izndn

[izndn]

Days turned into weeks, weeks passed, the moon full as unit.

Winter had arrived, and the snow had blanketed the countryside with a thick layer of white. The trees stood tall and bare, the branches reaching toward the sky like bony fingers. Awaken each morning to the sound of birds chirping in quiet contemplation.

She spent her mornings writing with a cup of tea or coffee and her afternoons reading, observing the dancing branch through as the wind blew the window as the sky changed its horizon from a dark hue to a lighter blue sky.

She couldn’t help but wonder when will the time arrive, whether to go north or south. All the doubts and obscurity lead to nowhere.

Delving deeper...  Lost in thoughts.

[izndn]

29th

February 29th wasn't on the calendar this year. I left the mainland the day before, passed through different timezones in three days, from three degrees to thirty degrees, and suddenly is the first day of the month. It seemed like it was yesterday, but already the end of the month. How time flies.

The same lingering question is still somehow... unanswered. Do I belong here?

Everything is alright. Better than what the days had been for the past two years. It would always be about the beginning of how things are pleasant. Wouldn't it be? Hoping it would last, not only a momentary euphoria. Some things seemed familiar but, at the same time, different. It was as if I saw the objects through a different lens with the same rangefinder.

During the flight, I kept thinking of what could have been. The uncertainty of things that could undo, the last unpleasant days wanted to get erased as quickly as clicking the backspace button. But then, there I was, only trying to read a book in the dark while listening to the whole music album, half asleep. At some point before landing, I wrote some thoughts, supposed a feeling I couldn’t utter, as usual. Time is ticking forward as if the previous hours weren’t existing.

The first few days reminds me of about ten years ago when I first moved here. The road I passed was the same, just some new places to see. It had changed a bit. Change is a natural part of life. After I landed, I had breakfast at the same traditional stall when I came here a decade ago. The familiar taste gave comfort, the simple joy of walking down memory lane.

to be continue…

[izndn]

6393m 693 kph

Half an hour left before landing, fifteen hours have passed in the air and a couple of hours until departure again.

“They say that after seven years every cell in your body has changed. You are a different person. Strange, now I am going back, to think that I have been in Europe without a break,” wrote Merwin in "A Flight Home."

After all these years, I finally come to a place that was once home for an overnight transit. Looking at this city now is somehow surreal. Every time before, I could only look at it through maps, but now I see it through the plane screen, soon in front of my eyes.

The journey before I touch down here was a mix of waves. I talked to a stranger about life in the airport, a stranger who said I didn't look like where I came from, or two strangers who shared their stories of how they ended up here.

There are some passengers who look happy, those who went on vacation. Some look tired, sleeping all the time, reading a book, watching a film, listening to music, checking back and forth on the screen to see how long until we arrive.

Thirteen minutes left, and the amount of white smoke begins to clear up from above. Suddenly the sky turns dark, and the sun seems to not set this evening. At least it is better for my eyes after long hours inside the dark airplane.

The engine starts its loud noise, and the tiny topography appears one by one. And lights, lots of blurry lights. The pilot makes a detour to the right in all these heavy blue clouds before going straight.

“Come Back,” the last track on the playlist is playing. Was I ever coming back? I have no idea how to put those words into what I'm doing at this very moment. Perhaps those words would always be followed by a question mark, without an absolute yes or no to answer. As for now, the plane is landing. Here I am, again. . .

[izndn]

Silver Lining

After a long time, the heart is aching again. It's awfully painful, as if all the reflux has built up inside my chest, ready to be vomited. I thought that coming here would make things better. I wonder why things turn out to be worse when I least expect it. Perhaps I didn't come to the wrong place, I just didn't anticipate the obstacles I would face.

Something was bound to happen, and it was inevitable. I wanted to remember only the warm memories, but on the very last days, the tea had gone cold. Somehow, I've learned how to let myself feel again, something I always neglected. After all, this phase of the journey will pass, and it's up to me to decide whether to keep it good or not. Everything happens for a reason, and every cloud has a silver lining.

Here's to enduring the unpleasant phase, standing still, and continuing to live until today.

