Page 306: Ayu Larasati, Pottery, and Finding a Little Piece of Peace

Once, one of my good friends said that to keep your sanity in a crazy city like Jakarta is to appreciate little moments. And if you can’t find them, make them.

So I decided to do something calming before I started my new job: pottery class. A private one. With my friend, the talented potter Ayu Larasati. Oh you don’t know her? Well I do *insert smug face here :p

I met Ayu when Nike, one of the founders of LivingLoving invited me to come to this watercolor painting workshop she arranged with Ayang Cempaka as the tutor. I’m a fan of Ayang Cempaka, so I came just to see her and told her that I love her works. You know, cliche thing that a fan would say to her idol.

Nike then showed me where to sit while waiting for Ayang – so i sat in front of this cute-sweet-looking girl. Later i found out that she had been living in Canada for years before she got back to Indonesia and that she's a potter who used to be a product designer.

Long story short, we became friends. And a week before my first day at this new place, I stayed at her home and visited her new studio to hone my skill in pottery making. I took a pottery class one time, and I made a fugly unicorn mug that is still somewhere in that studio in South Jakarta. Gosh, it’s been a year and I still am abandoning that mug. *sigh

Anyway, it was really nice to spend times with Ayu. I had so much fun. I learned to make bowls and cups. I learned a little bit about firing and glazing. I laughed when I heard her talking to her supplier and ordered 50 kg of clay as if it’s nothing. I heard her little boy criticizing my work because his mom can do better. I learned the art of letting yourself immerse in silence, to be patient, and to find peace when making things with your bare hands but they end up not as perfect as you thought they would be. 

Her works remind me of the japanese philosophy, shibui/ shibumi – where you learn to appreciate pretty thing more than its appearance, but also the inner beauty, the strength, the feeling when you touch it.

So, thank you, my dear Ayu. For everything. I’ll be back for glazing them. And catching up, of course. :)

Page 305: Delicate December

December always affects me in a weird way.

It makes me (want to) do crazy stuff, it invites inexplicable anxiety and nurture it to grow, it scares me a little bit because it has this ability to reminds me that in a month I’ll be a year older than I am right now. It’s like an evil giant clock that haunts me.

It makes me think more about the plight of being mortal.

And fate, fate..always finds a way to lure and encourage me to do some obnoxious shit and be (more) reckless. Like that afternoon..that breezy afternoon when I was ready to do thing that I usually won’t commit to. A thing that I planned to be my closure if the chance was there.

To end some clandestine adventure that I’ve started.
To draw a new map that will take me to a new place where I can nurture some kind of serenity.
To start a new chapter and to feel brave again.

But fate..fate also knows how to brag about how powerful it can be – wipes all expectations and makes you feel stupid and like..shit. Haha.

And I giggled as soon as I’ve crashed into bed that night. I laughed at my own stupid mission. A stupid-failed-mission. An epic one, actually.

Pretty funny, though. Just add a bunch of bitchy and silly comments and I can keep the reputation as the laughing stock.

But I’m glad that I’ve challenged myself and decided to give it a try.

And as my mind rode the black unicorn to the dream land, I wondered..
”has anyone ever told him that he kind of smells like something delicate and creamy?”

Weep, little lion man,

You're not as brave as you were at the start

Page 304: Sometimes (part 32)

Hope will always be this elusive captivating vortex for her

– some kind of gate that can drag anyone to an enigmatic realm where reality can kill dreams in a heartbeat and serves them on a plate to feed each damaged starving soul.

She weaves the safety net to keep her away from it, even from its gleam.
She has preserved memories in a jar where she can taste a few drops of mirth when she needs it 

– the timidity that helps her to survive.

Sometimes, she closes her eyes as her heart whispers to an image of him, 

“You will always be a ghost flickering behind my eyelids when I sleep*. 

You're the myth I chose to keep.”

*from a prose written by Kriz of jktxnyc

Page 303: The Hourglass

I can see the fear in her eyes
and the pain every time a new tear glided on her cheek,
the rage when she was describing the incident
and the shame when she was blaming herself for horrible thing that happened to her.

I kept telling her over and over that it’s not her fault. The one who must be blamed is her rapist. I hugged her and said that is going to be okay – the mother of all white lies, the thing that I can’t actually promise. Told her that there are still good people who are willing to help her and care about her. That she needs to keep filling the hourglass with the spirit to continue her life and fight for her future. That it’s not the end.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She said she’s afraid that the hourglass couldn’t contain all rage and despair and agony she has, and it will break.
It will break eventually.

Page 302: To Be Known

 "I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart – perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I’m in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase?

So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man – the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.”  

- Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

I'm scared of Amy Dunne, but to be honest, some part of me admires her as well.