Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Where There is Government, Let Me Sow Temperance
Last night was a long night for me and my PDEPeers, Jo, Sandy, Lanoy, and Gadz. We evaluated last weekend’s Self Transformation course from 7:00 PM to 11:50 PM, discussing a range of relevant issues, from each facilitator’s self-assessment of the way he or she handled the session assigned to him or her, to the overall logistics of the weekend, to the question of what the participants really have in mind as the end-goal of their undertaking this formation vis-à-vis the attitude and action they exhibit during the course, among others. Suffice to say, we found it in ourselves to go home, so we did.
Sandy drove us to our preferred drop-off spots as Gadz was off to work (as a technical support representative) at 4:00 AM while I needed to get a clearance from the National Bureau of Investigation in the morning, something my new job requires.
I had made arrangements to pass the night at my friend Jay’s flat in Taculing, so I told Sandy to just drop me at Police Station 6, from which Jay’s place is just one tryke ride away. When I got off the van, I suddenly didn’t want to take a tryke, remembering how a tryke driver of these parts once overcharged me 30 pesos for a point-five kilometer ride that’s only 7 pesos on a jeepney. Hindi na ako magpapa-isa ngayon, I resolved. So, I ignored the tryke driver beckoning me over and just walked away, with stupid vengeance, to the other side of the street.
Some 70 strides away and I began to realize what was happening. I realized I could hope all I want for a Taculing PUV to come my way, but that’s unlikely, the time being half past midnight. Feeling sheepish for how I acted and anxious because of the stories of mugging in the area, I trudged along Libertad Road to Jollibee Libertad Branch, nearly a twenty-minute walk past night clubs and KTV bars, closed shops reeking of fish, and people sleeping wherever they could, like carton lined sidewalks, wooden tables that hold market produce during the day, and the meager seats of their pedicabs. I hung out for about 7 minutes with other bystanders at the City Vet-Mercury Drug junction, straining my eye for a determinedly old and outmoded PUV which could rightfully be a Taculing jeep, but, tough luck. Nagtatampo ata sila sakin.
In the end, I asked for a tryke driver to take me to Jay’s place, costing me 30 pesos. Alangan namang lakarin ko pa yun. At least, malayo-layo ang biya-biyahiin nitong tryke na ‘to, worth it ang pera ko, sambit ko sa sarili nang ma-soothe naman ang mga hinanakit ko sa buhay.
I arrived at Jay’s and we chatted for a while, mostly about living on your own, a state I’ll find myself in barely a week from now. I was hoping to glean some helpful tips, particularly on meals: how to save money without sacrificing one’s health or how not to feel hungry when one hasn’t eaten due to budget constraints or budget nonexistence.
Jay must have droned about his years of living alone, for I dozed off. I woke up at 7:00 AM and the face of the guy at the NBI office telling me I must be back there by 7:00 AM swam into my head. Off to the bathroom to wash. No time for breakfast. A little problem with the extra shirt I brought; it was a tad too small, making me look like a bloke with a serious developmental regression, who was left unchecked at the some mall’s Kids’ Garments Section. Pero, hindi ako natinag. My focus was to get the clearance. I bid Jay goodbye and took two jeepney rides.
I was there at the NBI office by 7:50 AM. The queue was not for the faint-hearted, snaking out some yards from the main door. I ignored it and walked past all the people to the entrance. Priority customer yata ako today. A uniformed girl at the entrance was asking me too many questions, which I didn’t answer because I was already holding to her face my expired clearance with her boss’ signature on it. She clearly wasn’t looking and when I made sure she did, she’s obviously unconvinced that I had obtained a “priority treatment seal” from her boss the day before and tenaciously held me up. Thank heavens, I saw the man and went up to him. Without a fuss, he gave me Priority Number 8, with which I proceeded to the cashier.
Over 200 hundred people were there, waiting, asking each other about something they needed to fill out on their respective forms. There was this girl who exclaimed she lost her Priority Number 42. An NBI officer yelled for whoever chanced upon it and a man came forward, albeit reluctantly. Ibalik na sa iya ‘to kay iya na, said the officer, ari imo ya ho, 242. Chuckles rose as did that guy’s hackles. Kahit di pa niya aminin, nanghihinayang talaga siya. With my lucky number 8, I could really care less, so I took out The Spectrum mag and began to read. Tick-tock… tick-tock… Ba’t parang walang development sa paligid. I looked at the cashier’s window. Cerrado. Ganito nga talaga pag gobiyerno, wika ng katabi ko.
Mag-aalas nwebe na. Hindi pa rin bumubukas ang bintana ng cashier. Baka na-flush niya ang sarili sa inodoro. Huwag naman sana. Sana hindi ganun ka tanga ang NBI para mag-hire ng ganun ka tanga na cashier. Sa inis ko, napailing ako sa likod, wanting to check how things are going there. I met the shocked gaze of a woman who blurted, “Ano? Ano ka?” Clearly she took offense. Ale, ganito lang talaga ako makatingin, parang mangangain. If I meant to offend you, I’d have made sure hindi ka na buhay ngayon, you’d have expired on the spot. “For renewal ba kayo o new applicant,” I smiled, using my graciously charming high-IQ-ako-pero-pinahahalagahan-kita tone. “New applicant kami,” she thawed. Ah, kaya pala praning.
An hour past, at last, nakabayad na rin ako sa cashier and was given a receipt. Anong gagawin ko dito? Nagtanong-tanong ako sa mga tatlong katao yata, hanggang sa umabot ako sa opisina nitong babaeng boss din sa lugar na yun. She looked at my receipt. Hindi ‘to pwede, 2006 pa ‘to, kunot noo niyang sinabi. Eh, yan ang binigay sakin ng cashier, depensa ko naman. Basta, ang dami niya pang tanong. Then I realized resibo pala yun ng dati kong clearance na binalik sakin ng cashier. Tange!
The procedure pala is: After paying, one waits for his/her name to be called for ID picture-taking. Next, he/she again waits for the clearance to be printed. Once done, the person’s name is called and the clearance together with the receipt is released at the counter. Malay ko bang ganyan ang proseso, ni wala ngang directiba, visual or verbal, to guide the people around. At ang cashier naman, so unwilling to spew a couple of words to inform the person what’s the next big task, kahit simpleng “Hoy gago, upo ka dun, tatawagin ka namin pag kelangan ka na namin” man lang. Wala, tikom-bibig lang siya sa bigat ng kinikimkim niyang galit sa sangkatauhan. Parang gusto kong sabihin sa kanya, Ale, I think you should look for another job, you’re clearly not happy here eh. Mag-operate ka na lang kaya ng traktorang pangwasak ng lumang highway, tiyak kong angkop na angkop ka para dun. Instead, in the name of Love, pinatawad ko siya. Yup, ganun lang ka simple yun.
Finally, I got my clearance; ngunit, kelangan ko pa ng thumbmark. Kaisa-isahang thumbmark. Naghanap ako ng ink pad. Wala. Turns out, kelangan ko pa palang pumila sa isang kwarto kasama ang mga new applicants na nagpapa-thumbmark for their application forms. Eh, sampung daliri kaya ang kelangan nilang iprenta sa forms nila, whereas I, I NEED ONLY A THUMBMARK. When my turn came, I smiled charmingly at the fingerprinting technician and said, Wala na ba kayong extra ink pad dito? (Wala.) Ah, medyo inutil din pala ang sistema niyo dito ano? (Oo.) Yup, ganun lang ka simple sa kanya ang lahat.
Di ako makatagal sa ganung atmosphere ng inefficiency. Buti na lang, when I had my thumbmark na, binigyan nila ako ng ¼ sheet ng wet tissue. I thought they’d charge me for it, they were charging people 5 pesos for a wet rag to clean their inked fingers with. Kung ganun, pag inked finger lang, libre ang wet wipe. May hustisya din pala sa NBI.
Kahit na, kumaripas pa rin ako palabas, sa pagmamadali kong makalanghap ng hindi gobiyernong hangin. Ano pa’t ako’y buhay na buhay magpasahanggang ngayon.
Sandy drove us to our preferred drop-off spots as Gadz was off to work (as a technical support representative) at 4:00 AM while I needed to get a clearance from the National Bureau of Investigation in the morning, something my new job requires.
I had made arrangements to pass the night at my friend Jay’s flat in Taculing, so I told Sandy to just drop me at Police Station 6, from which Jay’s place is just one tryke ride away. When I got off the van, I suddenly didn’t want to take a tryke, remembering how a tryke driver of these parts once overcharged me 30 pesos for a point-five kilometer ride that’s only 7 pesos on a jeepney. Hindi na ako magpapa-isa ngayon, I resolved. So, I ignored the tryke driver beckoning me over and just walked away, with stupid vengeance, to the other side of the street.
Some 70 strides away and I began to realize what was happening. I realized I could hope all I want for a Taculing PUV to come my way, but that’s unlikely, the time being half past midnight. Feeling sheepish for how I acted and anxious because of the stories of mugging in the area, I trudged along Libertad Road to Jollibee Libertad Branch, nearly a twenty-minute walk past night clubs and KTV bars, closed shops reeking of fish, and people sleeping wherever they could, like carton lined sidewalks, wooden tables that hold market produce during the day, and the meager seats of their pedicabs. I hung out for about 7 minutes with other bystanders at the City Vet-Mercury Drug junction, straining my eye for a determinedly old and outmoded PUV which could rightfully be a Taculing jeep, but, tough luck. Nagtatampo ata sila sakin.
In the end, I asked for a tryke driver to take me to Jay’s place, costing me 30 pesos. Alangan namang lakarin ko pa yun. At least, malayo-layo ang biya-biyahiin nitong tryke na ‘to, worth it ang pera ko, sambit ko sa sarili nang ma-soothe naman ang mga hinanakit ko sa buhay.
I arrived at Jay’s and we chatted for a while, mostly about living on your own, a state I’ll find myself in barely a week from now. I was hoping to glean some helpful tips, particularly on meals: how to save money without sacrificing one’s health or how not to feel hungry when one hasn’t eaten due to budget constraints or budget nonexistence.
