Passing through | |
July 10, 2010 He bows down to examine a bush - candelabra is how it's called around here. He snatches a leaf, crushes it with his bare hands, and catches quickly the very scent he has released. This is why I am who I am. This is why I have no need to conform - because in this family, I take pride in being the standard norm. Death by Statistics November 4, 2009 8:52 AM Figaro Cafe IT Park Lahug, Cebu City My friend's having an affair. She says the sex is great and that her lover makes her feel pretty. I think the word -- the precise adjective is -- wanted. Perhaps that's it. Her boyfriend makes her feel needed, her lover makes her feel wanted. My second made me feel needed, my third, wanted. But even then, both ended up neither wanting nor needing me. So I guess neither the needing nor the wanting matters. Relatioships are very complicated. We'd like to believe it's all about love and that love will carry us through, but love has become the catch all phrase for just about any idiotic feeling or act of ours which we believe we have no need to defend. In the end, when I think about the few relationships know that actually work, I think it's more a matter of choice. People should say, "I choose you," instead of "I love you." I choose you despite the occasional lousy sex -- or maybe even the decade of non-orgasm. I choose you despite your nasty teeth, your over-sized toe, the annoying way you bicker about the unevenness of a mowed lawn, the way you always need to be right even when it's so obvious you're wrong, the way you are always wrong and how I need to feign defeat every now and then, your incessant need to feed your ego, or your compulsion to flirt and cross reference your marketability with every tom, dick, and harry, or sam, anicka, and sally. I choose you even if you turn into a monster overnight -- both physically and spiritually. I'll choose you when gravity has won over your flawless skin and your supple breasts. I'll choose you despite your many lies and the lies that are to come. I'll choose you even when you drop the baby or refuse to have a baby. This is what marriage I guess is precisely all about -- or ever afters at the least (Let's just all together let go of the happy there, shall we?). When we choose to be with someone, the choice has to be made once the oxytocin has stopped kicking in, once we've realized that we aren't just committing to the person in the here and now, but the countless permutations he/she could become coupled with the million probabilities of experiences that person will have. Humans are capable of the most abominable acts. Let's factor that in, shall we, before we say I do. Granted, they can also become the epitome of perfection, which is something I'm writing just to prove I'm unbiased to either side of the coin. So in the end, "loving" is a fight against statistics, a constant struggle to win over that .ooooo1 alpha. statistically speaking, it's a futile cause. You gotta be crazy to join the band wagon. I end this entry with a snicker. Because I know which dot in the bell curve I belong to. Here's to hoping you're in it, too. ;) Silence Like Crash The Great Wall of China, Ging, is glued with the blood and bones of people. Perhaps I have spoken to one too many women who have gone over the hill. Perhaps I have, through the outpouring of stories from the grooves of their mouths, vicariously learned to bring with me the burden of their memories. Perhaps it is wrong to carry such weight. Perhaps you are right. But I cannot disregard the cadence in their voices, the tr emulations of their lives, especially not when one of them is my mother. Relationships, or so my mother say, fall for the slightest of reasons. It is the tiny cracks on the walls, those minute indentations in the foundation that after years and years of perceived solidity will come toppling down on you. One can never be too careful. The Great Wall of China, Ging, is glued with the blood and bones of people. You can almost smell the stench of death when you walk it's length. That's what keeps it together. Or so says my mother. I am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of blood and bones. If you come near enough, you can smell the stench of violence as it coursed through the years of my life. But it is not what keeps me together. Truth does. The opposite of truth is what shatters me to pieces. I am not devoid of joy either. I recognize the tenderness of touch, the billows of hope. Although this ability to see the good has kept me surviving (perhaps a little too long) a great many chaos, it is also what saw me through them. It is also what keeps me smiling -- with a little girl's smile -- everyday. It is silence I am afraid of—silence of a deadening kind; the kind that looks away from anything that can brings sorrow. I have been warned to stay wary of people who cannot look sadness in the eyes, for I am cursed (or blessed?) to bring a vastness of it. Oh, my love, it