I'm lonesome in Jakarta. And I think my family are vampires.
- My mother's here from Jeddah; she's busy designing Umrah packages for the exhibition.
- My aunt Myra's here from Bali; she's busy creating boxes for the rosaries that she's gonna sell in the exhibition.
- My Uncle Arie doesn't work here, but when he's around, the grownups would start vehement conversations about their relatives and relatives' former spouses.
We live in the same house but follow different time zones: these loud Batak-Maduranese-descendants (as loud as their tribal ancestors) are robust with activity when it's time for me go to stuff my ears with pillows, and they are dead asleep when I have to tiptoe around the house - in broad daylight.
Hence the suspicion that they're vampires.
Want to know my actual contribution to the exhibition?
Since the quiet manservant (mentioned here) is on sick-leave, and everyone else is busy with important causes, I'm left with the unwashed dishes and taking the trash out for a walk and preserving the house from turning into a complete shipwreck.
Humbling is to realize (again and again) that, against the shiny cosmopolitan bling, I'm a just an invisible fairy from an obscure village. A nawbawdy. I suddenly realize how it feels to be an only child, an adolescent and a nobody all at the same time.
I'm homesick. I miss being in Big Daddy's home, with just the two of us living there in the evenings, complementing each other so well that we rarely need to talk. I miss not being interrupted. I miss not needing my voice to validate my existence.
I love my family. I just love them more when I miss them.
Isn't it tragic in the presence of loved ones, it's conversing with you that I miss the most? Ever felt like a wallpaper amongst your closest kin? How did you manage not drowing yourself in booze?
This post parades a tent on Carnival of Family Life, March 2009.
I'm not on speaking terms with most of my father's side relatives. It's strange to be a stranger among your kinsfolk, even stranger when you share the same faith. I don't sometimes even identify myself as one of them. I've always known that since birth I will always be a stranger in their eyes, so I don't mind them at all, as long as they don't bother me.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI love my family more when I don't have to be around them, or see them all the time, or suffer their chit-chat.
Right,
ReplyDeleteso let me get this straight, you don't associate with them at ALL? What's wrong with you Filipinas?
Oh god, that post really jiggled the funny bones! I can relate on so many levels. My family are loud Madurans as well. I miss the noise terribly, but my quiet as a mouse wife gets dizzy if she's around her in laws for too long!
ReplyDeleteSaudi Jawa,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, you should change your name into Saudi-Madura. Madura is a seperate island, apart from Java. Your name is a false claim to a wrong heritage. Hoho.
Secondly, I loved your comment! You do get it! It's not that family are object of heartache, but they can be really scary sometimes when they get overly excited over nothings. Which makes them the fun to be with nevertheless.
On rationed doses, of course. :-)
im here so far away from everybody reading garbage...hahhahhaha...joking...i love reading ur rants...keep me posted..
ReplyDeleteyour "pita" aunt in nc
I'm only half Madurian, through my mother. The other half is Sasak (from Lombok), which is even farther away from Java I admit. But what can you do? Tell that to the rest of the Saudis. All us slant eyed yellow bastards come from Java ;)
ReplyDeleteIt's complicated dear. My mom was a Catholic and my dad's family didn't like that, the hypocrites. So from childhood on we minded our own business, they minded theirs. Now that most of us kids in the family are grown up, they've tried to reach out a little. But then that thing should've started out years and years ago, and the hurt from the rejection cut so deep, all we kids do is exchange greetings, ask each other how they are, and there you have it. Sad, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSaudi Jawa,
ReplyDeleteYou know what struck my fancy on the first day of exhibition? That it's partially sponsored by the Government of Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB). The welcoming gala dinner had a video presentation of all the tribes in NTB, and the Sasak were the ones that got stuck in mind.
And the evening got even better when the (youthful) Governor of NTB made a welcoming speech to us Saudis in perfect Hijazi Arabic. That's when my aunt told me that the folks of Lombok are as religious as the folks from Madura and Eastern Java.
Which made me feel like knew you a little better.
It was a night to be proud about our shared heritage. No matter how far we travel, how foreign we've grown. So I said to her, "Ibu, aku punya teman baru di internet, dia Saudi-Madura-Sasak...Tapi dia udah ada istrinya, Bu."
Coral,
You're right, it is complicated. It may be interesting to blog about it. But not to live through.
Knowing your story made me feel so blessed. I had a conversation with my Catholic aunt last night about our differences, and we hung up on the very words that celebrated the day and the relationship between aunts and nieces, and diversity amongst us: "I love you."
I wish you love and peace too, Coral. Amen.
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ReplyDeleteYes you had it better than I did. It's something I don't want to have my kids go through. In fact I'm much closer to my Catholic mother side because it's something that started in childhood: They accepted me from the day I was born when my father's folks did not. Hence when I went to see them again last May I bought dozens of roses and laid one each on the graves of those aunts and uncles who had been part of my childhood. (Maybe I should do a post on this one...)
ReplyDeleteWishing you love and peace of mind,
J.
Gosh Hning, I'm flattered :)
ReplyDelete