Jay must have droned about his years of living alone, for I dozed off. I woke up at 7:00 AM and the face of the guy at the NBI office telling me I must be back there by 7:00 AM swam into my head. Off to the bathroom to wash. No time for breakfast. A little problem with the extra shirt I brought; it was a tad too small, making me look like a bloke with a serious developmental regression, who was left unchecked at the some mall’s Kids’ Garments Section. Pero, hindi ako natinag. My focus was to get the clearance. I bid Jay goodbye and took two jeepney rides.
I was there at the NBI office by 7:50 AM. The queue was not for the faint-hearted, snaking out some yards from the main door. I ignored it and walked past all the people to the entrance. Priority customer yata ako today. A uniformed girl at the entrance was asking me too many questions, which I didn’t answer because I was already holding to her face my expired clearance with her boss’ signature on it. She clearly wasn’t looking and when I made sure she did, she’s obviously unconvinced that I had obtained a “priority treatment seal” from her boss the day before and tenaciously held me up. Thank heavens, I saw the man and went up to him. Without a fuss, he gave me Priority Number 8, with which I proceeded to the cashier.
Over 200 hundred people were there, waiting, asking each other about something they needed to fill out on their respective forms. There was this girl who exclaimed she lost her Priority Number 42. An NBI officer yelled for whoever chanced upon it and a man came forward, albeit reluctantly. Ibalik na sa iya ‘to kay iya na, said the officer, ari imo ya ho, 242. Chuckles rose as did that guy’s hackles. Kahit di pa niya aminin, nanghihinayang talaga siya. With my lucky number 8, I could really care less, so I took out The Spectrum mag and began to read. Tick-tock… tick-tock… Ba’t parang walang development sa paligid. I looked at the cashier’s window. Cerrado. Ganito nga talaga pag gobiyerno, wika ng katabi ko.
Mag-aalas nwebe na. Hindi pa rin bumubukas ang bintana ng cashier. Baka na-flush niya ang sarili sa inodoro. Huwag naman sana. Sana hindi ganun ka tanga ang NBI para mag-hire ng ganun ka tanga na cashier. Sa inis ko, napailing ako sa likod, wanting to check how things are going there. I met the shocked gaze of a woman who blurted, “Ano? Ano ka?” Clearly she took offense. Ale, ganito lang talaga ako makatingin, parang mangangain. If I meant to offend you, I’d have made sure hindi ka na buhay ngayon, you’d have expired on the spot. “For renewal ba kayo o new applicant,” I smiled, using my graciously charming high-IQ-ako-pero-pinahahalagahan-kita tone. “New applicant kami,” she thawed. Ah, kaya pala praning.
An hour past, at last, nakabayad na rin ako sa cashier and was given a receipt. Anong gagawin ko dito? Nagtanong-tanong ako sa mga tatlong katao yata, hanggang sa umabot ako sa opisina nitong babaeng boss din sa lugar na yun. She looked at my receipt. Hindi ‘to pwede, 2006 pa ‘to, kunot noo niyang sinabi. Eh, yan ang binigay sakin ng cashier, depensa ko naman. Basta, ang dami niya pang tanong. Then I realized resibo pala yun ng dati kong clearance na binalik sakin ng cashier. Tange!
The procedure pala is: After paying, one waits for his/her name to be called for ID picture-taking. Next, he/she again waits for the clearance to be printed. Once done, the person’s name is called and the clearance together with the receipt is released at the counter. Malay ko bang ganyan ang proseso, ni wala ngang directiba, visual or verbal, to guide the people around. At ang cashier naman, so unwilling to spew a couple of words to inform the person what’s the next big task, kahit simpleng “Hoy gago, upo ka dun, tatawagin ka namin pag kelangan ka na namin” man lang. Wala, tikom-bibig lang siya sa bigat ng kinikimkim niyang galit sa sangkatauhan. Parang gusto kong sabihin sa kanya, Ale, I think you should look for another job, you’re clearly not happy here eh. Mag-operate ka na lang kaya ng traktorang pangwasak ng lumang highway, tiyak kong angkop na angkop ka para dun. Instead, in the name of Love, pinatawad ko siya. Yup, ganun lang ka simple yun.
Finally, I got my clearance; ngunit, kelangan ko pa ng thumbmark. Kaisa-isahang thumbmark. Naghanap ako ng ink pad. Wala. Turns out, kelangan ko pa palang pumila sa isang kwarto kasama ang mga new applicants na nagpapa-thumbmark for their application forms. Eh, sampung daliri kaya ang kelangan nilang iprenta sa forms nila, whereas I, I NEED ONLY A THUMBMARK. When my turn came, I smiled charmingly at the fingerprinting technician and said, Wala na ba kayong extra ink pad dito? (Wala.) Ah, medyo inutil din pala ang sistema niyo dito ano? (Oo.) Yup, ganun lang ka simple sa kanya ang lahat.
Di ako makatagal sa ganung atmosphere ng inefficiency. Buti na lang, when I had my thumbmark na, binigyan nila ako ng ¼ sheet ng wet tissue. I thought they’d charge me for it, they were charging people 5 pesos for a wet rag to clean their inked fingers with. Kung ganun, pag inked finger lang, libre ang wet wipe. May hustisya din pala sa NBI.
Kahit na, kumaripas pa rin ako palabas, sa pagmamadali kong makalanghap ng hindi gobiyernong hangin. Ano pa’t ako’y buhay na buhay magpasahanggang ngayon.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Saturday Morning Praise with Phoebe
I worked on my PDEP (Peace and Development Educators Program, wherein I volunteer as facilitator) session guides until 5:30 AM, all the while listening to Tim’s laptop repeatedly and unrelentingly belting Air Supply’s Lonely is the Night (with him fast asleep in one of the single twin beds, and me left to surf the Net for the interpretation of The Levels of Consciousness across various cultures, the night sure was lonely.) I wasn’t at all sleepy, but I felt a kind of heaviness in my head and shoulders, as if my brain has turned to tons and tons of metal junk, which made carrying my head such an enormous amount of strain for my too thin shoulders. Moreover, the air conditioning was set to “freezing cool” that my (spare) ribs seemed to rattle the way jinxed snake bones never could. Thus, I spread the thick purple blanket on the narrow bed, stretched my long body onto one end of it, held the blanket’s edge, and rolled over to the other end of the bed, wrapping myself shanghai rolls-like with the synthetic wool-like fabric. I closed my eyes and imagined the tons and tons of metal junk that was my brain to be an ocean of the clearest morning blue, reflecting the image of a solitary vinta and a wistful white bird gliding equally serenely away from each other, in an effort to get some sleep.
But I couldn’t sleep. My stomach felt like it was digesting itself. I got up, hopped to the dressing table where my bag was, rummaged for one of the two antacid tablets I filched from the PDEP medicine kit last night, and took it, downing the water in large hurried gulps, as if it would hasten the coming of Relief. I went back to bed, knowing it’s puerile to hope for Sleep and instead tried to think of something more consequential than hyperacidity. I glanced at my cellphone—5:59 AM, it beamed. Why, we have Morning Praise today, I sighed. Morning Praise is a meditative-reflective, usually at seven in the morning, activity that we religiously observe in the PDEP weekends. I got up again and headed for the bathroom.
I looked at the undressed waif in the mirror—so physically tired but so mentally awake. You can do this, I soothed him, you can make this day great. Then I turned the hot shower on.
I didn’t have a towel in my bag, didn’t want to use Tim’s or deplete our toilet paper supply, so I air-dried myself, which took some time in the tiled bathroom. I got dressed in yesterday’s faded plum jeans, yellow patent shoes, and a fresh mercuric oxide tee shirt, then tiptoed to a sleeping Tim and patted his shoulder to wake him up, so he could make me a slide presentation on Levels of Consciousness while I was away. Ever obliging, Tim got up, still soft and flushed from sleep, and pulled up MS PowerPoint on his laptop. He looked like the stuffed toy version of Winnie the Pooh’s Piglet; it made my heart go out to him. “I wish the time would come that you would need my help, so I could oblige you, and reciprocate the sacrifices you made for me,” I melodrama-tized, feeling a rush of guilt (for waking him up) and gratitude (for him waking up) within. He just smiled that Timothy smile. I sort of hugged him and walked out the door.
The other rooms were already empty; everyone was already in the Prayer Garden for the Morning Praise. For the dyadic activity, I got for my partner, Phoebe, a middle-aged grassroots community worker and headmistress of a little orphanage, who filled me up on what to do. I was to look for an object that represents who I am at the moment and tell her about it. I looked down and found a flower lying on the ground, “My heart crunched when I saw this; this must be the thing I’m meant to pick up today,” I grinned at her. We strolled down the wet and mossy footpath of the garden and settled on an old concrete bench.
“Look at this closely, Phoebe,” I whispered, holding the flower high between us, “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? A passionate blend of red and orange, like a flame. But, see the edges of the corolla; they’re brown and frayed from the kiss of Time and the harsh elements.”
I held the flower to my cheek, it felt cool and smelt faintly of morning dew. “I got up this morning and said to myself everything is okay,” I began to share to her, “but at this moment, I feel fallen, and withered, and frayed around the edges. I feel left alone on the ground, not more than a fire of fading colors, burning until it lasts.”
Her face was a study in earnestness, the more she seemed to accommodate the weight of my words, the more wide-eyed she looked. “I believe though that I will be found,” I went on, my voice sounding unusually husky. “I will be lifted from the dirt and ignominy of having fallen. I will be deemed as representing something profound inside another living soul. For before we become all that we are in this life, we are all elements of Hope.”
“That makes two of us,” Phoebe intimated, opening her hand to reveal a large earth-covered seed with many tiny root protrusions lying still on her palm. “The shock of everything falling apart and falling upon us could sometimes leave us so overwhelmed, like this seed, half-dead or half-alive. But like this seed, which I intend to bury in the earth later, we can still grow. Though it’s dirty and dead-looking, it still holds a promise of change, a change for the better.”
“I’m bearing a lot of trials in my life now,” she continued, her lilting child-like voice permeating my life sphere in a determined crescendo, “and sometimes I feel I’ve had much too much. But here I am, still fighting, still believing that all this is part of the incomprehensible wonderful work of God. And I’m thankful for that.”
The lines on her face ceased to be just years of tries and toils; they now glistened with an outlook of faith beneath the sparkle of her unshed tears. Not a breeze ruffled the leaves hanging above us, not a heavy cloud trapped the sunlight from cascading freely to where we sat, two souls brewing such drama out of words, a dried red flower, a dirty seed, and Life.
