Fresh Wind & Green Grass

“We do not simply give birth to a child. We give birth to new versions of ourselves.” – Dr. Shefali Tsabary

In the past, I longed for the Western approach to things. Independence, creativity, freedom, secularism, and the list goes on. My 25-year-old self thought it was so cool that I could get out of my dad’s house and buy my own independence using my own self-made money. Into a career that I would proudly say that it was my own achievement, without any help from anyone. 

Mine, mine, mine, me, me, me.

I want this, I want that, for me.

And boom, that changed when my baby turned into a toddler, and I started to reclaim my life.

At first, I was so proud that I could take care of a baby, clueless, in a place where I had no family, and not hire a nanny or domestic helper. Every milestone, like a full two-year breastfeeding, teaching my son how to walk and talk, I feel like the award is mine and my husband’s only. But that changed when I decided to take one of my life’s major commitments in the Capital.

I need to fly at least once a month to Jakarta, and this mid-year I decided to bring my son along without my husband. Difficult decision because my husband needed to stay in Bali so we were apart for two months. The longest we ever had since we even ever met. There, my husband’s family helped a lot to take care of my son whenever I needed to go some places here and there. Doing things that I left in hiatus during my pregnancy and early motherhood.

Throughout my early motherhood, some people (especially my Dad), always asked me why I didn't hire a nanny to help out with my son. In his time as a new Dad, he hired two, one for my sister and one for me. I always thought that was just another Boomer’s question and way of thinking that we always need “low-paid labor” to do our job. But then I noticed it was their way of caring for me, that I wouldn’t be able to fully work or do things in my life if I only cared about caregiving. It was their way to ask: why don’t you have any help? You obviously need one.

But the answer is never a single option. I think hiring a nanny is one option, and for some people living in the past or a city with limited options (like there is no daycare), maybe this is the most reasonable one. When I was in the early process of reclaiming my old self, I indeed realized I can’t do this alone. My mother-in-law filled the void that my late mom left, and some other time, I left Bali on my own to do fieldwork, and there I found my husband taking care of our son on his own, with the help of our very nice daycare. It is true that it takes a village to raise a kid, and I am so privileged to find my village. My achievements are no longer exclusively mine. I got many help along the way.

This year I joined (read: trapped) in a public lecture on gerontology where two experts came in and gave a talk on how to age gracefully (well, healthier and happier). Turns out, recent studies have found that regularly helping with grandchildren can improve elders’ general health and well-being when the involvement is moderate and joyful. Those Western people who raise their eyebrows when knowing we’re Asians living with our parents and grandchildren are now the ones who learn something.

Evolutionarily, we know that one of the main reasons humans can survive is because we are able to work as a team. We are physically weaker than many large predators, so we rely on cooperation to thrive. And as a person studying social psychology, I dare to say, teamwork is never an easy task. To be a team player, “me, me, me” needs to be diminished. We need to think about others’ needs too. And this is a kind of public good game: imagine if each person in the group thinks about others, then no one will suffer.

Ironically, the older I become, the clearer the view I get. To see which person can be a true team player, the person who can diffuse themselves into the group. Sometimes I choose to turn a blind eye to it, but, truly, it hurts. But maybe the saying that we are all becoming a similar urban persona that is so individualistic is true. We really care about our mental health that we don’t care if it creates a situation of hurting someone else’s. We'll be asked to understand others’ situations workaround the clock while no one cares about our feelings. It’s becoming a weird teamwork: the most resilient ones, the ones who never complained, will be left to cry alone and have some big shoes to fill.

Last week, I got my son a wipe and clean activity book, and he was really excited. He used it for hours, and he didn’t care when the food was ready for dinner. My tired husband and I got angry, then we took his dinner and banned him from eating that night. He cried and sobbed, and most of the time he’s an easy baby and never has a tantrum. Not ever. The next morning, my husband and I realized that we were wrong, that he is just a small kid with a new book that he loves, and maybe we needed to give him time. We hugged him and apologized, admitting we were wrong, although we never knew if he was big enough to understand what we said.

Now I understand why having and building a healthy family is important for a human’s own self-development. It puts you in a group that you need to constantly thank, compromise, apologize, fight for and to each other. Imagine if each person in the group doing that in every difficult situation. That makes you humble, and when you receive it, you feel loved. And that’s how I shape a new worldview where I respect only those people who can brace a mea culpa to their teammates, regardless of their position to each other. Maybe, the Eastern teaching is not bad after all.

A “we”, over “me”.

The only Disney princess story I grew up with was Mulan. A powerful story, with no marriage becoming a solution for everything in life. Then, when I was around high school or early college, my Dad took my late Mother to China for a holiday (without their growin-up kids, pfft), and showed me very beautiful pictures of landscapes and trees, and I swore to myself that I needed to visit this country, and it should be an academic invitation rather than a holiday. I don't say having a holiday is bad, but I am curious about the thought exchange with their own people and having the opportunity to be introduced to their culture and food by their think tank. It's a different experience, you know. China is rising from the most populated country in the world "stigma" to a tech and economic giant, and I want to witness on my own what they do differently from us; how they think; what kind of life they are having; and so many more questions.

I hit the jackpot. I worked my ass off for a field that I thought wasn't interesting at all, but it is my principle that whatever work lands in my mailbox, no matter what the billing is, I will just do my best. It turns out that my effort was seen and valued; then, in the blink of an eye, I received an honorary invitation to speak at a high-level academic forum, in a field that I enjoy the most: museums and parks. The invitation was intended for my name only, and not to be exchanged with others. With adjustments to my packed personal schedule that month, leaving my toddler with my supportive husband at home, I finally stepped into the country of my dreams and one of the world's dinosaur hotspots: China.

