Diary of a Libra in her season
October 1
I have wanted to write for so long! The task sitting in my brain like an unopened package. Every morning I tell myself I’m going to get to it. And every night I tell myself tomorrow.
Too much has happened for me to do a proper report. I keep telling people that the whole transition has been good but weird. I’ve come home but somehow – and this has been a surprise – I’ve felt quite unmoored. For years, I thought so much about what it would be like to be home and to do this exact job. Nearly everything I did felt like it was arcing toward this point. Now it’s here and of course it’s so much richer than what I imagined. So much more strenuous. That’s the thing about imagining – “manifesting” – what you want. You necessarily take for granted certain unchanging things, ceteris paribus, when in reality, everything is changing all the time.
I have wanted all the world, its beauties
and its injuries; some days,
I think that is punishment enough.
Often, I received more than I’d asked,
which is how this works—you fish in open water
ready to be wounded on what you reel in.
"Dear Life" by Maya Popa
October 9
In Jakarta after the hardest work week.
I published a story last week that sent me into a tailspin. I have been trying so hard to fake the confidence and control necessary for this job, and something about that story just made me see, too clearly, the stakes of what I’ve been left in charge of. This isn’t imposter syndrome because that script assumes that I’m meant to be in this position and things would be peachy if only I could set aside my poor self-esteem. It’s not that. Because the objective truth is that it’s genuinely quite stupid that I’m in the situations I find myself in. And the sooner I accept that, the less wound up I’ll be. Babies push buttons and things go boom. So it goes.
Assume that if you’re burned out, your brain needs the help of another brain. Your brain is not going to be OK until or unless you have the experience and opportunity of being in the presence of someone else who can begin to ask you the kind of questions that will allow you to name the things that you’re experiencing. The moment that you start to tell your story vulnerably to someone else, and that person meets you with empathy — without trying to fix your loneliness, without trying to fix your shame — your entire body will begin to change. Not all at once. But you feel distinctly different.
"What if Burnout Is Less About Work and More About Isolation?" by Tish Harrison Warren
I have an interview tomorrow with a semi-scary mustachioed general known around these parts as the real president of Indonesia. Four hours later, I'm flying to one of the most remote parts of the country. I’m carrying a backpacking bag because the journey involves two nights on a cargo ship, a full day on a long boat and a hike through forest on foot. I won’t get to shower for several days but I’ll have a small, precious bottle of perfume inside my bag because tomorrow, for this meeting in Jakarta, I need to smell nice.
All these versions of myself. It messes with my head toggling back and forth but if one day it stops feeling weird, I think I’d be broken.
October 16, 2022
On the top bunk (number 324) in the mustiest, most crowded ferry heading from the city of Ternate to Pulau Obi, a small island cluster in North Maluku. The journey takes 20 hours and the ship has just left the port. There must be 150 people stuffed into this one room, which was advertised as “air-conditioned” except both air-con units have been broken since 2018. I’d try to describe the smell but I… don’t have the words. In any case, it’s OK. Walking to my bunk earlier, I accidentally brushed against two sets of ashy bare feet and was surprisingly unperturbed.
I’m traveling with five others, all men who don’t drink but smoke constantly. They’re hilarious and very kind and have an aggressive, sincere morality I haven’t experienced before. They’ve dramatically changed what I understand about activism and social justice and power.
These islands in Maluku were among the first to be colonized by the Dutch because they’re rich in spices – cloves and nutmeg specifically – but since independence, they’ve mostly been left alone. With nickel, villagers say, it’s like they’re being looted again.
I’m nearing the end of the trip, though the most dangerous part is just coming up. The mine on Obi is heavily guarded and a group of Indonesian reporters were accosted at gunpoint just two months ago. The plan is for us to take a sampan out to the village in front of the mine, talk to people there and fly a drone to see if we can document evidence of factories dumping toxic waste into the sea. There’s no way for me to know exactly how that's going to go. But we’ll see. My friend Rachel is a relentless optimist and it makes her so much better at the journalistic life; I’ll channel Rachel.
