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| 1st & 3rd worlds |
| 12.04.04 (4:48 am) [edit] |
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how different the worlds we live in are.
a few nights ago, i was watching a documentary on what a lot of urban poor Filipinos are eating. they get the garbage from fast food restaurants, cross their fingers, re-cook the garbage and eat them, just to get some sustenance.
then last night, i watched Supersize Me, another documentary, this time on how the American obesity problem may be due to fast food restaurants.
where is the power to equalize that equation? how do you go about it even? in grade school, they tell you that the problem isn't really a lack of resources, but unequal distribution. they tell you all the basics in grade school. it's so easy to know what's right and wrong with the world. but..how do you go about putting things right?
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| loser |
| 11.03.04 (3:41 am) [edit] |
i've lost big twice this year.
first at the Asia Pacific Adfest Young Creatives Competition. And now, the first ever Philippine Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival.
there's really no getting used to the feeling of loss, or rather, being beaten. For me, it's worse than breaking up. There's noone to hate, except yourself. Nothing to try to forget, because you didn't get anything anyway. No way to save face because the people who won are all so happy and, well, triumphant. Nothing to move on from because you never got anywhere.
It feels so bad pala. I grew up not being used to losing. There should be pain killers for these kinds of things. I'm already thinking of things to do that I can use this as an excuse for - "Oh I'm sorry I rammed the fire truck into the building. You see, I lost and needed to do something to feel better."
"Hi, I'm a loser and feel bad. Could I smash the office windows with your head?"
"J, got some major metamphetamines on you? Give me a tonne, I need some upliftment."
I'm sure I'll be excused.
+++on a different note, this is NOT fair. i was set on "making mukmok" the whole night. but here comes Gabby asking if i've seen Happiness. Hello! Have I?! It's one of my favorite movies of all time! and i'm back to normal again - loving movies and dreaming of making mine, and smiling again...
but still...
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| life is outside |
| 11.03.04 (1:46 am) [edit] |
i've just looked through a friend photographer's sites. early last year, he had, what, 3 pages on his pbase site. and now, he's got a lot of pictures across 4 websites. he's been everywhere, travelling, shooting magazine covers, meeting models, but more importantly, doing what he loves. he quit a corporate life, jumped without a lifeline, took a major risk - and congratulations to him, it's paid off.
i am envious of his courage.
am i really supposed to be here? 15 floors up in an air-conditioned trap...is there even such a thing as "supposed to be"? isn't it all your choice? and so...all it takes is to be brave enough to make the choice you really want.
everything is just an excuse.
step outside.
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| chocolate birthday cake |
| 07.17.04 (12:28 pm) [edit] |
classic. on your birthday, you get a birthday cake. and it has to be chocolate.
i just came from, well, let's call it a chocolate birthday cake party. now there's nothing wrong with chocolate birthday cake parties. they're fun. they're easy. they're comfortable. everyone likes chocolate birthday cake.
but that's it, everyone has chocolate birthday cake parties. that's the easy, expected, no-fuss birthday party.
but my birthday falls on friday the 13th this year and i figured i might as well have something different.
kind of like my life? and the choices i find myself making. somehow, i end up making the harder choice, the one that'll challenge me into coming up with better ideas, challenges me to think and re-think everyday.
kind of like when i chose not to go through with med school, and so here i am today, everyday rethinking my life.
not that it's better, it's just...not a chocolate birthday cake party all the time. which is why, i guess, having gone this far, i might as well celebrate well.
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| lessons from riding academy |
| 07.06.04 (2:36 am) [edit] |
They taught me to ride a motorbike, but somehow the lessons had an uncanny way of applying to other things...
1. always look ahead to where you're going
2. ride it, don't fight it
3. kill your fear or it'll kill you
4. the trick is to throw your weight around, not show off your strength
5. pick up your own mess
6. don't ride something you can't handle
7. forcing things only makes things harder
8. admit when you've had enough. don't be too hard on yourself.
9. dare, but take precautions.
10. and, most importantly, get a good night's sleep! harharharhar
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| what is worth catching |
| 05.13.04 (8:24 am) [edit] |
before the mrt rushed past the station, i caught a glimpse of a boy and girl reaching from each's side of the rail for a quick kiss goodbye. a quick coming together only to quickly peel away and catch whatever they each had to catch separately.
while on an afternoon variety show (yes, unbelievably there are gems there too), i caught the game host asking aling purisima right before she spun the wheel - [i]Nasaan ho ang asawa nyo? [/i]. And her answer - [i]Hiniram po, di na binalik.[/i] This as she smiled wide and spun her wheel of fortune.
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| how long have you known yourself? |
| 04.03.04 (10:11 am) [edit] |
some friends were talking about their earliest memories.
someone said kids only see black&white until a certain age (although i don't remember coming across that in Human Development class).
someone else said he's earliest memory was of watching the Miss Universe pageant on TV (yes, he's gay). someone said all he remembers is having a screwed-up childhood.
my earliest memory is my first moment of metacognition. at 3?4?5? getting hit by the feeling that this 'me' today isn't the same 'me' as yesterday. that there was even a 'me' separate from the persons beside 'me' at that time - my mom and some tita. who is this 'me'? and so, who is this 'mom' and 'tita'. but again, is this 'me' really? what if this isn't 'me'.
i remember physically reeling from the weight of thinking of it. my heart constricting. my mind as if turning in on itself from the effort.
and i remember not ever feeling the same again - not ever being completely at ease - having the thought always in the back of my head - had my soul/body been switched as i slept?
i learned later on of course, that this was merely a phenomenon called - 'overthinking things' - which i will suffer perenially until this, my 'old' age. that, and too much MSG.
+++++++++++++++++++
nowadays, i hear people saying of a certain accessory - "it's so you"; of a statement you say - "that's so you"; of a shirt - "it's you!" really? i wouldn't know. for now at least, you tell me then.
for the many years i've been living, how long have i known myself? How well? Do i like what i know of myself? Would i want to be my friend? Quick tell 'me', before quarter-life crisis comes on.
