HOROSCOPE JUNKY

Before May Ends

2009-06-01T23:41:00.004+08:00

(My tribute to all Biological and Un-biological Mothers)

This conversation with my mom started with my very innocuous remark about my curly hair, how I never notice it until hairdressers ask me if my curls are natural, or when I first wake up in the morning. Ngatanan gad kamo, kurong, my mom said.

My mom then jumped from that topic to Hayden Kho, waray man la mag sulibang ko. And how she pities him now. What? Am I hearing what you are saying? And how did we get to Hayden Kho from my hair?

My hair, my brother’s curly hair, Mano her son, Hayden who is now in the news is a son to a mom who has defended him, she would defend her son too, no matter what- that was her logical flow. You follow? From the time I woke up that morning with my untamed hair, we were just one breath away from talking about Mano, the pinakurong among us.

She explained: Hayden is a mother’s son too. And if she were his mother, no matter what he did, no matter how wrong, she would take his side, and she would protect him. Like what Hayden’s mother did. I could have told her that Hayden’s mom got a lot of flak for that. I told my friends this exchange and they asked, but what about Katrina’s mom? I said, that is not the theme that day- for my mom, the mother and son story is the central theme this particular morning. The son who did wrong and the grieving mother. And if Mano were alive and did a Hayden, well she would go on TV and say, nilulong lang siya ng droga ni Katrina. She is funny that way, my mom. I could have laughed but I wanted to cry instead.

So just to clarify, it was not Hayden my mom sided with, she emphatized with Hayden’s mom, just in case the anti-Hayden group set camp outside our house.

But that morning, even before I had my first cup of coffee, my mom had once again shown me what this mother-love thing is all about. In All about my mother, (something I wrote two Mothers’ days ago) I have said all that I could say to pay homage to my mom. And I wondered, would I ever be like her?

*********
My mom’s declaration of unconditional love reminded me of a very indulgent question that only a non-mother like me would ask. I have asked this question over and over again: What if I have a child and I end up not liking him/her? (What if they end up being the over-achiever classmate everyone detested, or the bully, or the airhead I would make fun of? What if she/he does not like books? What if the sound of their voices is irritating? What if? What if?)

Consistently, and without much hesitation, every single one I asked who is a mother said, “that is not possible.” It is impossible for any mother not to like their children.

Of course a non-mother like me would have a little difficulty understanding this statement of seemingly unquestionable fact. But the daughter in me, who is loved by her mom, major flaws and all, somehow gets it.

********

The plan for this trip to Tacloban was I would bring back my cousin’s kids to Manila from their summer vacation. When I arrived, the two now very home-sick kids were waiting for me. The conversation went:

Kuya Shameer: Nanay Jet, sabi ni mama sama kami sa iyo balik Manila basta hindi lang kami makulit.
Me: Ok, basta I only have two rules, don’t call me Nanay Jet if there are single men about and hindi kayo mag poo-po-poo ha…
Kuya Shameer: Bakit, walang toilet?
Me: May bathroom, Pero si Nanay Jet, hindi nag-clean clean ng poopoo, ever…
Ate Lousie: Kasi wala ka children kaya hindi ka naghuhugas ng pwet?

Such insight from a five-year old. Poor kids, they would really have to hold it, if they travel with me.

But motherhood and baby shit have always been inseparable from my mind. When I was a teenager, my mom would always tell me, kung gusto mo magkatae early pa, hala sige, pag-asawa hin temprano. Mom, that was very effective, look at me now.

Now, decades beyond my teenage years, I still panic if these kids, whom I adore and who adores me in return, calls me from the toilet, saying, “tapos na ako”. It’s Mana Adette’s job, she’s a mom, she has no qualms about these things.

In my mind, that is what sets Mothers apart from us the cool titas- this kind of love that makes it ok to wipe the shit off somebody else’s ass. Shet. Pakshet.

*******
So would I be willing to do that? (and more, I know, but in my mind it all starts with dirty diapers)

My brother once said that one has to decide early on whether they want to have children or not, and past a certain age one should not have children anymore (he did not say what age though). I took this to mean that he has already decided not to have kids. I suppose that marker has to do with being at an age where you can still grow with your kids, or play ball with them without getting a heart attack after. I have thought long and hard whether I want to have kids and at some points I said I am cool being the greatest Tita ever (and ask my pamangkins, I am the coolest Tita EVER). Now the only thing that I am certain of is that I do not want that option taken away from me.

