Happy Birthday!

What is age, dear love?
Pearls of memories of you
Shining in my mind.

—-

May 12 is my father’s birthday. He was born in 1939 but his physical body died years ago leaving memories about him.

Happy birthday, Bapak. May you be reborn a happy one wherever you are.

💝

mango was his favourite — i’ve eaten mango for 3 days to celebrate his birthday 😀 no cake this year as I prioritised my time for something more important; sorry, Bapak 😘

Happy Birthday, U2!

May 5 is today.

This is my second Tapa Brata and both of them are special. My first in 2018 was special because Pak Merta Ada’s teacher (Merta Ada is my health meditation teacher) a Buddhist high priest visited his retreat center and gave us blessings. This second one is because we found that May 5 is his birthday! He was born on May 5, 1957 — a long journey of a meditation teacher and healer.

Someone is also celebrating his birthday across the ocean. May 5 becomes more special today this time. A journey of a silent traveler.

Happy birthday Pak Merta and dear KU. Both of you have a special place in my heart.

For Pak Merta, we immediately prepared a green sarung rangrang. For KU I thoughtfully prepared a poem.

—-

Alone the bird flies
From a nest on a tall tree
It knows where home is.

🙏🏼

May 5 2023 is when the biggest moon rises this year; Waisak (Vesak) is already celebrated in some countries (on May 6 in other countries) — my meditation teacher is celebrating his birthday, another life teacher of mine is celebrating his

an “emergency” birthday present for Pak Merta Ada from our class, wrapped in a beautiful fancy paper from the nearest small shop nearby to wrap a sarung rangrang I originally bought for my additional spread and table cloth — what a beautiful togetherness in this meditation class 💝

Birthday

On your birthday, Love,
Magic sends sweet messages
And flowers and gifts.

Ibu turns 78 today. It is a 78 years of human beings, 54 years of a wife, 53 years of a mother of 5. 47 years of being my mother— maybe the most annoying of facing this one rascal among 5 angels. 🙃 She might not be always happy being her but she is full of sweet smiles and words of encouragement.

If her life is a painting, it will be a colourful canvas full of fragrant tropical flowers and powerful herbs that can be concocted as medicines especially for her family and friends. Beautiful and full of healing for others— No wonder her family and neighbours highly respect her.

Ibu, I know you never like big celebration and that’s why we only send stupid messages on your birthday. But I know you always miss us to annoy you and that’s why we give surprises! Much love today and forever!

Salaam…

I sent this picture to her; maybe she was wondering why I didn’t send picture of a real birthday cake as I normally do. She will be surprised!

Oct 9, 2022

Can You Pack It Well? – haiku

Can you pack it well?
It takes forever to do
If you’re amateur.

Singapore – Feb. 3, 2020 / 20:31

My nephew is flying back to Indonesia tomorrow morning – he spent 5 days taking over my bed snoring and shopping around useless things just to celebrate his belated 18th birthday that was supposed to be December 2019.

Now he was busy stacking all his clothes and shopped items into his medium luggage. He wanted to show me that he was capable without my help so I didn’t offer my help until finally he gave up….

“Can you help me hold the other end of the luggage?”

“No, not only holding the other end but you need total help. Let’s repack, boy.”

He didn’t agree but finally followed my instruction on unpacking all, stacking things first then inserting the next things later.

Packing is like putting on clothes for me. Perhaps packing and unpacking luggage shall be part of my official job description. So don’t try to beat me for packing things into luggage or trunk. I can pack things very nicely in quite short time. But don’t ask me to pack things into backpack — I give up. I still think traveling in backpack is super fun except that the clothes will be crumpled making me look even messier and my back will ache…. I wish I’m naturally cute and strong. 😊

“Let me do this luggage ‘coz I’m one of those professional luggage packers, boy. Pack your own backpack, I am not accountable for that….”

“So, you don’t help me with this? What kind of aunt are you?”

“Honest one. God bless me, Vito!”

😂

Of course God bless you, too dear nephew. Safe flight.