sunday afternoon dream

22 nov 2009 15:15

i just had a dream about you…

we were outside a gate
i don’t know where it was
some kind of a public place
lots of people were there
like there was a gathering
or a demonstration of some sort
but we weren’t a part of it
we were leaning against a fence
just the two of us
away from the crowd
we were waiting for a taxi
like we were going somewhere
together…
i rested my head upon your shoulder
and you gently embraced me
and you were holding me tight
like you did when we said goodbye
and you were kissing my forehead
and i closed my eyes…
enjoying every touch…
savoring every moment…
and i brought myself closer to you…

then my phone rang…

a short sunday afternoon nap
a very short dream
a very sweet dream

which left me in even more pain
when i woke up and realized…
that it was only a dream…


i must admit
i miss you so much…

i surrender

dear fate,

here i am

in your hands

i surrender.

17 Nov 2009

Friday the 13th

Well, there you go. November 13, 2009. After saying that I didn’t believe that 13 was an unlucky number and Friday the 13th was going to be a blessed day of great fortunes, it rained. Very hard. With raging wind and angry thunders. Of course I always loved bad weathers, so at first I was loving it, still thinking it would a lucky day.

That night, I got home quite late and pretty tired, but out of habit, I turned on my computer anyway. AND found out that the internet didn’t work. I tried everything. Restarting the wireless network, restarting the computer, disabling the wireless connection and re-enabling it after 15 minutes, nothing worked. That’s when I noticed that the modem was dead. The green and orange lights that usually danced and twinkled, signing joyous news of internet availability, were dead. Shit! What happened?

It didn’t take long for me to spot the problem. The modem’s adaptor was wet! Oh no! I looked up and there it was. A small part of the ceiling right above the adaptor was damp. It was leaking. Clearly, the rain had found a way to trickle happily on my modem’s adaptor. Nothing I could do at nearly midnight. I had to wait until the next morning to go to an electronic shop and buy a new adaptor. I was displeased, but I wasn’t in a total bad mood (yet). So I decided to watch TV instead, all the while hoping that it was just the adaptor that needed to be replaced. Hopefully, the modem itself was not affected, because replacing that would be expensive. Oh well, I’d worry about it tomorrow, I thought. Then I turned on the TV.

Blue screen.

NOW WHAT???

My daughter offered an explanation, “When I got home from school, the decoder smelled funny, Mom. Like it was burned.”

GREAT!

I tried to switch the TV in my bedroom with the TV in the living room, hoping that it was the TV that got burned, not the decoder. Wishful wish. It still didn’t work.

NOW I’M PISSED!

No internet. And no cable TV.

My only option would be to use an indoor antenna and settle for those crappy programs on local Indonesian TV channels. I wasn’t willing to do that, of course. I’d rather be without a TV than settling for craps.

So finally I just did the next best thing. Get drown out in alcohol. Thank goodness for the 2006 Californian merlot on my shelf.

The next day, it was official. The modem’s adaptor WAS murdered by water. But the modem itself, thankfully, was fine. I managed to find a cheap replacement at Poin Square and the modem instantly worked again. The green and orange lights immediately started dancing and twinkling again, sending joyous news of internet availability.

However, the Indovision satellite dish and decoder weren’t that lucky. They were killed by thunders. In fact, I found out that my next door neighbor’s Indovision was also slain to death yesterday by those thunders. And to fix that, I would need to call Indovision Customer Service. One of the worst Customer Services in the world. You would be put on hold for at least 30 minutes, get transferred to different departments, and when you finally obtain a confirmation that their technical staff would come by to fix the problem, they couldn’t tell you exactly when.

Indovision Customer Service would only give you a date, but not the time. So in other words, on that particular date, they would expect you to simply wait around the whole day, like you had nothing better to do, until their technical staff appeared at your door. If they appeared at all. Sometimes, they would call saying that they were stuck in traffic, or some lame excuses like that, and would need to reschedule. A great service from one of Indonesia’s leading cable TV providers, Indovision. NOT!

