Never has it occur to my mind that someone would categorize my writing as 'suspense', or somewhere near that. When I asked one years ago, this writer told me that what I had in them were casually, mistakes amateur writers has taken over and over again: less detailed,wrong reasoning, incomprehensible logic... nevertheless I keep writing this blog, which I feel fun, and considering that Stephen King himself said that as a writer, one should write minimum 6000 sentences a day, well... even as amateur writer I still have this lack of exercise.
Seeing the pond in the side of Jardin du Luxembourg yesterday, my mind flew towards the scene in the movie Love Actually, where the character Colin Firth had to help his maid recollecting the blown away copies of his manuscript. The scene also has the pond. It has the same color with the one I saw yesterday, the water.
Both of us, if I could humbly say myself as one, too--- we are writers. The writers who shared the once same scenery they find themselves in. Same color of water... And so did Virginia Woolf as what had been depicted by Nicole Kidman in The Hours; she finally drowned herself in that serene flowing, dark green water.
It's funny how different Monet saw the water, I think. He painted all in black at first, maybe, as the shade of the water in the background of those water lilies also feels like deep greyish underneath the upper layers. I've seen somebody painting some polar bears in realistic features; first he covered all the bears in black, before then patiently, drew and layered them with their furs that were caressed one by one by his hand and brush . People will say that the bears look like they've been photographed before, while it was not. This technique has been applied before by Leonardo da Vinci,for example when he painted Monalisa. Turns out that it could give such a depth of shadows and real-impression.
There was a time, though,before that someone commented on my writing and said that it was suspense-like.
I was seventeen, oh well, yeah, almost. I found myself seated in this room, more than 12000 km away from my home in Bandung. This room was almost empty, and slightly small. There were only a table and a couch, but the girls with whom I spend my next 3 weeks in this teenage camp, loves to throw at least 3 of themselves on the couch, while giggling, sipping tea, and having snacks. On the table, sometimes one put some books there, their evening meals, their after laundry clothes... this room is just a small room and each floor in this dormitory has it. If we go outside it, we can see corridors and rows of bedrooms. My roommate was Hiroko, a sweet Japanese girl who took my photograph in mukena, of course she asked politely to do so.
But this time, beside me was Mbak Mudhi, a reporter from a girl magazine from Indonesia in charge to report the ongoing of this summer-3-weeks-camp that is meant to introduce us to the so-called United States' common culture and tradition, before then the Exchange Program Committee will be sending us to fly to each of our host families. Me, I was scheduled to spend one year with this family in Oklahoma.
"So, for you, you will still hold those Indonesian values with you, right?" Mbak Mudhi asked me. I find she was observant, like how journalists should be, and that time, I was hesitated to answer. I tried to smile and be relaxed, as Mbak Mudhi was I thought to be a charming friend and even with such a comforting friend, I was still this awkward girl in every situation.
"Well..." I just vaguely nodded.
If only I could explain what had been going on my mind properly. All this culture things, and new places! I was so desperately excited and curious to explore. I remembered my conversation with fellow mate from Indonesia, Ratna,aboard the plane when we get there and okay... I admit it was far from the topic about society and cultural interest, as we chat about first-grade high school physics topics. Now I say what that girl, the 16-year-old-me, was trying to do; to make a statement: she simply loves science.
What she didn't realize that time: she thought that science is the core of all culture. Science advancement will give birth to a new culture and society, it will tear down what it thinks obsolete, and it will categorize. When will it be exhausted?
...That time when she was barely 17, nope, it didn't feel that science was exhausted.
And that time, the 16-year old girl also have not thought about the bigger pictures that she could potentially think.
August 3rd, 2006
The date was approximate. It was a nice, crisp summer in Olympia when we arrived. The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was smaller than what I thought. The windows were tall as I remembered it, and the next thing I knew when stepped out of the plane was a corridor, slightly long, before then some circular automatic reels greeted us, delivering eventually our bagpacks, suitcases, and things we brought from Indonesia. As for me, I only needed two of large suitcases and a backpack.