There were so many fossils that even it was sold legally as a merch

It was relatively cold when I arrived in Chengdu, and I was picked up by a PhD student. He was not that fluent in English, but I could feel his excitement in taking care of me. The drive to the hotel took around one hour, and I was the first international guest to arrive. Who would have guessed that Sichuan and Bali now have a direct flight? A very interesting fact. The PhD student took me to a very nice breakfast, where we discussed developments and studying in China at length. He told me that nowadays having PhD in China is a good option as you will be well-paid, even enough for supporting a small family. There is no need for young generation to study abroad like in the past. He is also working at the Natural History Museum, where the main event was held, but he needed to take off first, then I had time to explore the city on my own before lunch. During that first lunch, the Impostor syndrome hit so hard. How come a young person with no real fieldwork experience in paleontology and geology, who has not even started her PhD yet, can sit with these people? Later in the dinner, the banquet was even more formal. It was a welcome dinner with high-level stakeholders who funded my travel and the overall event. I sat next to Chengdu Natural History Museum's director, a very energetic man named Tao Su, who was so kind that he even added my WeChat personally after the dinner. 

A table full of prominent figures (except me ofc) in paleontology and its conservation

Chengdu Natural History Museum at night, the design is mimicking mountains that surround the city. China does a good job in balancing their ancient cultures and modernity, I admit. I stayed at hotel across, so lucky.

A tour to Chengdu Natural History Museum and guided by the director himself. When else can I get this opportunity?

Over the next few days, I had the opportunity to be introduced by my number one female supporter at the moment (and I will be forever thankful to her for how she worked hard to ensure that I could join this event) to her peers, senior paleontologists. People who discovered dinosaur eggs and nests, or ancient cycas, or worked in a fossil museum for more than a decade. I kept asking what I was doing there, but I just placed my enthusiastic and confident face, and nothing else. Pretending I had no fear of being at their tables. I loved talking to them, but more than anything, I loved talking with the local museum staff and liaisons. Because who knew I could be fed up with the dinosaurs there, although the visit to the fossil and dinosaur museum and the National Parks was still thrilling? After a long 3-day symposium where I also delivered an oral speech, and then followed by 3-day field trip surrounded by dinosaurs and fossils, I enjoyed discussion over dinners or on the bus trip with the locals about other things in life and made some observations. That is what I will write more here, something beyond the dinosaurs.

A National Park that revives a fossil wood excavation site. The museum building's design behind is mimicking the fossil wood.

Real fossil woods placed as if a fossil forest reconstructed in its real location

Before departure, my colleague, who had completed her PhD at one of China's top universities, told me that China is notorious for theft and that people often avoid queuing. But now it is different. People are polite (not in a warm way), but they queue, and it is relatively safe. The line at airport immigration was so efficient, better than the US the last time I was there, and even the white Westerners seemed obliged to the officers (a rare sight in Bali, lol). The committee still warned us about how people might try to scam us online, though. However, I did not experience any pickpockets, unlike what I did in Malaysia. Chengdu is a big city with empty stores. Local students informed me that people nowadays buy almost everything online, except for food. That is why, no matter how far I walk, I will only find food stalls.

Chengdu, a city full of people and food

A chaotic but lovely wefie with experts from US, Thailand, Japan, and Cambodia. In broken English we unite!

Another interesting conversation was about money. There was one time that the local liaison was so surprised that I used Alipay in a gift shop (ofc I installed it I wanted to pay like local and it was so effin hard to find RMB in money exchange in Bali - I wondered why but now it's answered), saying that it is so rare that tourist will use app rather than cash. I explained to him how I worked in the IT industry before transitioning to environmental conservation and how Indonesia is also familiar with QR payment gateway, and before we knew it, we had long conversations about how young people thrive in China nowadays.

I feel belong to this museum and park group; they eat good food and talk about how to make it

He's around my age and married, with no kids. He said it is a common conception of being childfree in China because the youths start to think that children may bring no happiness in life, and they are fine with it. Additionally, China is shifting its focus from manufacturing to the tourism industry, as before COVID-19, the Chinese were relatively conservative with their spending and typically spent very little, allowing them to afford a house. However, after the pandemic, and in light of the realization that life is short, people began to think more about enjoying their lives and consider not owning a house as acceptable. This shift is huge, making China starts to spend a lot of money in renovating their museum and parks, change all the old directors to young, and mostly women, and this position is not for long; they will be at the office for 2-3 years or so, then replaced again, to ensure that there will be new approach and innovative ideas going on around.

The Zigong Salt History Museum

During the event, I had the rare opportunity to visit a salt mine industry museum in a National Park in Zigong, only to discover how ancient the industry of mining salt from the rocks is (yes, not from the ocean; Sichuan is far from the ocean). It might reveal the innovativeness of the ancient Chinese people and their conflict with Japan, but to me, it showcased the highest level of being human: thinking. When we face limitations in obtaining essential things in life and have no access to them, what do we do? We think. Cogito, ergo sum. To this day, I can still hate someone simply because they lack interest in improving their cognitive abilities. To not have a plan, to not think far the impact of their actions, to not think how others think. They don't realize that our strength as humans is only that we are able to think about thinking. In China, I witnessed that no matter how pissed off you can be with Chinese customs, you need to admit that their civilization is still top-notch in many things; from salt mining to cooking, and yes, I tried so many foods here that I never thought could be eaten before. 

A display reminding me Smithsonian Natural History Museum in DC

Tourism in China is so serious that they have even established a level in their parks. Specific level indicating the quality of the building, knowledge, protection, and system, and park or museum directors are competing with each other to achieve a higher level. It's becoming a prestige, and with this system, it is raising the standard automatically. People I met say that competition is so common in China, so you have to be the best in everything. It is a good climate for their industries. However, one person said that the government is there to help you. If you are laid off because your industry is obsolete, the government will provide you with training to enable you to work in a new industry, and they will also help build that new industry. 

