The Left Turn

I sure wished it wasn’t real, but it was: the traffic wasn’t moving. I repeat, was NOT moving at all. There I was, sitting in the car, in a one-way street chock-full with cars and motorbikes. It was 4:15 PM, an hour had passed since I left the campus. I was supposed to pick R up at his school at 4-4.30ish, and there was still a mile between the school and where I was.

I got a bit worried because, although traffic jams occurred in every part of Jakarta every hour of the day, this small back road that I took to R's school was usually spared.  I texted him, then called him, telling him that I would be late.

An hour later, I was still in more or less the same spot.

Two hours later: there was an improvement, I had now moved 10 meters forward, and stopped again. I turned off the car engine, and fiddled with my phone trying to get some info on what was happening in the road ahead. It seemed that there was a big bus breaking down some 500 meters ahead, and that was it. That was it. There was thankfully no flood, no landslide - yet I was so puzzled as to why this darn bus could cause a traffic jam so massive.

Three hours later: managed to move 10 meters further. By then it started to rain, and R called asking whether he should come look for me.  He thought he could get a motorbike ride to where I was, so at least I'd have some company in the unsettling traffic. You wouldn't be able to get here, I told him. The traffic jam was so bad not even a motorbike could move, and I wouldn't was us both to get stuck.

It occurred to me that perhaps I would be stuck there until midnight, but somehow for those first three hours I could keep my calm.  I fished out a magazine from the back seat, and started flicking through it.  But then it got dark and I was left completely alone. I couldn’t read, and I couldn’t listen to the radio either, because I had decided that I needed to turn off the car engine completely to save fuel.

By 7:26 PM I could move forward about 30 meters, and stopped again. Driving for 30 meters however made me so happy, I thought soon enough I would go past the darn bus and meet R. Not so soon, though. An hour later, at 8:31, I was still at that same spot I stopped at, and panic started to build up. 

“What is going on?” shouted a guy driving a truck next to me, to a passerby on foot. “Traffic jam in all directions!” the passerby said, “There was no getting out of here, at least until midnight.”  

It was then that I broke down; my exhaustion finally reared its ugly head. There was no way I could afford getting stuck there until midnight. For the life of me, at 5.30 AM the following day I had to go to the campus. There was a research report that was due, and a class to teach  - and I was hungry and simply overwhelmed. 

It was around that time when traffic at my left cleared up, and although I actually had to turn right, I called R right away and told him I would go left.  I simply couldn’t bear the thought sitting in an unmoved car any longer.  Switching to the left lane took some maneuvering; I gritted my teeth and told myself I could do it. A few more maneuvers in the small road with cars blocking my way and finally: home free.

It was so exhilarating to be able to drive at 60km/hour after 4.5 hours of the worst traffic jam I had ever had to endure. R, who had been waiting in a mall about 2 kilometers away from his school, met me at a gas station and took the wheel. Seeing him arriving at the gas station was a relief – I decided not to tell him that I had a breakdown earlier.

The rest of the journey home took less than an hour. The following day, despite my tired brain, I managed to turn in the research report and teach my class. It was the critical turn to the left, I told myself, that made the difference.  Taking  the left turn when you thought you were supposed to turn right, was sometimes the very thing that saved your day.

Between October and November

I found a lump.

In the days thereafter, followed what I would remember as a silence gripping my throat. Cancer runs for two generations above me, and this was enough to put me in my primitive survival mode: I researched and researched, trying to put a name on whatever it was that suddenly became a part of me.

There were unnerving tests. Cold, rude and dismissive doctors whose mannerisms prompted me to ask myself: am I ever that rude to a person in need of my knowledge? Have I ever told a student off simply because he doesn't understand my explanation the first time round?*  There were a lot of time spent nervously waiting - for test results, for appointments, for a kind word to assure me that this thing had a name, and its name was benign.

There was a time when after leaving the consultation room, R said I looked like I needed to sit down - so I did, and broke down instantly. The rudeness of the doctor was beyond my comprehension, and to this day I am trying hard not to even play out that scene in my head anymore.

There were days when I walked around the campus feeling everything was trivial: who needed theory and calculators when you knew something foreign was growing inside you? There were times when a panic attack surged: I tried hard to focus on my breath for fear that at one time I would just decide that it didn't matter whether I inhaled or not.

