*
there is something about the gloomy, damp and drizzly weather that makes me like it. ..a kind of melancholy that makes me write a little bit more than the usual. just let the world unroll its curtain…then… you are alone in the cinema.
HADLUK
fear for her used to be the geography of wrinkles
sunken cheeks and old camisoles, unbuttoned but
ugly.
that the day shall come:
there will be a few people at her funeral:
her husband and a room full of strangers
for free coffee and some late night tete-a-tete
“she wrote offbeat poetry, she believed in altruism but she never
wanted to have single births. adopted all the stray dogs
down town. collected terra cotta teapots”
—
the husband,
stood in front of everyone, dunked both hands
into his pockets and, in his foghorn voice,
announced
“she asked for cremation but today
i am failing her”
fear for him is, and will always be:
things that do not rot
because they remind him of short-cuts,
cowardice and
embers that are maddening-sad
beautiful.
SALUM
you
picked
a
piece
of
sea shell
and
listened
to the hymn of the waters.
you did that
every time you felt like sleeping
but obviously, couldn’t
you
stood
near the window and just
listened to the melancholic air
that surrounded the small city
with the same thoughts:
if you walk in a small town
where the population of people is just half the
number of bicycles,
1)will you ever find your missing piece…
2)a pair of second-hand red boots
3)and the formula to bidding farewell to gravity?
the shell slipped away slowly
from your moist palm, the phone
rang a fourth time.
“helloooo. in the mid-day, do you also think of us and the ocean?”
“i called to tell you that in two days time, the world will end.”
then, you told your brother for the nth time,
“i think there is nothing wrong with your dream
of becoming a fisherman since you were a boy.
our parents are dead now, no one will get disappointed with you.
just go and please stop making random depressing
phone calls.”
you took off your shirt,
dove straight to your blue bed
as if it was the same sea you used to go to
as naked siblings.
skinny, salty and bronze against the
Cerulean
skies.
*
*
night time slow bike rides make me wonder a lot about people inside the houses along the road
*
remember the very single moment that made you feel you were the “one” you EVER want to be? it’s as if your ego is as big as all your organs combined. there was one time when i was asked to stand infront of a literature class, i had to tell about myself. armed with a Hemingway book as a gift for my former teacher and a hazy head, i just told a story. telling about one’s self was surreal for the whole moment. it was so fluid that everything which came out of my mouth also startled me.so there they were:
the first teacher who once told me, “continue writing and you’ll be surprised…one day”
and
these young people who have beaming eyes and ears as big as the oceans. that time.
i could not recall every detail of my talk. what i can clearly remember is the emphasis on: appreciating the moments of life. enjoying the process of living rather than pushing much for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. simplifying and investing on the enrichment of the soul more than the surface. we shared a lot of laughter and goofs too. they asked questions. there was this lanky guy with beautiful eyebrows.
” how do you deal with your ideals versus reality?”
my initial reaction was to smile because i never expected such a question after the usual: what are your inspirations? what’s your job? do you have a boyfriend? how do you deal with failure? if your parents choose a major for you, will you follow it or not?
i told him i believe in magical realism.
and that, your ideals/reality, may not be others’ ideals/reality. (at some point, i was not so sure if i could go on answering because of the tiny fear of feeding a devastating grain of testimonial. haha). i told him that i believe in that tricky pendulum of keeping balance and the necessity of the courage to swim against the current. i asked him if he believes in a certain kind of magic that only him can feel in silence. he was not sure.i told him tha the years have both shaped and warped me. like there was a point in my life that i had the ego to be a leader or to be this empowered person initiating a lot of things and not being able to finish anything. and at some points, i lost the ego, enjoyed the curves of working silently and reaping that filling feeling of doing a special something for someone else.
i stood there and i felt like i am happier of who i am now than who i was last year. i am not sure if this relationship i have with my own realm goes on. for some few seconds, i felt like the person i want to be. not someone brimmed over with overflowing achievements but just someone who is ready to flaunt something burning with passion even if it is just small. and, yes, selfless and fearless enough to share it.
and in those events that i don’t like myself that much, which usually happens when i am sad and bored and feeling lousy— i just take every drop of it. whenever i feel stupid and helpless i just allow my heart to sink. and after some hours of sleep, acceptance and wacky imagination, it slowly rises and sails again.
out there in a big big deep deep blue blue ocean of transience, uprooted trees and gambling lords throwing dices up in the air.
