Luna (1)

Aku Luna.

Begitu selalu katanya.

Seperti bulan yang bersinar pucat di kemuraman malam. Bulan yang dilihat ibuku dari celah jendela ketika berjuang membawaku ke dunia. Yang memberinya alasan untuk terus mempertahankan hidup. Hidup yang tak layak dipertahankan.

Hidup seperti apakah yang tak layak dipertahankan? Tanyaku suatu kali.

Hidup yang dijalani dengan berlari, terjatuh, tersuruk, tersungkur, berdiri lagi untuk kemudian terjatuh lagi, dan merangkak tersaruk-saruk. Hidup seperti hidup ibuku.

Ibumu yang hingga kini masih terus bertahan hidup?

Ya.

And how's that?

Ia hanya mengangkat bahunya.


(Tangerang Selatan, bertahun-tahun lalu)

Late Autumn (And Rainy Days)

Here I am, sitting and listening to late autumn while watching the cars and motorcycles rushing their way home on this rainy night.

I’m thinking about you, about the difference between autumn breeze and drizzling rain. I’m thinking about how autumn turns everything brown and reddish around you, and how rain leaves small charming droplets on my window. I’m thinking about what you’re thinking when you pull the scarf around your neck and step outside your door; looking at the sky. Are you aware that hundred of miles from where you stand, there’s someone who’s also looking at the same sky, that very sky that you’re staring at? Do you know how that someone wonders what does autumn feels like while she opens her umbrella and walk outside her door in the middle of the pouring rain? Do you know how that someone wonders what it feels like to be standing next to you, watching the leaves falling to the earth, to be walking next to you along the small path, relishing the sound of brown and red leaves under your feet?

I’m thinking about you; about the grey sky above our heads, about how different things are, about the fact that the only connection between us is the cold weather that’s been lingering around us since the beginning of the autumn and the rainy season, about how it will never make any difference.

I’ve been pondering about this for some time now and I wonder, what would you think if you know that I am here, thinking about you?

(South Jakarta, 4 years ago)

Pertama di tahun 2015

"Dia menantinya
dalam jeda-jeda hening musim yang berganti
kemarau dan hujan dan kemarau dan hujan lagi
yang datang tanpa jeda untuk membasahi jiwa atau mengeringkan air mata


Dia
telah
dan selalu
untuk pertemuan sesaat
merindukannya
dengan rasa sakit"


Demikianlah, postingan pertama di tahun 2015 (yang sudah berjalan sebulan ini), adalah potongan puisi yang saya buat sekitar satu dekade lalu.

Untuk pengingat saja, betapa saya dulu sangat piawai dan percaya diri dalam memetik dawai-dawai kegalauan dan menyandingkannya dengan rangkaian kalimat mewakili suara hati terdalam yang tak tersampaikan. Betapa saya dulu adalah salah satu pengguna jaring laba-laba raksasa dunia ini yang aktif menyebarkan pesan-pesan kepedihan hati dan cinta tak berbalas.

Mungkin, sekarang saya juga masih sepiawai itu.
Mungkin.
Tapi lalu ada 'bisa' dan 'mau', yang merupakan binatang yang berbeda meskipun masih saudara. Kemudian ada 'perlu', binatang yang berbeda, tidak ada hubungan saudara, tapi seringkali dilibatkan dalam rembugan-rembugan antara 'bisa' dan 'mau'.

'Bisa', 'mau', dan 'perlu' sibuk berdebat dalam kepala saya. Hasilnya kemudian adalah saya yang tidak menulis apa-apa.

Mudah-mudahan situasi ini segera berubah, dan saya kembali bisa menuliskan hal-hal tidak penting seperti biasa tanpa harus berpikir mengenai perdebatan 'bisa' 'mau' dan 'perlu'.
Tidak berarti suara hati saya itu penting untuk dunia atau memiliki nilai keindahan yang tak terbantahkan. Tapi saya rasa penting untuk memberi ruang pada hal-hal yang tidak bisa disampaikan dalam kehidupan nyata, untuk kemudian disampaikan kepada alam semesta melalui jaring laba-laba raksasa ini.