Now, I am surrounded by women who badly want to have kids but for many reasons could not just yet. We talk about it sometimes, or we don’t most of the time. But the mere fact that they are already considering being responsible for another life is already remarkable. I will dance a million times in front of the fertility goddess for them if that would help.

********

And then, there are the un-biological moms (dyndyn’s term not mine).

Aimee and Rubylee have long ago started calling each other MA, - just because they could only really depend on each other. Another mother-sister—mother relationship I admire is that of Dyndyn and Baan. They are mothers to each other and mothers to Dantoy.

There’s Mommy Jasmin, who has done a pretty amazing job in raising Jehu, and like any other Mom has already set aside her own dreams and has planned her life around him.

Drey has reluctantly and temporarily assumed the role of the mother while waiting for her mom to wake up from her sleep. Darl recently stood as the mother of the groom but has long ago assumed the role of mother in the Delgado household. In one conversation with Darl and Drey, we concurred that taking on the role of the mom in a mom-centered household is not an easy feat. We may be competent in our jobs, but thrust in the roles that our moms played, we reach a certain level of incompetence on things that our mothers have done so effortlessly.

And so I propose that after Mother’s Day, there should be a day dedicated for all un-biological mothers. Let me bring this up with the Hallmark people, that should be a strong start. Or come up with a contest for Ulirang Hindi Ina. I could go on and on with these ideas (I could hear Weng heave a big sigh, adi naman kamo, nagwinaso-waso na naman) but in the meantime, let me just say: Mothers of all non-mothers, you rock!!

Taxi Drivers and Tracy Chapman

2009-05-23T13:42:00.001+08:00

While sorting through my documents a couple of nights ago, I chanced upon a small notebook that contained a daily journal of my vacation in Brazil in 2007. I realized I never ‘blogged’ about it, maybe because of the lack of time, or because I was confident that it was already documented. Anyway, while I was leafing through the entries, I was pleasantly surprised to find something I wrote, an excerpt of it I copied below:

March 4, 2007

Another cab to another airport on my way back from Salvador, Bahia to Rio de Janeiro. The driver turned on his radio and surprise, surprise, Tracy Chapman was on. So I started singing-along “Give me one reason to stay here, and I’ll turn right back around”. ..The next song was Brazilian, sounded familiar but I did not know the lyrics. I saw the driver glance at me from his rearview mirror and without saying a word I sort of understood that he said, “now it’s my turn”. Then he started singing along at the top of his voice.

Hmmm, the showdown was on. The next song was another Brazilian song that the driver sang but the next song was mine, and a Sting song at that. “We’ll be together, we’ll be together…” I sang the whole song the rest of the way with the driver nodding his head in tune with the song. At the airport, we said goodbye like we were old friends, I even gave him a hug, and all this without a single word being exchanged between us (I do not speak his language, he does not speak the language I use). We just shared a drive and some music and that was enough.

End of entry.

I was pretty amused because just recently, I had come from Taiwan. I had a meeting in an area an hour away from Taipei and instead of renting a car, my colleague arranged for a cab to take us, wait for us there, and take us back. Turned out, the driver is a Filipino who is now a Taiwanese citizen. He hooked up his I-phone and played his I-pod- and instantly I recognized the first song. It was Tracy Chapman’s The Promise and I have not heard that song for the longest time. And I happen to love the song and when I sing it, I feel I own it. So again, as is my habit, I sang along with my old friend Tracy. Another Tracy song followed that one.

I was at a tough meeting for four hours but when I got back into the cab, the driver was ready with the song. I did not even have to ask. This time, the driver sang along with me, and we sang at the top of our voices. My colleague was amused.

Naturally, I arranged for him to pick me up at 5am the next day for the airport. Like the day before, we listened to Tracy, but singing The Promise at dawn is not the same thing, it takes on an extra element of sadness. So we sang it under our breaths, each lost in our own thoughts, and singing, “in your arms, where all my journeys end…” I so badly wanted to ask who he was singing that song for, where she was, and when he was coming home to the country he said he badly missed, but I did not.

