stop asking my son "You are five, can you read yet?" or "Can you count to a hundred?" or "One plus one equals to?"

My son being my son, he only shrug his shoulder and leave.

My argument those days would be "When he starts reading is not important, what important is what his readings are."

Well, you can guess that my argument was not enough.

It is the era of child oriented learning based. If we take a mirror and see our reflection, seriously, do you feel satisfied with the way you brought up? the way you learn things at school? do you realize their future would be way harder than us? Do you realize our kids will live in a world we don't know? And if we, as parents, don't know how the world would be in the future, don't you think the best  we can do now is to guide our kids to know herself? Know her potential, limitation and what her wants. 

The next question would be "Then why would you push her to learn she is not ready yet?"

Up to this moment, I am still amazed of how kid's brain works. They absorb almost everything and suddenly they connect them altogether one day. Without you even realized it.

That suddenly, they become bilingual.

That suddenly, they do the addition.

That suddenly, they drew you a comic.

That suddenly, they give you a letter with your name on it.

Don't ever lose the faith that kids have their own phase.

Instead of you pushing them do things you or the environment wish him to do,

you'd better get shape; so you will be ready at anytime.

Sneakily picked up a book. Enid Blyton's today

Picked The Giving Tree before bed

And suddenly, mommy got lots of love letters

The book of fourteenth

Quite draggy, but it was 

getting interesting after having it half read.

"What makes life is hell and hell is hellish, is expectation." 

- Maddy Spencer, 13 y.o, the hell newbie -

Nighttime

The night is so calm. I can only hear the screeching sound of grasshoppers and my rabbit nibbling her last carrot. I am sitting in the backyard, underneath the big mango tree that is delivering its last batch harvest for the year. From in between its branches, I can peep the moon in a funny shape. Beaming its light in the highly polluted vague sky of the city.

Nighttime is magical. It is when all the toys in Nutcracker came alive. It is when Cinderella’s golden carriage turned into pumpkin. It is when people dancing or running in their dreams. The night has its own magical language to unveil what was hidden during the sun.

I am not a fan boy of zombie. Or Dracula. Or vampires. I am a fan boy of the moon. I am amazed of her devotion in watching people from above. She painted people’s character on the endless landscape of night sky. She goes everywhere we go. She is such a beauty.

I love nighttime. For me, nighttime is the best time to write. Just like tonight. My fingers are dancing on the keyboard and are trying to avoid the cursor to move backward. It has been a while since I last wrote. Not because I don’t have things to ponder, in contrary, there are too much things going on inside me. You know, those come and go thoughts that leave traces you cannot erase.

I am thinking about time. How it flies when we look at our children. How we want to get back when we see our parents. How it rolls up when we see people in our shoes and we will be on theirs the next time we never know. How it can be so expensive yet we need to chunk the time and give it to different occasion everyday (specially for a working mom). How we wish the time could wait. How we wish the time could forgive rather than forget.

Nighttime, and the clock busily ticking; knitting codes of what would be offered by daytime.

She makes me laugh

Me:
Jadi ya ... Titan udah punya pacar belum?

Titan:
Dimana? di sekolah yang sekarang?

Me:
Iya.

Titan:
Kalau di sekolah yang sekarang, enggak ada. Di sekolah dulu tuh ada.

Me:
Siapa?

Titan:
Ada, namanya Putri Yogi.

Me:
O, ya? Ah, bunda pernah denger sih ... masih ya sama yang itu? Emang kenapa sih suka banget sama Putri Yogi?

Titan:
She's funny bunda. She makes me laugh.

Me:
kok bisa?

Titan:
Iya. Abis Putri kalo pake bedak tuh belepotan mukanya. Jadi lucu.

Me:
Oalaaaah

Titan:
Iya, jadinya Titan ketawa kalo ngeliat. Kalau di sekolah yang sekarang, engga ada yang belepotan bedaknya, jadi enggak ada yang bikin Titan ketawa.

Me:
*Dalam hati* ... ya ampun ... jadi semua orang tuh sama yah. Udah fitrah kalau kita pengen pendamping yang bikin kita bahagia. Makasih ya Titan udah ngajarin Bunda :)

Mango Float

For another potluck party in the office.

And like any other potluck I attended in my previous office, 

mango float is my signature. 

Peep the recipe here

Black Hole

Don't let the name fool you. Black hole is anything but the empty space. 

It is a super-massive star that goes off, loses its gravity and falls to the end of nowhere. 

