A Penny for My Pensieve

There were several times for the past few months when the head inside played a little bit of this and that in the past. Thinking how much our circumstances changed since the first time we started as I wrote few years ago.

Standing here, today and right now, was something that the mind thought would never be occured few years ago. Thought life would just keep going according to what was obvious and seen with the bare eyes.

The phrase standing here referred to many circumstances that I thought would keep going forever . Years ago, I thought we would keep staying at my childhood house, taking care many things as I did for years. Years ago, I thought we could just stay afloat, saving here and there, working hard daily, and keep going with mundane life.

I wrote as if I sounded so unhappy, but actually I was quite happy. Happy means I felt enough with everything at that time. I found comfort in that house in spite of the hardships and challenges. It was my home after all. My basic standard of happy is also quite low. It’s when everyone is healthy and we have no issue with paying the groceries. I got more than that, so there was nothing to be unhappy about in general.

Surely, there were times when I felt sick and so tired of taking care many people and things at that house, but I knew that there was nothing I could do to escape from that. So, I just had to put up with it and it was okay. I lived well enough during that period.

Then, without I realized, the season had been slowly changing. Slowly but sure, something started moving my chair. Our chairs.

Paris was a door opener. It was one of our big milestones. Resumed traveling after four years of total absence (literally nowhere), and suddenly granted such a big chance, was also an eye opener. Such thing was not impossible, for an average modest income family like us. After Paris, suddenly many things that I thought untouchable, suddenly became closer than we expected. Like London right after six months after Paris, then many other places we visited afterwards.

It was scarily exciting.

Money, which was once a very much main issue during the first few years, slowly but sure, became something that we could let go more easily. The financial goals that were once seemed so unaffordable, slowly but sure, they become realities. Things that I thought we might never achieve, they found their way to us.

The most surprising thing about this issue, I, whom I have always known, was so strict and tight about money, could change quite dramatically, for my dictionary. Not about going to the opposite side, (guess I would never be there unless I am bewitched by something), but to the point I could let go certain amount to help someone I care without being too concerned about that. Giving without expecting any returns or worry it might reduce my savings.

I never knew we could arrive at the certain point where we could give to parents or any relatives, whether when they’re in need or leisurely, is as easy as one tap and click away and watching certain numbers flew to others didn’t scare us at all. Funnily, it feels liberating.

The funnier thing that I realize regarding to money, the more we give, the more unexpected stream will find us. I have known that human’s calculator is so limited, but to experience The Ghaniy and The Mughni’s calculator has always been amazed me.

Time, when it was once so tight and packed, with so many little things and people to be taken care of, slowly, one by one, those things that tied my feet and hand, lifted. It was as if I was released from something. Sometimes, it still feels surreal after many years thinking that I would be tied to those things till I didn’t know when.

When Paris was a door opener, our London days was a game changer. When Paris was the time for a change in the way we deal with money, London days were the time when our old mindset was pushed the corner and slowly changed to the new one, in many important aspects of life. Be it about time, work, education, people, and many more.

For the first time after several years, I was able to see the important things that had been missing. Time to take care myself properly after years of putting everyone’s else first and a chance to see beyond the little girl’s disability.

London days gave me more time and space to do things that I love regularly and to try new things that I didn’t know would make me happy. London Days allowed me to be more present for the little girl and realized she had so many unlocked potentials but we were too focused about something that she lacked of instead. It happened probably due to our previous situations where there was so little space and time for sit back, relax, and see clearly.

Those days packed with schedules from Monday to Saturday, daily long driving here and there to school, therapist, and daycare. Those years spent as a geographically single parent, the high tension when it was working days, when my head felt like to explode and continous thought of resigning yet kept delaying because it was one thing that made me sane. Working days came with consequences to send the little girl to some place or to someone who would keep her for hours.

There were times where I often spent few minutes sitting in the car in silence in front of the house before I park it in the garage. Gave myself a chance to breathe for a while because there were no space to rest after I entered the house since right when I set my feet at home, a pile of task were waiting. Put down my bag on the stairs and went straight to take care things that should be done. Those days were too light to be described as crazy.

Those days when I felt like to move out from the childhood house due to taking care too much stuff and people and felt how underappreciated I had been. The exhaustion and the trapped feeling were too strong to be forgotten. There were days when I looked back and wondered, how could I survive those times when those things feel too insane to go through right now?

But then, writing this now with clear mind with adequate level of sanity, I could say that I’ve got few to no regrets at all. I think there is always a season for everything. Those time with so little space and time for sit back and relax were not wasted because I (and we were) was doing the homeworks given at that time. Those times were the training period that we need to pass to proceed.

If someone asked now whether I wanted to go back to our London days, then it would be the same answer if someone asked me if I would go back to the comfort of my childhood home. The same answer that John Lennon gave when someone asked him when The Beatles would get back together.

