I was always never asked to go on family outings when I was a child, whether on a picnic or a trip of town, because I used to get terribly carsick. It was a bother for everybody else to have me along as at some point, despite the carsickness tablets, the plastic bags always handy and the occasional stopping of the car while I threw up and emptied my stomach at the side of the road, having me around in the car with my pale face and tortured expression somehow made the trip less fun for others.

Hence, while all the other children (namely my older sister and two cousins) would pack into the back of the American made Volkswagen with its left steering-wheel and flower power car stickers on the doors, chattering with excitement and so looking forward to going wherever it was my mother decided to take them to (my mother was the family driver), I would be either left behind or dropped back home (if I was in the car already) - waving goodbye, forcing a smile, pretending I was not disappointed or did not feel unwanted or left out.
Until one day, my parents (who were both university people) decided that I could come along on a special outing to the seaside of Pangandaran. I had never travelled out of town so far away, let alone seen the sea before. And this was an outing different from everything else. It was a faculty outing. A coach full of students, both my parents and with me as the only child privileged enough to be asked along.

Yes, I felt truly special. I was honoured and ecstatic. With no other children to poke fun at my carsickness and my lack of travel experience, I felt free from fear and trepidation. I was the centre of attention when the students needed amusement and someone they could shower their affection upon.

My parents made sure I was well prepared for the trip and would not inconvenience anyone with my travel sickness and I got on the coach armed with packets of travel sickness pills and plastic bags should I felt the need to vomit. Since the trip to Pangandaran beach took a good few hours with many a dizzying turn, I emptied my stomach with regularity even when there was nothing left to throw up. I was not a bother to anybody but the bus journey itself became one long agonising, saliva-swallowing torture followed by the heady relief when I finally succumbed and surrendered myself to the plastic bag.

The journey finally ended. We had reached the destination. By this time the sun was almost setting. Exhausted, weak and bereft of all enthusiasm and energy, I struggled to my feet and jumped down shakily onto the ground. It felt soft and gave way beneath my feet.

My father called me to consciousness and pointed to the sight ahead as if he understood my suffering and my need for reward after the long and arduous trip.Before me the sky was on fire as the sun was rapidly sinking in the horizon behind a stretch of moving water the likes of which I had never seen before. Dark moving sheet of water, twinkling in the burnished red light and constantly pulsing like solid object to a rhythm of a steady heart beat – coming and going, coming and going – with a sound like strange music to my unfamiliar ears that would keep me mesmerised for many
days after.

Then it was reaching towards me, touching my toes and the air smelled of salt. All the tiredness left my body. The sound, the smell, the feel of the yielding ground beneath me, suddenly I felt I was somewhere else, somewhere I had never seen before, in another world, on another planet.

A world so infinitely beautiful that word escaped me. Even my feelings were lost to me.

‘This,’ my father said, ‘is the sea.’

Desi Anwar
Senior Anchor &
GM Marketing and Business Development
Metro TV, Jakarta