Siapa tahu alam semesta berbaik hati, menempatkan pesan-pesan tak terkatakan itu dalam orbit yang tepat sehingga mereka sampai di tempat tujuan dan diterima dengan baik oleh yang berkepentingan.

Kita tidak pernah tahu kan ya?


2.36, Senin dinihari

She Recognizes Him

It's a wonder to her how she still remembers even the smallest details about him.

She stared at the square image of a pair of hands in front of her, and through the limited size of her cellphone screen, she recognized him.

It’s him. She recognizes the hand.

She recognizes the fingers, the way they are curled as if ready to grasp something, anything, that comes his way. Exactly how he lives his life.

She could tell it was him in the picture from the shape of the nails; the way they are trimmed, and how the edges are always a bit dirty, though she never understands why they are dirty.

She never asks.

There were many things she understands about him, just as many as the things she doesn't. But she stopped asking since a long time ago. She learned that questions unsettled him. And after some time, questions unsettled her too. So she stopped asking questions, not only to him, but also to life.

What people talked about as moving with the flow of life, is more like a merry-go-round to her.  Sometimes you’re a few inches below life, sometimes you’re a few inches off the ground. Never too high, never too low, and even if it is, it doesn't feel like it, especially when you look back over your shoulders when everything has passed, because we are the masters of denial of our own misery. That’s what she thought.

The world is a merry-go-round, a few inches up, a few inches down, a few inches further, and before you know it you’re back where you were before, ready to be spinning in the same orbit again, running on the same path again, chasing whatever it is in front of you, reaching out to grasp whatever it is in front of you and fail every single time because they are just like you, spinning in the same orbit, running on the same path, just a few inches ahead of you.

So there's not point asking questions to life. The world is a merry-go-round and it is easier if you just know your place and stop asking questions.

‘That's pathetic’, he said, with a pair of eyes looking at hers sadly. And he left whatever questions he had hanging in the air because like her, he also knows that questions unsettle her too.

Being her usual sensitive self, she recognized the sadness in his eyes. She wondered why but kept it to herself.

‘The world is a merry-go-round, flowing like water and philosophy be damned.’ Thus, she said.

The world is a merry-go-round but somehow they never really return to where they were before. Probably there's a glitch in the mechanism of the universe. Probably all the spinning and twirling got a little too harsh and things and particles and fate and wishes are thrown out of orbit.

Probably.

Because it seems that something has been shifting along the way, and every single time, they were brought back a few inches further from where they were. Just a few inches further, but never closer to each other.

She stared at the pair of hands in the square image on her screen. Judging from the way the picture was taken, it seems that it was made based on his request. It wasn't like him to leave his face out of the frame though, but perhaps he's changed now. With all the spinning and twirling of the merry-go-round, it's only normal, she thinks.

Once again she finds herself in amazement. How easy it is for her to recognize him, even when he's moved a few inches from where he was before, changed a little bit from how he was before, hiding a little bit more than he used to.

She recognizes the hands, the veins that run from his wrist to the tips of his fingers, the way it held out in front of him, embracing everything that life has to offer, or the way it curled back moving away from her, some time during the bumpy ride of the merry-go-round. She recognizes him, from afar, from up close, with closed eyes, through the brightest day, under the darkest shadow.

They can zoom in his picture down to pixels, she thinks, and she would still be able to recognize him.

With that thought, she leaned herself back to the chair and close her eyes. It's not so much of a consolation, but it is the one thing about him that doesn't leave her unsettled.

She recognizes him, and the life in him.

Why Keep A Journal?

So, 1.5 years after this post, I finally (yes, finally), decided to keep a journal again.

Life's different now and finding time to sit and write about different things is challenging for me, so I decided to have this one book to be my journal, where I'll write not only about the mundane things I do everyday, but also to keep my daily pages (which was supposed to be 'morning pages' as suggested by Julia Cameron_I changed it to daily because my mornings tend to be very hectic unless I wake up at 4am and write).

A colleague said he keeps a journal and wants his future children and grandchildren to read it one day, maybe when he's old or no longer there.

Now, while I'm not sure about the idea of my grandchildren reading my personal journal (because I write awful things), I think I really need to get into the habit again.

