far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

(title borrowed from thomas gray)

These last few days, I have been in a state that I hardly recognize myself when I look in the mirror. The woman I see is tired of everything, but she seems to deliberately inflict it upon herself, because really, stress is just a state of mind, and it's nothing like a good dose of sex or movies and shopping can't cure----or better yet, drowning in a sea of cuervo, or walking naked in public. Imagine how that would be like, a nanosecond of adrenaline rush, and voila! adios to self-recriminations...

But seriously, I have no inclination to do any of the above, save perhaps for some ocassional carnal remedy, which I am not really prone to gloss over any further in my blog. And so I blame myself solely in the process. I know that people around me think I am a little difficult to deal with, although often mellow and proper. But I am a self-declared loner, and I give no horseshit to anyone, so sometimes it's a feeling of me and me, against the world. That spark of hostility is almost always latent, but I can sometimes sense how they frown upon my being an oddball. But being who I am, I guess that they would not have seen it otherwise.

I mean motherhood and marriage and all, puts you in the mainstream. There are certain mores and expectations you have to flow with. You are doomed to wear that mask all your life, and it's your choice so no one else can be faulted on it. But inside you, deep where your soul is, not as a mother or wife or officemate, or neighbor, just the person you are--you want to be hip or cool or crazy or renegade or wanton---but you can't bring about the audacity to show it to anyone, not at this stage of your life, and in scenarios you create to realize your secret dreams. Suffice it to say that eventhough there are many people outside your circle who claim to empathize, or psychoanalyze your every move, not all of them are wont to understand you or NOT judge you. Society dictates that we fit a certain mold, and try we must if we want to have a quiet, albeit boring semetertian, life. Lest you wish to be called childish or irresponsible. In the face of all these, you just got to have faith in the fact that behind your back, yourself is as true to you as you are to her.

My life in this age, it gravitates me to do what is good and beneficial. But in spite of the unrealistically high and questionable lengths I sometimes go through to become a perfect stepford spouse, I detest being goody two-shoes and proper. What is it that I really want? I think most of us unwittingly go through life trying to ignore our true calling or at least that which will make us happy. We sacrifice our characters, and even kill our souls for what is perceived to be a more noble and meaningful cause. We equate being a docile wife, and having healthy children and comfortable lives with satisfaction. And yet, there's a diminutive lot of us, the madding crowd, who aren't even half as happy, and think we can only find our sense of belonging in the dank compartments of our minds, which are by the way, already festered with our own psychotic maggots.

Why can't we be like the rest of them, outside and more so inside? How does one go back in time when only your selfish ideas mattered? I wish it were that simple, like clicking the Undo button. But hey, whoever said life is bunchful of lollies to loll with....And so, sometimes I am convinced that tagore or gibran are a bunch of liars with a lot of senseless shit to say and it's about time I embrace the pessism of a schopenhauer. At least when you don't expect, you don't get disappointed.

Shadow Child

Oftentimes I feel guilty about not having enough time for Gabriel. Sure I’m physically there, as I have devoted most of my waking time to him and Sophia. Our weekends have been relegated to caring for them, above other things. But after having Sophia, I have almost completely forgotten that Gab is first and foremost the little baby that gave me a profound sense of joy and the reason to explore a wealth of other maternal temperaments I haven’t known. I had many times deliberately lingered on the thought of him, and wrote about him at length in my other journal. Back then, I had all the time in the world for him. We played games, read books, sang songs and did many things together. Gab was everything you could have for a docile and lovable child. I could not have been any happier.

I thought that I could simply jump back into being a cool mother with him after I am done with the nitty-gritty of rearing Sophia in the first few months, but I was much too wrong. Apparently, I was not ready to act my part as best I could, in Scene II of my Motherly Life.

Juggling time with work and raising up two kids was more than I could bargain for. To begin with, there is a conflict of trying to discipline Gab, while being indulged in, on the other hand, by his dad. We have different methods in trying to create an air of authority as parents to him, I being the more unyielding of us, and the dad being a bit of a spoiler. Now that seems to confuse the child, and you could imagine how two little tots competing for notice all at once, made us lose focus. Non-plussed, we thrash about trying to get a grip of it, making the effort to be nice and low-spoken, and yet enormously struggling to otherwise keep our sanity in place.

Gab has begun to be misunderstood and mistrusted by us, and vice versa. At this moment, his point of contention and envy is the little bundle of only 9 months. We could only do so much to protect the baby. In his effort to curb a part of our attention from Sophia, he does everything to make himself felt, physically or in some other ways. He would complain of non-existing pains from cuts, or stomachache, or earache. And if that wasn’t enough, he would “punish” his little sister with surreptitious attempts of tugging at her hair or shoving her from the crib. It’s horrifying, especially that I know he lies in wait to see if we’re watching, and would pounce on her, every chance he gets.

That fleeting feeling of enmity seems to lurk from somewhere like a shadow, and it is his form. You know it's not consciously what he is, but the distress grows in uncontrollable proportion that you forget who you are and who he is, and you lose sense of it all, and the only easy way to fumble out is to be angry at him. Sad that you hate in the way you love.... But I came to think of it, he’s just a child. And he must have a hell of a time trying to cope with this business of new STRANGER in the family, an entirely new landscape where he has been reduced to a bit player. Not being in the center of it all anymore has caught up with his childish ego. He could only cling on to Mommy’s little kisses and embraces, to reassure himself he still reigns supreme. The last thing he needs is all that cooing and indulging on the little stranger.

To make matters worse, I became a bit worried that Gab may be a little slow, not being able to speak in straight sentences at age 3. There are clear words in sporadic flashes, but still, I incongruously try to compare him with other kids, when deep inside me I know that I should not. Gone were the days that he would beckon for book after book, although rather petulantly, if I didn’t come huffing at once. Lately, he’s an android sitting in front of Disney Channel all day long. Hard to admit, but Playhouse has become to him a surrogate parent, as we struggle on to care for the other kid, day in and day out. There’s no one take blame or credit, for anything, except us, his parents. However I am always determined to make it better, If only I could try more, now that many realizations have come to languish in the background for many months and I yank back in sonic speed.

Last night, we congregated inside the bedroom, and even if I was dead tired from all the household uproar of not having a yaya for a fortnight, I asked him to get a book. I was a little apprehensive to find out what (little) he knows. But, reading Robert Louis Stevenson, we browsed through pages and pages of shadows, and rivers, and cathedrals and minarets, and beaches and horse-drawn carriages, and storybook fairylands. He points here and there. He asked me to name things, and he gamely volunteers answers on my made-up ignorance. Just then, I discovered that my little boy has many words to say in his heart. He knew that the wind can blow the leaves off trees, and shadows can grow bigger than we are….

And I could only listen, listen, listen.


written 08.14.06

then it occured to me....

that all we humans have our own transgressions, be it in the mind, the body or the spirit. it is a frailty that equalizes us all, and i'm dead sure that even the holiest of thous have sinned once or twice in their lifetime. it is only in the intensity of abomination where we differ from one another. i have erred in that i allow caffeine to seep in my veins even if i know it's causing me to shiver and act a little loony. i have sinned because i've read far too many blogs that i hardly have the appetite to write my own. my spirit has gone astray because everyday, for the last so and so months, i have believed that there are indeed orbs and ghosts and evil that exist. but most of all, i am guilty, and will never go scot-free- because i have fallen deep, so deep into this fracture. i have gone addicted to you, been captivated, captured, obsessed....may they forgive me, if it went on and on and on....

Black Girl Assaulted

one of the biggest mood setters in my life is tracy chapman, a remarkable woman with a remarkable voice. no, i have never discounted the fact that she is almighty dykeness, but i have thought of her more as a woman whose emotions are undoubtedly too feminine to not relate to, dreadlocks notwithstanding. back when i was a struggling recluse in the big city of manila, circa 1991, i was walking down the street to the beat of her revolution song, armed with all the angst of an orphan girl, without a home and without warmth to speak of. for my lover brought such crushing appeal to me that i honestly wished i was a dyke or had a bummer for a lover. fast cars was the most overplayed tune around that time, and although it was fated to be so, i had deliberately turned away from the idea of sharing her with a million other souls. i must admit, the literary brilliance and her unqualified talent are way too blinding to ignore. hero worship, a term coined by an erstwhile friend about me gushing over him, or at least his qualities, that's exactly the thing that this singer/writer has caused and done to me. may i just reckon though that over late night mullings (me, cigarettes, and the ocassional mr. sanmig) and her, ms. chapman, singing the black woman sufferer's songs-- it was an undeniably hot union.

written 07.18.06

Being In Love

Note to self: I have long made a mental reminder to migrate the entries from my 360 blog to here. In fact, I already did so with a couple of posts. I have decided to "kill" 360, as having two blogs is too much for me. And, at the risk of sounding like a thankless wretch, I have to honestly say I did not enjoy writing there. Henceforth, the succeeding posts are stuff rehashed from my other blog, unless I say otherwise. Just a caveat.

