di satu hari di minggu lalu, ketika saya sedang melewati jalan rasuna said, tiba-tiba saya teringat akan sebuah puisi Indian Amerika untuk seorang ibu yang melahirkan.

before you were conceived, i wanted you
before you were born, i loved you
before you were here a minute ago,
i would die for you ...

with the heavens as witness,
i make my vows to forever
love you with all my heart ...

kemudian saya teringat akan adik dan keponakan saya. saya teringat cerita adik saya bagaimana sakitnya melahirkan masyu, bagaimana ia harus bangun subuh-subuh menyusui, menghadapi masyu yang rewel seorang diri, membawanya ke dokter kalau ia sakit dan mengasuhnya sampai akhirnya sekarang masyu menginjak masa sekolah.

apa yang adik saya lakukan ke anaknya adalah juga apa yang ibu saya lakukan ke saya. saya masih ingat ketika ibu saya membawa saya ke rumah sakit karena kenakalan saya masih kecil, merawat saya setiap kali sakit walaupun disertai omelan karena saya malas makan buah, dan bagaimana ia dengan sabar dan kasih ada di samping saya yang sedang kesakitan karena operasi usus buntu yang seharusnya berjalan hanya satu jam saja diperpanjang menjadi tiga jam.

hidup dan waktu terus berjalan detik demi detik. bayi-bayi akan lahir setiap detik, orang-orang tua akan meninggalkan dunia setiap detik pula.

tapi di tengah-tengah itu, ada sebuah ikatan batin yang kuat antara kita dan orang yang melahirkan dan menjadikan kita seperti sekarang ini. ketika kecil, kita diasuh dan dibesarkan karena kita adalah amanah Tuhan yang diberikan kepada mereka di dunia. ketika besar dan mereka menjadi tua, kita bantu mereka dengan bakti dan tulang punggung untuk memudahkan tanggung jawab mereka terhadap amanah yang diberikan itu.

ketika melewati jalan rasuna said hari senin malam kemarin, saya membawa seorang ayah yang cemas dan seorang ibu yang terduduk lemah.

ibu saya sedang sakit.

i remember when i took this picture. it was on monday after work. the sky was almost dark and the lights from the building have already lit. i only had seconds to captore the glow of downtown kansas city before the sky was completely dark and uninteresting.

this picture holds a special memory to me.

i almost got mugged taking this picture.

a song writer expresses his or her feeling through the words and melody of the songs he or she writes. i'm not a songwriter therefore i cannot express my feeling through a song.

a camera is my medium to communicate whatever feeling i have with the people.

the picture above describes what i felt at that time.

loneliness.

holiday seasons is the most romantic time of the year.

spring 1996. it was ten years ago when i took this picture. there was time i felt i missed the city i used to live for more than eleven years. but, it was just a part from the past that will stay forever in my personal living history.

do i want to visit the city again? maybe.

maybe not.

the city burried a lot of memories.

for whatever reason, it still holds a special place inside me.

di sebuah hari libur, ketika jalan thamrin tidak sesibuk biasanya. di tengah-tengah jalan, entah dari mana, seorang pedagang buah melintas sambil mendorong gerobaknya.

move to another day.

beberapa hari kemudian, di satu hari kerja di jalan wijaya yang sibuk. di bawah terik panas sinar matahari yang sebentar lagi akan tertutup oleh gemuruh hujan, seorang mbak penjual jamu gendong berjalan di pinggir jalan dengan langkahnya yang gontai. ia tetap berjalan entah kemana walau langkahnya menunjukkan sebuah ketidakpastian.

have you all ever wondered, kalau kita diberikan sebentuk gerobak buah untuk didorong dan dijual, kalau kita diberi pikulan botol-botol jamu untuk digendong dan dijajakan -- kemana kita akan berjalan menjual dagangan tersebut?

pernahkah kita sejenak berpikir bagaimana kalau kita yang berada di posisi mereka?

yesterday's thunderstorm made the city of jakarta a wreck. traffic stuck everywhere and even some casualties due to the falling tree. according to detik.com, there were a total of 41 trees fell to the ground.

you can see the deadly clouds came passing above the western side of jakarta.

i've never cared for the color of white. white is just white. unlike blue which is my favorite color, white is just a color i seldom chose for whatever i need to utilize.

not until this afternoon when an occasion reintroduce me to WHITE.

the decor was all white.
so simple yet elegant.
so charming yet indulging.

did i fall in love with the color afterwards?

not quite.
i still favor blue.

