Lunch

Hello again.

Okay, fine, I know I had just written an entry in like a few hours ago—but in that short time many things could happen. For starters, my mother had just called me when I was fresh out of the shower. I was still clad in towel when she announced that she was going to have a lunch out and was wandering if I’d like to come too. I obliged and she directed me to dress up and be ready when she came to pick me up. Sorting out through my wardrobe while on the phone with a friend, picking which clothes would look best to accentuate my mood—which is eerily serene for some reason that time—the rain started drizzling outside.

There was a tree in front of my house, already dead since years ago, but it was lush green with the big leafy plant of unknown origin hugging the dead-tree; its trunk was charcoal black, burnt not from fire but from death caused by my father. Lol. One day, a long time ago, my house was infested by pack of rats, those big black disgusting pests, and those critters made a nest on my lawn so my father fought back in his own weird way. Not with mouse traps or poison, but with a jug of formaldehyde. He poured that whole jug into the rat hole, killing them thoroughly and perhaps preserving the carcasses too, and in the same time killing all the plants in our lawn. For three years nothing would grow on it but rocks and pebbles. My mother decided to arrange an array of rock beds on it. But it has healed now and plants could grow.

Anyway, it was really pretty outside. I wish this rainy season could last longer, but I just heard that the worst tide has passed last Tuesday and it will come to an end in a couple of weeks, perhaps. The season was changing and the sun will appear ever more often, it will be too harsh for me to walk outside again, so I’m planning to enjoy the last seconds of the season, the airy breeze and wet scenery, the ardent green and tingling drops. A car parked outside, I put some perfume and a thin gloss on my lips before I head out.

Both of my parents were there, dressed casually as they always were, my mother was into fried duck today and my father goat curry. I said I’m going with anything. A short ride with my parents usually is flat and uneventful, although some time not. Like today, somehow the topic about grandchildren were brought up and we end up arguing of how my children would call my parents. My mother insisted that she’d like to be called Mbah, said it sounded intimate. But my father refused to be called that, said it sounded like some witch doctors and preferred Eyang instead. I picked the middle line, offered that I shall teach my future children to call my father Babah. Mother laughed so hard, the name kind of fitting to my father since he does look like a Chinese descendant a little bit. I’ve once told my father that he looks like a Hong Kong mafia if he grew his moustache a bit longer, not that I ever know how Hong Kong mafia looks likes.

The conversation grew wilder, since the grandchildren are still non existent and I’m planning not to reproduce in a short time… So we went on talking about the matters of inheritance which soon brought up a discussion about why the farming in Indonesia is only subsistent, causing a chain reaction of unstable economy in a broader view. The tendency to split up lands, dividing it equally between the children left by the parents, for example if a farmer owned a land of ten hectares and had five children, when he died, the land was divided equally amongst the children that are left. My mother argued that this is the cause of why the production was cut short and the farming no longer gives profit to the farmers. I could extend the explanation but I think it will tire some of you out. I personally thought the discussion was interesting, even argued back with my own theory that the source of problem is that we simply reproduce too much and that people with low education should be banned from having children as much as they want because they simply replicating low-skilled human resource, unable to provide good education and all.

Even when we were having lunch, we still talked about another trivial thing. For example, the simplicity of Javanese name and the odd tendencies for people nowadays to name their children with heavy names unfit to their surrounding. My father talked about the traits of most Javanese back then to know their standing and think that they need not to use such a grand name when in fact they were but commoners. How the name Bambang back then were served only for grander, more royal blood than commoners. And to see how nowadays people with charred, burnt skin and plain looks have name as delicate as Cynthia, Fairish, Nadia—basically, I think the names invented by teenlit writers are simply frivolous. How many people lose their roots even to the most principal of the matter like names. I think I’ve read it somewhere about the same matters in a more European setting of how can a commoner took the name of Alphonse and Alfred while the royals took a more common name such as George and John. The name trend displayed the wide arrange of low self esteem and how people tried to make themselves grander than life. Like a peasant unable to accept their faith as a commoner, unsatisfied, and angry of their fated lives. Like a girl with dark, dry and rough skin with ordinary face that dream for a prince on a white horse. Common, Indonesian girl, my age, that dream for some ridiculous romance and even had the guts to write it down. Brave girls indeed, they are. Some that has forgotten their roots just like I do, that took up foreign influence and forgot where they’re come from. I, myself, admire those with delicate traditional names.