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| in-between times |
| 03.09.04 (7:57 pm) [edit] |
i was recently reminded of the fact that we spend a third of our lives sleeping.
which got me wondering - having just been on a plane for 16 hours and waiting in airports for another 8 - how much more of life we lose killing time, shuttling from place to place, waiting to arrive.
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| re-entry trauma 2 |
| 03.08.04 (12:44 am) [edit] |
i keep going back.
the smell of the laundry.
calculating time.
the sun, finally.
"o, are you here na?"
"no. not quite."
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| re-entry trauma |
| 03.04.04 (10:28 pm) [edit] |
sort out your clothes from your luggage - soiled, unsoiled, unsure.
squeeze in new junk into old, forgotten junk.
clean out accumulated trash - subway cards, bus tickets, unopened maps, scribbled addresses, unused table napkins, 1 cent coins.
stow baggage until next needed.
adjust the time on your watch.
go back to what you can remember because you can't go back.
leave behind what you had left there. pick up from where you had left of.
take down. let go. forget.
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| maybe a dragon |
| 02.02.04 (11:50 pm) [edit] |
are magical and mythical creatures still to be hoped for? read below...(picture available upon request ;p)
PICKLED DRAGON MYSTERY
January 29, 2004
from The Telegraph, London
Canned ... pickled dragon thought to be made for a hoax.
A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.
The baby dragon in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.
Allistair Mitchell, who was asked to investigate the dragon by a friend, David Hart, who discovered it in his garage, speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts at the end of the 19th century, when rivalry between the countries was intense.
"At the time, scientists were the equivalent of today's pop stars. It would have been a great propaganda coup for the Germans if it had come off," Mr Mitchell said.
"I've shown the photos to someone from Oxford University and he thought it was amazing. Obviously he could not say if it was real and wanted to do a biopsy."
The documents suggest that the Natural History Museum turned the dragon away, possibly because they suspected it was a trick, and sent it to be destroyed. But it appears a porter intercepted the jar and took it home. The papers suggest the porter may have been Frederick Hart - David Hart's grandfather.
Mr Mitchell said: "The dragon is flawless, from the tiny teeth to the umbilical cord. It could be made from indiarubber, because Germany was the world's leading manufacturer of it at the time, or it could be made of wax. It has to be fake. No one has ever proved scientifically that dragons exist. But everyone who sees it immediately asks, 'Is it real?"'
Some scientists believe that dragons, though the product of imagination, were inspired by the extraordinary creatures that once roamed the Earth.
As J.K.Rowling's alter ego Hermione Granger once suggested, legends have a basis in fact.
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| prom season |
| 01.27.04 (8:35 pm) [edit] |
an account executive has just suggested we go to one of the proms to "research on our target market" for a beauty product. in a flash, i was assaulted by a barrage of long-buried images and feelings from my own prom. god, we don't want to go through that again do we?
but apparently, we do. because only a few seconds after the suggestion, everyone was thinking dresses make-up hairstyles corsages buttoneers car rentals and heaven forbid, dates. i suspect for most of us it's not to relive a glorious night, but rather, less awkward and pimply and nervous now, this could be the chance to make it all we had wanted it to be.
prom queen dreams. apparently we never outgrow them.
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| the quest for golden shoes |
| 01.04.04 (4:20 am) [edit] |
to be cindrella, search for the shoe that fits.
circa 2004, you hunt down a mass-produced pair that corresponds to your foot. find yourself in flourescent-lit malls. duel with traffic and unavailability of stock.
if the fates aren't against you, you find exactly what you wanted. if, like most, you aren't blessed, you search for an acceptable alternative. something to settle for amidst the sharp stilettos and shiny buckles and S&M straps.
once you do find it, you wait breathlessly for the promised transformation. awkward teen to prom queen. sensible working girl to head-turning beauty. kitchen wench to blushing bride. walk it down between the shoe racks. ask the saleslady what she thinks. look in the mirror.
but the transformation hasn't come.
perhaps you need a pedicure.
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| christmas spirit |
| 01.01.04 (2:53 am) [edit] |
S, one of my best friends, went first to Policarpio Street and then to Star City and then to the Cultural Center and then to Intramuros this Christmas season - all the supposed centers of the Christmas season. She doesn’t know why, but I suspect it’s to find the old Christmas spirit.
She didn’t find it. Each time coming back with a pout and saying “Ang panget!” (It’s ugly). At least she tried.
I had resigned myself to not finding anything, without even trying to find it, content with just wondering how to bring it back. Not even fireworks above us as we, four good friends who’ve known each other since we were children, could bring it back. I think maybe there was a spark for a while as we watched. But then, as the last pyrotechinc trick died down, S turned off the hazards and drove out of the supermarket parking lot.
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| being impressive |
| 12.12.03 (8:44 pm) [edit] |
used to be easier in grade school.
a classmate introduces you to her busmate saying: "This is Pia, magaling yan mag-jackstones. Kaya nyang mag double falling star!" (This is Pia. She's good at playing jackstones and can do the double falling star move.) Then the busmate looks at you with a new respect, she now automatically assumes that you have good grades, are of good moral character and that you don't go around stealing other people's lunches. She'll smile at you if you come across each other in the hallway.
these days, you have to sit through several meetings and participate intelligently everytime, aloud and preferably loudly. or worse, win awards. THEN people smile at you in the hallway (never mind if you ARE of good moral standing) and offer you lunch.
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| 20 somethings..did you write this? |
| 12.03.03 (3:42 am) [edit] |
I've read this once or twice and each time I do, there's at least one line that makes me sit back as if hit. It's truth. Whoever wrote this, speak up man! Nice work.
Being "Twenty-Something"
They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.
You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.
You look at your job...and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.
Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't.
One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.
You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better.
Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.
One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.
You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself...and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!
What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.
Send this to your twenty-something friends...maybe it will help someone fee l like they aren't alone in their state of confusion.
