Diana Kurniawan

Healing takes time.

 

The wait in the hospital cafeteria felt like driving behind a semi during a snow storm, slow with apprehension. All I thought about was how much time I spent with my Dad, building shelves in the garage. Measuring the shelving, drilling the nuts and bolts, and centering them on the wall. It was our last home building project and I savored every minute when I had the chance.

 

I saved all of his voice mails to me, because now he slurs every word and we could hardly understand his speech. While watching The Great British Baking Show, he collapsed next to me as I panicked and screamed to my Mom to hand me the telephone. His tall stature and weight dropped with gravity while I couldn't even lift his shoulder off the ground. He battled infections after infections, as I cried and cried. All I wanted was to be five again, riding on his shoulders or standing on top of his toes, letting him walk me as he held up my hands.

 

Scarce times for writing meant I was busy with life and visiting my Dad, which was good, but dwindled down my hopes of publishing. My thoughts went to the times I cherished with my Dad, and I stopped caring about writing. I savored the conversations when we took turns mowing the lawn during a hot summer day. The time we compared our lumps underneath our skin because some nurses took out their aggression on us by injecting us with saline. The heartbreaking time I told my Dad about sexual assault, and the time I told him that my dreams of having a family and a loving husband might just be an episode in a Korean drama. The times I counted were worthwhile, so was this waiting. 

 

The wait was not the same as waiting for a test result or for romance to enter my life. It was more dear and tender, as waiting for a birth of a baby. I hoped and prayed, and thankfully, my Dad survived everything. I couldn't blame anyone on the infections and the stroke. I completely surrendered, as I surrendered my own life. All I could do was wait it out and prayed.

 

I couldn't dwell on the things that I might not have with my Dad. I was happy he was still with me. I didn't call anyone and I didn't complain. I waited, and I was happy I was with him.

 

Healing took time, as I relinguished mine. 

Soft creamy brown fur on its chubby cheeks as it held its paws in front of its mouth. Munching on nuts and grains found from the dirt around the barren land several miles down the street from my old house. My Mother called them her "friends," although they've never met but in spirit they were her soul children. These small prairie dogs would run about the unspoken land and some of them had families and pups perching on its mound of dirt surrounded by soil covered with weeds. 

 

At times, I would drive by that land for the scenery and to witness my Mother say, "My friends are out today. They must be looking for foods for their families." I would smile and with a lift of joy inside my heart, I felt satisfied of this moment in life. Just to spend the time with my Mother inside the car, driving by these friends of hers, made the novelty of life to be without sorrow. As if time stood still and life was about my Mother and me, in the wilderness of the city and streets surrounded by our small animal friends. 

 

These prairie dogs would mate, heterosexually, and create families as the seasons changed from Summer to Winter, they hibernate and impregnate, then give birth early Spring. The small pups would come out during Summer, ready to find nuts and pebbles to chew on as foods. Its parents sensed the pup's whereabouts and as with an antennae, they felt it moved outside of its mound with a hole underground. The parents would run as fast as possible back to the hole and the pup would return underground, for it was not yet safe for it to find food on its own.

 

These prairie dogs families were my friends too, as my Mother often reminded me, "even the smallest things as these are valuable in the eyes of God. How are you not more valueable to Him?" I would hold my smile for each time she reminded me and for each time I drove by, purposely for her. 

 

Unlucky ones were roadkill, and I recalled some on the street, bloody and squashed. I blinked for an instant, because I wanted them to stay alive forever, with their pups as parents with its families. Every life became valuable in my eyes, because of these small animals. They never bothered humans in any way, shape or forms, as they lived underneath the ground equalizing the biodiversity. Never have I ever found any justice in their death on the street as roadkill, and all I could hope for was for these prairie dogs to stay on the unspoken land, breeding and making my Mother smile. 

 

Just write. 

The heart beats differently with every emotion I feel. The pounding out of my chest from pumping anxiety throughout my body, sending signals to my brain of time nearing its end. The intensity flooding through, with no time to think.