is your silence that I am sometimes afraid of--for in the absence of sound, in your inability to verbalize, do you know what I hear? I hear the cracks in the weight of the unsaid. Do you hear it, too? To the half of my 11 and the co-bearer of an 808I have never met anyone who liked the same sort of trees as I.Gorecki, by Lamb If I should die this very moment I wouldnt fear For Ive never known completeness Like being here Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you Still in my heart this moment Or it might burst Could we stay right here Until the end of time until the earth stops turning Wanna love you until the seas run dry Ive found the one Ive waited for All this time Ive loved you And never known your face All this time Ive missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs Wanna stay right here Until the end of time til the earth stops turning Gonna love you until the seas run dry Ive found the one Ive waited for The one Ive waited for All Ive known All Ive done All Ive felt was leading to this All Ive known All Ive done All Ive felt was leading to this Wanna stay right here til the end of time till the earth stops turning Im gonna love you till the seas run dry Ive found the one Ive waited for The one Ive waited for The one Ive waited for Wanna stay right here til the end of time till the earth stops turning Im gonna love you till the seas run dry Ive found the one Ive waited for The one Ive waited for The one Ive waited for My Mother's Parsimony My mother has always been wary of me and my choice of friends. She always has something to say about someone and her reasoning was always slightly off. "Naku, Ging, mag-iingat ka diyan. Sabi ng matatanda ang taong maitim ang gilagil, matinding magalit." "Anak, huwag kang magagalit ha... Hindi ko masyadong gusto si So finally I asked her. How do you know if someone's worth the time? How do you know if someone loves you? Her answer: Ano ba anak. Simple lang yan. Alam mong mahal ka ng tao kung pinatutulog ka niya. Sinusugurado niyang nakakain ka na. At hinahayaan ka niya kung kinakailangan. She then moves on to translate it, as though I couldn't understand Tagalog: Someone who lets you sleep, lets you eat, and lets you be. If you think it's too simple. Think again. So far, out of all my so-called friends, only four passed. Finally...Anger.
Courage came to me first. Anger second. The order does not matter because Hope came just in time. There is still pain. It comes out in sporadic bursts -- while driving to work, in the middle of class, while conversing with the closest of friends, or stepping out of the shower. The pain, however, is no longer brought about by loneliness or hurt or sadness. It is an offshoot of anger -- of the realization that even the worst of my actions did not entitle me to the cruelty served. I, like any human being, deserved gentleness, compassion, and respect. I may not have been worthy of love, but I certainly was valuable enough for its rubrics. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was served a slice of pizza with a big bite. She showed it to her daughter and said: "This is not love. Love is not a pizza slice with a big bite." To which I continued: "Love is the entire pizza box. Never settle for anything less." Driving home that night this thought occurred to me: To the very hungry, that pizza slice with a big bite would have sufficed. As God is my witness, I shall never go hungry again. May Anger and Courage always be on my side. Excerpts from Iyanla Vanzant This is what I've realized: Some wings grow because of a need to escape. Some flight are propelled by pain. Some people fly into the light, while some into the darkness. Is this why my neck aches every time I look up to see you? Yesterday, I Cried (page 64-65) Rhonda, like so many children, learned about life through pain, abusive, negligently inflicted, and unnecessary pain. She learned about God in the midst of fear. She learned to expect pain as an ingredient of being loved. She learned that people who claim to love you can cause, and will ignore, your pain. Rhonda learned through the actions of her "loved ones" to expect that an act of love would be preceded by the imposition of pain. None of this was ever explained to her. She learned it all by watching and listening, and by experiencing pain. Rhonda learned that if you do the wrong thing, those who love you will hurt you. And no matter how badly you hurt, or what you have done, if you bear the pain of love silently, you can hope against hope that someone will, one day, love you enough to hurt you again. An Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer It doesn't interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dreams for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes." It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. Watcher of Watchers