Back to my endless meanderings about the rains, some afternoons I enjoy the cool air brought about by the monsoons. I wish we have this weather all year round. Well, that's about all I can do really, just wish, and imagine wildly.To me, a day like this is close to perfect. It's like being in love....and I swear there are instances that the rain just makes you go woozy and bask in the glowing feeling of loving or being loved....!

One such afternoon, it was just perfect. A little drizzle here and there as though I was on my way out to somewhere infinitely romantic. Really if I had a choice I would toss away my umbrella and take pleasure in the teeny drops of water that seem to purposely caress my face. I wasn't exactly on the verge of singing and trip-tripping like gene kelly on the puddles of the wet cobbled streets of madrigal. Sure I have felt love, and at best it's a happy thought, but in the real adult world, I had to appropriately appear unruffled and in one piece.

And yet, I'd know I feel love. That glorious feeling can't be helped. Like seeing someone you have not been with for a long time...it makes you feel terribly anxious, and a little heady. Do I worry about getting there, no I dont know, but believe me, it's hard to keep one's composure when you feel the bite. Either you stare into space like you're too overcome with a nervous spell, or you run around like a headless chicken because of the unbearable suspense of the coming minutes. Everything seems to teem with...well, exaggeration. Me, I choose to be a cool chick, eventhough I feel a gazillion butterflies swarm and flutter with giant wings in my stomach. But that's when I know I'm in love.

And then say, you see a someone. You notice how old you've grown apart, I mean not apart from each other but individually, yes..something like that. Has it been that long? You see yourself in the person who sees you for the first time again, and it's a little strange. There's a half smile in both your faces because you can't seem to find a word that will at least make ordinary sense. Instead you size each other up secretly....and the discovery is just unspeakable.

Or a person who long ago thought of you as someone you just exchange a few pleasantries with, is actually standing right in front of you--a little nervous like yourself probably--but certainly real in flesh----and some kind of wonderful. Suddenly the past comes rushing back, the years that had gone, when you were younger and confounded with the mysteries of life and the common hurts, watching life from a terribly selfish point of view. Your mind bustled with thoughts about the poor world that owed you everything and nothing. There was once arrogance , but now you're more steadfast, waiting for something to reborn, something which is about to be understood by only both of you and no one else. Highfalutin, but yeah, there will be such love....

At times, there's a torrent of desperation to talk, to want to know more, to ask more....and then it begins to rain down again, and you somehow feel the tranquility in the sound of water trickling down on the roof, on the windows, from the sky, or from your rapt hearts....no words need be spoken. A just silence painstakingly shuts you out from the world and makes you hear how deafeningly loud it actually is...a crash and boom you can't deny. Now, tell me if that isn't love?

Someone once said,there just won't come soft rains....

Being in love is getting the worst of the monsoon, being hit hard, feeling the icky bite, and finally relishing an afternoon delight in the tropics of your passion....yay! How cheeky can you get? But,true indeedy..

written 7.17.06

A Day in the Life

Today on my way to work, the jeepney I was riding came to a full stop at the intersection of wilcon and vivere. Don’t ask me the streets coz I don’t know. Anyway, I was busy fumbling with the I-pod inside my bag, looking for the track I like. And then there were these grubby-looking kids, aged 9 to 12 probably, who asked to get on the jeepney. The driver tried to shoo them away, but two girls were able to get on when the traffic light turned green. One girl, maybe 10, had this little strap bag on her with lots of par avion envelopes. There were scribblings on it that I didn’t determine to understand. I know they were some kind of solicitation, but I didn’t have the chance to read it.

Commuting to work everyday gives you a good picture of people who are either too indolent to eke out a living from hard work, or are incapacitated to get themselves a decent job. So they resort to faster ways to make money, and this is one of their operandi. All year round in Manila, you encounter different people who would get on public transportations and make all sorts of solicitations ranging from unemployed men who are perennially on strike, quasi-religious people who wear long skirts and neck ties and would read verses from the bible and warn you of perpetual doom while their companion makes the round with a white leather pouch, surreptitiously sucking on your unwitting catholic guilt so that you couldn't stand not dropping in a precious peso for the sake of inner peace.

Then, there are men who would sing Christmas carols with their pathetic little rattles, and street children who ply the streets, come rain or shine, to beg for a ride or for money…I could go on and on, but my point is I don’t trust them. And hardly do I have any sympathy for them. Except perhaps for the children, but not for their morons of parents who leave them be. Which brings me back to my story about the girls....

So, this girl hurriedly placed the envelopes on the passenger’s laps and signaled to her friend, who was seated on the estribo, before my feet. Then this other girl, the friend, started to bass beat on the makeshift bongo drums she was carrying (by makeshift I mean crosscut pvc pipes with the other end of the hollow covered with a cellophane wrapper from a corn snack and stretched tight with cheap rubber bands---so ingenius I swear it could make a steve gadd kit pale in comparison [exagerration really]).

She started to make rhythm for about 30 seconds, and then broke into a chant. I know that I didn’t understand a thing she was singing but, it just blew me away. The girl-woman voice, the unkempt corn yellow hair, the bare feet, the closed eyes and quivering lips, as if she was on a trance, the fact that she was sitting on the estribo without anything to hang on to….it tore me away from my ipod that was playing louis armstrong’s what a wonderful world.The stark contrast of the words from that song, and the little girl’s, whose every inch of body represented dearth and poverty….I could not help but ask what indeed is wonderful with this godawful world.

The strangest thing is, while she was singing, there was a writhing of passion, and a sense of elation in her face—like an ecstatic feeling of being freed from the shackles. I mean she could try to look sad and pitiable right, and hasten the pesos in their envelopes--seeing that she and her companion are strapped for cash, or food, or a home, and everything material…but there was none of it. What a character!

I would have liked to hug her like a long lost sister, or give her something at least, although I’m reminded that today I’m broke and have only a pack of kraft crackers in my bag. Tee hee…. Nonetheless, I would have emptied my meager possessions right in front of her if only to make her know what I feel. But she, well what do you know…she only smiled like everything’s okay with the world. Fuck, I thought. She did not deserve this kind of life, and neither do I— I, with all my hostility and condescension to everything mediocre. She ought to live in a castle, and me in the remote mountains of the himalayas...

Seriously, if I could only be half as strong and content as her, then I could go to the office penniless and barefoot, and she could have my pair of fake suedes to use for wandering the streets, whilst haunting whiners like me with the unforgettable act she just did.

But…she was gone with her girl-companion before I could shake myself off and do what I should have done.

The Rains Cometh

Far too often, I have talked about rains and how much I love its presence. It's not actually raining while I write this....but the sky has an ominous color that tells it's going to pour soon, and so I am strategically set into my little inspired artsy mode which seems a bit peculiar because there's absolutely nothing artsy about what I am thinking or doing.....but, whatever.

I like the months leading up to the wet season, in this case July. The suddenly musty smell of the room, watching rainwater drip from the glass windows of my building, stirs me back to memories of the times that rain had made a big mark in my consciousness. Pardon my sounding tawdry, but back then I could always feel the romatic undertones of being huddled in the rain with just about anyone of the opposite sex. Somehow, the quixotic side of you hopes that some nice guy would offer you his coat or his umbrella, watch the rains let up, in a quaint coffee shop over petty and embarassed exchanges. But hey, I was fifteen when I had those thoughts.....

And then it was always very sad, infinitely sad, especially when you see the wet leaves glimmer under a pale moon after a downpour....you see life's tragedies unfold before you, how you lost a mother, the time you lived apart from your brothers, your first heartbreak, your failures, your unspoken furies, your fears, and your self-loathings.....It always seemed to rain. It was a waterlogged existence that you couldn't even tell when it would stop....