Like my mother’s name, Kania, and my grandmother’s name, Ida. My sister’s name is Faradina and my cousins took up the name of Anggraito, Isa, Latifah, Annisa, Mugia, etc. My father was called Adin in personal surroundings. Even in my family there are names unfit, maybe humble in the beginning but changed gradually. Like my father’s oldest sister. Born Hartati, and when she converted into Catholic, baptized as Maria Theresia. Another cousin of mine was named Daviel and Diva. Or my mother’s sister from another father named Imelda Geraldine, but that name does fit her really well. Aunt Mia—I nicknamed her that—was indeed a beauty, a tall, dark skinned woman, really exotic. Pretty ironic. I like traditional names better; I like the unusual ones, but not the westernized names or the weird names invented by some cheesy romantic souls. Some poor mother that was once in their teenage years craved for some unrealistic romance and unable to obtain it, channeled their pitiful dreams into their children.

My father commented suddenly about my hair, said that he preferred it longer. I stood my ground and said that this new hair do suits me more than the last one. He said I looked like a sick person, more suitably, a cancer patient recovering from chemo. Ah, mostly because he thinks of this haircut as a boy cut. Lol. I laughed at him. I might be called boy-like, but I wasn’t a tomboy. I had curves more woman-like than any in my year, my short hair helped me showed off my neck which in my opinion made me look thinner. And today I was wearing a pink tee with lavender tanks under, very fitting with beige baggy pants, yellow flats, and glossy lips. I looked like a girl. I embraced my nature even more truly than ever with this short hair compared to the version before.

We suddenly talked about the dead Geodesy student from ITB. My mother was very worried and reminded me to stand up if ever I was bullied. I looked at her dumb stricken, asked if she never thought that it might be more suiting that I was the evil senior and not the victim. She brought up the subject of the past of how I was bullied and got depressed, unable to say no. Now I wonder how I’ve changed so much over the years, but how people really took me as the same person. I mean, if now I will ever be bullied in any way, I wouldn’t hesitate to talk them back. Maybe I need to restrict myself since sometime my instinct told me to say the meanest thing I’m able to spurt out. I slurred casually of how the seniors—the senior girls—might all be shorter and weaker than me. Look weaker, I mean. So why should I be afraid of them? They’re not the ones that pay for my tuition, they’re not people I look up to, they’re even probably not better than I am. They’re probably just girls with low self esteem that needs to be recognized as a powerful authority to compensate their sorry existence. I am a sorry creature myself, and I’m selfish enough not to help others of my kind to be better, to feel better about themselves.

The meal was done and we head home. I commented about an old man in the way, a tall, hard looking man with gray thick moustache and white hair. Said I’d once imagined I could have a grandfather like that, a scary looking old man, very grapy but not to me, the granddaughter. My father said jokingly, a dreary fact of how I was born to the world already without grandfathers and only a grandmother to dote on me. I said I could always dream. Told him too that I’d like a grandpa like Santa, how I planned to make my father a fat jolly grandfather to my future children if I ever had children later. My mother told me some story about her own grandfather. Aki Jarnuji, or that’s how he was called. He was feared by everyone, a martial art coach that never holds his punches towards his pupils. And the little tidbits like how he likes anchovies so much and always kept a jar full of them. My mother and Uncle Bobby used to steal some of the anchovies every time they could, risking the anger of the Terrible Aki Jarnuji.

The conversation went on. It disappeared quickly from my mind. Some bits about Chinese Falun Gong. An opposition suppressed by the communist government. Some of their followers were captured; some came out with mysterious stitches on their body, marking that some of their organs might be taken without their consent, kidneys mostly. Ah, yes, we were talking about how easy to have an organ transplant in China. How the big population supply an endless amount of fresh organs from the dead for the people rich enough to afford it.

Many more I could write down. But my sister is very persistent in the moment to have my laptop for herself. Not long ago, her friends came over and I was very distracted from my writing that I joined them instead of finishing this. So for now… I’ll put it in hiatus.