Gazing through The Horizon on Peat Soil with Robayo
Pontianak, July 13th 2022
The humid air, the heat on my skin, wheels of my suitcase rolling hastily to a stuffy borrowed car that suffocate me. Last week, I thought the heat of Yogyakarta and Pontianak can be compared. Today, I feel dumb thinking so.
I came home to the peat soil with the narrator of Waiting for A Hurricane by Margarita Garcia Robayo. From the height of who-ever-knows-how-many meters, I saw how the narrator's eyes gaze over the horizon, trying to leave the coast of Colombia that is filled with poverty, trying to let go of everything that is of her origin.
Living by the sea is both good and bad for exactly the same reason: the world ends at the horizon. That is, the world never ends. And you always expect too much. At first, you hope everything you're waiting for will arrive one day on a boat; then you realise nothing's going to arrive and you'll have to go looking for it instead.
As I reached the front seat of the car, my body still shudders. I don't know if it's from the narrator's story or the extreme weather of the equator.
Staring at the green pasture beside the road, I think about how simple mathematical equations are not the friends of all the aspects of life. Quantifying time, experience, and maturity, for instance. If time matures and teaches mankind, then the quantity of time passed is directly proportionate to one's maturity. However, 6 years on peat soil are never proportionate with 7 days in the sinking capital city, 2 months in the coast of Bali, and 4 months on Sultan's soil. There are too many x factors in this equation. There is something about stepping out of your shell, letting go of the strings in your joints that are moved by mom and dad, and encountering the light and dark of the world with freedom in your palms. What choices am I going to make? What values do I actually believe in? Who am I? Who will I become?
I am a newborn. I was born again. Or at least that's what I think. Befriending the waves and the hills, spending time with the nomadic expat who showed me how surreal all the standards of a successful life are, doing life with marxist youngsters, drowning myself in a culture that hesitates, beats around the bush, nerimo ing pandum, old Nessa seems like a girl who was locked up in her mom's basement. All of those experiences has opened that basement door, turning into a catalyst in the shaping of a new human. I love this human.
Walking, driving, and flying on foreign soils make me feel like I am a free spirit--a tiny human with an oversized backpack, exploring different corners of the world. The earth is filled with stories from people who can be known. Nature has stories she tells through a language as soft as sign and cues. Go! Explore everything! Feel, absorb, experience. My future I curate carefully with everything that opens up the horizon.
Coming back to peat soil shows me that I am a human with some roots. I don't know if it's good or bad news.
I think everyone wants roots. A place to come home to. A box they can turn into a sanctuary for their identity. But what happens when that root becomes foreign to the tip that has grown? In the kingdom of flora, the tip never betrays the roots. But I am no plant. I am a species of ape that has gone through the cognitive revolution. And I have betrayed the root of my family tree. That betrayal didn't start from the flight last December. It started since that little ape came out of her mother's womb.
I was that little girl who ran to the stage during aerobic in kindergarten, taking the microphone to sing and dance. In the dancing event, when my teacher counted to 3, I did a split with both my hands in the air while my other friends put up a peace sign. And Valentine thought I was being extra. I wanted to be different, and the others made hurting comments that forced me to follow the flow in middle school.
Mom once told me that I have been very vocal since I was young. On the honesty card I got on my last semester of middle school, I was the critic. Well, that was true. Middle school and high school was filled with critiques towards the authority, like when I wrote a 2 A4 sized letter to the Bahasa teacher who wronged my correct answer.
Not like what the Theonia family thinks, the experience of flying to Uncle Sam's land was not the creator of the new Nessa. It just allowed her to fulfill her identity. This new human is new since the old was liberated.
So she has betrayed the root. On foreign lands, she feels so free to fulfill who she is, shaping her based on the existing compass, renewing the compass continually. Returning to peat soil reminds her that she has her roots. She is different from her roots.
The air is still humid. But today, instead of blazing hot, it rains. I have sat on this seat in this cafe a thousand times before I left, and here, now, sits a different human from the old. The hour hand in my watch still moves really slowly. In half a week, my feet will step out of peat soil.
Living by the sea is both good and bad for exactly the same reason: the world ends at the horizon. That is, the world never ends. And you always expect too much. At first, you hope everything you're waiting for will arrive one day on a boat; then you realise nothing's going to arrive and you'll have to go looking for it instead.
I do not live by the coast. But as I arrived in this town, I stopped to look at the horizon that is covered by the forest. That is enough to make me realize that this world never ends. There are stories I want to discover. There is an identity I want to fulfill out there. And they will not arrive one day on a boat, a plane, or a package sent to the front of my house.
I want to go look for it.
I want to break free.
I want to fly away.
.
.
.
I am sorry, dear roots.
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