Love in Translation

2009-05-15T06:30:00.002+08:00

What do you do in Taipei on an insignificant Thursday night? I saw long lines at the movie theater, and a big crowd of young people in the Ximen district where there are a lot of shops and bars. But I had better things to do. In the Taipei Central Train Station, I saw a long table with women talking to men in white, they appeared so engrossed in their conversation I asked what it was they were there for. It’s fortune-telling, my Taiwanese friend, H, said. Well, the horoscope junky in me just had to do it, I could not resist. You had to choose though, each guy there had his own expertise. Was it career fortune you wanted to know? Or family? Marriage? Money? I said, I know where my career is going and even if I love what I am doing, it does not completely define me. Family, I do not want to know what will happen with that, I am too paranoid to even ask. Marriage, well, it’s jumping the gun a bit, right? Money, I know I need to work really hard to have some, I do not need any fortune-teller to tell me that. So that leaves Dr. Love a.k.a. Mr. Chen.

But Mr. Chen does not speak English. So I had to convince H to translate for me. Out comes Mr. Chen’s PDA. After a very complicated calculation involving my date and time of birth, he said, through H, that from this year on until 2013, particularly during the months of February to July, I will have the good fortune to meet the One. And I will get married. And have children. Practical and pragmatic H, who could not help being a more active participant, right away asked a question I did not even formulate. How will she know? In the restaurant later that night, while we were recounting the experience, I asked her why she kept repeating that particular question. She said, “it’s very important, you meet so many people, how will you know who is the one?”

Mr. Chen was forced to give us a description so specific he went as far as to give me a physical and job description. H, who has an extensive English vocabulary when we talk about our work, had no similar range for conversations around love and fortunes. So the description involved a lot of non-verbal explanations and hand gestures. If I interpreted their hand gestures right and nothing was lost in translation, then does it mean that your time of birth will actually influence the height of the person you will marry?

I have a different explanation for fortune-telling that is more acceptable for logical people, especially when the reading is uncannily accurate. People who go to one usually have a specific question in mind. Usually, the mind is so cluttered with so many concerns that when they actually shell out 100 NT to get some answers to one question, they force their minds to focus on one thing. And more intuitive people (like fortune tellers) are able to pick up on that energy they emit, and read it.

Although I have a simpler answer to H’s question and Mr. Chen did not have to consult his PDA and his complicated fortune calculator to tell me how I will know. For me, you know or you’ll never know. But if Mr. Chen is right, he will be invited to my wedding. And H, who has never gone to a fortune-teller until I dragged her to one, said she will remind me every year of Mr. Chen’s timeline just in case I forget. Tick-tock, tick-tock…

The Weatherman

2009-05-12T17:50:00.003+08:00

My father has only one use for the internet- to go to the official website of PAG-ASA (Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration) to check the latest weather update and track the paths of the many typhoons and depressions that hit the country. He particularly likes those satellite photos of storms and low pressure areas. He keeps track of the travel schedule of the people around him (more often than not, he is on to my travel schedule) and he uses the information from the website to give people a go-ahead signal. He does not just check the internet, my sister said, he calls the PAG-ASA weather hotline too, to double-check.

The night before my flight back to Manila, Typhoon Dante was in the country. I saw him watching the news and was particularly worried he would not allow me to take the morning flight. He has done that before, he jumped the gun on the airlines and did not allow my grandma to fly because there was a typhoon on its route from China and when the typhoon detoured I had to shoulder the no show fees and fare difference. Every time we scheduled him for a trip to Manila or anywhere that involved him taking airplanes, I would pray for good weather, no, the best weather, and I would always be one step short of offering eggs to Sta. Clara (the Saint for sunshiny days, I think). I would tell him, you know, the airlines would not be allowed to fly if the conditions are really bad. Sometimes, my argument would be, oh, the planes usually fly over the storm clouds. That last one does not always work as I hope it would.

The morning of my departure I sensed that he was more nervous than usual. He asked me to check the weather on the internet and I pretended not to hear him. When he insisted, I said the internet was not working and I would miss my flight if we did not leave that very minute. What compounded his discomfort was his distrust for the airline I was taking that morning. It is new, or at least new to our area, and I kind of understand why he would not have confidence in an airline that sounds like a tetra-pack juice drink. He talked about maintenance, I told him airline maintenance is highly regulated and it would be standard for all airlines, regardless of its tutti-frutti-sounding name. I thought they had already left when I finished checking-in but my mom told me they waited for the plane to arrive so he could see for himself if the plane was big enough. He was not impressed. He called me and told me not to take that airline again.

It has become an SOP for me to call my father once my plane lands, and my standard line has always been “the flight was so smooth.” Technically, I am not lying because I am usually dead to the world during plane rides that the worst air pockets won’t affect me one bit.