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| Keeping Real |
| 11.30.03 (10:56 am) [edit] |
In language, meaning comes more from the arrangement of words - which words come before or after which, the spacing between each – rather than the words themselves sometimes. And believing that life has order and purpose, I’d like to think that there is meaning in the chronology of events.
I’ve just finished unpacking two travel bags from very different destinations. The first, a fashionable leather monster, contained bulky, toasty pieces and made-to-party, look-at-me outfits for the City of Pines. This time a week ago, I would have been getting ready for the second Araw Awards night for the 18th Philippine Ad Congress. In two hours I will be stamping my feet in dismay at my outfit in the hotel lobby – [i]I hate this, my red accent doesn’t show, I’m fat, Why didn’t I bring that other shirt[/i], etc… And another three hours later, I will be going up the stage to receive an award, giving me even more reason to be even more dismayed with my outfit - [i]I hate this, my red accent doesn’t show, I’m fat, Why didn’t I bring that other shirt[/i], etc…
The second bag, my trusty backpack of too many years, contained light, wear anywhere T-shirts and Ok-lang-to-get dirty, let-me-blend-in throw-ons for remote communities. This time yesterday, I was in the seaside community of Brgy. Bislian, Polillo, Quezon, on the way to hopefully interviewing a school teacher on the far end of the community, having to cross a river to get to her house. In an hour, I will be on the shore, jumping on a little bangka in the middle of crashing waves, clutching my bag above the water - [i]I hope my notes don’t get wet, why is there only one person holding an oar?, I hope we don’t tip over[/i], etc…. And in two hours, I will be on a bigger bangka, in the midst of the Pacific ocean, on the way back to the main town of Polillo island - [i]I hope my notes don’t get wet, I hope the boat dog doesn’t vomit on me, I hope we don’t tip over[/i], etc…
The two trips came in quick succession. I only had a day in between arriving from Baguio and heading for Camarines Sur. A day into the second trip, I wondered why God timed it this way. Coming from the Ad Congress, I was tired and felt I needed time to think. Not to mention being literally, physically sick from cramming a week’s load of advertising work into the one day I had before leaving as a researcher.
But by the time I’d spoken to locals of the mountain community we’d gone to and way before I felt the wind of the Pacific twining my hair, I realized, that was it. This was my trip back into reality, into the things that really matter.
In the ‘real’ big idea of things, it isn’t 30 second TV spots that matter, not how to market the latest hair-softening shampoo, not how many of your finalists converted to metal, not what red accent would be most ‘fierce!’ in what all-black outfit and most definitely not the congratulations, the sending over of wine, the applause and lauds, the going up the stage to get an award.
The industry of Advertising can be heady. But in the real world, what meaning do these things have? What’s a Best of Media award compared to a Mayor’s struggle to get electricity for her constituents in the mountains? What’s a 30 second TV spot to a seaweed farmer who doesn’t even have a TV? What’s a ‘fierce’ red accent to an old lady who has to go out to collect shellfish for dinner?
How many times have I looked at a brief and strategized how to get a brand noticed? How many time have I wondered who’s going to watch/read/listen to this material anyway? How many times have I read the brief description of the target market and wondered, is this true? 18-30 AB and upper C who likes to blablabla and believes that blablabla and will find the product relevant if blablabla? Who are these people?
The industries of Advertising and Marketing and Media can be heady. And fun. And exhilirating. But never, at least for me, no, definitely never really fulfilling. Unless maybe it’s an advocacy campaign. But even that, bottomline, becomes manipulation. These industries are so goddamn powerful. But, aaargh, I don’t know…for me if the underlying perspective is wrong, then it IS wrong.
We spend our days, thinking up ‘creative’ thoughts, strategizing the distribution of millions of pesos in our air-conditioned cubicles and xx-floors above street level highrises. And it’s forgivable really. Because it’s so easy to forget the bigger world out there and lose the memory of the real things. The truly big things that really matter.
Let me remember:
- The waves threatening to tip over our tiny bangka
- Sunlight and moonlight turning up silver under the water
- The feel of the sun on my skin
- The motion of the boat being described as 'prang duyan' by a simple man
- Children racing against the waves, challenging then running back, challenging and running back, laughing
- Wilbert, The 9-year old child with his alagang kalabaw
- The baskets of dalanghita coming down from the mountains
- The small town of Polillo at 5 in the morning
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| near halloween, a different kind of ghost |
| 10.29.03 (8:34 am) [edit] |
stumbled on an old essay i wrote for a creative writing class around 3rd year college. it's sort of like coming across old diaries, or yourself on a TV monitor, even, the mirror - you cringe in recognition and take a few minutes before breathing again. or maybe that's just me.
anyway, reading the voice of a younger self always makes me cringe and consider ashes as the better medium for my words. but i still found this sort of interesting. and a lot of the sentiments are still true.
[u][b]Why Write[/b][/u]
I was asked that a long time ago - first year college. It wasn’t that long a time ago, but it feels that way. I’ve changed a lot since then, would like to think I’ve grown. The world comes to me through less filters now. And so far, I still like the idea of exploring it.
If I could find the paper with my response again, I’m very (very, very) sure it’s flowery and verbose (that’s probably why I can’t find it, I must’ve thrown it out); wanting too much to impress. Consciously trying so hard to make (more like, hammer down) the impression of being profound, deep, brooding, sad, wise, in a word, ‘writer’-like . Whatever that meant. I probably said something like [i]I want to immortalize myself in a work that will be appreciated through the ages[/i], or, [i]I want to illumine the spirit of undying hope in oft-ignored human moments [/i]or [i]Shakespeare has inspired me to write beautiful words that will have meaning forever [/i]or something like that. As a consequence of course, I only succeeded in making a complete fool of myself. With the dime-a-dozen UP students like that these days, My Comm 1 and Hum 1 teachers for sure have extensive training in seeing through that kind of pretentious gunk.
