roadtrip...

Last week I had to go to Jogjakarta to supervise a photo session. I was offered to travel by land by the photographer, my good friend and distant cousin Anton Ismael. It was going to be a 10 hours drive and I was thinking, cool.

Little did I know that the journey would wake something within me.

It was a clear night, we already left Jakarta about 2 hours before. I sat in the back seat, looking at the passing cars and the dark landscape. I slowly closed my eyes. Suddenly I wasn’t there anymore.

I was thrown into a distant past,

It wasn’t a Suzuki APV machine that I was hearing, it was a race-modified Datsun SSS that was humming in my ears. I wasn’t surrounded by my team anymore. It was just the two of us.

It was me and my father.

I could almost smell his cologne, slightly mixed by the tobacco scent. I could hear his voice, sometimes lightly cursing to the trucks that were moving slowly. I could feel my adrenaline rising at the times he stepped into the pedal, changing abruptly the gear and I could almost see his smile everytime he succeeded passing those trucks.

I could feel him beside me.

I suddenly remember conversations that we had during the journey, our anxiety to see mother who was doing her training in Jogjakarta and knowing that in merely few hours, we would be all hugging in the front of that Training Center in that city’s suburb area.

That was déjà vu number one.

We had a photo session on a beach; Parang Kusumo beach more precisely. We were waiting the sun to come down and let me tell you, the area was surreal. It was a dune of sands with scattered dry plants. I was sitting there and smoking when it suddenly came to me.

I went there before.

It was my last trip with my parents. I remembered the seemingly endless dune and the indigo clear sky. I remembered the air, the wind and the subtile scent of the sea. I remember the fine texture of the sand in my hand as I was playing with it.

I remembered the distant shout.

It was my parents having an argument. My father snapped at my mother and I remembered I looked at them, but I didn’t want to interfere. I remembered their silhouette sitting on the top of a small hill. And I stayed where I was, playing with the sand.

And suddenly I was teleported back in the present.

It was a strange sensation, having a trip that took me into the proverbial memory lane. Somehow I felt them close to me at the moment. Closer than usual.

The photo session finally ended, everybody cheered and we all took a group picture. It was a job well done.

As we all walked back to the car, the sun finally settled down, I looked back to the hill.

I could’ve swore they were there, waving their hand and smiling at me.

And I smiled back.

I miss you both...