belfast revisited

today is a special day. i mark it as one different from any other. it's a birthday of a friend. a day of ied kabir festivity. and also the day to start a new journey: "there and back again".

yes, my bag is packed. the shoes are cleaned. documents are set. i am ready to leave the town before sunrise this morning. to belfast northern ireland. with great friends.

frank delaney's novel, which i lost somewhere in london in november, has done its motivating work on me. i bought the book in bandung second hand shop months ago. but before i finished reading it, i think i left it somewhere in merdeka guest house when opening my bag. ah, really a loss to me. i wrote some notes on it. marked the nicest parts as well. and missed it. it's about ireland.

but well, maybe the book is being read by someone else now. who knows. maybe the reason i lost the book is to make me write my own, hohoo..!

apart from belfast the trip shall take me somewhere else too. i will need a lot of good wish for this journey. i don't plan the details. i pray and let myself go and see why i arrive there.

fragments

i entered this month of june like a man running hard into a heavy rain with no umbrella or proper shade to get sheltered under. and interestingly to me the rain is also different from any other kind of rain. unlike the ones you see and get you wet in autumn or spring afternoons. this kind of rain may typically come when you walk alone in a bright daylight and suddenly see someone you know from your past.

so the rain pours on you and showers you with fragments of images and noises from somewhere stocked in your brain cells. like a rain that suddenly fall when you come to a wedding of a friend. and old friendly faces, your mates whose names are recorded secretely or not in your diary books would then appear. sharing their stories and smiles. laughing at those same old hilarious stupidities again until your eyes get wet again. the silly things that used to make you very shy to admit are now becoming more tolerable as you begin to realise that everyone makes mistakes in their lives. and learns lessons from them too.

and so that rain, the shower of fragments, fell upon my head a couple of times in the past weeks. i dont remember when it started. but i recall rather clearly that last sunday was a stormy day. "reading lights" book shop in my hometown witnessed me in such a situation of trying to get escape. back to ireland with frank delaney. this time ireland as a novel.