perkaraperkara

it started out as game nights spread over several weeks – a drop of a gesture, a joke or a memory – casual-subtle enough to be brushed over or to be forgotten but cumulatively, and i shall say, very cumulatively, they all point towards something of a stance, a way of carrying’s oneself in this world. suddenly it all kind of clicked, and there was no escaping once you are caught.

so began the many interrogations over tea, terrible beer, water, and margaritas. i do not know how to make of this affront of him, where every word and sentence will lead to other questions and revelations, a branching of possibilities firing off in every direction. on the outset, i am tired, but all the same, intrigued.

‘otherwise, you will be sad.’

 

 

another day, another month.

from city to city we fleet from one to another unable to comprehend what is it that we actually want. a new acquaintance, packed and shipped from the land of shah alam, of the theatric kind, who navigates between performance art dan lain-lain sebagai satu bentuk pengajaran di sebuah kedai kopi (yang tutup tengah malam, mind you – sebuah rariti di Jerman).

aku mendengar hal-hal ini, dan hal-hal bli-bli yang sedang sesak membayar sewa dan mencari kerja dan menangis sambil menghirup asap rokok dan menyedut koka kola. i’ve prepared my bed for you guys, katanya. menghias bilik adalah sebuah proses, yang tak akan sudah – setelah langsir dipasang, gambar-gambar dengan kata-kata semi-inspirational (dirangkai bunga-bunga) digantung, karpet h&m dihampar – dirimu sendiri masih belum terisi. bli-bli masih tidak ada sofa, 2 bulan setelah kawan-kawan menghadiahkan sampul berisi wang sempena hari jadinya (p/s: for the couch).

cut to a birthday party over the weekend, in the land of the flatlands. or dinner the night before. twice i hear (as we say our goodbyes), you’re welcome anytime, happy to have you here, followed by you’re part of the family now. this, echoed by the previous weeks and months of relatively the same kind of statements. heavy-handed words, ownership, good/best friend, bonds, what am i to make of these?

oh well, back to my 8-hour journey home.

oktober sudah tiba, secara tiba-tiba. musim luruh sampai perlahan-lahan. daunan di luar tingkap mula menguning. langit semakin kedekut dengan sinar mataharinya. ai dah mula pasang heater.

aku semakin sibuk, sebenarnya. antara kerja dan teman-teman (dan orang-orang yang muncul sekali sekala), memilih antara masa senggang, masa keseorangan, masa berehat atau untuk terus bekerja, berbual atau keluar makan dan menolong orang di sana-sini. dan semestinya, keinginan dan usaha untuk menjadikan apartmen kecil ini semakin ideal diduduki (dengan penambahan karpet dan kerusi malas, aku semakin menghampiri The Ideal State).

ini dan keperluan untuk tidur dan melupakan hal-hal semalam. aku mendapati baru-baru ini, jika tak sempat (atau tak boleh) buat apa-apa dalam dunia nyata, adalah lebih baik untuk percaya kepada proses mimpi untuk meleraikan kekusutan fikiran atau perasaan. setiap hari (dan minggu) adalah hari (minggu) berbeza dan yang baru, menjanjikan anda pengalaman baru dll dll.

selain itu, tidak banyak yang berubah, internally, kecuali kadang-kadang F datang meluangkan hujung minggunya di sini. seorang wanita yang menceritakan pengalamannya dipukul oleh bekas suami, tidak menyangkakan “it would ever happen to me. not me”. bayi-bayi comel dan budak-budak articulate yang mempunyai segala kejujuran dalam dunia. sebuah admission, in the most subtlest way, kepada kawan-kawan baru (yang juga bijak, jadi harus berhati-hati dengan mereka). sensasi dan struggle (baca: stragel) di luar negara yang artikelnya mesti ditulis di media tempatan untuk inspirasi anak-anak muda.

apa lagi yang boleh ditulis? mungkin dah tiba masa saya mula menulis (secara serius), setelah mengumpul (baca: hoarding) segala pengalaman dan perisitiwa, samada fiksi atau non-fiksi, dibuat-buat atau diimaginasi, dan menikmati proses tersebut.

i’ll write y’all emails soon.

it is 4.22 am on this side of the world, and i am awake, unable to sleep. earlier, they were celebrating the going of the italian mafia (interns), not too far away from my apartment. i have moved in earlier today, ate my first official meal (megi kari dengan telur) of the house, and wonder at what comes next. it is only after some minutes that i realize that this is first time in my life that i am truly living alone. other moments were the eternal childhood, marriage, roommates, families, the kosan life, the wg life. perhaps it is does come as an achievement of sorts (to be able to afford your own apartment in europe).