There’s nowhere I want to be because we are exactly where we are supposed to be.

• 

I am not saying we have done with our homeworks because surely life would bring more, which they are here already. We’re currently keep doing what’s served on our plate with the resources we have. I am beyond grateful to be where we are right now. There’s no single thing that I would take them for granted. Not the time, the money, the health, nor any smallest blessings bestowed upon us.

This writing has been around for quite some time and currently triggered by current situations faced by one of the close family members. The situations where I had been there once and dealt for few years. If any advices should be given in one sentence, to keep staying sane, other than my favorite ‘nothing lasts forever’, then it would be :

These too shall pass.

But before that, hope they do those homeworks first.

PS : Just found out Shonda Rhimes’ Commencement Speech in Dartmouth 2014 graduation and it resonated so well with this post.

“I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, engaged, powerful people, are busy doing.” –

Full video here.

For this one, I agreed more with her than John Lennon. Be a doer. Not a dreamer.

It was only last week I wrote about online lesson here and today I felt the strong urge to throw another ranting about this.

Today was the second online lesson with the new teacher from some school and I was already far too dissapointed. Lesson should be done for 20 minutes and it was so unbelievable that the teacher abruptly ended it ten minutes earlier. How, how in the world, someone who’s profesionally paid to do the job could behave so unprofesionally? More, she is with a well-known special education school.

When I brought this through text her reply was even more dissapointing. Said that because it was only for the beginning so it could end earlier.

What?

The lesson is only for 20 minutes and she even wanted to shorten it? I felt like boiling kettle when I read the reply.

I couldn’t help sending an email to the school about this. I might sound so annoying over 10 minutes. But, should we always be tolearable for what is wrong in this country? Those 10 minutes were ours. We paid for that.

This place is one of the places in this country which I considered run by people who highly held their reputation and credibility in special field education. Or so I thought. Giving the student the right amount of time they deserve for the lesson is the most basic thing they should do.

But, today, from one of their representatives, it was clearly shown, keeping the standard could be their serious homeworks to do. We might be just the unlucky one to meet such teacher. But, if it’s not us, it could happen to other student.

It might sound snobbish, but after all things happened last year, looking from afar, compared to other societies, and again, reading a lot, we really have serious problems about the basics in our society.

We really have problem in making, meeting, and doing the basics right. From a simple thing like being on time, not taking other’s belonging, be it time or things, we truly have problems on that. As I wrote in this long post last year, for me, the story above is just a tiny return of investment from our education system.

Remember, we don’t only pay for what we did, but more importantly, we pay also for what we didn’t do.

It’s quite frustrating living in this untrustable society. We couldn’t really depend on the smallest thing like they will give what we deserve after paid for something. I’ve known for long that we could never have a trustable government even until 100 years later, but, deep inside, I still spare some hope for the people.

We tried our best to teach the little girl about the basics for these first years of her life. Both basic values and basic skills. One of the reasons I stay with her because I don’t want to outsource such important job that would become the foundation that she will bring for the rest of her life. We have no nanny, partly because we try to minimalize the chance for her to see examples that might not suit our values (other than I couldn’t stand the drama, of course).

Although I (and we) lack of many things, at least, she deals with the lacking standard of her parents, not others. There is still some chance to change and improve ourselves for her sake, but it will be too much hardwork (without guaranteed result) or might be close to impossible to ask others to change and suit themselves with our values, no matter how much we pay for them.

We’ve tried our best to choose well the ‘village’ she’s growing up in, within our power. Choosing the residence area, school, and the extracurriculars activities carefully, hoping she will meet, at least, the people who value similar important things. Hoping the hardwork done at home could be applied too outside.

This dissappointment is quite heart-breaking for me. It could mean another battle questioning to stay or leave and start again from zero. Worse, not knowing where to go anymore.

I feel like replaying the scene few years back when I threw a tantrum in one of the SLT’s places where the person in charge was busy looking at his phone for 45 minutes out of 60 minutes of the session. He just neglected the little girl, let her doing nothing. Maybe that was the first time I confronted someone directly. Loud and clear.

If there’s any new things that I discovered after motherhood, the silent and conflict-avoidance in me could turn into a boiling kettle when it is about my child. Only now I fully understand everything that my mother had been done for me in some situations regarding my problems in the past.

But, my mother was born a boiling kettle, unlike me who’s more like a teapot. It really takes a huge amount of courage to transform from a teapot to boiling kettle. I am totally i uncomfortable being a boiling kettle. Being loud, fussy and noisy to strangers are not my forte. But, it seems the only way to be heard.

