[Dayeuhkolot] Being home
There are so many postings I want to share, including some from Utrecht (which became special now! :D), Enschede, Seoul, etc. But the Internet is so impossible from where I am now. I also want to apologize for not being able to blogwalk for such a long time (after the ‘physical break’, I was on the move, and now I am in the no-Internet world..). I’ll visit your blogs as soon as I come back to my ‘normal world’ (as if I have one :p).
For now I just want to share one article I wrote from my bed at my parents’ house.
:::
It’s 4:30 in the morning and I found myself awake. My body gets confused, it doesn’t know in which timezone it should operate. In my last two months I keep finding myself trapped in a wrong timezone, again and again.
Buzzing sounds of big trucks and inter-city buses come and go. Mingling with the sound of adzan aired on dark skies. I am laying down in a guest bedroom of my parents’ house. I lost an old bedroom where I shared with my little sister for more than 15 years when my parents finally got their house renovated two years ago. Renovation did change much. The floor now is covered by white ceramic tiles replacing outdated black tiles and the second floor is now concrete-constructed. But now, there are only two bedrooms. My parents’ bedroom and a guest bedroom. This makes sense since there’re only two of them in the house now. One cannot believe that it used to be nine of us in this house.
Most things aren’t changed though. Just like seven years ago, or even twenty years ago, there is still no shower in our main bathroom. In that 0.8 m x 2 m bathroom, I still have to use a water bucket to shower. And of course, there is no tissue roll. Yesterday before I took a bath for the first time since I arrived, my mom proudly said, “We have hot water now.” I pretended to be surprised and excited. It has been there since last year and she actually said the same thing back then. She forgot. The way she said “hot water” was so endearing. It made me smile.
Before last year, every time I came back home I still had to boil some water in a huge pot before taking a bath in the evening. Bandung isn’t that cold anymore, but since my Netherlands’ days I have become used to take a hot shower before sleeping. Amazing how places change your habits, your routines, and your lifestyle.
My mom served tahu and tempe in both lunch and dinner yesterday. That’s still much like twenty something years ago. In fact, so many things stay the same. My dad still likes to chase a rat in the middle of the night to make noises that wake everybody up. He still walks around the house wearing the same pairs of sandals, short pants, and t-shirt he used to wear more than ten years ago. And we, he and I, still don’t really understand each other. Which perhaps mostly my fault. I am hard to be understood. My mom still wakes up very early to do her long morning prayer before everybody else wakes up and goes to the market afterward.
They have a new TV now. I asked where the old one was. My mom said, “The old one was broken.” I laughed and said, “Aha, of course it was broken.” Nothing in my parents’ house would be replaced if they weren’t broken. The remote control, like usual, is still covered by plastic wrap (and I am sure it’ll be wrapped for the next 15-20 years!) and my dad is still in control of it.
My life is so dynamic that things are changed within minutes, well days, or at least months. I was in Seoul less than 36 hours ago, in Moscow two weeks ago, and was lying in my Tempe bed only six weeks ago. I feel the need to check my email all the time as if there’s important news every day. Actually that is true, everyday I get emails that possibly change my near future plan, at least my travel plan. On the other hands, lives of my parents and even my siblings haven’t changed that much in seven years.
Sometimes, in being back home you are struggling not because home is changed too much. Most of times, because it doesn’t change as much as you do. But in that struggle, there’s something comforting. Because in the unchanged home you find things that are so dearly familiar; in some simple things such as a water bucket, tahu, tempe, and especially in predictable gestures of people you love. And those things make a place you once called home still home.
mer, dayeuhkolot, july 26th, 2008.
15 Comments so far
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What is the essence of our current state of mind & emotion? As we getting used to rely on internet and quick travel worldwide, do we have a better understanding of the people around us, especially our own family who is trying to love us dearly in their own way?
mer: i suppose this is a rhetorical question which needs no answer. if this is not a rhetorical one but referring to the writer (me) then it’s a cynical (and almost judgmental) question. but i’ll refrain from judging your question. let me say that in my life, i don’t rely on anything, no technology nor human, i just rely on myself. some people communicate with their families on daily basis, but do they have better understanding than those who don’t have such luxury? sometimes love between two people doesn’t need to them to fully understand each other, they just have to love with acceptance and respect.
