News
News of the cold and the iridescent. //
At night, Frankie sleeps in a jepun tree in front of our family room. Tonight (for the first time) I looked over and saw him there, in the dark, an iridescent-, black- and elaborately-feathered figure, crouched on a curved branch. (Very impressive, Frankie.)
Protein shake and krupuk is not a nutritious dinner solution but it is what we call “really Indo-bule”.
What would happen if Thomas Jefferson had invented emojis, and written them into the founding documents? (I know TJ would have been into this idea, heavily. He was in many ways the El-n of his time, which is accidentally too serious to laugh about.)
My 90’s timeline is: 1994, Kurt Cobaun dies; 1997, the release of “Boys for Pele” by Tori Amos; between those I watched My So-Called Life (several times, I think, whenever it came on the tv and my parents weren’t around).
I want to (find and then) buy a wall thermometer. The weather app says it’s 22c/71f, but I don’t believe it. I feel cold. I’m wearing socks and double sweatshirts. Maybe a fire pit is a good idea.
As time persists in circularity, I wonder (again) what makes this morning different from the last. There are two spider bites on my leg. (Each one two dots of red, making four dots total, with pink smudges of irritation around them.) There is dirty laundry I left soaking, for putting in the wash today. This morning, there is no specific sun, just bright cloud we seem to be a part of. Being-in-cloud is not the best for drying clothes. But the sky changes quickly here, so I, perhaps recklessly, forge ahead, and start the load in the machine.
Sometimes the cloud comes down and eats us, from above, from its permanence, further up the island’s altitude. It can be days or a week with no direction to the light. Cloud also soaks up sound. I’m accompanied now mostly by the shushing, rolling rhythms of the washing machine, nearby. It occurs to me, this is one of the less problematic (almost comforting?) of the machines. Yes, it works. So I can focus on this thing here. I like it and I almost trust the washing machine. (The sun is another matter, here’s hoping happily to be surprised.)
Full moon, icy white, concavity of clouds like a light-womb, and a visit from Blih. Unexpected pleasure in the familiar and reassuring how happy he is to sit under our roof. They roll tobacco. He comments on the quiet, on the peaceful, he is right. The moment when you feel family, when you know no matter how different you are, or how skewed your perspectives on the world, that if ever called, he will protect me from weirdness, and I will give him sensible relationship advice, and pretend not to see him cry. And maybe we have seen some success. He was smiling tonight, and speaking of marriage… It’s totally allowed to spread gossip about love and marriage.
(But not like this.) // Every choice feels hard, these days. None of it is easy. Even thinking is heavy. I wish I could put more levity on my blog, but then I reflect on “everything happening in the world”, and lightness itself seems to lack compassion. (No sun today, just one big featureless cloud.)
So I wonder at (and then question) the detachment, the surreality of cat pictures and typewriters, the psycho-spiritual health of it. After all, these are presentations of leisure and privilege. (Blogging, by nature, is a presentation of leisure and privilege. As is writing, in general.) At what point does it become, (let alone beneficial or good), not even innocuous, but cruel?
(At the point that one “gains” one’s first reader?)
Writing, as leisure, preserves its own necessary and peculiar ignorance. This, alongside its irresponsibility. And writing, as an art form, must address it somehow. The whole, “What I do here comes at a price.”
Notes at the limit of politics.
Winning is never the most important thing. In a political context, the most important thing is justice. Justice is the only source of political legitimacy.
There is nothing inherently just about democracy. A democracy is only as just as the demos. (A demos is a group of people, “a people”, understood as a political body. Democracy is the self-governing of a demos.) Therefore, if one wishes to use democracy as an approximation of justice, or as a political hypothesis on the way to justice, (which remains, despite everything, a very good idea), one must first of all consider education.
Education (on justice), as the “sine qua non”, is therefore the first responsibility of democratic governance. Education (on justice) would be the heart and the soul of a legitimate democracy. What this looks like (education) is an open question. But it must look like something. There must be some idea (even hypothetical) of justice, cultivated through education, (obviously, public), in order to preserve (even the hypothesis of) the legitimacy of democratic governance.