But oh, it stopped actually. The rains stop, but the memories are etched and burned. And that's why today, there's a crazy woman talking about senseless stuff about rains, even if it's too fucking hot and sundrenched outside. ...

To My Little Gabriel,

On your fourth birthday, I wish that I will always remain close to your heart, that I am the first person you run to when you are down and need cheering up. I love that you have grown to be a beautiful child, inside and out. You are at a phase of your life that you often misunderstand, and are sometimes misunderstood. But as your mommy, I know deep inside who you are and what you need. I love that when we have our little quarrels, you are the first one to hug me and say sorry, although I hope you know that my guilt cannot compensate for your forgiving way. Sometimes, I just look at you, and remind myself how you were such a little creature enclosed in my arms, fragile and undemanding. To me you are still such, but I know you’re getting stronger and more sure of yourself. I wish that life will be good to you.

Love,

Mom

the gift

I have always wanted to own a camera, a good camera. Eversince a friend back in college casually took a photo of me leaning against the window, the afternoon sun streaming through the sheer curtains....I had immediately coveted the precious thing. And now, many years and silent yearnings after, my husband got us one. Not that it is anything too grand, but well for the past months I had bided my time and made do with the 35mm kind, and even the 2megapixels phone camera. Even then, I knew I had the eye in picking out a good photo, if not exactly capturing one. Looking back however, I admit that those ordinary contraptions helped me a lot in being resourceful and more creative with pictures. And there's post-processing to be had. Needless to say, a new digital camera with ten times zoom and 6 million pixels is eons way better than what I had dreamed of. And I can't complain one bit.

I'm happy that I will finally be able to take the kind of photos that I like, of the kids, of nature, of friends and family, hell even of me. Without wanting to sound too forthcoming, I have all heart for photography, and if not yet the eyes, soon I will....

The best Christmas gift, never to be forgotten or put away. Snap, snap,snap we go!

Thank you, dear....

to sophia, belatedly....

Far from the grumblings I now read, about having you inside my tummy all those months, I smile at the thought that it was after all worth every hurdle and discomfort I went through. You are more than your father and I have anticipated.

The happiness you bring into our family make us marvel at everything more tenderly, as if with purer eyes. That by just being yourself. Innocent and yet perceptive of our love. Feeble and yet powerful enough to get us scuttling about for your needs and wants. Simple and yet to be treated with utmost care and delicacy…

Sometimes, you and I have our little clashes, when in my best effort I couldn’t grasp what you are trying to say. In your unrelenting baby aches and cries, you challenge me, and I frustrate you with my motherly blunders. But often, the smile in your face, that seem to tell me I am doing just right, more than makes up for all of those low moments in our young life together.

Your dad and I...we may not be the best parents, but hey we try, for you and your brother. As days pass, I will constantly miss holding you in my arms, lying awake in the wee hours to make sure you’re warm and sleeping soundly next to me. How I wish to slip back to that time, and enjoy you infinitely...

But too, I watch you everyday in eager faith, that you will grow up to be a strong, gracious girl. My little love, never be fearful to share with us your small sorrows, and in the due course of struggling, even your greatest joys…

Happy first birthday …I love you so.
(10.28.06)

In Remembrance of Toni

I have decided to go back here, thinking that this is where it all started. For many months, I have fancied writing again, and did so in another blog I created, but I continually idled around, that it has all become one protracted nonsense. The excuses for random things and laziness took over me again, but I admit the domestication of a mother like me kills whatever little brainwave activity is going about in my muddled head. And I can hear myself making excuses again. So on to blogging. This time I hope that I’ll be more motivated and constant to slog on to Blogger, rather than just clicking and reading what seem to be now the washed-out entries of long ago….

Sadly, the reason why I’m writing now is to grudgingly try to disentangle myself from the inward grief I feel for a beautiful girl I once met, but who is now up in the heavens with her maker. At the tender age of five, one ordinary, humdrum day, a speeding vehicle sideswiped her outside her home, and killed her in the ensuing minutes before aid rushed to her side.

How cruel can fate be, even to the innocent and helpless?

We met her on the occasion that I wrote of another two deaths in the family. Shy and pretty, with long beautiful jet black hair, I was drawn to her as I am always, to little kids who have no wariness or qualms about them, just coyness that awaits a welcoming gesture, for them to open up. Her folks graciously received us at their home where we stayed the night. They gave us the most comfortable room, in spite of our small protests. It was an occasion intended for sober actions, but having had the opportunity to know them as relations, it was otherwise a juncture that made my son gain a friend, and us, share a few heartwarming moments with them in that quaint town.

What breaks my heart now is that my son had doggedly asked me to give the little girl his CareBears pillow as a parting gift, but somehow she was too shy to accept. And 3 year old Gabby-- a perfect illustration of how kids can be mercilessly direct and unrefined sometimes-- changed his mind in a millisecond, when she was about to take it. Back then, it seemed amusing, but never was there a trace of foreboding that it was the first and last time we would see of that little angel.

Not a couple of months afterwards, we heard the sad news of her passing….

What to make of it? I don’t know. The loss of a child is not new to me, having had a miscarriage the first time I got pregnant. But I believe it is not nearly as agonizing or emotionally crushing, as having indeed spent years watching a little life from you grow and blossom into a beautiful living thing, breathing warmth into your otherwise controlled but dreary existence. Of how many times it made you laugh aloud and look at everything in a much gentler perspective, and often with rosy eyes. Of the fact that a little being could bring out so much enthusiasm in you, could test the ends of your patience, and reward you with boundless joy you never thought you could take pleasure in.

But how I feel for them, the ones she left behind, who will get back to the house, a place once awash with her happy clutter, and her childish laughter, and all the jollity of a small child, that is now empty and devoid of any hope, reverberating only in endless tears and untold sadness...

Why her?

Much as there is enough happiness found in my little kids, I can only cry, and cry eternally inside, for the special one that got away....

Blue-eyed Angel

I am no fan of the Tomkat, but certainly each one of us have our voyeuristic moment in showbiz, when you just got to have a quick look into that intriguing peephole. And this baby, little Suri, product of two demigods, is nothing short of a seraph. She’s just so beautiful that you can even forgive her manic, loopy father ...

bambina

i was watching you this morning, remembered you as a little life whose eyes had barely opened, and thought how fast time had flown since....now you are a cute little bundle of sweet smiles, and gurgles and coos...the softest skin, the littlest hands, the nicest smell in that body and little tuft of hair on your head...how can a mother not love you?

sophia 4 months

again....

It has been many months that I have itched to write something down on my blog. Heck, I do visit my spot everyday and hit Blog This! But once the empty page confronts me, my thoughts all get into a big jumble. And I grumble about having nothing to write. It's like having a very good dream at night, and being awaken by a loud thud in the morning, you open one eye and out your dreams go flying off the windows, like specks of dust......you just don't have the power to bring them back as a lucid whole. It frustrates me no end. The trouble with me is I am not always inclined to talk about the everyday things, which is what I'm exactly supposed to be doing. I mean, where do you get the inspiration to write anyway? Isn't it the inconsequential stuff around you that make up a structure of thoughts that push you into blogging? Yes, I agree....but it's me. Sometimes I want to talk about this and that, I am pretty sure I've had it in my mind......but the moment I sit down to write, all is gone into thin air. Am I in trouble? I guess, definitely. Dawdling dawdling dawdling.....

Anyway, so I say to myself, bear with my self....and she nods silently. Today, I feel terribly frustrated that I am in limbo....just incredibly staying afloat and waiting for life to take shape. It scares me to not have the courage to decide on something---where I am going, what I want, what I plan for tomorrow.... My thoughts wander, but something grounds me to where I am now. Is it my family? I don't know. I'm pretty much rotting in my comfort zone, and it's not comfort I am getting at all. I don't know my worth right now. Something must happen, I must get going. But where do I start? Hearing myself think this I am reminded of a virginia woolf and a sylvia plath, who thought so much of the world and life--but reduced to bare bones, they found life meaningless, thus the suicides.

