The more words, my Beloved, The more unclear my remembrance about you. Let me keep you in silence Drifted in the current of distance, Sucked into the abyss of mind, Drained by the desire to a union. Do you still remember me? Salam....
Reunion With Beloved – free verse
Find me behind the words That are uttered by the wind That blows fragrance of flowers That bloom in Spring.
Find me through the signs That show the road to the traveller That gracefully walks to destination That is kept secret by a silent heart.
Find me, oh Beloved In every step you make And breath you take. Trust. Trust that we’ll meet again.
May all beings be happy....
Hey, You Beauty – laughing (bitterly)
I received a package from a good friend.
Face mask!
No, no! Not that face mask that protects us from the germs. It is face mask that can make your skin as white as snow. Beauty face mask! Wow! This is an expensive brand and this good friend gave it to me for free? What might be the cause?
There was a note.
Hey, You Beauty! I see you changed a lot. Slimmer, fresher, more glowing and happier! But I think you’ll be perfect with this product. It will make you as white as snow. You’re just one step behind the real Snow White, a beautiful inside and outside. You like Chinese or Japanese, right? They probably will look at you when you are as light as them. Lovey, lovey — dearly friend
What?!
I didn’t know if it was the compliment or the humiliation I should have taken first. Yes, I changed a lot because of taking care of self much much much better now but won’t make the skin whiter just to be loved by those guys who are fair-skinned. Bloody hell!
This is my reply to that friend.
Hellow, You Pretty! Thanks so much! It was such a nice gift, and thank you for the compliment – I am slimmer, fresher, more glowing and happier than myself before. I am taking care of myself much much much better ‘coz I know I will only live as current me once and I want to appreciate what Life has given me. I haven’t tried the face mask yet but I shared one box with the cleaning lady. She was very happy and yes she said she looks lighter and more beautiful, his husband is also very happy with that; his husband is a Chinese guy so he probably likes her like that. Don’t worry about me, I won’t make any Chinese or Japanese guys look at me because of light skin but I will make only one guy look at me because I am what I am and not necessarily Chinese or Japanese because being a Chinese or a Japanese will not automatically make him cool except for that bloody Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai”! Next time please send me Korean guy not Korean skin care! Lovey, lovey….
When I re-read that reply, it emitted some shade of anger and I felt guilty. So I called this particular friend and said sorry. One said it was ok and admitted and regretted, one should have thought before writing the message.
“You know I should have said it more nicely, I should not have mentioned about Chinese or Japanese guy because it hurt you much. I should have said guy will look at you if you have light skin without mentioning Chinese or Japanese….”
What the….?!
Ok, some people are born BBB – Boldly Brainless Beauty and it is beyond other people’s control.
It was a funny moment and I am not angry anymore because that friend is right that I don’t have lighter hues. Yet one is wrong that I have to bleach my tan to catch my fish. 😊
May all beings be happy…..
Mask – ranting
I’m so bored with the surgical mask that I must wear when going out of home so I decided to find pretty face masks which has space for filter to insert. I purchased two cotton lace face mask from Uluwatu Balinese Handmade Lace online but the shipment from Ubud will be delayed. So today I bought two pretty face masks: light blue and red — the red one was an impulsive buying just because I got lured by the shop assistant saying red color is nice for the upcoming Chinese New Year.
Just sharing, this pandemic has made me an uncomfortable yet comfortable human being with mask.
Comfort sometimes comes when the anonymous feeling is integrated into activities. People don’t know who you are so you can do whatever you want, you don’t care if what you do will leave footprints in their life. You just wear your mask and go away, with devil smile and false victory.
Yet the layers of the mask can cause sense of being suffocated – at least to me. When I’m in my mask, I’ll pull my mask away from my face now and then to breath “normally”; I usually do it when there is no one around or I’m in a very very safe distance from others.
Mask gives me anonymity but at the same time limitation — both to be real. Yes- some people are honest when in mask like when the buzzers are stalking their enemies in the virtual world shouting out their deepest rage without shame, some others look awkward in mask though and the others are just the same….
Do you wear mask?
Salaam….
Shadowing – tanka
Verses, what are you?
Only you can reveal you.
Verses united?
Is that you? The Universe?
Whom are you shadowing? Me?
—
So many questions
I gave up
And am just flowing now….
Salam….
Constipation – laughing
Life is sometimes like a lottery, you get multiple of what you paid or not at all. Today I took a taxi whose driver made me feel like winning a lottery.
This 68-year-old driver is a smart and fun guy. At the beginning I thought he was probably a manager in a big company once when he was younger. Hey, once I met one taxi driver who used to work in my current company – at around 80’s he was offered retrenchment with good amount of severance payment due to the company financial condition. So this guy might be of the same situation before.
He told me that he used to live Indonesia then moved to US before finally deciding to go home to this tiny rich dot between Indonesia and Malaysia.