*
*
“you know what makes him sexy?”
“he does not have a gym-toughened abdomen but…”
she semi-circled her left hand around the hot mug of Viejo Barako.
Class Salutatorian of 1981, she left her parents’ portal of academic excellence and pursued humanities. it has been her most orgasmic choice eversince. she hid all her mother majorette photos not because she turned plump now, it’s because she erect goosebumps everytime she recalls the feel of pantyhose stockings on her thighs. it’s a commercial kind of sexual harrasment. after a decade, she fancied on posting all her self-portraits in a website with her full name as domain. she calls it art. nobody argues with her.
“he’s the most human person i’ve ever touched…and for me, that is way too sexy. very human, sultry on my fingertips.”
she glanced around Bohymnia. it has been her favorite place. she knows everyone: the cashier at 6am, the wife of the coffee farmer, the manic-depressive woman pretending to read the old komiks displayed in the wooden rack (when in fact, rumors tell that she does not know to read a thing or two). what she likes about Bohymnia is that: its kitchen speaks to her. once, the kitchen gave her a poem:
kettles whistle, you wake me up
in the cold September morning
foggy eyes and scattered pillow cases
i kiss your morning tongue
fiber marks on your cheeks,
i could see the trees.
truth is: she wrote that in behalf of the kitchen. painted beautifully, it has the hues of Cuba. it has been her dream to be there, backpack and fuck back, around. Bohymnia is a little artsy indie nook in Zulueta Drive, Barotac Viejo. the place used to be a dried goods store owned by the Aunt of the municipal post master. the owner liked snail mails so without any deeper reasons, she purchased it and paid in cash, the money tied with lastiko. some bills even had fish scales (the post master’s Aunt believed they were from the hands of the fish vendors).
on a blackboard, the menu for the day stood proud. written in colored chalk: “Barako Viejo kag Pan de Bohymnia”. Barako Viejo is the most reputable organic coffee ever. there’s a wide coffee farm in Sitio Hambad owned by a family of folk dancers. the parents used to be outstanding Sayaw sa Bangko dancers. they were dancing partners turned lovers and they made up in the dark corners of the school CAT-1 field. Both in their late 40s now, all their 4 children are folk dancers in school. the two are really great in their craft. the other two think they are wonderful. what made the coffee beans one of the best: they are handpicked with Dandansoy and Ili-ili tulog anay hums and some broken Lady Gaga or Justine Bieber or April Boy Regino songs. the tale of foot stomping and a magical grinder to produce the powder has been flying around the town for more than a decade now but nobody has ever proved it. that makes Viejo Barako, organic, mysterious, delicious and…affordable. Pan de Bohymnia is a piece of bread that gives you a feeling of the Lennon Wall in Czech Republic and the Joplin “high”. since most people in the town except for her cannot poetically express how they feel (and given that they got no knowledge about Lennon and Joplin), they just enjoy the exquisite-magical-dumbfounding taste of the bestsellers. Both are so delicious that you feel like people exaggerate the after-taste.
”you know what makes this little cafe so special to me?”
”because it’s sexy as him?”
”no.”
“i feel like the kitchen is talking to me. have you ever felt that? i really think same is true with houses. a house can only be a home if it can speak to you.”
“you’re a marvelously odd woman.”
“hey seriously, from where i sit sometimes, i see empty eyes of people staring at the depth of their coffee cups as if they were looking for answers. the diabetics cautiously pour some brown sugar. the cockfighters loud and politically-malta educado sometimes. the gay parlorlista quiet and perhaps thinking of how tough his job is: making people think and feel and look that they are beautiful. young lovers sitting in front of each other fighting and cheating in their minds. old men enjoying the warmth of age and wisdom, some recalling the youthful glow in the hips of their wives.the sadness absorbed by the ceiling. and i could go on and on…”
“you have great eyes. do you like the sessionistas here too? they sing some honest music.”