It worked for some time though. My grade and high school teachers fell for it. Come to think of it, they’re actually to blame for this. If they hadn’t complimented and ‘encouraged’ and expected me all the time to fulfill the role of ‘writer’ – then I wouldn’t have put it into my head to even take a Creative Writing class now.
I remember a classmate who was envious of this faculty-constructed reputation. She’d compare our grades in the essay portions of mastery tests. Well, I always got a higher mark (but that’s probably because the teachers were fulfilling their prophecy for me). She’d also read out her ‘oeuvres’ during recess - romance novels sprinkled with teen-age sex fantasies. My classmates would swoon. Now that I think of it, I guess I WAS a better writer than her.
Then there's my mom. She bandies around the words “writer” and “I” together so often, you get wiser of it. Now, I am wary of anyone who has that habit. I cringe when she introduces me to her friends: [i]She writes; She’s part of this lit org in UP; She’s been published; Etcetera[/i]. She calls the act of writing ‘the talent we share’. I can’t even put it on my resume, or use it in first-day-of-class introductions - [i]Hi, I’m Pia. I have curly hair and I like to write. [/i]
She wasn’t always like that though. She used to discourage it in me when I was younger - [i]there’s no money in it and the guys are ugly and irresponsible [/i]– forcing me instead to become a doctor. I guess reverse psychology worked in this case. If only there were a less connotative and over-used word for ‘writer’.
I think it’s all rooted in the fact that I learned to read late. In kindergarten, I forced my mom to teach me to read. I was envious of other children who got to distribute the class’ test papers because they could read our names. As a result, when I did learn, I read whatever I could get my hands on. Having read through all the pocketbooks in the library, I proceeded to the textbooks. My mother’s other field is philosophy, the books of which I found unbearably boring. Fortunately, an aunt had left some of her college books with us. She was a Literature graduate. That way, I had access to Yeats, Byron, Shelley and their whole dead confederacy - thick, dusty books of the classics. I impressed my high school teachers - [i]But Miss, I’ve already read Odyssey[/i], being the only student who appreciated Shakespeare,or actually looked things up in the dictionary. I guess at some point, with my extremely high regard for myself, I must have gotten it into my head that there’s nothing better to read than one’s own profoundly juvenile thoughts. Hence, a journal. Doogie Howser M.D. was on channel 2 around this time as well. And you look at him and hear the stuff he’s typing into his computer journal, and you can’t help but think Hey, I can do that too. Sheesh.
Having a journal had less pretentious reasons too. I foresaw memory loss in my old age, so I needed a memory-refresher for the moments I really wanted to remember. Of course, I didn’t foresee bad vision and having to contend with my clueless scribble.
But aside from that, translating my thoughts into verbs and jotting them down became a habit. Writing itself had become a habit. I can’t go anywhere without paper and a pen. I feel more naked without these than without a watch or my perennial pearl earrings. But in a way, it is a necessity for me. Writing clarifies muddled ideas. It’s like my thoughts just go around in my head the whole day without a direction, just swirling about. When I pour them out into paper, they get a direction, their volume follows the shape of the words. They are given form and direction.
At some point I guess, a single unitary direction wasn’t enough. They aspired for a plot. So I wandered into Fiction. I have to admit my ‘stories’ couldn't have been much better than that grade school classmate’s. They were addled with mush and such, the brand only a pimply, pretentious, low self-esteemed teen-ager could produce. Blech. But they are there. And now I think, what did make me take that jump from simply writing in a journal to constructing a story? I guess the unschooled me didn’t see much of a difference then, [i]I’ll just get stuff that really happened to me and sprinkle in stuff I dreamt about and plug it in with imagined stuff, easy[/i]! Teenagers who do this should be knocked on their heads early on. It’ll save them the inevitable painful awakening when they finally come across the word [i]craft[/i]. Shudder.
My own encounter with that word came late. I had the gall to submit an early poem to a workshop in my lit organization. They were properly kind. But they still shot me down, unkindly. Then with other encounters with workshops, reading more (both literature and criticism), I realized that some thought and manipulation actually went into writing (at least the way people who call themselves writers do). Apparently, the liquid of ideas didn’t just flow out. You had to have some ordered containment. So now here I am fumbling around and being blatantly immature and hating myself for it.
Poetry of course is the ultimate literary form in a pretentious wanna-be’s eyes. Looked easy too. Mix together a bunch of nice-sounding, profound-sounding, romantic-sounding, depressed-sounding phrases, then give it a title like [i]To the One I love[/i] or [i]To the one I love But Doesn’t love Me back[/i] or [i]To the One I love Who Died in A Car Accident[/i], and you’ll be the school poet. At some point you’ll have to graduate into writing only about death, loneliness or being a genius no one understands. People would come up to you and ask why your poems don’t rhyme. A few would say they understand though, then they’d show your poems to the guidance counselor.
Through all this, I continue to write. Embarrass myself by enrolling in CW classes. Seek the companionship of other writer wanna-be’s. Problematize problematizing. And every time I am kindly shot down or unkindly patronized, I confront the question of why I write in the first place. Yesterday, a friend and I talked about it. It’s hard, it’s thankless, and from a certain perspective, pointless. What for, what for, what for anyway, we asked. Who reads anyway, we asked. What do we get anyway. But that night when I got home, I proceeded to slave over a poem revision. It’s tantamount to impaling myself on a wall of nails, repeatedly.
I think I write because it comes naturally. I feel uneasy when I read my own writing, but I feel even more agitated when I don’t write anything. If I sleep without writing, I feel like there are peas under my mattress, huge ones. It’s a sickness. There should be a space in DSM –IV for it.
I have to admit, writing for me right now is purely selfish. I write because I think I’m intelligent, that I actually have something new to say, that if I stay at this long enough I could actually become good at it. I think that people are so stupid that they will be impressed by a cliché said in a totally new, outstanding way - if I can even do that. I write to make sense of the things I think and feel. Then I try to re-organize them in a way that people might understand as well.
