FRIDAY NIGHT WITH RUBY WOO

It’s Friday night and I’m in the mood to let my locks fly. Various multi-faceted life events of weeks gone by had started to that their toll, and I need a temporary release from it all. So when Kumi, my Japanese friend called to say that she’d be in town on Friday, we immediately committed to getting together for dinner. I’d spent most of the day looking forward to our rendezvous.

As I got dressed, I could feel my enthusiasm growing. I smiled to myself, decades gone by I took partying for granted. Now, at the supposedly ripe old age of 40, each time that I hang out with my younger colleagues and am able to rise to the occasion, I give myself a chuffed pat on the back. What’s age got to do with anything? Everything and nothing really, depending on how you look at it. It’s my 4 year old self that manages to balance and keep the 40 year old ‘sane.’

In recent times, I’ve noticed an increasing attraction to the color red. This fascinates me, given how much I hated it as a child. Whenever I wore red then, I’d always get into fights. My mother knew to never buy me anything red. I guess I had to ‘grow up’ to appreciate its vibrant impact on me.

One girlfriend of mine brought [it] to my attention a few years back – ‘you take on a whole different personae whenever you’re dressed in red,’ she commented. Upon reflection, I see that I can only wear red when I feel secure, grounded and confident. It’s the one color that brings my daring Lioness to the foreground. There’s no hiding for me when I’m clad in red.

Dressed in red, I become a magnet – for good and bad. This was abundantly clear to me by the end of the evening.

After dinner at Blowfish – the latest addition to Jakarta’s ‘hot spots’ – it is an exquisite Japanese restaurant catering to the pallet as well as the sub-conscious through its subliminal ability created by its ambience, lighting, décor and music, our diverse group proceeded to the adjoining lounge to begin our adventure. It never ceases to amaze me that Indonesians don’t dance.

Non-conformists and true to form, Kumi and I just took off! Mischievously, I began taking the sprinkles out of the huge vase on a banister before me and scattered them across everyone who remained totally oblivious to my childish antics. The bouncer, frazzled by my frivolity, didn’t know what to do with me. Clearly, he took himself and his profession way too seriously!

Our appetites whet for the night that lie ahead, we exited Blowfish and headed for what I later learned to be a place called Stadium; one of Jakarta’s primary spots for nightlife decadence. As I’ve traveled the world, I’ve come to learn that if you really want to know the spirit of a city, you have to check out how it transforms itself after dark. Jakarta’s freaks and vampires were in full effect in this sordid spot.

No sooner had we arrived, we positioned ourselves on a little balcony overlooking the myriad of people who all seemed to be in some sort of hypnotic trance totally immersed in the pulsating music. Clearly infectious, we too were quickly engulfed in the beat, bopping this way and that. Freeing myself from the restriction of my navy pin stripe blazer – entirely inappropriate for this locale – and the attachment to my [red] purse, I placed both items at my feet.

As I moved and grooved, I started to write a story – perhaps this one even – though I had no idea how it would all end while I danced and scripted. Every moment in life presents the artist – be it the painter, the writer or the musician – with an opportunity to tell a story. The more my body loosened up, so too did my mind, and I amused myself with the story of the Frenchman who clearly attracted to me fled our posse too early in the evening. But perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing given that I could feel my wild, decadent, unbridled self on the verge of making a debut at Stadium.

What seemed like only a moment later, I bent down to check that my belongings were in tact, only to find that someone had nicked my purse, right before my very eyes. ‘Ah, here’s my cue to check out,’ I said to myself, ironically relieved. Knowing myself fairly well, I could tell from the energy brewing between my dance partner and I that ‘trouble’ lurked on the horizon.

Listening to my inner voice at the start of the evening, I had chosen to travel light, carrying only my hand phone, a credit card, an ATM card and my newly acquired red lipstick, MAC’s Ruby Woo. I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked my Higher Powers for having guided me earlier to listening to my gut.

A few telephone calls later, the cards were cancelled and the phone blocked. That bloody phone – it had been trying to separate itself from me for the past few days – first the number was blocked ‘in error’ by the phone company, and then right after that, I’d left it in someone’s office. The message was now LOUD and CLEAR: time for purging – to let go, wipe the slate clean and create space for new communities.

But alas, what will be more difficult to replace is my red lipstick! Red, the color of life, that lipstick was/is an intrinsic part of me and who I’ve become – the bold, courageous, mystical diva who dared to give her inner child permission to come out and play!