The use of dinosaur robots in a museum owned by a businessman, located in the middle of his own manufacturing complex

After a very packed seven-day journey in China, I sat alone waiting for my flight back to Bali and thinking. Apart from realizing that I was a lucky bastard in life (to be visiting museums and parks surrounded by real professors and paleontologists who guided me), I questioned myself. Why is China serious about its dinosaur excavation and study? I conclude that it is to learn and make money out of it. They learn about its biology, mechanisms of bones, structure, and behavior. They copy it for their robot industry, then sell it to the world for tourism (and yes, Thailand has bought one of them). Or, to make it as an information to build their museum and sell the tickets, then give back to fund the scientific research. It's insanely smart - I think. However, from an ethical standpoint, it raises a question: do we need to profit from any discoveries made in science? 

Holding a ginkgo leaf in my hand and longing for my son and husband, I was questioning myself: Is it the only way to make science survive?

In the same place, captured by the same man, over the years from single-pregnant-having baby-toddler mom

The older I become, the more I think that time is one of the most powerful variables in this universe. Dozens of theories about it, countless philosophers trying to comprehend it, yet no one can make it in the direction that humans want. No wonder that in many movies, humans create a storyline about a villain wanting immortality, or the capabilities to stop or turn back time. Time just goes by in its merciless pace, turning the babies into elders and steel into rust.

In the last few years, I have been helping to popularize the field of paleobotany in Indonesia. Not gonna lie, I didn’t care that much at the beginning, seeing plants turning into rocks after a million years being exposed to water and minerals beneath us. But this mid-year, when I was busy prepping for its first-ever creative exhibition in Indonesia (and the first scientific exhibition that I curate in my life!), I realize something poetic.

The exhibition needed to be prepped as a part of a larger thematic exhibition about “library” (pustaka - in Bahasa Indonesia), so I needed to craft some storytelling angle to make those cold fossil woods equipped with the ability to “communicate” something, and I chose to make it a “library of time”. We all know how tree rings indicate the age of a (dicot & conifer) wood, mostly, but apparently, fossil wood does more than that. It captures and preserves time in its own body and petrifies its organic material into hard minerals. If you think about it, it is so poetic. Many tell us nothing is forever, but they are (at least for a million years). It made me contemplate life, about so little time we have compared to the time this Earth has passed.

How do we humans petrify the intangible memories? I have a grandmother with dementia (and many of my friends in my circle have parents with it too), and I started to think about how fragile our brains are in keeping millions of experiences that we had in the past. My grandmother no longer remembers that his husband, her son, and her daughter all have passed away, and she always thinks that I’m still in college. The only way humans can encapsulate those memories from fading away is really just to take pictures and videos. That is why, growing older, I never blame when I see someone taking so many pictures when traveling. Two or three decades later, those pictures will help us remember who we were and why we are here at this point in life.

Me being so pregnant and still needed to work at the fossil wood artisan

Again, this is the perk of having my foot in both STEM and social sciences, as both of them give a very deep and beautiful perspective of life. Recently, I also watched Tom Hanks’ movie “Here,” and it perfectly captures what I think about the relativity of time. When we were young, we thought we had all the time in the world, but when our significant others started to leave us and teach us about death, that perspective significantly changed. Losing my mom young and my first child in a miscarriage, I am grateful for all this knowledge and experience, which makes me enjoy life more and the pleasure of watching my son grow. I don’t have the ability to stop or preserve the time I spent with him and my husband; in the blink of an eye, he’s no longer a baby and running around the house trying to bite my husband’s foot, and I know in the next blink, he’ll be in college and we will be alone again in our house. I now can’t agree more with the saying, the days are long but the years are short.

Oh, time. The merciless and omnipotent force, with only a few who are fortunate enough to be able to petrify them forever.

PS. The exhibition is still ongoing until December 2025 in the heart of Bandung city. Please visit if you’re around.

Gonna miss this toothless smile

I learned from college that parenthood is one major moment in one’s life that will change the person’s entire worldview. People will change priorities, and it will make them closer to their parents as they have stepped in their parents’ shoes. Add it to the absence of my mother and miscarriage; I think my own parenthood experience has changed me entirely. One year surely passed by so fast, and yet today I still feel like seeing miracle on a daily basis, having a rainbow baby.

The world is not so kind to females who bear offspring. Like in the species that I’ve spent almost a decade working for, the Komodo dragon, the females guard their eggs for months without eating – sometimes from their own father, losing weight drastically. It is also ironic when I was pregnant and got flu – I couldn’t take any medicine – being pregnant was wild, tops it with being sick. When breastfeeding, my immune went down, and no matter how sick I was, I needed to keep breastfeeding to give immunity to my baby. When I think about it – it is so tormenting. Doing it all while still working stuff, and the only person who really knew you and understood how difficult the situation is is already gone. There were countless times I cried alone, missing my mother, thinking during breastfeeding at 3 AM if she would praise me that I am a good mother. Those times were so dark and lonely. Even lonelier than when I cried at her funeral. I remember the year 2018, the only year that I remember the whole timeline, the people involved and what they said or did, and the pain in the chest of how bad I said goodbye to the person who gave birth to me.

Gonna miss this moment

All that struggle with outbursts of emotion during breastfeeding and fatigue of holding a baby that keeps growing - now fades away. The darkest side of all those, I think, is how lonely it is to be a motherless mother, but you are still thankful for the experience of holding your own baby. I am beginning to understand why my mother and father did things the way they did, and it makes contact with one of them becoming more bearable every single day. Every day I woke up and saw how the face of my baby becoming different every day. He grows taller and bigger, heavier, and stronger. So strong that he only caught the flu once in his entire life for a year, and I am thankful for that. 

Suddenly, the crib doesn’t fit, the shirts are too small, the favorite food is rejected, and then he crawls, sits, and tries to stand. Everything changes so fast. I learned that motherhood gives you loneliness but also teaches you that changes are irrefutable. In the blink of an eye, he turns one - officially no longer a baby. I will miss those tiny feet and hands. 

