On the Train to Solo

Man on a motorbike, flowing through the countryside, pink doorways, cool grasses, little cafés, red glowing lights on side of road.
Bicycle rickshaws love to pull up and make me practice my Javanese. My Javanese family is so touching brings me to the train station…such a surprise! They bring me peanut sauce in hard packs to take home. Man smokes cigarettes at the track. Up and down the aisles they sell coffees and snacks.

Thick trees and paddies, star patterned bushes, fruit stand at twight, sounds bundle together, the woman beside me calls her neighbor, people gather along evening roadside, in the school yard I see a lady combing her hair. I am on the train to Solo Balipapan. Sitting in the train café with sweet tunes and the fluid movement of the people, we are all moving through time. In the café, the movement of the train rattles and shivers the paper flowers on the tables. Blasting full volume, a song of passion about a paper butterfly roars out from the Karaoke bar. I order an overly sweet coffee. Over rivers dammed, train slowly pulls into somewhere. The floating train pulls into an old colonial station, I remember a lover I had once in a colonial station 32 years before. All is quiet but I hear echoes of the past.
Remembering one word of a foreign language is like pealing off woven layers of compacted onionskin. -A delightful sensation as it releases energy inside.


Fixing Dinner

Nasi Madura