Just a small quote...

I watched a family movie in O Channel on 24 June 2008. The story is a very simple one, about an old man traveling by himself and made all his family worried.

His purpose is only one, to feel again the thrill of being together with his wife. He was on a journey that ended up on the place where his wife was buried. And there his old memories seemed to come back...

It was an average movie with easy plot and 'not so bad' acting. However, there was one line that really printed in my mind and I sent it through sms to a couple of friends:

LOVE is a gift from GOD for human to dance through life...

Love is a gift from God...I think there's nothing new to it. But the part of 'dance through life' really touched me. Dance...how many of use really dancing through life? Aren't we all just being busy and forgetting that life is not just a list of activities? How come we forget our moves? Nature does not forget its moves, but we do...or even worse, we forget that we can dance!!

*Let it be always music in your heart, and dance my friend, dance! Because life is too beautiful to pass by....

Cikarang, 14:59 wib

Life changes its beauty all the time*

*Translation of the first four lines of the Hindi song Kal Ho Naa Ho



----------------------

Life changes its beauty all the time
Sometimes it’s a shade, sometimes life is sunlight
Live every moment here to your heart’s content
The time that is here may not be there tomorrow

----------------------

It's about living to the most at every moment. You may interprete it both ways;
Being peaceful with now and feel content or
Being sad because of realizing it may not stay here forever...

*For M.S, I.N., and A.S.

A note on a New Year...

*Happy New Year! The big blowing of fireworks have long gone in Groningen. It was nice, splendid, and wonderful.

“You know it was gonna hurt you, but why did you go on?” I asked him. He
looked at me with his deep eyes, and smiled.

“Let me ask you the same question, “ he said, “You know it’s gonna hurt you, but why did you go on?”
“I love him, “I answered, “I could’t turn my face against him…I can’t, ‘till now I can’t lie to myself. I can’t just let him go.”

“Then you know the answer, “ he said, “I don’t need to explain anything.
Then he got up and took his stick with him, and started walking on the dessert, where he was with me some time.

From that moment in time I knew…I know, and I understand. He was letting me tasting/experience the essence of the greatest love story ever told. He’s a lover, because he went on, though he knew his love nailed him and broke him on a cross...

He went on….

“It was gonna hurt you…., “ I said. He went on.

But I did also go on…

Groningen, 01 January 2004, 3:30 AM.

On a Sunday evening..

On a Sunday evening, I had to open an old book, full of pictures.

It had been somewhere in untouchable part of my private library, full of dust. And that evening, I decided to open it.

It has pictures of grief, pain, and bitterness, that I never let myself to cry them out loud, or even to admit that they exist. Those pictures have a main theme. It was about a cold stiff body of a man lying in the middle of our living room.

Many people were coming, with tears, with poignant songs that caused my self to burst out into tears. I didn’t know why, I didn’t understand why. He was there, and everyone around me was crying. It was like a movie you watched on TV; you saw it happened but you did not take part of it.

I touched his hands. They were cold and frozen, and did not respond to me. I touched his face, but he kept closing his eyes. It was not real, I thought. It was a dream, I believed. They closed his coffin and they put him deep inside the ground. So that’s it. Inside the ground, so keep it like that. Nothing is real.

Then that’s how it stopped. It stayed like that for 16 years, until I realized how I have lived without accepting that he was gone. He’s gone. I can not touch him anymore. I can not reach him anymore. Not even a phone call?

I was shaken, by the truth, and the truth is he is not there anymore. When I need someone to be there in many things; my becoming 17, my music, my graduation, my scholarship.

I could not. I could not say goodbye. I am longing for him, and still want him around me.

But he can’t. The truth is he can’t. And it’s not his fault. Nobody’s fault. Not even God’s fault.

I just need to wake up from dreams. Dreams that I would see him somewhere here sometime. And to start to step into reality that the time now I live in is without his presence. Without his presence....

Groningen
Tuesday, 16 September 2003, 11:05
*Also written for Mutiara and Ondo

Selamat pagi...(buat saya masih pagi..)

Kepala saya penat setelah semalam menenggak lima gelas anggur. Kalau tidak ingat saya harus pulang dari makan malam dengan bersepeda, mungkin saya akan coba tenggak lagi...

Anggur mungkin enak, tapi tidak ada istimewanya..Pesta mungkin menyenangkan, tapi di bilik hati yang dalam mungkin kesepian menyerang...

Kesepian, kalau engkau berbeda..kesepian kalau merasa tidak cocok dalam lingkungan di mana engkau berada...bahkan jika orang-orang di sekelilingmu begitu baik dan menyenangkan, engkau tetap merasa sendiri..

Bahkan air mata mengucur ketika pulang, dan hujan deras menyambut dengan mengguyur kepalamu...
Di tengah kelamnya warna langit dan air yang membasahi, jalanan sepi, dan pohon-pohon berdiri tegak, engkau menangis...

Menangis karena, memang, di mana hartamu berada, di situ hatimu berada..
Harta buatku adalah cinta..dan aku merindukan cinta..
Bahkan ketika aku memperoleh segala yang kuimpikan, di situ aku merasa tersiksa, karena buat apa seseorang memiliki dunia tetapi kehilangan nyawanya?

Dan nyawaku adalah cinta..

Dan saat ini, tanpa harta dan nyawaku, aku merana...