Then he asked me if I mind him talking. I said politely I was ok as I like listening to people talking and ranting as much as I love to do to them.
Along the way from Kramat Road to my home he didn’t stop talking, he shared a lot of his experience of working in trading world. He also demonstrated his ability of speaking Bahasa Indonesia. He talked about his parents, wife, children and grandchildren and one of his expertise: making jokes!
He made me laugh with at least 3 jokes but his last joke was coming as a successful punch line.
“There is a new movie, but you probably not yet seeing it.”
“What’s the title, uncle?”
“Constipation.”
“Oh, I’ll watch when it is showing.”
“But it’s not coming yet.”
“No, I mean I’ll watch when it is”.
“No, it is not.”
“What’s the title? I’ll stay tuned.”
“Constipation.”
“Oh ok, I’ll watch it for sure.”
….. a long pause
“Oh my goodness! You mean it is not coming because it is constipation?!!! Goodness! It is the best joke of the week! Hahahaha” My laughter exploded.
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
Look! Life is like a lottery. You can be gloomy in the morning but who knows what life is giving you in the evening! An old humble taxi driver in face mask and you are also in face mask but only good talk and good will have changed the day into a blessed day starting Friday welcoming weekend.
Thanks, uncle taxi driver! God bless you and family.
May all beings be happy
Hahaha KTP, KTP….
Cuma buat yang ngerti Bahasa Jawa 😂
Sehat-sehat, Mbaaaah 💪🏽😂
Let’s Start The Weekend – haiku
Me, a while ago
Drowned in detergent water.
Let’s start the weekend.
—
It was a fun day today! I met my dentist, grabbed some groceries, bought new pink and white dresses, did big pile of laundry and watched movies plus did some cooking and dish washing. Of course two hours sitting in front of MacBook to fix excel work without success was not counted.
The laundry is always the biggest challenge but when finished, it turns me into the most relaxed human being on earth.
All are done. Tomorrow is gonna be a great biking day! Or just brisk walking? I don’t know, I just wanna stay out the whole day!
Yay!
The Buckets – haiku
How many buckets?
Mine’s 3: trust, know and not know.
Overloaded not know….
—
I realise that the three buckets in my life don’t get loaded evenly. While the buckets of trust and know are not even half filled, my not know is overloaded.
Trust the the process. Never thrust on what result you expect. Just stop there until time discloses what you need to gain from what you trust. If it doesn’t come, it is simply not yours. Even if I’ve gotta cry my soul out? Yes, even if I’ve gotta cry my soul out!
Dear, Beloved. You’ve broken my heart thousands of time but I still go home to You….
Know as much as you need to respond ‘coz you need to well reason to work with Fellow creatures. Don’t state what you doubt and keep the integrity high.
Dear Self, be sure that you have enough knowledge about your decision and what you are doing. That way you don’t crave for others’ approval to feel content.
Don’t be ashamed of not knowing ‘coz the Universe is not only knowledge to boast or bluff but also mystery to embrace….
Dear Beloved, if ever knowing has made people proud; please keep me like now— not knowing, to keep me humble and happy.
Three buckets are silently sitting on a shelf in a corner of my heart….
May all beings be happy
Salam….
Hungry Caterpillar
Caterpillar feet
March on a twig. Oops! They flip.
Scary acrobat!
It looks up to the blue skies,
Prepares to cocoon itself.
—
Butterfly is never really born. It is a natural breakthrough after the hungry caterpillar is willing to go fasting and liquidize itself in seclusion. When it is time, a butterfly comes into being.
You might be not a colourful pretty butterfly but cocooning should have taught you that your present being is the output of a long resting period after such a long euphoric period of being a hungry caterpillar. The euphoric being is gone, replaced by a winged soft being flying and dancing celebrating the moving air around its body.
Your wings might be just pitch black but they are the result of how sincere you are in a transformative sleep hanging in a weak twig, without knowing if you’ll be slapped down when the twig is broken, without knowing that you’ll be aborted because of the wet, without knowing that the end is the end or a transition point. You just don’t know but you accept your not knowing.
You might not be as pretty as the most beautiful butterfly out there but…. You’ve gone through the same quality of cycle – not less not more. Thanks to fair Mother Nature.
To be “born” winged, fly, help the flowers pollinate before fruition and magically create graceful move with super powerful effect….
Don’t be upset for being a flipping hungry caterpillar’ coz when you’re transformed, your flapping wings can blow a typhoon!
May all caterpillars be happy…..
Rike Jo
The Best Stories – tanka
Leaves becoming sheets,
Trees becoming pens: they live
Among your stories,
Whose chapters will never end
Until the Beloved calls.
—-
Would you let me write the best of our stories, my Beloved?
May all beings be happy…
Just Like That
Fish’s breath and frog’s jump
Greet senses with rhythm and
Leave them with rhyme.