They say it takes a village to raise a kid.

But still, the absence of the mother’s mother leaves a hole that can’t be filled. I forever long for my late mother, who’d congratulate me on raising a healthy son while cherishing every second I spent with my little, very own family. I want to share his milestone and laugh with someone who taught me to walk, too, but alas, she’s not here anymore. 

Gonna miss this birthday hike

Unless -  you have a good spouse. My husband does really lift half of the weight off of my shoulder. He shares domestic chores, and starting from my baby’s 7-8 months old, he started to cook almost all the food for the family. He ensures that I don’t feel lonely at times; and these things make life easier when I need to babysit the kid during the day to not missing anything of his milestone; and work on 3 jobs on the evenings or weekends. We even still have time for grocery time each Saturday and a skateboard session on Sunday for my husband while I stroll with my baby on the beach. We do believe this routine will change - as after baby, we have witnessed how change is the only thing that’s constant in life. 

Motherless motherhood taught me many things that I’d never imagined. I keep a promise to myself to never say goodbye when I am angry. I try to listen to someone’s reasons. I am beginning to see how free will and free mind are also a privilege. Raised in a conservative but still have a say in everything, and having the right to choose my own path is a huge privilege. And yes, it’s true that I am becoming closer to my father, and he has started to share things I never heard before - like how he bought a retirement property for my late mom and him, but now it’s just empty - he never thinks to rent it, it’s even still unfurnished after 6 years. Learning that things are only things - because when the person you share happiness with is gone, it means nothing. It’s true that happiness is only real when shared. So I try everyday to make the top priority in my schedule is “to be present for people whose presence I cherish”. You might lose a mother, but you are full of love by the new family that you chose to be with. Not to be forgetting a good mother-in-law, too, who treats you like her own daughter. 

We'll be back here, and he will be bigger, knowing more things than I do when that happens

My body has been back to the pre-pregnancy era, but my delivery scar is still there. Every morning, I look at it and am reminded of Louis Armstrong…

“I hear babies cry, I watch them grow 

They'll learn much more than I'll ever know

And I think to myself; what a wonderful world.”

When I was younger, I believed vicarious learning was the most essential type of learning of all. I mean, isn’t it amazing that our species can learn something from people’s experience, not our own? But when I experienced pregnancy, now I do believe that nothing beats experiential learning.

My husband and I made a decision at the beginning of our marriage that we weren’t ready for kids so we decided to postpone it for 2 to 3 years. I personally needed a very thorough and long thought for this decision. Answering the head’s questions like Why do I need a child? Will I be a good mother? What if one day, s/he grew up the way I had not expected?

Along the way, we learned that the maternity insurance scheme doesn’t work that flexibly, so we needed to try in our 1.5 years of marriage. Plus, I’m approaching the age of 30. After the screening test, we learned that we were fertile and everything was normal – thanks to our no-smoking & alcohol lifestyle, we successfully conceived on the first try during my fertile period. However, in the ten weeks of pregnancy, I started to bleed and rushed to the ER, finding out I got a blighted ovum in a few hours. There was no time to process the loss of our soon-to-be baby, so my husband and I decided to have a D&C procedure to make sure that all the tissue came out of my body. I was then run into the surgery room, and in the next few hours, my husband and I got home to cry out our loss.

This moment was life-changing. I started to do my own desk research on blighted ovum and found out the chance of this type of miscarriage happening is 50%, and lots of people experienced this. As there was no support group and I was super reluctant to blatant sayings about being patient from those who never had experienced these conditions, I spent a lot of time studying others’ journeys to cope with this kind of grief. Having a miscarriage is an unexplainable situation because I never knew why the baby wouldn’t grow. As there is no scientific assurance on its cause, it was more difficult to process rather than facing my mom’s fatal accident. There is no one to blame. Lots of other parents said even the loss will never get over until you have another kid because it was still a pregnancy, and we are losing our chance to hold our baby.

One of many things that changed in my life after the miscarriage was that I became more aware of what I wanted in life. I no longer hold the ambition to look for more projects and new opportunities; all seemed so faded. I immediately dropped around 10 leads of clients. The career peak of mine that I experienced in the last 2 years seemed no longer significant when I dealt with this. When I started to get pregnant, to be honest, because it happened so soon as we first tried to conceive, I didn’t realize how ready I was to be a parent. During the grieving period, I came to realize that no one is ever ready to be a parent, but losing a baby is as painful as when you really want to have one. I need to be ready, not wait to be ready. The other thing is I came to realize how dear my husband is to me and how he has so much love for me to consume. He was totally present at all times, leaving all the work behind, and stood by me at the hospital. He was always there when I was experiencing a breakdown again, and it made him the only single person on Earth I wanted to talk to. At some points, I felt that Earth did not exist anymore, just the two of us. 

After the experience, we talked a lot about our life and work. We came to realize that we gave too much to others that we didn’t get back as much as we gave. We decided to be colder and say no to many things or opportunities so that the burden of things is not on our shoulders anymore. I recalled that a specialized maternity nurse asked me in the ER whether I experienced stress or not, and I confidently said no. She replied, “It is often the stress that you are not aware of.” I think that was a wake-up call to be a kinder version of ourselves. Giving up on being “always available for work, and always giving the best at work”. I stopped to say hi first to family and friends because, typically, I would be the first to do so and listened to all of their stories without them asking mine.

I think hiring a maid is no longer a relevant thing these days, so I tried to do everything on my own despite the growing belly

We stopped trying for a while to give my body a good rest, and six months after the miscarriage, I got two lines on a pregnancy test. I was happy for a second, but then the anxiety stormed me without mercy. At 4 AM, I suddenly realized that I needed to get help. Then I read about emotional cushioning and found it’s what I felt. I hoped that it was not too serious that I needed to see a therapist.