Groningen, 1 Juli 2003-10:46

If there was no love

If there was no love, what would I be?
A living creature with a soul floating on a river of life
Moving to nowhere, guided by the water flow

If there was no love, what would I be?
A meaningless spot in history of human kind
Following the open paths, created by ancestors

If there was no love, what would I be?
A pathetic entity

Groningen, 10 October 2002-01.40

MY SELF*

*This piece was written as an introduction note for the students of Master of Science in Population Studies in Population Research Centre, University of Groningen. It was published in the informal journal of PRC, ISSUES. This was not published on the PRC website because they only put the 'academic' articles.
---------------------------------

It’s a tradition, I found, for the new students in PRC, to write something about them selves. So, as a new student, I have to do it, haven’t I? It’s very difficult for me to write “the truth about me” from my point of view, my own perception: ‘the real me’. I’ll need thousands of pages, otherwise, many people will misperceive, I’m quite sure about that.

But, I’ll start anyway, with the easiest stuff: I was born as a female human being, 25 years ago. My hobbies are singing, arranging songs, writing poems/short stories/scripts, reading something challenging, playing table tennis, swimming, enjoying the beauty of Mother Nature—it can be a small green leaf or a wind blow—and…understanding human beings. See? It becomes a little bit complicated now.

However, if I have to explain why I decided to study demography, perhaps my last hobby is one of the reasons. I want to understand why people behave as they do, and I don’t mind using any tools that are available, whether it is theoretical or empirical ones. You may speak about demography, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, even philosophy and theology, and also one new interesting terminology that I found: ethnography; as long as it helps me to understand human behavior, it is interesting for me.

Why is that so, you may ask. OK, I’ll explain it quite further. I have my own life basic research question: Why should I live? Why, should I born as a female human being named Elda in Pardede family, in Indonesia, 25 years ago? For what purpose? Only to be born, entering stages of education, having jobs, earning money, having partner/s, having children, and living happily with the pension fund in my old age, then, to DIE?? So, what is the meaning of my life then? How can it be different to others that also have to face those stages?

See? It becomes too difficult now, I guess. But, I found that, from my life experience, in order to answer my own big research question, I have to know myself: “Who am I?”, and the best way to know my self, is to see my own reflection in other people’s behaviors. Now, you can see how it is related to my study decision. I realized that some of people behaviors that we labeled as “bad” or “wrong” or even “crazy” (and these can be different in different contexts, of course!) is reflection of a part of our selves.

You may disagree with me, of course. It’s up to you. You’re the reader of this big nonsense that I am talking about. But that’s me, that’s what I consider as myself. If I just explain: “I want to study demography because it is an interesting subject for me”, you may not capture the real “big” reason. You may not perceive that statement as I do. To get to this point, you will need a real “in depth-interview”.

And now, you don’t need it anyway!

Groningen, 7 October 2002, 23:24.

Musim Gugur...

Musim gugur di Negara empat musim selalu indah. Daun-daun berubah warna, lalu berguguran. Setiap tahun ditandai peristiwa yang sama selama tiga bulan.

Musim dingin datang, seperti masa penantian sebelum tunas yang baru, yang indah, muncul di musim semi.

Jika daun-daun yang lama tidak gugur, maka tunas yang baru tidak akan pernah muncul. Seperti usia yang baru adalah tunas yang baru, yang akan muncul jika kita merelakan hal-hal yang sudah berlalu, lepas, dan gugur….

Groningen, Januari 2003

AKU MENCINTAIMU

Aku mencintaimu
Ya, aku begitu mencintaimu
Setiap hari kutuliskan namamu di dalam waktu
Wajahmu menghiasi kalbuku
Aku membisikkannya melalui angin sepoi-sepoi
Mengucapkannya dalam nyanyian burung dan senyum dedaunan
Meneriakkannya sekeras guntur menggelegar
Tapi kau tak mendengarku...*

Jakarta, Desember 2000
*Aiihhhh...kasiaaaannn deh gue.....

Old memories can be heavy

Old memories can be heavy
If you keep carrying them in your little hands
The lovely stories might trigger your happiness
But the bitterness might hold you down along the way

Each place reminds you of certain events
Each name drives a particular emotional picture
And how the ugly ones stay stick in your mind
So deep and so sharp
That you would never understand why…

While you are struggling to sweep them away
And store only the beautiful ones
You often fail and keep the worst in your mind

But you wish
You always did
To be able to have it and keep smiling at the same time
And to say to every little thing you have had
Life is beautiful
And love is everywhere
However bitter your memories were…

Groningen, 4 July 2004, 17:30

FOR THE DYING FREEDOM

*Untuk Kebebasan yang Sekarat

Kaubiarkan tanah rapuh
Menjadi tempatku berdiri tegak
Dan berpijak untuk tinggal landas

Kaulingkarkan rantai emas
Di sekelililng pergelanganku
Dan menggenggam tanganku erat-erat

Kaupasangkan kain hitam
Menutup mataku
Membiarkan gelap meliputiku

Kaututup telingaku
Dari pertanyaan dan kegelisahan
Melenakan isi kepalaku
Membiarkan aku diam
Dan termangu

Jangan juga kautarik sayapku
Jangan kauikat helainya
Sehingga aku tak bisa terbang
Mengelilingi bumi
Sekali lagi sebelum aku jatuh
Dan mati

Jakarta, 7 Oktober 1999