There was a time when my nephew, Mika, asked everyone he met how old they are. His mom explained, “he is currently obsessed with time.” He followed this up with a morbid statement, “people die when they grow old.” His young mind still cannot grasp the vastness of space and time between him and the “old”, between the tangible and a mere memory, between now and permanent absence. But he continues to ask, 'how old are you' or ‘wawa are you old?’ As if the numbers would give him comfort. I smile and say, “don’t worry Mika, I am still young.”

In a Vogue magazine article, I learned that Vladimir Nabokov also liked to talk about time.

“In what way?”
“In the morning, he would look at his watch and say, ‘I make it out to be 8:15; what do you have?”

Nabokov’s lifelong preoccupation, the article went on to say, was memory, things lost but still present.

While I, I am currently obsessed with freezing time--in digital pictures, in videos, in notebooks that I lug around, in all my documentation tools. I often find myself in the middle of a joke that had everyone laughing, or in between sips of wine at a family dinner, just taking a moment to commit everything to memory—how they laughed, what he said, what they said in return, what time of day it was. And I wonder, will I remember this exactly as it happened?

Or maybe, it’s just how Joel said it in Chronos (http://rambling-soul.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html) --

And it goes on and on, this pattern of forgetting,
like the erratic beating of hearts.
The learned calls it Pi, the endless, as if

the mind has no need to negotiate with time.

Of private shows and orphaned slippers

Three Sundays ago I rediscovered the pleasures of driving alone. Well, I drive myself to work and back home everyday when I am in town, but it is a short drive, down the familiar route of Kamuning, then across EDSA, and then Kamias. Occasionally, I would drive to far away Makati or Manila on some very important ‘business’ (otherwise you won’t find me there) but I would have company for those drives, if not on the passenger seat beside me, then other drivers in cars that are too close for comfort in the usually jam-packed lanes of EDSA.

On that particular Sunday, a series of fortunate events happened that led me to make that drive from Tagaytay to Batangas alone. I woke up a little past 4 am (my body clock was not tuned properly yet) and decided to start out early. I was looking forward to the drive since the last time I drove alone at day break, the experience had been magical that it is permanently imprinted in my mind. It was still dark when I set out and went down Magallanes Drive but by the time I reached the turn to the zigzagged mountain road that would take me to Lemery, morning had already started to break.

What I so love about early morning drives is the dawn to sunrise show. The thing that makes sunrise (and sunsets too) so dramatic is how the display of light changes so fast that you actually witness the landscape transform before your very eyes. It is like watching the scenes change through a viewfinder (remember that toy from our childhood?), something different at each click of the lever, and in my case that morning, a different view at each turn of the bend.

That is what made that drive special-- being the only car on that strip of road at that particular time of the day meant that I had once again gained access to a private show. There is a stretch on that road where the cliff to my left gave me a clear view of the valley below, where there was a splay of orange on bluish-grey skies over Taal volcano, whose shape was still muted by fog. Breathtaking.

What made it even more overwhelming was the thought that at that particular moment, I was probably the only one in the world who would have seen that view. That car that I met a few feet later would have seen a different view by the time he reached that bend I just came from.

A few seconds later, as I turned another bend, the scene had changed: the sky was more orange than blue, the fog had lifted a little to reveal the top of the volcano. By the time I reached the national highway, the turn from night to day was complete, the show was over. But what a show…Wish I could say that it would have been good to have you there, but then I would be lying—I intend to make drives at daybreak my solitary pleasure.


************************************************************************

This weekend, I participated in the International Coastal Clean-up day. Picked up garbage underwater. Partied after. But the most interesting thing about that weekend was the kind of garbage I collected down under.

Half of the garbage I picked were footwear, all missing a pair—a little boy’s rubber shoes, black sandals of a size eight woman, pink slippers of a young girl, the sole of size eleven basketball shoes, and more. The coast was also littered with washed-up footwear.