For you who just experienced a miscarriage, here are for you; I hope these help because they did for me:

• Anxiety of Pregnancy after Miscarriage
• Michelle Obama on Miscarriage
• ‘How I Felt Being Pregnant, After My Loss’

And these are tips for you after having heard your relatives or friends had miscarriages:

• Take a pause; don’t immediately act. Say genuinely that you’re sorry to hear it, and ask if there’s anything you can help with. 
• Don’t tell them to be patient, or don’t worry, or just ask them to try again, or it’s God’s plan. Don’t ask why. It’s hurtful, has no point, and not helping at all. You’ll remind them of all the pain they felt and tried to leave behind.
• Unless you have no experience with miscarriage, don’t tell any story to them about miscarriage. Whether it’s your friends’ experiences or anyone else's. No, never. When you feel that you “know how it feels”, no, you don’t. So just give them a silent comfort.
• If you have experience with miscarriage, talk with them in private and ask how they feel. Then, after they tell their side of the story, share yours. I found it very relaxing to hear about my neighbors’ experience with miscarriage, and it really helped me to carry on. Unfortunately, support group is rarely available in Indonesia, so I only could read or watched people’s stories online and it did help me a lot to cope.

Second pregnancy that went so smooth

During this second pregnancy, I decided to drop off many job opportunities to be more focused on myself, my baby, my husband, and, of course, my cat - before he became the forgotten first child. My hub and I were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to finish all financial liabilities and debt at the beginning of this second pregnancy, so we can be more lax on thinking about money. I left only non-profit work on my plates, things that I enjoy the most and that are flexible, time-wise and emotion-wise. I started a new hobby to write drama series reviews and it helped me a lot to heal myself. I began to enjoy my Monday morning sipping milk with no weekly report and absorbing a great amount of Bali sunshine from my dining room.

Celebrating 7-months pregnancy with closest friends

I had the best time of myself, meeting old friends and hosting house parties, and found out that a lot of women around me actually experienced miscarriage in their first pregnancy. One that shocked me was my first mentor of grant-writing, a super kind American woman who worked for the US Embassy in Jakarta for several years, then moved to Montana, and is now happily married for decades with two young adult kids. I just knew that she experienced the same type of miscarriage with mine in the third month of her first pregnancy, and it was very common, too, in the US. 

3 months, Plaga Eco Park, Petang

During this period, I also witnessed the best quality of a man came out from my husband, who always drove me everywhere no matter how busy he was, who cleaned my feet during a bath because I no longer could reach them, cooked for me, did gardening stuff, and so on. He is everything I could ask for in a life partner, and I am blessed with his presence. I also found a new ally, a renowned paleobotanist from Thailand who works around the world and is a supportive woman, and together we are cooking something amazing. All the work, including publishing two papers, while being pregnant - and surprisingly, my regular big government client still hired me to conduct research at the end of my pregnancy; and I think, judging by their praise at the end of the project, I nailed it. 

4 months, Batur, Kintamani

I always have low anxiety when it comes to general quality of life, but this pregnancy really brought me the experience of anxiety. I constantly thought of whether he would survive and be happy, and even though every hospital visit and ultrasound said everything was okay, I often found myself thinking about a lot of things happening inside my belly. Every kick and punch the baby gave me became a short assurance that everything was okay, but then, hours later, I got that anxiety again. Beating this anxiety felt like another adulthood trophy, and I was never more proud of myself. I have never loved my body the same way I did when I was pregnant. And I just realized I looked good in pregnancy. No pregnancy nose, acne, or excessive fat. I gained 20 kgs, but it wasn't looked that way. Oh, I love being pregnant (though I am not sure I would love to go over it again).

5 months - Bali Botanical Park, Bedugul

Then it happened. After months of yoga to try for vaginal delivery, a week of constant late-night contraction, and almost reaching 40 weeks of pregnancy, my baby decided to stay in my womb. My hub and I decided quite quickly to get a C-section on Friday morning after Galungan festivities, and he was born into the world. My rainbow baby is big, beautiful, and healthy. Weighing 3.3 kgs, with no sign of abnormality or yellow skin, he stayed in my room for two consecutive days in the hospital, and we came home together. There was only my husband there, but the world had never seemed that peaceful to me. The first night was exhaustive because he had colic, but it taught me and my husband a lot of newborn care.

6 months - Nuanu city, Tabanan

Surprised me a lot how so many people were happy with him being born. We had so many gifts and guests, kind prayers, and even the whole neighborhood rallied when our car approached our house. Some closest neighbors even accompanied us to leave the hospital and helped us to prepare the things we needed for placenta burial. We got so many things for caring for the baby from gifts from around the world - from nuclear and extended family members, friends, colleagues, and neighbors - even though we already said that we needed nothing but prayer, but now I do believe in the saying: it does take a village to raise kids. My neighbors offered help to take care of the newborn (because they noticed my hub and I have no family in Bali, and we decided not to hire a nanny or domestic helper) and sent us food. I often think about what kind of things I have done to them that make them so kind to my little family. What could I ask for more than a caring neighborhood, attentive in-laws, a loving husband, and a wave of breastmilk that is more than sufficient to feed my baby - along with the privilege of a Working-from-Anywhere arrangement to be with my baby always?

Javanese-style placenta burial. All equipment was provided by our neighbors and my in-laws.

Tips for giving a present to a new mom:

• Food. Give a package of ease and comfort; the best are frozen foods because it will be sleepless nights and too much to cook.
• High-pitch and contrast toys to stimulate the newborn.
• Nursing pillow for supporting mom’s weak muscles when feeding.
• I also suggest visiting the new mom (if the baby is healthy) at the hospital because she doesn’t need to serve you anything, and there is a feeling for you to just make a quick visit. If you plan to visit at home, confirm first and be on time! A new mom, especially when she has no help from family or nanny, struggles with schedules.

