Rahayu

The home I go to is now a 70 year old something woman that does not recognize the phrase “I’m full” from all the food she’d offer. She lays with the starfish in far seas to calm herself after a long day, with hair so long it is time’s own waterfall dropping from the bed that she’d cover. In every strand a prayer engraved, as she breathes in to the sanskrit phrases she holds close. She whispers them to me when in need, even though other kids have remembered their mantras since they were five. But it didn’t matter to her, as long as I’m aware of the kindness that would matter in life.

Even though our language oozes in it, Bhineka Tunggal Ika, that’s the only sanskrit we’ve consciously been throwing around lately. If it was a person it would note that “the only one that can shout my full name is my mother and if there is still a mental ID plate in your glance with blanks to fill - you might as well not bother.” Diversity now seems to only last in selfies and pamphlet pictures, before we go back to our never ending war of majority vs. minority and all that follows that rhymes with sweet ice tea.

Kuat kuat kuat, she tells me to be. Hold tight to your femininity and ethnicity, there’s no room for pity! I had to go to school behind my dad by running away with my trustee bike. Whenever I exchanged used cardboards for some rujak - away and up the mango trees I’d hike. Now, that is an independence necessary that comes from being the eldest girl in the family. She was of eleven though, I am of two - I shouldn’t complain. Kids these days, she goes one, do they even know how to sweep up & wash off a stain? All this she reenacts with
arms, hands, fingers that flutters with her whim and by 4 she takes a break to watch her hindi soap opera on TV while I sip my coffee with spoonfuls of sugar too many.

The home I go to is optimistic, I can spot a smile or two in every turn here. Too happy & ignorant, I too would start to fear. How are we independent again? The internet was down the other day and I couldn’t even contact anyone or finish my poem. What I’m trying to say is that - these anecdotes about my grandma, Rahayu, is my home. Two sides of the same coin, she is what I’ve always imagined Indonesia if it was a character, or if they were friends, Leo & Sagittarius - they’d be compatible as they teach those around them that things are not only solvable but laughable.

Such beauty thought she was ugly and dying by 72, even though she’s gracefully aging like how this home is too. She loves her greens both in the garden she’d take long walks in and in her meals, and I bet this home does too. Would love it if someone pays attention to all of her stories, to all of her worries, like how I bet this home would too. I’d complain about horrible local TV content, she’d complain about the youth that’s now too destructively dependent - and for now we can only paint them red and white in this independence day, but know that our freedom have always made its bed in sharp weapons that can now be achieved through what we strive to learn and say.

Dirgahayu Republik Indonesia ke-72!