But they’re only secondary really, other people. I use them. I watch them like fish in an aquarium. I take their own thoughts, feelings, manners, everything about them, then appropriate them for my own use, in my own re-creations. Then I shove it back to them, my subjects and readers, and I hope they like it. Because even if they are secondary, I live for their compliments. I was trained to search for the gleam in their eyes, the wonder in their faces when they’ve read whatever I put down. Then armed with that I continue to write. Me first, then them second. How wrong, I know. How selfish. How sad. How ‘writer’-like .
My friend from yesterday would frown but nod anyway. We know we have a responsibility, do we?, to empower the masses? To lift their awareness? To widen their understanding? Because we can communicate well. I know, and I do believe, it has to come to a point when writing is no longer selfish.
But to go to a perspective, for once, outside of myself, I can think of other reasons people write (this is the advantage of not being a lit major). In Anthropology, language is seen as a medium of culture. It is a macro-structure in itself wherein the individual’s own agency is secondary. By working both within and against the rules of his/her own language, a poet subverts the power of culture over him/her. A poet holds himself above language. He uses language, a powerful, shaping force on him, to propagate his/her own culture/perspective. Ha! the poet says.
Ha! then. Hahahaha.
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| why do we like what we like? |
| 10.29.03 (1:05 am) [edit] |
"i will have poetry in my life" said the gwyneth paltrow character in Shakespeare in Love (forgive the pop reference). and times like these, when poetry in the world seems inevident, i go back instead to what's easier to find, poetry of words. and these three i keep going back to. i wonder why exactly these poems struck me. in some places, the poem itself is hard to understand. but notwithstanding, they seem to explain certain things a lot better than psychology or philosophy...
Like surviving...
The Pruned Tree
by Howard Moss (1922-1987)
As a torn paper might seal up its side,
Or a streak of water stitch itself to silk
And disappear, my wound has been my healing,
And I am made more beautiful by losses.
See the flat water in the distance nodding
Approval, the light that fell in love with statues,
Seeing me alive, turn its motion toward me.
Shorn, I rejoice in what was taken from me.
What can the moonlight do with my new shape
But trace and retrace its miracle of order?
I stand, waiting for the strange reaction
Of insects who knew me in my larger self,
Unkempt, in a naturalness I did not love.
Even the dog?s voice rings with a new echo,
And all the little leaves I shed are singing,
Singing to the moon of shapely newness.
Somewhere what I lost is hope springing
To life again. The roofs, astonished by me,
Are taking new bearings in the night, the owl
Is crying for a further wisdom, the lilac
Putting forth its strongest scent to find me.
Butterflies, like sails in grooves, are winging
Out of the water to wash me, wash me.
Now, I am stirring like a seed in China.
Like love...
Ordeal
by Nina Cassian (Romania, 1924- )
I promise to make you more alive than you've ever been.
For the first time you'll see your pores opening
like the gills of fish and you'll hear
the noise of blood in galleries
and feel light gliding on your corneas
like the dragging of a dress across the floor.
For the first time, you'll note gravity's prick
like a thorn in your heel,
and your shoulder blades will hurt from the imperative of wings.
I promise to make you so alive that
the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you,
and you'll feel your eyebrows like two wounds forming
and your memories will seem to begin
with the creation of the world.
Like living... (this is a classic; and under- or over-rated/used as it is, i still love it)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by t.s. eliot
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
      The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
      Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
      Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
      Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
      Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
      And seeing that it was a soft October night,
      Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
      And indeed there will be time
      For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
      Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
      There will be time, there will be time
      To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
      There will be time to murder and create,
      And time for all the works and days of hands
      That lift and drop a question on your plate;
      Time for you and time for me,
      And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
      And for a hundred visions and revisions,
      Before the taking of a toast and tea.
      In the room the women come and go
      Talking of Michelangelo.
      And indeed there will be time
      To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
      Time to turn back and descend the stair,
      With a bald spot in the middle of my hair --
      (They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!")
      My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
      My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin --
      (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
      Do I dare
      Disturb the universe?
      In a minute there is time
      For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
      For I have known them all already, known them all:
      Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
      I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
      I know the voices dying with a dying fall
      Beneath the music from a farther room.
           So how should I presume?
      And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
      The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
      And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
      When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
      Then how should I begin
      To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
           And how should I presume?
      And I have known the arms already, known them all--
      Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
      (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
      Is it perfume from a dress
      That makes me so digress?
      Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
           And should I then presume?
           And how should I begin?
      Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
      And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
      Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...
      I should have been a pair of ragged claws
      Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
     *     *     *     *
      And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
      Smoothed by long fingers,
      Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
      Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
      Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
      Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
      But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
      Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
      I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;
      I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
      And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
      And in short, I was afraid.
      And would it have been worth it, after all,
      After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
      Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
      Would it have been worth while,
      To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
      To have squeezed the universe into a ball
      To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
      To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
      Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all" --
      If one, settling a pillow by her head
           Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
          That is not it, at all."
     And would it have been worth it, after all,
     Would it have been worth while,
     After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
     After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --
     And this, and so much more?--
     It is impossible to say just what I mean!
     But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
     Would it have been worth while
     If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
     And turning toward the window, should say:
          "That is not it at all,
          That is not what I meant, at all."
     No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
     Am an attendant lord, one that will do
     To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
     Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
     Deferential, glad to be of use,
     Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
     Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
     At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
     Almost, at times, the Fool.
     I grow old ... I grow old ...
     I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
     Shall I part my hair behind?  Do I dare to eat a peach?
     I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
     I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
     I do not think that they will sing to me.
     I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
     Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
     When the wind blows the water white and black.
     We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
     By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
     Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
and sometimes by their just being, sometimes, that's enough.
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| Puerto Galera |
| 10.16.03 (5:41 am) [edit] |
A Break in the Off-season
Mid-October the beaches are deserts. And at the same time, office cubicles start to chafe. The itch for big sky, moving air and the feel of motion moves. So I chose the supposed danger of traveling alone to burning out with company.
I needed a fast fix. Two days, Friday & Saturday, as I had to work on Sunday. I wanted sun, sand and most importantly, quiet. After some research, the answer came - Talipanan, Puerto Galera.
