Earth to Fiya, Earth to Fiya

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Dearest Home,

How have you been? I’ve heard you are looking gorgeous and hotter as ever with the fervent heat and cold beers. Oh dear, words cannot describe how I’ve missed you and it is so hard to believe it has been over 1,000 days since the last time I saw you.

Let me begin with an apology because at the end of this letter, you might not find this as pleasant as the ones I have sent you before. But I hope you’re still going to read me, and at least try to understand where I came from.

As you might have known, it’s been a while since the last time I wrote to you but truly, I have been quite busy with being Here.

My friends have been helping me settling down like last week, I went to a-parking-lot-turned-to-skate-park-slash-music-venue where we had Whisky on a plastic cup by the skate rank. Trains to Southampton now can be replaced with trains to Soekarno-Hatta Airport. It’s a stepping stone for Here to be a lot closer like you.

My family too, after the road trip all the way to East Java, my older cousin just gave birth to a gorgeous baby boy, adding one tiny member to our big family. Buying tiny socks and bean-sized Little Prince t-shirt had me all tingly and thinking fuck, I am old and perhaps this is one of the things that I wouldn’t want to miss.

And work’s been fine. I am missing the 11 A.M lectures and all the long walks through Alma Road, but the Gojek rides and lunch with my colleagues here are more than alright, too. I am learning new things everyday just as I was there but with different kind of grading and pressure.

I am learning to cut my meat intake too, quite drastically than I was before who used to eat everything that looks and smells delicious, and replace it with more plant-based meal. Why? Apart from trying to be more healthy, I’d like to think this can be a great contribution to Earth. Again, I am still trying; we all know how hard it is to let go cheese and beef Bulgogi, but I think it’s a pretty good start.

As you can see, I am also practising to be more mindful of the present. Part of it is by appreciating what I have now, which definitely more than enough. But sometimes you are too big, too pretty, and too heavy for me to breathe and being able to see what’s in front of me — all of those, Here.

Now that I have come to realise the first weeks or years since my return to Here, I have been resisting the fact that I am now far from you and when I thought it’s a beautiful thing to feel and defend, I have placed myself in a more uncomfortable and damaging situation more than I know.

But please don’t get me wrong, I am not forgetting you — I will never; you are the biggest and best thing that’s ever happened to me. But right now, I am just not going to see or speak to you as often as I did because I need to be here, be fully here, and give Here a chance. Making peace with whatever’s left of me in Here, and Here in me. And you know, it isn’t going to be easy when my mind keeps coming back to you.

I hope you’d understand. I know your sunsets and Summer nights will stay magical and you will always be home to me. So, I may not going to see you anytime soon, but I will. I promise you I will, one day just like how it was then.

Much love,

F.

A piece by : Fiya Muiz
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Pablo, Spring

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Have you ever felt so incredibly threatened at a place where it was once felt so safe and free? Not knowing what exactly happened but you knew, you were some sort of estranged. There was a lot of fears, hidden in plain sight but steady at its core. You were not you anymore, but then again, who knew which one was you? Is it you are you now or it was you then? Too many questions, no one is keeping record.

But you were here still. Distracted at its best by the smallest screen yet with the greatest power and you always kept looking for whatever it is that would keep you idle- but most of all away from the uncomfortableness being on your own, with your once beautiful but turns poisonous thoughts. Everything else is gone with a scroll of a thumb, it is now your magic wand. I thought Harry Potter isn't real?

Pablo Neruda once said, you can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming. Is it true? What if the gardener took the whole soil away, and replaced it with marbled floor where you can see your own reflection and take a picture and post it and get like; where shall the flower grow then? Whose responsible for all this mess? But is it really the time to point a finger? Oh, I cannot wait for Spring to come!

A piece by : Fiya Muiz
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Then, There is You

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I think this world is a chain of unrequited feelings — you like her, she likes someone else, he likes me and I like you.

YOU
The thing about you is, you give every writer’s favourite thing: a blank space, a white blank page. I could fill in with unicorns and rainbow, double rum and coke, I could paint it red.

But another thing about blank space is that it can be immensely intimidating. The complete opposite of letting your creativity shape the love you would like to have. You scare me, not in a ghostly way, but in a everything-is-temporary-and-you-have-to-make-it-count. How mortal everything is. That I have to make the greatest out of the time I have.

You make memories appear like swords, the pointy end will bleed you to death. It kills you. It has the power to kill. It could kill you. 

You make glitter looks like gold. But do you know when I know (I’m sure)? When I no longer fear death when I’m with you. 

HER
The last time I heard about her was years ago. She embodied the ideal wife. You said she’s as calm as the deepest ocean, her manner, the way she dresses, how you would consider to marry her — which where I’d like you to stop.

HIM
He likes me, he said it’s all in, liking me is like a suicide mission but he’ll take it. He looks up to me — I’m his Margo. His friends look up to him for his loyalty and bravery, sometimes foolish. Most girls adore him for his gentleness and sweetness. He makes me feel I’m stupid for thinking twice.

But then, there is you.

A piece by : Fiya Muiz
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Anger, Mostly

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I originally wrote this in 2015, days fresh after returning to Indonesia.

How do you define a big change? Would it be possible for something so big to happen and you don’t really realise that it is happening? Like you have just been put to bed, and you are dreaming, the kind of ordinary mundane state of unconsciousness between awake and asleep. And at one point, you constantly asking yourself, when am I going to wake up?

