The First Spring, The First Bloom

Wet or dry. Those are the only available seasons where I grew up. There is no such thing as the first rain. The rain comes without permission, and leaves without any goodbye. It blessed some and punished others. So does the dry season. It grows and it kills. The cycle continues like a circle in life with minimum nuance. It has no start, it has no end. Life did not give more than two options back then. It was either wet or dry. Third option hardly exist for most people.

The nuance of seasons grew in me when I traveled to four-season countries. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. As if the life cycle has four different checkpoints in each compass direction. There is still no start and the end of the cycle. Yet spring is always associated with the beginning, and ends in winter. 

People often say spring is the season of life, where the dormant start to come out from their habitat. I only knew what dormant is from a biology textbook. The example was about the bear or turtle, who came awake from the long sleeping period. However, I never saw myself in a dormant state back then. It was always about survival in the two seasons. They never had mercy regardless of how the storm hit the people so hard. 

The hills around Göreme

The first thing in life always leaves a mark in life. So did the first spring I had in Turkey, April 2019. I didn’t see turtles or bears coming out from their lairs. But the buds on each branch of the tree gave a signal. Spring forgives, spring nurtures, and spring helps the life back on its feet. The season must be a mother that loves without asking back. No wonder the living being named it spring, as everything comes out from what perceived as the end. 

Spring in Şirince, around early April 2019

I remember the joy in my first spring. I witnessed the first bloom of cherry blossoms in Istanbul. They were dressed in pink and stood firm around people. Or the wisterias growing on facades. God knows how old they were. Their beauty can be witnessed without seeing one. Their scents filled the joy in the air. Bees were buzzing and dancing around their colorful petals. I fell in love again like the first time, and my heart bloomed like flowers in their first spring.

If only I knew seasons never come in four, would I believe life offers options?

If only spring would never come to my life, would my heart ever bloomed like those flowers?

This year, 2025, the spring decided to come earlier. Half of the magnolias in my neighbourhood have fully bloomed, and the rest will wait for a few more days. They have beautifully risen, yet somehow my heart has not bloomed that huge like in the first spring. Even though my eyes hardly blink every time I pass by blooming trees. The joy of the first spring may never be fully remembered, but those flowers will.

Only Human

On the second of May, 11 years ago, my dad passed away from a stroke and a heart disease. He was almost 50 that year, and I was about to be 20 in the coming days.

There’s not so much I know about my dad. Somehow, Asian fathers in his generation were made to be a mystery. No story was shared to his kin, as if a key was never made to open the lock. I cannot count how heavy weights he had to carry to his final days. He let it go at last. The suffering was not worth carrying on. Four days after he left the earth, my brother and I found ourselves on the sea, riding on a fishing boat in the northern part of Jakarta to scatter his ashes. My mother was not on the ride since it was too emotional to handle.

I don’t have so much memory of him, let alone a good one, despite us living under the same roof. Maybe because the classic narratives of ‘Mom has to take care of the kids and dad does the work’ made me think both parents have different functions. The only thing I knew before was both of my parents were coming from the same island and met in Jakarta to find jobs. He was a cook, and my mom was a hairdresser. He was lucky to finish high school, whilst my mom only could stay until elementary school because of her economic situation. Having a higher education was, is, and will be a luxury in my home country. His love was a tough one, and often forced me to study accounting for my bachelor’s (Chinese roots need to be good with money). I took advertising instead, and he questioned my future. Yet, he supported my choice.

I could vividly remember when he was bedridden in the hospital and knew I got a chance for a student exchange experience in the Netherlands due to my score. The light that had dimmed in his eyes seemed to find its way out when he heard this story. He passed away six months after that. Only until I came back to Indonesia a few months ago, my mom told me a bit about my dad in a discussion over lunch time. Perhaps one day I can understand him not only as a father, but also as a person.

May 2, 2023
Brussels - Belgium

Porcelain

I wish life can be like a trampoline

I could just jump, and life would bounce me back

but that's the never case of mine

like throwing a porcelain

that's the only chance to do it right

and life never offer the second chance once it is broke

Time Machine

1st March 2020
16.13 Gare de Lourdes

The weather was as gloomy as always in the winter. Except, the wind was kinda wild until I couldn’t even move a step forward. Or maybe, it was me who didn’t want to. Blaming the wind was easier than blaming you, ain’t it?

Voila, the ticket showed my favourite train seat. It was in the corner with no one sitting next to me. Only a speaker above my head bothered me every time they announced something. It kept ringing at least every 30 minutes. I didn’t understand the announcement in French, the same way I didn’t understand what’s on your mind. 

I was facing the back of the train, while it moved forward to Bordeaux. It felt like the train forcefully pulled me to the future, even though my heart belongs to the past. Oh, wish I had a time machine to spend a moment with you just for one more day.

Baby, baby, all I have is you in my head.

A Cup of Memory

It was a sunny Saturday in Salzburg, yet felt so gloomy. Half of my friends just moved to Copenhagen, leaving all good memories behind here while I was counting days before moving to Brussels. The central was busy as always, but it never felt the same anymore. As I wandered aimlessly near to Salzach river, something familiar invading my olfactory system. Little did I know, I was standing in front of my favourite coffee shop. 

"Ah, hello again, young man! You're lucky today. We just restocked our Ethiopian beans. Perhaps, you'd like a cup of black coffee with it?"

Yes. Any beans were fine. At that point, it didn't really matter if they served any kind of coffee, as long I could sit in my favourite corner. I literally did nothing other than scrolling my Instagram account and sometimes gazing through the window. I saw a lot of Chinese tourists lingering around the street. I saw an old couple entering the bus while clinging into each other. I saw the memory of us entering the coffee shop. 

"Here's the coffee. Enjoy!"

The loud greetings from the barista broke my enigmatic nostalgia. I didn't know whether should I thanked him or not. The coffee was still hot but I sipped it like tomorrow never came. I never knew it was that bitter. But it wasn’t their fault anyway, the coffee taste never changed at all. Maybe the last moment I had there was too sweet to be true.

"Anything else?", said the barista.

"Nope, that's all!", I replied.

I said to them how I loved their coffee and that was my last time visiting their coffee shop before moving to Brussels. Perhaps, I will visit them again this October. I want to sit there again, exactly in the same corner while sipping a cup of memory.