“of course. i once offered to write lyrics for them but they seemed skeptical. so i did not push any harder.”
she stood in front of Bohymnia. the place smelled old and it smelled something like curious sexcapades. it has stopped narrating stories to her. it has been six years since she last sat there, having such a hearty converstaion with a stranger who happened to drop by the town due to a flat tire. two years ago they broke up. now, he’s married to a former beauty queen (who always disappoint the audience everytime she stammered in the interview portion). he liked her for that, for being disappointingly human like how one morning,
a budding poet described to him over coffee how she fell in-love with a man who did not have gym-toughened abdomen.
*
*
her: just recently i realized that being on the road gives me this special feeling of being alive. you know, as you go along you meet people and you get to know life so raw that all the books you have read seem inadequate. it’s the same feeling i get when i first realized that there’s more to life than brands, 8-5 jobs and the ego-bloating usage of facebook.
her: suddenly, i like playing the guitar more. i also want to do better in dancing. i am happy to do things i like.
Obi: if one’s able to listen to what the heart speaks and serves the wishes of the heart without doubts and without allowing the head to ask too many questions about sense and purpose,then eventually everything will get clear…
Shila: You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and that everything isn’t always about you.
welcome to the world of children where both sunshine and raindrops are celebrated
with
glee and gratefulness
one morning, I was having ESL class via Skype when Tagay let go of that morning call.
Surprisingly, my student, stopped talking and laughed heartily
“Teacher, is that a chicken?”
“Yes, that is our precious Tagay!”
“Wow I have not heard that sound for many many years and today the chicken makes me feel so happy”.
.
*
♥
“ano na ang ga-idlak kristine ha?” (what’s that flash about kristine?)
both in their most surprised tone, Biing and Santos asked her. she was taking photos of them after she has spent some days dancing like mad in front of her lola, having long almost-shouting talks with her lolo. (home for her has always been not a place but a feeling. like a fat woman’s comfort in hugging her self happily in her nakedness. that queer feeling of being at home with a frame of many layers.)she grew up with them. Grew up not just in form but in a kind of growth that the molecules of the body cannot quantify. Santos taught her how to fly kites, ride a carabao, pull grass from the ricefields, recite poetry, laugh like a big man and wish on stars. Biing showed her how the heart works.
Biing lost her memory. What she knows now is all bout “at the moment”.
Lola: sin-o ka? imo ni dala nga pagkaon? (who are you? did you bring all these food?)
Santos is deaf and blind but he knows what the world looks like just by feeling.
Lolo: ay ikaw ni Kristine. Indi ka na kalbo ba! (This is you Kristine. You’re not bald anymore)
*
Living with them again for some days has given me this happy-sad nourishment. I have reflected on how it is to live without nostalgia, recall, remembrance. how it is to have faith in feelings and how to communicate by touching more. My grandparents are two of the richest people i know. i am grateful that i spent my earliest years with them. come to think about it, they are the biggest influence on why i am not fascinated with too much material things, that the key to a much easier life is by simplifying. most of all, i learned from them that poverty does not only include the mouth and the pockets, but the spirit. and from a barrio girl that i was, they have encouraged me to find passions from dreams. because it’ll lead me to places that feel like home and homes that feel like a thousand of marvelous places (without having to go that far).
Lolo is a handsome moreno. he liked pomade in his hair. he liked collared tops and khaki pants. he used to stay a lot in tubaans. Lola is petite and graceful. she keeps a few hand-sewn floral bestidas. I have both their younger, much stronger selves’ images in my thoughts. And, in my heart, we would always be three children— sitting on a bamboo chair, talking and giggling about stories of World War II, AM radio drama and Manila.
we would always be old people, sitting on a soft bed in a hut, sharing silence and inaudible stories of home, memories and death.
*
*
she likes seashore naps and the view of everything from the bus window. she likes tiny moments and the small spaces between faces when people talk.
sometimes, she wakes up to that odd feeling of being a fallen leaf, an old tree, an azotea or a waitress somewhere-- talking to a taxicab driver about that random song on the radio.
*
---
---
and this. a proof that:
how you see LIFE is how
you actually see YOUR self.
*
*
***
maddening spurt:
----------------------
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”
-Jack Kerouac-