But I am not waking up, this isn’t a dream. I have travelled eighteen-hour flight, and instead of Scotland I woke up in a drier, hotter city with less greenery and funny accent. I feel I should not continue writing this because there is only anger, and agony, as if I am writing this in haste, but I have waited for over thirty days and I still haven’t got it around my head.

Airplane, has made it so easy to travel from different part of the world that it is hard to feel I have travelled half the world away. And all I’ve got is the change of climate and language. Other than that my mind hangs somewhere in the sky, in between the time difference and airplane seat belts.

In the beginning, the euphoria beats whatever anticipation of the long overdue saying hello to the place and faces I once thought as home. I whine nothing more but the sweat and crazy driving ethics, changing lanes and car’s headlight. But I did not cry, and I thought that’s a good thing.

It isn’t because it only means I am suppressing it within on the ocean’s floor of feeling. It happens so subtle and gradually when I seek the pieces of home in people. Old crushes, mostly. I am reliving what had been so good, but now seem so temporary and long ago.

It is crazy because it is happening right now but I don’t know that it is.

A piece by : Fiya Muiz
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Welcome to Tropical Paradise

Around the Sun

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2017

I remember on the second day of January last year, I posted a picture of a night sky on Instagram with caption, “I hope in this new year we will look at the stars more often than we look at the screen.” And if this were a film, the camera will pan out and flying in towards Me this morning, spending the first two waking hours of my day by scrolling cute puppies videos in bed. And just like any other days for the past one year.

Mostly because I am avoiding responsibilities, filling time because I am also part of Millennials who you know, spoilt-by-technology generation who have minimum tolerance towards boredom. and it is dangerously comfortable and indulging as if it were a whirly time-sucking machine that made you forget about everything else; and not necessarily in a beautiful and productive ways.

But anyway! 2018 is here, looking dandy in welcoming the menu of the year. Let’s do a quick recap around the sun about the good things that happened this year, instead of dwelling with all the mishaps and what not, then we can carry on with kinder, more generous resolutions, not forced ones that demanded us to be less human.

To be honest, 2017 was still the year of understanding myself a little more, which never been easy. But despite the uncomfortable feelings, I am forever grateful to feel what I’m feeling, to see what I’m seeing, to hear what I’m listening, to write what can write.

Travel Basil

Why basil? According to Google, basil is an aromatic herb native to tropical Asia, the continent where I spent most of my travelling days in 2017. Last year, I’ve been travelling to more than three destinations across Indonesia; Yogyakarta, Lembang, Lombok, Bandung, and Bali rediscovering once again what home feels like — including all the hate and love.

I’ve always been a fan of travelling. I like the whole journey of getting to the airport, checked in, waiting on the sturdy metallic chair for boarding announcement, getting on the plane, taking off, looking outside seeing how little you are in this world, landing and so forth. It is like experiencing something so ordinary yet extraordinary at the same time. That flying metal thing is taking you to places and across times (zone)!

Although I never said it out loud, but I kinda wished the trip was somehow would magically changed the shitty days into wondrous days. And now I am no longer expecting to come home with a bundle of happiness and peace as if it were a package of promotional gift from the souvenir shop. I know this might sound very cliche, but I have learned it must begin from the inside, because no matter how far I’ll go or how beautiful a place can be, I will always feel hollow if I go with the wrong intentions.

This leads us to the next point.

Inward Looking Compassion

Learning about Self-Compassion was definitely one of the major highlights in 2017 that shed more light into what I was searching this whole time. For the most part is to understand on how to take care all the fears that stem from Shame and Guilt I have been, perhaps unknowingly nurtured.

If you have not yet familiar with Self-Compassion, Kristen Neff defines it as being composed of these three components: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. It means realising that suffering, failure, and imperfection is part of the shared human experience. Or my personal favourite definition for Self Compassion is “simply being a friend to yourself.”

By noting emotions, I learned to be less judgemental/self-loathing/self-criticising and more mindful kind of person. For example, labelling that this uncomfortable feeling is fear, or confusion, helped me to trace back the root of it all, and slowly, gradually, however raw it is, I can try to make (and talk some) sense or (to) it.

Practising of being mindful is a struggle until today — even new year’s burning spirit of new beginnings won’t change that, but the key is always continuous practice over and over again, however difficult and mundane it is. Safe to say, it is a long road ahead, but I am never been this ready.

Cloud Conclusion

To conclude this lengthy intended-to-be-reflective post, I would like to refer back to the story in the beginning, what often confused us, or me, here I often see the story in parts when I should have listened to the whole thing. Often what we, or I, remember is only the failure I cannot live up to my own expectations and forgetting the most important thing that happened after scrolling cute puppies videos in bed: I got up.

We got up each day, fighting the battle of our own anxiety and fear and shame and whatever it is, and made it through the fucking day. However broken, but wiser, cooler and prettier in our own weird ways. I’m sorry, I tend to speak profanity to fully express the depth of subject I was talking about but hopefully, you won’t mind and get the idea. Therefore, I think it is important to emphasise kindness towards yourself in 2018.

Anywho, without further ado, here’s to more adventures, discoveries, celebrations, and most of all, more glasses of wine to come!

A piece by : Fiya Muiz
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