Honeyed wafer set lightly into smoked amethyst sky. Grace’s nine eggs hatched into nine tiny black puffballs. Nine infant roosters, cheeping-cheeping… and she loves them with an intensity. Selamat purnama✨🌕✨
Grace, sitting.
But, Lysias
Σωκράτης: καλῶς γάρ, ὦ ἑταῖρε, λέγει. ἀτὰρ Λυσίας ἦν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐν ἄστει.
Socrates: Beautifully said, fellow. But Lysias was, as it seems, in town.
//
(“What even is Athens?” asked the blind, somewhat frustrated, woman.)
When I was twelve, I got thrown off a pony. Bocara, reddish-velvety-brown, with black mane and tail and an opinion of her own. Or something less accessible than opinion. So we were out for a ride one day, and she spooked when she noticed something “off” in the other field, man or machine, she didn’t like it. The instructor said, go. The third time around was the third time she bucked, and I was thrown, landing dirt-hard on back, face-full of sky, chest spasm for air. (Damn.)
That day. Writing this other post, which was about (what we do with) time, made me late for what was next (on our schedule). Now as I was on the way in Sweet Orange, who also is an incubator, a protectrix of time, at present of Duckworth time, (listening to DAMN., by Kendrick Lamar, to summon this artist from the other side, of the earth,) we stopped to pick up bricks, (exchanged looks with Sundanese brick-makers, but the bricks were “belum matang”), then re-entered the churning sprawl of I-cannot-tell-you-how-many pale riders on motorbikes. (Sweet Orange drives slow behind a couple, two probably fine fellows, and total nerds, out on holiday, who, having not made it, push theirs up the steep slope of a ravine. Frustration metamorphs into sympathy, inside Sweet Orange, for how many of us, one, has been caught under such circumstances, but without the solid-pack of traffic to witness. To whiteness. Laughing sympathy, but sympathy, nonetheless.)
There is a body, and there is a virus. No, back up. There is an island, and there is a world. There is an interaction between these two things, the city and the jungle, (a person and a blog), and I interpret it as, There is a body, and there is a virus, and there is a coordinated response, of the body, to the entry of the virus, and I call it, an immune response. The virus multiplies. The immune system, to defend the body’s living soul, which is mine, which is sacred, targets viral particles for elimination and expulsion. The immune response is the xenophobia.
(I am a stranger. Xenophobia is relevant to me.)
An immune response, whatever that is, and all of its analogues, would be one way to know or understand a moving thing, something coming and going, or something that’s born, and dies, as well as something that has a wall, with people going in and out, no matter how porous, and oh, yes, laws, written, unwritten, and weird, an immune response. Athens also might have an immune response, with, well, a soldier’s DNA., who would target the foreign element, (disguised-stranger emoji), they would be a sort of philosophical guard dog, barking at everything they don’t already know. (The hounds of hate? Or of jealousy?) But in addition, Socrates, who might as well be on a leash today, has been led outside the wall. (Is it you, ghost-of-Snowden-flake?) Whereas the virus is at another professor’s total party house, seducing of-age students with unlicensed garfield merchandise, and the lines of the battle, here, are somewhat unclear.
Who is the aggressor? What needs a defense? (I thought we’d grown tired of the city?) (Everyone agrees, by the way, that this is the most boring part of the dialogue. Like a plane, delayed on the runway, it must be endured, and quickly, to make the connection in Singapore.) But whichever direction is inward, and which outward, we are being steered into Lysias, like a T-cell with confirmed coordinates. Except for one thing, which is, the coordinates are… algebraic. (It’s a Boeing-built plane.) The virus isn’t here. Or, what was the virus, again? Man, or machine. A gadfly, round the bud that forks the corner of a dark-lashed eye.
I woud never blame her, beautiful, spirited Bocara. She is a genius and a horse is never wrong. The instructor was a jerk, “instructors” nearly always are, but let’s be honest, the instructor wasn’t wrong. (And I held the crop.) I was a fool, and a child, and I won’t blame myself. But sometimes, on a horse, you must be direct, and you must welcome judgment day with open arms. I did not. Like I said, I am messy. Wrong was done and a lesson had to be learned. It was one of those moments around which everything changes, or breaks, and I carried Bocara with me, after that.