[izndn]

Departure

On this day, many years ago, I left a place once called home. The warmth of the people I cherish and familiar places that I often came to it all become a memory lane through depicted photographs and motion pictures. At times I wonder, where to go next?

It is January. You depart for your flight. For half a year, you have been on endless planes alone or with others, but now you are alone again, going farther miles away. Nobody is picking you up at the airport or waiting for you elsewhere. The only waiting thing is the city itself.

The airport feels like home. You got used to airport life these past months. Everything is very similar, the check-in counter, passport control, security clearance gate, boarding pass, and departure gate. You are walking through that long passenger boarding bridge before entering the plane. Good morning or evening, depending on your flight time.

”Welcome on board.”

This time it is almost midnight, and the dark sky fills with dimmed lights. You always choose your seat next to the window so you can see every tiny geography as you had seen in the atlas. You put the phone on airplane mode. One of the attendants gives you a blanket, a mini pocket fill with earplugs, and socks. The plane is about to take off any minute. You are fastening your seat belt and taking a deep breath. The pilot announcement feels like the same radio song you play time after time. The flight attendant demonstration of life vest and oxygen mask are living in your head rent-free. “Please sit back, relax and enjoy the flight.”

During the 16 hours of the flight, you watch a film, the city of stars going to the city of lights. How cliché. It is too dark to read a book, so you listen to any songs of the plane selection. A mid-aged couple begins a conversation with you. They are going on a ski holiday in the Alps, how lovely. You have not gotten any sleep since yesterday, so you do not catch on with the rest of what they are talking about, you look through the window, and everything is still dark, with nothing to see. The time on the screen is a mere illusion. You are high above traversing the countries at different timezone. The flight attendants are serving the meal, and you think about whether it is a late dinner or early breakfast. It does not matter. Either way, you are hungry, eating with somehow dim light, savouring the almost cold meal. The tummy is full. You are half asleep, but counting on sheep does not work. So you go to the restroom, brush your teeth and think it might help you to fall asleep. Alas, you feel fresh instead, so you go back to your seat and stare into a blank darkness.

Too early to have jet lag. You are arriving at the transit airport. A passenger greets you, says you look like you know your way around here, then smiles. You have no idea why she would say that perhaps she founds you attractive. Another passenger is asking you the way to reach the gate. He seems to be confused and has never been here before. Somehow the two of you go in the same direction, with only different gates and destinations. Now you are waiting in line for the security check to begin. You take out all your electronic devices and then take off your boots. “Should have worn a pair of sneakers at first.” After that, the nightmare is about to be over. You pass the gate, and the officer asks where your next destination is. Then checks your passport and put the stamp on it. He says some words in your mother language you do not recall, then says, “Good luck!”

Seven in the morning. You are walking faster and faster. There is only about an hour lefts before the next boarding, everybody is rushing their way. You reach the boarding gate half an hour before, with spare time to sit and drink a bottle of water. Through the big glass shield, you see the plane and a hue of blue sky at dawn. The sunrise is probably around eight to nine in the morning during winter. On the next plane, you get your window seat again. This time is not great at all. The bright sun wakes you up with the heat makes your head dizzy. However, you can see everything now. The white clouds, the tiny buildings from above, and sleepy people during the early morning flight. The flight attendant asked whether you would like a cup of coffee or tea with a piece of croissant. How delightful, despite the heat and narrow seat. Before you even finish sipping your coffee, an hour's flight flies by in an instant.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. We’ll be landing shortly. For your safety please remain on your seat and fasten your seatbelt...”

You arrive at the destination airport. This time it is different. You begin to lose in translation. Everyone is a stranger. Nobody is at the gate to check about anything. You pick up your luggage, and you are at the arrival area all of a sudden. The information guy says you better take the train to the city, but first, you ought to buy the sim card. Rough morning to knock your brain on another language to buy a card and ticket. Then, having to pedal the bicycle to charge the phone. Somehow you manage to get on the train with two pieces of luggage, looking exactly like a lost tourist. Wind up in the biggest station with many people. Some helpful people help you carry your luggage, some weirdly look at you, and one grumpy grandpa scolds you because you put your luggage on the other side of the stairs and to carry another one. Great.

