Words and I

I can’t imagine having a land of 10.000 m2. One hectare! How wide is it? You can build a forest with that. A river runs through it, with a big lake and enormous trees, and even a small hill. A perfect forest. 

If one hectare is hard to imagine, how about 60.8 million hectares? Let me write it clearly. That will be… 608.000.000.000 m2. Can you figure it out? It’s like…whoa! Sooo wide, is it?

Well, that whoa…er, I mean that number is a figure of how large our forests and the areas near rivers in Indonesia have already destroyed or gone. They are destroyed either by development or greed, but I’m sure 99% of the cause is greed.

If you have to choose between a nice sport centre in the middle of your town and a garden with various trees, what will you choose? I’ll choose a nice sport centre with a garden half of it. Fair, isn’t it?

It started in the late seventies when I was a kid. Mario Kempes was his name. His face was printed on my T-shirt and my cousin’s. It seemed he was so famous at the time. All grown-ups I knew were familiar to his name. My cousin and I just laughed at his name. What? Kempes? What kind of name was that? In Indonesian language, when you say that name with different pronounciation on the vocal ‘e’, it means ‘deflated’, ’sunken’, or ‘flat’. It is used popularly when you say, " I had a flat tire on my bike."

Who was he? My uncle told me he was a famous footballer from Argentina. Mmm… okay. It’s so grown-up thing, I thought, and was never interested anymore.

Then in elementary school years later, my classmates talked about World Cup. I got the fever, too. I remembered playing soccer game on my Mom’s dining table with my brother. We used shirt’s buttons as players and a round pepper seed as a ball. My favorite footballer? Who else but Rummenigge!

Many years gone by and I had ‘fallen in love’ with many famous footballers like all women do, but no one campared to Gabriel Batistuta  Anyway, I’ve been growing up to love the game. I remember those ‘un-sleepy’ nights and early morns when I’d watch the good matches with my brothers and my Mom would hopelessly wake us up the next day for school.

Now, I’m trying not to miss a good match on TV but… since my Mom is so far away to wake me up to work in the lazy morning, I give up watching sometimes. I don’t really have a faith in my alarm clock. Viva Soccer!

Have you ever asked this question to yourself, "What’s the most important thing in life?"? I could never really find the answer because I thought there were so many important things in life that you just couldn’t belittle them over the others.

Family is important; it’s your root, your background, your history, your home. Friends are important; they are shaping you up along the way. Strangers are important; they are potentials friends to be; a mirror of ourselves too, good and bad. Animals are important; they give you meat and fur and friendship. Trees are important; they give you comfort and serenity and food, too. God is important; He creates them all FOR you.

Then a friend told me one day that the most important thing in life is love, that he can’t live a day without love, neither can I. Every action is done because of love. Every creature sings out of love. Even a sad song created out of love. That’s too much, I told him, how about war? They love their country, he said.

I’m not going to be so philosophical now… but I think I understand more that life itself is a precious gift He’s given to us. Do you want to treat life important or let it go by unnoticed? It’s up to us, really.  

On a sunny Saturday, a friend asked me to accompany her to a hairdresser’s. She was going to have a hair creambath. As I had no idea what I would like to do there, she suggested that I took a facial massage instead. Mm, sounded nice, I agreed.

As I entered the room where I would have the massage, the masseur suddenly asked, "Could I just pluck your eyebrows, too? They are so thick. I could just…you know, shape them a bit thinner and…" I was like, whoa!!! "Let me think about it first, okay?" Then my mind drifting to years ago, on my graduation day.

On a graduation day, female students are supposed to wear a national custom, that is a kebaya. We have our hair done and make-up done, and years a go, on that day, I went to a hairdresser’s to have all done. I was in the middle of having my make-up done when… kress…(i think that’s how it sounded) the hairdresser was just trying to trim my eyebrow!