For one, it helps my relentless mind to calm down a bit. Sometimes it gets too crowded in my head. The thoughts can't stop shouting at each other. But I found that the intensity tends to lessen when they're on paper, so keeping a journal should be good for my health.

Two, it keeps me from posting too personal things in my social media accounts. 

I'd save the netizens around the world the unnecessary information about my uneventful life, and save the use of bandwidth and energy for electricity for more useful things, you know, for a greater good.

By doing that, I'd also save myself from any future embarrassment (which I predict mostly would consist of me being embarrassed about myself) from throwing too much nonsense. This way I also get to avoid the possibility of having to have my angst-decorated memories to exist forever in the virtual world.

Because I believe that the things you don't want people to comment about or respond to (liked, loved, laughed, frowned, shared, or questioned in real life), belongs only in your personal journal. 

So every time the urge to splutter things inside my head comes I'd remember to do it properly. That is either in the safe protection of the sheets in my personal journal because, well, it's personal, or in the middle of the competing noises in the chaotic world of social media (which leads to the possibility that those angst-ridden/happiness-overdosed/too-sweet-it's-nauseating too personal postings to go unnoticed anyway but hey, better be safe than sorry).

So help me God.

Excuses for no excuses

It's been quite some time since the last time I visit my own blog. I guess I'm just not made for commitment in the first place. I can't even commit to my own life (oh yes, bitter mood is on).

No excuses for the commitment, I'm just that lousy. But I think it's also a good thing to settle with just short posts, considering my mind is actually still relentless as ever, and with such minimum release it might lead to mental explosion (is there even such a thing?) like, I guess, the one I'm currently having right now. My tongue is practically a flying dagger ready to tear at anyone insensitive enough to read the sign.

My former boss used to tell me that my subconscious is just too intense, that's why every little thing out of order, even as small as some iseng colleagues shaking my chair playfully while passing next to my desk would shock me to the point where it takes me a few seconds to return to the real world, and that by the time I do, I've completely forgot everything I was doing previously.

I don't think that's the problem now. I think it's just solitude deprived at its worst.

Life happens, life grows, and life doesn't bother to ask whether I'm ready or not. I guess that's what happened.

My workload is getting crazier, the stake is getting higher, it's rainy season the traffic is getting more impossible for everyone to commute in less than 2 hours (unless, of course, they don't commute), longer hours on the street, shorter quality hours at home, brain's getting even wearier.

Again, no excuses. I'm completely aware of that. And I've been trying to accept the fact that this is just the life I have to go through for now, so yeah, personal dreams shoved into the closet for now. And turns out that it doesn't do me good.

I need to stick to short posts if that's all that I can make for now. Because making a decent, thoroughly thought posts takes time and energy, which I'm currently lack of. And not letting is also counterproductive. Add the solitude deprived and here I am now, a collection of all forms of rage, ready to blow up with even the smallest ignition.

I just need to settle with what little I can do right now.

[article link] Writing as Catharsis

Dearest world, 


I'm currently in my relentless mind-mode on and as usual, cannot do much about it; I can't write, draw, or even talk much. My mind was so full and noisy and as the days go by, the tension built up, and it gets even more difficult for me to channel everything. Just like a bottle too full of liquid and a too small neck. To release even a single bit of what's inside will involve a lot of tension, and painful. The only thing I could do is to wait until my mind cannot take it any longer and deciding to burst by itself. Still painful, but perhaps less, maybe because I'm doing it automatically, my body decide to do that as part of a survival mechanism, to keep my sanity intact. 


Anyway, I found this nice piece about writing as catharsis. 


Here's a worth quoting phrase from one of the books discussed in the piece  (Story, written by Robert McKee):


“To ask this is to ask why we like to tell and hear stories at all. Perhaps, we need to be cleansed of the aimless chaos of our lives. The characters and actions of real life are raw, in unorganized state; Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman) wrote, ‘The very impulse to write springs from an inner chaos crying for order, for meaning…’'



It helps explaining what I've been feeling all the time about writing. And it helped me write something today, even if it only this one blog post.