days pass too quickly these days, it is impossible to grasp any moment by the hand (by the text, in written form). i left cologne on sunday morning, leaving my kosovo girl (who just turned 26), fucked up from her hangover and bad life decisions the night before, trying to ask me to stay over to help with her cv and sorts. it was simply not possible, after a night of cheap white whine, albanian music, turkish burgers, terrible german junk food and potato salad (give me jamuans not parties after this). i needed to run away from all this mess of hers. or i needed normal food.

on the train ride home, having nothing to read (no longer human by ozamu dazai is the perfect demonstration of continually fucking up your luck in life), i tried to capture any feelings that i have/had through the whatever songs that i have in spotify. in moments like these, words do get in the way.

i see alex again, and we make small talk over coffee, avoiding the roommate question until our sous chef arrives. i have probably decided there and then that he is probably the only one in this city i will tell anything real to. min ho arrives and i said it is too complicated to think about moving, and it will be a mess. they recount of their past roommates and their different Weltanshauung(s). min ho says i seem more, settled and too old (in spirit) for this shit. maybe i am. i know not to fuck up a good arrangement. 

f will arrive in a few days. i have asked him for a present (a pair of ‘bone conduction’ earphones), which i doubt i will get. navigating birthdays is never easy. you want to it to be known without being too flashy about it. f is different, lost in his own mess that i sometimes find amusing, sometimes too tired to navigate with. it is somewhat difficult being the only anchor in another person’s life, but i suppose that is the point of love.

my stance to this world has always been the same; that i would rather die than to live, but will not go through the troublesome process of dying (it is not an art, plath), so i will try to secrete the little joys and amusement that i can, the complexities of emotions or the sudden gesture. i feed on these scraps of joy, fully aware that nothing in this world would ever truly make me at ease except going through this spiritual path (ascent?) towards god that i forever delay. everything else is meaningless.

perhaps all i need to do is to be alone.

so happy birthday, dear self.

i suppose i have no choice but to write, after having drunk perhaps 6-7 cups of coffee in a day, unable to sleep. it is almost the weekend anyway. it has been approximately three weeks since i’ve arrived in this new city, new job and all (after all the lamentations here about feeling restless and the like), and i quite enjoy it. it is summer after all, daytime is a mess but the nights are warm enough for a stroll in the city or near the rhine or to walk through the altstadt area.

i went to Alex’s place today, tired of eating half-priced sushi after 8pm and fast-food joints, unable to cook at my second airbnb. this, a day after his birthday, which had gone without celebration. i suppose i was too used to the walk home already, passing through the odd souvenir shops and the little bars before arriving home.

we ate a sad combination of sausages and chicken nuggets in the end, as i had no desire in me to cook anyway. i told him that i am looking for a bicycle. He tells me he hated cycling and begins telling me when unserer vorfahren (our ancestors) were hunting mammoths, there are the chasers who run after the animals, and there are the men who wait on top of the hills who throw over the big rocks to trap/kill (?) them. he prefers to throw rocks, not run. i laugh at this particular example of german humor(?), and continue drinking my fourth cup of coffee for the day.

we proceed to sit at the balcony, him smoking and i texting back and forth over plans over the weekend. i have had the desire for self-destruction since monday, after being obnoxiously told off by my host about the question of the tudung (a different matter altogether), and this only intensified throughout the week and over the course of the evening. i am too cautious these days, to not overshare with new people, so i just continue to tremble (silently). i suspect this has more to do with getting older more than anything else. everything (a display, a gesture, a declaration) just takes too much energy.

again, an offer to stay together. i gravitate between the idea of one’s own apartment and living with rooommates again (much better than frankfurt), and told i would sleep over it. of course now i am unable to sleep, having extended the evening with a trip to alte zoll with the boys of tannenbusch. i suppose drinking mint tea wont make me sleep any better.

this is bad writing. i’ll continue later.