(What is justice? The government would not have to know, or even claim to know, but it would have to ask. Without justice, it is nothing. So the demos might pose hypotheses, and learn or decide ways to judge between them. If the demos discovers a good hypothesis of justice, then this, and the practice of keeping it alive—which is what political education is—would be a foundation for the stability, function, and health of the demos, and therefore of the democracy. This, and nothing else, is what would make possible a healthy and legitimate democracy.)
But without education, there is neither justice, nor a people. If a government claims to be a democracy, and it does not hold sacred the work of education, then it will function only so long as the demos preserves a rigid and un-adaptable idea of itself. (A conservative political identity falls back on arbitrary characteristics, racial genetics, cultural superiority, personal wealth, or other dysfunctional place-holders for justice.) But moreover, if a government claims to be a democracy, and it does not hold sacred the work of education, then it surrenders (even the hypothesis of) its legitimacy.
To repeat. Without education, (One would do a lot of work at this point, for the sake of responsibility, to complete the demonstration, which is something of an argument-by-adventure. But few have the training or stamina, these days. And we are all very tired. Maybe this is a lapse.
)…(
Study, e.g., the entire Platonic “corpus”, but especially the Republic, from which all of this, although the author artfully renounces authority. An orphan argument, but nonetheless), democracy surrenders its legitimacy.
As a “democracy” (lacking education) fails, (which it does from its inception, because it is nothing), the fragmentation of the demos becomes more apparent. (And feels awful.) Lacking a relevant or coherent education, individuals respond in different (haphazard) ways to the dawning recognition that they are participants in an ongoing (historical, natural, perhaps cosmic) in-justice. (Against themselves as against outsiders, through imbalance external and internal, with rapid exacerbation of symptoms. The problem appears to be everywhere.) Without a demos, individuals need, seek, and find their own private (idios) educations. Many gather shouting under the ugly banners of partial ideas. It is complicated and contentious. But recognizing the basic problem, diagnosis is trivial. That is not a democracy. That is an illegitimate regime, a people without a soul, at a loss (aporia) to heal (the hearts, minds, bodies of) its broken (political) self.
That is not self-government, but a multitude of tyrannies. And a multitude of tyrannies inevitably approaches war.
Winning is still not the most important thing. (Winning is never the most important thing. Not even in war.) (Consider Achilles, or Odysseus in his next life.) But it may be that losing—beautifully—becomes the new (oldest) measure. Which, like a divine gift, opens up whole other worlds of action.
Tropical winter. Reluctant to leave the insulation of blankets, but I go out. I place my feet in a shape of warmth as the rising sun enters, by elongated geometry, from the east. And here, the polyphony of the farm. Roosters with their long-distance proclamations, the consolation of doves, smaller birds organizing casually in trees. Morning greetings and sleepy conversation that gives way to the thumping or sweeping noises of human people at work. A door closes. The hollow jumble of bamboo chimes, and coconut palms shuffle like cards in the breeze. Someplace far away, a two-toned repetition, as something swings on a rusty hinge.
There are things that nobody wants to say outloud. That nobody enjoys. Sometimes you keep those things to yourself, but sometimes the truth starts flying around and then up your throat, like flies that are buzzing inside your mouth and you try to keep your lips shut but the interior sensation gets very intense, then they burst out in a curdled black vomit. Uncontained. Truth sometimes is the wrong thing at the wrong time. Ugly, ashamed, unwanted.
I think of how remarkable it was, the celebration of tragedy. To gather around the stage, as at a communal flame, together in the perfected ugliness of truth. To honor with a feast the maker-revealer of the most exquisitely necessary (you/me/us) problem. (I imagine tragedians as necessarily insufferable, though that could be wrong.) To revere the Muse. As protectors of the city, as if poetry itself could be the shield to defend against everything it artfully spits out. That would be the craft, if one could discern. What power you need from her, what power she has, and the light of day between those two things.
On a bright and fresh morning, with the sun rising-chasing chill shadows away, the sky is not yet blue. Frankie is crowing (with echoes of crowings from all directions). And I say to him, see? That winning is never the only thing that matters.
