Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Stay Here, Now

I went home for a short trip during Deepavali weekend last week. It was really hot in Jakarta, stifling hot. Most probably the smog had something to do with it. I just realized that there were more tall buildings that could be seen from the balcony in the direction of Central Park - by Central Park, I wish it's an actual park but it's a mall. In the evenings, the lights from the buildings were kinda interesting but there's a haze upon them and I told mom that's the pollution. Anyways back home, I did manage to meet with the good old friends. My anti-social-ness went home with me and at first I was hesitant but then I realize time is precious and the time I spent with them are really so little and my cousin was willing to organize and Dewi and Emil were also willing to make it happen so off we met for lunch. There's also the Sunday I spent with an aunt, uncle, my cousin and her kids. Ate frogs during this meal with them - a bit stunned that this cousin of mine eats this kinda thing like it's no big deal. It's fine though, it tastes like chicken. Apparently Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of frog meat, who knew. In this outing we explored PIK which stands for Pantai Indah Kapuk - pantai means beach but there's no beach to be found. I was looking forward to going to the beach and seeing water touches sand but no :( On one area we visited, access to the sand was controlled by the cafes and restaurants that line up the shore, like you can access it if you order things from them and even those do not touch the water. I do not feel good about this type of commercialization :( Then we went to the Batavia area - more restaurants, more cafes :| I did try Mixue for the first time ever here. At 20,000 IDR for a large kiwi tea with two toppings, I felt it's kinda cheap and I'm not even looking at it from the Singapore glasses. All and all, as much as I had to drag myself to get out from my desire to just sit at home in front of the TV, I do kinda glad that I spent time with these people who are the true my people and I am very much thankful that they also made the time to spend time with me.

That's not to say I did not sit in front of the TV a lot, which I did. I still parked myself in front of the Harry Potters when they came on - it made me realize I really look forward for the TV series. We need justice for Hermione because her contribution with the potion riddle in the Sorcerer's Stone isn't shown in the movie! Then there's also the Friends, ER, The West Wing, Frasiers reruns on top of what's on Animal Planet, Food Network. Back home I try to consume as much of cable TV as I can. Even with the many channels, I still miss TLC. What other things to say - a weird thing, two Jehovah's Witnesses sisters came knocking on the fence and sorry I had to shut them down quick. I didn't know Jehovah's Witnesses exist in Indonesia, I guess they do everywhere. I had experiences with missionaries coming to the house back when I was a kid and so no, I have to decline, not gonna go through that again. This reminded me of something unusual I saw. I didn't buy luggage allowance for this trip, all carry-on, so I took the MRT to get to Changi and when I got off the train I saw two Mormon sisters and this was unusual to me because the ones I usually see in Singapore are the Mormon brothers, in fact I think I even once saw them in a busway in Jakarta too. Seeing the sisters were my first time, but I guess Singapore is harmless, they'll be fine here. By the way, I just googled, Jehovah's Witnesses are banned in Singapore - wow, I did not know that. It's totally okay in Indonesia now though it was previously banned too. You know what I would like talking to these missionaries, is not for me to get the conversion talk but just to ask how they are, what it's like doing what they're doing because I honestly respect what they do. It must be tiring and it takes a lot of guts and it most probably feels futile, but to go on and do the work and being young as they are - I respect that, a whole lot.

Back in Singapore, the down swing was hard to shake and I was thinking about how I need to stay in the moment. Yes, hearing me say that does make me want to roll my own eyes, but I do rush ahead. I rush ahead with my worry for a thing 8 months from now (what's the point of me being so stressed now, every sane person would say). I rush ahead with a thing I want to do next year (although it's good to have something to look forward to). Even on these last few months we have in 2025, I feel like I am rushing ahead with things to do not today. I need to stay in the moment and feel and grasp right now because if not I would be missing it without even having experienced it. I just feel this even more right now. I don't know, it's almost like wanting time to stop or maybe slow down which could be a contradiction in the face of me actually not enjoying my day-to-day, but these moments are also important. We'll see how I do. Talking about wanting to slow down, just yesterday I saw that the bakery where I got my bread from has started selling ginger bread cookies with merry christmas sticker on them. It's crazy, they could have done ones with Halloween theme on them, but no. Human's whole life has become about rushing from one thing to another? *sigh*

:) eKa @ 8:23:00 PM •