1. life, summarized in bullet points, ala Madiha.
2. I am preparing for a job interview, in 7 days
3. f and I discussed at large, in between walks home, dinners and random walks around the river, trees, and fields around Eschborn, our lives ahead.
4. time to pack up in frankfurt – the lack of food ingredients, stored books and carried over ingredients, the general quality of life, the sun being unbearable, etc. etc.
5. is april really the cruellest month? it is a good time to have flowers
6. watched Zizek and Peterson debate, am I out of touch, or that tv show Analisis has more coherence?
7. to give oneself permission to be selfish, to be ambitious, even when married.
8. certain poems, or their lines do carry their echoes within you, like a quote that lingers, or a statement of principle.
9. zurinah hassan : Perkahwinan bagi perempuan, ialah perlindungan, untuknya yang tidak lagi berani, hidup sendiri dan menegakkan peribadi, kerana harga yang terlalu tinggi.
10. plath : ‘and I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself’
11. lessons in talking to phd researchers and doctors and lecturers on the possibility of me further pursuing education: while I might not need novelty, i must be willing to discover how hard it is to work alone. knowing your limit and reaching out for help for further guidance and collaboration – this is what eventually is the pursuit of knowledge.
12. have you ever thought, the older you become, the more scattered your brain is?
13. embracing the fact that I am depressed (temperamentally), not to invite pity, but to treat it as a flue or fever that your mood needs boosting, perhaps this is a key to recovery?

 

i promised myself that i would come back here at least once a month, in the name of consistency, so here goes. it is quite dampening sometimes to have always someone to talk to, your material (or memory) to write elsewhere is just gone.

it is five am in Frankfurt, and i am unable to sleep since 3 am since either a intake of ibuprofen (with caffein) finally kicking in after 12 hours, or the fact I have spent the whole of Sunday being sick. this being set off by two occasions 1) food poisoning of mi kari 2) NLG’s cough which is probably brought over from Malaysia for all I know. this has, of course, caused a set back on my translation work, which I need to complete 9000 words in 48 hours, but of course, the inability to sleep plus the anxiety to work has put me in that terrible mood of procrastination, here I am.

she tells me she writes about the eroticism in English-written contemporary Malaysian literature. or gender. or sex. or the feminine. while I have no mind for difficult literary/sociological/philosophical theories history or timelines, nor have I read/know about her entire literature review to lead to this overwhelming question, I know not to discard an entire body of work due to language, claiming eroticism is scarce/not explored in Malay-written works.

What is Malay eroticism anyway?  //tukar Bahasa//

Mungkin ada perbezaan di antara apa yang dikira sebagai lucah eksplisit (?) dan lucah berkias/puitis. atau dalam kata lain, antara yang tersurat dan tersirat. adakah erotika moden itu sebenarnya menekankan gambaran fizikal/explicit sesebuah perlakuan seksual? Ini mungkin juga secara tradisinya, berevolusi, daripada gerakan modernism awal abad ke-20 (yang menolak hanya yang cantik layak diabadikan dalam sesebuah karya estetika – lantas meraikan the ugly, the weird, the banal).

Kebanyakan karya orang sastera orang Melayu (sebelum sastera moden, katakan sebelum waktu perang) mempunyai tradisi sastera islam yang jauh lebih puitis dan berkias, dan mempunyai lapisan-lapisan maksud tersembunyi. Maka, meskipun terdapat pernyataan tentang sesuatu yang berbaur erotik, ianya mungkin mengambil tempat di bawah berbanding hal-hal berkepentingan yang lain. Ini atau unsur erotika itu atau diselitkan/disamakan cinta terhadap wanita/ tuhan or tauladan-tauladan sufisme/Islam/lailamajnun dan yang sewaktu dengannya. Mungkin juga, kerana pengetahuan menulis dan membaca itu terhad kepada golongan-golongan terpelajar/kerabat diraja (manakala rakyat dengan bentuk pelisanan/oral) maka bahan bacaan juga terhad kepada hal-hal formal.

Lantas, sastera melayu moden yang muncul (sewaktu perang/pasca perang) dan mungkin karya seni yang lain juga, mungkin lebih berani dalam menimbulkan hal-hal bilik tidur (huhu), namun tetap setia bersembunyi di sebalik kelambu sastera lama dalam penulisan secara berkias (secara simbolik atau metaforikal) dan melalui peredaran zaman moden, semakin lama semakin mencerobohi dinding alam tersirat (alusi), dan akhirnya penyataan secara eksplisit, atau yes, lucah. dan, bukanlah bahasa melayu itu terlalu seronok dan meluas dalam kosa kata erotiknya?

//

Therefore, my problem is,while English literature (American/UK/what have yous) have run through a similar course on a different timeline, works written in the English language in/about Malaysia, may owe to a different literary tradition, or a different historical perspective and narrative.