There must be a good story behind the pair-less footwear underwater. Or someone can spin a good story around them.

Around who owned them. Around what happened and how those pair-less shoes got there.

For me, I can only wonder.

For a friend, who is far away from home and says he misses the rain...

WAR STORIES

This is an excerpt of a letter that I received from a good friend whose work and heart have lead her down south in the Philippines. The day before I left for work-related travel end of July, she was on her way to assist in the evacuation of women and children in Mindanao. We talked about how much of the stories of the innocents caught in the crossfire are buried under the ‘bigger’ news about the whole military vs. the MILF thing. Her courage, optimism and sincerity have never failed to amaze me.

The letter

Dito naman sa amin sa Mindanao, fighting has moved to Sulu nowadays, the original home of the historically courageous Muslim warriors (Taosugs). Basilan was spared, although more than a thousand families have been displaced by the deployment of the Marines and the Army. Our Project area was totally vacated when the people saw the troops occupy their community facilities. Yung timber port na ginawa mismo ng mga tao for landing ng kanilang maliliit na bangka, pinunu ng military artillery! The people decided to evacuate. Risky masyado. They might be caught in the crossfire. It was good that the MILF pulled out all their troops para di madamay ang mga tao. So quiet na naman sa Basilan ngayon. People are gradually moving in na naman. Nakakapagod na din pero if you listen to the women, you can't help but appreciate all their efforts to keep the kids alive since all the men have gone elsewhere, to avoid being picked up by the military. Uso kasi damputan sa mga areas. Kaya lahat ng mga binata at matanda na lalaki, pinaalis na muna sa communities. Ang maganda, in those areas not affected by the conflict, social capital has tremendously increased! Umpisa na sila ulit ng mga sari-sariling business. Community life is back. Trust is being built na naman.

I will be going back to Manila this Friday. Puro naman daw baha dun ngayon.Kwento ka if you have time. Nakasingit ako ng konting panahon ngayon at may staff meeting pa sila.

My response

Your news about Mindanao is sad and yet the courage and resilience of the people there is amazing (there is no way to say this without it sounding like I am trivializing this tragedy—my apologies).

I remembered once I was in Mindanao nine years ago and I witnessed one such evacuation (this was during the peace talks negotiations — how ironic that the level of conflict escalates during these negotiations). The whole town was in level three red-alert and the family I was living with told me that they always have one bag ready with the ‘essentials’, ready for times when they have to leave their homes in an emergency. They told me they have done this a couple of times but have been lucky to have their home still standing when they came back.

I tried to imagine how they must feel every time they took a look at the house they were leaving behind, not knowing if it would be still there when they come back. Ah, to live in that constant state of uncertainty and fear.

I heard later on that they came back to their home a month later and did minor repairs to their house, and rebuilt their lives. It was just one family, one small story, yet I can still remember it so clearly as if it happened yesterday.

I also encountered one small yet significant face of war recently. I was on a flight to the east coast and I sat beside this lady. I, as a rule, never talk to strangers, especially in places like airplanes where you can’t escape a boring conversation unless you sky-dive. But I noticed that the few times I break the rule, it is always to respond to a bleeding heart.

She told me she and her husband were flying to visit their son who was going to be deployed to Iraq in a week. She said she was devastated. She wrote her president and begged not to send her son off because he has four children, the youngest was just a month old.

I have certain opinions on the US-Iraq war but until that moment, it came from a far-removed corner of my mind. It was that mother’s lament at 35,000 feet that made it real, even for just that moment. I think we only talked for all of five minutes but as we got off the plane, I gave her a hug and said someone from the Philippines will be praying for her Oscar.

The war in Iraq. The war in Mindanao. I feel most of time so disconnected from these big events but from time to time, these individual stories somehow bring them closer to home.

Speaking of home, I can’t wait to get back-kahit baha. My fantasies these days include spending a whole day holed up in my room on a rainy day, just sleeping and sleeping. Soon, soon.