10th of april in the year 0f 2006 was the first day the students go back to school in japanese education system including for those who went to school for the first time.

including my nephew -- masyu.

i remember my first day of school like it was just yesterday -- i cried! i was crying hard, kicking and screeming, knowing my parents left me. what a shame!

but, surprisingly enough, masyu didn't cry at all when his parents left him. shame on his uncle whose on his first day of school was crying.

he was the tallest boy - taller for a 3.5 year old for his age - in his class and proudly said to his uncle that he didn't cry at all.

"oom iman, masyu didn't cry, mommy told masyu, oom iman cried!"

darn it! like my sister didn't cry on her first day of school!

i went to a doctor this morning to check something up inside the left posterior of my neck. sejak pulang dari bali yang terakhir, bagian leher sebelah kiri saya selalu sakit.

setelah ditekan, dilihat, dipencet, dilihat lagi dan didiagnosis dengan segala macam ilmu kedokteran, si dokter bertanya, "kamu sudah minta tolong tukang pijat untuk mengendorkan otot-otot leher kamu belum?"

woalah.

analisa si dokter -- saya kecapekan.

otot-otot leher dan bahu saya itu tegang dan salah satu otot leher kiri tertarik yang mengakibatkan chemical balance dan peredaran darah di sekitar kepala bagian kiri jadi terganggu. salah satu resep dari dua resep yang diberikan adalah pergi ke tukang urut, relax dan don't work too hard.

i wish.

the really egoless person is not humble at all.
he is neither arrogant nor humble.
he is simply himself.

i always love this passages. read those slowly until you understand the meaning behind them.

time is horizontal.
it is from A to B to C to D;
it is in a line.

eternity is vertical.
it is not from A to B and from B to C.
it is from A to more A to still more A.
it goes upward.

in the summer time, early in the morning before the sun got high and scorched the land below, i would rise in the morning and walked to Loose Park from my apartment to jog. i love jogging than any other sports, well tennis and golf will count. people say golf is when you challange yourself. but, for me, jogging is the cheapest exercise and you also can challenge yourself and your body.

but, that's not what i like about this park. it's a vast green area in the middle of Kansas City where you can breath in and out fresh oxygen without any polluted air would sip in your lungs. the atmosphere itself calmed myself and made me ready to face the hectic days.

i miss jogging in a park. where in jakarta could i do such a thing and feel safe even in the evening hour?

it was in spring 1998, exactly eight years ago, when i got an idea to self-made a picture book from my photo collections. every evening after work, i diligently sort through all my photo collections and chose some from what i thought the nicest and the best i've ever shot.

then, i would try to find their negatives and printed them. luckily, i have a friend who worked in a photo printing shop and would give me discounts and free printings.

after all the desired photos have been printed, i printed the texts and copy pasted them to the papers along with the pictures themselves. wrote the opening words, the thank you page and the glossary.

every evening after work, i would do the job -- one by one until it was time to do the color copy.

then, i went to KINKO'S and color copied them one by one, binded them into a book and VOILA, i have my own self-made photo collection book.

this is one of my favorite pictures from the book i made by myself and i couldn't be more proud of it.

kita selalu melihat monumen nasional dari bawah. dari jauh. atau bahkan naik ke atasnya dengan harapan bisa turun lagi kalau lift-nya gak macet.

but, i have a short period of time to shoot this monumen nasional image in a different perspective.

a national monument -- standing proudly with jakarta skycrappers in the background.

today, i learnt something about myself that i haven't realized it before.

saya tidak suka hari libur.

entah kenapa, setelah hari sabtu berkutat dengan acara dan exhibition, hari minggu meeting dengan klien dari singapura yang minta waktu untuk ketemu, hari senin ini saya berniat untuk tinggal di rumah dan tidak ngapa-ngapain.

what i've been doing the whole day was reading the biography of Jenderal M. Jusuf and watching a dvd then fell asleep. and, i just didn't like it at all.

i am so used to have a 9 to 8pm day.

"man, kaki elo tuh gatel banget sih! gak bisa diem sebentar aja di rumah!" a friend told me.

but, today, i learnt another something for myself.

i haven't spent any quality time with my parents for such a long time. in my 9 to 8pm day, where is the time for me to just chit chat with them? a little in the morning and a little in the evening are what i have for them.

i need to make time and it is a priority.

it's been a month since i last wrote in here.
what have i been doing? where has the time gone since?
time.
it flies quickly like the sweeping wind.
you can feel its presence caressing your soul.
but, you cannot do anything when it's gone.