Speaking of exits. A heartwarming way to spend this Saturday morning was (virtually) to watch my dear friend A. as Inez in Sartre’s No Exit. She and cast did a fantastic job (playing horrible people). Amateur work in its excellence (“off off Broadway”). (And the play remains obviously relevant… Of note. The infernal trio were provided an exit, when the door opened. But none of them went on to take it.)
Ha-ha, you fool. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. Of putting too much detergent in the washing machine.
Frankie the rooster, offended that we don’t let him walk around the house, leaves three poops in front of the bedroom door.
And the cats already learned how to open the doors.
On the motorbike today. It’s nice to drive into the traffic, and then drive out of the traffic, to go back home, instead of living full-time in the traffic.
A Jakartan stranger. The way he expressed horror/dismay (at the illness and injury of street dogs in Bali) was to smile, a never ending, increasingly strained smile.
All three cats were tugging on our crazy chains today. Imagine the worst.
Ending with a neutralizing rain, the drippy noises and distant gamelan carrying us back from the edge of exhaust(ion).
Sometimes my writing gets redirected into my signal chat with my mom. Lately there’s a lot of family and house stuff, and even more, highly specific and intricate cat drama going on. Those “categories” make more sense over there. (But isn’t it amazing how every single cat has its own weird personality?)
Oh my, the pleasure of organizing your underwear drawer. And then the pleasure of realizing you have much more room in it than you thought.
Things from Today. //
Frankie and Grace (rooster and hen) ate lunch with me and E. today. It was a double date, Frankie purred.
In the afternoon Ibuk goes back into her childhood. She gets very upset at E. for never feeding her (there is some trauma from her past) and believes herself to be surrounded by thieves.
I cried while reading a cookbook, a recipe for “cheddary broccoli soup” (vegan, from Isa Does It). So, it’s that time of the month. (No stove or oven hookup yet.)
Related: my favorite place to go and hide is the (outside but enclosed by a wall) bathtub. Not filled with water, (haven’t gotten to that yet), just a place to lie down and feel cocooned. This and the rustle of nearby coconut palms in the wind are pretty strong medicine. Today Ismail came down from the ceiling and we had a cuddle. Or sometimes E. and I sit opposite each other and just chat and relax.
The mental and sort-of spiritual adjustment from living semi-permanently in a guesthouse to living in a forever-until-you-die-(InsyaAllah) house is profound.
When they say AI what they really mean is an artificial slave, which becomes redundant if you just get human people to act like machines.
When we go to the big western-style supermarket for the first time since pre-pandemic, we are transfixed. Hypnotized. E. and I are pulled in different directions, but we are both pulled. (Managed to avoid buying almost anything unnecessary. But we did buy two cans of La Croix.)
It is almost impossible to find soap or detergent products here without perfume. I hate strong synthetic perfume. No, thank you. “Lavender” that actually smells like “headache”. I would rather smell like cow shit, honestly!
E. has a pinched nerve in his shoulder so I don’t let him carry the groceries but then he won’t let me carry them either, he makes G. carry them, which I do shamelessly appreciate.
Tired and raggedy-of-nerve in the car ride going home so I took charge and put on Suzanne Vega’s self-titled album. Nostalgic, soothing, one of my favorites. (And what an under-appreciated artist she is.) “Small Blue Thing” shivers with sustained sensuality, lyrics hiding almost in plain sight. “Undertow”… I have deep associations of this song with the first time I read Keri Hulme’s novel, The Bone People, another perennial and irreplaceable favorite. I loved both Vega and Hulme as a teenager but I didn’t understand why (either of them) until I became an adult. Suzanne Vega helped me see, Hulme made me feel seen, but also the reverse, for both. I’ve been shaped by these artworks, almost certainly in more ways than I realize. So much that it’s almost a secret.
(I’m due for another read of The Bone People actually. Maybe soon.) (Still enjoying, savouring Red Mars. Why does Kim Stanley Robinson taste so good, going so slow? Oh I know why, I look up science stuff and get distracted reading about volcanism on Mars, etc. Is this escapism?)