Have a nice weekend in Manila! See you when I get back.

Letter

I could not sleep, my whole body was screaming for sleep but my mind would not rest. So instead of trying to and stressing myself out to even more sleeplessness in the process, I decided to work a little.

But I should have known that I was setting myself up for some major downtime- to be in this almost complete silence at one in the morning, with only the sound of the waves and tuko of the gecko for company, there was no way that I would not end up thinking about you.

The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. (A Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda)

This is what I have been trying to avoid the whole day ever since I arrived here this morning. One reason I am up right now is because I could not drown out the echoes of the sound of my own voice- I used it to chatter the whole day away, talking about useless theories and concepts, churning out one anecdote after another that at one point I must have sounded like those Rotary guys, the ones who get trained on how to make a conversation going and interesting to capture everyone’s attention. Arrghhh. Has your own voice ever haunted you to the point of disgust? I should not beat myself up for that, I just needed to fill all those spaces with sound, otherwise you would creep in and take over.

It’s not your fault. It was a given from the very start, that you would intrude on this weekend. If I believed in the wheels of destiny, this was orchestrated from that time we first came here five years ago for an intro SCUBA dive. I dragged Pearl along, remember. I could not believe it was your first time to dive as well. I had always thought that diving was already part of the many adventure sports you’ve done. The 20 minutes underwater was enough to get me hooked—I vowed that someday I would take diving lessons. We even talked about it, taking the lessons together.

You would be happy to know that I finally enrolled in a diving class (with Pearl, Sanchi and Donyl) and even if it took us five months what takes four days for some, at least we are here now, two dives away from our certification. But in some twisted cosmic joke, we are doing our checkout at the resort where this all began.

I thought it would be easy to come back here. After all, it’s been what, three years already since you left? But halfway to the shower area just before the second open water dive, it hit me bad I almost doubled-over.

I hate it when you do that, invade my memory at the most inconvenient time, when I least expect it. You have so many opportunities to come when I am alone and yet you choose to intrude when I am not ready. But the good thing about water sports is that no one would ever know that film of water running down your face is not from the shower anymore.

Sometime a whiff of song might float by,
Then you might say to yourself, “That one,
I know that one, it reminds me of—“ and stop,
your tongue unable to find the shape of it,
in your thought the syllables slip,
murdered by memory. (When I Go, Merlie Alunan, April 2004)

Usually, it is the sound of the waves or the feel of the breeze from the sea that brings you back to me. Even that combined smell of sunblock lotion, saltwater and the sun on the skin assaults my memory.

It was, after all, our love for the sun, the beach, the sea that bridged the gaps between us – of our age difference, of all those years spent apart, of the differences in who we have become.

You were always rock-solid, while I am, as Papa puts it, the rolling stone that gathers no moss. You were straight as an arrow ever since, your life meticulously planned out while I tend to make so many detours, interesting stops, I call them (how it exasperated you then—I remember one night, while waiting for the rain to stop and traffic to ease up in some parking lot diner in Makati, how you pepped talk me about making long term career plans, visioning what I really want. I, of course, made fun of that serious conversation, but if it is any consolation to you now, some of what you said sank in. I do make plans now and it is very clear to me what I really want to do)

You did things by the book, I do things by instinct. (I remember how you were once made to set the table and you went about it with a ruler—because you read in some book that the plates have to be placed a certain number of inches away from the edge of the table).

Science was your thing, I am the kind who would stupidly ask if that flashes of light running through the wires of the MRT was electricity—it turned out it was the reflection of the headlights from the cars below. (You scoffed and said to me then, if the physics community would hear you claim that you have seen electricity, you would be an outcast. I said to you, but I can see lightning, isn’t that electricity?)

You were always conscious of your health -- you had a nutrition plan, you exercised, you played badminton, you went mountain climbing, you maintained an active lifestyle. Instead of itemizing the many ways i abuse my health, let me just say that we were complete opposites on this score.