Fun fact. “No feelings involved” is impossible with horses. You can’t remove yourself, it’s impossible. She follows you, she sticks with you, you carry her, you might hide her, or become her without knowing it, or you love her, and her things that she sees, her ghosts and her witness, her trumpets and her fire, and she appears before you, at night, in your secret life (crying, confused). Something was beautiful, then everything went wrong. She/he/they haunt you. Hidden in your heart, in your tunic, or in the iPhone that you carry in your pocket, until it’s m.A.A.d. as Compton to tell what is the virus, and where is home. Silly Phaedrus, with his concealed scroll, and his leopard-skin pill-box hat, thinks it’s not-a-thing to step outside a wall. But, look,
there’s a war going on. Of all against one, or one against all, or all against all, (based on gender pronouns and deity preference), or it’s one against one, and it follows you, the war, tapping its pocket. Like blood, or a bloodhound, it will track you down, and you will be there, again. Landing dirt-hard on back, sky-full of face, chest spasm for air, (like I can’t breathe. Look,) a caught body, again. Until you win the war. Which you cannot win, because you are a single soul, brave, clever, damned Duckworth, fleeing from, pursuing, (whereto and wherefrom), human nature itself. You are so many terrible, body-caught things. You are Socrates, in America, you are Phaedrus, out of (what even is) Athens(?). On an island all-but-destroyed by pale riders, (no feelings involved), you are red horse, and pale rider. You are, the war, so it rules you, the war. Unless
(I) just love (you) and (learn
how to put down the weapon.)
//
(About.)
Sri Rejeki in silhouette.
More chicken news. //
Grace got up to stretch her legs, today, and I counted nine eggs.
I bring Frankie fresh water. He drinks it. I talk to him. He makes soft noises at me. I think we’re becoming friends.
Maybe. Older siblings are like the first trees, they grow tall and big, and younger siblings are like the next trees, they have to spread out, twist around, or find other ways to get light. It’s hard to be either one of these things.
Noticing the swastikas on neighbors' front gates. Here, it’s a symbol of balance. In the West, (its reverse is) a symbol of evil. Again here, a symbol of the instability of symbol.
(Evil remains evil, and, context is everything.)
Moments around which everything changes, or breaks, and I carried her with me, after that. (Writing about Bocara, the pony.)
Admire the optimism here.
I feel changes in my toes, (big toes mostly), the soles of my feet, my knees (twisty jelly), my shoulderblades, my triceps and elbows (little pops), my wrists, the pinky mound of my palms (crampy), my neck (cracking up and down spine), and even in my jaw (unpleasant tension). As the psoas (un)twist, the entire body follows. A crazy tour of the deep front line (myofascial meridian).
Cozy outfit: Soft grey sweater dress over brown-grey tank top, white pajama shorts, light grey ankle socks, charcoal grey buff worn like a beanie, old blue-grey tie-died shawl. Orange chocolate sachertorte and oat milk. Love fake winter.
Salam and goodnight to all.
Waking, as thinking, what we do with time. // Spending or wasting, as of fixed amount, and therefore an imperative, to put to good use. (Better wake up now, then.) Using it. As time is material. Filling it, or, as time is container. A schedule, with slots of, empty blocks on a page. Empty ones to the right, can be filled; empty ones to the left, empty time-passed, and nothing.
A fantasy of time: if only one could have all of that empty time. And then fill it up, past overflowing.
Go to see Grace. How is it she is filling (her) time? What is the action? (I called it sitting.) The eggs (under there) are her contemplations. Or perhaps, she is bodies, these days. Night passes, cold passes, sun comes and light warms. She is still, in the green, gives me nothing at all. (Am I empty?) My time is not hers, or her time is not here. She becomes barrier, wall of the garden, as stillness. A being of no-time, mother-protector of inner-other(s). It is paradise, in there. (And ten tiny, red-blinking heartbeats. InsyaAllah.) I am the against-witch, (against-which), I am the hunger. I am the waiting and the wanting-to-know.