The soft beats per minute out of charm and the sparkles of life, without noticing the lapse in momentary insanity. Holding the thought of him in my frontal lobe, memorizing his face and eyes, swooning me.

 

There is also a beat that lifts your gut, sending your eyes to the sky, to look at heaven pretending angels wings are on your back, even when everything is unfinished.

 

The heavy beating that droops your chest from moments of less unfortunate times. A stroke of hematoma flooding tears through summer, wishing for things that could have been.

 

Other beats murmurs with a voice, that speaks of more than just love. With a jostling shift towards the center of your breast bone, from a sudden change in life. Sending chills down your spine with a whisper, "everything willl be okay." Or the voice that only fairies can hear, coming from the holy cavern, taking me away from running on empty.

 

Every beat is a miracle with a mind altering result. It is an electrical current that can take your breath away, or hold you steady. Besides the brain, the heart is a personality, with an agreement to good faith without whom it can't exist.

 

If only my heart is truly in love, will I know what life feels. Just write.

My veins was once a dry creek over cracked ground as the rain poureth over me. The creek became a river wild as my blood now cold fresh water rushing through my body, crashing over rocks of shame and guilt. This repentant and forgiving soul birthed words through my lips. Chanting psalms, reciting prayers, O Lord have mercy on me.

 

Dry creek no more as the rush of river water flowed through the veins in my palms, writing cursive over empty pages. Tender moments of sweet weather and seasons of change alloyed the metals of my sorrows in my mind to the gold inside my soul. Writing love and grace with vermillion of faith inside my heart.

 

The cold water through my veins oxygenated the missing pieces in my ventricles from broken relationships. Molding me stronger as my hands kept writing life on these pages.

 

The wild river never stopped in current as it steadied on rushing through my body, with fervent desire to tell stories of once upon a time, long long ago, in a far away land. The cursive now fast and almost unreadable, as my veins rushed me physically to the computer, the keyboard, and I kept writing. 

 

No more dry creeks of blood, and drought no more. My river carried me to the ocean of words in my left and right hemisphere, flowing to the Euphrates. Focusing on the psalms, and now the Goliaths disappeared and my mind, cleared.

 

Writing rushed my blood, consecrating me with holy water out of the catastrophe of rain. Trouts swam in my belly, frogs jumped over the mitochondria of my cells. Sweet tunes of banjo of hymns sang me to wonder.

 

The grey clouds over my sunrise now pink and purple, with beauty for ashes. 

 

A river runs through me. Just write.  

What dreams may come during the night of peaceful slumber. Inside my mind, was a winding film with endless memories. It played a scene of a journey I never had before. 

 

In a silky light blue dress with layers trailing, I walked along a path inside a forest, with sequioas along the trail. Tall grasses swaying in the breeze as I walked and saw Lady Liberty in front of me. She met me before inside my dreams, but that was New York, and this time it was a different dream.

 

"Would you hold me, if I fall?" I asked her, her towering figure shading my path as she walked alongside me, towards a broader street, with a fountain, as if a city was ahead. "You won't fall. Stay positive. No suicide, no lonelyness, no suffering. Stay in the path," said Lady Liberty.

 

She held my right hand and we walked towards a domed building with a golden top, St. Paul's Cathedral, and we stood at the entrance, in Central London. Lady Liberty took my hand to her heart, and asked, "Do you want me to walk with you inside?" I nodded, and told her, "Don't leave, I want you to stay with me, forever." Her statuesque figure that towered over me shrunk to my height, and told me, "I am a woman, I understand," she said. 

 

I walked with her, and we entered the cathedral, as I looked to my right side and the prayer candles lighted the dark. I told Lady Liberty, "I need to write a prayer request." I took the small piece of paper on top of a small box to the wall near the candles, and wrote, "For me to have love and joy in life."

 

The sunshine from the sky bore through the stained glass windows, as I noticed far across the room towards the front pews stood a cross of gold much ahead of me. I walked towards the cross, with courage, as Lady Liberty let go of my hand and touched my shoulders, "This time, you must walk alone." She sat on the back pews near the candles, waiting for me to walk up to the golden cross. She knelt down and prayed for me. 