While I believe writers or fiction/poetry can be released from the burden of tradition (as the case with many writers being more popular internationally with a different audience),  a researcher who does embark on the subject owe it to himself/herself to consider the overall canon of Malaysian literature and all its historical/cultural/political baggage before embarking in such a specialized topic.

anyway, two hours later, saya patut mandi, makan sarapan dan ubat deman saya, dan bersiap-siap untuk pergi kerja dan membeli tiket ke Bonn besok, sambil cuba menyiapkan kerja-kerja penterjemahan saya yang telah lama ditangguh.

 

the team celebrated the submission of a 80 million euro fund application with two bottle of champagne and a box of chocolate cookies. germans and their lack of festivities when it comes to evening food/parties, where the most elaborate dish is cheese and grapes on a stick. then gummy bears, salt sticks, nachos, chocolates. I grab a glass, and sip pensively, navigating between the flavour and my own self judgement.

as the evenings draw to a close, the message box opens and one is allowed to whisper the most sacred/mundane of thoughts. what pleasure is there to seek behind a photo, an exchange of suggestions and inquiries? I am tired of this, and F is miles away, uttering ohne dich, ich bin nicht laments. Meanwhile Hajra shares with me, in what seems a abrupt conclusion of her ‘love story’, if It can be called so. maybe I attract the broken, but who can know for sure?

what is it with kisah cinta islamik, navigating boundaries (the unsayable and the undoable), that people put so much hope and effort and longing in them? one can simply end the torture (or pleasure) by asking, will you marry me, or do we make sense together, or what is it that you seek?

then again, my marriage to F was a simple affair. happiness (in the form of boredom, tedium and safe territories), in exchange of strife (and the secretion of pleasure in navigating this complex, tortured being that if F). whether this is enough reason aside from quiet sensible love/companionship to stay together, only time will tell.

consolation can be found in the form of hot baked potatoes with guacamole, or in the form of flat white coffees from Australian baristas who think it is a good idea to open a hipster coffee here (thank you for putting on Backstreet Boys on a Tuesday afternoon), amidst the Backerei and terrible filtered WMF coffees.

A is 37. I remember the narration given to the taxi driver on the day I left Jakarta, summarizing, in brief, among the things that have happened there. Strange how we allow ourselves the liberty of confession in 30-minute drives, that end in, naturally, in him asking me, ‘What if?’

There are no use for what ifs, it is a question of want and opportunity, I say to Pakcik Teksi.

 

 

ada apa yang terjadi baru-baru ini? kadang-kadang, melawat beberapa bandar dalam satu masa, bertutur dalam English, Bahasa Melayu dan Jerman dalam masa seminggu boleh memenatkan minda anda.

Tak banyak yang berlaku baru-baru ini. Minggu demi minggu berlalu, tahun baru, krismas, hujung minggu, pulang bercuti, semua itu berlaku. wajah bertukar wajah, tetapi perbualannya tetap sama; masa depan. aku kira ini adalah persoalan yang tetap muncul sehingga aku betul-betul dapat menapak di sesuatu tempat, sekurang-kurangnya untuk satu tahun.

until then, it is hustling and being constantly on my toes, all the way.

I find myself in Frankfurt, working, this month, in an unexpected turn of events. still, starting out as an intern, trying to understand the ins and outs of working in an organization. I like office work, provides me with some form of stability, and working with data. but of course I miss the mobility of shifting from place to place. I am too used to being in a crowd, but I welcome the quietness of the town that I live in, bumping into old people walking their dogs on Christmas Day, and arguing with my neighbour over my noisy walking (I ended up wearing slipper socks whenever I do my laundry to minimize the noise – I cant learn to be more graceful with my feet).

this, added with the my side job translating back home, seems to solidify myself as a working adult. I am back where was, maybe six years ago, freshly graduated and trying to find my footing. only this time, my surroundings have changed. I have changed. Its the same old game, only different circumstances. people have more or less drifted away, more babies are popped out, some in more solid relationships, some that don’t believe in love or refuse to call it so, some became pregnant, a friend republished her book, some travel their way as if that is exciting, some just crawl back into the familiar believing it is better for them (maybe). other people change, too, and it is childish to think otherwise.

the only thing I am sad about myself, is how spiritually poor I have become (both of us). It might be Europe being Europe, but we have only ourselves to blame.