There’s only so much one can do, in the morning. Coffee-making, cat breakfast, floor-sweeping, some laundry. Nongkrong with Frankie, putting shapes on a page. Skip around the old playground, as if forever, then, sent, posted, past. Hang out the laundry, as shadows shorten. Seek shade and retire. Dust returns to floors. As daytime becomes, all at once, too much heat, too much light, too much everything.
We found your footprints in the snow.
We brushed them all away. //
Chilly night here, the forecast says low of 63f/17c. My fingers and nose definitely forgot what cold feels like. So I have on socks. Trying to figure out what I think about claims of blood descent from a prophet, or mid-20th century Indonesian politics, shivering. Realizing it’s not important and I was just confused. I try to be better at being confused, or the feeling when you suddenly stop being confused, and realize how confused you’ve been, fingers fumbling with keys, perhaps for a long time, even in a sort of rhythmic way. Cozy pajamas help. The moon was an icy white chunk in a starry black sky but I can’t see it now because it’s too cold to get out of bed. I’m under the covers writing this with a flashlight, and I’m about to put on “50 Words for Snow”, (by Kate Bush), which is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Probably the warmest thing ever written about the cold. This album will take care of you in a dark moment. It’s such a midwinter meditation.
Salam and a peaceful night to all.
Sky from home (7).
“Being Balinese //
is
so
much
upacara.
From being born,
until
you
die,
Mas!"
is what he said.
With a surprised grin on his wrinkled, spotted face, when he said it, light-hearted, calm, and satisfied to be heard, or not heard. He was sitting in the bale, at the sangga on top of the banjar building, leaning on a post. In front of him was a box-shaped table with offerings, flowers in woven grass dishes, sticky rice jaje, and a spiral-bound notebook, slightly weathered, on the pages of which were words, in the Balinese language, to a song or prayer. He had just been singing into a microphone without looking at that notebook. He had finished the song, switched off the microphone, and set it carefully on the table-box. His face glowed as it dawned on him.
“Being Balinese is a lot of upacara. From when you’re born, until you die, Mas!”
(“Upacara” is ceremony. “Mas” is a polite form of address for my Javanese husband. He looked back and forth between us, when he said it.) We laughed, and my interpretation was that we laughed because the look on his face was so joyous, it must be a joke. E. agreed, making sure I understood, that this great-great-grandfather had just shared with us a really good joke.
I had been thinking about what I wanted to be writing. Sometimes I dissociate at upacara, especially when there’s something unsettling. This one had begun with a nice conversation, while sitting on a mat next to a young Balinese girl with the roundest, deepest eyes, in matching pink sarung and kebaya, who touched her toes with mine, wiggling. As if by accident. But the conversation was with a man from the next village over. He articulately was exchanging acquaintance with E., in a way I could mostly understand, which always comes across as extra considerate. The man was holding a slender white goose. As he listened to my husband, he examined the goose. With two touching fingers, he smoothed a stray feather on its head. He stroked the length of the goose’s body, to calm it, as it shifted with fear.
The goose would momentarily be sacrificed.
I never know what to do with my face, in these situations. What I deeply wish I could do is look into the goose’s eyes and talk to it. To tell it, I see you. I don’t care how that sounds, it’s what I really want to do. But I am a guest. It wouldn’t be right, to my hosts. It wouldn’t be fair, to my husband. So in fact, I am hiding. I don’t want anyone to notice how hard it is, for me, to look anywhere but at the goose. (The discipline of eyes is an essential part of dancing, here.) So I shut off my face. The little girl’s toes are still casually touching my own. But the goose is wrapped in a piece of fabric, around its middle, and the friendly man is re-wrapping it, securing it, as if with care. The wrapped piece of fabric is the sarung of the goose, it is dressed respectfully in sarung, just like me.
Just like all of us.