Even what we write in our journals show how different we were. In your travel journal you wrote the facts of your trip to the Grand Canyon--what time you left, what the weather was like, what you saw along the way, what happened when your car broke down. Mine would probably document how I like the afternoon sun, how much softer it falls on the mountain range. (Sorry, I found your travel journal and read it—I can almost hear you gasp at the invasion of your privacy. I know you would be also appalled that I have mine on-line but don’t worry, I only have less than 5 people reading this, all of them my friends-promise!)

But when it comes to bodies of water, we spoke the same language. It was there that I found you and you found me. That even when you found me strange, you could like me, enjoy my company, laugh out so loud at my stories even when you grimace in disbelief at the absurdity of some of them. That I could like your friends and you liked mine (even if you said I do keep a weird set). It was because of our common passion that we started going out, started planning those weekend trips to the beach. It was there that I found a friend in my brother. And I ceased to be just your sister.

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate

Deserted like the wharves at dawn,
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands (A Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda)

Pearl woke up as I was writing this letter to you. She asked me why I could not sleep—I said work. She knew better. She said it was ok if I talked about it. But you know how it is Mano, we have always been clumsy when it comes to verbal displays of affection, that’s another thing we have in common. We were never able to verbally express how we feel—we find it cheesy, awkward. The ‘love’ expressions are not part of our vocabulary – if I said I missed you I can almost imagine you cringing.

But it was different in letters. I saw a whole bunch of my letters to you, inside faded envelopes in a box in your room, the ones I wrote to you before there was email. I was amazed how much I was able to tell you in those letters and how I never talked to you about those things when we were together. My letters were long, the longest one was eight pages (even longer than this, imagine that). I have always been a prolific letter-writer. You never said it but I knew how much you enjoyed receiving letters from me, it brought you closer to home.

And because I can’t say this out loud, let me tell you the only way I know how.

The whole time today, all I could think of was, if there was any one who deserved to be here, it was you, not me. That if there was any one who could do this better, it would be you. You would not test the patience of your instructors as I did today. When I could not move gracefully with those fins on, I remembered how you swam with it like they were the natural extensions of your feet. You were the swimmer in the family. They said I was a natural in water (well, not today definitely) but they should have seen you, known you. You were close to supernatural.

When all of a sudden I was gripped with fear while underwater, a slight moment of panic, I thought how it would have been all right if you had been there to hold my hand. Like you did all those summers ago, the first time you took me snorkeling and I panicked as we reached the reef’s edge. It was during that snorkeling trip that I first discovered that I wanted to be a mermaid. That singular moment has brought me here. And I can never ever claim to love all this more than you did.

So how did it happen that I am the one wearing your mask and snorkel now, diving in the ocean you loved, even driving your car to get here, living the life you should have lived?

*************************************************************************************

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! (A Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda)

I woke up with a lighter heart and a calmer spirit, as calm as the sea that morning. You know what comforted me? There was this butterfly that kept hovering as I prepared for the third dive. Darl told me this interesting trivia-- did you know that the life span of a butterfly is so short, some just 2-4 weeks after they spring out from their cocoons? And to think the metamorphosis takes a long time. I love the irony of it. When I came up to the surface, there was another small white butterfly hovering low in the middle of the sea. I imagine you to be this butterfly, just too good for this world.

Someday soon, I will write to tell you how magical it is down there, how serene, how that stream of light from the surface could pierce through your heart, how time slows down, how far removed from rest of the world you can be.

Someday, I will tell you how I understand how some people could actually devote their lives to this. I will tell you how everything about that day was perfect, and how it was capped by a shooting star that we saw as we drove home. But right now, I just want you to know that to me, you are not completely gone, you were there. And as I continue to do this, you will always be with me.

Then have I truly gone, my love.
Air has closed over the spaces I have been,
not even grief can stay it. (When I Go, Merlie Alunan, 2004)


(July 15, 2007, Balai Resort, Anilao, Batangas)

HULI!

