What is a home - is it the warm feeling you get at the sight of dear ones, is it the laughter you generously give to the silly jokes thrown out in the air, is it the constricting twist in your chest with the lost of memories once treasured, is it the first smile of the day you get after waking up, is it the tinge of bittersweet pleasure at the remembrance of someone faraway yet close at heart, is it the sense of amazement and wonder at the smell of salty sea, the taste of bitter leaves and sweet flowers, the rhythm of chirping bird and barking dog, together with the embrace of your loved ones make you feel complete and whole. What is a home - exactly?
If happiness can be transient, so can home. If you can find happiness anywhere, so can you find where you truly belonged no matter where you go. If you can lose happiness at the grasp of it, so can you lose your home without ever once leaving it.
Happiness, home, love - are things you crave to validate your existence, to prove the worth of your pumping and bleeding heart. If you no longer present, and if your heart stopped beating at the touch of emotions - happiness, home, love; they no longer matter.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Lessons from dancing
The poetic thing about dancing is how it homogenizes the basic instincts of human nature all at once. The ability to allow our body to be simply guided by the flow of music, while still keeping our conscious mind awake to the presence and motion of our partner and ourselves The idea is to let music soothes us, and our partner guides us.
The beauty with dancing lies in the way we exude our femininity while still preserving our control, and the way our partner has to dashingly guides us on the floor and yet be gentle enough not to over-exert his dominance on us. We must never be afraid to let go, and he must never hesitate to guide. How the beauty of ancient grace and chivalry takes over both of us and the chimes of pure romance takes hold.
Dancing requires trust and faith, dancing requires confidence, humility, and chastity, dancing requires respect, love, and affection. Dancing is itself, the most truthful depiction of basic human nature. Learn to dance, and we learn to love.
The beauty with dancing lies in the way we exude our femininity while still preserving our control, and the way our partner has to dashingly guides us on the floor and yet be gentle enough not to over-exert his dominance on us. We must never be afraid to let go, and he must never hesitate to guide. How the beauty of ancient grace and chivalry takes over both of us and the chimes of pure romance takes hold.
Dancing requires trust and faith, dancing requires confidence, humility, and chastity, dancing requires respect, love, and affection. Dancing is itself, the most truthful depiction of basic human nature. Learn to dance, and we learn to love.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Celebrating independence
Malam Gema Merdeka (Malaysian Independence Night) reminds me of several things about Malaysia I would love not to forget while in the Land Downunder.
Like the way Malaysian men pretend to look past me in shyness, they look so remote, vulnerable, and yet appealing at the same time. The moment I put out my hand, playing damsel in distress, they will look at me, as if surprised and yet proud at the same time. Admittedly mischievous, I am unfortunately spontaneous in teasing people.
Like the way I could wear my baju kurung (traditional dress) and feel so beautiful in it. Despite my preference in putting on my casual shirts and long pants, embodying a picture of the journalist in me, I know I can always reach my dress in any day and wear it without hesitation and be proud of it.
Like the way I hear Malay songs, poems, and fables and not only I could recognize it, but I could feel a surge of pride, excitement, and devotion well up in my blood for my country and for my people.
Somehow along the point, I think our love for our country, for our land and our home, our love for our people - is something as natural as the blood itself, seeping through our flesh, across our heart, passing by our bones - every drop of it mark our yet living self.
Like the way Malaysian men pretend to look past me in shyness, they look so remote, vulnerable, and yet appealing at the same time. The moment I put out my hand, playing damsel in distress, they will look at me, as if surprised and yet proud at the same time. Admittedly mischievous, I am unfortunately spontaneous in teasing people.
Like the way I could wear my baju kurung (traditional dress) and feel so beautiful in it. Despite my preference in putting on my casual shirts and long pants, embodying a picture of the journalist in me, I know I can always reach my dress in any day and wear it without hesitation and be proud of it.
Like the way I hear Malay songs, poems, and fables and not only I could recognize it, but I could feel a surge of pride, excitement, and devotion well up in my blood for my country and for my people.