 

Writing out my dreams. Just write. 

Writing grows from a mustard seed. It comes from those shattered pieces inside your mind that you feel are ill or broken. The seed latches on to your synapses and travels to your heart and the spaces in between your chest. From just one seed, it grows and it roots to your soul.

 

Writing comes from love, the water nourishes the mustard seed, planting it deeper into the soil. The love of life, and everything in between. The lack of it, the errors, the yearning and caring, connection to memories. The mustard seed breaks open its shell.

 

Writing grows from pain. The valleys you travel alone and at times with limited vision, as it becomes food for the mustard seed. Gaining more nutrients from every cortisol you exert into your brain, excreting oxytocin as prevention from stresses, making the heart grow, beating, and increasing in volume. The mustard seed grows deep roots, germinating from your nutrients and hormones.

 

Writing comes from grit. Never giving up even when others tell you that you're stuck with nowhere to go. Not learning, not healing, not concentrating, not focusing, all with too much emotions. The mustard seed budding with leaves, out of the grown. 

 

Writing comes from soul searching, those times you cry into pieces. The time wasted on sufferings, becomes treasures of experiences, making words deep, grainy, and against the world. The mustard seeds grows into a plant, with branches and its leaves multiplies.

 

Writing grows from perseverance, although at times the mustard seed was almost crushed, and damaged. The mustard seed keeps growing, the root does not die, instead it clones itself underneath. It multiplies and begins a new growth period. The knowledge of growing from its inception germinates the plant quicker and branches out sooner than its season.

 

Writing comes from frequent practice, as the mustard seed keeps working in portions, and the small steps leads to more branches and tall shrubs reaching other plants. Network, communicating, working, building relationships, as the mustard seed keeps growing its roots underneath and over the Earth. It is tall, it is green, it is willing to learn its seasons, and the branches thickens.

 

Writing comes from reading, the mustard seed waters itself, fully functioning on its own as it preserves itself, forever. The mustard seed from my heart, mind, and soul becomes small tree, with small leaves, and as years grow and seasons pass, it lives with the Earth, with its painful past yet, beautiful in form and truth. The mustard seed becomes a tree, yielding pods of seeds as it grows all over the Earth.

 

Just a mustard seed to write with. Repeat. Just write.

 

 

As fresh soapy water on my dirty dishes, writing cleanses my soul. Days might be hard and tires my bones, but writing gives me stamina to keep going. Nothing dangling in front of me as if catnip is the treat for this kitten, but no one is paying me. I just want to keep going. I need to keep going. 

 

One day at a time for my 15 calms the chaos inside my erratic brain. Writing out of sync with the world, writing out of nothing, writing out of hope or writing out of depression, it fuels me. I don't have to ask for permission, just go, just write. Everyone is allowed to and I'm one who takes advantage of that license and privilege. It is free and freedom, and healthy.

 

Write slow or fast depends on content and what may cross my mind, and it might be out of the present reality, or not. It just goes, and no slowing down, at pace, in tempo and without judgement. Moment by moment rebel theology, not witchcraft, just my own opinions on the page. No one has to agree and no one has to disagree, just read it for fun and 15 minutes of free write harms none.

 

Creation is a gift one must take for good and bad, so on good days, write on. On bad days, keep writing and let the freewill flow as literature against the despair. Write for a better tomorrow but I must write for today as for writing today will write my tomorrow. Keep at it, keep steady and don't let the crazies tell you to stop. They want no progress, but I yearn for growth and my 15 is growing me tall and steady.

 

Fuel or no fuel, just write.  

 

What people tell you to do, take with the flavor it comes it. Consider the source and take it for its worth, but don't stop. Write on, live on, breathe on, forever. Never stop believing and never stop dreaming, for those qualities creates stories that tells. All of the sadness and hopelessness won't stop me from working my imagination and it is well with my soul. 