Before Obi, we went to another island, Halmahara, which was also a time. Our days started at 6am and ended at 1am. They were filled with all these mishaps – car malfunctioning; flat tire; no kerosene for the boat (no kerosene on the entire island!); source stuck at sea; photographer slipping on mud – and all these corresponding miracles that helped us continue our journey. On the way back from a lake, one of the last ones on Halmahara left unpolluted, our boatman jumped into the water to snack on some seasnails, digging into the sand with one arm and holding his cigarette above the water with another. Dera, my friend, hopped out the boat for a swim and we all followed. The water was cool and clear, and there weren’t any other people for as far as we could see.
Another moment I scribbled down: On the midnight ferry from Halmahera back to Ternate – we were all exhausted and keeping quiet so as not to be rude to one another. I wanted to sleep but could feel my sports bra absolutely soaked in grime. It started to pour, and through the sound of rain falling on the zinc roof, I heard Dera ask in Indonesian: How long more? Pak Faizal, smoking and eyes half-closed, glanced at the city lights in the distance, then said: Setengah. Half an hour.
October 20, 2022
Alive! And safe. But still at sea. We’ve given up on the cabin and dragged our mattresses out onto the deck to sleep al fresco. A small black crab has taken refuge in my Birks.
There’s a 1998 poem by Marie Howe called “What The Living Do.” It’s about falling into moments of awareness and connection during the humdrum of everyday life, and when I read it for the first time as a teenager, it moved me exactly in that context. I was waiting for life to begin but while I waited, I would get these moments: A walk home after a night out with friends; A quiet sunrise; A rainy bus ride.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.
The actual day-to-day of my life has changed so much since I was a teenager. More exciting in many ways. But I’ve done an increasingly bad job of letting in this feeling of awareness, especially over the last three months.
We finished reporting yesterday at a small village on the island of Obilatu, population 700. The main thoroughfare through the village is a path about 1.5 meters across that starts at a wooden jetty and ends a short stroll away at a masjid. Almost everyone who is born here, dies here. We sat on plastic chairs on the pathway to interview the village chief and by the end, almost half the village had come out to watch. When we left, they walked to the edge of the jetty and waved.
Throughout the trip, I’d been talking to Pak Faizal, head of WALHI, the environmental NGO we’re traveling with, about why he’d wanted to dedicate his life to activism even though it was unprofitable, challenging and, in this part of Indonesia, dangerous. He told me in English as we got onto the boat leaving Obilatu: “You ask me, kemarin, why WALHI? Because this.” He gestured at the people on the jetty. “Let them stay. Like this, how they want.”
In Indonesian: “I’m a Muslim. And for Muslims, when you die, the question posed is this: For whom did you live?”
It was late by the time we left Obilatu so the waves had gotten massive. We spent the first hour getting absolutely drenched, pinning our bags onto the longboat and laughing hysterically. By hour two, the sun had set, the clouds were parting, and the milky way was bright to the eye. My lips stung from sea salt and I felt very, very lucky. Gripped by a cherishing so deep.
It was surreal to feel so close with all these strangers, even though I knew it would not last. Faizal found out the gender of his baby boy during the trip; Achi and I did awkward language lessons every morning after breakfast; Buyung, the gruffest of the lot, confessed one night in giggles that when he’d taken a plane for the first time this year, he put on his seatbelt across his chest like he was in a car.
I’ll note down one last memory: Earlier, on this ferry, I was frustrated because the ship captain had made a mistake and lost our reservations for private rooms. We’d made the reservations early and put down a deposit and did everything right but it didn’t matter. After having cup noodles on the deck, we sat by the side of the ship to watch the sun setting across the open sea. At least we had this, I thought.
Just as I was unclenching my jaw and resigning myself to a night of grime, I spotted something we would have missed if we’d been in the rooms. Three dolphins rising rhythmically out of the sea, cutting across the shimmering, warm orange horizon. I couldn’t get out any words but I shook Dera’s arm and he yelped so the rest of them came to watch. It was amazing. Faizal taught me the Indonesian word for dolphin, Lumba-Lumba, and I’ll never, ever forget it.
Moments before the dolphins appeared.
With love from your local Libra,
Reb