Somehow along the point, I think our love for our country, for our land and our home, our love for our people - is something as natural as the blood itself, seeping through our flesh, across our heart, passing by our bones - every drop of it mark our yet living self.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Restless
I am obsessed with information, and I am unfortunately appealed by the least popular ideas. I’ve been labeled as the lefty, the liberal of the sort, the challenger of the public. I am beginning to think I am wrong to treat environmentalism as akin to other field of knowledge I have been wanting to learn for so long; history, psychology, philosophy – because I now find its fluidity and organic volatility as so perplexing I rather revert back to studying biotechnology; technical, finite, and empiric.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Disturbed inside
Have you ever feel like there’s something inside you, buried deep beneath like a fluttery butterfly coming out of its cocoon? Its repeated echo is tapping on your conscious mind, repeatedly and persistently until at one point you can no longer pretend to be invincible to its acute presence.
Reading Ahmad Wahib’s Pergolakan Pemikiran Islam and listening to Butterfinger’s Mati Hidup Kembali (Alive After Death) at the same time takes me back to all those times of questioning and pondering. The days of not knowing and being frustrated at knowing I’ll not always find the answer. Despite all the confusions, I never want to get so caught up with my ordinary life and forget those moments. The moments which shaped my choice, my turn of events, the metamorphosis which brought up my being. No, I never want to forget it, I never wish to leave it. I want to be the adult who still questions, the old who still challenges.
Today I discussed about God’s presence with a friend, oh how sometimes I am scrambling in the dark looking for His hands. I feel so close yet so distant from Him sometimes. I feel like I am being held at an arm length, touched by God but never fully embraced by Him. It’s a question of faith, a question of me believing in His nearness. It’s the question of my chaotic soul.
Reading Ahmad Wahib’s Pergolakan Pemikiran Islam and listening to Butterfinger’s Mati Hidup Kembali (Alive After Death) at the same time takes me back to all those times of questioning and pondering. The days of not knowing and being frustrated at knowing I’ll not always find the answer. Despite all the confusions, I never want to get so caught up with my ordinary life and forget those moments. The moments which shaped my choice, my turn of events, the metamorphosis which brought up my being. No, I never want to forget it, I never wish to leave it. I want to be the adult who still questions, the old who still challenges.
Today I discussed about God’s presence with a friend, oh how sometimes I am scrambling in the dark looking for His hands. I feel so close yet so distant from Him sometimes. I feel like I am being held at an arm length, touched by God but never fully embraced by Him. It’s a question of faith, a question of me believing in His nearness. It’s the question of my chaotic soul.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
The perfect night
It was the perfect night. The perfect dinner, the perfect coffee, and the perfect companions. It was like the perfect epiphany for me, a sudden moment of final realization how my presence in this land is complete; my heart, soul, and body are now soiled with the dirt of Australia. It has made its mark on me, stamped and tattoed, and it will forever leave its stain.
The popia (spring rolls), sayur lemak (vegetable stew in coconut milk), and ikan bakar (grilled fish) turned out perfectly. Everyone loves it. Not being a self-proclaimed avid cook I am, I nevertheless pride myself at being able to enjoy cooking as I do writing. It is a process of breaking up a tangle of complex information, putting it together again in a way which I understand and voila, the product.
Yes, I am unfortunately compulsive in disrupting and re-arranging a complete system and build it again in ways I see fit. It explains a lot of things though, isn’t it?
The popia (spring rolls), sayur lemak (vegetable stew in coconut milk), and ikan bakar (grilled fish) turned out perfectly. Everyone loves it. Not being a self-proclaimed avid cook I am, I nevertheless pride myself at being able to enjoy cooking as I do writing. It is a process of breaking up a tangle of complex information, putting it together again in a way which I understand and voila, the product.
Yes, I am unfortunately compulsive in disrupting and re-arranging a complete system and build it again in ways I see fit. It explains a lot of things though, isn’t it?
Friday, August 15, 2008
Not feeling womanly
Sometimes my period cramp makes me feel like less a woman, sometimes it makes me think my inside is somehow broken, unfit to carry the flag of being a whole woman. Everytime it plagued my body, I am torned between the feelings of destitute it causes me, and the need to sustain my independence by extinguishing its visible pain. Neither do I always succeed to accomplish any of it, because by the time I realize the pain is gone someone kind who noticed the lines of excruciating pain on my face had already offered their help, or out of helplessness I simply reached the painkillers I keep in my study and put myself to the obedience of sleep.
It is the pain, the obligatory kind. The type which stays inside you no matter how far you go, as long as you are alive. To put a stop to its flame is to put a stop at your fire, and it kills you with its death.
