✦ 1. Bismillah — and a Word That Changed Everything
Bismillah…
I want to begin with a word that once opened a whole world for me: dream.
A word that sounds simple, yet quietly keeps the soul alive.
Dreams are not always about ambition.
Sometimes, they are about remembering the spark that once made us believe life was beautiful.
I still remember the first time I heard that word.
It wasn’t from a movie,
nor from a motivational book,
but from a teacher in my small Islamic elementary school,
a humble madrasah in a quiet village.
He spoke about faraway lands,
clean cities, disciplined people, and nations that prospered.
Then he said something that shaped my life:
“Dream of going there. Learn from them.
Then come back — to make our land even more prosperous than theirs.
We have everything, except human souls who believe in their own potential.”
Those words struck my small heart deeply.
I looked through the classroom window,
eyes glistening,
and whispered to the sky:
“Where are those lands, Ya Rabb?”
“Would I ever reach them?”
We had no world map in our classroom, only a faded one from years ago.
Yet that day, something inside me awoke,
a faith without a roadmap,
that life could be larger than the dirt road I walked every morning to school.
That was how I first met the word dream.
Not through books, but through the sky.
✦ 2. When a Little Girl Met the Sky
I grew up in a small, quiet village.
The nights were silent, but the stars were storytellers.
The sound of crickets, the whisper of the wind, and the glow of the moon
were the rhythm of my childhood.
Under that sky, the word dream became a prayer.
I didn’t know how to get out of that village,
but I believed God was listening to the small, trembling voice of a little girl.
I was the only daughter in a simple family.
For many adults around me, dreams were luxuries,
beautiful, but impractical.
“Just be grateful for what you have,” they said.
But my heart would not stay quiet.
There was a whisper, gentle, persistent:
“One day, you’ll write stories that travel beyond where you stand.”
I didn’t know when or how,
but I believed it,
the same way a child believes the stars are near enough to touch.
✦ 3. The Road That Teaches Surrender
Years passed.
I went to madrasah aliyah and later to university.
I learned to see the world differently.
And like most young dreamers, I wanted to do everything.
I wanted to be a good Muslim woman.
A leader who serves.
A listener who understands.
A writer, a teacher, and an entrepreneur who brings benefit to others.
Dreams multiplied like constellations, bright, distant, beautiful.
But I was no longer afraid of the distance.
I remember once telling my mother that I wanted to study psychology at the University of Indonesia. She looked at me with love, then said softly,
“I can’t let you go that far. You’re my only daughter.”
I understood.
But something inside me broke quietly.
For the first time, I felt my dream buried under the weight of being a daughter.
Days passed in silence.
I felt anger, sadness, surrender,
until I found peace again through writing.
Writing became my way to speak with God when no one else could hear me.
And perhaps that’s what He wanted me to learn:
that the path to our dreams may not be straight,
but it will always be sacred.
✦ 4. A Different Kind of Arrival
Years later, when I least expected it,
I found myself walking through the gates of the University of Indonesia —
the very place I once dreamed of.
Not as a psychology student,
but to study language, the very vessel of human soul.
And there,
God rewrote my story.
He didn’t give me what I asked for.
He gave me what I needed:
the language of healing through words.
“Indeed, with hardship comes ease.
Indeed, with hardship comes ease.”
(QS. Al-Inshirah: 5–6)
That verse became alive in my story.
It felt as if God was whispering:
“Every detour is not a denial, it’s a divine redirection.”
✦ 5. When Writing Became a Mirror
I began to write, not just to tell stories,
but to understand who I truly was.
Every sentence was a doorway to remembrance.
Every word a mirror to the unseen part of me.
I wrote when I was joyful.
I wrote when I was restless.
I wrote when prayers felt unanswered.
Over time, I realized:
Writing is not merely expression,
it is a quiet form of worship.
A sacred meeting place between soul and surrender.
✦ 6. Writing as a Legacy of the Soul
The more I wrote, the more I realized;
these small, honest writings are traces of life itself.
Not because the words were perfect,
but because they were real.
And that’s when I began to see:
every person carries a legacy of the soul —
not made of wealth,
but of stories filled with wisdom.
That awareness changed how I see my role as a writer.
I no longer wrote for recognition,
but to leave something meaningful;
for my myself, for seekers, for anyone walking the same invisible path of becoming.
I began calling it legacy writing —
writing not just to be remembered,
but to heal, to connect, and to continue love.
✦ 7. When Time Becomes the Teacher, and the Pen a Prayer
Looking back now,
I see how softly Allah has guided me.
Every delay, every heartbreak, every unanswered prayer —
was not punishment, but preparation.
I am no longer the little girl sitting on bamboo steps
dreaming of the world beyond the horizon.
I am now a woman who writes worlds within herself,
and lets those words become light for others.
Writing, to me, is no longer about fame or productivity.
It is about how each word can be a whispered prayer,
and every story a gentle inheritance for those who come after.
Perhaps that is the truest beauty of writing,
it teaches us not only how to live,
but how to leave a trace that still breathes long after we’re gone.
With love & stillness,
Nur Azmina W.