—-
Just like that…. The move, the sound….
The blessings
The experience
The acceptance
Salam.
Dream of You
I saw you last night.
Where? In a dream, you came
With a pink orchid.
—-
Why do people meet others in their dream? Connection? I don’t know. I think I was just too tired of cooking.
I’m happy though to have met someone who doesn’t even want to see my face 🤪
May all beings be happy.
Happy Day – haiku
I’m one year older.
What should I say, dear Heaven?
Thank you? Or, damn you?
September 6, 2020
—
Birthday is always bitter sweet. Some people will merrily say happy birthday and wish me all the best. Yet there is a group of people who will tease me about getting older and older and older
I love the latter one as they sound more genuine to me ahaha. They are my closest circle! This particular group is full with people who have always supported me with true friendship in my high and low, kept me insane in my hard time, laughed with me in true and false jokes, given me confidence to be just me. And I’ll do the same for them. This is the group I’d like to keep as my circle for the rest of my life; those without hidden agenda to pull me under their bloody carpet for them to show their glory.
Whew! What a day!
Today is not a special day because it’s my birthday but it is special because I realise more strongly that those I trust are true, existing and trustworthy.
I’m always walking happily! 🥰
Salam….
Struggling? Accepting? Both?
Watching Tom Hank’s Cast Away once again, I still think it is always relatable to overall situation about how human beings respond to the unexpected or the unacceptable. Just how wonderful the power of acceptance can change a perspective up to 180 degrees. How a short period of a human being’s life span can wise up a heartless man. How being alone can teach you so many life skills that you’ve missed because of your pampering facilities! How the physical absence and no news practically be assumed that someone is just dead! Just how amazing a volley ball can cure someone’s loneliness — hey, just like how some of you talk to Siri, right?
If you were stranded in an un-populated island, what would you do? Or maybe the first thing is how would you react? Angry? Desperate? And then what? You don’t have any tools, you are a newly-recruited as stone era man by the small island whose ghosts are even yet to wake up.
I mean what type of excitement can you apply? You are powerless as you don’t have any choice but accept that this island is better than the water surrounding it, that the un-waken ghost might be your best friends, that drinking coconut water is preferred than the sea water. More than that if you are modern scout without Swiss knife and the ropes, you can’t even boast yourself to anyone as you are alone — ok, wait until you can boast around later when you’re back to civilisation.
I think the biggest lesson from Cast Away isn’t really survival, it is acceptance. Although survival and acceptance may lead to the same point of life- that you are to go back to your own interest; those two words represent two different emphasis of action.
Survival emphasises the struggle against all odds with some assumption that human beings have the right to win over any barriers including other human beings and nature, that you can persuade others even force others to follow your wish. I don’t like this in my personal life. In business, that’s different field of game so let’s be wolves!
Acceptance emphasises the surrender to and adaptation to the situations with awareness that others have their own free will and no power should apply to force your expectation against them.
Life is mega vast ocean of unlimited possibilities. I am just one of billions of those playing. Some people play edge water, splash around, swim, surf, dive, you name it…. I don’t know what I’m doing I’m probably drowning with too much dream of possibilities which I soon have to burry deep in my next peaceful sleep.
I have power over nothing (Chuck Noland, Cast Away)
Salaaam….
Signs – ranting
When sign means nothing,
She’s maybe illiterate
Or dead desperate.
—
I had a conversation with a good friend, the topic was “sign”. This particular friend cannot read most of non verbal signs and hints from her spouse clearly. What her spouse shows non verbally won’t trigger any curiosity from her; except when he expresses it verbally then she will understand. Facial gestures, body language, more seriously mental vibration won’t do her any ring anymore.
I thought it was strange as a couple should be able “to read” each other’s feeling or idea with a blink of an eye! At least that’s my ideal couple goal.
Then after a while I can relate to what has happened to me.
I’ve been living away from family for more than 25 years; the 7 of which I’ve lived totally home alone (cats and other pets not counted). And that 7-year period is when I think I’ve lost the ability to read what my family is trying to communicate to me. We either don’t understand “the language” or we just can’t accept “the reasoning”. When it comes to language, I feel that our ability to read kinds of personal or cultural gestures have diminished either with my ignorance to their loving and caring behaviour or with their insensitivity to my practicality and logical thinking. We just don’t know how to match things in many occasions and usually we’ll just tolerate each other by saying “no worry, as long as you are happy and healthy”.
When I asked what happened to my friend and her spouse, she said “I just don’t know what language I should use to communicate with him”. Hmm exactly what I experience with my mother and siblings.
“Why don’t you try guessing whatever you see from him? Just to show that you care?”
“I’ve tried but it looks unnatural. He asked me why I did weird questioning and guessing.”
“It is ok, unnatural at the beginning but will be natural when you find the click”.
