PMS

sembilu di tengah gersang udara
celoteh tenggarai gejolak itu
hanya ingin diam dan mati rasa
hanya bisa peluk erat rasa sakit itu

lulu, Prima Net, 14.37, 25 September 2006

Rumahku

berpulang ke rumah
dulu sangat jelas jalan menuju ke sana
kini perlahan kuak segala rahasia
bahwa aku tak pernah menghilang
hanya lupa mampir dan bercanda
bersama rumah hati renjana
sambut aku ramah

lulu, Multiplus Buncit, 16.29, September 24, 2006

Jelang Ramadhan

sudah kulupa rasa itu
pernah kupeluk rasa itu
seketika di masa lalu
kini aku merunduk
merendah kepada-Mu
mengharu untuk-Mu

lulu, MP Book Point, 16.46, 21 September 2006

Between Jogja, Makassar & Toraja

It's been several days after I arrived back from traveling to Jogja, Makassar & Toraja. Felt like I was back from the 'world': long hours of traveling in the bus, airport view, meeting new people, eating strange-delicious food. My husband said to me, now you're complete because beside traveling around the world you're finally traveling inside Indonesia.

There's a special experience I would like to share with you... When I was acompanying Sebastian Winkels & Icang in shooting their video diary in Jogja, for the first time I saw Kalasan Temple. It was much smaller than Prambanan or the famous-huge-commercialized Borobudur temple, but it's the oldest one. Also it was 'hidden' in between people's houses and only few steps away from the main road. Somehow I became part of it, became part of some events took place centuries ago. You don't have to imagine it, you just need to sit and enjoy its silence, then you became part of it. You just knew it, somehow.

In Makassar I met nice people who just help you out without knowing who you are. Don't know some of their names, but still they make me want to go back there again. I love how they're really proud of their culture. I wish all Indonesians are like the Makassar people, still using their own language although some will also learn English, to become a tour guide for example. Besides all this sea food at its very best taste, I found that I still don't know anything about their culture. It's like all the things I read from books would be too small. I also went to Laeng Laeng, which are caves with paintings of pig and hands from the pre-history time. The stone hills surrounding us, trying to explain something with the bluest sky I've ever saw as their beautiful blanket.

Toraja on the other hand just suck you in with their highly demanding dedication to the dead. It's a cemetery tour only. It's how the dead still helping out the living people by letting strangers looking at them months or years after their death, in their sculptured-dirt coloured house. They even give you tours inside the cave where they burried their family. For me it's becoming too direct than my experience in Kalasan Temple where I could still keep the distance. Cause I am a stranger among them. But there no such thing in Toraja, everything's shared between them, including the expensive-huge-mass ritual for burrying the dead with a hundred buffalos as their meal.

I found out that the mistery of the past would stay as a mistery, no matter how good we are in researching them. You would never feel the feeling, the mood, the sense of the past. You can only feel its impression and sometimes its longing for its discovery by the present time, if you're lucky. They will be re-discovered again and again forever, I hope...

lulu, Multiplus Buncit, 11.43, September 18, 2006

We meet again!

I met Sebastian Winkels & Icang again in the airport to go to Jogja. They came from Makassar & Manado of Sulawesi island. I began to see that things got more complicated as the traveling continue to the next island. Since I began to be more relax over things, especially my work, I got more than what I expected before.

The screenings and discussions were nice, specially with the Jogjanes who used to say what they really think out in the open in a forum. The filmmaking part was quiet packed because we didn't have a lot of time outside the screening. But that was actually the main thing out of this project, how we could do a documentary about a journey into 6 cities in 3 islands of Indonesia while at the same time screen and discuss short films in 2 weeks? You don't know what will happen so you better be open about a lot of things. When we finally said goodbye, they were going to Aceh & Padang (Sumatera island) and I was going to Makassar for another project, I learnt that the project becoming more and more make sense. Our country is big with around 17,000 islands and it took event like this to connect them since not many of us have the fortune to travel within our own country.

Now, I'm waiting for another meeting with them back from Aceh & Padang. It's the end of the journey, but I feel like it's a begining of something big. We'll see...

lulu, Goethe-Institut Jakarta, 13.32, September 14, 2006

One Perfect Day

Finally... a day with no obligations to do anything!
I have learnt that we need that kind of day at least once every two weeks. For someone like me who always have no office hours, it is important.

A day with lots of sleeping and 'nothing to do' activities
A day where the streets are more quiet with more space to walk by
A day where you can do whatever you want without time limits

One perfect day will balance the other crazy-hectic-over loaded days you had to go through.
Just like today...

lulu, Multiplus Buncit, 17.12, September 3rd, 2006

'Till we meet again

It's been a long time since I had the chance to write anything in here... In doing my work, I met some interesting people. Just when you thought you've knew it all, you met nice-humble-easy going people that makes your job much nicer. This kind of fortune that I find very rewarding in doing my work.

I am lucky considering what I do to earn my living is what I like the most. Besides screening short films and making a forum with the filmmakers last Sunday, I also got the chance to do some city walking for a video jurnal in Jakarta with 2 filmmakers from Malang, East Java and Berlin, Germany. They both have a mutual respect to each other and that makes this traveling a very interesting experience for me. I forgot how tired I am, jumping from one job to another since I am in the middle of making a documentary about jilbab while preparing and doing this film program.

At the end of the day when I can just lay down and find it hard to sleep because I was too tired, I will smile for the nice moment I spent with them. Their names are Icang (Malang) and Sebastian Winkels (Berlin). Now they are doing the same thing in Makassar and later Manado, in Sulawesi island without me. But we will meet again for the trip to Jogja. Looking forward to meet them again :)

lulu, Multiplus Buncit, 12.45, September 1st, 2006