People like van gogh, plath, hemingway--were they driven mad by the harshness of reality? But isn't it the same harsh reality that drove them to be mad and great? What makes one take his life anyway? Is it the too much-ness, or the nothing-ness? I remain clueless because I am not mad, nor great. I am just an everyday mother who has no cold weather or frigid husband or literary rejections to bleat about, and yet now I find life meaningless, and suicidal.

Thoughts

I'm on my 23rd week of pregnancy, and I must look like seahorse. I wish I could know what the baby's gender is. There seems to be a baby boom in my circle of acquaintances right now. Almost everyone I know is heavy with her own bambino, and that's why I'm probably apprehensive about my own too. If you should know, I have taken on a most motherly stance these days--I have been learning to sew things, and one of the first projects I've done is to give Gabby's old comforters a new look. Meaning that I took out old materials from his old things and sewn a new cover, with a matching pillow. I'm so eager to be a mom again. Or am I? Right about now, little baby is kicking inside me, giving me little contractions that, though not scary, remind me s/he's there, really there and raring to come out anon....

Geez, how I wish the nine months will be over and I have the little baby mewling beside me...at least then I can think of many other things, more important of which is getting a new job. If I had a choice, I'd like to be a home maker tending to my kids, but that is not quite an option for me and husband right now. At least not yet. My mind has been going over many possibilities of getting a job that allows me to stay at home with the kids, and yet earn enough to help Oliver meet our obligations, especially the rent.....but I have not come up with something feasible...

One thing's for sure, two kids is enough.

Thursday

It's been a little cool and overcast this morning, the sky threatens rain and I'm kinda loving it...I don't know what it is about the rains, but I settle more comfortably with the thought of the wet ground and wet leaves and wet feet. Where I am is most undesirable, I'm woozy with the five months old bambino in my womb, my country is in the brink of another unpheaval, I hate my job....but the rains somehow anesthesize me from all these ugly realities. Once I hear the Basia song again, I know I'll be on a different plane, completely heedless of the world spinning around me.

I am not aware how long it was since I last wrote, but it must have been eons. Many things have happened, we've moved house, taken on a relative, seen off a relative, raised Gab and witnessed him grow from lovable to dreadful... but most importantly, something grew, its sprout eyes each to each, inside me--a self-protruding truth that is now a life, jolting inside me, reminding me I am going to be a mother of two....

What it's going to be, she or he, I can only guess....and guess I will here on this journal, while I have something to say about it. Or, perhaps like a phoenix, resurrect my thoughts on coffee, or love, or death, or motherhood, or books, or rains.....or whatever. Basta!

Helloworld

I'm not sure that I'm back to my old blogging self, but I shall try my darnedest to chronicle the what-have-I's in the next few so and so moments of my life. Just about now my thoughts are repressed for anything that is writable on blog--I'm just hurrying to get home and cuddle with the little boy who now knows his stars from his moon. Lovesick mom...

My Missing Posse

In the course of changing templates to again satisfy my never-sated self, I lost the precious gang of bloggers I've linked up in my spot. The silly, idiotic me can't bring myself to retrieve them. The age of senility and bungling is come. Will you please please be a darling and help me? Here's them that I can remember:

sassy lawyer

belledejour

joe.my.god

sulatpinay

tito rolly

compulsive eater

The others I simply can't recall. I'd be indebted to anyone who can help me with their links. Merci.

Being Enough

“When will it ever be enough?”…This is my friend Lou whining this morning about her life. Lou who I envy so much for having gone to many places in Europe and the USA, whilst working and living in Singapore. How could someone like her complain of being unhappy and not feeling satisfied when she lives in smog-free country, in her own pad, and sends me emails thru her “notebook”—as compared to me who suffer the little indignities of having to commute to work everyday, smog billowing and giving me a foul odor in spite of having scrubbed myself bloody before then, me who do my blogs on this hideous desktop which has obviously seen better days? Life can be a bitch, ain’t it? But always, to each his own bitch.

I guess I cannot blame my friend. She’s just human like me after all. And no matter how I try to view her life through rose-tinted glasses, she certainly has her low moments. Like when she says that Christmas is always like any other day—except that her callers will be a little nicer to her and will be back to their nasty selves when the occasion is over. I believe her. I’ve had my share of monstrous callers back in Easycall. Call center work is such a thankless job, and I believe you’ve got to have a halo around your head, or otherwise a catatonic condition, to not feel the mortification of being shouted at and abused by cantankerous callers, day-in and day-out. I guess that’s why Filipinos are the most likely candidates for call center outsourcing; we just tolerate and forgive every single time. For someone like me whose ego got a little fragile over the years, I think I’ll have to reconsider working again for a similar firm.

Anyway, going back to Lou….she was and is a great friend and I suppose my only true clique. We used to share a locker, a journal, heck we used to share dreams of working abroad…and look at her now, she’s saving up for her retirement, while I’m just starting life as a mother, slogging like my husband to provide for Gabby’s milk and diapers. I should be the one protesting about all these domestic scrapes, but I’m not…I know it’ll never be enough, but I’m happy where I am. Truly. We’re worlds apart…and yet she makes me think that luck and happiness is all a mirage that our minds can conjure up at the most unlikely places. It's like Harry Potter creating a great Patronus with his happiest memories. Then all is wonderful with the world again...

I hope she’ll be happy someday.

Hell Hath No Fury

…. Like a woman scorned, not in love, but in doing what she thinks is right. The past few days I have been in such a disposition, that the contemptible ones who thought I could be waylaid by questioning my professionalism at work and spiting me for exposing their inveterate practices-- have thought otherwise and steered clear of my way. The husband and wife team of mandrills now know better than to monkey around. And just in case they don’t know this one other thing, I WILL BE my scorned self until hell freezes over.

Sweet Times

As luck would have it, my brother who has bunked in with us for more than a month, has finally landed a job.

It wasn't an easy task for someone who has worked abroad for many years and has enjoyed the fruits of his labors and green bucks, but ultimately felt like he was a been-there-done-that the moment he went home to his country. Pride and humiliation get mixed up in a nasty way inside you I can only surmise-- pride in feeling you got a sure leverage over others after your "imported" experience and exposure, and humiliation in realizing that you're no better than the new grad standing in line next to you, waiting to be interviewed.

You're just a dot in a swarm of nameless faces and frayed nerves shuttling here to there everyday, holes boring deeper into your pocket, sending you further to financial and emotional chasm. And, don't you just hate short-sighted relations who treat you like a superstar when you're out there, and sneer at you when you finally come home for good as though you're wearing that big letter L conspicuously on your forehead? I wish they would understand that making one's living in a faraway place isn't exactly fun.

Anyway, my brother doesn't really feel like that. It's all ME thinking aloud. Gee, don't you think I just yak endlessly, even for other people? But I do, I do.

Beyond all the difficulties that he all went through with admirable resilience, I am glad that God has made His plans clear for my brother. His job offer couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. Over a couple slices of Magoo's last night, we silently agreed... He is good, He is great.

I hope He listens to me naman....

Harry Potter Five

Finally put down Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. My little beading business was on the back burner for more than a week so I could finish the book. Phoenix was a comparatively long read compared to the first four books in Rowling’s 7 part series. But this one is definitely a cut above the rest coz finally Harry Potter is revealed as the nemesis of the evil Voldemort. In the prophecies of the eternally misunderstood Professor Trelawney, it could have well been Neville Longbottom in Harry’s place. Why, there were born on the same year, on the same date, at the same time. But of course Neville is everything that embodies an anti-hero being pudgy and all although he bravely fought the nasty death-eaters in the Ministry of Magic to save Harry. It is comforting to know that he becomes one of Harry’s best friends. It is also here that Harry tasted his first kiss and experienced the perplexing world of girls, er, women. And well, Ron Weasley becomes a hero in Quidditch.

I enjoy this kind of literature nowadays, shallow though they may seem. It’s because I intend to pass on these wonderful stories to Gabby in the many future late nights that we will be looking forward to, me tucking him gently into bed. Collecting the books is a different matter altogether. Harry Potter series--in spite of the commercialism and controversies of subliminal allusions to black magic--still abounds with lessons of heroism, modesty, friendship, love, and respect for nature. As I said, I am not pedantic, although I may clout and differentiate. But for the most part, I take children’s books as they are. For the young at heart. For me and Gabby.

Of Love

Watching the movie again the other night, I had wanted to re-relish the book a good friend gave me....There's a line uttered by Dr. Iannis while lecturing his beautiful daughter Pelagia about love. It is simple, but true.