What is it with humans and their fascination with each other? Anyplace where there are more than 10 of them, you'll find them muddle through the invisible space of hope and fear, angle through the unnameable boundaries that demarcate strangers from acquaintances from friends from lovers from enemies. All of them seemingly wanting to see and be seen. Or maybe "see" is too strong a word. It connotes wisdom. No... People (unless I can prove otherwise) merely watch. And they do so for various reasons. The vain watches to validate their perceived beauty. They check if others are checking them out -- "Ah, 10 people looked at me in a span of 10 seconds, I must be hot! Granted, some of them are really ugly, but you do not need to be beautiful to recognize beauty. I take the uglies' admiration as well. I am hot." The lonely searches very timidly, sometimes rather solemnly. They, after all, are out there awaiting the most basic of contact -- that of the eyes. It isn't surprising, therefore, that the lonely are more likely to fall in love. Loneliness makes us susceptible to love's disease. The sad do not really watch. The sad are tired. Always tired. People watching is their soul's television. It is there, the never-ending scenes of movement, the noise of life as children play, someone trips, sneezes, laughs, etc, to distract them. It is as though bombarding themselves with a barage of visuals and sounds will result to reverse osmosis -- all that pains them will seep out until none is left so they can finally turn the television off, lie in bed, and sleep to rest. The restless do not watch either. The restless are antsy about being alone. They live through their mobile phones. They would die in solitaire. It is through their mobile phones that they remain in contact with someone else. They text. Chat. Surf the Net. They constantly run away from their very selves. People watching is that which they do when their tiny boxes of connection fail them. And then there are people like me who watches only those who watch other people. Now what do you suppose that makes of me? Held Hand held in black and white Into the northern light Fly like a silver wing higher Catching the southern wind Gliding and other things Fly like a silver wing higher Last night, my hand was held again--properly this time around. Caffeine in our veins instead of alcohol. Moonlight conversation that sought to forgive and be forgiven, to understand and be understood, to make right the wrongs our silences have created. It had been twelve years (or more) and my dappled hopes peppered the night with hesitations. The years, however, had an opposite effect on him. He did not hold back. Although the contact barely lasted a minute, my palm still burns from the earnestness of touch. My So-called Life "So I started hanging out with Rayanne Graff." Well, not exactly. I haven't been hanging out with Rayanne Graff, and I'm not exactly Angela Chase. My name is Ging Hoyumpa and I've been hanging out with Raine Guzman. My life is once again beginning. Which probably makes you wonder how it ended in the first place. But that's for another entry, and to be honest, I'm quite tired of reliving the demise, however long and torturous it was. I have come to the resolution that the most romantic of stories are tragic, and the most gripping of tales have no ending--they just hang, leaving you stuck. Just like this series that never really presented a resolution (Brian Krakow or Jordan Catalano?) - the fans, hence, stuck. But not everything should be neatly stacked. Not everything is cleanly cut. Our lives, my life, is cryptic -- it's meaning probably won't manifest until my last breath. So why bother figuring it out? Instead of being stuck, I'd rather let go and move on. I mean, really, how difficult is it to change channels? Or, even better, how difficult is it to friggin' turn off that television set, get outta bed and into the world. How difficult is it to LIVE? I have been hanging out with Raine Guzman and I am once again seeing the world in the eyes of a child. A real child - complete with maliciousness, playful wit, and a never-ending belief in the goodness of the world. Here are a few things Raine taught me or helped me remember: 1) You never question or go against the will of the Universe, else you get into a car accident. 2) Triple numbers mean you're getting warm. (Think Warm-Cold Game of Sesame Street) 3) Rum and Coke knows no hours 4) Never judge unless the conclusion is obvious. (She was the only one who, after recounting my tale, said: I wouldn't know. I've never met her. I'd rather meet her first.) 5) Never tolerate people in closets, unless they grant you access to their closets. Don't be a closet dork, a closet geek, a closet lesbian, a closet bisexual, a closet coffee addict, etc. If you are, understand why, and face-up to your unrealness. 6) She and I are magnets for trust-fund babies... 7) You never run out of wishes. 8) Be very specific when you wish. 9) Wishes are granted to those who really believe, provided the universe approves of them. :) 10) Not everyone can be in your universe. 