...na naman ako. For beating the red light--my third for the same offense over three years. The violation, according to the man in blue at the corner of Cubao, reckless driving...my, my, the only time I am reckless and I get caught. Not true, actually, I am very reckless in the comforts of my mind, good thing they don't give tickets for that.

Horoscope Junky Goes Clubbing

My horoscope said: A friend will help you learn about a foreign culture or subculture you have been curious about.


Funny because that night I found myself at, read this, the EMBASSY at the FORT. Well, actually, my friends went in while I went home. Boring boring me. But I had a very good reason...Dean a.k.a. Marko could not get in with his oversized shorts. Me to him: maybe if you like wear your shorts na pakigol (really short ba) and hike up your shirt to show a little tummy, like all those slim, leggy, girls prancing about, then they would let you in. The sign outside was very specific: No oversized shorts. There, less is more, I guess.


This Embassy thing all started when Des, who is a nurse in London and was in town for a vacation, said she wanted to go to a disco. I was blast-ed to the past-ed.


Disco?!? The last disco I went to must have been at Spacer in Tacloban, beside the bowling-an, when I was 14. No, wait, Jaleux along Qeuzon Avenue in front of Burger Machine. No, the last one was at the GARAGE in Carigara, formerly the town's moviehouse that was converted to a warehouse-type disco where women in knee-high black boots and short shorts belted out LAKLAK.


Ruby to me: You don't go to a disco now, you go clubbing.


Ah, clubbing. So that's what they call it now. And so that night, after dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Shnagri-la, we decided to check out the Embassy, based on the recommendation of another highschool classmate who occasionaly goes there with her expat friends. That's the only reason I go, she insisted. Does not want to be a clubber, this one. hehehe.

What I know about that place and that subculture, I get from my once-a-month showbiz tsismis viewing , where the Embassy would be featured from time to time for brawls involving some hotheaded, egotistic artistas.

So our excursion to the Fort extended my immersion of that foreign culture (kay damo foreigners, hekhekhek), and even if I did not actually go inside the Embassy, watching the people outside was already ah, a new experience.

We sat for a good hour at the Cafeteria, the one beside the Embassy, waiting for the clock to strike 12 so the cinderallas (me, pearl, mike, marko) can go home and they (des, roch and bf homer, cha) can proceed next door. That one hour, in between sips of mai tai, we people-watched. I have never seen so many well-dressed party people in one place (but that's because you don't go anywhere, Tonette would say).


All the people there, they all looked liked they jumped out of the fashion magazines. All the latest fashion featured in last week's People's Magazine, US weekly, OK Magazine that I read in my dentist's clinic were all being cat-walked at the Fort. The in crowd. ( in to what?)

Pearl to me: If you are young and you belong to this crowd, it must be difficult trying to keep up. Me to her: Well, they are rich socialites. Pearl to me: No, not everyone who comes here are rich. Some just, you know, keep up with the latest trend.

Ruby to me, the day after: Describe them to me. Me to her: Ok, remember the yuppies of Makati who went to Streetlife? The higher-end of that crowd (I know, I am outdated but you know what I mean). Age range- 20-30s. Have disposable income/allowance. Reads Cosmo/GQ. Metrosexuals. Fashionistas. Manila's own Paris Hiltons.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. The only point I am trying to make is, it was interesting to see people very different from my usual crowd (ok, I do not have enough friends to make up a crowd according to standard definitions, but you know what i mean). And I was amazed how much a place could actually homogenize a crowd, or the other way around.

When my friends and I go out, we go to bars where beer sells for under 35 pesos (if we are feeling a little rich we can even shell out 100 for cover charge). And the usual people I go out with give the exact amount, down to the last peso, to their share of the bill. I was definitely out of my turf.