"When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake,and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is nconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness; it is not excitement, it's not the desire to mate every second of the day, not lying awake at night imagining him kissing every part of your body. No.. don't blush. I'm telling you some truths. That is just being in love, which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love, itself, is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting does it? ...but it is."

Being married for merely three years has made me realize that life is not all roses. It can often get unforgivably bumpy and rough that you just have to get a grip and find yourself time and again. The glamour of love is painfully lost in you. But come to think of it, you manage to rise above it all somehow. The struggle of giving, falling, being selfless, affirming, and understanding are manifestations of the lengths you are willing to go through to make life bearable and ultimately worth-living with the person you wake up next to each day----and therein lies the beauty.

Black, Bitter and Bold

Coffee truly fascinates me.
A beautiful picture
I got from Starbucks.

Tomorrow is Another Day

My brother recently visited a mutual friend whose wife just gave birth. I passed on my best to them, but with the kudos came the feeling of deep compassion for these first-time parents. They have probably marveled every minute of their nine months pregnancy, anticipating how their little baby would come out. Who will she/he take after--—mom or dad? Dad after all was a handsome chap in his days, and still is.

The precious little angel finally came out, but was carrying a rare genetic condition. He has Down Syndrome.

Down Syndrome is caused by excess gene from the 21st chromosome, aside from the ones the child has inherited from his parents. This condition may mean that the child may have some degree of mental retardation and other developmental stagnation. Certain physical traits are common to them too—folds over the eyes, flat nose, flabby body, and a soft tissue jutting out of their nape that extends to the shoulder.

My heart goes out to the little angel, not so much because of his looks, but how he would fare, if indeed his impediment would deprive him of the many warranties in life—learning, recognizing, and interacting. I have not in the past personally known a Down person, but I think they can be very vulnerable to illnesses, thus cutting their life expectancy to almost half. Can they be cured, or schooled, I don’t know…but if I were a parent to one, I would definitely do everything to make him a well child.

I have lost my first baby when he was four months in my womb, not a happy thought really. I went down, deep into the recesses of my guilt, asking myself where I had gone wrong. Did I neglect him and myself? Was I abusive and indiscreet with what I ate? How on earth did I lose this child that I have tried so resolutely to protect and nurture inside me? I badly wanted to be a mother to this boy.

As Miriam once said, what can be more important than a child?

My answer is...if anything, a little life that once came from you is the mirror of what you and your progenitors have been, and is the self-same life that will carry on the person you are now---your character, your achievements, your memories, your dreams, your love. You can only want to shield it from any tragic waste. It is that important.

I suppose Glenn Doman’s theory of teaching a brain-injured child to read comes to the fore again. It may not be as easy as it sounds, because I am not this child's mother or father. But I can share with what they feel—their anxiety, their fears and apprehensions, maybe even their attempt to rebuff the painful truth and question God of his motive in giving them this child.

Only time can placate them from their doubtful and fragile state of mind, and strengthen them to move on from there. And I believe that with infinite love, untiring dedication and persistence for the precious one, tomorrow may just be another day.

From Hell to Eternity

Have you noticed how certain people get into you; hit a raw nerve even if they are not aware of it? Or maybe they are, but they choose to be on the dense side and slight you anyway? Because I could never believe that everyday I go to work with these kinds of creatures that most definitely come from hell. And I am eternally sorry that I am in this kind of rut that pulls me deeper and deeper into emotional insolvency.

Oftentimes, when I recount my miseries to my husband, he would off-handedly tell me to quit my job and look for brighter, if not greener, pastures. I know what he means by that, although sometimes it appears to me that he doesn’t care one bit about what I’m going through. I should know, he has his own corporate hell to grapple and listening to mine is too much to deal with, although he admits that he, like me, finds it easier to gripe than to leave his job for his own peace. We are not at a stage of our lives to take things with nonchalance and impulsiveness, we have a kid now and everything focuses on rearing him and providing for him materially.

The same goes with these people I am ranting about. They have kids, and sisters and brothers and friends. So, to co-habituate with one another, we need to give up certain prejudices and self-importance, right? Wrong These people only put their pretty asses on your shoulder, and you, the whiner, have to do as they say.

Believe it or not, I have made the most stupid mistake of befriending him once, and now he sees me as a boil in his ass that he’s trying so hard to get rid of. Or at least that’s how it seems to me. He has this annoying habit of bossing me around, which aggravates my situation all the more because I hate being pushed to do things. It’s not that I am almighty and all. How do you deal with people who abuse office rules, make lunch a whole afternoon siesta, and yet have the gall to demand things from you, and impose themselves on you as if you are subordinate to them? I have not the audacity to confront people of what annoys me about them, but can they be too opaque as that? Whatever happened to consideration and sensitivity?

Once or twice in my life, I have experienced a situation that totally put me off, and however inconsequential it seemed, made me lose my faith in the person who put me into that. People who cheat on you, in spite of your well meaning, and who make you feel you owe them for something. I am not inclined to talk what happened, but let’s just say that I was used and abused. My abuser saw the opportunity to drop me off a cliff of embarrassment and self-loathing as to why, why, why I was incredibly naïve and stupid to have trusted them in the first place. And that’s where my hell came from.

My only regret is that I have not learned to just leave them shit and move on….

Odyssey

I have just put down the Dan Brown bestseller The Da Vinci Code which I took pain to finish, having just borrowed it from an officemate who expected me to return it ASAP. I admit, even on my beading foray to Quiapo last weekend, I had the impetuosity to take the book with me and cram through the last few pages while waiting for my bus stop. Everyone I know, this blogger friend included, said it was superlative read. Sure, it was. Or maybe, I have missed the whole point.

Undeniably a fun read, replete with all the ingredients of a bestselling thriller, I devoured everything I saw . It was so easy to give way into one’s indiscretion and accept what the book said as gospel truth. Hell what do I know of the gospels, to pun that (since The Bible has just been put in a very damaging light here). I have been nowhere near criticizing the papal nuncio in the Vatican, although I absolutely feel the Catholic domain needs a lot of washing down to do to remedy the bad jinx they've recently ran into.

Would you believe that one local broadsheet even ran a quarter-page commentary by a Catholic bishop, about the veracity of the author’s claims on the clandestine brotherhood and Jesus’ bloodline and the Vatican's real identity? Is everything real or theoretical in the first place? This book was eliciting both raves and rants, and I bet a lot of paranoia and defensiveness, from the four corners of the literary or literate world.

Who could not have wanted to read it?

Momentarily though I had to go back over my previous conclusions about the book, weed out those that I didn't find plausible. And, trusting my isms, this is what, an ordinary reader like me, have discerned:

It’s all just FICTION which, however too good, the writer simply fiddled with in his mind. And whatever historical congruence it may have to the past, I am loathe to leave it to the experts. It was nothing more than an odyssey for me that fell right smack to a category that I would call “highly entertaining”. I am Catholic, and given that I have issues myself, this one doesn’t make me rethink about my spiritual viewpoint, or the limits of it.

It’s great that I have seen the other side of the travesty, although that piece about the smiling Mona Lisa most certainly got me off. However storybound that part may appear, I think that my heart can rest well and not ever wonder why SHe’s forever smiling that beguiling half-mocking smile. What a secret she keeps...

Even Sappho would have acquiesced.

To Envisage Belledejour

A picture of the unflappable Belle in my mind...reminds me of the beautiful Malena.

French Leave

It's a sad day for bloggers who have made belledejour's journal a staple in their daily literary breakfast. For me particularly, she's become a ritual, that an almost-dependence has been created between my coffee and her diary, she being on top of my "daily fix" of favorite blogs. A lot of things were going on there for a while. But just today, I got there and read her goodbye-abrupt, albeit announced.

I feel I'm losing much. Like having just put a good Louise Brooks biography down.

Belle's blogspot is a non-descript layout which she never bothered to change in spite of Blogger's recent offering of eyecandy templates. But the moment you walk past her, you will be intrigued by the words "Diary of a London Call Girl". Who would have thought anyway that women who give pleasure for money like her can keep an online diary, much less write a very good one? She, or He, might indeed be a writer who poses as, she calls it, "the whore without portfolio". But I choose to see her with a simplistic eye--not the pedants she detests--and believe she really is someone who holds the world's oldest profession.