11) I am either Sunshine, or Hook. :) 12) There's such a thing as "Ging-i-fied." 13) You can go deep and laugh as long as you're not cowardly. You can fly high and cry as long as you're not high-and-mighty. 14) There's only now. There's only here. Give in to love. Or live in fear. No other path. No other way. No day but today. 15) That I, in the past few months, have lived my life gloriously. * Happiness and peace is just around the bend. I cannot see it, but I can smell it. :)  Blanc and Noir in Flight The Little White Bird sings to the Blackbird in my mind. Last night at work, I made the conscious effort to "cancel my mess." "To do what some companies do, write off losses, forgive debts, start a new credit standing." I acknowledged that some things must be written off, and some people, too. So I placed my Ipod in shuffle and got myself in "cleaning" mode. The first song that played was the Beatles' Blackbird. The first sheet of paper I picked up to clear away was Mother Domeng's poem during Aux-Tula last year: Little Word, Little White Bird. The juxtaposition is amazing. Blackbird Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise Black bird singing in the dead of night Take these sunken eyes and learn to see all your life you were only waiting for this moment to be free Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly Into the light of the dark black night. Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly Into the light of the dark black night. Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise,oh You were only waiting for this moment to arise, oh You were only waiting for this moment to arise Little Word, Little White Bird Love is a little white bird and the flight of it so fast you can't see it and you know it's there only by the faint whirr of its wings and the hush song coming so low to your ears you fear it might be silence and you listen keen and you listen long and you know it's more than silence for you get the hush song so lovely it hurts and cuts into your heart and what you want is to give more than you can get and you'd like to write it but it can't be written and you'd like to sing it but you don't dare try because the little white bird sings it better than you can so you listen and while you listen you pray and one day it's as though a great slow wind had washed you clean and strong inside and out and another day it's as though you had gone to sleep in an early afternoon sunfall and your sleeping heart dumb and cold as a round polished stone, and the little white bird's hush song telling you nothing can harm you, the days to come can weave in and weave out and spin their fabrics and designs for you and nothing can harm you * Black or White, it feels good to take flight. Drink up, Dreamers. Drink up, Dreamers. You're running dry. (I started writing this at Rei's.) I've held on to these worlds for a really long time -- deeming dreams supreme. Yesterday, I let these words go. (And in my head it moves, the picture of a dozen dozen candles burning in a quiet rainy Cebuano night, burning in front of the nativity. The cloud and smokes clouding our eyes, fuming our hearts. A phrase was whispered then. Whispered and meant for the last time. That phrase burns, too.) As I sat there in Rei's room, reading her book, looking at her artworks, I realized I am done with dreaming. It is time to act. It is time to make real the visions in my head and the songs in my heart. I am thankful to be surrounded by doers. Oh Ging... It is not the lack of dreams that make dreamers run dry. It is the lack of actions. Move, Ging, move. Perhaps moving on is the first step to moving? Tonight (written 13February2009) For ten minutes today, I felt like my mother would've many years ago: helpless, belittled, discounted. I don't know how or what it is that blinds the heart and mind to love and good intentions. I know in the past it has blinded me, too, and that I have inflicted the very feeling I am feeling now onto someone else. We're a silly bunch, us, people. We hurt those who love us. My sister explained this phenomenon once. She said we do so because we know, come what may, they who love us will still be there tomorrow and the day after that. Apologies can be said, some perhaps even meant, and eventually all will be forgotten. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps in a few days, I will have forgotten the sting of utter disregard. But not tonight. Tonight, I lie awake, staring at a television that fails to distract, oh so mindful of every pore that suffocates from questions I cannot even word. Tonight I lie a little tender from the blow, a little hurt from the silence, and a little shaken from the tremor of contempt. Sleep will come tonight, as sleep eventually always do. But not rest. No, rest is a hope that I save for tomorrow. May the hours dash to bring me solace. Where is my troubadour? *painting by Stephen Mackey tag-lagas Lagas na ang talulot, pati na ang mga dahon. Kung nang minsa'y tangan pa ang pag-asang nakapagbibigay lakas upang tumingala at kagalakan ang pamalas ng mga dahong nagsisidaus-os, ngayo'y namamaluktot na lamang--nagmamasid sa lupang hindi kailanman mag-iinit sa mga yapak mong kay lamig. Nagbabadya ang paalam. The petals have fallen, so have the leaves. Whence once I held the hope which strengthens me to look up and marvel at the leaves' freefall display, I now only the strength to wilt, wither, and stare at the pavement which will never warm from the cold steps of your feet. A farewell is imminent. of dalis, van goghs, enjambments, and prose (written 31 January 2009) albeit beset with similar wails.We grieve, you and me, but the songs we sing to ease the sadness are not the same. I grieve for the lost of an actual; you grieve for the death of potential. I do not know which hole that gapes in our separate rooms stings more. I only know that it hurts. You say goodbyes hurt you, henceforth I say, until we meet again. Be well, my new old friend. 
Taragis (Written on 29 January 2009) "Ma'amst, hindi pinagagalitan ang vending machine." was Cash' quick reproach. (Ma'amst, you don't pick fight with vending machines.") She caught me staring at the vendo, saying, "You had better take my 20 pesos or your dead." I am not one to pick fights with inanimate objects, at least not on a good day. I do not like snapping at people either, and I try not to, on a good day. I don't see the point of talking my friends' ears off with my littany of why-the-fuck-will-anyone-with-enough-brain-cells-do-this-or-that when I can instead remind them of how amazing life is, on a good day. STRESS is a bad bad enemy. It sucks all your insecurities out of you and spits it right back so you feel the sliminess of your inadequacies. You fall prey to instant gratifications, the type you regret immediately after. But everyone understands stress. Books have been written, studies have been made, about how you can overcome stress. People under stress know they'll eventually snap out of it, what with the solutions mapped in every hallmark card: hugs from friends, how are you's from loved ones, green lights all the way home... What no one, I feel, has written about, is that THING beyond stress. It probably is so horrible no one dares name it. That thing is what consumes you when the hugs don't work, the how are yous become annoying, and green lights all the way home simply remind you of the excess hours you spent at work. You look at everyone, including your friends, and you are only made incredibly aware of the number of people who take away the oxygen YOU should be breathing. That THING turns you into a MONSTER. I feel myself morphing. So while I haven't quite metamorphosed yet, let me give you the tell-tale signs of my transformation. Stay away from me, for on really bad days when that THING stalks me, I am not a happy trooper. 1. I pace. I walk quicklier. And no, that's not a spring in my walk you see, that's my skin keeping the rest of my body from running amok. 2. I run my fingers through my hair -- A LOT. No, it isn't so I could wow you with my tresses. It's because I become all too aware of what my doctor calls stress-related psoriasis--which is really some bullshit name for GROSSLY OUT OF THIS WORLD DANDRUFF. You remember that Guard commercial Let It Snow? This isn't snow, ladies and effing gentlemen, this is a hailstorm. 3. My only ear ceases to hear. When you call out to me, or when you talk to me, and I completely disregard you, it's because you've become so intolerably annoying my ear simply refuses to hear you out. 4. In the likely chance that I am forced to converse with you, my eyes shift sporadically from one direction to another. I utter acknowledgement statements two seconds too soon. It's my polite way of saying, shut the fuck up. 5. I sport the stare. It's the stare that looks at nothing in particular. Because nothing in particular can make me feel better. 6. I itch. to skin someone alive. 7. I no longer smile. that THING, however, never stays in one person for too long. So please, just stay away from me, and it will manage to leave on its own. I hate seeing the devastation that THING does through me. I know I could be better, more patient, more understanding, kinder, but I wouldn't be, and it just adds to my inadequacies. Hence, that THING is often followed by a debilitating remorse. So please. Read the signs and beware. Beware because I CARE. P.S. Pray I get a vacation leave soon. P.P.S. I apologize to the people I've snapped at. My Mother's Metaphor(s) - Linear Functions My mother's a chemical engineer, but this fact is often lost in her brilliance as a "maybahay." (housewife) Sometimes, however, she'd utter something so fantastically mathematically poetic that I'd find myself humbled if not shamed, for having forgotten. Anak, (My Child) running away from your sadness and chasing your happiness is not a linear function.