As if to lighten the moment, Phoebe exclaimed, “I love this time of day—don’t you?—when the sun is full and generous, and I can breathe in its light, feel it renewing my spirit.”
“Hmm, so the sun not only activates Vitamin D in your body, it also recharges your soul,” I quipped.
“Yeah,” she said, almost to herself as she’s drinking the glory of dewy green foliage sparkling silver in the embrace of soft morning light.
I joined her in what she was doing, breathed in the warm light, felt the warm quiet glow inside, and together, this time not needing any more human words, we let our morning praises soar, higher than the reach of those sturdy tall trees, beyond the gauzy canopy of clouds, towards the sun.
But I couldn’t sleep. My stomach felt like it was digesting itself. I got up, hopped to the dressing table where my bag was, rummaged for one of the two antacid tablets I filched from the PDEP medicine kit last night, and took it, downing the water in large hurried gulps, as if it would hasten the coming of Relief. I went back to bed, knowing it’s puerile to hope for Sleep and instead tried to think of something more consequential than hyperacidity. I glanced at my cellphone—5:59 AM, it beamed. Why, we have Morning Praise today, I sighed. Morning Praise is a meditative-reflective, usually at seven in the morning, activity that we religiously observe in the PDEP weekends. I got up again and headed for the bathroom.
I looked at the undressed waif in the mirror—so physically tired but so mentally awake. You can do this, I soothed him, you can make this day great. Then I turned the hot shower on.
I didn’t have a towel in my bag, didn’t want to use Tim’s or deplete our toilet paper supply, so I air-dried myself, which took some time in the tiled bathroom. I got dressed in yesterday’s faded plum jeans, yellow patent shoes, and a fresh mercuric oxide tee shirt, then tiptoed to a sleeping Tim and patted his shoulder to wake him up, so he could make me a slide presentation on Levels of Consciousness while I was away. Ever obliging, Tim got up, still soft and flushed from sleep, and pulled up MS PowerPoint on his laptop. He looked like the stuffed toy version of Winnie the Pooh’s Piglet; it made my heart go out to him. “I wish the time would come that you would need my help, so I could oblige you, and reciprocate the sacrifices you made for me,” I melodrama-tized, feeling a rush of guilt (for waking him up) and gratitude (for him waking up) within. He just smiled that Timothy smile. I sort of hugged him and walked out the door.
The other rooms were already empty; everyone was already in the Prayer Garden for the Morning Praise. For the dyadic activity, I got for my partner, Phoebe, a middle-aged grassroots community worker and headmistress of a little orphanage, who filled me up on what to do. I was to look for an object that represents who I am at the moment and tell her about it. I looked down and found a flower lying on the ground, “My heart crunched when I saw this; this must be the thing I’m meant to pick up today,” I grinned at her. We strolled down the wet and mossy footpath of the garden and settled on an old concrete bench.
“Look at this closely, Phoebe,” I whispered, holding the flower high between us, “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? A passionate blend of red and orange, like a flame. But, see the edges of the corolla; they’re brown and frayed from the kiss of Time and the harsh elements.”
I held the flower to my cheek, it felt cool and smelt faintly of morning dew. “I got up this morning and said to myself everything is okay,” I began to share to her, “but at this moment, I feel fallen, and withered, and frayed around the edges. I feel left alone on the ground, not more than a fire of fading colors, burning until it lasts.”
Her face was a study in earnestness, the more she seemed to accommodate the weight of my words, the more wide-eyed she looked. “I believe though that I will be found,” I went on, my voice sounding unusually husky. “I will be lifted from the dirt and ignominy of having fallen. I will be deemed as representing something profound inside another living soul. For before we become all that we are in this life, we are all elements of Hope.”
“That makes two of us,” Phoebe intimated, opening her hand to reveal a large earth-covered seed with many tiny root protrusions lying still on her palm. “The shock of everything falling apart and falling upon us could sometimes leave us so overwhelmed, like this seed, half-dead or half-alive. But like this seed, which I intend to bury in the earth later, we can still grow. Though it’s dirty and dead-looking, it still holds a promise of change, a change for the better.”
“I’m bearing a lot of trials in my life now,” she continued, her lilting child-like voice permeating my life sphere in a determined crescendo, “and sometimes I feel I’ve had much too much. But here I am, still fighting, still believing that all this is part of the incomprehensible wonderful work of God. And I’m thankful for that.”
The lines on her face ceased to be just years of tries and toils; they now glistened with an outlook of faith beneath the sparkle of her unshed tears. Not a breeze ruffled the leaves hanging above us, not a heavy cloud trapped the sunlight from cascading freely to where we sat, two souls brewing such drama out of words, a dried red flower, a dirty seed, and Life.
As if to lighten the moment, Phoebe exclaimed, “I love this time of day—don’t you?—when the sun is full and generous, and I can breathe in its light, feel it renewing my spirit.”
“Hmm, so the sun not only activates Vitamin D in your body, it also recharges your soul,” I quipped.
“Yeah,” she said, almost to herself as she’s drinking the glory of dewy green foliage sparkling silver in the embrace of soft morning light.
I joined her in what she was doing, breathed in the warm light, felt the warm quiet glow inside, and together, this time not needing any more human words, we let our morning praises soar, higher than the reach of those sturdy tall trees, beyond the gauzy canopy of clouds, towards the sun.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
My Real-ization
After fifteen days of waiting, the company I applied for a job in informed me that I could go there tomorrow to sign my job contract. Once I sign it, I’ll officially be a call center agent once more (I had worked for thirteen months at another customer management center in Bacolod from August 2006 to September 2007.) Now that I’m about to do it again, I remember the reasons why I left the so-called call center life (or what I used to call as The Pits) sixteen months ago and even vowed never to go back. Here they are:
• An opportunity to participate in a nationwide foreign-funded research was offered to me. Taking it meant I’ll be doing something that I really love, working around a time-flexible output-basis setup which would make going to school less stressful, and earning 2,000 pesos more than what I was earning as an agent. So I took it;
• The work became too clerical and toxic for me. I’ve had too much of processing payments and explaining bills to more often than not irate customers;
• I was earning only 10,000 pesos per month. Though it’s considerably higher than most other monthly income rates in the city in those times (competition in the city’s call center industry wasn’t at all steep then), it was hardly commensurate to the nature of the job and the stress of working graveyard shifts; and,
• (The heaviest of them all being) my life seemed to pass me by in a blur. The days turned to weeks, then months, and at the end of it I find myself asking what’s been happening to me, what have I been doing with my life, and the answer I got was: I’ve been answering calls from people in America who needed help with their cable accounts. That just couldn’t go on anymore. So, I quit.
Last January 7th, during my 45-minute final job interview, the Hiring Specialist asked me why I want to work in a call center again. Indeed, why am I going back this time? I told her that I don’t see why not. I’m sure I lacked auxiliary detail and congruence when I gave her my reasons then so I’m making up for that here, now (as I had time to really think them out.) Here they are:
• I’m currently out of a job. My contract for the research project ended in mid-December, and I just can’t pass the time being economically unproductive. Interestingly, along that line, my job prospect promises an income (in a per month scale) higher than my previous salary item by 41.6 per cent, as start up pay. In six months’ time, it’ll top what I used to get every month on my previous job by 54.1 per cent. Can you imagine I did the math? Money motivates in many splendid ways.
• I don’t attend regular classes anymore. I’m In my thesis-making year in graduate school, and although time and energy management is going to be more challenging for me as I’d be working and making a master’s thesis at the same time, I’m positive I can, and will, handle it;
• Though it’s still going to be the same job, that of a call center agent, I’ll be in a new account, with a myriad of new things to learn and new people to learn with. My call center experience should also give me an edge in adjusting at work, managing the job’s inherent stresses, and getting ahead. You read it right, because unlike before, wherein I determinedly stayed at the bottom of the ladder as an agent, which aggravated the ennui of thirteen months a great deal, I’m going to aim for The Promotion. This time, I’m climbing up and steering those big bucks into my bank account; and,
• I’ve learned better than to live a come-and-go life. Working in a call center shouldn’t make ones life utterly dull or keep one from pursuing his passions. I’ve seen friends prove those words to be true and livable. (Marty juggles technical support work, law school, an internship at a law firm, and coffee dates with friends.) I know I can too. I know, given the toll that this job would take on my mind and body, it won’t be easy. But I find I don’t care for easy anymore. Ambition is the propensity to take on difficult things, and it’s time for me to have it. So I’ll be a call center agent, post graduate student, peace educator, and writer in one.
I want to be many things in my lifetime. And I mean great things. Great things that would only and ultimately call for one thing: that I, for myself and others, become the truest and fullest measure of my humanity and happiness. I remember one time, it was dawn then, and I was unable to sleep, I asked my best friend Pipit this question: How does one become great? And is this a question that one’s heart can answer on its own? She said that one becomes great when one understands what one is all about, and when one wields that knowledge to make all the wonder of being a reality that holds truth and meaning, causality and inspiration for even just something or someone in some life. She went on to say that the heart, whoever it may belong to, can tell how it is to be great. The heart, is still the best, most rightful thing to define what greatness, or happiness, or whatever else is.
In my heart I know that going back to The Pits is a dignified means to an end. It’s neither a waste of my so-called gifts nor a self-condemnation to a life smaller than what others say I’m meant to live. I am by no means diminished by it but rather, it gets me real. As real as the joy I feel with the thought of being able to extend a helping hand to my family and friends in a practical way. As real as any need that one desires to fulfill through good, hard, and honest labor. As real as not too many people can get.
*For me, and for the people who appreciate the wisdom of what I do, without requiring explanations.
• An opportunity to participate in a nationwide foreign-funded research was offered to me. Taking it meant I’ll be doing something that I really love, working around a time-flexible output-basis setup which would make going to school less stressful, and earning 2,000 pesos more than what I was earning as an agent. So I took it;
• The work became too clerical and toxic for me. I’ve had too much of processing payments and explaining bills to more often than not irate customers;
• I was earning only 10,000 pesos per month. Though it’s considerably higher than most other monthly income rates in the city in those times (competition in the city’s call center industry wasn’t at all steep then), it was hardly commensurate to the nature of the job and the stress of working graveyard shifts; and,
• (The heaviest of them all being) my life seemed to pass me by in a blur. The days turned to weeks, then months, and at the end of it I find myself asking what’s been happening to me, what have I been doing with my life, and the answer I got was: I’ve been answering calls from people in America who needed help with their cable accounts. That just couldn’t go on anymore. So, I quit.