What is intriguing for me is the biology part. I came to realize that we humans are biological creatures, after all. Sometimes, the reason to have kids is just a force of nature, just like sex. But as social and highly intelligent creatures, we tried so much to redefine everything based on social constructs. For example, when medical research has found it is best to have kids before the mother (and father, actually) reaches 35 years old, we denied it so hard to say that it is okay to have kids whenever you are ready, even if it is late in life (do the math: how old will you be when your kid still need financial support to thrive? Will you be fit enough to carry a newborn and have never-ending sleepless nights?). 

Our first-day rodeo. The hospital was so good that it allowed new moms with healthy babies to spend all days and nights with their babies in the same room.

There are things that we can’t socially reconstruct, and it is best for yourself and your baby’s health to reproduce at a certain age. I have witnessed the wonder of the ovarium healing fast after curettage and getting to develop organs later, in the same year, and then shrinking fast after the baby gets out. I lost 10 kgs in only 3 weeks after the labor and almost went back to my prepartum weight in 4 months. I have experienced how my breast is pumping milk so fast whenever I hear my baby crying or holding him dearly, and it feels so sore yet fulfilling. If it isn’t the wonder of the biology of my prime time to breed and the evolution process, then what is it? (P.S. Did you know that breastmilk production will match the baby's needs? The fat produced in breastmilk for premature and mature baby is different. Isn't that crazy?)

Earlier this year, I finished a book written by the legendary Yei Theodora Izaki titled “Japanese Folktales”. I couldn’t help but notice that so many Japanese tales teach the reader to forgive and make peace, rather than to seek revenge. This is so contrasted with the ‘katakiuchi’ (blood-revenge) culture back in the Samurai era. Or maybe, because it is so rare yet desired, lots of these tales try to reach people’s hearts to forgive their past enemies. One of the stories is about a daughter who finally made peace with her stepmom, and it was only possible through the mirror that her late mom passed down to her, saying that she would always be with her daughter through the mirror, so she should not worry anything in the future (while actually what the daughter saw was herself, but getting older to be more like her mom).

Speaking of revenge, this month marked the fourth year my mom passed away. She died in a road accident, where according to witnesses, two young bikers hit her and ran away. Last year I watched a Korean drama series titled “Taxi Driver” with the premise of serving justice for people who had been mistreated and faced the dull edge of the law. There was a dialogue; “why is it better to lose 100 killers than to convict 1 wrong person? Where’s the justice for the families of 100 who were murdered?”. God, this dialogue is genius. Korean drama is always successful in highlighting pieces of life and unanswered questions, compared to Western drama, which always provides a clear closure. Just like the latest “The Batman”, where Batman evolved from “the vengeance” into the assistant of justice. When I reflect on my Mom’s case, no one in my family even has the desire to seek the truth - about who killed her really. There was no anger or rage. Despite all the painful cries, none of us tried to ask the nearest convenience store for its CCTV recording, to even run a vehicle registration plate check. 

So what if, I ever meet those two people again in my life? Will I report them to the police or just close my eye and doesn’t leave the world goes blind for not giving an eye for an eye? Is it enough to have them apologize? But really, what does apologize mean when it comes to an old pain? Take a simple case where politician Arteria Dahlan asked a law enforcement staff to speak Indonesian rather than Sundanese in an official meeting. I rarely find myself agreeing with him, but I can understand the statement. Arteria was asked to apologize, and he was okay with it. I found it very, very strange. Being alienated in a meeting or social situation with intense discussion in a language you don’t understand is painful. It’s a form of ostracization that is only the power capable of doing so. How about people that are being alienated? Who’s gonna apologize to them? This is why I never like being a part of the majority, because I see crimes and abuse of power because of the majority's influence, regardless of the identity that makes them a majority - race, religion, or anything else. So should we take revenge on these people by alienating their members when we are the majority, and they aren’t? In my opinion, I would rather move to a society like NTT province, whose hundreds of local languages, but decided to unite with Bahasa Indonesia and forget that society that alienated me. Everyone in NTT, no matter how secluded a community is, is able to speak Bahasa. I won’t waste my time trying to make peace with those abusers or try to blend in. I would forget those people as if they never existed, so they don’t need to apologize because I will rise above the pain on my own.

And that’s maybe what I will do with my Mom’s killers. I will let myself live my life on my own as myself, who is not vengeful, or trying too hard to be better than my enemies. I will seek out a life that I’m happy with, and that’s when my revenge ends. If I meet the two killers on the road, I will pass by as if they've never been born in this world - while I’m living a happy life and enjoying every single moment.

Wherever I'll go in the next chapter of life, I'll surely miss Bali's Makoto Shinkai sky

Here it comes again; a biannual state where a little part of my brain starts to re-contemplate all the life choices I’ve made and which path I’d like to take moving forward. I’ve been bragging about my multi-worlds to everyone - that I do science as well as a true scientist, and I do involve myself in various for-profit industries and politics. But late at night, or whenever I find myself sitting alone in the airport or a cafe, among these worlds, what kind of world do I want to be in eternally? I’ll be celebrating the age of 30 around a year from now, and which part of me I’d like to see is still there and not?

I’ve been talking about this with my husband lately, and I found something funny. He took selfies as he grew older, and he said he felt better about himself than when he was younger. This is the total opposite of women. A woman grows insecurity when she grows older, with wrinkles on her face and body that are different from her youth. The decision to have or not to have kids, to pursue her ambitious dream, or just stay low and be happy in her daily routine. And I’m standing in this crossed path. I have everything in my hand to choose one good path; some first-author publications and ongoing grants to pursue an academic career, some good portfolio and recommendations to pursue a commercial industry position for life or any other good thing that I could be. I am so privileged with a supportive husband, closest friends, and advisors. Financially and mentally stable at this young age, nothing I could ask for more. But I know that life can change easily in one finger snap. So this is my insecurity, asking if it is time to take only one path and be fully dedicated to it, or not take any and be a generalist for the rest of my life?