Hope you find it useful :)




Sunday late afternoon, 2.26 pm

Emotion Vocabulary for Writers

Source: artandalcohol.tumblr.com

the restlessness of things

The restlessness of not writing.
The restlessness of having too much in your head, but you're not writing.
The restlessness of the stubbornness of sticking with the idea that you can live and breath well and not writing.


I know that that's what happens when I worry too much of what people might think about my writing. Or rather, what I myself might think about my writing. That's what happens when I rely too much on the perfect inspiration to come to me. 


After tossing and turning with the restlessness for about a week, I came to realize that the only thing I can do to get rid of all doubts and uncertainties is by walking through them. There's no point wondering on ways to get around them. Doubts and uncertainties, dearest Self, is as certain as everything else in this universe. The sun rises and sets, the earth spins, the clouds come and go. Uncertainties stay around.


I finally learned, through the painful mental struggle of insisting on not writing, that things will only come to perfection when they are made and created. 


There is no perfect timing, or perfect surrounding, or perfect situation, or perfect mood, or perfect ideas, to turn something into a perfect piece of art. 


There is no perfectly shaped ideas to be written. It will only become perfect if you dig it, mold it, write it and toss it and write it and toss it over and over again. 


There is no perfect mood for the day. It will only become perfect if you decide to seize the day, pull yourself together, blow the dark clouds away to oblivion, breath after breath, until the sky becomes clear. That's when you finally have the perfect day.


There is no perfectly developed skill for a job. It will only become perfect after you take the bumpy ride with all the ups and downs, the happiness and the humiliations, the tears and the laughter of victory. That's when you finally have perfect skill.


I've learned, that things become perfect through hardships and endurance. That the only way to get there (wherever you want it to be) is to take the first step, to take the plunge and falling freely, to walk further until there's no turning back. To think of what you're going to miss at this moment if you don't take the first step, instead of wondering what the future might hold or not, if you don't take the first step.


We just need to keep going. Keep going until that's the only option we have. 






South Jakarta, 1.11pm
I should read Julia's Cameron The Sound of Paper once again. I need to keep on going.

When all is fail, write

At least that's how it is with me. 


Writing has always been the best way for me to channel my restlessness. I'm one of those people with busy brain that never stops talking and processing thoughts, digging deeper and deeper into things, connecting and retrieving information and thoughts, and turning it over and over again inside the skull of my head. Sometimes, the thought it's playing with is not that important, often times, it's absolutely not important at all. But it doesn't seem to mind that I actually question my brain's judgment on making priorities. 


It's really tiring to hear all the talking inside my head. And for years I've been unconsciously developing a mechanism to shut them up by putting them down on paper (and by paper here I also mean a blank white page on computer screen_kind of paper look alike). I don't always indulge it though. Most of the time, I ignore the talking until they turn into some kind of a scream, or a cry. Then I'd force myself to sit still, face the blank page, and deal with them with true honesty that will only come out through writing.


It's never an easy process. The waiting phase, the phase where the thoughts start transforming themselves from thoughts to screaming thoughts, or crying thoughts, is painful. The heavy feeling in my chest, the restlessness, the constant looking back or looking aside diverting me from whatever it is I'm trying to do, whatever it is but writing, is annoying. After days, I'd feel incoherent and unable to focus. I'd spend almost thirty minutes just to write a simple email to a colleague. It's annoying the way they keep diverting your attention from the current moment you're in and pulling you back to somewhere, some time, where the thoughts dwell. 


What strikes me the most is, actually, how I never learn that it's a battle I'd never win.


I've always known it that those busy thoughts are not something I can ignore. In fact, they are actually something I have to follow and indulge, if I want to be at peace with myself. But I keep ignoring them, turning away from them, throwing promises that I'd visit them at proper times, proper occasion, proper mood, proper place. Hence my never ending restlessness.


In these past few days, I've been drowning with the feeling, unable to settle them down, but also failed to make myself to sit and disentangle the knotted thoughts inside my head. I've been refusing to say yes to them. I imagined myself, slightly upset, telling them to grow up and stop pestering me and solve their own problems, stop being so demanding because I have another life to tend to so they cannot expect me to always be there all ears and ready with pen and paper whenever they need me, and for God sake, they really need to shut up for a while and be quiet, how would they think I'd be able to understand what they said if they keep talking and talking, and really, haven't they heard about priority? 


