A few days ago I went back to my hometown, Mojokerto, a small-ish city just around 1-2 hour away from Surabaya, for a brief visit due to Chinese New Year thingy. Yep, we are still celebrating it even though maybe it’s really just an excuse to get together once a year with all the family(ies). We always did this kind of thing year after year on Chinese New Year and it became a ritual or a habit of some sort. It’s that one day when all of us put aside our busy life to spend a day with our Grandparents in Mojokerto.
Just like the years before, this year too, we continue the ritual of gathering in oir grandparents’ house and had some lunch together. Well it was a very big lunch indeed, but it has to be to feed all of us. And so it went just like usual, big lunch done, we went for small talks between family members and took a lot of photos, stole short naps here and there, and basically just spent the day together.
As usual too, my family was the last to go home. I didn’t understand why, but it has always been like this every year. So we went home when it was already dark (around 7 p.m.-ish). As my car passed down the still busy road, I saw an old man walking around his half-closed store leisurely. He strolled around leisurely and seemed to be tidying up his things before he went through the door and I lost sight of him.
At that time this weird feeling struck me. I started to imagine what it feels like to live in a city like this. Where time seems to slow down. Compared to the busy and bustling Surabaya with its fast life and fast everything, maybe it will be nice to just laid back and enjoy life in a much slower pace. Sure, it won’t be that easy and peaceful, but I just can’t help but imagine how it would feel like to actually open a small shop in the morning, closing it in the evening and then just have a nice warm tea while lounging around in a fluffy sofa. Well that’s just my imagination talking as always.
Maybe when I’m ready to retire and just enjoy life without thinking too much, I will just run away to a small and quite secluded town to just live the rest of my life. Sigh.
별처럼 - Like a Star 