Opa Johan, The Smart Boaster

Opa Johan, The Smart Boaster

If I ever want to hear, bring forth, elicit, some one to praise and honor me, I would say modestly: “I’m just 80 and now have finished some 30 km from Depok to Rumpin on my bike.” Ha, ha, am I, your husband, not a very smart boaster?

April 2010

Send Me Just A Little

Send Me Just A Little

“Then would I ask you more when it’s nice, my suffering small when it’s not. Don’t send me a cooking pot, a pail except you have the heart to torture me.
No thank you, dear.”

So Opa Johan wrote to his benefactress who sometimes sends him a dish.

April 2010

The Courage To Be Yourself

The Courage To Be Youself

When everyone is smoking, drinking beer and you don’t, that’s courageous. When everyone isn’t smoking, drinking beer but you do, that’s also courageous, the courage to be yourself, to stand up alone for your own opinion. So said pak Arif to me.

April 2010

Opa Johan And His Bike-Companion

Opa Johan And His Bike-Companion

He is even younger than my sons and came from behind and rode alongside with me in Parung. He asked whether he might ride together wherever I intended to go. I said, that I can’t bike as fast as he could but he didn’t mind it.

I bought on the way two slices fried “ubi” (sweet potato) and shared it with him. We couldn’t talk much as most of the time he was riding behind or in front of me all the way, enjoying the country views to Rumpin, Leuwiliang, then to Bogor some 60 km over a mountainous region.

In Leuwiliang I bought him and myself “es cendol” (sweet iced light coconut milk). We were so thirsty after about three hours of cycling that it was the simplest, cheapest heavenly drink, while he shared with me his little parcel of bread. I taught him how to find his optimum pulse rate and he told me of plants and his pond.

We separated near Bogor. I was going back to the Bogor railway station while he will continue his ride up-hill to Cihideung and return home in the afternoon, still some 70 km.

Having shared the suffering on a heavy road together, we became good friends, dearer, nicer, better than friends usually are. But I couldn’t find his home later to see his pond in Pasar Minggu and he never phoned me either.

It’s that best, just right, though I met, see him only once in my life on my travel. I don’t want it more. I remember his name was Roman or was it Ramon? I wonder when he ever chanced to meet me by reading this.

April 2010

There's No One Who Would Not Love Belo

There’s No One Who Would Not Love Belo

Belo, the unwanted, neglected little doggy is so ugly. He looks like a little devil from a distance, is squinting like a cockeyed chicken, one hind leg is crippeled, one eye is blinded by a cataract. Taken up home by si Upik he became so lovely, so loved.

When Belo clumsily walking, almost limping, with squinting eyes, moving his head slowly sideways, then gladly stands on its hindlegs to be fondled, hugged by si Upik there’s no one who would not love him. Yet, he is not as smart, could never outdo Hachiko who came every day to the railway station, waiting about 9 years for his master to return who never came back. Yet Belo isn’t less lovable and si Upik would never, ever exchange Belo even with Hachiko.

Suppose we would give him his freedom, he would rather say: “If I could be free to want, I would want not to be free forever if I could stay with si Upik.”

Healthy, happy and free makes even Belo, every one, every creature beautiful, lovable as is a happy coral fish so free in the sea. It would unhappily languish, die in an aquarium.

April 2010

A Child's Laugh

A Child’s Laugh

A child’s laugh after a child’s big grief, big tear. (march 1955)

April 2010

Ending

Ending

If there weren’t no ending – what’s eternal life? -
Life would be in vain.
It would never be so precious, so dear, so near, so warm
as a beautiful song that should end.
And the day should end,
and the night should end,
and joy should end,
and sorrow should end,
and all beginning should end.
Ending is a tear of gratefulness,
A pearl of life.

April 2010