As usual, feeling totally exhausted as a result of constant denial, I finally sit and wrote. I wrote, because I've tried reading, I've tried browsing for articles, listening to songs, watching TV, working, drinking coffee, daydreaming, staring at the rain, even sleeping. All failed. I have to admit that the only way I could calm them down is by writing them down. And bear the consequences of possible another spark of thoughts appearing along the way, ready to bloom into another screaming thoughts within the next few days, creating another restlessness within me, stuffing my chest until I finally give up and turn around and face them. And write again. 

The "I" That Matters

I remember reading somewhere that writers are for whom writing is much more difficult compared to other people. 


I'm not a writer yet, though that has always been my lifetime dream. For now, I would have to satisfied with the title of a 'writer wanna be'. But I understand what it means to have this constant restlessness, to have this too many thoughts and emotions within you, to feel the urge to release them but somehow, the idea of materializing them in the form of rows of letters and words, scares you. I know how it feels to be trying to ignore the voices within you, calling and nagging, asking to be indulged. You long for the voices, you need to embrace them, yet you remain there at the other side of the river, refusing to follow the stream, afraid of being carried away, no matter how tempting the water is. 


I know how it feels to have this understanding deep down that you need to do something. Yet you're just too afraid. To worry. Too uncertain.


I have been constantly in such state of emotion for the past ten years.


I blame everything in my life now. I cannot indulge the calling, because right now I'm living the kind of life that would not allow me to do things other than the things that 'has to be done'. I cannot indulge the calling because once I do, I'd be carried away and get off the track of the life I'm living now. And going back is never easy. It is never easy to let go of the things you'd put your whole life and heart into. It's easier to pretend as if they don't exist. 


That has always been my excuses for not writing.


The life I'm living now is not the right environment for me to write. It fails to inspire me. I takes too much of my time and energy. Everyday it gets me drained right to my bones, until I have nothing more to write. I might still have many things to write, stuffing my chest and creates unbearable suffocating feeling, but I just can't write. Somewhere deep inside my heart, there's this small part of me questioning, does it really matter? Does it really matter whether I write or not? Does it really matter since there's always something more important to do? 


I blame them for preventing me to be what I always want to be: a writer. I blame the fast-paced environment of my current job for failing to provide the right kind of environment I need to be able to come up with something to write, for always keeping me away from silence and serenity, for constantly and persistently giving me chaos I don't need. I blame the life I'm living now for keeping my feet planted deep into the earth, unable to move, stuck with the kind of people (I think) I don't need, in order to help me write.


Until I read this book,The Sound of Paper, written by Julia Cameron. It's a book about personal struggles all artists experience, about the soul works artists must undertake to find inspiration.


I haven't read the whole book, but the excerpt I found on the back cover struck me.


"We must, as the elders advise us, bloom where we are planted. If we later decide that we must be transplanted, that our roots are not in soil rich enough for our spirits, at least we have tried. We have kept hold of the essential thread of our consciousness, the "I" that gives us the eye to behold."


It suddenly came down on me that none of the things I've been complaining about all this time deserve the blame for my persistently ignoring the voices within me.


I realized now that I should learn to see things differently. 


The fast-paced environment I'm currently working in could have been my source of inspiration all this time. They could have been the constant reminder reminding me how precious silence is. 


The people I think I don't need, they might have been the people I need the most in order to keep writing. They could have been showing me the reasons why we need solitude from time to time, why we need to appreciate our aloneness, to be able to dig deeper within ourselves.


All the chaos I don't need might have been there to keep my restlessness alive, so that I will not stop struggling, and questioning. So that I can keep this little flame alive and prevent myself from dying. So that I'm arrive at the comprehension I'm having now, that to dig deep into one's soul, one needs the chaos as much as one needs silence and serenity. That whatever world you live in, you just have to learn to bloom and rise to your maximum potentials, and that you actually CAN do that, because it's a matter of the "I" that is in you. It's all about you, what's in you, and what you are going to make of it. 


I think it's a form of true appreciation of one's self. It's the appreciation given by the owner of the self, the very self that has the highest authority to appreciate before other people do. The self that matters the most.

write my fear out

They said, write even if you don't feel like it. Write when you don't feel like it. Write what you feared the most.