Belle speaks (or is it spoke already?) in a cryptic yet very confident tone about her sexual encounters with "clients" and, pardonnez, "fuck buddies", but hints every so often of her personal life and her true relationships. Yes, the lady is real and does get bitten by the lovebug.

What makes her even more intriguing is that she doesn't leave an online comment feature on her blog, but links her email address with--

"Write me. Who knows, I might even answer..."

Written I have once out of naivete, but what do I know, I am simply one of those who did not make any impression in her terribly inundated mailbox. Why, there must be a thousand letters from fans and men who are dying to know her real identity and would be offering to pay pounds and euros just to have a glimpse of her, if not exactly enjoy the pleasure of her services.....So what is a married obscure woman like me doing in her mailbox, gushing like an awestruck fan, raving about how I fancy her? Or her blog at least.

I admit I got titillated with the prospect of her meeting up with someone who has been for ages haunting her blogspot and email. Belle always seems to me like a beautiful lady ready to pleasure a stranger, and yet has the quotient to discourse politics and highbrow subjects at any given day.

There is nothing substandard to read in Belle's blog, although at times her encounters may be too salacious for a mother like me to indulge....i'm not just cut out for the really spicy stuff, see?

There has been a book and television deal, and from the looks of it she's going fulltime with her newfound enterprise, thus the sudden unexpected goodbye. But I will grudgingly let this good one go, while hoping that one day she'd come back and write for herself and the exclusive us again.

Sex and the City

I must admit husband and I are big fans of Sex and the City. We stay up and cuddle together on late Saturday nights to watch SATC on HBO, I because of the clothes, and he because of the steamy scenes, usually between Samantha and her lover/s. But now that the last episode of the last season was aired, it feels rather sad that we find ourselves not having anything to look forward to in the coming nocturnal sessions of tv marathon on weekends. There's Alias for sure, but it's beginning to get more incomprehensible than it ever already is. And again, Jennifer Garner mania is starting to wear off on me. Anyway, I digress. It's understandable that SATC has decided to retire at the peak of their success. I for one wouldn't want to remember Samantha, Charlotte, Miranda and Carrie in their decrepit state still battling to find Mr. Right and the real meaning of sex. They are alright in the icons that they already have become these past 6 years, and the ending, which husband and I openly wondered was really the last, snapped in true fashion of the SATC atmosphere. Fast and explicit.

Sex and the City, despite its shallowness and materialism, teems with urbane complexity and humor that shallow people like me indulge into. It's like watching a fashion show all the time and yet appreciating the fact that the four main characters have flaws like real people. Like me.

Carrie Bradshaw, who prefers to see her paycheck up her closet by splurging on clothes and Manolo Blahniks has a physique that is not even close to gorgeous. And yet, when she struts her stuff around, it's just totally hers. And so with the other girls. I think thus they all make equally unforgettable characters that will linger in the consciousness of thirty-year old single women who find themselves thrown in similar situations and dreaming of their eventual pas de deux.

My husband would never understand how my eyes get bigger and the asides I make when I see a beautiful dress Charlotte wears, or the interesting bag or bangle on Samantha's arms. Yes, I am a sucker for fashion too, but I have no qualms about acquiring my Pedro Garcias from ukay-ukay. They say a fashionista will fend her stand just to be on top of everyone else's mediocrity until it hurts. But I'm no fashionista. I am just someone who appreciates good clothes. A lot.

Apart from the clothes though, the funny-ness that every girl can be subjected to in her elusive search for a perfect partner in life, and Carrie's instrospections on their daily struggle to achieve this, is what I will sorely miss. My husband's sentiments are a totally different story.

Photos in my Blog

Decided to put some life in my blog today, thanks to one of my favourite bloggers Ruth whose humorous and insightful posts I don't only enjoy imbibing daily, but makes me appreciate the use of our mother tongue better. Now my blog has some rather old but personal snapshots by Flickr, and a referrer's tool (not that I really need one since nobody ever walks past my spot anyway). Just the same they are there for a little trimming to make everything just a wee bit better than the usual. Zilch.

The Little Guy

Amidst my beading preoccupation nowadays, I've had a few moments to look over my shoulder and see how Gabby is. You know that worrisome feeling that your child doesn't seem to grow an inch taller or bigger? Maybe it's because he's right under your very nose all the time that his physique doesn't spell the littlest bit of difference than from the last time you noticed. But try to be busy about other things, and you'll realize how fast your little stork grows in a matter of days.

Proof of that is the number of times I've bought him clothes in a matter of 20 months.

Last weekend, I had to get my little guy a few sets of houseclothes because he can't manage to snuggle into his old ones anymore. His kiddie closet has seen stuff come and go, and now that he's definitely past the layette and over-alls stage, we've had to rethink about getting him new clothes, or recycling. He has plenty of those long-sleeved shirts that I made him wear when he was teeny child during the cold season, but now that it's sweltering hot, it would be useless to stash them away inside the closet and buy new clothes that he would wear for what, three-four months. See, I have this partiality for big clothes. I will not have Gabby wear clothes that are way too big for him that he would look like Dopey, or too small for him that he would like Pooh. I just want it right and snugly.

So anyway, about the old shirts, that recycling idea never really left me. I took a pair of shears, cut the sleeves short, and voila! New old houseclothes for Gabby. However, I saved the special and nice ones for when I'm going to carry another stork again. I type that with fingers crossed. You never know, if God remembers my address ( to borrow Mr. Goldenblatt's phrase in SATC) and send us a beautiful daughter that I will definitely name ISABELA BEATRIZ MORENO.

Hmmm....daydreaming again....

Back to Gabby, I read today from BabyCenter.com that he may be in the phase of being called the TT- Terrible Two's. I should agree that most of the things he does nowadays are within normal and expected behaviour from an 20-month old. His tantrums, which used to be few and far in between, are now becoming a daily scene in my household. Without warning, he would throw himself to the floor and bawl his soul out, with one eye keeping watch whether he's getting anyone's attention. If not, then he's all systems go for another bout of whimpering. I just let him be until he's rasp and exhausted. Which normally begins after three minutes.

Sometimes, it gets into my nerves---but more often I experience a sense of calm and feeling of love and understanding for one person. Did I say person? Yes, I think my little son has a mind of his own now, although his inability to express himself in proper words may impede him from getting his message across clearly. But he charms me impossibly that I would forget these little failings between us. It more than makes up for everything.

What mother wouldn't soften up when she hears her child sing, videoke style, with relish. And I have a big suspicion that he's learning to read words by following through the highlights in the song's lyrics. He gets excited when it's time for George Benson's song he knows just by looking at the title, and that he doesn't forget there are beautiful fishes in that video. I think Glenn Doman's theory is actually right! We haven't been regularly doing the bedtime stories, but I see that words, letters and pictures fascinate him, and makes him a bit obsessive about his books that they are now frayed and tattered.

It's only a matter of time that Gabby and Mom and Dad will be sitting and talking, and maybe even singing, around the same table. That I'm sure of.

life up at the 16th floor nowadays....

The Closure

Do you ever find yourself musing about the past and what-could-have-beens at times? Especially if you're a married, middle-aged woman who seem to be in a cul-de-sac, longing for some warmth in your relationship, in the midst of everyday things that ground you to what is truly real? Because I am. My marriage is a-okay if you care to ask, but I have often felt that in spite the hustle and bustle of my household--you know, caring for the kid and the husband---deep down is an abyss of vacuous feelings, where I am entirely on my own, and no amount of nostalgia can ever justify. I have often felt the inclination to get in touch with old friends, or past loves long dismissed to oblivion. Hang on, don't get me wrong, I do not contemplate on making any intimate connection at all. No bridges of madison county for me. Just maybe, a closure. Sadly, this is not an easy task. Especially with a person who left too much damage in my life.

Today, I found this letter from among the trash that I have intended to get rid of. Written some three tearjerking years ago. I wonder how we would have fared, had I sent this to him. It is truly a hateful missive for a someone I gave too much for, but now has become only a speck of shadow in my periphery. A goodbye I have never said and have never truly meant....