So my oldest daughter wisely reminded me that before calling them, I needed to be in a good mood. She knew me well enough that I was capable of starting the World War III with anyone or anything when I was in a bad mood. Good advice.

Right now it’s 17.58 on November 14, 2009. I haven’t called them yet. I’m still very grouchy and irritable. But at least the internet is working, so I can post this blog and release a bit of my temper on virtual paper.

What are the conclusions? There are four:

1. Don’t fuck around with Friday the 13th. It does have its own power. It can use it to grant you great fortunes or screw you. We have no choice but to believe it.

2. Make sure all of your electronic equipment are dry, especially during the rainy season. Check for possible leakage on the ceilings, cracks on the windows, etc.

3. Never call Indovision Customer Service (or any Customer Service in this country) when you’re in a bad mood.

4. God, if He exists, has a cruel sense of humor. As if it’s not enough that He’s been screwing my life so much in the past 10 years, He too must take away the two things that can cheer me up instantly – internet and cable TV. He must be laughing His fucking ass off right about now. Are You happy now, God? Glad I can make You happy.

PS: Dear Lady Rain and the God of Thunder, I like having both of you around, but when the two of you are fighting, stay away from me. Or better yet, just break up with each other. Thank you.

11/11 at 17.17

Just when I thought the chance was getting slimmer, close to impossible, and deadline was fast approaching, it happened again. Right on that mysteriously magical date, at that mysteriously magical time, presenting the mysteriously magical numbers. Suddenly, in the blackness of the tiny plane in my heart, the Universe gave twin-wing lights. Deciphering signs from the universe has never been this hard, or this heart-wrenching.

It’s like trying to miss collision with the stars. It’s like fleeing a million giant fiery darts that are being shot at me with a steady purpose from a million great bows.

Just when I set my heart and firm it up to execute the hardest intention of my life --- to give up and move on --- the universal dusk abruptly sent me a distraction. Or was it a test? Hadn’t I told you I didn’t want to be tested anymore? Which part of that wish was unclear to you? Or was it a confirmation? A sign that I had been indeed… stupid? And suicidal? And I must at once abandon my attempts to keep wishing wishful dreams? A confirmation that my intention must be executed immediately? Deciphering signs from the universe has never been this tricky, or this painful.

It’s like an intruder in the void. It’s like images of broken lights, restless inside a box, presenting limitless undying love which shines like a million suns.

Unfair. I need more than that. I need evidence. Hard, physical evidence. Not signs. Not mysteriously magical twin numbers that, when combined, also happened to represent a birth. It is incomprehensible. I need it to be humanly REAL. Please.

we need to die

"in order for our lives to have meaning, we need to die." - Todd May

that short sentence in NY Times, dated September 2, 2009, caught my eyes. death is always something that i'm continuously wondering about. i don't really know whether i'm scared of death or not. well, sometimes i am, sometimes i feel like i wanna die NOW. but one thing for sure, i'm always wondering how i'll die. the "how" makes it scary. will it hurt? will it be creepy? i certainly don't want a long and painful process to die. just shoot me in the head and kill me instantly. but what is "instant"? how long is "instant"? a few seconds? and in those few seconds, will it hurt? will it be creepy?

anyway, that short sentence and the following little article that i found are just so great! the article gives me a new perspective about death. and also life. i'd like you to read it, if you don't mind. it's called "happy ending" by Todd May, a professor of philosophy at Clemson University. he has also written 10 books so far, including "The Philosophy of Foucault" and "Death". here's his article. happy reading.

*****************

In the spring of 2004 I took a flight from my home near Greenville, S.C., to New York to visit my dying step-grandmother. We had been close, and it would be one of the last times I would get to see her. As the flight was about to land, it abruptly ascended and headed toward the Empire State Building. The passengers on the plane became quiet; the aura of 9/11 was hanging in the air.