Finally, you get out of the station. It is drizzling with a temperature below ten degrees. From there, you walk through the old buildings. Not so long afterward, you find your destination point. The receptionist gives you the room key, the old and odd shape of the room key in an antique building. At least it has an elevator that fits two-person, or you cramp in with your two pieces of luggage. You enter the room. There is one single bed, a desk and chair, a square tv box, and a high-wide window looking through the other building windows. People are working and fitting clothes in that room. While another person is sitting while reading something, the rest of the windows are closed with the lights on. It is something that excites you for the first time since arriving. Thinking of taking a bath, you ask the room service for an extra towel, and after a few minutes, an old lady comes to bring it, and the way she smiles warms the cold evening air. The next thing to do is to go out for dinner at a fast food chain and order a salad. How boring of you. Jet lag probably starts to kick in, decide to take the evening walk.

Walking with no particular destination, you look around, and there are the twinkling sparks it lights. In an instant, you realise you are here and have arrived. About to begin a new journey in a place where you do not know and nobody knows you. Would it be a place you can call home or a mere passing through for you to go on the next journey? What about the constant change of destination? It all feels as if a long daydream during the longest flight.

In the endless journey to find a home, will the arrival destination welcome its departure?

https://on.soundcloud.com/uXvQY

[izndn]

To Set Free

Last night I heard a buzzing sound. I thought it was a night wind, but as I tried to hear the more it gets clear, there was a bee inside the room. The window are all closed since it’s winter. How did the bee get inside and high to the attic? 

The bee gets trapped inside a bedside lamp, I was very cautious not to get stung But when I light another lamp, the bee moves It said that the bright colour attracts the bee. So I turned it off and on as it kept moving.

Then I light another bedside lamp. I put it near the window wide open. A cold winter night and dark outside It takes the bee a while to leave, was the bee hesitantly thinking? 

Perhaps we are just like a bee 

At times trapped in a place that we wouldn’t want 

Making noise or making others feel not safe 

But all we need is just light sometimes, guidance 

For us to find our way... to set free

[izndn]

Every Ending Is A New Beginning

Thirty-first to first, a mere changing calendar 

May it be hopeful, and blissful as it can be 

May it comes to an end, for those who suffer 

Perhaps to some, it has been meaningful 

Perhaps… the other way around

Everything doesn’t always need a meaning 

It could be the sheer simplicity of accepting 

The forgiving not only the forgetting 

What matter is the consciousness in the doing 

Every ending is a new… beginning

[izndn]

Enfin

This day, about half a decade ago, I begin my day by arriving at home past midnight. There was only a picture on my phone of two bicycles in front of the place I used to live. Stranded, cold, under the bright yellow light. Fast forward to 7 in the evening, I remembered nothing during the past 18 hours before, but I am sure I had slept.

From dark midnight to the evening, I attended the opening night of the Gina Pane exhibition at a gallery. Along with strangers, nor nobody I had ever known. It intrigued me sometimes when I visited those kinds of events alone, pretending to be the art connoisseur to hunt a piece of art or a mysterious aspiring artist searching for inspiration. The truth is, I was only an amateur observer indulging myself in a transitory passage that would be memories in the upcoming times.

The cold winter night has not seemed to bother me. The day had just begun that evening. With no destination point, I marched my way to any places I had not yet seen. It was a solitary moment between bustling places, the crowds, the holiday ornaments, and the lights in the city that never sleeps.

Somehow I winded up at a bookstore. Its thin red facade with many books displayed looks quiet. Probably there were not many who visited this bookstore. I came inside, browsing through the aisle none of the books looked interesting until I was about to leave the store and saw a book in the corner, a secondhand book, a pretty cliche one, adapted into a blockbuster movie. There was this battle of thoughts, is it worth buying? I already watched the movie anyway. But never mind, I bought it as a souvenir for the sake of it, to remember I visited that bookstore. Again, it turned out to be read piles until years later.

______________________________________________________________________

Each year on the same day, I have no memory of what I did, but I vividly remember that one night of wandering about, even though there was not any special event that had happened. Just like any other day, I attend many other exhibitions or visit bookstores. Despite that one solitary night, wrapped in a thick coat with freezing hands in my pocket, I kept walking by myself without thinking of anything that may happen later, tomorrow, let alone in upcoming years.