Last January 7th, during my 45-minute final job interview, the Hiring Specialist asked me why I want to work in a call center again. Indeed, why am I going back this time? I told her that I don’t see why not. I’m sure I lacked auxiliary detail and congruence when I gave her my reasons then so I’m making up for that here, now (as I had time to really think them out.) Here they are:
• I’m currently out of a job. My contract for the research project ended in mid-December, and I just can’t pass the time being economically unproductive. Interestingly, along that line, my job prospect promises an income (in a per month scale) higher than my previous salary item by 41.6 per cent, as start up pay. In six months’ time, it’ll top what I used to get every month on my previous job by 54.1 per cent. Can you imagine I did the math? Money motivates in many splendid ways.
• I don’t attend regular classes anymore. I’m In my thesis-making year in graduate school, and although time and energy management is going to be more challenging for me as I’d be working and making a master’s thesis at the same time, I’m positive I can, and will, handle it;
• Though it’s still going to be the same job, that of a call center agent, I’ll be in a new account, with a myriad of new things to learn and new people to learn with. My call center experience should also give me an edge in adjusting at work, managing the job’s inherent stresses, and getting ahead. You read it right, because unlike before, wherein I determinedly stayed at the bottom of the ladder as an agent, which aggravated the ennui of thirteen months a great deal, I’m going to aim for The Promotion. This time, I’m climbing up and steering those big bucks into my bank account; and,
• I’ve learned better than to live a come-and-go life. Working in a call center shouldn’t make ones life utterly dull or keep one from pursuing his passions. I’ve seen friends prove those words to be true and livable. (Marty juggles technical support work, law school, an internship at a law firm, and coffee dates with friends.) I know I can too. I know, given the toll that this job would take on my mind and body, it won’t be easy. But I find I don’t care for easy anymore. Ambition is the propensity to take on difficult things, and it’s time for me to have it. So I’ll be a call center agent, post graduate student, peace educator, and writer in one.
I want to be many things in my lifetime. And I mean great things. Great things that would only and ultimately call for one thing: that I, for myself and others, become the truest and fullest measure of my humanity and happiness. I remember one time, it was dawn then, and I was unable to sleep, I asked my best friend Pipit this question: How does one become great? And is this a question that one’s heart can answer on its own? She said that one becomes great when one understands what one is all about, and when one wields that knowledge to make all the wonder of being a reality that holds truth and meaning, causality and inspiration for even just something or someone in some life. She went on to say that the heart, whoever it may belong to, can tell how it is to be great. The heart, is still the best, most rightful thing to define what greatness, or happiness, or whatever else is.
In my heart I know that going back to The Pits is a dignified means to an end. It’s neither a waste of my so-called gifts nor a self-condemnation to a life smaller than what others say I’m meant to live. I am by no means diminished by it but rather, it gets me real. As real as the joy I feel with the thought of being able to extend a helping hand to my family and friends in a practical way. As real as any need that one desires to fulfill through good, hard, and honest labor. As real as not too many people can get.
*For me, and for the people who appreciate the wisdom of what I do, without requiring explanations.
Bewinged, One Afternoon
I look at what I came up with from last night to the wee hours of the morning: one thousand three hundred seventy-four words drained from a heart that basically wants to say one thing: it is in love. I’ve reread it for the umpteenth time and each time (you don’t know how relieved I am to say) my cheeks burn a little less and I’m more able to finish an entire paragraph without stopping somewhere to bury my face on the pillow, curl up in a fetal position, and twitch like crazy.
Yeah, this thing I wrote last night sounds crazy, alright. Crazy in love. I know I tend to overdo things whenever I profess romantic love for another to myself (I haven’t gotten to professing love to another yet) but isn’t it suppose to be like that when you’re in love and just bursting to proclaim it (even if it’s just to yourself and, well, the Listening Universe?) I don’t know, but it seems so. It feels so. I guess what one doesn’t know one just feels somehow.
Somehow, I’m a little clear-headed today, which is a good thing as I really have to finish a great number of things for this weekend’s Self-Transformation course which I will be helping in, as co-facilitator. Today, there’s not going to be any of the cerebral existential lamentations and the grave get-by mechanisms that my previous loves have made me come to know and do so well so many times, in so many ways. None of that suppression and forced oblivion that hardly make me and things better. Today, I’m going to be aware that I’m in love, put all that energy to good use, get down to business, and focus.
I’m a step to winging it.
Yeah, this thing I wrote last night sounds crazy, alright. Crazy in love. I know I tend to overdo things whenever I profess romantic love for another to myself (I haven’t gotten to professing love to another yet) but isn’t it suppose to be like that when you’re in love and just bursting to proclaim it (even if it’s just to yourself and, well, the Listening Universe?) I don’t know, but it seems so. It feels so. I guess what one doesn’t know one just feels somehow.
Somehow, I’m a little clear-headed today, which is a good thing as I really have to finish a great number of things for this weekend’s Self-Transformation course which I will be helping in, as co-facilitator. Today, there’s not going to be any of the cerebral existential lamentations and the grave get-by mechanisms that my previous loves have made me come to know and do so well so many times, in so many ways. None of that suppression and forced oblivion that hardly make me and things better. Today, I’m going to be aware that I’m in love, put all that energy to good use, get down to business, and focus.
I’m a step to winging it.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
A Visit to the Police Station
A Sworn Duty
When I visited the Police Office in San Enrique to get my police clearance, I was amused by the fact that the Police Officer’s Creed actually includes this:
“I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the respect for the rights of women.”
In this country, police officers have a reputation for womanizing and polygamy, which isn’t fair for those loyal to their wives and delightfully affirming for the chauvinist pigs. Maybe we can check some helpful statistics, say the incidence and prevalence of infidelity and spousal abuse among police officers in the Philippines in the last ten years and see what’s the real score in this matter (score being an operatively quantitative word.)
Plus, was the abovementioned line added to the Police Officer’s Creed in light of the rising notoriety of policemen where disrespect for marriage and women’s rights is concerned? If it was, is it honored by those duly bound by a sworn duty in words, thoughts, and deeds? And what do drivers have to say to this, when they are known nationwide to be such sweet lovers?
I’m just curious to know.
Paste and Furious
After half-an hour of working on my clearance, the police officer who processed it told me to paste my photo on the paper’s upper right-hand box, indicating the tub of paste at the edge of the table. I opened the lid of the tub and was surprised to find it practically empty, save for dregs of dry paste at the bottom. They reminded me of dried week-old booger. I did what I could; wet the pads of my thumb and index fingers with my tongue, placed a scraped bit of the dry paste between them and kneaded it for a moment, then spread it on the back the photo for posting. Wow, I got perfect adhesion!
I presented the clearance (now showing my picture) to the officer, waiting for whatever he still needs to do with it, stamp it with something, sign it, whatever. He only said, “You can now take it home.”
You made me go through all that trouble with the booger paste to tell me I can take it home where I have not less than 3 bottles of Elmer’s Glue?
As I went out of the police office, into the municipal office’s courtyard, I could only think: The Municipality of San Enrique can afford to choke almost all of the trees and shrubs in the public plaza with Christmas lights, but it can’t buy its police office a decent tub of paste? Life here in San Enrique is full of surprises that aren’t pleasant surprises.
When I visited the Police Office in San Enrique to get my police clearance, I was amused by the fact that the Police Officer’s Creed actually includes this:
“I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the respect for the rights of women.”
In this country, police officers have a reputation for womanizing and polygamy, which isn’t fair for those loyal to their wives and delightfully affirming for the chauvinist pigs. Maybe we can check some helpful statistics, say the incidence and prevalence of infidelity and spousal abuse among police officers in the Philippines in the last ten years and see what’s the real score in this matter (score being an operatively quantitative word.)
Plus, was the abovementioned line added to the Police Officer’s Creed in light of the rising notoriety of policemen where disrespect for marriage and women’s rights is concerned? If it was, is it honored by those duly bound by a sworn duty in words, thoughts, and deeds? And what do drivers have to say to this, when they are known nationwide to be such sweet lovers?
I’m just curious to know.
Paste and Furious
After half-an hour of working on my clearance, the police officer who processed it told me to paste my photo on the paper’s upper right-hand box, indicating the tub of paste at the edge of the table. I opened the lid of the tub and was surprised to find it practically empty, save for dregs of dry paste at the bottom. They reminded me of dried week-old booger. I did what I could; wet the pads of my thumb and index fingers with my tongue, placed a scraped bit of the dry paste between them and kneaded it for a moment, then spread it on the back the photo for posting. Wow, I got perfect adhesion!
I presented the clearance (now showing my picture) to the officer, waiting for whatever he still needs to do with it, stamp it with something, sign it, whatever. He only said, “You can now take it home.”
You made me go through all that trouble with the booger paste to tell me I can take it home where I have not less than 3 bottles of Elmer’s Glue?
As I went out of the police office, into the municipal office’s courtyard, I could only think: The Municipality of San Enrique can afford to choke almost all of the trees and shrubs in the public plaza with Christmas lights, but it can’t buy its police office a decent tub of paste? Life here in San Enrique is full of surprises that aren’t pleasant surprises.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Another Day in the Life of the Unemployed
4:45 AM My daily Wake Up! alarm woke me to a chilly Tuesday morning. I found myself buried beneath ten autumn colored pillows and somehow my earphones got tangled alugbati-like around my neck. I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep. It’s lazy day today, for all the world cares.
9:03 AM I texted my friend Toty, who’s recuperating in a hospital in Iloilo. I wanted to make sure I congratulate him for making it through the operation. He is now minus one very ugly gall bladder. He thanked me, and lamented the fact that he’s in for a strictly organic fiber diet for life. Well, what can I say to that? Not a cute thought at all, especially before breakfast.
Off to eat breakfast. I would have wanted the eggs to be soft boiled yet I smiled to Mom and said they’re just fine. I chopped some green tomatoes and bell peppers to go with the eggs. Not too bad. I ate everything except the whites. I don’t fancy the whites too much, you see.