So here I am, at the office, during lunch break, trying to face this demon that's been nagging me for the past week.


I love to write. I love to talk about things to myself and to the blank white pages in front of me, waiting there silently, unpretentious, yet demanding. I love how my brain seems to race with my fingers, digging deeper into the secluded corners of my heart, typing it all out and feeling the indescribable relief with every word that appears one by one on the screen. 


Yet writing is always hard for me.
The process of finding and digging into the secluded corner of the heart is painful. Gut wrenching, and sometimes, embarrassing. 


It's always hard to face and acknowledge your own anxiety, let alone to put in on paper. Inside the dark corners of your heart, they are all just feelings. And most of the time we see feelings as something that are not real. They're just, feelings. So it would be better to keep them in that dark corners. 


But once they're put on the paper, they become real. They become alive, because you acknowledge them, you recognize them, you admit that they're there. They are alive and breath out of your honesty. 


And, believe it or not, I find it scary. 


I think this is what makes writing is so hard for me.


It is scary to see how real and alive your feelings are. 


I can always write some other things. Things that will not become alive and point their fingers at me once they're on paper. Things that will only leave my brain and sit with their back on my face once they're on the paper. Things I wouldn't care so much, and wouldn't care so much about me either. Some other things, some other truths.


But they said you have to write what you feared the most. Otherwise you're not being honest.


Looking back, I realized that things I feared the most, are the things that are my truth. My true thoughts and feelings, that I'd never even had the courage to share even with myself. I wrote such things, and I remember that once I let those things out on paper, I feel relieved, yet so drained and embarrassed. A fear would grow, pounding in my chest shouting questions like could it be true? could it be right? what was going on all this time? what would you do?


It's painful. But I never give up on me. I dig deeper, search further, into the darkest corner of my mind and my heart, finding realities in the form of untouched feeling. Realities that are me. 


My latest attempt was two months ago. I started writing something I thought I wouldn't be able to face after it's done. It's something that has been occupying my mind for the past months. It has everything it needs to be impossible and forgotten right there and then for the sake of logic. I've reasoned with myself and failed. And I ended up writing about it. A dream that is too big that it scares me. 


But I wrote it anyway. I've started writing it two months ago and had completed almost 90 pages within a week. But then the more I write it, the more I'm scared. The more I feared of what have been put on paper. The more I feared of the feeling inside me. The more I feared the certainty of how one is never going to know one's self fully for the rest of one's life. What I wrote surprised me. How could it be that the thing you desire the most, scares you the most? I started to back down, and slowed down. But I forced myself to keep writing about it, even though I have to crawl from page to page, word by word.


I'm in pain. But I'm not done yet. Because I just have to write this. I just have to write this. I just have to see them there on papers, all the fears, all the dreams and desires that I'd never have the courage to touch before.


This time, I promise myself to dig even deeper. I'll write what I fear most out of the scariest feeling I have lurking inside of me. I'll call all the demons to come out and face me. I'll wake all the silent dreams to wake and stand on their feet and face me. I'll shake all the sadness and disappointment to come down and crashed themselves on the ground, die, or face me. I'll squeeze my heart until it can no longer bleed.


I'll keep on writing this thing I feared the most for the sake of being honest to myself. 


Something I haven't done for quite a long time.


Wish me the best of luck.




South Jakarta, 1.58 pm
Feeling the tight pressure on my chest

writing and the lack of serene morning

Still in the topic of writing (and how it is such a nasty business), 


I've read so many references on writing saying that early in the morning is the best time to write.


The world is still quiet. The only sound you'll hear is the sound of bird chirping (yes, even if you live in urban area, somehow there are always the sound of birds chirping in the morning). Wake up very early in the morning. The silence and serenity is priceless.


I would reaaally love to do that. But serene morning never happens in my house.


My Mom, she wakes up at 3 am every day. And she knows no serenity of the morning. 
She wakes up at that hour and straightly starts the house chores. She'd start with washing the clothes, juggling it with cooking and cleaning the front yard. So there would be a mixing sound of washing machines, stoves, and the sapu ijuk. For my Mom, morning is too precious to be wasted in silence.


