I’ve been thinking about Letto’s Ruang Rindu. Not the melody, but the weight of it. There’s a secret hidden in the lyrics. Something about the space between us and the Divine. It finally made sense of the silence I’ve been living in.
I’ve finally stopped long enough to realize it. I’ve spent too much time paddling upstream, trying to force closeness I thought I could own.
But that image of the leaf, it has been haunting me.
A leaf doesn’t argue with the river. It doesn’t stress about the rocks or bends. It just sits there. It lets the flow decide. It’s a terrifying kind of surrender.
We think that if we aren’t “doing” something, we’re failing. If we don’t feel the Light right here, right now, we’re drowning.
But maybe we’re just being carried.
the drift
Sometimes the water is wide and dead silent. I mistook the silence for absence.
You feel stuck.
Nowhere.
That’s the Ruang Rindu, the gap where the shore is too far to touch and the water feels cold.
It's easy to panic, easy to feel abandoned.
But a leaf isn’t “left behind” by the tree just because it’s in the water now. It’s just on a different part of the journey. The distance isn’t a wall; it’s the path.
no control
My hands are finally off the oars. There’s a quiet peace in admitting I’m not the one steering.
The same water that carries you through sweet, close moments carries you through the ache. It’s the same river; it hasn’t changed. Only my perspective has.
When the current rushes and the spray hits your face, that’s intimacy. When it slows and you’re drifting under a grey sky, that’s longing.
And longing is just love holding its breath.
the end
Eventually, the river goes where it goes.. beyond what I can see.
I’m done splashing. It’s a slow unlearning.
I’m learning to just be the leaf. To trust that the Ruang Rindu isn’t where I’m lost.. it’s what’s keeping me afloat.
It’s a lonely drift. But it’s the only way home.