We flew over the Empire State Building (but too close to the antenna for my comfort) and circled back to La Guardia. As it turned out, a small commuter plane had decided to land without taking account of our aircraft, so the pilot had had to make a quick move. But in those moments when it seemed I was aboard another human missile, I revisited my life. I realized, almost to my surprise, that I would not have traded it in for another life. There had been disappointments, to be sure, but my life appeared to me to have been a meaningful one, a life I did not regret. This is not to say that I was not nearly paralyzed with fear. I was. At the same time, strangely, my life appeared to me as worth having lived.

There are two lessons here. The first, and most obvious one, is that death is terrifying. Here in the United States, we have the technology to defer death, so we often pretend it will never really happen to us. There is always another procedure, always a cure in sight if not in hand. But in our sober moments we recognize that we will indeed die, and that we have precious little control over when it will happen.

The harm of death goes to the heart of who we are as human beings. We are, in essence, forward-looking creatures. We create our lives prospectively. We build relationships, careers, and projects that are not solely of the moment but that have a future in our vision of them. One of the reasons Eastern philosophies have developed techniques to train us to be in the moment is that that is not our natural state. We are pulled toward the future, and see the meaning of what we do now in its light.

Death extinguishes that light. And because we know that we will die, and yet we don’t know when, the darkness that is ultimately ahead of each of us is with us at every moment. There is, we might say, a tunnel at the end of this light. And since we are creatures of the future, the darkness of death offends us in our very being. We may come to terms with it when we grow old, but unless our lives have become a burden to us coming to terms is the best we can hope for.

The second, less obvious lesson of this moment of facing death is that in order for our lives to have a shape, in order that they not become formless, we need to die. This will strike some as counterintuitive, even a little ridiculous. But in order to recognize its truth, we should reflect a bit on what immortality might mean.

Immortality lasts a long time. It is not for nothing that in his story “The Immortal” Jorge Luis Borges pictures the immortal characters as unconcerned with their lives or their surroundings. Once you’ve followed your passion — playing the saxophone, loving men or women, traveling, writing poetry — for, say, 10,000 years, it will likely begin to lose its grip. There may be more to say or to do than anyone can ever accomplish. But each of us develops particular interests, engages in particular pursuits. When we have been at them long enough, we are likely to find ourselves just filling time. In the case of immortality, an inexhaustible period of time.

And when there is always time for everything, there is no urgency for anything. It may well be that life is not long enough. But it is equally true that a life without limits would lose the beauty of its moments. It would become boring, but more deeply it would become shapeless. Just one damn thing after another.

This is the paradox death imposes upon us: it grants us the possibility of a meaningful life even as it takes it away. It gives us the promise of each moment, even as it threatens to steal that moment, or at least reminds us that some time our moments will be gone. It allows each moment to insist upon itself, because there are only a limited number of them. And none of us knows how many.

I prefer to think that the paradox of death is the source not of despair but instead of the limited hope that is allotted to us as human beings. We cannot live forever, to be sure, but neither would we want to. We ought not to mind the fact that we will die, although we really would rather that it not be today. Probably not tomorrow either. But it is precisely because we cannot control when we will die, and know only that we will, that we can look upon our lives with the seriousness they merit. Death takes away from us no more than it has conferred: lives whose significance lies in the fact they are not always with us.

Our happiness lies in being able to inhabit that fact.

Family Trip

All of my crazy workload since last month is over. Being a writer is hard sometimes, especially when you have nothing to write about other than heartaches and prayers to get over the heartaches and curses when the pain remains. But after forcing myself to press on, I’ve finally managed to complete everything. I’m now just waiting for revision requests, which usually aren’t as bad as having to write something new from scratch.

So… it’s time to blog again.