My father’s obsession for the weather is only one of the many things he worries about nowadays. His anxiety level increases when he has to travel. I was not like this before, he would always tell me, especially when his anxiety was at its worst. When I came back from Zamboanga, he cornered me just to tell me the stories about his own travels to that island as an internal company auditor more than 30 years ago, of the times when he ate monkey brains, or his island hopping experiences, the time when he had to be sneaked off the island because of the anomalies he found in one warehouse. He also told me of his time in another town, when he had to make his way five floors down through rubble during an earthquake (that’s why he asks me to make sure I know where the hotel fire exits are). He was also supposed to be on a flight that crashed. I was not always afraid of travel; I had many adventures, too. I know, I know, no need for apologies.

Mastering your fear, someone said, is the key. But for my father, his concept of mastering the fear is to check the weather, so he will know what he needs to fear, and when. But how do you control the weather, Mr. Weatherman?

Single-serving

2009-05-11T14:29:00.003+08:00

I was an anomaly in South Korea. Not for any other reasons but for these: I was a tourist. A woman. Dining. Alone.

I have had solitary dining experiences in a good number of cities, in four continents. More often than not, I travel alone and I have never felt that dining by my lonesome was an anomaly until now (or maybe once in Sri Lanka but that’s another story).

Of the two nights I was in the country, one I spent having a group dinner with the people who came for the meeting, the other night I decided to spend part of it by myself. I refused dinner invitations from a couple of people but a made half a commitment to join the group to go clubbing later that night.

I should have heeded all the signs. I spent an hour walking around looking for restaurants that had pictures of food that was for a single serving. There were Western Cafes that had single-serving but who would want to eat Carbonara if it was there first time in Korea? I peered through restaurant windows and mentally took note of whether there were tables for one. There were none. All over, I saw groups, congregations, couples. The receptionist at the restaurant I finally settled on had a perplexed look on her face when I asked for a table for one. The waiter who took my order had to go comb through the menu to look for a dish that would be good for one. Even the glass of coke had two straws in it. The Korean guide for the night out, when I asked her if people in Korea ever ate out alone said in a very definitive tone: Never. So that’s that. I decided to get back at the Seoul that had no room for single people by going out and being sociable. But maybe I should not be blaming the city or the country. Maybe it’s me beginning to notice or to mind.

Black Saturday

2009-04-18T10:45:00.006+08:00

“My only question is,” she said, “Where do they go after this?”

Faith, I believe is the word, I said. I cannot not believe, otherwise where would they be? At that time, I envied the people around me with unwavering faith, because the conviction that he is somewhere, wherever that is, is better than struggling with the questions – Is this it? And then?

Once, some time ago, an aunt and I agreed that it is better not to seek answers to, or look for meaning to these permanent absences. This is just how it is, you feel it, and then.

So for you, my friend, I share this:

The Same Old Figurative
by Joel M. Toledo

Yes, the world is strange, riddled with difficult sciences
and random magic. But there are compensations, things we do

perceive: the high cries and erratic spirals of sparrows,
the sky gray and now giving in to the regular rain.

Still we insist on meaning, that common consolation
that every now and then makes for beauty. Or disaster.

Listen. The new figures are simply those of birds,
the whole notes of their now flightless bodies snagged

on the many scales of the city. And it’s just some thunder,
the usual humming of wires. It is only in its breaking

that the rain gives itself away. So come now and assemble
with the weather. Notice the water gathering on your cupped

and extended hands—familiar and wet and meaningless.
You are merely being cleansed. Bare instead

the scarred heart; notice how its wild human music
makes such sense. Come the divining

can wait.
Let us examine the wreckage.

(for B, who has just recently said goodbye to a love one; and for him, I say a prayer)

Because D once said:

2009-04-12T22:56:00.006+08:00

‘Enough of that cryptic death stream of consciousness thing.' And so, three years later, I decided to drop Notes from Six Feet Under.

A little note on why this is now Horoscope Junky. I am a compulsive reader of horoscope. I subscribe to the daily yahoo horoscope and monthly, I check out www.astrologyzone.com. I once tried to explain why in my first ever blog entry.

So I decided to let this blog go where my horoscope tells me.

My March horoscope said: “It would not be a good time to get engaged and if you don't have to, avoid getting married. Finally, you must never have plastic surgery when Venus is retrograde, which thankfully is a rare occurrence...’ Gosh, and I had such big plans around these things. Ha-ha!

So I guess the only thing I can do that is not in the realm of life changing experiences would be to go back to this page. But it has been so long that I no longer know how to compose paragraphs (with a topic sentence and supporting sentences ba)…so let’s take this slow. The best that I can do right now is come up with a list.