Was I ever thinking all those ordinary days I went through one day might come to an end? That I could only reminisce through recollected memory.

______________________________________________________________________

As the year is approaching an end, so does the long despair. On each desperate day, you seemed to take the long route way with no destination point. The noise of people's opinions doesn’t matter. In the bustling city that never sleeps, keep going around, wandering about.

Enfin, there is a long-awaited moment for things to either come as an ending or a new beginning.

Enfin; soulagement au moment où une (longue) attente se trouve satisfaite.

In other words, at last.

[izndn]

There you found yourself stuck again in your bubble thoughts Going around, wandering about without end ”If you try again, you might find the better way” It’s easier said than done, the truth is nobody even cares

Ohh.. Isn’t it tiresome? All the noise, all the noise Fill the room with emptiness In the void, going around, filling the void, wandering about In the void, going around, filling the void, wandering about

[izndn]

a self portrait

I haven’t used a pencil in a while

not when writing, which I prefer a blue ink pen

but there is always something with a pencil

thin equivocal strokes

like the echoes of a muffled trumpet

or slightly darker clouds

swarming through the dimmed blue sky

I used to draw people’s faces

those I’ve known for quite some time

those acquaintances I’ve just met

each of their eyes made the difference

as if seeing through a lifespan

from the day someone born

to the moment I captured into a piece of paper

the moving line descends into the nose

and goes the lips, jawline, ears, hair

yet ever so slowly into an ocular whole

that once was blank white

then a filled grey trajectory

an apparent living soul

a self-portrait of mine

[izndn]

Walked you through the door

Said you would come back

Wiping tears on your cheek

Would I ever see you again?

The look of yours withered into summer air

All that remained was your vivid misty eyed

Falling mist of rain, a river tidal bore

Calling you, you said that you wouldn’t come

And shed those silent tears

The look of yours withered into summer air

All that remained was your vivid misty eyed

[izndn]

In times where time seems so slowly passing by But days oh day seems like it was yesterday And you wonder in your thought, was it just a memory? Or someone from the past, telling you same old story? In rays of the sun you’re walking aimlessly As the breezes blowing through the dancing willow tree And you follow your shadow, it might find somewhere to be In the distant you could see, then it fades so suddenly Where would you go? You wouldn’t know You ask, where to go? That leads to nowhere That leads to nowhere

[izndn]

to be

sometimes I wonder how must I act should I show how vulnerable I am so they can see how many burdens do I have?

suppose I shout in anger or rather break in tears? but what’s the use of those wasting energy and all to the point of nothing

why couldn’t I just let myself be without suppressing thoughts what things to utter whether to be or not be

[izndn]

On the 100km/h

I wonder every possibilities just for it to be pointless

[izndn]

Wavering

I was wind-blown dust carried by the river to terrigenous sediment, sinking deep down in the ocean, not moving. As the night time comes, I am waiting for the lighthouse to emit its light so I can find a way back and stop wavering.

One evening I sat inside a tiny armoire. Somehow, the darkness calms me. Nothing interferes. It was safe and sound, like a giant fish tank.

[izndn]

True To Yourself

As an adult, there are matters that we think mean nothing. It doesn’t matter just because we are an adult. Such as not telling the truth for a better situation, sacrificing your needs for others, put off your ego while letting others have it for themselves.

And when it comes to you, is that what you wanted? Does it matter? Is it nothing?

Despite every doubt and questioning the unanswered, what you can do is be true to yourself.

[izndn]

Beliefs

I once again faced the two sides of beliefs.

I grow up with people who worship and believe in the Almighty. On the other side, they are still not the people I see as an example of how a person is living. Somehow there is a lack in behavior and way of life with the causes of all their problem.

Then I see those who aren’t doing the religious stuff, those who believe still in the Almighty, some aren’t, yet they live their life peacefully or at least a common way of living, know how to solve the problem, be kind to each other.

So once again, what is the use of doing everything that is written or worshiping in a way that is obligatory if every time, they are still not become the humankind they are supposed to be?