I saw ham and luncheon meat slices, fried bangus, and mashed squash too. I would have gone solely for the squash, but I remembered the doctor telling me during my physical exam four days ago that I’m two kilos underweight. So, I took a deep breath, piled more than my usual serving of rice and forked five slices of ham and luncheon meat onto my plate. In honor of Toty who couldn’t have meat from this day on, I murmured to myself, as I proceeded to do my noble duty.
10:11 AM I hummed Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You in the bathroom for the third time already. I must have done it subconsciously. What can I do against that charmingly sad there’s-always- someone-leaving-someone song?
Yeah, twice in all my 23 years have I loved and let go. Not exactly record-breaking, but heartbreaking they sure were. Yet, Love remains; it all remains in the heart. And I’d have to agree, letting go is not absolutely letting go. Ah, such drama.
I reached for the soap dish. Nothing there. My left hand holding the salmon pink puff, my right scratching an imagined itch on my nape, I checked one by one all the ablution items in sight: Head and Shoulders sachets, a Cream Silk conditioner bottle, some Peach and Wheat Germ lotion by Asda, PH Care, Palmolive Botani—P-H C-a-r-e… Hmm, ma-try kaya ‘to!
Resolved: If available, PH Care makes a good substitute for bath soap in the event that the latter suddenly goes missing. Just don’t go telling your little sister about it.
1:00 PM I had lunch with James Bond. I had: 10 packs of Nissin’s Creamy Butter Wafers, nakahilera on the plate and smothered with apple jam; plus, a tumbler filled with finely crushed ice and lemon soda. Quite a good fair it was, while the sleek, suave Pierce Brosnan does a great and incredible job tumbling and diving his way through two hours of violence and pyrotechnics in The World Is Not Enough.
He did all that with a broken clavicle, mind you.
3:45 PM I’m thinking as I’m writing this: Is this a kind of giving in to the urge to document one’s life for the heck of it? A friend of mine, Tim, once told me he used to keep a diary wherein he dutifully and meticulously recorded the happenings of the day as well as his personal expenditures and savings. However, he soon got tired of it. It became too taxing a task for him. I said he must have done it too mechanically, which usually takes most of the fun out of it.
Now I ask myself: Am I doing this right? Are these words the hues my soul takes at this moment in time? What I do know is that I don’t feel tired at all, or futilely taxed, doing this. Somehow, though, I feel that is not enough.
It’s hard, chronicling one’s heart; it’s even harder trying to be truthful about it.
4:01 PM I saw my dad clad in stonewashed denim heading for the door. He said he’s going to the drugstore. “Would you get me a large pack of barbecue Chippy at a sari-sari store, please dad?” I asked. “Copy,” he said (like most other dads, he has slight delusions of military life.)
He came back with two packs of Pee Wee Pizza. To the politely disdainful look on my face, he quipped: “The girl at the sari-sari store said they didn’t have any Chippy left. I asked her what junk food is closest to Chippy and she said Pee Wee.
I pointed out that Chippy is made out of ground corn, like Mr. Chips, Tortillos, or the now rarely available Humpty Dumpty, whereas Pee Wee is made from cassava starch.
“Teh, better luck another time. And make sure then that you’re the one making the actual purchase,” he winked.
“Copy” I countered. It was him alright who made the trip and bought the chips with his money. All I did was make the request. It’s not only beggars who can’t be choosers, sometimes.
I made an attempt at diplomacy, “Dad, I’m putting on Golden Eye this second. Care for agent double-O-seven?”
“Sure. And maybe some Pee Wee too.”
That junk hadn’t been a problem to me at all.
7:21 PM I’m all set for a prayer meeting at Grandma’s. I’m going to it on my new polka dot—red with white dots—slippers just to give me a kind of festive feel. Prayer meetings, in my meager experience, are usually a somber affair.
When was the last time that I really prayed, pray tell? When was it that I truly let my heart speak, make my soul reach for the Supreme Being?
Whenever I really pray, I become too self-conscious and I end up not uttering a word, verbally or mentally. If God knows everything, God must know what’s in my heart even before I say it. What are words anyway but mere inert symbols: they can’t really convey what we truly feel. I’ll pray in whatever way I can, for all the world cares. I’m not praying to the world anyway.
Mom called for me. It was time to go. I grabbed my cherry red jacket, turned off the light, and went out.
7:55 PM Tita Rosie came looking for my sister Mot. She’s giving Mot the third of four Hepa B vaccine injections. I told her that Mot’s still in school and that I haven’t had that shot before and I’d like to find out what it’s like. She asked me to get a cotton ball and some alcohol.
“It’s going to be an intramuscular shot, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Uhuh, right on your shoulder,” she replied swabbing the said body part with the alcohol-soaked cotton.
The shot was a bit painful, especially when the minute stream of vaccine came in contact with my deltoids. The length of my left arm suddenly felt fatigued, as if I shook and waved it around nonstop the whole day. I went back to my room and passed by Dad’s. I found him there, blinking the sleep off his eyes.
“I took an anti-Hepa B shot dad.”
“I see, but where’d you get it? Who gave you?”
“Tita Rosie. It hurt a bit but it’s something you don’t get to do everyday, isn’t it? You should try it.”
I didn’t hear what he said because I was trudging back to my room. Taking that shot was a fast, on-the-spot decision on my part—one which I relished immensely. As for the other decisions I’ve been making in my life, particularly those which were made too quickly with little prior thinking, I wonder when I would get the time to sit down and think through their various ramifications.
Then Mot appeared and asked me how I’ve been. Brimming with a ridiculous boyish pride I told her how I braved a Hepa B vaccine shot. “It hurt, you know,” I bragged, raising my brows for emphasis.
“You should try an intramuscular shot of distilled water. It’s cheaper but it hurts more,” she replied, her smile emitting just the right wattage of condescension.
9:02 PM TV time again. I whipped up a fast snack. Here’s how:
Slowly pour half of the contents of a litro-pack of Eight O’ Clock Orange-Mango powdered juice into your favorite glass tumbler. Make sure the powder forms a decent mound at the bottom.
With a heavy steel mallet, crush some ice. Make sure you get really finely disintegrated ice. Thinking of your worst enemy guarantees excellent results.
Fill the tumbler to the brim with crushed ice. Pour cold water into the tumbler and slip the cap to seal the brim. Shake as James Bond would have liked his drink to be shaken.
(Oh, the tumbler needs to be made of glass to ensure a more interesting aftermath should it slip out of your hand when you’re shaking it.)
On your most favorite plate, arrange a bed of saltine crackers. Next, top it with chopped bananas and smear some white cheese on the bananas. Then, trickle some grapefruit jam over everything (the messier the pattern, the better.)
Finally, be sure to pat dry your face from all the exertion before serving.
On Pinoy Fear Factor Argentina, South America, I saw the stand up comedienne Janna hanging by her foot which was trapped in a net suspended from the base of the helicopter. A staff hurriedly jetskied to where she was but untangling Janna took sometime, for the rescuer couldn’t get a secure foothold in the chest high water and the chopper couldn’t stay put in midair. Poor Janna had to hang on for several excruciating seconds before falling, as a general rule of nature, into the water.
Accidents. They happen when they want to. As much as we want to prevent them from happening, we should hope to get lucky too.
10:02 PM Speaking of accidents, my friend Christine texted me that she stepped on a protruding nail yesterday and that she feels a little ill tonight.
“Get a shot of anti-tetanus toxoid fast,” I told her.
“I’m fine. The nail wasn’t rusty at all,” she replied.
Either she’s superbly uncaring or I’m too easily agitated, whatever, pwede ba ang rason na iyon? I told her to inform me ASAP when she begins to feel that her condition is a matter of serious consequence worth any sane human being’s anxiety. Her “okay” made me feel I’d be waiting a long time for an update of that nature.
Another friend, Bem-Bem from Cebu, who works as a Quality Assurance specialist in a call center that does political surveys in America tells me she’s feeling lonely and homesick.
“It’s different being home, where you can simply run to some real friends anytime for anything,” she imparted.
“Makes one of us then,” I replied.
What I really want now is to get away, somewhere really faraway where everyone is yet to know who I am. It would be like starting anew in a new place. I want to get away from all the things I’ve become so used to. Life can’t be made up only of all the things that we’re used to.
11:50 PM The night is old, dying. I can hear the trucks speeding along the highway. The dialogue with the Self, however, rings loud and clear, every word precise and sonorous, every thought determinedly aglow.
What is it that you most fear?
The murder of my soul by myself.
When do you hurt the most?
It matters to me that I’m something, an entity that counts in the grand scheme of things. I hurt the most when I’m reduced to nothing, when I know for a fact that I let that injustice happen to me. Self-inflicted violence cuts deep, you know.
What about unrequited love?
They never knew about it. Who could be so sure they were both unrequited?
Whether they knew or not is immaterial. We’re looking at the act of them loving you back in that special way, which never happened.
Yeah, I guess you have a point there. But did you have to sharpen it so?
I thought you welcome pain. Weren’t you the one who proclaimed it to be your, uh, what was that, Protector?
Yes. It still is like that. And I’m well aware that it’s turned just a tad too overprotective for my own good.
There’s the rub. I see you’re beginning to get the hang of all this.
What’s ‘all this,’ huh? What’s so damn important about ‘all this?’ Why can’t ‘all this’ simply not matter?
Keep that yarn of questions spinning, fratello, because somewhere in the intersection of your mind and heart you know the answer. Until you stop pretending to be asleep, that yarn will be spun, and no one, not even the blades of Fate, would cut it for you.
Give me a break! I need to think, and you’re making it impossible for me to do so.
Do you ever get enough room in your mind to really think?
I don’t need room. What I need is a respite from harpies like you.
I wonder where you get all this resentment from.
I generate it!
Ah, like a nice tough reactor of resentment.
At least make an effort to make an effort to be more picturesque in speech.
I see you risk an overdose of Juvenalian sarcasm yourself. Sadly, even that won’t save you from the less mighty part of yourself. And you know it.
(A knowing silence ensues.)
9:03 AM I texted my friend Toty, who’s recuperating in a hospital in Iloilo. I wanted to make sure I congratulate him for making it through the operation. He is now minus one very ugly gall bladder. He thanked me, and lamented the fact that he’s in for a strictly organic fiber diet for life. Well, what can I say to that? Not a cute thought at all, especially before breakfast.
Off to eat breakfast. I would have wanted the eggs to be soft boiled yet I smiled to Mom and said they’re just fine. I chopped some green tomatoes and bell peppers to go with the eggs. Not too bad. I ate everything except the whites. I don’t fancy the whites too much, you see.