By nemo on 07.29.08 4:26 pm
Actually I am thinking about billion migrant workers ( such as TKW, TKL all over the world), also humanitarian staff (like ‘follower’ of Mother Theresa, when they face the reality of the ‘gutter’). They communicate with their love one in unique way, and no other means can translate their genuine love.
Rhetorical question about technology or travel is not for me, since internet is making me more stoopid.
By nemo part 2 on 07.30.08 12:27 am
Beautiful.
Once more there is a sweet touch of melancholy in this post. (Or is it my own melancholy I project on and between the lines you wrote?)
Visiting one’s parents, going back to the place where one grew up, is going along memory lane. I always wanted my memory lane to stay the same (ultimately mission impossible of course).
Any little change did harm my nostalgia: the place should give as many clues for sweet ( and painful) childhood associations as possible. And most of all: the more I myself adopted different lifestyle, at least my parents should not change their habits.
So, I guess you are lucky. Though the house changed, judging by the way you describe your parents, your home very much remained the same.
Good. Great.
mer: glad you liked it, Colson. you’re right, i am lucky to be able to find the nostalgic painting of my past in that home….
By colson on 07.30.08 1:51 am
Your writing brought me home. Cimanggis, between Jakarta and Depok. My mother’s house is pretty much like yours. With kamar mandi and all. No air-con. Bunch of mosquitos. But I loooove her cooking. Your writing makes me want to go home sooner *sigh*
mer: ah, ya, Din…. our childhood home is like a window to the past, isn’t it?
By Diny on 07.30.08 8:10 am
i love this writing! it brought memories of my own. i love being in a familiar territory, seeing that things doesn’t change. it’s a good thing once in a while to escape to something that warm and that comfortable. have a nice holiday mer and please write more about this..
mer: thanks, Rim…. and i am glad you loved it
yes, once in a while, we need to grasp something that we are so familiar with….
By rimafauzi on 07.31.08 1:02 am
Wow, we happened to post quite similar posts, about home. You make me miss my home even more than when I wrote on my blog. I feel the same way too, I also miss the static living in my home town instead of this hectic one
mer: oooh…. wow. static is always needed once in while, ya?
By qq on 07.31.08 8:02 am
This is beautiful Mer… Remind me to a place called home.
mer: thanks, Yoga… home is always a storage of nostalgia, ya?
By Yoga on 08.01.08 7:20 am
I think man is always claiming the remote control…my dad, my husband, and my sons…they all think that small thing is theirs! (If they are together, it could be either the oldest or youngest who win).
I’d like to make my house a home for my family…perhaps in the next 15 years my son will write the same kind of this writing in his blog..he…he…he…
mer: he will, Retty…. but first, your son should have a blog, hahaha.
By Retty on 08.02.08 5:10 am
you made me (almost) cry. this posting…
mer: …… i am speechless, reading your comment….
By melly on 08.04.08 7:06 pm
bagus banget tulisannya. pingin bisa sebagus ini. salam kenal.
By au on 08.05.08 4:29 pm
Duh Teh .. jadi kangen dng rumah ortu. It’s soooo true … almost evertyhing stays the same at our parents’, and no matter how much I dislike the way may parents do things, it’s actually comforting to return to where we belong.
mer: hayo pulang
ya…. right, it’s not about likable or not… it’s ‘where we (once) belong’.
By santi on 08.08.08 9:10 am
Like always…you’re so down to earth, mbak Mer…reading your post is like reading a narrated journey of one’s life…a journey of a human fellow..:-)
inspiring and comforting
mer: Sisca dear, i am of course a human being
glad you found it inspiring and comforting at the same time.
By sisca on 08.11.08 3:49 am
i been on the road for a while, too. I know exactly what you’re talking about. It feels weird to be home sometime. The longing for the familiar things. It’s strange.
How’s Moscow?
mer: right, it’s a necessity to be in familiar setting…….from time to time. Moscow, it’s great… awesome!
By treespotter on 08.12.08 1:03 am
hai teh…rumah gak banyak berubah, tapi bandung berubah banget gak sihhh….=) jalan” ke mana aja?
mer: wah, ngga banyak jalan2 euy…. tapi iya, bandung berubah… terutama gara2 si jalan tol kota, bikin disorientasi!
By astrid on 08.12.08 7:04 pm
woww
hah? you’re back home?
aduuuh…. i want to meet you… really..
where are you now? back to Tempe already?
mer: oh, sorry, didn’t you know that i was in town? yes, just got back to tempe yesterday.
By r on 08.13.08 2:59 am
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