FOR G

I don't know what happened between us, but I just would like to say, before you finally disappear (again), that I am thankful for the times we've shared together. God gave me another chance to be with you, and in those few times, I realized that you are someone I can never really own. Despite our lofty claims about fitting so cunningly into each other, I sense the ambivalence and isolation. You were there but away, and a lot has ruminated in our hearts and mind. I must admit that I find it difficult to simply take things as they come. You have no idea how badly I need to be your friend. And that's probably the root of all these unfounded pains. You just touch too many aspect of myself that I find it hard to believe why things couldn't be better between us than they are now. why you come into my life without warning and leave just when I am ready to bask in the thought of you being close by. In so many unspoken words, you make me think about my worth in this world---and it scares me that I am nothing.

How unfair can your existence in my life get. And sadly, it's not something that you've thought of deliberately. It's no fault of your own, because no matter how we relinquish the truth, we both exist in a cusp of fiction--everything happens in surreal dimensions, and you are merely a mirage I have been doggedly trying to convince myself of as reality. Strange that when we were together I could never really relish you as something human like me--feeling ennui, suffering love, tasting death. I only thought of how perfect it was to be with someone whose actuation, whose intentions, whose being I could never really comprehend nor take for granted. You were pretty much holding my heart in your cold, unfeeling hands. But how should have I known? How naive indeed can love make the most erudite and jaded person. In knowing you, only the consequent pain seemed undeniable. That's what strikes me now as reality. That wasn't so then...

I'll probably never be content knowing that you walked up the beaten track and did not even know you have trampled on a hapless flower. All these times that I had been listening to your angst about poverty and disenfranchisement, I was only wishing I could let you see how beautiful the world is, if only you would put a little of that empathy you fervently hold for these so-called destitute ones, for the person who sits beside you and relishes the importance of your thoughts and your philosophies. How can you possibly be so unappreciative of what is being given you and hold so much gripe in your head as though it would explode if you don't medicate it with yearnings of something inhuman like miracles and magic? I wish I could tell you we are the magic because we are special. But then again, your freedom to walk the beaten track and trample upon the useless flower and think that being with someone is mundane and of no significance to the salvation of the world--is something I have no clout over. I simply am at a loss.

If you told me you were gay, I would have understood....
Just two words though....fuck you!

Weekend Shopping

I finally hit DV. Yesterday was the second time I went there, to scrounge around for my bead materials. I'm a little disappointed because there are only about 2 shops that sell my needs in a hundred that I've been to. But getting my beading stuff is a good excuse for also shopping around for just about everything I want, at a neglible price. The last time I thought Tutuban Mall had the best price, but now I think they're overly inflated when they are just a stone's throw away from where the Real Bargain is. And by real bargain, I mean in the heart of Divisoria. I was every inch ready for my DV foray, I didn't wear any jewelry nor watch, and I was in my most comfortable with only a belt purse which was very handy as it was fastened right in front of me, and had my best caution. In spite of that, I lost my nafnaf shades. Lesson learned.

DV pretty much reminds me of Mong Kok in HK, although it was winter when I was there and I had no sweating and the oppressive smells to worry about. In the streets of Divisoria, people were huffing and pushing in stalls that almost leave no space along the aisles. The lady I first approached for rubber bracelet asked " Wholesale?". That's when I realized this place is for those who mean serious business. I was a bit overwhelmed by the things I saw. There were just heaps and heaps of bags, shoes, toys, clothes, accessories, housewares, and knick-knacks. But once I learned what the "wholesale" price was, my spending urge was itching like crazy again.

Anyways, I was as frugal as best I could. I got my jelly bag for P250 which sells at P750 in the malls near my home. Pretty, pretty shirts that cost 50 bucks which I wore at work today and accessorized with a fresh choker of pearls. I feel like a million dollars, but who would have thought all these cost duh? I have no qualms about brands anyway, except that when I see them at the flea market, I would not think twice about grabbing them. Oh and by the way, I got my beading stuff and I can't be happier.

The Scream

"I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun was setting. I felt a breath of melancholy - Suddenly the sky turned blood-red. I stopped, and leaned against the railing, deathly tired - looking out across the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black fjord and town. My friends walked on - I stood there, trembling with fear. And I sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature."

by Edvard Munch
(written in his journal in 1892. His painting above, one of the four he made, was recently stolen from the Munch gallery in Oslo, Norway)

Friends

Today I thought about many things, especially about people who have at one time or another been part of my life. There are people who figure prominently even if they are not really aware of the impact they make or the impression they leave on you when they're gone. Not to the netherworld I mean, but, just moved on to something else. When I was in highschool, I had a friend named Diana. I could very well say that her name suited her to a T because she was very pretty, intelligent, had a great personality, even if she tended to be painfully shy at times. We became very close friends because we both were interested in the same things--poetry and books. What struck me most about Diana is that she wasn't at all conscious of how beautiful she was, outside and inside. I thought I wanted to be like her, but she was always so unassuming and didn't think much of herself. We lost touch after graduation, but even now that I am an adult and am miles away from her, I will always feel blessed at having known humility and meekness in its physical form.

In college, I got to know Jo. Like Diana, Jo came from a well-to-do family. But she too was self-effacing. Jo and I were like peas in a pod, we were just inseparable and were always doing the same things together. I always felt a tad envious about JoAnn, although not in a bad way. I think she had everything, nice family, nice home, comfortable life---while I was a half-orphan living under the mercy of my relatives who put me through college a little grudgingly by making me do tons of household work than I could manage. Nevertheless, when I was in school, I forgot all about it. I was just happy to be with Jo.

When I left college, we exchanged letters, but soon we would drift away and lose in touch until more than ten years later. One day, I got a call from Jo asking if she could fly over to Manila to see me. Of course I was more than happy to see her. I was a little embarrassed to see her though because I didn't have a house of my own and was doing an 8-hour job, and had really little, if at all, to be proud about. But Jo was simply happy to see me. She stayed at my place for a couple of days, then took the route back to her homeplace via Bacolod. Or so I thought. Little did I know that she was staying in some seedy motel the whole time I thought she has gone back home. I was stormed with calls at my office from her family who demanded to know where she was. It was only then that I learned Jo has gone to me on the pretense of seeing me, but she had wanted a place to stay whilst she was hiding from a husband who was suffering from a chemical imbalance and had wanted to hurt her. She left her daughter with her mom, but didn't let them know where she was going. I felt so sorry for her. I could have helped her with what little I had. But that was the last I heard of her.

There are other people who've walked past my door and changed the shape of my life. At times they've hurt me or made me happy, but always, the notch that lingers is how they've made me the person that I am now.

Existence

Nevertheless it is strange
That spare mornings are unkempt
Among shameless mornings.
I anticipate likeaverystupidchild
To care for small things beyond
This pervert hour of
the
day
I shout capsules balls wanton minds
Asps wolves flower shaping
Dying
And dearly, my oaf figure moves out
Cross and inaudiable.
Therefore
It is to kiss my own craven kiss
I, am not wanting this
This constricting bed
This waiting swelling
half-colored
dawn.

sharon ignes c.88

Thingamabobs

Being an ordinary office worker who has a boss based abroad and no one looking over her shoulders all the time, I get my share of mind-numbing days when my routine is to finish all my tasks in the morning, and kill time in the afternoon. To achieve this, I do an assortment of things—which means read emails, visit news portals, read the papers, ym my husband about household matters, surf the net, blog or read blogs, check on my son at home, listen to my yahoo launch, wait for my chameleon clock to chime 530pm, and then pack up to leave. I should be happier with this arrangement, since my last job was so “toxic” I hardly had time to brush my hair, but everyday of this, and a large dose of “petiks” can really slacken my life. I simply had to find a way to do something more worthwhile.

I’ve read over the net about a job where you work offsite, and just surf companies and various stuff, in order to get paid. I wanted to ask, but never got around to doing it. I make needlepoint as a hobby, but it is simply too tedious and distracting to bring to work because of the intricate parts that will take too much of your attention.

It was only serendipity that would get me to my new hobby, which is beading. I know that this is nothing novel about this; everybody seems to have at one time of another strung her own bracelets or chokers. But I never had in the past done so. I was very interested in what my aunt was doing, she was making a lot of money from her beading business, but she was remiss to teach me. Not that I didn’t ask. On several occasions I had hinted about wanting to learn the craft, and even offering to retail her beads so I would eventually learn how to do it. But all fell on rather deaf ears.