I boarded a Tritran bus in the Buendia/Taft terminal at past two in the morning. We shoved of by three. The ride to Batangas Pier took less than two hours. But when I got to the pier, almost 5 am, I had to wait til 7:30 am to board a ferry straight to White Beach. The dirth of passengers delayed a supposed 6 am departure. Ferry fare range from Php 120 to around Php 160, depending on the type of boat you take and which port you're heading for. Boats to the main Puerto Galera (Muelle) and Sabang leave more often. I chose White Beach because it was the closest commercial drop-off point to Talipanan.
I am actually most comfortable in terminals. It being a place of transit, no one belongs or doesn't belong. Everyone's just waiting for a ride going to or away from. But the few hours of waiting put me on edge. I found myself questioning my move. What am I doing? Am I safe here? Will I be there? Should I turn back?
But I held the image of the sun glistening on the sea. That and the thought of going back to where I'd already been, this time even more tired and frustrated. Those thoughts made me stay and wait. Then they made me stand up and get on the ferry.
At last, the boat - clean, whitewashed, promising. I was impatient to hit the water. My being alone all the more pronounced among groups of families and bakasyonistas from other provinces and countries.
Never having been to Puerto Galera, I downplayed my expectations. I kept telling myself that if this experience disappoints, not to mind. It's an experiment after all. But once we turned from the small pier and ran headlong into the open sea, truly, I felt alive again. The wind, the sun, the sea, the sense of motion - I couldn't control a content smile from breaking several hours of put-on blasé. This was it. This was what I had waited hours in a terminal for. I was free. I wanted to stand in the sun and look out, as the ferry hands were doing. But I let my timidity get the better of me and strained my whole body instead, trying to soak in the experience. This while the other passengers slept. It must have been too early in the day for them to feel free.
We approached White Beach around 9 a.m. Seeing it from afar, the sand doesn't strike you as so-white. It's more a dirty, coral, grayish, beige-ish tone. But seeing the whole island - dark rock formations standing amid clear, green water, beach against high mountains, forest green against azure sky and white wisps of clouds - it is as if you breathe for the first time. I'm sure there are more spectacular beaches. But I do believe, it's not the place that matters but the time. The island came to me at a time I needed it, and I was saved.
White Beach, Puerto Galera is crowded by commercial establishments - cottages, restaurants, stores (that don’t sell sun block). It is the place to stay if you want bright lights and a 'good time' even through the night. So I walked past the manangs' Miss, may tutuluyan ka na? (Oho), past the inner cement cottages, past the beach itself, to look for the main road. I didn't need a night life this evening.
A ferry hand told me that I could take either a jeep or tricycle to Talipanan. I'd later learn that I also could have just walked along the beach for around 20 minutes. Talipanan beach is that close to White Beach. A tricycle emerged first and I got in. It didn't look like a jeep would be coming along anytime within the day. I later learned that jeeps are scarce in the off-season. Everything seemed to be scarce in the off-season. Not that I minded, I wanted to be scarce too.
I also later learned that I was stiffed by the tricycle driver. The ride should only cost you fifty pesos. But I was already in such a good mood and way below budget anyway, that I just chalked it up to experience.
Bamboo House came well recommended as the place to stay in Talipanan. The family bid me stay with them in Bamboo House because 1) they could look after my safety more there and, 2) because the cook would be there that night. It's true! They gave me a room good enough for two, for Php 350 (off-season rate). No airconditioning, but very cozy, airy and lit up by the sun - with wind chimes and a veranda even! I regret not having enjoyed the room much, but, it was the beach I wanted to make the most of.
When I got back, my friends kept asking, What did you DO there? What IS there to do on a beach? Nothing much, actually. And that was it precisely. What is there to DO but enjoy being - being on the sand, being half-asleep looking up at the sky, being so lazy, but it's ok there's nothing you have to do. Fall asleep to the sound of the waves, walk along the shore and pick up interesting marble pebbles, feel the texture of sand hugging your feet, discover rock crags you can fit into and look out from, watch the lines of waves and sky meeting. And breathe. Breathe. You are contained by nothing but the sky.
The family behind Bamboo House is nice enough to call you from the beach when lunch has been set on the table. The cook will go to the market to buy the fruit you want for your fresh fruitshake. They tell you what's for dinner and ask if you'd like to join the meal. They lend you towels and bring back stuff you may have left on the beach last night after star-gazing. They talk to the fishermen so you can join the fishing boat at dawn and see the fish swimming in the spots of light illuminating the water, amidst black sea, sky, night,
I chose to stay on the beach most of the time. But there are waterfalls and Mangyan communities to visit with a short trek up the mountains right behind the rooms.
Talipanan beach isn't a scuba-diving area. It's really more like a leisurely-swim area. The fine sand stretches out to several meters past the beach and is ideal for timid swimmers like me. The rock outcroppings are easy enough to pick your way through. And the stretch of deserted beach was a sun-tanning heaven. Without others' eyes, I felt free to frolic in my two-piece suits - worry-free for once of love handles or the girth of my thighs.
The children play with you if they like you. In the lazy afternoon, I hear their laughter form far-off. The sun softens. The wind cools. And to top off my day, God gave me a rainbow emerging, it seemed, from the sea and reaching to the clouds. I was so full at that moment. I was revitalized enough (& more) I could have gone home that night if I had to.
But thankfully, I didn't. Saturday morning was spent swimming some more, watching the sun glistening off the water and my body. Coldplay playing through Luka's, the local authentic Italian restaurant.
I packed unhurriedly to catch a ferry back to Batangas pier at 1:30. The Bamboo House people were nice enough to let me hitch to the main Puerto Galera, the most commercial pier where more ferries dock. But before I left, I sat by the beach again, drinking in the quiet of Talipanan. Three or four hours later I knew I'd be back in the city. But I would be changed. This time I would have the vision of the sea with me.