But that does not make us better people, only poorer people. It also does not mean they are better dressed, just more expensively dressed. Balit, all this only means that the Embassy is not my kind of place. I had fun though, the company was great, the conversation even better, the venue did not matter.

This weekend, I will wash off the taste of that place with a little dash of James Taylor at My Bro's mustache. Or drink tanduay at the kanto (ay, may city ordinance pala against that and there are no kanto boys in my neighborhood). Or grab a beer at the News Desk where lonely, old, desk editors hibernate.

Until the next invitation to go clubbing comes.

Waiting

There is nothing worse than waiting for something to happen when you know exactly what and how it is going to happen. I wish I was made of that stuff that allows others to say, I think it is going to be better this time. But I can’t. I am a good student, I learn from experience. That is why I do not eat ampalaya. That is why I do not drink and drive anymore (well, almost but not quite). That is why I am here, right now, almost sick with anxiety. I almost wish that when I wake up, it would be Saturday, and I would go walk Mang Pedring, buy banana cue and mango shake at the UP shopping center, and wonder to myself, where did Friday go?

Beating the Sunday Blues

“This was a good Sunday,” my housemate said as we arrived from a father’s day lunch-dinner at my Uncle Nino’s place. That morning she was lamenting that she had the Sunday blues yet again. What made it better for her was belting out the Queen’s I wanna break free and gulping down five bottles of beer. While I, I buried my blues with a little induced happiness courtesy of a friend’s magic box.

Sunday blues, we concluded a long time ago, is an affliction of the migrants of this city like we are, or anyone who has left the shore of the heart where they have roots (not my phrase, I only borrowed from Pablo Neruda).

(I still consider myself an alien in Manila, even if I literally have roots here —the vines-with-yellow-flowers I had planted when I moved into my apartment three years ago. But figuratively speaking, I still feel my roots are in Tacloban—but then again that’s another story).

Mine started when I left home for college and transplanted myself in Quezon City. Every Sunday, for all of my college years and beyond, I would wake up with a hole in the pit of my stomach and by mid-afternoon, the dread from that pit would have already risen up to constrict my throat. It was the psychological/physiological effect of homesickness that hits me hardest on a Sunday. I come from a conventional extended family that would converge where the Queen Bee was. So in our case, our Queen Bee was my grandma who lived at home so my aunts, uncles, cousins would almost always have lunch or dinner at home after Sunday mass.

So being away from home meant spending what used to be family-Sundays either nursing a bad hangover or going to church alone and having lunch at Rodics. To manage the blues, I used to go to the last mass, because at that time of the day, there were less families in attendance, more singles present, until I stopped going to church altogether (but again, that’s another story).

Another manifestation of this syndrome is the dread of facing another Monday of school or work. We (my fellow Waray migrants) have been lamenting that if we had the comforts of home, manic Mondays won’t faze us at all.

Now, after more than a decade here in Manila, we still have the occasional Sunday blues. It is not as regular as before, but when it hits, it can still be as bad as the first time I spent a Sunday alone in my dormitory at 16.

For a long time, I have always thought that the main reason why 80% of the tight circle of friends I keep are Waray or Bisaya was because my Tagalog is almost hopeless. Well, ok, that too. But then, I realized that this syndrome is the reason why I have built a solid support group of friends who spoke my language and who suffered from the same affliction—my own little family of rootless people to help me manage the Sunday blues.

Later on, as I traveled more and more, I have seen the same Sunday blues that afflict me and my friends along the sidewalks and parks of HongKong where Filipino workers congregate; in the Chinese restaurants in Saipan, where Chinese workers converge on their day-off from the factories; in Catholic churches where Pinoy expats of Indonesia and Cambodia go to be with other Pinoys. All of them trying to beat the blues by recapturing the familiarity of home in the adobo they share for lunch, or in the gossips they exchange in their local language, or by just basking in the collective cloud of homesickness and longing that permeate from the pores of their fellow migrants.

