Kartini’s language, the language of a 20-year-old, is like a storm, although not immediately evident. It is not linear, or flat. Hyperbole arises in many sections, particularly when she mentions something (or someone) that she likes. Exclamation marks abound.

The coast is the world to be viewed, with curiosity and wonder, from a distance—from the outside.

Taman Mini reflects the view that life is only the status quo—as though in every phenomena, every difference, there is only the everlasting.

Flesh, eyes, skin—the physical and the psychic—have shaped the language of racist violence. In Indonesia, too.

Now Covid-19 can remind us that intimacy with the flesh is the same as simple gratitude when one is healthy, and taking an easy attitude towards pain and death.

The past does not stop. Over and again, we fail to recapture it in memory. Of course, we have history books and think that this is where the past is recorded as memory. But memory is the product of the present, and the present is not a station where memories pause, unchanging. This is why we often try to recall the past in other ways.