 

Can someone without friends write? Why not? It creates friendships. Writing comes in tribes and they are all creative geniuses. Maybe one will say something awkward, but that discomfort makes magic as it gives me a scene, a dialogue and more mortar for my layers of stories. Nothing wrong with it, they should know better.

 

Fifteen of nothing gives me everything to write about. Just write.

Beaten down Chevrolet with no fuel, my mind dead inside. Leather seats razored with stringy threads stuffed underneath. Gave me bad memories as a dried out hyacinth on the windowsill.

 

Empty words, no depth, bad synonyms, and low life. Trajectories to failures and barren future with no risible path on good times ahead. My mind throbbing with painful thoughts.

Anemic but diabetic with guttural voice as if I've chain-smoked for two lifetimes. Greying hair, dandruff and scaly skin. The life taken out of me, was the image visualized from just a dead vehicle.

 

I hated Volkswagens.

 

Back mirror took up my visual space with no prospectus of changing lanes. Stuck midway between heaven and hell, my life stagnant with the in-betweens. 

Novice writing without a guiding light and not good enough.

Projects unfinished with no time to write, but working title typed out. Running on empty with no fuel to go on.

 

Just write.

 

 

 

Emak (grandmother) said, "you will know a man by what he reads." Engkong (grandfather) read Ian Fleming, 007, until he spoke like an Englishman. Engkong's infidelity to Emak made her disintigrate into bitterness, and I lived it with her. 

 

Sylvia Plath was the next woman during my formative years whose literary work I read for her truth and honesty. Plath's writing created a massive explosion inside my brain as I read her dark poetry, and later found out she died from self harm because of an aftermath of infidelity. 

 

The college boyfriend who I wanted to marry left me for a sorority girl. "Playing the field," meant a lot of things for college men, and I was heartbroken.

 

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje became a film during college, and I saw it in the theatre and was mezmerized by the cinematography and acting. It deserved the Oscar, but I feared the book because of my life experiences and knowledge about infidelity. Ondaatje's book felt like ammonition to fuel those who hurt me and the women who died.

 

The charred body of the English Patient was the reason why I didn't read it, for two decades. I hated Ondaatje because I felt he glamourized adultery. The hatred stemmed from my own anguish, as it created the worst fear of my outcome, that I would one day be burned and charred, alone, awaiting hell. It didn't matter to me that I didn't commit infidelity, but it was symbolic of what happened to a soul who sinned. 

 

Graduate school and life were full of struggles, as I faced bullying from other women, mostly because of men. I felt objectified for being me and for receiving attention from good looking men who were merely friends. Rumors and jealousies turned into malice and racism, that culminated into sexual assault. The pain from the abuses almost led me to self-harm, and I couldn't read anything, for over a decade. I was so broken, that dignity and confidence left and shame was in my blood.

 

The fears of Ondaatje's work became a myth and superstition inside my mind. "If I read The English Patient, I will never have a loving relationship or a lasting marriage. And, I will die of self-harm because of it, and be burned in hell. Forever." Those fears I held on to became a tree of bleeding scabs, with pus, infected, and falling off from life. No one cared, especially because I felt the whole world wanted my failure and the men and women who hated me only desired my self-harm. Malice and abuses became post-traumatic-stress-disorder and depression, and The English Patient was my biggest fear.

 

Nightmares played inside my mind, that my life would be a constant begging for mercy for ice cubes, from someone who hardly cared for me and was only there to hear my stories of pain, not joy. 

 

Opening the book at Barnes and Nobles also opened Pandora's Box, with the word "dangerous" flying out of it. I felt shamed because for a very long time, I was afraid. I had to read The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje before my life became my worst enemy. Took me two decades to accept this, and flaming fires of misunderstandings to lead me to this.

 

But, there was a sense of relief when I read the first page. A comforting passion for literature from a sinner to another. For once, I didn't judge the book, and I didn't judge Ondaatje. It felt as if Ondaatje spoke to me about empathy, that he had gone something as difficult as mine in his life.