I don’t know. Lately, I have taken an extra day off on Friday so I can have time on my own to watch my favorite crime dramas or just pick out clothes that I’d like to donate. Thinking that, sometimes, being a stay-at-home wife would not hurt for a year or two. There are so many things that I like to do, but it’s hard to find that I really like that I would willingly spend my entire life doing it. My childhood dream was to be a detective and a data-driven strategist, and it has been fulfilled every single day. Finding the exact problem and trying to solve the puzzle. This has been enough. But as silly as it be, the puzzle and questions of life are even harder to be solved.

For example, a major question I’d like to find the answer to is whether it’s time to be back home or not. Bali offers a lot; peace, slow life, and the privilege of having a house within 10 minute drive from beaches or mountains. In Bali, I learned the importance of work-life balance for the first time in my life. But two years of the pandemic, limiting my activities showed me that being close to people I dearly care about is more important. It’s so sad to be absent from all your best friends' weddings or their big day, it really is. My younger version, who traveled around the world alone, wouldn’t understand this, but as I watch my parents and friends getting older, distance is becoming one major consideration. I visited a long-time high school best friend, who picked me up from the airport when my mom died, and now is pregnant. It’s such a shame that I missed her wedding (well, she missed mine too, but because her father passed away on the exact same day), but I actually don’t want to miss it when she’s giving birth. 

Is this the right time to go back to where I truly belong?

There are more and more questions in my head, and I failed to find the answer… will I be a good mother? Or will I be a strongly committed person to marriage as it is portrayed in Netflix’s documentary “My Love”? Will everything be fine with continuous climate disasters and disease evolution? Will I be able to be there when my Dad is on his deathbed, not like when my Grandpa passed away some months ago?

Long faces after a long flight and train journey just to visit our beloved family and friends

After spending 3 weeks around my family in Central Java and the Capital, I felt homesick for my house in Bali, not because it’s Bali -- because it is my home, where I have my life with my husband and a grumpy cat. Had this house been located anywhere else, it would have felt the same. 

And in that Terminal 3, the biggest but coldest terminal in Soekarno Hatta, I said to myself, there will be a time I won't be here again waiting for my flight to Bali. Weird because that felt fine. Maybe, all the answers to my questions - it’s just about time. By the time it happens, I would lead myself towards the door - and I know it would be myself alone. Because what I know is there is no one in this world that has the answer to all our questions except ourselves. What makes it maybe different is that we have another hand to hold, and it’s comforting.

Today I celebrated my wedding anniversary with my husband. All this time I’ve been married, I am surprised at how more often I was asked why I decided to get married rather than congratulated for being married. I think my friends often see me as a free-spirited person rather than someone that actually really appreciates commitment, but considering how I spent my youth, that view is totally acceptable.

Previously I often felt afraid to write about my marriage and romantic relationships. I had the experience when I deeply loved some people whose minds inspired my works and wrote about them (sometimes in this blog), but then they let me down. At some point in life, I decided to stop relying my happiness on something or someone. That was liberating, very much actually. Blessed me, I found someone that is mature enough to feel the same way while still can appreciate my presence. And that was when I decided to marry that guy.

Someone said to me once that becoming an adult means to take decisions that we never know where they’ll take us. We never know whether we’ll be happier or dismayed, but we take the risk. That sentence, which was said to me in fieldwork - in the middle of nowhere, left a deep influence on me. No one will ever actually guide us in adulthood. Parents will give advice that might work for their generation but not ours. Mentors would never see from our own eyes. Friends would only give some friendly suggestions because maybe they are afraid to hurt you, to tell the truth. So we are on our own. My discussion with my then-boyfriend was that marriage is a good thing for us to learn to be together in this journey and to have each other’s back whenever things go wrong. And that’s all; there was no romantic proposal or flowers. Just a quick discussion after having some personal time to think about it. That’s a decision my husband and I will never know whether it will end sound or be bitter.

After years of spending time with this person, I realized that a healthy relationship is hard work between two people. We came from very different circles and worlds, but we decided to compromise. When I got a call from my lead researcher to get on a plane soon to help him in the field, he let me go because he tried to understand what are the most important things to me. We back each other to cook if the other one is busy with meetings or video calls. We compromise with each other’s weaknesses and take it as a daily joke. He’s not romantic to society’s standard - but I think there is nothing more romantic than when one doesn’t understand the academic world but is genuinely happy when I gets my scientific article published or a funding request granted. Without the need to feel competitive or belittle my smallest achievement, I am sure this is what a healthy relationship feels like. Without the promise or complex conversations on feminism, he always helps with the chores and feels the obligation to share any domestic responsibilities equally. And the best part is that he always takes good care of me whenever I'm sick (my Dad said someone who really loves you is not the one who's there when you're healthy, but when you're sick, and it's true).

I hope it’s not too much to say that I still hang on to my speech at my wedding dinner, that I agreed to marry him because though we have everything in the world to be different, we have similar fundamental values of life, and that’s enough. This is a person that I can say is done with himself, that I would say has a way of thinking similar to an F1 driver that doesn’t want to drive on a public road - because he’s afraid to speed up the car and kill someone. He is my daily reminder to always acknowledge my own limits and what I am capable of, and that is far more important to me for becoming a better human being rather than wordy love letters.

Happy anniversary, my love. I am privileged to have you.

I hadn't touched this machine for more than 4 years. Didn't expect that it still worked well and I remembered how to operate it.