"Wait a minute!" I stopped her. "What are you doing?" Then she explained about my thick eyebrows and wanted to shape it, etc., etc. I was a bit mad, she didn’t consult me first and my left eyebrow was a little thinner now than the right one. "It will grow," she said, a bit shocked at my reaction. Of course I was shocked. What if she trimmed all my eyebrows and what left was only a black thin line like a clown? In the end, I didn’t let her shape up my eyebrows.

Now I had a similar situation, only this time the masseur asked me first. While having my face massaged, I was thinking. Where did this whole idea of eyebrow plucking come from? Back to the pre-historic time when they first found a chalk to draw? Hehe… Had Cleopatra had her eyebrows plucked, too? What was her initial reason? Outer beauty or too heavy on face?

Anyway, since the masseur asked me first, and he’s being polite and seemed to shed a tear if I said no, I finally had to let this determined person pluck a very litle tiny bit of my eyebrow so that… I am still the same me! Thank God!

I had a lovely childhood. My parents have a big family. With so many cousins and aunts and uncles and everyone, I think I was surrounded with love. I was doing great at school, too. So that’s why I had a quite difficult time to enter the next step in life, being a teenager. I wished I could have stayed being a child forever, though I safely passed my teenage world at last. :D

I sometimes wonder how many children have a nice childhood nowadays. I suppose there have to be MANY children! Well, look at the world today. Children are exposed to so many games and entertainment, various courses and education, things I couldn’t have in my childhood. They are so lucky, aren’t they? I was so happy just to have a simple bike and watch only one cartoon movie on TV at 16.30 each day back in the early 80s. 

One day I asked my 9 year old nephew to walk along a paddy field. He was so thrilled but not for long. Nothing to do there… just looking at the vast greenness, feeling the breeze slapping your face gently, listening to birds chirping, trying to catch small fishes in the small river, those kind of things. But soon he missed the TV and his Play Station set. He can spend hours playing it and he’s happy.

Yes, he’s happy while other kids are happy doing something different, too. That what matters most. Being happy.

It was Saturday morning and my mind was full of things to do at weekend. I was going home after a week in boarding house. So there I was, sitting on a rather full angkot. Angkot is a minibus turned into a public transportation.

I could not go inside because I carried a heavy bag on my shoulder, a plastic bag on my left hand, and another bag on my right. Plus, the passengers didn’t want to move aside so I sat near the door.

The driver was speeding up and I wondered if he had to go somewhere immediately by way of his driving. He stopped to pick up and drop off passengers with such a speed while he kept on telling them to hurry. The driver was mad, I thought. “Hey you, go inside!”  Suddenly he pointed at me while driving, telling me not to sit near the door. My spirit dropped suddenly. Oh, okay, I thought, now that other passengers gave room to me, perhaps after hearing his yelling.

All passengers seemed so gloomy when the driver suddenly asked for our fares. It wasn’t common. Usually we pay the fare after we reach our destination. Soon all passengers had already given the money to the driver while he was still driving (what a dangerously great performance) except me. I was still looking for some money in my pocket but it was so difficult to do with bags in my hands!

"Hey, who hasn’t paid yet! WHO HASN’T PAID YET??!"

I looked at the driver’s eyes with so much contempt while my hand was trying to locate the money. Without saying a thing, I handed him the money at last. What did he think? That I was going to jump out of the door of the speeding car so that I didn’t have to pay???

"WHERE DID YOU GET ON?"

WHAT??! I already gave him more money and I didn’t ask for any change because I didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore but now he thought I didn’t pay enough!

So, he really ruined my day. My mood dropped to zero. Maybe minus three. But then I eventually made it into a three plus through the rest of the day by pitying him. Can you believe it?

Yes, I pitied the driver for being such a rude person. I pitied him for being so impatient. I pitied him for being angry easily. I pitied him that he might need the money so much to help his family so he had to drive crazily that morning without thinking of his safety and his passengers’ safety. I hoped he would realize his mistakes. I hoped he would be a better person. But most of all, I pitied myself for being so upset for such trivial things… I blamed myself for letting someone ruined my mood. I felt guilty for letting the negative energy of other people unbalancing my energy. I supposed the driver didn’t mean to….