I’ve wanted to tell you all about my trip to Bali for Idul Fitri holiday last September. But this is the hard part. It was a family trip. And family trips, for me, are rarely enjoyable. No, I didn’t mean trips with my two daughters. I can handle them just fine. I meant trips with my entire big family. Now, that’s a headache.

There are many reasons why I don’t really enjoy family trips, but these are the two major ones:

1. I don’t share their “definition” of fun.

They like popular touristy places, shopping and eating in fancy restaurants. While for me, I’d rather stay away from popular places. A quiet and empty isolated beach is a thousand times better than these places. And of course, I’d rather do outdoorsy or adventurous stuff instead of shopping. For food, I’d prefer cheap but authentic dishes that allow me to mingle with local people and make me feel a part of everyday lives in that location.

2. I have to become a kid again.

Don’t get me wrong. I love an opportunity to become an irresponsible kid again, once in a while. But certainly not for the whole week! Going with my parents (or any older relative for that matter) means they get to boss me around and tell me what to do. The nicest thing about this is that they also pay for everything of course. But… after the first couple of days of having my room door banged at 7AM, being told to hurry and have breakfast, getting ushered here and there, being told where to go or what to do, having to tag along and simply agreeing with their “holiday master plan”, I got sick of it. I’m 40 for Heaven’s sake. I’d have breakfast when I feel like it, alright?! And I’d go wherever I want, whenever I want, with whom ever I want. Don’t wait up, coz I might decide to shack up with a guy I just met and not come home at all. However, this isn’t possible whenever I go on one of these family trips. They make rules. I follow.

So I improvise to make things a little bit “bearable”.

BB and Amusing Ads

First and foremost, I’d like to thank BlackBerry. It was so easy to pretend that I was busy on some business matters by seriously staring and typing into my BB. While in fact, I was busy Facebook-ing and Tweeting and chatting with friends on BB Messenger. I also had Yahoo Messenger installed, so I could also chat with friends who don’t own a BB. Wonderful BB. I don’t know what I’d do without it. BlackBerry, you saved my life!

Then I would find funny things to simply gossip and laugh about. A bit cruel, I know, but hey… it helped. So, excuse me for being mean, I was also miserable, okay?! People with weird sense of fashion or bizarre hair-dos were easy targets.

Sometimes I’d also find ads on store windows or stickers on public transportations or posters on the walls that amused or entertained me. I found this ad for Fortune Magazine on a bookstore window at Jakarta International Airport while we were waiting to board our plane to Bali. The headline was so catchy, “Is Pot Already Legal?” Wow! Is it? Then a brief explanation was offered underneath the headline. “Medical marijuana is doing more than changing the way the drug is perceived. It’s giving activists a chance to show how a legitimized pot business could work.”

Obviously, it’s a foreign magazine. At this point, I wouldn’t even dream of having marijuana legalized in Indonesia. It was hard enough to explain to people that porn is merely a choice. Sane and educated people would not abuse such choice. Therefore, a solution to porn would be to educate our people so they can make sane and well-informed choices. So legalizing weed is still a long way to go in this country, if ever. Anyway, I didn’t buy the magazine, but it was surely amusing enough to find this ad. It made my day. I wasn’t so grumpy anymore when I boarded the plane that flew us to Bali.

Morning Ritual

Then, almost every morning, I would get up very early, before anyone had a chance to bang on my door or annoyingly ring me to give me wake-up calls. I went to the beach, which was always almost empty at those hours, except for a handful of busy fishermen at work. It was lovely. Just sitting there quietly, waiting for sunrise, and enjoying a cool morning breeze. When I got tired sitting around, I would walk slowly along the beach, taking pleasure in the soft wet sand and engrossing myself with interesting patterns on the sands. A holiday should be just like this. Serene and wonderful.