So there it goes. I gave up trying to follow the advice to find time early in the morning to sit and write. That's not going to work for me. There will be no serene morning in my house. 


I've made peace with my situation. Now I write everywhere, in the most unlikely times. 


I write during the family gathering (silently walked out of the crowd and find secluded place somewhere in the house), I write about thirty minutes before going to work, during lunch break in the office, on the bus, while waiting for the doctor appointment, or, like now, while baking a cake.


That would just have to do.
Because if I have to wait for the right moment to write, I'd be crazy because the emotional tension would be unbearable.


Wish me luck.


Bintaro, 8.30 am

writing is a nasty business

"Writing is a nasty business.
Writing is an emotional struggle."


Quoted from me, just now.


And what on earth am I talking about?


I guess I'm talking about the struggling I'm having on the urge to write, and not to write. 


The ideal process (as I read from many blogs and books about writings) is that you need to plan your time to write. Make time for it, and set time for it. My attempt was to wake up at 3 or 4 am every day, sit myself in front of the computer, and write. And I haven't been successful.


Most of the times, the ideas come when I was in the middle of something, usually during my office hours. When that happens, the urge to instantly writing it down is so huge that it pains me if I don't indulge it. But I never indulge it. I usually just jot down some pointers on the idea, and wait until I got home to write them.


The thing is, that doesn't seem to work for me. 


When I finally got home and everyone is sleeping, the ideas were somehow, died down. 


They were still there, written neatly on my notebook. The urge to write them down is also there. But I keep feeling that there's something missing. 


It usually takes me almost an hour to be able to start writing down the ideas to be one, full, piece of writing. And I haven't even got in to the writing part itself. Just to start writing them down is a struggle for me. I have my pointers there, I know exactly what I want it to be, but I just can't materialize the ideas in the same way they first struck me. 


Just like what happened this morning.


I've written down some ideas that came to my mind yesterday afternoon. It came to me when I was walking out of a meeting, and about to sit on my desk again. I really had to fight the urge to instantly write what I was thinking at the time. I forced myself to grab my notebook and my pen, write the ideas down in a few pointers, and put the notebook and the pen back on my bag, and put my bag under my desk. I had to make it difficult for me to indulge the temptation to look at the ideas and type them.


It was really hard afterwards, to really get my mind from wandering and keep it on the documents that I should be working on at the time. I usually need about fifteen minutes to get my heart and mind back to where it's supposed to be at that hour, and caused me an ongoing restlessness that will not stop until I get home and sit myself in front of the computer again.


And that's where the confusion start.
Because, there's something missing. Something I really need to write the ideas. Something beyond pointers and even beyond the urge.


After half an hour of blank page, I decided to try to write something, other topics which draft had been developed a few days ago. I thought, that should be easier. But it wasn't.


I stared at the draft for almost another half an hour, thinking on how to really develop this, and at the same time wondering why did I seem to be so far distanced from the draft. I couldn't touch it. 


I had this thought that probably because my heart was not really there at the time. I wasn't really into the topic, not at the time. And that there's another thing in my mind shouting to be heard. Accidentally, while browsing through the folders in my computer, I found the unfinished drawing I've started few weeks ago. This time I didn't try to fight anything. I started drawing and drawing, until the picture's finally finished.


I felt much better afterwards. It's like some parts of the heavy weight has been lifted up from my chest.  


Partly out of curiosity, partly out of guilty feeling towards the blank pages, I tried to write again. This time carefully watching myself (honestly, I don't even know what I was watching myself from). I couldn't continue any of the draft or pointers I've made, and ended up writing this instead. And yes, having written this, I felt much better too.


I still haven't figured out what is actually missing during the time between writing the ideas down and the development of the ideas to be one full piece of writing. If there's one thing I learned is that I'm not really good at planning, or in sticking with it. And though it is a lesson learned, I don't think it's a good thing.


It would be great to know if anyone out there having the same problem with the one I'm having here, and whether there is a cure to that.




Bintaro, early in the morning
-Annisa, somewhere in between confusion and desperation-

on diary writing

I had my first diary when I was about seven. 