It is the pain, the obligatory kind. The type which stays inside you no matter how far you go, as long as you are alive. To put a stop to its flame is to put a stop at your fire, and it kills you with its death.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Rediscovering books
“I believe now that the bones which formed me physically formed me in other ways too. Many people who grow up into writers experience themselves as different, left on the sidelines by illness, physical uniqueness, tragedy, some profound notion of their own solitariness. Only children often become writers, children from toxic marriages, children whose interior worlds somehow became more radiant than the regular world witnessed by eyes.”
Books find themselves in me again. I find myself in books again. After a long hiatus, forcefully and unwillingly embarked upon a change of heart, a change of scenery, a change of place belonged to. We finally find each other again.
I stumbled upon A Better Woman while I was aimlessly wandering in the library, looking for solitary place to hide from the demeaning lunch crowd. Thankfully, the school library is well-stocked with books, giving it a damp smell which so often associated with my imagination of books. The racks are wall-to-ceiling high, and books fill every inch of it. One would definitely not call it human-friendly, but book-lovers will rejoice in its solitude embrace. As I counted from one to hundred, my fingers ran through the spine of books at one of the sections for parenting and family issues. I keep picking up one book after another, opening at no particular page, and reading it until it grew weary of me. A Better Woman, which is poignantly written on the subject of being a woman; a mother, a lover, a writer - without question immediately chose me as its reader. The writer vividly resonates my many thoughts, feelings and experience, and in a way, its reflective nature brought back to me the long suppressed impulse for endless (one might call it excessive too) thinking and writing.
The book got me started, it marked the beginning for the unfolding of the writer in me, and the cyclical process of reading-thinking-writing will stay for a long time now until the next hiatus. It is a lonesome life, albeit a prolific one.
A Better Woman; A Memoir by Susan Johnson
Books find themselves in me again. I find myself in books again. After a long hiatus, forcefully and unwillingly embarked upon a change of heart, a change of scenery, a change of place belonged to. We finally find each other again.
I stumbled upon A Better Woman while I was aimlessly wandering in the library, looking for solitary place to hide from the demeaning lunch crowd. Thankfully, the school library is well-stocked with books, giving it a damp smell which so often associated with my imagination of books. The racks are wall-to-ceiling high, and books fill every inch of it. One would definitely not call it human-friendly, but book-lovers will rejoice in its solitude embrace. As I counted from one to hundred, my fingers ran through the spine of books at one of the sections for parenting and family issues. I keep picking up one book after another, opening at no particular page, and reading it until it grew weary of me. A Better Woman, which is poignantly written on the subject of being a woman; a mother, a lover, a writer - without question immediately chose me as its reader. The writer vividly resonates my many thoughts, feelings and experience, and in a way, its reflective nature brought back to me the long suppressed impulse for endless (one might call it excessive too) thinking and writing.
The book got me started, it marked the beginning for the unfolding of the writer in me, and the cyclical process of reading-thinking-writing will stay for a long time now until the next hiatus. It is a lonesome life, albeit a prolific one.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Green questions
The class today was engrossing. The emergence of green radical speakers as opposed to the rationally sustainable group is beginning to spice things up a bit, and as usual, I remain an enticed observant of the crowd. The subject of environmentalism haven’t ceased to blow my mind, its intricacies, when considered alongside other aspects, i.e., economics, social and political systems, is still beyond something I am capable to comprehend.
The extent to which how social systems influence our environmental behavior makes me think how it is going to be a major reform in Malaysia if we are truly ever becoming a green society. Apart from the influence of market and trade, we are essentially governed by our religious and racial/cultural values too, and sadly, it does not necessarily mean a good thing for all of us. Behavioral change, at its best, seems to face a stonewall resistance when it comes to us Malaysian lots.
Despite our aggrandizing slogans of conserving our nature (and repeated mentions of how we are one of the mega-biodiverse countries of the world), our failure in integrating ourselves with each other remains as a dark shadow lurking behind our every moves.
The extent to which how social systems influence our environmental behavior makes me think how it is going to be a major reform in Malaysia if we are truly ever becoming a green society. Apart from the influence of market and trade, we are essentially governed by our religious and racial/cultural values too, and sadly, it does not necessarily mean a good thing for all of us. Behavioral change, at its best, seems to face a stonewall resistance when it comes to us Malaysian lots.
Despite our aggrandizing slogans of conserving our nature (and repeated mentions of how we are one of the mega-biodiverse countries of the world), our failure in integrating ourselves with each other remains as a dark shadow lurking behind our every moves.
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