I bring it up with my husband later, the goose, I cry a little, and we talk about the words of the great-great-grandfather. He is the oldest man in our village, he is ninety-eight, we have sat with him before and nongkrong(ed) as he was holding and caring for his newborn great-great-granddaughter, a very cute and fat baby with diamond studs in her milk caramel ears. E. is impressed that the old man told the joke, and we were the only ones who laughed, not the Balinese people sitting nearby. Me, too. But the spritely old man had addressed it to us, and other people nearby had been distracted, eating. So it didn’t really seem spoken for them.
I keep thinking about the old man’s words, and bringing them up with E., to hear him tell me again. “Being Balinese is a lot of upacara. From when you’re born… until you die, Mas!” E. says, with the right expression. And we laugh. It reminds me of the look on his face, the suspense and the gesture. How, when he said it, he referred to all this, and he referred also to himself. “Upacara, from birth, until death.”
Eveningtime in the sawah, the last night of Odalan, and a sliver of almond light hangs in the east, against periwinkle into deep lavender haze. Chill air floods from the highlands and mist spills out from ravines. The voices of elders carry, again from the banjar, across cloudswept rice fields, and coconut palms are sighing, tidal, in the shifting breeze. They’ve been singing every night, for more than a week. That’s his voice, I know it now.
Sweet smoke-smudged, broken flowers in hair, rice pressed on third eye and throat, sacred water splashed, with mark of goddess on your arm. So many words for how it hurts to let go. The same way it hurts to watch a goose be soothed by a man who’s about to slit its breast and spill its blood, in service to powers that will chase away bad spirits. Compassion is the key to sacrifice, this is what you say, and you hate it. And you are supposed to hate it. And you will wonder at that, but you will do it anyway, you will let yourself be given. Because your life doesn’t belong to you, at all, in the way you believe. Not in a way that will ever make you happy, or good. Not the part of you that hurts like that. And it was a joke, spoken by a man with only a few teeth left. And in his smile, it was an explanation. For both of you, but especially, the stranger.
Tiresias, back and forth between man and woman, gains inner sight through the cruel magic of mutilation. Again and again, verse after verse, the great-great-grandfather sings. There’s something I was, and something I am becoming, he is singing with a grandmother, her voice, trembling, his voice, alive. A steady, alternating song, words weaving between hidden constellations. Nobody who can hear him is as old as he is. I have seen him now, on the roof of the banjar, and I imagine him there, both hands holding the microphone, his eyes half-closed, not needing the book. I say to E., we will go to his funeral. E. says, yes, of course we will.
What I actually want, is that we go to his one-hundredth birthday party. I believe that we will make it there, first. But I don’t know at all, what to bring, that will be an appropriate gift.
Living light captures, listening to “Soldier of Love” (by Sade), sight. From the corner of my eye, a flame, on wood panel near bed. Scent of Taiyo Byakudan, dreamy sandalwood, lofty amber, honeyed clean. Not flame, but the sun setting, hot and steeply-sliced through northern window, shimmers by wind-rustling coconut palm, presently as perpetual motion. Shifting moods of ever-late afternoon, captured there, sinks heavenly warmth toward evening, fades to cool, and fevered comfort wraps thoughts in blankets, whether to let go or pull it closer. Either way waits dewfall so it’s time to bring the laundry in.
Little earthquakes can be reassuring. If it doesn’t little-earthquake for a while, there’s a chance the next earthquake will be really big.
(If you haven’t recently, ask a loved one whether they’ve experienced any little earthquakes, lately. This really works!) (And of course, the album too❤️)
There is nothing in this world that is actually straight.
(Isn’t that right?)
(One still loves the geometry of Euclid,
which manages somehow to have nothing,
and everything, to do with all that.)
Lalah glamour.
Unexpected summons to a banjar celebration (part of Odalan) this morning, brief if frantic search through storage boxes for the traditional regalia, batik sarungs and embroidered lace kebaya, shades of purple, lavender, olive, background of antique cream, accents of black and gold and possibly pink. (Pak S., mischievous, likes to catch us off-guard?) Making time to make-up the face, the layered steps of that in-between sips of accidentally too-strong coffee. Jitters on an empty stomach, ignore it, will be supplied jaje at the banjar. Preparing outward-self for salims, looks of studious listening, dutiful nods, and prayerful hands, accompanied by my few but respectful (as I can manage) words, having more sweets and coffee pressed upon me than I can possibly eat, and broadcasting gratitude fused with admiration by sunny (as possible, though muscles in the face grow tired, and questions sometimes peek through) smiles. And oh, there will be all our farmer friends playing gamelan, always a wonderful treat to see and hear.
