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Read this first, if you would.
My mom wore a big woven hat with her hair braided on both sides of her shoulder. She had a short sleve shirt and a short skirt. A girl with the same style of clothes is standing on her left and several guys with guitars and long tight pants are standing around a drum that centered them. I am looking at my mom’s picture when she was young, and happy, and active.
My mom was a heck of an active girl and I was proud of her. She was the only one in the family that went to college, paid for her own education from her own sweat and tears. She made sense of every single thing that she did. She ditched a boyfriend who was madly in love with her when she found out he was cheating on her. She told me a story when they drove along the shore and he asked her to marry her or else he would crash the car to the water. Insane, the boyfriend then gave up. Broken heart, my mother came back to my dad whom she knows was waiting for her to come back. They were childhood buddies even though my dad is ten years older than my mom. I can imagine that my dad is probably far from being cool or was able to keep up with my mom’s active world. He was probably an old man for her, but her experience with her cheater boyfriend made her realize what is important in relationship.
My mom told all these kind of stories before we went to bed. All of us, except my dad, would curl up in one bed (with me the youngest wanted to be in the middle because it’s warm) and she would tell us happy and sad stories. Such a good story teller, my mom could take our imagination back to her childhood, and her teen-age years. She was also a freak reader like me. She would pretend that she was in the bathroom, she hated vegetables when she was young.
I was thinking of how my mom meant to me and much more important than my hurt or my disappointment of my failed relationships. I began to make sense of every single hurt I kept and how they kept me from become closer to my biological mom, who became my way to have a life on this earth. Who has carried me everywhere for more than nine months when I was still an embrio. Who had gambled her own life to have me, a creature she would call daughter. Who had teach me to do everything I can do now. Who had loved me, breast-fed me, changed my dirty diapers, taught me to walk, to speak, to listen, to do everything that otherwise I cannot do, that made me able to develop my own life.
I was looking at my mom’s picture the way she is now. She is still pretty in my eyes. She wore a long traditional skirt and a pretty green kebaya. She was standing there with my dad, at my sister’s wedding. I love you, mom. I know I can never return your love the way you had shown me, but I pray that God will protect you and give you peace. And I can’t wait to see you again.
Yogyakarta, December 24, 2004, 6:00 am
The first time after three years I step my feet again on this soil. A fertile soil otherwise covered by this concrete building and hide beneath the old worn-out rail track built by the natives, during the Dutch colonies era. Although I feel so foreign to be in this station again, the view seems so familiar. It’s like coming home. And I am home.
I didn’t fly from Jakarta just to feel the train ride that I used to take from Yogyakarta to Jakarta. I remember how pleasant it was just to sit there, looking outside the window and think. Miles and miles of padi rice fields, change into bamboo forest, or young forest, or tea plantation, small and big river, a lake, a small town, a big city, a slum, landfill. The changing of the landscape blended my mind with this land, the land that give us life, where we work out our lives from. And I feel home.
I looked at a figure that might be Satriyo, my old friend, the only person in this city I informed about my coming home. Someone waved at me from a distance, and I still imagine Satriyo the way he looked like when I left. The person I see in front of me is different than my old Satriyo, but I know from his eyes, that he is my old Satrio. And a little girl holding his hand.
I can’t understand what takes our mind or our faces to develop, but I definitely can see that Satrio has become a father, a real one. While in my mind, I can still imagine his spoil looking face in high school, when we met.
His little girl’s name is Wulan, just like mine.
My mom wore a big woven hat with her hair braided on both sides of her shoulder. She had a short sleve shirt and a short skirt. A girl with the same style of clothes is standing on her left and several guys with guitars and long tight pants are standing around a drum that centered them. I am looking at my mom’s picture when she was young, and happy, and active.
My mom was a heck of an active girl and I was proud of her. She was the only one in the family that went to college, paid for her own education from her own sweat and tears. She made sense of every single thing that she did. She ditched a boyfriend who was madly in love with her when she found out he was cheating on her. She told me a story when they drove along the shore and he asked her to marry her or else he would crash the car to the water. Insane, the boyfriend then gave up. Broken heart, my mother came back to my dad whom she knows was waiting for her to come back. They were childhood buddies even though my dad is ten years older than my mom. I can imagine that my dad is probably far from being cool or was able to keep up with my mom’s active world. He was probably an old man for her, but her experience with her cheater boyfriend made her realize what is important in relationship.
My mom told all these kind of stories before we went to bed. All of us, except my dad, would curl up in one bed (with me the youngest wanted to be in the middle because it’s warm) and she would tell us happy and sad stories. Such a good story teller, my mom could take our imagination back to her childhood, and her teen-age years. She was also a freak reader like me. She would pretend that she was in the bathroom, she hated vegetables when she was young.
I was thinking of how my mom meant to me and much more important than my hurt or my disappointment of my failed relationships. I began to make sense of every single hurt I kept and how they kept me from become closer to my biological mom, who became my way to have a life on this earth. Who has carried me everywhere for more than nine months when I was still an embrio. Who had gambled her own life to have me, a creature she would call daughter. Who had teach me to do everything I can do now. Who had loved me, breast-fed me, changed my dirty diapers, taught me to walk, to speak, to listen, to do everything that otherwise I cannot do, that made me able to develop my own life.
I was looking at my mom’s picture the way she is now. She is still pretty in my eyes. She wore a long traditional skirt and a pretty green kebaya. She was standing there with my dad, at my sister’s wedding. I love you, mom. I know I can never return your love the way you had shown me, but I pray that God will protect you and give you peace. And I can’t wait to see you again.
Yogyakarta, December 24, 2004, 6:00 am
The first time after three years I step my feet again on this soil. A fertile soil otherwise covered by this concrete building and hide beneath the old worn-out rail track built by the natives, during the Dutch colonies era. Although I feel so foreign to be in this station again, the view seems so familiar. It’s like coming home. And I am home.
I didn’t fly from Jakarta just to feel the train ride that I used to take from Yogyakarta to Jakarta. I remember how pleasant it was just to sit there, looking outside the window and think. Miles and miles of padi rice fields, change into bamboo forest, or young forest, or tea plantation, small and big river, a lake, a small town, a big city, a slum, landfill. The changing of the landscape blended my mind with this land, the land that give us life, where we work out our lives from. And I feel home.
I looked at a figure that might be Satriyo, my old friend, the only person in this city I informed about my coming home. Someone waved at me from a distance, and I still imagine Satriyo the way he looked like when I left. The person I see in front of me is different than my old Satriyo, but I know from his eyes, that he is my old Satrio. And a little girl holding his hand.
I can’t understand what takes our mind or our faces to develop, but I definitely can see that Satrio has become a father, a real one. While in my mind, I can still imagine his spoil looking face in high school, when we met.
His little girl’s name is Wulan, just like mine.
posted by dyah kartikawening at
3:21 PM
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