The Vatican at Night

My boyfriend always complains if I mention him as an artist. He has a rigid distinction between artist and designer - and he chooses to be the latter one. In his humble opinion, the artwork is something multi-interpretative, and it really depends on the eye of the beholder. Sometimes, the psychological condition of the audiences also contributes to defining the art they see. On the other hand, the designer is someone who helps audiences to understand a matter with ease and hopes to help their life get easier, too. For him, good designers are those who provide beautiful yet memorable and usable things. As an impact, he is not a fan of art installations and galleries because he has trouble getting the meaning of an artwork, and he feels helpless every time he's in it. And for months, we have had good times together both outdoors and indoors, but we never visit an art exhibition together.

I got a clear picture of his stance after finishing a book by Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things. In this book, Norman brilliantly explains how to design failures happen every time, everywhere. He invented "The Norman Door", a condition when you find bad doors which you can't identify whether you should pull or push. He also notes that if you don't understand how something works, don't blame yourself - blame the designer. I actually bought this book because my boss asked me if I am interested in being more involved in our Human-Centered Design projects, but after finishing this book, it even gets me into a bigger question that I need to answer: have I been a good designer at work?

I've been designing for conservation and environmental issue since 2011 - around 8 years already. I remember that my first masterpiece was the symbol of Greenpeace Youth, a subgroup of young activists of Greenpeace Indonesia. Back in 2012, I was actively engaged with a bunch of energetic young people who were willing to spare their busy time at college to do something for the environment. It came to my surprise that when I visited the Greenpeace office in Jakarta in 2018, a big banner of this logo was still in their big meeting room. I was proud, but then re-questioning myself if this design represents the group and is able to explain to the audience what the group fights for without the need to explain? But then I remember times when my boyfriend critiqued me when I was designing tourism and a Komodo dragon flyer for Komodo National Park; he emphasized that what matters in design is that the audiences understand. Extravagant drawings or colors might help our design to be stunning - but sometimes, it doesn't help at all.

Campuhan Ridge Walk

This is my fourth time in Bangkok, but this is the first time I feel at home in this busy city. This city has grown so fast since my first visit in around 2012 - they even have taken serious steps in waste management. I went to a festival on my own to find the only exciting thing was that the government provided clear plastic bags assisted by two officers, which made throwing waste away even much more manageable. I don't feel that I can get lost or confused by the language. Even though the language is still a challenge here, I find more and more Thai people speak English very well. I've even mistaken one of them for a foreigner, as she speaks in a very Los Angeles accent. I always feel happy to be in such an intense event attended by a high diverse composition of people - and to see these people, no matter what their races, language, or beliefs are, work for the same goal: reducing demand for illegal wildlife products. I feel energized every time I sit at the airport gate, waiting for my flight home like this. Reminiscing all my take-home learning. But as I mistook a young lady as non-Thai because of her accent, my biggest learning this time is: I need to fight my own stereotype.

Someone said to me that "how to make indigenous people be appreciated (in many ways) in the country" is million dollar question - well turns out it is not. I sat down on a morning having breakfast with Megan Hill, NRM Specialist for USAID in their HQ (and she's from Montana!), and she said that after working in some of the developed countries around the world, she found that Paraguay is a country that has succeeded in terms of embracing their indigenous culture. People in that country are proud of their indigenous heritage culture. They even make their indigenous language a National language - and it is true, according to this article. She said that is indeed a very rare case. Paraguay even has a constitutional framework in which the rights of indigenous peoples are recognized. I checked this and found that Chapter V of the 1992 Constitution of Paraguay deals with indigenous rights, where Article 62 recognizes the pre-existence of the indigenous peoples, defined as “groups from earlier cultures” at the time of the country’s founding. Article 63 recognizes and guarantees the right of indigenous peoples to preserve and nurture their ethnic identity, to follow their own political, social, economic, cultural, and religious norms, and to be bound of their own free will by their customary laws in internal matters. Many details of indigenous rights and statutes on other issues are included: Act No. 43/89 provides regularization of indigenous settlements and Act No. 323/107 on indigenous education. Other issues like agriculture and criminality are also covered. This framework is not perfect, yet they are very progressive in making more effort to refine it.

Another case is that in this event, a member of the Vietnam National Party came and attended all sessions. The last day is an optional day, so the fact that she is attending a workshop for Social Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) surprises me, and she got my respect. Many others chose to enjoy Bangkok - which is totally acceptable, but she was there and paid attention to the session even though she needed help from an interpreter. Having a working experience in the past with Vietnamese people, I am fully aware that they have a high level of conscientiousness - but I didn't expect that even the party members do the same. I am pretty sure that this Nation is going to be big someday.

Last but not least is the Western. Being colonized for such a long time might affect how we Asian see Westerners as intellectual people - powerful ones. In one session, a British behavioral change expert who works with UK and Singapore governments presented a lot of social psychology and behavioral economics theories and didn't mention participant bias in his presentation at all. We all know in psychology, the majority of studies published in journals have WEIRD (Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries). This makes these theories and studies hard to be generalized or used in Asian countries and even the rest of the world. Then I was surprised that a Western woman then brought the issue up, and after that, this man admitted that flaw. This is crucial as I don't think the public is aware that these studies will fit in the Asian context simply not because they are stupid, but it is more because they don't have a scientific background. In the last day workshop, my trainer - a white man who works for a social cause in Bangkok also mentioned this flaw after he explained the theories around SBCC. I got the chance to talk to a BCC specialist from the Philippines who worked for more than 28 years to promote healthy behavior and also said that we in Asia face so many different challenges and contexts which can't be answered with Western theories. At the end of the day, doing and failing in a program is the sole answer for us to grow and understand better. And a note - even though Western societies are already moving forward with issues like racism, stereotype, and prejudice, universities like ETH Zurich - one of the top world universities, still face the racism problem towards Asians. But it was a nice experience to know that other Westerns acknowledge their own bias.

This learning is far greater effective learning than one in my classroom back in 2012 when I first heard the concept and basic theories of stereotype and prejudice. I hope more and more teachers and lecturers encourage their students to go beyond the classroom and find their own learning outside.

Don Mueang,
December 1st, 2018