Life

Children of Ending: A spoken word poetry

Last Saturday, I got the opportunity to perform poetry at an event organized by Power of Words (POW) Retreat.

The session was actually my first time performing an English poetry. It was such an experience to read a very personal piece to strangers.

I’m sharing the poems here specially for my blog readers.

Children of ending

A child born
is the beginning of hope

But what do we call
the beginning
of an ending
the divorce
the separation
disconnection
dissociation
disunion
dysfunction
the breaking up
the breaking heart
the tearing heart
– broken, torn apart

So, I am the child on an ending

And my children are
the children of ending
then my grandchildren would be
the grandchildren of ending

I have two kids
a son and a daughter
you can look around
but they are not here

See I know
my son eats 1.5
to double portion of food
and my daughter loves to draw
I know, the boy plays
Bendi and the ink machine
and the girl loves Minecraft

I also know they are confuse
How their feelings are abused
I know the words
they struggle to read
and pronounce

I know. I only know things
when I’m around

So do I look like a mother?
with this body sewn twice
in two separate years
after a few hands groped inside
my private, holy place
to wipe away all the trace
the proven case
that I am a mother

These were not my hands
These were not my eyes
The two child births broke me
The ending ended me
– This is the new me

Do I look like a mother now
for I am too young
to bear the children
of ending
carrying their chatter
on the naked truth
of selfishness

I am too broke
to bear more of
this taking
Their forgiveness
on our intended
carelessness

The children of ending

Can they make, choices?
with their lost, voices
in the noise of ‘our’ fights
in the quest to be right
just to feel right
– just to feel right.

Thank you for reading

Life

What Is Minimalism?

Many of us are more familiar with minimalism in the art context – design, architecture, and fashion. Black and white sleek design, edgy style and white walls.

While in the context of lifestyle, minimalism has started to get a place in the mainstream world too. It is being discussed on TV and radio shows as well as written in many books and lifestyle blogs – my blog is one of them.

You can say it’s a global trend now. In my perspective, it’s like the world awakening to a better way of living after drowning in materialism and consumerism for so long.

We all know that minimalism is not something new. In fact, most of the early spiritual’s figures are said to have lived a simple life – Prophet Muhammad, Gautama Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, and St. Benedict. Many successful people also live a simpler life than average people so they can focus more on their creative and innovative work.

People always ask me what minimalism really is?

In essence, it’s about living more with less.

A lifestyle

Minimalism is a tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important (TheMinimalists.com)

It’s a lifestyle of living with a minimum number of things, to our maximum. We might not have too many in our life, but all of them give big and meaningful value to us. This applies to material possessions, online accounts and activities, commitments, and generally to how we perform our daily life.

Is it a problem to have things in our life?

No, it’s not.

Minimalism is not against owning material possessions. It’s not about owning only a certain number of things (88 items, 100 items, or living in a backpack).

We need certain things to be able to live and function. For example, we need clothes to cover our body, and perhaps washing machine to wash that clothing. We need a place to live in and sleep comfortably.

Things become our problem when we tend to assign a bigger value to them until we cast aside our health, our relationships, our passions, and personal growth. They become our problems when what is important to us become foggy until we cannot make good decisions for ourselves.

Minimalism is a mindset 

Being aware of things that we own so nothing sits with us, in our life, without a purpose.

It’s knowing the why of everything we own so we can strip off all the excess and simply allows us to make decisions around our material possessions more consciously, and more deliberately.

Read more:

Life

Tools That Help Me Plan Better

In this post, I would like to share on how I get things done.

I’m not someone who is highly organized and disciplined. Being easily anxious, planning really helps me to stay calm and be on track.

Evernote

First of all, among other planning tools, the lists are the most important thing. I am a hardcore lister.

I keep my lists on Evernote – things like goals, master to-do lists, financial commitments, saving goals, and writing ideas. I realize that many achievements in my life are more likely to be materialized if they’re written, insyaAllah.

I prefer pen over the keyboard for the thinking process. I don’t immediately plan or type my lists on Evernote as I brainstorm better with pen and paper than with a laptop or cell phone – they often bring me to other places i.e. random websites, social media platforms, and useless news scrolling.

Only when I’m happy with my lists, I’ll transfer them digitally.

Yes, it’s quite tedious. For me, analog might slow us down but while slowing us down, it makes us more thoughtful and creative.

Evernote is amazing. It is a cloud-based software service designed for creating, organizing and storing various of media file whether it’s a text document, a photo, a video, an audio file or even a web page. The only thing I hate about Evernote is that it can only be accessed from not more two devices if you’re on free version.

Expectedly, I’m on the free one.

Google Calendar and Google Task

Things that I need to do are pretty much routine i.e. daily – go to work, write, send and pick up kids, chores, A.M and P.M beauty routine and for weekly – halaqah, groceries, going out with friends, kids-quality-time (art/workbook/storytelling) etc.

So, I don’t really do daily planning and to-do list.

The daily to-do list is only necessary for non-routine work that I keep track using Google Tasks. Google Tasks is a free online service that helps manage your to-do lists.

While those task are nothing without a date/time assigned to them, I schedule them on Google Calendar along with my events and appointments. Google Calendar is also an online service so it can easily be accessed via the apps or Internet browsers as long as you have the internet. Unlike Evernote, there’s no limitation on access for both Google Calendar and Google Tasks.

They can be displayed side by side on a computer screen and that’s very helpful.

Notebook or Bullet Journal

My minimalist on-the-go essentials are my phone, wallet, notebook/papers and pen, lipstick and my car key (only if I’m driving, of course) – all in my handbag.

I always have a mini notebook in my bag. It is more like a bind of loose papers to me. They get finished pretty quickly because I love to tear them off and give the papers to my kids and friends.

At this moment, I fancy having an appointed bullet journal. I was already using one before I religiously listing on Evernote. However, after decluttering all of my notebooks, I have none left and through time I feel like I’m missing something.

I’m planning to have a pocket-size bullet journal for on-the-go journalling. I won’t overlap its role with my Google Calendar, Google Tasks and Evernote. It is not so much for the planning purpose but more of therapeutic journalling for me.

I’m still giving it time – to think about whether it’s really necessary.