I saw ham and luncheon meat slices, fried bangus, and mashed squash too. I would have gone solely for the squash, but I remembered the doctor telling me during my physical exam four days ago that I’m two kilos underweight. So, I took a deep breath, piled more than my usual serving of rice and forked five slices of ham and luncheon meat onto my plate. In honor of Toty who couldn’t have meat from this day on, I murmured to myself, as I proceeded to do my noble duty.
10:11 AM I hummed Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You in the bathroom for the third time already. I must have done it subconsciously. What can I do against that charmingly sad there’s-always- someone-leaving-someone song?
Yeah, twice in all my 23 years have I loved and let go. Not exactly record-breaking, but heartbreaking they sure were. Yet, Love remains; it all remains in the heart. And I’d have to agree, letting go is not absolutely letting go. Ah, such drama.
I reached for the soap dish. Nothing there. My left hand holding the salmon pink puff, my right scratching an imagined itch on my nape, I checked one by one all the ablution items in sight: Head and Shoulders sachets, a Cream Silk conditioner bottle, some Peach and Wheat Germ lotion by Asda, PH Care, Palmolive Botani—P-H C-a-r-e… Hmm, ma-try kaya ‘to!
Resolved: If available, PH Care makes a good substitute for bath soap in the event that the latter suddenly goes missing. Just don’t go telling your little sister about it.
1:00 PM I had lunch with James Bond. I had: 10 packs of Nissin’s Creamy Butter Wafers, nakahilera on the plate and smothered with apple jam; plus, a tumbler filled with finely crushed ice and lemon soda. Quite a good fair it was, while the sleek, suave Pierce Brosnan does a great and incredible job tumbling and diving his way through two hours of violence and pyrotechnics in The World Is Not Enough.
He did all that with a broken clavicle, mind you.
3:45 PM I’m thinking as I’m writing this: Is this a kind of giving in to the urge to document one’s life for the heck of it? A friend of mine, Tim, once told me he used to keep a diary wherein he dutifully and meticulously recorded the happenings of the day as well as his personal expenditures and savings. However, he soon got tired of it. It became too taxing a task for him. I said he must have done it too mechanically, which usually takes most of the fun out of it.
Now I ask myself: Am I doing this right? Are these words the hues my soul takes at this moment in time? What I do know is that I don’t feel tired at all, or futilely taxed, doing this. Somehow, though, I feel that is not enough.
It’s hard, chronicling one’s heart; it’s even harder trying to be truthful about it.
4:01 PM I saw my dad clad in stonewashed denim heading for the door. He said he’s going to the drugstore. “Would you get me a large pack of barbecue Chippy at a sari-sari store, please dad?” I asked. “Copy,” he said (like most other dads, he has slight delusions of military life.)
He came back with two packs of Pee Wee Pizza. To the politely disdainful look on my face, he quipped: “The girl at the sari-sari store said they didn’t have any Chippy left. I asked her what junk food is closest to Chippy and she said Pee Wee.
I pointed out that Chippy is made out of ground corn, like Mr. Chips, Tortillos, or the now rarely available Humpty Dumpty, whereas Pee Wee is made from cassava starch.
“Teh, better luck another time. And make sure then that you’re the one making the actual purchase,” he winked.
“Copy” I countered. It was him alright who made the trip and bought the chips with his money. All I did was make the request. It’s not only beggars who can’t be choosers, sometimes.
I made an attempt at diplomacy, “Dad, I’m putting on Golden Eye this second. Care for agent double-O-seven?”
“Sure. And maybe some Pee Wee too.”
That junk hadn’t been a problem to me at all.
7:21 PM I’m all set for a prayer meeting at Grandma’s. I’m going to it on my new polka dot—red with white dots—slippers just to give me a kind of festive feel. Prayer meetings, in my meager experience, are usually a somber affair.
When was the last time that I really prayed, pray tell? When was it that I truly let my heart speak, make my soul reach for the Supreme Being?
Whenever I really pray, I become too self-conscious and I end up not uttering a word, verbally or mentally. If God knows everything, God must know what’s in my heart even before I say it. What are words anyway but mere inert symbols: they can’t really convey what we truly feel. I’ll pray in whatever way I can, for all the world cares. I’m not praying to the world anyway.
Mom called for me. It was time to go. I grabbed my cherry red jacket, turned off the light, and went out.
7:55 PM Tita Rosie came looking for my sister Mot. She’s giving Mot the third of four Hepa B vaccine injections. I told her that Mot’s still in school and that I haven’t had that shot before and I’d like to find out what it’s like. She asked me to get a cotton ball and some alcohol.
“It’s going to be an intramuscular shot, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Uhuh, right on your shoulder,” she replied swabbing the said body part with the alcohol-soaked cotton.
The shot was a bit painful, especially when the minute stream of vaccine came in contact with my deltoids. The length of my left arm suddenly felt fatigued, as if I shook and waved it around nonstop the whole day. I went back to my room and passed by Dad’s. I found him there, blinking the sleep off his eyes.
“I took an anti-Hepa B shot dad.”
“I see, but where’d you get it? Who gave you?”
“Tita Rosie. It hurt a bit but it’s something you don’t get to do everyday, isn’t it? You should try it.”
I didn’t hear what he said because I was trudging back to my room. Taking that shot was a fast, on-the-spot decision on my part—one which I relished immensely. As for the other decisions I’ve been making in my life, particularly those which were made too quickly with little prior thinking, I wonder when I would get the time to sit down and think through their various ramifications.
Then Mot appeared and asked me how I’ve been. Brimming with a ridiculous boyish pride I told her how I braved a Hepa B vaccine shot. “It hurt, you know,” I bragged, raising my brows for emphasis.
“You should try an intramuscular shot of distilled water. It’s cheaper but it hurts more,” she replied, her smile emitting just the right wattage of condescension.
9:02 PM TV time again. I whipped up a fast snack. Here’s how:
Slowly pour half of the contents of a litro-pack of Eight O’ Clock Orange-Mango powdered juice into your favorite glass tumbler. Make sure the powder forms a decent mound at the bottom.
With a heavy steel mallet, crush some ice. Make sure you get really finely disintegrated ice. Thinking of your worst enemy guarantees excellent results.
Fill the tumbler to the brim with crushed ice. Pour cold water into the tumbler and slip the cap to seal the brim. Shake as James Bond would have liked his drink to be shaken.
(Oh, the tumbler needs to be made of glass to ensure a more interesting aftermath should it slip out of your hand when you’re shaking it.)
On your most favorite plate, arrange a bed of saltine crackers. Next, top it with chopped bananas and smear some white cheese on the bananas. Then, trickle some grapefruit jam over everything (the messier the pattern, the better.)
Finally, be sure to pat dry your face from all the exertion before serving.
On Pinoy Fear Factor Argentina, South America, I saw the stand up comedienne Janna hanging by her foot which was trapped in a net suspended from the base of the helicopter. A staff hurriedly jetskied to where she was but untangling Janna took sometime, for the rescuer couldn’t get a secure foothold in the chest high water and the chopper couldn’t stay put in midair. Poor Janna had to hang on for several excruciating seconds before falling, as a general rule of nature, into the water.
Accidents. They happen when they want to. As much as we want to prevent them from happening, we should hope to get lucky too.
10:02 PM Speaking of accidents, my friend Christine texted me that she stepped on a protruding nail yesterday and that she feels a little ill tonight.
“Get a shot of anti-tetanus toxoid fast,” I told her.
“I’m fine. The nail wasn’t rusty at all,” she replied.
Either she’s superbly uncaring or I’m too easily agitated, whatever, pwede ba ang rason na iyon? I told her to inform me ASAP when she begins to feel that her condition is a matter of serious consequence worth any sane human being’s anxiety. Her “okay” made me feel I’d be waiting a long time for an update of that nature.
Another friend, Bem-Bem from Cebu, who works as a Quality Assurance specialist in a call center that does political surveys in America tells me she’s feeling lonely and homesick.
“It’s different being home, where you can simply run to some real friends anytime for anything,” she imparted.
“Makes one of us then,” I replied.
What I really want now is to get away, somewhere really faraway where everyone is yet to know who I am. It would be like starting anew in a new place. I want to get away from all the things I’ve become so used to. Life can’t be made up only of all the things that we’re used to.
11:50 PM The night is old, dying. I can hear the trucks speeding along the highway. The dialogue with the Self, however, rings loud and clear, every word precise and sonorous, every thought determinedly aglow.
What is it that you most fear?
The murder of my soul by myself.
When do you hurt the most?
It matters to me that I’m something, an entity that counts in the grand scheme of things. I hurt the most when I’m reduced to nothing, when I know for a fact that I let that injustice happen to me. Self-inflicted violence cuts deep, you know.
What about unrequited love?
They never knew about it. Who could be so sure they were both unrequited?
Whether they knew or not is immaterial. We’re looking at the act of them loving you back in that special way, which never happened.
Yeah, I guess you have a point there. But did you have to sharpen it so?
I thought you welcome pain. Weren’t you the one who proclaimed it to be your, uh, what was that, Protector?
Yes. It still is like that. And I’m well aware that it’s turned just a tad too overprotective for my own good.
There’s the rub. I see you’re beginning to get the hang of all this.
What’s ‘all this,’ huh? What’s so damn important about ‘all this?’ Why can’t ‘all this’ simply not matter?
Keep that yarn of questions spinning, fratello, because somewhere in the intersection of your mind and heart you know the answer. Until you stop pretending to be asleep, that yarn will be spun, and no one, not even the blades of Fate, would cut it for you.
Give me a break! I need to think, and you’re making it impossible for me to do so.
Do you ever get enough room in your mind to really think?
I don’t need room. What I need is a respite from harpies like you.
I wonder where you get all this resentment from.
I generate it!
Ah, like a nice tough reactor of resentment.
At least make an effort to make an effort to be more picturesque in speech.
I see you risk an overdose of Juvenalian sarcasm yourself. Sadly, even that won’t save you from the less mighty part of yourself. And you know it.
(A knowing silence ensues.)