Om Swastiastu🙏🏻
Emoji dictionary. // Sometimes I feel a wave of visceral dislike for emojis. I use them to express feelings with almost everybody in my life, and I feel like I have to do that, for good-enough reasons. But that’s not how I look at all, when I’m expressing those feelings. I resent the disconnect. Out of curiosity, I made this emoji dictionary, which started short, but got long, including more symbols. The faces are all just what I imagine, I don’t know how I personally look.
(I update this periodically.👻)
//
Emoji dictionary:
😊 is like Janis Joplin smile, genuine.
😁 is show off-y or cheesy smile, sometimes clueless.
☺️ is small, modest, or special little joy or sweetness, a little tart, or cute.
🙂 is a happy fish.
🙈 is unsightly.
😯 is wonder, large or small, usually quiet or thoughtful wonder, gentle, noncommittal.
🙃 is… possibly my real face. Or the end of the world, or XII. The Hanged Man. (I don’t use this for “irony”, in the sense of sarcasm, but in an earnest sense, sure.)
😂 is like Angela Chase laughing, or Rayanne laughing, or anybody from My So-Called Life laughing.
✨ is magic, stars, good vibes, dreamy niceness, or Diotima.
💫 is destiny, a divine message, or arrival at a destination. Karma or nature as cyclical motion.
🙏🏻 is thank you or you’re welcome, sama-sama, namaste or salam. Three of them is shanti shanti shanti. (I am grateful for you, whoever you are. I am, because you are. Interbeing. Etc.)
🌈 is kind of a miracle? But I’m not sure what that means. An alternative to despair (or suicide).
😀 is one I usually just use with my mom, if I’m excited about something in a dorky way, but also when other people tell me happy things about their children.
😜 is another one I just use with my mom.
🥰 means that I feel loved or taken care of, used with family and friends, or just lovey vibes. Also used for lovey feelings toward other people’s children, especially babies.
💖 is extra special love of some kind, usually not romantic. Sometimes casual, friendly, a little exaggerated or intentionally over-the-top, or gallant, chivalrous love, then it is romantic.
😎 is the feeling of being cool, taking it easy, getting away with a crime, and all of these simultaneously, Bob Dylan on the cover vibes.
🤩 is like “wow” in a kiddish, showbiz, or cool “visuals” way. Loud wonder.
🥸 is the feeling of being a stranger, of being in disguise, or hiding in plain sight, or not being seen.
🤪 is one I try not to overuse, it means a feeling of chaos or being out-of-control, or feelings of (approaching) insanity.
🫥 is a feeling of invisibility or impotence or non-being.
😟 is if something isn’t going well, I feel bad, or wish I could help.
🫠 is feeling overwhelmed by a situation, can be for hot and humid weather, too much rain or flooding, or just too much anything.
😵💫 is too much coffee or feeling exhausted at the end of the day, nervous exhaustion.
🥴 is another mom one, for when something makes you feel weird or uncomfortable, especially bodily functions, also faux-pas in social situations.
💩 is human or cat shit, or other shit, but always literal shit, not figurative.
😰 is if I’m really overwhelmed, this is rare, often involves worry over cat health.
🤷♀️ is a shrug, I don’t know, I surrender my desire to know, I’m letting that one go for now, whatever, or good riddance.
❤️ is love I use with family.
💛💙💚🩵 is love I use with junior boys or young men in the family. It’s big-sisterly approaching mom-like love. Might use for girls, also for girls 💖 or 💕
🩷 is weirdly under-used, by me. I like the color pink.
💕 is silly or dynamic love, or emphatic love, multiples to help somebody believe it.
💜 is love for somebody who needs it.
🖤 is love for my black cats, and witchy love.