 

Myths and superstitions, assaults and PTSD, fears and doubts, adultery and heartbreak, all didn't seem to matter when I read it. The book was sovereign, as all works of art will always be. Art and literature were reflections of life through creativity out of the belly of the artist. Ondaatje's writing were of musical prose, symphonies as a matter of fact with lyrics that entertained me. Wisdom, gentleness, raw honesty, poetic, and brilliant literature was in front of me. It felt surreal, not fearsome. I was wrong....for a very long time. 

 

It wasn't enough to have seen the movie, although the acting was brilliant and the soundtrack was breathtaking. I had to read the book, to prevent my life from being burned alive and living out the myth that hurt me for a very long time. Upon reading The English Patient, I felt a humble soul speaking to me, about sins, mercy, amends, and penitence . Ondaatje and I may never meet, but his writing gave me a profound education. 

 

All works of art will always be sovereign, and a brilliant literary work, especially. It was to my advantage that I read The English Patient, and it was to my fault on the self-righteous fears. I judged, because I was the object of judgement and I judged Ondaatje and his book as if I had the right to judge him. My victory would be in healing, from the past and through more reading and writing, not fearing or judging. I feared out of trauma, but Ondaatje's work was nothing to be afraid of, and everything worth the theatrical easthetic.

 

I no longer hold superstitions over any literary work, and two decades of obsessing over The English Patient proved to an end on suffering. I dared to read and write about my deepest sorrows and foolery. Without remorse. Myths and superstitions on any literary works and in life suits only satan and demons, not the fairy godmother. If anything that was difficult, it was the rhetoric of infidelity, but adultery on the pages of a book won't dictate the sentence of anyone's future. Besides, the characters in the book were spirits with solitary lives who were searching for meaning during the World War, much like most of us who perhaps suffered or still struggling during this Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020. To think that pages on a novel could hurt another human being would give too much ego to fiction, and not enough value on reality.

 

I won't be a panel on any literary boards nor would my opinion matter to anyone. However, for this one soul, reading one of the most prized work in literature might have changed the course of my life because I casted out the fears I had for a very long time. Love was far fetched then, and it still is now. This might conjure ridicule, but I wished you could walk in my shoes over the two decades.

 

I wrote this out of honesty, and reflection and not in 15 minutes. I won't know if anyone would be reading it, but I knew I wrote my truth. 

 

Just write.

 

 

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It is excruciatingly difficult for me not to blog, now that I have a routine about it. My 15 seems so far away and my mind wanders on the empty pages of my blog still in spirit. Creating sentences, composing similes, devicing metaphors, and my mind is the best utility at work even when it is time to rest.

 

My best friend brain wants a new way concept and resistance is futile. I get an anxiety the same way that high school students feel about prom. Is it time to dance? Will he ask me to be his date? The nerves inside me wants to come out and play for just 15 minutes and it creates all ideas that condenses in my mind. 

 

My heavy thoughts sometimes becomes an asset, as I find prose about positivity through the negative. Making new sentences and having it write itself down on my heart. I find the honesty refreshing, and the unique creation sets itself apart from the rest. My writing has nuances from life and the journey of a survivor who rose from the dead. That itself is a life story worth telling, and although my time for a memoir of my life might come, I still have to ruminate and explore upon it before I take the action. But, the writing continues, and I just have to blog about this process.

 

Being honest about a project gives me freedom, and although I won't divulge into it, I still have to talk about my journey in this blog. It is a worthwhile read and a worthwhile exercise for me to build my skills, out of truth about daily blogging.

 

To tell you the real truth about my project, it is about art. My family is that type who feels about art strongly, and critically think about it in great details. Everything in art is truly sovereign, with the exceptions of stolen concepts and ideas to create an original. The point is, I need to explore on this artistic work more clearly, with a compassionate heart and a loving tenderness because I had reservations about it for two decades and it creates a myth and superstition out of itself. I won't let it become an object of scorn inside my heart or in the heart of others. It deserves attention, and I shall give it 100% of my intentions. To read it, carefully, and compassionately, as everything artistic should be approached.

 

I will tell you soon, but in the mean time, God help me. As I have to stop blogging to create more time for reading and reflection in my life.

 

Just write.