There was a day when I had to pitch for a continuation of my research project, and the reviewers tore me apart in roomful of strangers and colleagues. I sat and realized that I did not mind the fact that some old professors had taken the liberty to publicly call me stupid and worthless. I might be stupid and worthless as an academic, and the one thing I was sure of that evening was that I carried three lumps, not just one, in me.

At the height of my insanity, I reached out to my siblings, something I had never previously done whatever hardships came my way. Kind words, I learned, were what helped one through difficult times. Kind words.

I reached out to a stranger in Twitter, who had been through the rough journey herself. I wasn't sure what I was looking for: wisdom, knowledge, advice, kind words - perhaps all of them.  She offered every single one, and even asked to accompany me during the ordeal. Her messages to me were:

"Hey, please let me know if you need company. I would like to be there with you. In person. *hugs*"
"Anytime you want to have coffee, do let me know. My thoughts are with you. Chin up! :)"
"Just thought I let you know that I am thinking of you. Please keep me updated. *hugs* "
"Hey, you! How's it going? What's your update? Care to share with me?"

She told me a wealth of information: names and contact numbers of specialists. How to best approach the first screening. More importantly, she showed me there was a way to deal with this calmly, composedly. I admit to looking at her picture in her Twitter profile longingly, hoping to possess her elegance, and time and again I find myself surrendering to her serene tweets.


I know for a fact that it is not easy to talk about this - even being asked about it might push a wrong button. Therefore I opt not to talk about this with "real-life friends", instead I find comfort in the company of my "internet friends".

A month has practically elapsed, and now I am almost sure that I will be fine.  There are still appointments to go to - and perhaps follow-up tests standard to this condition. However the panic attacks are no longer here. I have begun thinking about writing again, a thought that never occurred to me in the month of researching and tests and hospital visits. I am trying to forgive ill-mannered doctors, and hoping to never exude such wasteful rudeness myself.

This November will see me in several places: I vow to finish reading 10 books this year (apart from school textbooks) and am now on my 8th. I will present my research in a conference at the end of the month. With the writing pact I made with my close friend of 25 years, I am hoping to write more. And, and: of course I'll begin shopping for worldly stuff again.

My constant companion for the bumpy ride was of course R, who suggested coffee to celebrate the word "benign" scribbled across my lab result. What I have always known was this: no matter where you are in the world, the sun is there - if only you knew where to look.




* (I took solace knowing I never did, and openly apologizing for my mistakes in front of the classroom is something I have done more than once.)

Looking Both Ways

Sometimes it is so clear that you are crossing a one way street - all the cars will be coming from one direction only - yet you stop and look both ways.

I look both ways often - into my brain and into my heart - when I know for a fact that I need to look only at one direction. For career choices I need to look hard into my brain - yet my heart often goes in the way.
For a long time I have known I love writing (I will always be the first to admit my sin of not writing enough), and I have known that I long to teach since I was 7.  My brain has guided me all along to my current job, but at the end my heart says the job just isn't enough.

I'll tell you what my day is like: in between classes to teach, students' projects to supervise, an academic journal to manage, my own research projects and the required volunteering/civil service, I am forced to mingle with colleagues whose company I don't enjoy. My brain will tell me to toughen up: they're called "colleagues" and not "friends" for a reason. But my heart tells me daily that since I spend most of my days in their company, one day I will wither. The price to pay seems too high - I am constantly stressed out about being in the same room with so many of the most boring, petty, old-fashioned people ever.

Something needs to be done, says my heart. My brain says nothing other than 'toughen up', for it knows I need to be here for another 5 years. It tells me that it's a one way street: there is no way I could get off it but to go with the flow. My heart however - it knows that I may wither - and suggests that I start my other longing: writing. Not academic writing though. No, that one is always done because I have to. The writing my heart suggests me to do is the type I've loved since childhood, but find no time to do: the writing about absolutely nothing, and everything.

After looking both ways I messaged a dear friend who also aspires to write, and made a pact with her to write four posts in our blogs this month. Doesn't look like much, I guess, but hey, it's a start.


Already I feel good about this pact, and its potential to get me writing again. I guess it pays to always look both ways, even if in your deepest heart you know you are on a one-way street.