Monday, January 12, 2009
A Day in the Life of the Unemployed
11:13 AM Been warming this wrought iron bench with my gluteus maximus for almost an hour now. I sit alone in this tiny park in the heart of the city, staring hard at what they call as the Fountain of Justice, a collection of steel protrusions resembling a bicycle wheel’s radius. Not a spray of water from any of its spouts, it makes a mute dismal picture that perfectly highlights what a drag all this waiting for nothing has been.
What am I doing here anyway?
You’re trying to feel your way through the minutes of an unemployed day, said me.
A well articulated point my dear, but must I do this in a turtleneck? The forecast said today’s going to be cloudy with a bit of rain and really strong winds; now it’s sweltering!
Surely, you know better than to blame the damn forecast. You feel hot, you take it off. Plain and simple.
Nah, I think I’d keep this on. It makes me feel a bit more in a writing mood. Besides, the doctor said I need to sweat every chance I get.
And I thought you were one to neglect professional medical opinion (nods his head, grinning lopsidedly.)
I smile back, a smile of shared fondness for the queer stuff that alternative lives are made of, may it be watered down cynicism, a weak ray of bleakness, the ridiculous pleasure borne of mundane banter, or the simple magic of stretching one’s gaze to see.
Just beyond my forlorn lifesphere, the city is a constant stream of movement and color in the form of jeepneys and people. Movement and color aren’t exactly life. I feel a grim grin working its way around my face. I look up to see the Monday overcast stretching endlessly like a fluffy bed of smoke. I feel a change coming. My deliverance is going to fall upon me any minute now.
11:18 AM Everywhere I look, I see concrete as dull as the clouds outside. When will banks break free from the neutral-color scheme? Still, there’s a steady trickle of people entering and leaving the Philippine National Bank-Luzuriaga Branch. I had better let them be, these people who have a legitimate business being here because I, on the other hand, am here—to escape the rain.
As a gesture of good will, let me say at least that the place is pretty conducive for scribbling—cool and really nice and quiet, with an air of reverence and tacit mind-your-own-damn-business understanding enfolding all folks to the point of social asphyxia. I guess money does that to everyone at some unfortunate point in time.
Plus, I try to be unobtrusive and non-threatening, blending really well with the brick red leather couch here, as I am clothed in four different shades of brown, the color I favor the most. If I attract too much attention, God knows what others would think of the guy-who-clearly-doesn’t-have-a-business-to-be-here.
Tick-tock tick… I can feel my sepia camouflage failing me; I feel all the more like some sort of reconnaissance man, looking around surreptitiously and jotting down copious notes. The security guard is beginning to notice me with an evil eye, looking like a bulldog chewing on a wasp (however unsavory that is.) It must have dawned on him that I’ve been sitting here way too long to be devoid, beyond reasonable doubt, of any cruel intentions. Don’t panic. Sit up straight and look normal. Shrug. Calmly! Do it again, calmly. Now summon that will-I-deposit-half-a-million-or-two-million-look. There, you look so above suspicion. Now check on the guard from the corner of your eye.
He’s handing out numbers to middle aged women.
Allora, the reconnaissance man moves on to the next subject: a creature (I’m uncertain as to its sex; it has boobs but they look incredible to me so I remain on the safe side) across the aisle wearing a checked pleated mini skirt, furry calf-high boots, and an ominous Apocalypto belt. Its dark hair has some seriously deadly Viking highlights and its bodily composition rivals that of the Venus of Wilendorf. Discreet stares from all over the PNB house are currently flying to this creature’s direction, motivating it to stand, shake its hair, and strut its stuff down the aisle. I close my eyes and wish the stares were all daggers, really sharp but rusty.
It was precise, tactile, clean, and over in a matter of seconds—the perfect crime in the mind.
3:13 PM I’m on a red bus now with six other passengers, giving the usually jam-packed vehicle a hollow feel. I feel sorry for harping to my best friend on the phone about how she should get a job fast (because she’s somebody who can do it but just wouldn’t because she finds meaning in what she’s doing with her time, even if it’s reading Spanish chicklit at home, without pay.) What was I thinking? I’m out of a job myself! So I sent her a text message:
I’m sorry for sounding like a prodder-nagger kanina. What really matters to me is that you are following your bliss and I am at your side to support you. I can’t live your life for you naman di ba?
Pipit texted me back: It’s okay. Please, understand my crankiness too (translation: stubborn lang talaga ako.)
Not a bad attempt at amnesty, huh? Somehow it makes me feel I hold considerable promise as a conflict and reconciliation worker. I lean on the window pane and hum Que Sera Sera, one of Pipit’s favorite get-by songs, hoping to nap all the possibilities away.
3:55 PM I feel like a pebble of Truth has just been dropped into the pool of Emptiness that is me. The Will searches for that pebble in vain; it will only discover though that vast and deep is the emptiness that this one soul could carry.
They say the jar’s emptiness is what holds the water, that a jar without a hollow is not a jar. That a jar that is full must be emptied before it can be filled. I remember a time when I got so full of myself. I had to drain out a great deal of Pride, mostly by weeping, which felt awful at first but really light and liberating in the end. But that’s historic stuff of months ago. Today, talking about emptiness, I’m wondering whether or not the things I devote my life to do hold water in the grand stream of things. I couldn’t be definitely sure of that, could I?
“Wisest is he who knows he knows nothing.”
I free my gaze through the window of the now filled bus. I see a gnomish old man in faded tattered clothes smoking a cigarette. I look at his brown feet. They look relaxed and at home in the electric pink crocs cradling them.
Socrates is right. I know nothing really. And I’m quite happy about that.
With not a minimum of smoke, turbulence, and noise, the bus moves out, taking me home.
10:11 PM Just finished off two Fugi apples and nine Hiro sandwiches with a vengeance. My only witnesses: the folks on CS9’s HEROES and Fringe.
The night is cold for mid-January in this country. The cold seeps through my blanket, right through my low-fat body. I’m trying to think of yet another self-discovery, hoping it would somehow warm me up, even just a little—
You know why you always fall for someone who’s unlikely to love you back?
Because I’ve mastered it and it makes me feel in control and I’m unwilling to risk plunging into the Unknown, where I won’t be able to calculate my reactions and no amount of intellectualizing can put up the so-called ‘comfort zone’ I’ve always locked myself in.
There is a consistency to your candor which is truly beautiful!
And may I say so about your sarcasm?
Why don’t you leaf through your old journals and look up what you had written, say, exactly three years to today? You might find something that would help you make some sense out the abovementioned ‘realizations.’
Hmm, right! Here… we have it: (Reading aloud) January 12, 2006—
Yes. Just keep moving. Keep moving no matter how every harsh unuttered word weighs you down. I know they do. I know you are what your peers do not speak of you. You are weak. At this point, you have no choice but to be.
It’s because you think too much. You are caught in the crises of a world too big and too small for you. You are scourged by your humanity, that part of yourself that gives so much, too much, to a benign promise, a sacrifice sine qua non. You need to detach yourself from these things, find out who you truly are by yourself, unshackled by any outer faith, burning only from within—an entity very much of itself. You have only yourself. And it is all you need to begin with.
Hmm, back then you were penning a resolve to break free. Now it seems you’re caving yourself in a, uh, I don’t know—your comfort zone, perhaps.
Does this mean the real me is a prisoner of himself and is content being so? Am I being too hard on myself and actually liking it? Is splitting hairs all I’ll ever do as a means of getting by in the glorious flux that is Life?
Figures we’ll have to find out how Jeprox finds out about the find he thinks he’s finally going to be fine with, won’t we?
(Sigh) That lacks a great deal of musicality. Though, I think we’d better give it a rest, for now.
Vero. Buona notte e sogni dolce, fratello.
What am I doing here anyway?
You’re trying to feel your way through the minutes of an unemployed day, said me.
A well articulated point my dear, but must I do this in a turtleneck? The forecast said today’s going to be cloudy with a bit of rain and really strong winds; now it’s sweltering!
Surely, you know better than to blame the damn forecast. You feel hot, you take it off. Plain and simple.
Nah, I think I’d keep this on. It makes me feel a bit more in a writing mood. Besides, the doctor said I need to sweat every chance I get.
And I thought you were one to neglect professional medical opinion (nods his head, grinning lopsidedly.)
I smile back, a smile of shared fondness for the queer stuff that alternative lives are made of, may it be watered down cynicism, a weak ray of bleakness, the ridiculous pleasure borne of mundane banter, or the simple magic of stretching one’s gaze to see.
Just beyond my forlorn lifesphere, the city is a constant stream of movement and color in the form of jeepneys and people. Movement and color aren’t exactly life. I feel a grim grin working its way around my face. I look up to see the Monday overcast stretching endlessly like a fluffy bed of smoke. I feel a change coming. My deliverance is going to fall upon me any minute now.
11:18 AM Everywhere I look, I see concrete as dull as the clouds outside. When will banks break free from the neutral-color scheme? Still, there’s a steady trickle of people entering and leaving the Philippine National Bank-Luzuriaga Branch. I had better let them be, these people who have a legitimate business being here because I, on the other hand, am here—to escape the rain.
As a gesture of good will, let me say at least that the place is pretty conducive for scribbling—cool and really nice and quiet, with an air of reverence and tacit mind-your-own-damn-business understanding enfolding all folks to the point of social asphyxia. I guess money does that to everyone at some unfortunate point in time.
Plus, I try to be unobtrusive and non-threatening, blending really well with the brick red leather couch here, as I am clothed in four different shades of brown, the color I favor the most. If I attract too much attention, God knows what others would think of the guy-who-clearly-doesn’t-have-a-business-to-be-here.
Tick-tock tick… I can feel my sepia camouflage failing me; I feel all the more like some sort of reconnaissance man, looking around surreptitiously and jotting down copious notes. The security guard is beginning to notice me with an evil eye, looking like a bulldog chewing on a wasp (however unsavory that is.) It must have dawned on him that I’ve been sitting here way too long to be devoid, beyond reasonable doubt, of any cruel intentions. Don’t panic. Sit up straight and look normal. Shrug. Calmly! Do it again, calmly. Now summon that will-I-deposit-half-a-million-or-two-million-look. There, you look so above suspicion. Now check on the guard from the corner of your eye.
He’s handing out numbers to middle aged women.