It was one day, when I was spending school holiday at my grandpa's. I woke up one morning and saw that there was a book lying on the table next to my bed. I remember I told my uncle a few days ago that I wanted a diary. Looking at the brown book, I told my self not to get excited too soon because it might be my uncle's book which happened to be laying around the house. Because  it didn't look like a little girl diary at all. The book was covered with brown leather with tiny yellow stripes on it. It had this dull, businesslike look (well but not this one on the picture, that was taken from Google, and I REALLY wish I have a diary like that)


But I was right. My uncle brought the book for me (I figured he might have brought it from his office). And since I've asked him for a diary, I then assumed that the brown book, though it didn't look like a diary, was to be filled with my notes on details of my everyday activities.


So it went.
I wrote on it everyday. And it continues up until now, more than twenty years later. 


Of course there were other books after the brown books. Lots of them. And I still kept them until a month ago, when we moved to a smaller house, where there isn't enough space for memories and things from the past. I had to disposed all of my diaries, except for the one that I'm still writing on (though very rarely).


I'm not good in letting go memories, be it the good ones or the bad ones. I like to keep things. And I know that that's not actually a good way to live your life. Disposing my old diaries was my first step in letting go of the past and I'm so proud of it.  But, aside from the fact that it has that negative effect on me, I realized that keeping a daily journal is actually good for your mental health.


My personal journal has always been my best friend in the worst of times. There are times when I feel like reading my old diaries (when they're still there), and I can say that aside from the nostalgic part, I also learn something from it. I find it a very valuable lesson, to actually pull yourself far out from yourself (which what happens when you read your writings after some time has passed), and see all the things you've done. I can see how I changed over time, how I react to things and how some things changed me. I get to know the real me, which, in most of the times, can only be seen when I pull myself out of myself. It's like having a dialogue with yourself. And it's always a good learning.


Only you and you alone can understand your most impossible reasoning and point of view. You might not really understand what it was when you were writing it down, but over time, when you read your notes a few months or years back, you'll have a better understanding of yourself. 


And that's what I'm trying to teach to my daughter. 
I want her to know that there will be times when she needs to be alone with herself, when the only person that she needs to talk to is herself, and that keeping record of the past is, to certain extent, a good way of learning.


Of course I can't tell her about the self reflection and learning parts. I only told her that it is actually a fun thing to do, telling all the things you do or feel without letting anyone know about it. That it is actually fun to have your own secret.


She picked a pink book to be her diary. She called it secret.


Everything she writes in there, is a secret. I'm not allowed to look. But of course, I couldn't help myself, and justified by my position as a parent (yeah rite), which means I need to watch my daughter closely, I looked inside. 


There's nothing special in there actually. She writes her daily activities, including the ones when she's waiting for me coming home from work. Sometimes she write her own one paragraph story, mostly about fairy and stars, and sometimes, ghosts. I can't always understand why she wrote some things, and I never discussed it with her, because I'm not supposed to look. But I'm glad that she's keeping her own journal.

Kriwil's pink diary and my red diary

The interesting is that, aside from routinely writing on her diary, she also sometimes insists to do it together with me. So we are to sit together side by side, me writing on my red book, and her writing on her pink book. We write diary, checking on how far each other's progress in writing, how many lines, how many pages and so forth. Sometimes we're exchanging comments on each other's handwriting. 


Well that, is actually not the kind of diary writing you imagine. No privacy, no contemplation in silence, and all the usual things one usually have (or seek) in writing a journal. Sometimes she even insists to write a letter for me in my diary. She has surely brought a diary writing to a whole new level. 


Now I have to find extra time to really sit and think and write on my journal, and turn it into something useful, because I can't do that when my daughter keeps checking on what I write and how many lines I've written :D


But I'm glad because she seems to enjoy the process. She sees it as a fun activity, and the fact that she has a secret, makes it even more exciting for her.


Having my daughter keeping a secret from me is actually not the kind of situation I want to have. But I think it's good for her to learn the concept, and even more than that, it's good for her to learn writing down her thoughts and keeping track of it. I really hope she'll keep on writing, and eventually get something useful out of it.




Bintaro, Monday afternoon