I still refuse to lower my standard for the basics, because I don’t want the little girl to go even lower just for the sake of adjusting to other people. I don’t want her to ‘accept’ it is okay for being 5 minutes late, it is okay to take other’s belonging, be it time or things, I want her to keep on the track as much as she can, to do what’s right, not easy.

And those are one toughest job to do.

I hope the boiling kettle inside of me won’t be used often in the future. But, when I have to, I hope the sound will be nice and clear, and only serve those who deserve it.

Been stuffing my head with the idea of homeschooling since last year.

Since the lockdown days in London, been looking for some alternative other than conventional school. Been eyeing some of well-known homeschool institution and even contacted few of them.

For some, homeschooling is moving the classroom at ordinary school to home or to other institution that provides the similar thing like school, inviting the teachers and learning take place as it is at school, only with more flexible schedule.

The more I read and see examples, especially the homeschool parents from other countries, it turns out that homeschooling is much bigger than that. Just like what we’re currently doing right now is one of the genre of homeschooling called UNSCHOOLING.

I was once first heard and learned about unschooling during master degree 10 years ago. At that time, the idea of this unschooling sounded so absurd. How come there were parents that allow their children to be out of school?

But as always, we judge what we don’t know.

Unschooling here means the children is not registered to any formal institution, whether it’s school or homeschool one. But, unschooling doesn’t mean not learning.

Unschooling means learning takes place in so many other form beside paper and pencil, desk and table, books and blackboard, behind any classroom wall, beyond any zoom call.

Learning in unschooling could happen in a form of conversation, playing lego, playing in the playground, baking a cake, going to grocery, watching other people, and so many things that don’t seem like the definition of learning that I used to know.

For someone who lives by the schedule and rule in certain part, this unschooling is liberating because the only schedule rules to follow are our own. We’re free to decide what we want to do, when, how, and the best part, we’re free to decide what we don’t want to do.

We stick for strict schedules when it comes to basics. For the basics, compulsory daily schedule is running 7 days a week. Which basics? We define our own basics. Things that we think are important to master, values that we hold dear and want her to carry.

In unschooling, learning could also happen in some places that are more useful for life skills or new experience like sending letter through post office, saving her own money in the bank, using ATM and shopping with her own card, going to library or park, being in charge for fruits picking and bring them to the counter to be weighed during our weekly grocery shopping.

Conversations also become an interesting medium for learning. Few times, the conversations we have during short drive to some place that give me some ideas about the lesson. The many ‘whys’ she asked, although sometimes it cause headache, some are quite thought-provoking.

It is liberating because during the pandemic, it eliminates the obligation to sit (boringly) facing the screen for zoom meeting, to attend something daily that might be not really interesting. To do some homeworks that has no useful purpose.

Have we tried? We have and after survived one and once, as long as we still have choice and can choose, making this little girl sitting for few hours listening to some talking, that would be the last thing we want to do. The precious time could be enjoyed better by playing outside, drawing, swimming, going to eat ice cream, skateboarding. Even playing those interesting and educational games she has on the tablet seems a better idea.

We have our offline classes twice a week for gym class and art class. We choose to do it privately and so far, it works well. The only online class she does is piano, which we have no choice other than that. But again, in piano, she has an offline teacher 7 days a week. That what makes online lesson acceptable.

Maybe, the last five months of unschooling fit the newly announced jargon from the ministry, ‘merdeka belajar’ well.

Initially, we’re doing this unschooling to fill the gap between months before new academic year starts in few months. But now, I slowly think that this could be an alternative IF , something might happen in ordinary school setting.

What kind of something?

Something that makes her excitement for learning, curiosity towards new things, and good attitude in studying dissapeared.

I want to try my best for her not to be part of this gloomy news from new released PISA report.

I am more than realized how much privileged we are to be able to write from this point of view.

Happy National Education day!

Menjalani hampir setahun les piano online baik di London maupun di Jakarta, salah satu hal penting yang paling berbeda itu adalah ketepatan waktunya.

Buat saya (atau kami), jam mulai yang disepakati itu berarti jam dimulainya pelajaran. Bukan waktu baru siap-siap online. Kami biasanya dan sebisa mungkin selalu sudah standby minimal 5 menit sebelumnya. Maksud standby di sini adalah sudah login dan rekues masuk, bukan baru siap-siap ambil posisi. Jadi, sudah duduk manis siap mulai belajar.

Di London, dengan dua guru yang berbeda, dua belah pihak sama-sama sudah online beberapa menit sebelumnya (dengan Skype). Tapi, les selalu di mulai tepat jam yang disepakati. Hampir ngga pernah lebih awal. Anak saya kalo sudah duduk selalu nanya, “Can we call now?”, yang mana selama belum persis menitnya, saya pasti larang karena belum hak kita. Kalo soal jam selesai sering lebih sedikit atau pas sekali sesuai jadwal.