Allora, the reconnaissance man moves on to the next subject: a creature (I’m uncertain as to its sex; it has boobs but they look incredible to me so I remain on the safe side) across the aisle wearing a checked pleated mini skirt, furry calf-high boots, and an ominous Apocalypto belt. Its dark hair has some seriously deadly Viking highlights and its bodily composition rivals that of the Venus of Wilendorf. Discreet stares from all over the PNB house are currently flying to this creature’s direction, motivating it to stand, shake its hair, and strut its stuff down the aisle. I close my eyes and wish the stares were all daggers, really sharp but rusty.
It was precise, tactile, clean, and over in a matter of seconds—the perfect crime in the mind.
3:13 PM I’m on a red bus now with six other passengers, giving the usually jam-packed vehicle a hollow feel. I feel sorry for harping to my best friend on the phone about how she should get a job fast (because she’s somebody who can do it but just wouldn’t because she finds meaning in what she’s doing with her time, even if it’s reading Spanish chicklit at home, without pay.) What was I thinking? I’m out of a job myself! So I sent her a text message:
I’m sorry for sounding like a prodder-nagger kanina. What really matters to me is that you are following your bliss and I am at your side to support you. I can’t live your life for you naman di ba?
Pipit texted me back: It’s okay. Please, understand my crankiness too (translation: stubborn lang talaga ako.)
Not a bad attempt at amnesty, huh? Somehow it makes me feel I hold considerable promise as a conflict and reconciliation worker. I lean on the window pane and hum Que Sera Sera, one of Pipit’s favorite get-by songs, hoping to nap all the possibilities away.
3:55 PM I feel like a pebble of Truth has just been dropped into the pool of Emptiness that is me. The Will searches for that pebble in vain; it will only discover though that vast and deep is the emptiness that this one soul could carry.
They say the jar’s emptiness is what holds the water, that a jar without a hollow is not a jar. That a jar that is full must be emptied before it can be filled. I remember a time when I got so full of myself. I had to drain out a great deal of Pride, mostly by weeping, which felt awful at first but really light and liberating in the end. But that’s historic stuff of months ago. Today, talking about emptiness, I’m wondering whether or not the things I devote my life to do hold water in the grand stream of things. I couldn’t be definitely sure of that, could I?
“Wisest is he who knows he knows nothing.”
I free my gaze through the window of the now filled bus. I see a gnomish old man in faded tattered clothes smoking a cigarette. I look at his brown feet. They look relaxed and at home in the electric pink crocs cradling them.
Socrates is right. I know nothing really. And I’m quite happy about that.
With not a minimum of smoke, turbulence, and noise, the bus moves out, taking me home.
10:11 PM Just finished off two Fugi apples and nine Hiro sandwiches with a vengeance. My only witnesses: the folks on CS9’s HEROES and Fringe.
The night is cold for mid-January in this country. The cold seeps through my blanket, right through my low-fat body. I’m trying to think of yet another self-discovery, hoping it would somehow warm me up, even just a little—
You know why you always fall for someone who’s unlikely to love you back?
Because I’ve mastered it and it makes me feel in control and I’m unwilling to risk plunging into the Unknown, where I won’t be able to calculate my reactions and no amount of intellectualizing can put up the so-called ‘comfort zone’ I’ve always locked myself in.
There is a consistency to your candor which is truly beautiful!
And may I say so about your sarcasm?
Why don’t you leaf through your old journals and look up what you had written, say, exactly three years to today? You might find something that would help you make some sense out the abovementioned ‘realizations.’
Hmm, right! Here… we have it: (Reading aloud) January 12, 2006—
Yes. Just keep moving. Keep moving no matter how every harsh unuttered word weighs you down. I know they do. I know you are what your peers do not speak of you. You are weak. At this point, you have no choice but to be.
It’s because you think too much. You are caught in the crises of a world too big and too small for you. You are scourged by your humanity, that part of yourself that gives so much, too much, to a benign promise, a sacrifice sine qua non. You need to detach yourself from these things, find out who you truly are by yourself, unshackled by any outer faith, burning only from within—an entity very much of itself. You have only yourself. And it is all you need to begin with.
Hmm, back then you were penning a resolve to break free. Now it seems you’re caving yourself in a, uh, I don’t know—your comfort zone, perhaps.
Does this mean the real me is a prisoner of himself and is content being so? Am I being too hard on myself and actually liking it? Is splitting hairs all I’ll ever do as a means of getting by in the glorious flux that is Life?
Figures we’ll have to find out how Jeprox finds out about the find he thinks he’s finally going to be fine with, won’t we?
(Sigh) That lacks a great deal of musicality. Though, I think we’d better give it a rest, for now.
Vero. Buona notte e sogni dolce, fratello.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
No Birthday Gift Too Late
Margaux gave me a bag for my birthday. My birthday’s in November but she said her gift could still catch up. Besides, we weren’t too far away from the New Year yet.
I knew Margaux back in college when she did photojournalism for The Spectrum. She was a welcome ingredient to the creatively delicious pot of talent in the student publication.
Tall and ruthless with a pair of high heels, Margaux walks taller than most other girls in school, but she’s way more quiet than most of them. Or so, people usually observe, for I have had the privilege of really talking, or cyber chatting, with her to know that she too can talk nonstop.
She does talk nonstop, but seldom nonsense. In the event that she resorts to nonsensicality, it’s for a cause.
Before, I used to call her the princess in the stone castle, willing an entire household with an iron hand. Now, I fancy calling her the willful girl behind the concealing geisha makeup.
In giving me a gift, the act and the object both I utterly did not expect, she just sort of came out of the blue with it, Margaux revealed one thing about herself to me—she gives, even to people like me, who are too stingy to give her something in return. By stingy, I mean, materially. I am not stingy in spirit, and this entry is my way of saying thank you for the nice black and gold Nike I got. She’s right, there’s no birthday gift too late. And there no thank you too late either.
I knew Margaux back in college when she did photojournalism for The Spectrum. She was a welcome ingredient to the creatively delicious pot of talent in the student publication.
Tall and ruthless with a pair of high heels, Margaux walks taller than most other girls in school, but she’s way more quiet than most of them. Or so, people usually observe, for I have had the privilege of really talking, or cyber chatting, with her to know that she too can talk nonstop.
She does talk nonstop, but seldom nonsense. In the event that she resorts to nonsensicality, it’s for a cause.
Before, I used to call her the princess in the stone castle, willing an entire household with an iron hand. Now, I fancy calling her the willful girl behind the concealing geisha makeup.
In giving me a gift, the act and the object both I utterly did not expect, she just sort of came out of the blue with it, Margaux revealed one thing about herself to me—she gives, even to people like me, who are too stingy to give her something in return. By stingy, I mean, materially. I am not stingy in spirit, and this entry is my way of saying thank you for the nice black and gold Nike I got. She’s right, there’s no birthday gift too late. And there no thank you too late either.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Suicide
i see myself drown in the pools of your eyes
their cold Unknowing pricking me awake, alive
in this dead-blackness
i drift unable to sleep
or accept the gravity of The Fall
(My Fall)
where into
i know not at all
unchartered Hell or
abandoned Heaven
i do not care
i am fine
i am able to float above my head
where sanity crashes loud and proud
against the inside of my cracked skull
curiously, Love has shown no such violence
none of the strong pained thrashing
in the porous, crumbling catacombs of the heart
has it come to know that like a common leaf
in the tree of your existence
it is browned by Time, cracked by the Seasons?
though surviving your unfeeling caress
so like condescending breaths of a fleeting summer breeze,
is as much a half-hearted victory i barely deserve
as the way you witness my recurring suicide
their cold Unknowing pricking me awake, alive
in this dead-blackness
i drift unable to sleep
or accept the gravity of The Fall
(My Fall)
where into
i know not at all
unchartered Hell or
abandoned Heaven
i do not care
i am fine
i am able to float above my head
where sanity crashes loud and proud
against the inside of my cracked skull
curiously, Love has shown no such violence
none of the strong pained thrashing
in the porous, crumbling catacombs of the heart
has it come to know that like a common leaf
in the tree of your existence
it is browned by Time, cracked by the Seasons?
though surviving your unfeeling caress
so like condescending breaths of a fleeting summer breeze,
is as much a half-hearted victory i barely deserve
as the way you witness my recurring suicide
Monday, January 5, 2009
At Bay With The Sentinels of Eros
what does it take to fly out of one's mind,
break free from the confines of too sane thoughts that
had revolved for so long around you--your mere existence
anchoring pieces of stained glass memories of
a past otherwise diluted in dark liquid Pain.
Pain, so i've learned,
begets the indomitable consciousness of the soul,
no matter how broken and scattered it is by directional default.
how curse i the lips that set free the words
weaving the jist of all enamored tales
spun under the softest most wicked smiles of the moon,
when mine own tongue too is grown
in the welling fullness of the heart?
break free from the confines of too sane thoughts that
had revolved for so long around you--your mere existence
anchoring pieces of stained glass memories of
a past otherwise diluted in dark liquid Pain.
Pain, so i've learned,
begets the indomitable consciousness of the soul,
no matter how broken and scattered it is by directional default.
how curse i the lips that set free the words
weaving the jist of all enamored tales
spun under the softest most wicked smiles of the moon,
when mine own tongue too is grown
in the welling fullness of the heart?
Believe
there is more to sunsets than thinking of Love, thinking of the brokenness you can only imagine. for what's left of the heart is a numb sense of reality--a particle of being that refuses to wake up from and never ceases to hold on to a bad dream.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Madonna I Forsake Thee
unhand me silver moon
i am not your own
let loose your garish straps
wrapping me mummy-like
to be kept in
the tomb of your praises
yes, they grow like
giant weeds blooming daggers
hugging themselves
in blind supplication
dying at the behest of your
unfeeling pride to which
many had lied, professing
to be your very own
children waxing cold with
every kiss of the serpentine wind
nay, stay in the luminescence
of your only vanity, your beauty
but leave me alone
in this clear-cut knowledge that
i am not your own
i never was, i never will
(here, everything is still)
i am not your own
let loose your garish straps
wrapping me mummy-like
to be kept in
the tomb of your praises
yes, they grow like
giant weeds blooming daggers
hugging themselves
in blind supplication
dying at the behest of your
unfeeling pride to which
many had lied, professing
to be your very own
children waxing cold with
every kiss of the serpentine wind
nay, stay in the luminescence
of your only vanity, your beauty
but leave me alone
in this clear-cut knowledge that
i am not your own
i never was, i never will
(here, everything is still)
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
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