Vista

The city does not call for exclusivity. You move in it and you have to keep going. It doesn't care a bit for you--doesn't even know you exist--no matter how much you need it.

"I want you to grow," Rose told me as we went to an ad agency. "I told you, you should always have a resume with you. Why don't you email it to me and then I'll be the one to send it to them." Just eight days in my new job and Rose was encouraging me to submit resumes to different companies.

The truth of her trust is nurturing and energizing. Her kindness, which I first thought to be unsought for, is what I've been needing after all. A workmate to look behind my back. A friend.

I desire to stick with my job. I am not sticking it out. The company I am working for is still in the stage of conception; it hasn't had its real birth yet. I want to be part of its growth, as I grow. I have dreams for this company as much as I have dreams for my self. I remember my previous boss who told me, "The corporate world is unfair, if you rise above it, you're a notch higher than anybody else." I don't know why that sounds so attractive to me. Attractive, but not true. She's fifty years old and has already been through so much. This time I have to simmer down my pride and give the benifit of the doubt with what she said--maybe believe her. See for myself. Consider the corporate world.

Rose and I were at Ortigas this afternoon for a meeting with a client. Buildings, billboards, traffic, pollution, noise, crowd, violence. Amidst these things, at least I have a good spirit with me. I love the city. I cannot imagine living in any other place. It's not that I am used to chaos, it's just that I appreciate what I am able to build from it.

I always tell friends I want to settle here in the Philippines. I will live in this place and for it. I know it doesn't require me to do that, since it hasn't been my choice to be born here. I just have this high tendency to love what precedes me.

Maybe I am too idealistic. And a martyr for my own good.

Rose has this goal: have a family--settle down. Me, I want to build my own garden patch and maintain it; play the piano for someone; be an inspiration, a source of genuine light. I have yet to share these dreams with Rose, I'm still gauging her capacity for sappiness.