25 Random Things

(This is a facebook thing, not sure why it has to be 25. I started thinking about what I would write on my list of 25 while I was on my dentist’s chair, trying to get my mind off that drilling sound)

1. One of my biggest fears involve losing all my teeth in a freak accident, like getting so drunk and waking up to find myself picking up my teeth from the bathroom floor of Sarah’s.

2. Still on fears, I have always been afraid of dogs. When I was about 8 or so, a small puppy bit me (the story around this involves a lie that a cousin and I did not take back until we were in our mid-twenties, when we were too old to get a spanking and to be grounded) and I had to be injected with anti-rabies vaccine everyday for about 2 weeks. Hellish for a kid to go through. I was bitten two more times after that, the last one by Maguay, the Delgado’s dog. It was not his fault, he was sick and grumpy and I was sun-shiny happy. Could be irritating for anyone. Darl said he bit because he actually liked me. Does not make sense to me, I never understood that whole law of love and violence.

3. I love solitary walks but these have been seriously hampered by my fear of stray dogs. So now I go on solitary drives. Simon, my dream interpreter, said that every time a threatening dog appeared in my dreams, it means I am anxious about something or there is something I am afraid to face during my waking hours. And he was so right.

4. I have a dog though- I call him Mang Pedring, a toy poodle (I have no problem with dogs once they become my friends). He is back home with his grandparents because his single working mom (me) can’t leave him to starve to death while she is travelling.

5. What I miss most from my childhood is climbing trees. And even if I can’t climb them, I love pine trees. I particularly like peeling resin from its barks.

6. I know this is not environmentally-friendly, but I am always nostalgic whenever I get a whiff of dried leaves burning. Reminds me of lazy afternoons back home. Tita G introduced me to the romantic smell of pine cones burning.

7. For home fresheners, I would prefer the smell of freshly-baked bread or brewed coffee. I can’t stand those lemon or strawberry car fresheners or any fruity smells- gives me a bad headache.

8. If Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas said, ‘You can never ever ask me to stop drinking’, my version would be: ‘You can never ever make me eat ampalaya (bitter lemon) and okra, ever.’

9. These can make me cry without fail: all boys’ choir during Sunday mass, the show Extreme Makeover Home Edition, sports-themed movies where the underdog always wins the game, the movie Running on Empty, the song Smile, and early morning flights to Tacloban.

10. I can’t throw keys away. I keep all of the keys I find in a box even if its owners are long gone, even if the doors that they open are shut forever, or even if the drawers that were under lock and key are now empty.

11. I am all about big wide windows and open spaces. The view from the bedroom window has always been my primary consideration when moving into a new place or checking into a hotel room. My first anxiety attack happened when I drew the curtains of a hotel room and found out it had no windows, just frosted glass. The reason why I decided on my place now is that it had windows you can actually open, unlike other high rise condos where all you get are closed, suicide-proof glass windows.

12. My biggest pet-peeve: Men who carry the purses/small bags of their girlfriends or women who let their men do that- I have never understood why they would need to do that. For me bags are fashion accessories (aside from the practical purpose it serves) so why should I let someone else carry it for me?

13. Another pet peeve is the song Bakit ngayon ka lang. Trust me, in all videoke bars, there would always be married or otherwise committed men singing that song (with feelings pa).

14. It is very important for me that the person (s) I would end up spending a lot of time with would be able to pronounce my name just right- Jet, not Jit, not Jate, not Jets. That’s why I dropped Claudette in the first place- got tired being called Clawdet. Besides, Claudette is so French and I am so, so not.

15. I took diving lessons and went diving twice after I got my license and have not done it since. I took sewing lessons, and have not been back after the second lesson. Now I plan to take photography lessons, wonder if I will make it to the third session.

16. For most of my high school and college years, my plan was really to be based in the US, in New York pa. But now, I can’t imagine living anywhere but here in my country. I love travelling but I get so home-sick and I can’t wait to come back. I tell people I meet when I travel that I live in a tropical paradise. Among the many reasons I can’t imagine living anywhere else: the tropical weather, the beaches, inexpensive salon services and spas, and my family (not necessarily in that order).

17. Among the things I thank the Big Boss for are: that I do not have motion sickness, I do not have allergies, and I can sleep anywhere, at will and in any position, and I have a small circle of very good friends (again, not necessarily in the order of importance).