Di Jakarta, hari pertama les piano dengan gurunya di Jakarta, saya dengan terpaksa sekali ‘meminta’ dengan sedikit keras kepada gurunya bahwa les di mulai jam 15.20, artinya kami sudah standby minimal 5-10 menit sebelumnya. Ketika dia baru mengizinkan kami masuk jam.15.25, brarti kami sudah menunggu 15 menit. Saya ngga mau dari awal dianggap 5 menit itu belum telat (seperti budaya orang Indonesia pada umumnya). Buat kami 5 menit dari waktu yang disepakati itu lamaaaa sekali. Ini pun ngga bagus buat anak saya.

Rasa gelisah saya ketika sudah jam mulai tapi belum mulai-mulai itu terserap oleh makhluk kecil di sebelah. Penyataan yang secara ngga sadar terlontar seperti ,”Mana nih, udah jam segini” diserap dan les-les berikutnya ketika sudah jam mulai, tapi belum mulai, dia udah bisa nanya “Why we haven’t started?”

Belum lagi yang suka agak menggangu, ketika pas sudah waktunya, tau-tau di wa internetnya bermasalah. Oke mungkin ngga bisa dihindari, tapi paling tidak ada ‘kompensasi’ di akhir misalnya dengan penambahan waktu yang hilang. Tapi di sini 5 menit itu dianggap bukan hal yang dianggap penting. Jadi, agak sulit memang.

Dalam saat seperti ini, ngga terlalu banyak pilihan. Kompromi jadi satu-satunya pilihan. Meskipun saya ngga ingin telat 2-3 menit jadi dianggap hal ‘biasa’ oleh anak saya.

Tepat waktu memang bukan budaya (kebanyakan) orang Indonesia. Tapi, dalam hal ini kita mau dan bisa punya pilihan untuk ngga jadi (bagian dari kebanyakan) orang Indonesia.

Ramadan often brings a sudden craving in the middle of the day.

This afternoon was self-made es teler. The thought of sweet avocado, jackfruit, and nata de coco mixed with condensed milk and cold ice seemed a good idea and tempting.

Right after the little girl had her ifthar in Dzuhur, off we went to the supermarket. We directly went to fruit area. Looking for it everywhere then asked the woman on the counter, and she said, no avocado for today.

Hm☹.

I saw jackfruit few days ago and looked for it today. Sadly, it was no longer available too.

Well, it looked like es teler wasn’t for me today.

When I was ready to go out without buying anything, the eyes bumped into a pack of corn frites and it looked good. When the hands already picked one pack, the little girl asked,

“What for? we had it yesterday”.

“I like it. We can keep it”.

An Indian man happened to hear our conversation and asked what was this thing. So I explained. He saw another package of fried sweet potato and asked if that one was good as well.

Since he asked me, I recommended only the corn frites while sweet potato, it depended on his preference.

He took two corn frites and put them on his basket.

While I passed the area of spices, the eyes saw a pack of the most favorite fruit which is quite hard to find.

Packages of sawo. There were six of them. Without second thought, took two packages and went to look for something else in another aisle. I wanted to take three actually, but it might be not the right thing to do.

When I had everything I need, we passed the sawo once again and I stood for a while.

They said, it’s better to feel sorry because you buy it than feel sorry because you don’t. Beside that, what’s the big deal with sawo? I could eat it as much as I can.

So I took another package.

“What for? you have already had two!”

As usual, the little girl needed to question everything.

“It’s hard to find sawo. I can keep it on the fridge”.

We headed to cashier and it happened the Indian man was checking out his groceries when he saw me and took few step backward and looked at my basket and asked,

“What is this?”

“Oh this is sawo fruit. very sweet and nice. But it’s hard to find,”

” I want this one too”.

“Oh, you can find them near the fresh spices area”.

He looked confused and suddenly I understood.

“Ah, you want one package from mine? Go ahead, you can have one”.

without any second thought he chose one from my basket and said a request to the cashier,

“Can you put hers to my bill? I will pay hers as well”.

to which I responded no.

He still looked unsure but continued to pay his stuffs.

When he finished with everything, he looked back once again and said,

“I will pay yours,”.

“No thank you, it’s okay. Thanks for the offer”.

“Then, thank you so much”.

When I remembered I couldn’t help smiling thinking how funny things work sometimes. Something that you really wanted, right in front of your eyes, already in your hands, been thinking twice or thrice to buy it, few steps away to have it, but, it still flew away.

Imam Al-Ghazali once reminded us with one of his famous sayings :

What’s meant for you will reach you even if it’s beneath two mountains, and what’s not meant for you won’t reach you even if it’s between your two lips.

And that third package of sawo was something that wasn’t meant for me from the beginning until the end.