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.
Bob Dylan says,
I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead
I need a dump truck mama to unload my head
(from “In a Buick 6”).
And this seems to me similar to the sometimes-function of a (or at least, my) blog.
Laundry day and questionable behavior. //
Midnight, distant crowing, and the helicopter sound from the living room of wings beating before Frankie replies with a hoarse cry (a “doodle”?). He claims supremacy over all. Cocks through the sawah commence with a back-and-forth, in the dark, that teeters out around 00:07. (Some bird woke from a dream, got everyone else involved.)
(Shortly thereafter, I fell asleep, a while after that, woke again, and started laundry in the machine.)
A small adventure yesterday, we all (six of us) drove into the city in Sweet Orange to receive a gift from my visa agent, (of all people), three beautiful, fragrant (and old) jepun trees. My husband doesn’t do business without making friends. (We have two gardens full of jepun trees, all of them gifts.) And the magic of watching relationships evolve from friendships of utility into deeper things.
(But I think all music sounds bad in Sweet Orange. Sweet Orange might have only a subwoofer.)
Something extraordinary about Bali is just how fast things change. We’ve been gone from Ubud for maybe one month and it already feels different. Development, almost all related to tourism, appeasing the bottomless (foreign) appetite for servitude, pampering, the extraordinary…
So urbanized Bali is a scene from the end of the world. Being beautiful and not costing much money, foreigners come here to live out their fantasies. (I don’t exclude myself from this group.) They are visible on the streets in a patchwork of the improbable, (sometimes deeply disrespectful), alongside the ubiquitous ravages of colonial exploitation. This becomes visibility of the same thing that is wrong with everything, everywhere. So Bali’s beauty besmirched is a visible indictment of human being. Not anyone in particular, (the irresponsive anonymity of grouped humans), but the imbalance of the whole (of us).
(Letting anger wane, and) just taking in (again) our utter disarray. (Disco-trance-yoga, anyone?)
Back home. Pak and Bu S. stopped by to help us do a house ceremony, because it was a holiday here. (We were not prepared, I was napping, oops.) They’re an elder couple from the village, like adoptive parents, taking the place of our adoptive parents from Ubud.
(In case you’re not familiar.) Balinese Hindus keep a demanding schedule of ceremonies throughout the year. We don’t do all of them, (religious ceremony is genuinely exhausting), but we do some, including for purnama and tilem (full and new moon) at our house altars, assisted by Pak and Bu S. We observe Balinese customs at our house because the land is Balinese, because these align with ancient customs of Java people, (from the time of Majapahit), and not least, because it keeps us connected with the people of our banjar (village).
(And we don’t do business without making friends. I am still bad at this, I feel like that goes without saying. Sometimes it seems every institution in my “old life” was designed to prevent “making friends”.)
Mostly everyone in E.’s family (and currently staying at our house) is Muslim, although not all have received upbringing in the “old ways”. Interesting conversations happen around this, our seeming plurality of cultural practices, all the time. (Hypothesis, secret: there is only one practice.)
E. said yesterday, (in a bathtub conversation), I don’t care about the music as much as I care about the sound. Sometimes you need to “put the music” in order to make people hear the sound. When he was young he would drop objects into the village well to experiment with sound. Then he got in trouble because too many spoons disappeared.
In the same conversation, me discovering/declaring, (not for the first time), (and he looks at his wife with a serious silence), that writing is a kind of necromancy.
Salam to all.
Close hangers.
μουσικὴν ποίει καὶ ἐργάζου. // Mousiken poiei kai ergazou. // Make music and work at it.
(This message comes to Socrates repeatedly in his dreams, as Plato describes in the Phaedo, (at 60e6), which takes place on the day of Socrates' death by hemlock. Socrates also describes himself as experimenting with his interpretation of the message.
This is an example of a daimonic message, in Diotima’s✨ sense of daimon, which is something that goes in between the human and the divine. One might keep it as a mantra, or reminder, subject to interpretation…)
The Poem
ὦ φίλε Φαῖδρε, ποῖ δὴ καὶ πόθεν;
Beloved Phaedrus, where to and where from?
//
Holding (with love, and so
gently) dear Phaedrus
(my day, light-ephemera)
my first and undying
metaphor, for
holding (with love, and so
longing) as asking
(as humbled-home-making)
the perfected question
to keep you. Pan,
beloved, as the drawing-
together (from the inside)
of meaning, and lover
as embrace (from the
outside) of horizon, sun-
set to sunrise, as all-time,
is the heavy becoming light-
as-boundary at the edge
of a world. We are there,
together:
the hand
and the what-would-be-
held.
( As nature
I am birthing and dying
unquestionable irresponsive
a fleeing, hiding and
by-many-wanted thing. )
( As human
I am messy, interminable
a political and personal
history of hysteria, making
and remembering, desiring
and deceiving, a restlessly
in-between
word.
A fool and a monster,
my pillaged possessions
are images and accounts
of war, and music
is how I play failure
as comedy, as a
question for a problem
with a deadly and un-
summarizable sound. )
( As god,
I am end (of motion),
I am source (of motion),
I am being (of motion),
I am (hungry
for motion),
I am
may-we-be
love. )
Morningtime, in a garden. And what is
this, that was laid in my lap? That is si-
lent but asking, that seems sent, but scatters
leafing-out patterns of my un-formed self,
harmonic. I need to know. Is it male
or female, flesh-fire of creature, salad
scrumptious and/or ambrosial bane? Shall I
eat it, be eaten by it, become it
or come into dust, be taken, wind-swept
and tearful, or reborn as clean, unseen
green, after all? I must know. I cannot
not know its reflecting, it blooms when I
touch it, it shivers, it is water-light,
earth-dispersing, kaleidoscope versing,
tongue-teasing shadow of radiant tree.
//
(About.)
Tenang Sri Rejeki.
Pan //
(Is it)
the shiver
that
passes through your body
(to endings from beginning)
when
you make the connection
(from ending to beginnings)
and then realize
it isn’t you
who made it
(?)
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.
Sometimes, to get back on the right path, you have to circumnavigate the globe.
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.)
Sky from home (6).