🤎🧡🖤🤍💕 is Lalah, so she’s not left out by witchy love.
🤍 is love for something airy, like an idea or an image, or an angel or ghost, or something delicate like that. This one I would use for “my teachers”, including any who are still alive.
🌊 is le déluge.
🔥 is Heraclitean fire.
🌿 green emojis are green or plant-based nature, sometimes other “green” vibes.
🤑 is one I use in conversations about taxes or investments.
☀️ is morning, although I’m unsatisfied with both sun emojis, not sure why. They don’t look like the sun, to me.
☕️ is literal coffee.
🦄 is me, sometimes, sort of silly.
💀 is poor Yorick.
🌒🌑🌘 These might be my favorite emojis, because they really remind me of the moon. I think they’re nice looking.
//
When I don’t use an emoji, the mood that I am communicating is, “I am not in the mood to express myself with a cartoon right now.”
I’m open to developing new emoji-meaning associations for myself, or learning them from others. (Maybe writing this dictionary made me feel better about emojis, in general.)
Sounds of campur sari (a genre of music, translates to “mixed substance”, combining a core of keyboard-synthesized gamelan, the rhythm of Sundanese kendang drums played for jaipong dancing, and folk-style, song-based storytelling) and power tools, this morning. Overgrown boys climb again to high places, up walls and up coconut trees, flaunt silly moves to make me start. Frankie gets a bath, then put into caged confinement, (still he crows), so he doesn’t disturb (he just can’t help himself) the sitting Grace.
Grace, who sits, and her sitting is her work, as meditation, as keeping the pale, rounded shapes beneath her, such fragile contained cosmoi, safe and warm and hidden, as stirring primary material into life. I have come to see her. She doesn’t move at my approach, nestled in an overgrown patch of green, the closest place to quiet. Her stare is intent, concentrated, full of something like determination. The knowledge of her mission. No doubt or question, no blinking, just full touching, with her heart-holding, feather-breasted body, still. Does she even see me, and if she does, as what? Black eyes on black-scaled face, black with spots of iridescence. Something in her is as when Buddha touches the earth, as Bhumisparsha. I am so impressed, my heart too is touched, to see Grace in her moment.
I say salam, to Grace. I leave her (sitting) there. And I go back to my (wordy) day.
Grace laid eggs.
Peacock blue of eyeshadow on the painted face of a legong dancer in an advertisement on the grimy side of a bus, turning at exhaust-choked crossroads, engines sputtering, growling, purring, vehicles nudging in or tapping brakes to decide who goes first, who next, and who will barely squeeze between them, this (dis-)order is the mystery of a universe and I am on the way (in Sweet Orange) toward Immigration, to answer the call of the government. I shall submit my (not smiling, that’s not allowed) face for photograph, press my fingers one-by-one, as instructed, to red-tinted print-readers, render answers to the yearly questions on relations and activities, and reassure them that no, I do not, in any way, make money. (I should give them a link to my blog, yes?) (No. Just kidding. Everything that happens here is irrelevant to there. Not related at all, in fact, a reductio of interbeing to absurdum. So sacrifice an analogical cock, but not Frankie, maybe the blue eyeshadow?, to the square root of two, for I speak today with the unspeakable and InsyaAllah it will go perfectly to plan.)
(Update: it went fine, I even got a friendly officer, almost impossibly nice.)
Gift-bearing.
Deeply-stacked blanket of grey on the horizon and a prodigal son for coffee. Lunchtime leisure, (this is nongkrong), slow discussion of organization and mobilization, elsewhere, interpretation of natural signs, anywhere, and closer to home, planning lamp configurations, as the boys laugh and assure me with barefooted confidence that motherly love knows nothing of high places. (They may be right about that.) Preparations in the village, celebratory or instructional announcements on a distant speaker, (just beyond the jungled ravine, for Odalan), and occasional mantra. So much competition for Frankie, who doesn’t like the look of the sky. He takes advantage of distraction to explore the workshop, with its precarious planks and mounds of dusty woodchips, scratching to unearth bugs, eyeing us warily from across the yard. As we all wait for the (ever unseasonal) rain.