:: muara senandika ::

I was writing this piece when the book sale party is still all over the place. So in the past few months—during this pandemic thing—almost all of the book stores selling their stuff online. What makes my poor wallet worse is that they are racing to make the cheapest price one to another, and like, never stops throw discounts to us, book hoarders (no offence, guys, I feel it too). And to this day, I was waiting for 5 book packages to come. Yeah, I have made 5 books purchases this month! This might be the highest amount I’ve spent on books. From those 5 purchases, only 2 of them that belongs to me. So three purchases which contain total of eight books are aimed for my kids: one encyclopedia about the shark, three books that arranged by The Natural History Museum, London, and the latest four are about Charlotte Mason education and autism theme which all written in Bahasa Indonesia. To be honest, I feel relieved when I bought those books. I’ve been wanted to buy bo...

Saya teringat tulisan tentang cerita buku pertama anak sulung saya : Hiu. Setelah belasan tahun, buku itu masih kami pakai untuk membaca bersama adik bungsunya yang kini berusia tiga tahun. Awet, ya? Sebetulnya kondisi buku itu secara fisik sudah babak belur. Kami menempel-sambung beberapa halaman yang putus asa hampir terpisah dari bukunya. Buku ini jadi buku favorit si bungsu juga. Entah, ikan hiu punya kharisma yang sungguh memesona anak balita rupanya. Ada beberapa buku lain tentang ikan hiu dan ensiklopedi bertema lautan yang kami miliki. Saya sendiri heran, mengapa harus buku Hiu yang sudah “renta” ini yang tetap minta dibaca setelah memaksa untuk diselotip sana-sini. Walau begitu, kami takkan menyerah. Biarlah buku Hiu ini tetap kami pelihara dan merawatnya. Kami akan membiarkan ia, mereka, untuk memilih buku apa saja yang disuka—bagaimanapun wujudnya. Menyenangkan sekali melihat mereka telah sampai pada fase ini: fase di mana mulai timbul rasa ingi...

I love doing the dishes. It provides me an amount of time which I could be drowning into my head and dug deep into my feelings. I could remember about something funny or something painful while squeak the sponge full of foam cleans up all the leftovers. I could rinse the coffee grounds from the cup and recalled the warm conversation about how the aunty from our village became so ill or whatever they murmured because I lost my mind thinking of something else. Sometimes my mum talking to me while I’m doing the dishes. But it’s such a distraction for me. I like it better while no one in the kitchen so I can enjoy my solitude. I love hearing the television from afar. The sound of the water streaming down the plates, the cups, the spoons. The mind. And all the stuff goes away as the water running down the pipes. We can’t bring back time. Nor the breaking things you’ve done. And you're still wondering why I didn’t love you after all this time?[]

Begitu banyak hal telah terjadi padaku sejak awal tahun 2020 ini. Tentu aku takkan menyebutkannya di sini. Terlalu panjang untuk sebuah blog post. Dan terlalu ringkas untuk sebuah perjalanan hidup. Baru masuk bulan kelima, namun rasanya sudah terlampau jauh berjeda. J. E. D. A. Semua orang tahu, dunia sedang berjuang dengan pandemi. Kita yang telah terbiasa memangkas jarak, kini wajib membiasakan diri untuk menjaga jarak. Sejauh mungkin. Selama mungkin. Bagiku yang selama ini merasa tak ada masalah apa-apa dengan kehadiran yang lainnya, ini agak menyesakkan. Dari sini aku menyadari beberapa hal: Waktu dan kesempatan bukanlah hal main-main yang diberikan Tuhan untuk kita. Kita kerap mengabaikan kesempatan. Kesempatan menemui mereka yang ingin bertemu. Kesempatan berbagi tawa. Kesempatan bertanya: kamu baik-baik saja? Kesempatan menghargai mereka yang telah menghargaimu jauh sebelum kamu tahu. Kesempatan membagi pelukan, secara langsung. Kesempatan menyeka air mata, sec...

(This is my first impression about Educated that I chose to write in English. On the last part of this post, I will talk about my next impression that wrote in Indonesian. So, here we go:)  Life might be hard, and some of them could be derived from what we might call it: privilege. Thus, can comes in several forms, as our parents (socio-economical's status to any other identities that involved) until what comes to us as chances and self-will. Tara Westover tells us through her "Educated" book how she struggled to reach education while she did not even have any chance. By chance, I mean, her father is a hardliner religious believer and also a govt apathetic that drives his children's life pathways. He was about to plot their life which, unfortunately, made bad decisions for his children. For me, it's easier to imagine Tara's life as an anti-vaxxer daughter. Her dad never sends Tara and her brothers to school because for him, going to school means send you...

Berburu bacaan fiksi yang bagus (menurut selera kita masing-masing) memang rada tricky, ya . Aku sendiri berada di posisi yang sebetulnya ga punya banyak waktu buat baca buku.  Karena itu, aku mengupayakan baca buku yang "digestible" dan yang dirasa butuh aja biar ga buang-buang waktu. Jadi sebelom memutuskan beli buku, aku mengusahakan cari tau sebanyak mungkin dari review di Goodreads . Persoalan review ini bisa jadi tricky juga, sih. Tapi karena aku udah punya semacam boundary untuk menentukan mana penulis yang betul-betul bisa aku nikmati bukunya dan mana yang engga, ini bisa menghindarkanku dari rekomendasi yang "gak perlu".   Trus gimana kalo penulis baru? Aku minta review dari temen yang satu frekuensi. Hehe. :)) Dulu jaman blom kerja, aku berusaha nyempetin baca buku di sela-sela segala hal. Apakah efektif? Engga. :))  Karena seringnya jadi keteteran ngerjain hal lain. Yaaahhh, tau kan ya ibu rumah tangga ada aja yang harus dikerjain walau ga ngerj...

Picture of my own, from my IG story It’s been a while since my latest post. So what I've been up to? Well… I’ve spent half of the year applying for a job while I still did house chores like…yeah, you named it. But I kept myself read books—a printed ones—whatever I’ve been busy into, because…that thing keep me sane, for anybody’s sake. Now I found that I’ve been away from my blog. I wasn’t update the blog with…anything. Literary anything for almost three fvckin months. Pfftt. (Sounds like I’m as busy as any corporate slaves out there. *waving to all HRDs*) Since then, I’ve read some books and they are fictions. Some of them are: Khutbah Di atas Bukit. Belajar Mencintai Kambing. Bakat Menggonggong. Bagaimana Tuhan Menciptakan Cahaya. 24 Jam Bersama Gaspar. Lelaki Harimau. (Do you realize that all of them were written by male authors? I’m gonna talk about this…someday. About why I feel so into them recently.) This time, I want to review Lelaki...