Take note, english yan ha. Nag-english si Mama. :) Note, that's english. Mama spoke english. :) No More White Chocolate Mocha Last Christmas break, Lenny and I decided to hang out in Bonifacio Highstreet to bust the Christmas gloom away. Coffee, as usual, was a must for the night. Starbucks ran out of my preferred Christmas coffee--Hot Dark Cherry Mocha, Non-Fat, No Whip. I could have opted for my other favorites (Iced Latte, no ice, two equal, non fat; iced cafe americano with two equal; or caramel affogato, cream based, extra shot), but perhaps because of the season, and it's penchant for nostalgia, I instead decided to go for my College drink: Iced White Chocolate Mocha. Elk...(In Tagalog, P0ht@ng !n@!!! Ano to?) I couldn't stand the sweetness. It wasn't even coffee. I wondered how I could have taken it almost every cramming day of my college years. Then it hit me... huh... people do change. I've never felt more empowered. :) My Ultimate WishlistMy friends often tell me how difficult it is to get me a gift. Ewan ko, madali lang naman akong paligayahin. When asked what I want though, I'd always say: "Kahit ano." ("Anything.") Kasi kahit ano naman talaga! Hello??? Basta't libre, the best! :) (Because I'd really appreciate anything. Duh. As long as it's free, it's fantastic!)But if you insist on asking... Here is my ultimate wishlist. Papangarapin niyong nakuntento kayo sa "Kahit ano." (You'd wish you were content with "Anything.")  1. Rhapsody Bed by Tempur-pedic. Ako na bahala sa unan. :) I'll take care of the pillow. (Sigh...restful sleep...priceless!)2. Celestron 11 Inch CPC Schmidt-Cassegrain and a well-unilluminated tropical island to go along with it. Pwede na rin ang quaint house on top of a hill. 3. Cup Bs that does not reduce sensation. Gusto ko lang namang maalalang babae ako sa tuwing dumaraan ako sa humps. I just want every ride over humps to remind me of my womanhood. 4. OSIM uSpace. I am not about the I's (iPhone, iTouch, iWhateverthehellthenewthingis.) I'm all about the u. U had me at hellowwwwww. 5. My personal troubadour. Yes. Someone who'd show up with perfect timing to sing my heart out...especially when I couldn't find my voice. Gusto ko simple lang. Boses lang at gitara. Nothing too fancy, nothing too loud, just the simplicity of a voice and the strumming of a guitar. 6. Five paid vacation leaves every month. Need I explain? 7. Ford Escape Hybrid that never runs out of power. Because I want to make the most out of my vacation leaves. 8. Traffic Jam Reducer. What? There isn't any? Then effing invent one! :) 9. Forgiveness Capsules. So I'd learn to forgive the unforgiveable. So my unforgiveable acts can be forgiven. 10. Fully booked. Give me Fully booked. ALL OF FULLY BOOKED. ALL THE FULLYBOOKEDS!!!! { Last Page } { Page 1 of 2 } { Next Page } |
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