It sucks everything around it. 

It is pitch black, not ever a light can get through. 

It wiped off its trace, then it is gone.

Have you ever feel being like the dead star?

On a one fine day, you suddenly lost your gravity and fall to the deepest ground. 

Being sucked and sucks everything around you. 

So deep you will lost your breath and falls deeper and deeper and deeper.

You go down under to the bottomless you don't know where you are, what to do, what to feel.

Fading out.

To me, black hole comes in a form of a test pack.

A letter to you

I named you Malicca. Means you are the greatest gift ever from the Mightiest of all, Allah.
I named you Titan, one of 53 Saturn's moon and the largest. The only thing in the Milky Way that has atmosphere, beside earth. You are the earth in its primordial days, freezed and awaiting to form.
In Orphic ways, you are the ancestor of the human race. Zeus struck you with lightning and you burnt to ashes. From the ashes, a man was formed.

In a simpler way, you are a hope. From the Almighty.

This is my first letter to you, and might be not the only one. This is my first letter after you sent me so many many letters you slipped underneath my door. Your letters with your drawing inside them. With so many heart shapes, your name and my name.

In this letter, I want to say you thanks. For everything. For every little power you gave me. For every reasons you made for me to keep going and keep dreaming. When the doctor said you were impossible to happen because of your tiny 14mm egg source, you were born with 3,7 kilograms. You are my strength, you are the impossible that possibly happened in my life.

In this letter, I want you to know how much I love you. I love your questions, I love your cry, I love your " I want to be alone" thingy then you closed your door, I love your every nags, I love your witty excuses, I love the way you dance, I love your singing that never stops unless you sleep, I love your words every night "Good nite Bunda, tomorrow will be a better day" which I don't know where you got it from. I love how you take care of me real good. I love everything about you. Simply because I am your mom.

I see you everyday and I watch you grow. But one thing for you to know, that I am not going to be here forever; no matter how much we want to. Someday you will be bigger and find no one on your side. Someday you will wake up on the wrong side of the bed and regret every single turn you made.

When those happens, please remember what I am saying to you now ...

"When that day come, be aware that you are not alone. You have yourself and The Mightiest power with you. The Mightiest who created you like I told you above. The Almighty who turned the impossible possible. You got Allah and you got my pray.
You may not lose yourself, no matter how you lost your way. 
And as long as you have the courage to stop and the power to start, you will be okay."

I love you always, Malicca. Always.
Bunda.

A letter to Malicca

I named you Malicca. Means you are the greatest gift ever from the Mightiest of all, Allah.
I named you Titan, one of 53 Saturn's moon and the largest. The only thing in the Milky Way that has atmosphere, beside earth. You are the earth in its primordial days, freezed and awaiting to form.
In Orphic ways, you are the ancestor of the human race. Zeus struck you with lightning and you burnt to ashes. From the ashes, a man was formed.

In a simpler way, you are a hope. From the Almighty.

This is my first letter to you, and might be not the only one. This is my first letter after you sent me so many many letters you slipped underneath my door. Your letters with your drawing inside them. With so many heart shapes, your name and my name.

In this letter, I want to say you thanks. For everything. For every little power you gave me. For every reasons you made for me to keep going and keep dreaming. When the doctor said you were impossible to happen because of your tiny 14mm egg source, you were born with 3,7 kilograms. You are my strength, you are the impossible that possibly happened in my life.

In this letter, I want you to know how much I love you. I love your questions, I love your cry, I love your " I want to be alone" thingy then you closed your door, I love your every nags, I love your witty excuses, I love the way you dance, I love your singing that never stops unless you sleep, I love your words every night "Good nite Bunda, tomorrow will be a better day" which I don't know where you got it from. I love how you take care of me real good. I love everything about you. Simply because I am your mom.

I see you everyday and I watch you grow. But one thing for you to know, that I am not going to be here forever; no matter how much we want to. Someday you will be bigger and find no one on your side. Someday you will wake up on the wrong side of the bed and regret every single turn you made.

When those happens, please remember what I am saying to you now ...

"When that day come, be aware that you are not alone. You have yourself and The Mightiest power with you. The Mightiest who created you like I told you above. The Almighty who turned the impossible possible. You got Allah and you got my pray."

You may not lose yourself, no matter how you lost your way. And as long as you have the courage to start and the power to stop, you will be okay.

I love you always, Malicca. Always.
Bunda.