Before I joined my daughters and the rest of the family members for breakfast, I stopped to watch the cute little squirrels on the trees. Most hotels in Nusa Dua host them and even generously provide food for them. As a conservationist, I’m really not sure whether this is good or not. But for the purpose of making MY holiday more tolerable, I was sure glad that they were there. They ran around in the hotel’s yard, freely taking nuts from small plastic bowls that the hotel staff had nailed to some of the trees. They were so adorable!

Mola-Mola Encounter

Other than my “morning ritual” on the beach, I finally managed to have one day, JUST ONE DAY, to escape the family and go DIVING! I signed up with BIDP, a dive operator in Sanur, to join a one-day dive trip in Nusa Penida. The dive sites were Manta Point and Crystal Bay. The goal was to find the ancient oceanic sunfish, the mola-mola. It was the perfect time to find them as they rarely ever came up to shallow waters, except in August and September, when sweeping currents from the Antarctic made the normally warm tropical waters of Bali freezing cold. The day I went diving, water temperature was 23º Celsius on the surface and dropped to around 17º Celsius underwater. No, it wasn’t cold. It was BALTIC! I had three layers of wetsuits – a 1 mm skin suit and 3 mm wetsuit that I owned, PLUS another 3 mm wetsuit that I rented from the operator – and I was STILL bitterly cold!

But it was worth it. On the second dive in Crystal Bay, I finally saw a mola-mola! Oh my God, it was awesome! I was only around 12 meter deep (thank God, coz as it got deeper, it would also get colder). The prehistoric fish was very large, and had an almost circular, flattened body. It looked like a giant satellite dish with fins. This unusual fish swam by flapping its long pectoral and dorsal fins. It used its caudal fin as a rudder (for steering). The gills were covered by a flap called an operculum. The head was almost a third of the total body length. And its tiny mouth had large fused teeth in the front. Yes, the sunfish are carnivores or meat-eaters. They eat jellyfish, comb-jellies, and some crustaceans.

The sunfish could grow to be about three meter long, but some could also reach up to 4 meter. And it could weigh up to 2 tons. The divemaster said that some sunfish had even been seen floating on their sides on the surface of the sea, letting the sun heat themselves up. That’s why they are called the “sunfish”. Interesting, huh? Well, for me, whatever they’re called, a brief encounter with the sunfish, coupled with a rare “escape” from my family, was the perfect thrill of a lifetime!

But… errr… to dive in that water temperature again? No, I don’t think so. Never again will I dive when the water is less than 26º Celsius. And I promise this in the name of the Father, and the Son, and Bob Marley. Amen. (What? Bob Marley IS my holly ghost, alright?! No spirit is holier than him! Deal with it!)

Oh, by the way, for those of you who are interested to go diving with BIDP, you can contact them at the following phone numbers: (+62 361) 285065 or (+62 361) 270759.

Bali Safari & Marine Park

There was only one more highlight of the holiday. It was a trip to Bali Safari & Marine Park. Alright, I’m not THAT crazy about seeing animals in captivity. For me, the best animal encounters would have to be in the wild, in their natural habitat, just like my encounter with the mola-mola. BUT… just this one time, I must admit that Bali Safari & Marine Park is actually pretty good. It has been set up in such a way that most animals are not in cages, but they can run free in the environment that sort of imitates their real habitats. Additionally, the park also runs various conservation awareness programs in a very innovative, creative and entertaining way. It is a great place for little kids to get the “first taste” of nature and learn about it in a safe and controlled environment, before one day (hopefully) are inspired to go on their own adventures in the wild.

Anyway, the animals in Bali Safari & Marine Park looked well taken care of. There was plenty of love and the enthusiasm of the staff was obvious. It was a good feeling. The only criticism from me would be the staff’s ability to speak English properly. That was the only thing that needed improvement. The rest were just brilliant!

That day, we had a lot of fun observing the delightful elephants, the sweet orangutans, the endearing tigers, the quick cheetahs, the pretty birds, the cunning reptiles, everything! Oh, and they even had komodo dragons in there! That was quite a treat for me and both of my daughters. We miss Komodo National Park. Seeing the dragons was kind of therapeutic in a weird way.

