Daily Writing Page

Our last day in Kediri began with the kind of silence that only lingers when something is about to end. It wasn't the absence of sound, but the quiet hush of everything carrying on as usual—only slower, more thoughtful, like the world itself was taking a breath. The roosters crowed on schedule, the distant hum of a television drifted through the morning air, playing a familiar holiday movie from the neighbor's house down the road. A motorbike rumbled past with a lazy buzz, and somewhere in the neighbor's house, a child laughed. But even those sounds felt muted, like someone had wrapped them in cotton. The air was warm and still, and the sunlight filtering through the windows looked softer, gentler—like the town knew we were leaving, and didn't want to startle us. Inside the house, the atmosphere wasn't heavy with sadness, but it wasn't exactly cheerful either. It hovered somewhere in that strange space between ending and moving on. The walls of the house, which ...

After the laughter fades and the floors stop echoing with footsteps, there is a kind of silence that settles like dust. It doesn't announce itself. It just arrives quietly, gently. In my hometown, that silence comes a few days after Eid, once the greetings have been exchanged, the jars of cookies picked clean, and the last of the relatives wave goodbye from their motorbikes with helmets crooked and children squeezed between laps. The roads get quieter. The mosques go back to their usual rhythms. And the house, once overflowing with shoes by the door and chatter spilling out the windows, breathes out a long sigh of relief. And so do we. The stillness is not empty. It is thick with memories. It hangs in the air like the aftertaste of sweet tea. Each corner of the house seems to hum with leftover joy, awkward smiles, forced politeness, and genuine laughter. You can almost hear the echoes if you stand still long enough. There's a faint smell of air freshener. It mixes with the last...

If Eid day is about prayers, new clothes, and hugging your grandma, then the day after Eid is where the true test begins. The test of stomach capacity, social stamina, and pretending to remember distant relatives and neighbors' names. We woke up a bit later that morning, still bloated from the previous day's feast but determined, if not particularly enthusiastic, to keep the halalbihalal tradition alive. The kind of tradition where you go house to house, greet people, eat snacks at every stop, and try not to accidentally call someone by the wrong name. It's a cultural marathon, basically. Kediri’s air was still heavy with celebration. You could hear takbiran recordings faintly echoing from the mosque's speaker, recycled from the night before. Children darted through the streets in packs, waving colorful envelopes and lighting tiny firecrackers with unmatched confidence. Our plan for the day was simple: go around the neighborhood and visit a handful of elders and relativ...

There's something about the way the wind feels in our hometown—Kediri. It's softer there. Slower. The kind of wind that doesn't rush through you like the city wind, but instead brushes gently against your arms like it knows you. It smells like morning soil, lodeh , and laundries. Like burning trash from someone sweeping their yard too early, or banana leaves swaying without purpose. And in between all that, it carries the whispers of memories—ones you thought you’d forgotten until they knock gently in the back of your mind. I hadn't visited in months. Probably close to a year, to be honest. We always say we'll come more often, but life happens, and then suddenly it's almost Eid again and you're cramming six giant bags into a car for a five-day trip like it's a survival mission. The trip itself was... classic mudik . Hours of traffic, cramped limbs, toll booths that stretched into infinity, and a questionable bathroom stop in the middle of nowhere that I...

Packing for Eid was never supposed to be this exhausting. But somehow, every year, it felt like we were preparing for a month-long trip overseas despite knowing we'd only stay in our hometown, Kediri for a week at most. We didn't even bring a suitcase because mom thought it would be a hassle and our car was too small for that big umrah suitcase. Nope. We brought something worse: those huge plaid bags with zipper teeth that always seem one good yank away from breaking. They don't have wheels or structure, and they crinkle like dried leaves with every move. But they could hold a lot, a dangerously tempting amount of outfits. And when it came to raya clothes, logic went out the window.