I'm going back to Talipanan for sure. But I don't expect the experience to be exactly the same. But I do expect it to be beautiful still. And life-giving.
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| COMFORT FOOD |
| 10.11.03 (2:00 am) [edit] |
Confessions of an accused “naiwanan sa kusina”
If you are adjuged so, the long and short of it is, you’re fat. Bluntly, politically incorrectly. Words least minced.
As a child, I heard no end of this, this puzzling idiom. I remember the first time I heard it. A never before seen Ninong looming over me in Ali Mall, peering into my face like a judge – as newly baptized Ninongs & Ninangs are wont to do. He concluded, “Mukhang naiwanan sa kusina a”, tut-tutting around his pocket for some instant aguinaldo.
My five-year old brain started conjecturing. Did it hint at neglect on my mother’s part? Did I stay in the kitchen 15-minutes too long? Is there something bad about the greasy, smoky, ‘dirty” kitchen?
Mom later explained that it was a remark on my ‘being healthy’. How peculiar, I thought (I was an advanced child), to be complimented for one’s health. But I soon began to understand, at much the same time I began growing into my pre-pubescent angsts, that it was more a remark on my ‘being heavy’.
I blame the phrase on all the typical Pinoy ninongs, aunties, neighbors, family friends, etc… who just must comment, but not offend. Blame it on our highly-evasive, albeit, figurative language. Blame it on whoever Tagalog poet-on-the-street who used it first. I, on the other, lay the blame squarely on my mother – for feeding me too well, too much, too often.
I must confess though – I enjoyed her excesses immensely.
In fact, more than a victim, I have been an accessory to her crimes. I grew up beside the kalan, witnessing my mom cook adobo, sinigang, nilaga, caldereta, mechado, menudo, pochero, adobo sa gata – these same dishes in monthly rotation. But I’ve never grown tired of feasting on the dear old dishes. Nor have I grown tired of watching and helping the chopping/slicing, softening/boiling, mixing/stirring of ingredients, the traditions of old-fashioned cooking.
Mom isn’t the type to sing as she cooks – but I suspect music does escape from her kitchen – out of the pots, pans and ladles, the stove, the oven, and of course, the kettle. They are happy, who wouldn’t be, having the kitchen as their home.
If I had ever resented being called naiwanan sa kusina, I realize, belatedly, there’s no use denying the greasy, smoky, “dirty” haven the kitchen has been to me. After all, it has witnessed all my culinary crimes, and to its credit, never told.
It has seen me eating All-Purpose Cream at 3 am in my sleepwear.
Concocting ‘culinary masterpieces’ of corned beef straight out of the can on lazy lunches.
Discovering homemade mocha in 12 teaspoons of Coffeemate with a pinch of coffee.
Not to mention the countless raids on the pantry, the casseroles and the ref.
There have been epiphanies in the kitchen too.
Imagine a 4-year old’s first metaphysical question as she helped scoop and shape polvoron – Was I the same person I was yesterday? Ok, maybe not at four years, maybe five.
The unexplicable phenomena of high school friends opening up every time potato chip bags have been undone Learned behavior?
And most recently, terribly disappointed over an uncompleted project, I found myself in the kitchen venting my frustrated creative energy. Nothing like a three-cheese spinach pesto dip for immediate, fail-proof gratification.
Being in the kitchen always satisfies.
Like my experience, most Filipino homes have their heart in the hearth. The humble kitchen is the center of domestic culture. At the same time, it is the mother’s primary medium in the expression of her love and concern for her family, as well as the articulation of her role as nurturer. And for ‘the kids’ like me, it is where I find, well, what’s for dinner. Good old food. Glorious food.
On a month long trip to the States, contrary to what happens to most people who take the same trip, I lost weight. I couldn’t abide the bland pot roasts, the corn and carrot dinners, the microwaveable buffets. For most of my stay, I ate only Tostitos salsa and corn chips, pining for the spices and textures of a Filipino kitchen.
Since I started working in Makati, there have been lunches and dinners ‘out’ more often than ‘in’ - sampling menus, identifying what’s good, experiencing different cuisines. The selections from all these commercial eating establishments around now are an odyssey for any foodphile. But I always seem to be less impressed than my dining buddies. Always, there is something lacking. Something missing. And it’s not just salt, mesclun or a few more minutes in hot oil.
For all their greasy, smoky, “dirty” glory, I suppose I still prefer my kitchen, my mother’s kitchen, Ninang Nora, Tita Betty or Auntie Baby’s kitchen. These kitchens are home to me. And as far as I’m concerned, naiwanan man or not, I will always find myself going back to them. Too much, too well, and yes, too often.
Now, I wonder what’s for dinner?
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| LONG LIVE CLICHES |
| 10.09.03 (12:09 am) [edit] |
A glance through Thin Skin
A novel by Emma Forrest
MTV books, 2001
Books with pink covers are dubious to begin with. But I’m a sucker for audacity. And the pink did it. Ok, not exactly pink, one of those softer, old rose, baby pink shades, that said, in the just-right, hip, young female tone: ‘Hey girl, read me.’ That should have ticked me off right then.
Then I allowed myself to be convinced by the ‘The Independent’s size-up: Flip, shrewd, cool, sure and insightful.
The whole package screamed ‘exciting’. The promise of a new voice called. The possibility of a young perspective put to print, a hopefully raw, interesting vocabulary.
But as the cliché goes (and I tell you, all cliches are true), Don’t judge a book by its cover – which I think is especially true these days, what with increasingly savvy graphic designers.
Flip, shrewd, cool, sure and insightful.
I’ll go by the blurb that did me in (kids, don’t use that phrase in formal school papers).
Flip would be the character - Ruby. There is actually nothing flip about the story or the way it’s written. In fact, it’s pretty straightforward. We see the messed-up teen actress as she makes herself less and less bankable, indulging in drugs, alcohol, self-injury and public displays of emotional instability. Cut to frequent flashbacks of the roots of her oh-so-unbearable pain – a lover who abandoned her at the impressionable age of 12, a mother who committed suicide, a distant father. Cut to further moments of self-destruction. Cut again to internal monologue sequences where she whines over the mess she’s making of her life. I’m just a vulnerable girl looking for help. I’m not that bad, can’t you see. Somebody, anybody, but it would be nice if it were you, handsome, mysterious co-actor, who would save me from my pathetic, destructive self.
