Mind Over Matter

Hari ini setelah sekian tahun menikah dan sekian hari pakai headscarf asal2an, suami saya mendadak bilang 'you look beautiful today' (Ini amat sangat jarang terjadi, percayalah. Dia tidak enteng pujian, saya alhamdulillah juga tidak mupeng dipuja-puji.) Hari ini saya dan Noah Dmitri Budiman menemukan kesamaan baru; sama2 hobi main kata bikin pantun. Jadi seru krn kosa kata Bhs Indonesia Noah tidak sebanyak Bhs Inggris. Hari ini Nahla Jasmine Budiman pamer dance utk acara graduation-nya tgl 2 Juni nanti. Masya Allah sebentar lagi si cantik sudah kelas 1 SD. Hari ini Jacob Averroes Budiman menemukan kata baru 'siri awan' (maksudnya sariawan) dan bangga bibirnya sakit. He is weird that way. Meanwhile... Hari ini seorang istri menangis karena terpisah dari suaminya. Sepulang rumah ia harus kembali menjadi sunber kekuatan anak2nya. Hari ini tiga orang anak tidak bisa berjumpa dengan ayah mereka untuk saling bercerita tentang hari mereka. Hanya bisa bertemu dalam

To my nearest and dearest, Today I went to work wearing my hijab. Just as last Friday, today was also a learning experience for me. There are still so many matters I need to sort out before I can finally say that I have fully committed myself to going under the cover of hijab everyday. I still have my struggle as well as concerns; albeit the joy of knowing that I am doing what is right. It is so much for me to process only in such short time. I got so many positive reactions from people I met today and I truly appreciate it; however, praise from others is not what I am after. I fear it will in fact stray me away from the real purpose of covering up, that is to be consistently modest. What my husband said actually summed up a large chunk of what I felt the whole day. He said 'You look like someone I have never met before. You look completely different, and yet you are the same. It has nothing to do with beauty, you just look different. Like I am talking to you right now but you

After few weeks of contemplation and discussion with very few people I trust about this matter, last night I finally put on a hijab for the first time ever. Please understand that I meant it to be a trial experience for me. I know very well how impulsive I can be sometimes and how it often landed me in hot water; making unwise decisions without knowing enough. So for something as important as putting on hijab, I wanted to be able to make a sane and wise personal decision so only myself would be held accountable for it. So, please do not expect me to start wearing hijab daily. I don't want to do it for other people, I want to do it for me. That, I believe, would allow the whole experience to be more meaningful. So right now I just want to write about the short experience of covering up for the very first time. I will skip the part where I spent nearly 30 minutes trying on different ways to wrap the pashmina around my head, trying on different styles and ways of wrapping to find t