So, I thought if I wanted to learn, there’s always google to begin with. So google I did. But it was different to look at the picture and read instructions, than to learn it hands-on. Having discarded the prospect with my aunt as nil, and the internet not being much of help, I wafted through every tiangge in the nearby malls, and asked about beadings. The girls manning the little stores were either too preoccupied about selling their bracelets, or were too dumb to understand what I wanted. In other words, no bead materials, just ugly and hideous creations that cost a fortune for the easily duped. I didn’t want to buy their bracelets. I wanted to make my own.

I was on my way out of the mall when I was waylaid by another Muslim (they all seem to be) stall owner and offered her bracelets. I said I wanted materials, not the finished product, and she said she had some to offer. We talked a bit more, and I learned that she lived in the same apartment where we last rented. I had often been circumspect about talking to shrouded Muslim women because I had quite dismissed them as belligerent insular people who are suspicious of everyone standing next to them. But Ami was different. She was friendly, sweet even, and very helpful.

That’s how my little affair with beads began. She offered to teach me how to string, in exchange for my purchases and my loyalty to her store. Heck, she even gave me discounts. Well, I didn’t know if indeed it came in cheap since I haven’t really hit Divisoria and looked at the wholesale prices. More importantly though, I learned to make my first bracelets and chokers---and mind, it was THAT easy.

Consequently, I have become an entrepreneur of the smallest scale by selling my charm thingamabobs. What started out as a cheap subterfuge for many a boring days at work and off-work has thrived to be a business, and is now fetching quite well. I have somehow proved husband wrong when I said HE was going to help me sell the beads and he gave me that no- fucking-way glare from across the room . The condescencion I understood, but I nevertheless felt undaunted about hitting it off with the girls in his office. Never knew that panache in me.

Indeed, the beads sold like hotcakes and were gone by mid-morning. Orders are pending, and last I was told they are looking for more. I couldn't be any happier. I have at least something new to talk about now- if and when- I get to walk through my insipid blog spot again.

someday,love will perhaps be

someday, love will perhaps be
a courageous windflower
that will unbosom on my galoshes
and make me look to where it is
with my unassuming eyes.
but i
because of my rare coldness
will have but to cavort
past it
like it was
a
weight
less
cobblestone.

shane.ignes

An Attempt at Recollections of Childhood

I grew up in a close-knit neighborhood in Bacolod. It was a custom to call our place “compound” because we lived in an enclosure of about seven houses owned by the families my maternal grandma and her siblings. We belonged to the third generation of a big clan. My mother alone had 14 other siblings, and my first cousins were running close to 60, until the youngest was born in the late 90’s. My mother’s cousins were plentiful as well. We practically grew up next door with our first and second cousins, hence the impression of being close-knit.

But the truth is, each of the siblings had tacit rivalries and secretly considered their neighbor inferior to themselves. In our family, my grandma took pride in the fact that hers are the only grandchildren who regularly go to mass, clean up before bed, say the rosary everyday, and who have our respective chores in the house. She blindly believed that we grandchildren were of pure Catholic morals and should not often be in the company of our brash cousins. For us however, the years growing up under our grandparents’ despotic noses were the loneliest and most oppressive. We sometimes wished we belonged to the other families, who seemed happier.

Ours is the archetype of the extended family. We were about five families crammed inside my grandma’s 4-bedroom house, although we later had a house of our own. My parents had a tiny humble house erected at the back end of the compound when the second baby was born. My father and mother both went to work in the city and left us to the care of my grandparents in the daytime, only to fetch us at nighttime.

It was like that for a long time. Until my mother passed away, and we had to move in to my grandparent’s house. Without our father. He went home alone to our little house to avoid the spitefulness of my grandparents. And because we counted on our old folks' mercy, my brothers and I had to endure the cruelty of some of my aunts and the other nasty goings-on in that house. We were like the little orphans in lemony snickett's book. Until my father decided to take us someplace else. It was many years however that my brothers and I would finally reunite.

I wanted to write about happy days and warm memories of my childhood, but all too often losing someone in your life as important as your Mother shifts the way you look at things and how they took place. This first endeavor is terribly futile in that it paints a picture of me as being the saddest act in the world. I just had to stop.

I hope to have a second take one of these days….

Change

This is the nth time I’ve changed my blog template. For want of something new perhaps. But because I am a total ignoramus in html, I have no choice but to make do with pre-designed templates. Good thing Blogger has a lot better to offer now. One hit and I get a new look on my blog, only to change it after a few weeks or months.

Which brings me to consider... It is inherent in my personality to be always moving and changing things around the house, in my workspace or, in this case, around my blog. Change is nothing I cringe about, especially if it is to satiate my labourious idleness and whet my visual appetite. I always like nice things around my space, never mind if they're not the real mc coy. If I had my way in fact, my house would be like a display window where I have a new color and design theme for every season. Not for posterity though. My husband doesn't give a damn anyway.

Sadly I carry this mind-set even in what I wear. I have a become a clotheshorse since I started earning enough to buy what I want. And then the flea came into existence. When I learned to indefatigably rummage my way through piles and piles of gorgeous clothes that could be had for a trifling, my mind was buried in the mound as well. Who could resist buying an original armani for less than a hundred pesos, or a pedro garcia pumps for 50 bucks, all in mint condition, as compared to run-of-the-mill tops which sells at no less than 700 pesos in malls, and which you would later realize are total rip-offs? I have mastered the art of sifting through racks of clothes and spotting a signature from a mile away. I never miss.

It's no surprise how I have amassed overwhelming amount of clothes. It has become in fact a dilemma as to how to fit them all at once in the closet I share with my husband. We have an enormous closet which houses most of my clothes, and a teeny bit of his. I have clothes in boxes and paper bags. It is almost embarassing to think that I have so much and always complain about not having anything to wear. I am an office girl, and it is a necessity for me to wear the "corporate look" everyday. Or so I contend.

As a result, I give some of these clothes away. It is almost always a cursory decision, but what the heck, I would think. I can always buy a new one anyway. When I was a kid my wardrobe consisted mostly of hand-me-downs from older cousins. Contrary to feeling a little sorry, I thought there was always something quaint and charming about old clothes. They're like heirloom pieces that you succeed into, but you take extra care in wearing them so you can pass them on to the one next in line. The clothes age, but the importance you give it, the gesture of generosity, are values that form inside you, if only inadvertently.

I am sometimes convinced that my inclination to bring change into my life, be it in the home, my personal circumstances, or as mundane a matter as to my choice of templates, are for reasons leaning on the little act of benevolence towards myself---to taste what life can give me, to ascertain my boundaries and what's beyond, and to learn to do away with excesses, for the benefit of others.

i don't know.
i am not making sense
this pleasure is propagating around.
on my regions
no songs. no thoughts. no windows.
i cannot even embrace
the shadow of the rain.

Trees

in one of our manila-bound visits to my inlaws, we passed by the south superhighway and i saw these signs etched on a metal plate every 1km apart. i thought whoever came up with that inspired idea about caring for mother nature, translated very aptly in kilmer's poetry, should be given the highest praise. i dream of a world where in all imaginable places we read the great works of men rejoicing the beauty of earth and humanity.


Trees
Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

The Washingtonienne

She could be your erstwhile college friend, except that she's not. She is Jessica Cutler, a 26 yr old ex-assistant staffer at Capitol Hill in DC who was fired off her $25,000 a year job sorting mails and answering phone calls, after her blogs, cleverly named The Washingtonienne, about her sexcapades with Washington honchos made big news in the US media. Looks to me like she has a bit of Pinoy (I sure hope not!) or Chinese in her, but the catch is that she got paid fat moolah by some of her supposed bedmates for her sexual services, which according to her, thankfully takes care of her bills. Her blog was pulled out from the net, but my husband has eagerly directed me to a mirror archive file of her blogs, which caused her, well, infamy. Hardly really. News is that she doesn't give one hoot about her dismissal and was in fact offered a six-figure book deal for all she has to say about her shameless meanderings, which for me, falls way below par as far as the writing style of belle is concerned. One site even hints of her being the american belledejour. But I beg to disagree. Belle is a classic, and Jessica is, as the online forums refer to her, just a slutty skank. I have no moral issues about what she did though. I just think Belle deserves more fanfare than Jessica is currently reveling into.

Nuff said.