Or is it my country? Being a stranger, at home. (Bule di rumah.) Surrounded, protected, as by a wall, by recognition, but correspondence is at the same time unpredictable, wild. I am found to be several someones, then very, very many. (So many strangers.) At first this is difficult, but then (I can make it) effortless. Unknown, but contained, sometimes even possessed. And Ibuk will teach me to dance. (Mind-blowing.
)…(
Self-government by love, a good morning, and whatever else might be possible.) Well, time for practice.
Slanted sunlight breaks through steam. Limns wet edge of concrete, scatters in leftover droplets, catches ochre fur of hovering fly. Filters through yellowed leaf and turns it golden. East wind, wet and barely cool, carries news of oceans and exhaust. What’s not secured (dry leaves, a crumpled tissue) falls, is blown away.
Still raining, still dark, still soaked to the point of saturation. May the rain bring the world back from the loudly unspeakable, back from self-abstraction. Ghosts, being stuck in some in-between place, will eventually realize, (can ghosts learn?), that being (human and being) half there is not being there at all. Likewise, fifty percent of a world (any world, no matter how wealthy or free) is one hundred percent unlivable. So. The perennial question of who I am, (where to and where from), and today the answer, family is here. Listening to what is present as to what is quiet, my day will be full of smiles to return. (A living face, a secret to itself, is at least self-contained.) This (the daily slog of political theory
)…(
iykyk) becomes a certain happiness, necessarily. And sometimes there will be no other way.
(I almost put two contact lenses into the same eye, this morning.)
Chaotic maneuvers this morning after certain equipment, which had been broken for a long time, finally became unusable last night, ok I will tell you, the water kettle fell apart. The glue holding the plastic levered stopper to the aluminum body melted off or dissolved, and left a smear of melted black plastic on the pouring spout. (Yum.) I try not to be precious about the flimsy equipment standard in household shops here, people make do, and so have I. (I read that the risk of aluminum poisoning from cookware is largely exaggerated? And I trusted that information? Was that the right thing to do?) But I did think briefly, wistfully of the (stainless steel, sturdy, chic) ikea kettle that sits already in the new house, on an induction cooktop, (a luxury, no more running out of gas, or wrestling gas tanks and their beat-up valves, risking limbs for fuel for heat), and its dulcet whistle, a treasure to be used.
(I’ve become famous in the family for using kitchen tools hard and breaking them fast, blenders or stick-blenders especially. I demand performance! Not sure this is a good or bad thing, E. thinks it’s hilarious, is laughing this very minute, he says he gossips about it with other husbands. Possibly a point of pride, for him, I admit, it does reveal something enduring about my personality…)
Waking up and taking stock, this is about where we are. So ready to be gone from the guesthouse that inanimate things are kicking us out, refusing to function, telling us (me?) to leave. Family from Java (including Ibuk/mother-in-law) arrives tomorrow for yet another new house ceremony (Javanese) on Thursday, when we will move the cats and start living there for good. None of it is in my control. It feels similar to when we got married. Pulled up into a tidal wave of big-family customs and engagements, trying to hold my own (personal, petty) rhythms, hoping/assuming (cheerfully) I will be back on solid, more predictable ground soon, I just have to (go limp and) survive the next few days.
Rainy still, wet everywhere, and dark. I guess dry season got cancelled. Santai saja. (Let’s just be relaxed.)
For us. // A dark day, cold and rainy and the atmosphere got funereal for a minute, which it does here, now and again. My mother-in-law is passing away from dementia and my country sort of is also. There are parallels between the grieving processes, all of which I experience almost second-handedly, at unstable removes.
One of the things that makes it truly difficult is learning, through trial and (regrettable, yet forgivable) error, how softly you have to tread when it isn’t yet clear (to everyone, to anyone, at any given moment) that she is dying. How feelings of guilt, anger, fear, or sadness intermittently (and unpredictably) penetrate the (relief and) forgetfulness of daily activity. How one believes, (because belief is everything), (belief is her), until the moment it becomes impossible to believe, that she is not yet lost. And how that moment disarms us, completely, leaves us feeling motherless, without a home, (or seeming impossible to ourselves.
)…(
So I have a prayer, for us.) Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. May you never be alone in this. May you be surrounded by love and care. And may the people you have loved always be there to remind you that you are absolutely possible, solid, and real.