So the holiday wasn’t all bad. Mostly bad, but wasn’t all bad. I did find a lot of things to make this particular family trip acceptable enough. Not that I want to go on another one any time soon. But the last trip was pretty much okay.

One last note before I go to sleep, I came across a huge sign on a tourist bus while we had lunch in Bedugul. When I saw it, I simply cracked up laughing, because to me, the sign was saying that for Rp60,000 you’d get free meal and drink, a free child (less than 80 cm tall), and a free elderly person (older than 60 years old). HAHAHAHAHA! Read the sign and tell me what you think!

I Try to Say Goodbye

Macy Gray’s song in the background, playing softly. The eve of yet another full moon. The first day of November. I’m powerless against the constant screams of my heart.

“Games, changes and fears
When will they go from here
When will they stop
I believe that fate has brought us here
And we should be together
But we’re not
I play it off but I'm dreamin’ of you
I'll keep it cool but I'm fiendin’.”

Who is there? Who is out there? God? Are You really there? Hello? Mother Nature? Anyone? The Greater Force that was supposed to watch over us and grant wishes, is that for real? Or is it simply what human created to feel safe and secure? Did we create the notion of God or whatever? So that we feel like we are going “somewhere” after we die? Or is it really that I’m alone? No mighty force watching, listening. Let alone making my wishes come true.

“I try to say goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it it's clear
My world crumbles when you are not near

Goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it, it's clear
My world crumbles when you are not near.”

Because whoever’s out there, if He/She really exists, must be deaf or really, really cruel. Hello? Are You there? Whoever You are, if you exist, guess what, I can’t. I just can’t do this. I can’t free myself from this feeling. Why won’t You help me? If You’re not going to give what my heart desires, then alter me! Free me from this feeling, or open another door, or give me a better option, or turn my heart to stone, or just kill me. Whatever. Just do something!

“I may appear to be free
But I'm just a prisoner of your love
I may seem alright and smile when you leave
But my smiles are just a front

I play it off but I'm dreamin’ of you
I'll keep it cool but I'm fiendin’.”

Today, I promised it would end. And it didn’t. It is too hard to say, Deeply wounded, the pieces are way too small to pick up and put together. I’m on the edge of self-destruction, full of hatred and despair. It is so hard to let go. It’s so hard to say goodbye. The pain remains. The questions remain. The heartache remains. Why? Make this thing disappear!

“I try to say goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it it's clear
My world crumbles when you are not near

Goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it, it's clear
My world crumbles when you are not near.”

So who is out there? Who is listening? God? Really? Where is He in the past two years? This is absurd. I can’t believe I’ve fallen this far, this deep. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this before. Ever. I would do anything. Anything. To have this one wish granted. Because I was born a fool. I by no means wanted this feeling. I didn't want to love. I didn't want to know this pain. This desire that so quickly becomes an ache you can’t quench but with gallons of liquor. But this is by far, the most foolish I’ve ever been. Where are You, God? Or whoever You are? Stop tormenting me!

“Here is my confession
May I be your possesion
Boy I need your touch
Your love kisses and such
With all my might I try
But this I can't deny
I play it off but im dreamin of you
I'll keep my cool but I'm fiendin.”

Give me a reason. Give me one reason to end this. Make me hate him. That would be easier. Otherwise, this pain will linger. Make me hate him, because we can’t be friends. I can't go on looking at him or talking to him, knowing that I can't touch him and I can’t kiss him. Knowing that someone else does it with ease, with acceptance. I can't be around him knowing that one foot is an uncomfortable distance. I can't stay here and wait to see if his mind changes. Free me from this fate! I beg You…

“I try to say goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it it's clear
My world crumbles when you are not near

Goodbye and I choke
I try to walk away and I stumble
Though I try to hide it, it's clear
My world crumbles when you are not near.”