So like the migrant workers based in far, far, away land, my friends and I have already devised ways to beat the Sunday blues—usually coffee at brunch or late afternoon with family we consider our friends or with friends we consider our family would be enough to do the trick. And if we are lucky, we completely forget it as we did last Sunday. We will probably do this until the time comes when we return home or when we stop resisting from making this place our home, whichever comes first.

Thank you, Joel (the final version of Grace)

Grace

I am reluctant to tell you this, but
there is death in the Old Testament,
numerous and final, bodies drowned
and unredeemed, forty days, forty nights
of rain, somebody struck by wrathful
lightning, Philistines in a city destined
to fire and ruin. There is even a chapter
that forbids merriment, a law permitting

crucifixion. But it is also written
that we should be happy, full of praise
and ready for the dance, prophecies allowing
for water to mean wine, the once-blind
witnessing this and other miracles. The way
we may still rise up to the music, like we did
not too long ago, forty years now, and how
we are again tip-toeing toward grace, life.

For Jet

Diving Lessons

There I was in my borrowed diving suit that was way too long for me, flippers that made me feel like a duck out of the water, masks that magnified half-of my face, all the paraphernalia in place for the wanna-be diver.

As I sat there waiting for the day's lessons to begin, I wondered how much longer it would take so that that wet suit finally becomes like second skin and all motions become almost automatic. I know I am slowly getting there. By slowly, I mean really slowly. But as it was, I have already absorbed quite a bit, only that I am not sure if the things I learned are the kind that would get me that license. Hmm, let's see.

Lesson no. 1: The art of falling

The lesson that day was entering the water from a controlled-sitting position. Chicken feed, I thought. Down went classmate number one--"very good," the instructor said. Classmate number two hesitated a bit, needed a little assurance, but off she went—"try it again, do better the next time," the instructor said. Looks easy enough to me, after all, there is no hard science to falling, you just, well, fall.

And then it was my turn. The star student (I say this with a little irony of course). Haha!

Instructor: So ok, plant your wrist firmly on the ledge, half-turn, pivot, let go, and push.
Me: Ok, step 1, wrist, step 2, turn, step 3, pivot, step 4…
Bubble over my head: Am I hearing you right? Let go?!? Let go?!?

Instructor: No, no, you hesitated; you prevented your fall with your wrist. Do it again.
Me: Hmm, how’s that again?
Bubble over my head: You idiot, just let go, how difficult can that be.

Me: So, ok, step 1, wrist, step 2, turn, step 3, pivot, step 4…
Instructor: Stop thinking, just do it. Let go!
Me: Ok, give me a second.
Bubble over my head: Me? Stop thinking? Let go? Hay, tell me about it.
Instructor: (almost exasperated) Try it again. What are you afraid of? You won’t sink…just LET GO!
Me: Ok…ooops, sorry…
Bubble over my head: The analogy of my life playing out right here, right now…hekhekhek…I can almost see my friends hysterically laughing at this conversation…

Ok, so I was being a smart aleck the whole time, to cover up for my fear. But it made me uncomfortable afterwards, to be confronted by a fear I did not know I have. I figured, there must be a reason for that hesitancy or unwillingness to let go and just fall.

Lesson no. 2: Taking the plunge


I remember a conversation I had with an officemate. We both shared the opinion that that team-building exercise thing that companies do, the one where you fall like a log into the safety net of other members’ arms, that won’t work for our small office of control freaks.

It is not an issue of trust. I know I am lucky enough to be surrounded by people ready to catch me, people I can trust with my life even. But I firmly believe that my well-being is my responsibility. And besides, in reality, you can’t keep expecting other people to break your fall. Best you can do is try not go off the edge. Or at the very least, slip off it as gracefully as you can, without making a big splash of it.

It is not an issue of safety even. It was not a deep pool, if anything should go wrong, there were people around who can come to my rescue in a minute.

It is an issue of control. Because once you are suspended in mid-air, even for just a split second, you have no control; you can only flap your arms and unsuccessfully wrestle the control out of the wind.