“We won’t find a click anymore. We are not happy and not meant to be.”
Eh?
At that point I couldn’t say anything. I think she is not illiterate, she’s seriously desperate.
Gosh! Life is a mystery! We, her close circle have always thought they’re the happiest and I’m the lonely. Now I think it is time to be thankful just for a minute to be happier even than the happiest.
May all beings be happy…..
Complete or Complex? – ranting
Life is a complete journey. You’re the driver, passenger, the road, the vehicle, the destination and the source!
That’s not complete, that’s complicated or even complex.
Dear Self, it doesn’t matter though that the understanding of the complexity isn’t coming yet.
You may think you’re just a driver, dear Self. But why thinking you’re a driver if you don’t even think of direction?
You may think you’re merely a passenger. Why thinking you’re that if you are so busy directing your life to certain direction. Only driver minds about direction.
You’re the road ‘coz you’re always saying you’re tracing back your DNA. You claim that you try to understand yourself, to follow your line…. You’re the road and route itself.
The vehicle?
Without your body, you won’t be able to move around! You. Are. Your. Own. Vehicle.
Note that!
The direction?
You always say everything is for your own good, for your own benefit…
You’re your own purpose. Direction.
Re-orient yourself!
The source?
Don’t worry, dear Self there is blown spirit given to you, from the Source.
So if you don’t think you’re the source, you at least contain some particle sparked or blown or splashed or however the way from the Source.
Hmm…. Love
So easy to fool around this humble Self to believe that life is a complete oops complex journey….
Take it easy….. Time to enjoy your corn with cheese, dear Self.
May all beings be happy
Sunset – haiku
She loves each sunset.
It throws her things to ponder,
About life knots.
Temasek – Aug. 30, 2020 / 23:54
—
Many people choose to live in houses facing the east where the Sun greets them in their mornings. The iconic sunrise is not only the representation of natural beauty but also the indication of value in dollars of the residence.
All my windows face west though, with no special consideration except that I pay cheaper rent for this small apartment. My friends said I should have chosen the other one with some dollars more to see the sunrise. I thought I made wrong choice but soon found that sunset isn’t less beautiful than the sunrise.
Sunset gives me warmth of the day. It waves me a hope to see the next day. It’s red, orange, yellow behind the spectrum of light to dark blue and oftentimes grey to pitch black has become my dear friend when I’m home.
I’ve been not only living but also working from home since March and seeing many sunsets with different combinations of colours and weathers.
In fine days sky gives me clearer definition of what sunset is like. Round burning circle slowly and quietly drowns into darkness, leaving the land a peaceful place and letting electricity take the turn.
In cloudy days I’ll ask the sky where he hides the giant fire ball. He says the ball is still burning behind him, moving to the same direction in the same orbit with relatively the same speed, just that it is knowing that certain days don’t need its presence for some reasons. Sun still sets but my eyes don’t witness it.
Sunset has taught me that life goes on whether we see it or not, hear it or not, discuss it or not, taste it or not, smell it or not: sense it or not. Sunset has taught me that the attention is human beings’ button of “what exists”. With or without that button, everything exists yet human beings think some don’t exists just because their button is off.
Sunset is truly a gift for me from the Universe. It is a present when I miss my beloved people, a lesson when I’m aware of who I am or I am not, a teaching when I’m enlightened, a button when I’m observant or ignorant and many other subjects depending on what state of emotions I’m in.
Sunset is a call to realise that nothing lasts forever and at the same time thing can be an eternal memory of yours as long as you wish it is.
Alamak…. I become so sentimental because of sunset….
Thanks much, Sunset for accompanying me for some minutes in my long-hour day. I know you travel to the west, please carry my hope to my love and send it back to me the next day through the sunrise in front of my east front door.
May all beings be happy….
See You Next Year – hungry mood
I would have been to Japan at least 5 times up to this month this year if Mr and Mrs Corona hadn’t come.
Upset? Slightly. Why? Coz I planned to go eating in some restaurants whose food has been shown by one of my YouTube subscribes, and all the plans have to be postponed.
Hey! It doesn’t matter, there is still next year. And in my life the next year is always better than previous year.
See you, Japanese food! Serve me your best! Our rendezvous is gonna be amazing!
Been drooling watching the Deli Bali’s videos 🥰
Mirror – haiku
If she’s not ready
To see herself. Stop giving
A mirror. Give gin!
—-
Sometimes you lose your confidence to tell your friend what you truly know about what happens to one; not because you are afraid of losing a friendship, but just because you know that one will lose one’s confidence by seeing one’s own true face.
Ya, sometimes you will sacrifice your position – before someone you keep doing yourself a stupid idiot (please excuse my language to myself) who will only act as a yes-friend to make someone get more and more drunk with fake realities.
A good friend, are you?
May all beings be happy….