I’ve watched and read these heroines self-destruct time and again. I’ve also watched them be saved, time and again, by that one loving hand that touched them as they lay convalescing in the ICU.
Cool. Sure. The way any material about a starlet with drug problems in Hollywood could be called ‘cool’.
Shrewd and insightful. This for me, was the biggest disappointment. In a way, I was looking for a book that would speak to me. That resonated with the emotions, dilemnas, questions, that a 'young woman' would recognize. But honestly, Thin Skin doesn’t tell me anything I’m sure most intelligent, self-analyzing women of this age don’t already know.
Nothing new
There is no such thing as a totally original plot. True. And any creative writing or literature appreciation class will tell you that it’s the getting there, sometimes more than the ‘there’ that’s important. Here though, I felt taken for a ride without the benefit of a scenic route.
If anything, I credit Emma Forrest though, for an attempt to avoid hackneyed descriptions. The way she describes a sunset in just the first page actually made me buy the book.
There are also several images I found fresh - a well-timed Gay Pride parade, a breakdown-inducing cockroach in the bathroom. But these episodes were few and far between. And in the end, the characters, emotions and situations resonate with about as much sincerity as a can of Spam.
There isn't enough detail in the imagery, or depth in the way the emotions are brought out. One gets the feeling that the writer herself has also read or watched these scenes time and again, and has only regurgitated these now for the sake of a book.
Timing
This is the kind of book that would impress you if you read it in high school, sort of like Ayn Rand, or Anne Rice (except Ayn Rand and Anne Rice would impress you VERY much).
If you’re a student with allowance to spare, well, if just HAVE to read a non-classic, this would be a notch, OK, maybe 2 notches, or, 3 little ones, above your pulp teenage fiction. It’s impressive to carry around – you’d look more intelligent than your average classmates. It’s got enough angst to go with yours – if you’re in that phase. And hopefully, if you’re part of a dysfunctional family that adopts Eastern European artists, this could maybe dissuade you from running away and joining Star Circle batch eighteen hundred sixty-seven.
But if you’re a young working person who earns every buck and doesn’t have time to spare, sorry purists but there’s no other phrase, sayang naman your 489 pesos. I can just lend you my copy. In fact, if you ask nice, you could just have it, audacious cover and all.
Disclaimer: In the end, I would rather you read the book and have your own opinion. Agree or not. Visit your nearest bookstore and read this(/any) book for yourself.
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| where it all began |
| 10.08.03 (11:48 pm) [edit] |
The Ride Home
(Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Youngblood section, September 2002)
Despite the dark suffocating the shuttle, I see there are two other passengers my age. I didn’t have to pick them out really. Of all the other people, we three were the only ones straining to look out to the road outside. Everyone else, mouths agape, heads thrown back (as if frozen in a laugh), was asleep.
It is 8:50 p.m. I am on the road home and thinking (yes, bitterly), "Capitalism kills humanity".
Tonight, I have made the mistake of taking the Ayala-Marikina shuttle. I live in Antipolo, and though the shuttle makes for a shorter trip, I avoid taking it. For an hour, you have no choice but to fix your eyes on the dark space between you and other passengers. Heavily-tinted windows. No view. Can’t breathe.
Then the driver turns on the light at a certain point along the route. And on cue (like Skinner mice), everyone takes out their fare.
I’m much happier on the bus or jeep. My favorite buses, from the Marikina Auto Line Transport Corp (MALTC), are these aging, orange/rust – colored vehicles that creak as they trundle down EDSA. I once waited two hours for one. (They never seem to come when you wait though.)
I must find it nostalgic, hurtling bravely along despite its dubious make. It still has wooden benches! And well, no aircon. Of course, my asthmatic best friend doesn’t share my enthusiasm. She and another friend from the ranks of young Makati share a 17th flr. Citiland condo unit. Yet another gray, air-deprived place. Waking up, one gets no indication of either sunlight, moonlight or life outside. Your only knowledge that the world continues to turn coming from your cellphone clock.
On a MALTC, your hair weaving itself about the wind, your face crashing against the night air – it is as if YOU are head-on, full-tilt towards, well, the world (despite YOUR dubious make). See the people on the streets, the colors, the sounds, the motion. There’s so much life happening out there. The city brims with energy.
I think when you are in a dark, self-contained, air-conditioned world of a car, there’s more than a window that separates you from the world outside.
When you take the elevator up to your 32nd flr office, there’s more than 31 floors between you and the ground.
And for most of the older people who’ve lived and breathed Makati for five years plus, there’s more than 5 years between today and the last time you woke up without "what-I-have-to-do-at-wor k" thoughts first.
(On an aside: when you’re oh-so-cautiously ‘just dating’, there’s more than a euphemism between the you now and the you that could just breathlessly rush into a crush.)
Lately, I keep remembering a day in high school when Ms. Francisco (now Mrs. Sol) had us remove our black, leather shoes (even the Marks & Spencer, or cheaper Co-Ed socks) in the middle of the field. Walk on your bare feet, she said. I don’t know about my classmates but it was an epiphany for me – the soles of my feet coming alive to the feel of earth and grass.
Though short, I feel that moment is more real than any stolen weekend in Boracay, trek to Sagada, stroll through Power Plant, and most definitely, any after-office hours drink in Starbucks or Flute. When you console yourself with expensive lunches in the faux park ambiance of the Enterprise/RCBC/LKG/PhilA m Life Tower foodcourt, you just have to ask: Where is the authenticity?
When our company went to Subic, my officemates were excited over a handful of stars. On my walk home, up some hill in Antipolo, I look up and see a clear sky strewn with much, much more than a handful. Every night.
That is my arriving home.
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