Lesson no. 3: Taking measured steps

Well, it is a good thing then that I am taking scuba diving lessons and not that kind of diving where you jump up and down on a diving board and then DIVE, head or feet first, all the way down. (My mom actually thought that THAT was the kind of diving I was doing when I first told her about it—hahahaha).

Because this kind of diving I am going for, it is all about measured, methodical steps. From checking your equipment, donning the suit, vest, tank, and then cleaning them afterwards, it is all about step-by-step process.

More importantly, in this kind of diving, you just don’t deflate and sink; you do it a foot at a time; deflate, sink down a little, stop, equalize, slowly go down another foot deeper, stop, equalize. Equalize being a key term here.

That is easy enough; I have been doing it all this time, on dry land.

Lesson no. 4: Controlling buoyancy


I am absolutely enthralled by the concept of buoyancy. In diving, they explained the importance of controlling and achieving negative, positive and neutral buoyancy. In simple terms, one is positively buoyant when they can keep their head above water; negatively buoyant when they sink; and neutrally buoyant when one is neither above nor below water—that state of being neither here nor there.

So when that big wave that brought unexpected death to the family uprooted and threw us into very deep waters, some just sank, fast, with every wave of grief. They hit rock bottom but the wailing of disbelief could still be heard from shore.

While some of us tried to gain, in divers’ lingo, positive buoyancy. When it happened, I grabbed hold of that vest that keeps you afloat and put the regulator in my mouth. And then I released a bit of air, sank a little, and then I breathed, deep, breathed that air in, exhaled, inhaled, took measured breaths, never holding my breath, because they said you get injured that way, when you try to hold in so much, for so long.

And I allowed myself to sink ever so slowly, always taking comfort in the fact that I can pretend to breathe normally even while water was way above my head.

So that until now, when others have long ago discarded the weights and have managed to swim back up, I haven’t quite reached the bottom or the bottom of it yet. I am here neutrally buoyant, allowing myself to just gradually sink, one breath at a time, one painful memory at a time, with the weights still strapped to my waist.

But does it really matter how long it takes to sink and swim back up, or how far or how deep you go? Because I figure that once you have been there at the bottom, things will never be the same on the surface again. You have invaded another world, another realm of experience.

You wipe off the water from your face and all of a sudden, you squint at the brighter lights, then that dead tree on the shore slowly comes into sharper focus, and everything else appears the same but you are not, because you lost something while you were under— maybe time, maybe a memory, maybe some pieces of you that you cannot regain.

Lesson no. 5: Leap of faith

I still have a few more lessons to go, more dives to complete before I get that license. But at the rate I am going, I could actually write another version of the diving manual.

Right now, I can’t wait for that lesson where you just take a giant step out of the boat and walk straight into thin air before falling into the water. I am excited to see how I would fare. I call it the Leap of Faith…and that is an exercise I still have to master.

I mark my change of address with these words, they are mine, some of them anyway. I gave Joel 5 randomly chosen words/phrases, chosen because I was preoccupied with my parent's 4oth anniversary, while some of the words were chosen for no apparent reason other than I liked them.

And so, in 30 minutes, from these few random words--Old testament, forty years, reluctance, tango and death-- he came up with...

GRACE

I am reluctant to tell you this, but
there is death in the Old Testament,
numerous and final, bodies drowned
and unredeemed, forty days, forty nights
of rain, somebody struck by wrathful
lightning, Philistines in a city destined
to fire and ruin. There is even a chapter
that forbids dancing and merriment,
and there is a law permitting crucifixion.

But it is also written that we should be
happy, full of praise and ready for music,
a prophecy that would allow for water
to mean wine, that the once-blind would
witness this miracle. The way we may still
sway to the Tango, as we did not too long ago,
forty years now, and how we are again
falling in love with grace. And life.

by Joel Toledo, one January evening, over cold beer