18. My retirement plan is to own a beach resort in one obscure island that only accepts guests I like; where money would not be the currency accepted as payment for room and board--payment would be through songs belted out in abandon, stories that can make me laugh or cry, even those untold, those that still have to make their way out of their hiding places, and tales of passion and compassion. It will also serve as half-way house for my friends, who can be the resort’s resident eccentric artists. Ines, when I told her about this a year ago, said I should keep and carry a symbol of that dream with me all the time to make it happen (she kept a leaf or a twig- for her dream house or dream island). I wonder what airport security would do if they find me carrying white sand in my pocket.

I am pretty sure that there are seven items we could lift from my previous post to complete the 25 (just realized I have been in a list mode).

Garfield Minus Garfield Moments

2008-04-02T17:53:00.000+08:00

Larry’s find- http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

-- and we realized we are Jon in these strips, oh well, sometimes. Here are my own “without Garfield” moments:

1. I sit on the floor and try out the ‘how to fold a t-shirt” instructions that someone found on the net (in Japanese, no subtitles). I show my friends how to do it.

2. I watch Home Shopping Network and I am compelled to get the food processor so I can turn spinach into a form that I can swallow. But wait there’s more…

3. My dreams appear in the form of powerpoint presentations- before the next frame appears, I have to click the next button first.

4. I carry on conversations with myself, sometimes out loud, if I don’t catch myself in time (now, who doesn’t?). One time, I was on a public utility jeep, and the tail end of my conversation with myself slipped out—I said “…I don’t want to talk about it”. Good thing it was my stop.

5. If I can’t sleep, I really try to count sheep, the ones that jump over the moon. No kidding.

6. I watch Hallmark channel on lazy afternoons and Crime/suspense in the evening.

7. I am taking sewing lessons so I can add sewing curtains and repairing ‘ukay’ finds to my Garfield minus Garfield moments.

8. I take down notes when I watch Barefoot Contessa.

9. I think about my Garfield minus Garfield moments.

10. I blog. (hehehe)

Greetings for the New Year

2008-01-05T18:41:00.000+08:00

In 2007, I said goodbye to smoking, and except for one minor lapse one drunken-night among strangers, have never smoked cigarettes since; watched my parents walk down the aisle on their 40th wedding anniversary; swam with the Butanding one summer weekend and saw Mayon Volcano for the first time; met and made new friends; met newfound cousins; was unexpectedly told I am loved by a dearest friend, which drove Tita Gigi to tears when I told her about it; walked the ruins of an ancient city in Thailand; was happy to see an aunt recover from breast cancer and prayed fervently for the recovery of another good friend; spent 6 months getting an open water diver’s license and spent oh so many weekends by the beach and 60 feet underwater, was treated to a weekend in Las Vegas by very good friends whom I have known since grade school and I finally realized what ‘handsome’ is while watching Chippendales; was blessed with my parents’ good health and unwavering good sense of humor; drove a mini cooper in suburban roads of Amherst and enjoyed an spectacular solo early morning drive from Tagaytay to Batangas; was excited to welcome a cousin’s new baby; felt for a friend’s grief over a recent loss; finished reading many good books while spending so many hours in many different pre-departure areas; enjoyed a night of music and heard my favorite song ‘Smile’ played with a passion that resonated from deep within; shopped for cds in Quiapo; cheered on friends who got engaged, sang many love songs on videoke with good old singing and drinking buddies; said goodbye to my home of three years and anxiously moved into a smaller place that I could now call my own; sadly watched my dearest housemates pack up and move into their own little places; found a new home for my dog; climbed the 268 steps to the big Buddha in Lantau and offered a prayer for my brother on his death anniversary; laughed out loud so many times, cried a few times; celebrated my birthday with an after dinner party with friends closest to my heart while missing those who could not be there; and capped the year with a quiet time with Papa, Mama and Mana Adette, all of us grateful for this time together while never forgetting him, whose absence will always be felt.

With deep gratitude I say goodbye to 2007 and look forward to 2008! May the New Year bring you love, peace of the soul and mind--

2007-10-28T01:17:00.000+08:00

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

2007-09-24T21:36:00.000+08:00

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...

2007-09-23T23:01:00.000+08:00

WAR STORIES

2007-08-23T09:18:00.000+08:00

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

2007-07-18T13:32:00.000+08:00

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!

2007-06-28T13:56:00.000+08:00

...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

2007-06-23T09:46:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-21T20:15:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-19T15:38:00.000+08:00

“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)

2007-05-19T01:20:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-18T17:12:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-05-17T22:29:00.000+08:00

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