Still, Spontaneity

I never fantasize about having my own family. Don't like getting married. Don't like children. But of course I've thought about these things.

See, you have this space, or I have this space I've grown so accustomed to for how many years. I cannot imagine having this space shared, compromised--for all eternity, that is. In the simplest sense, I don't want to bother about somebody else who might not like a curtain I intend to put on the window.

But I like sharing, I like relationships. I like them so much I want a lot of them. It is just that I love solitude. And I want to spare myself the worry. I worry too much about myself already. If I have a child, I will go crazy thinking how s/he fits in her/his environment, that s/he might get into an accident, and the list goes on.

Batangas will always be my favorite place. Lolo and Lola Lipa will always be my favorite couple. Theirs is the energy I desire.

Every time we have a reunion, I appreciate what a family is (supposed to be.) You know it's not about the reunion itself, but what it elicits from you. Curiosity, care. You catch up, not just on each other's lives, but on how each other look like. Of course the stories. Tita Ning cries to Lola while talking about being cheated in her business.

Lolo Lipa, at 94, is a bit quiet. He can no longer walk on his own. He can't hear well, he can't see well. He can't see me. If he sees me, he doesn't remember who I was.

I feel lucky enough to have had a great grandmother in Lola Abe. She had reached more than a century. I want to reach more than that age.

Whenever we're at my grandparents' house at Lipa, we'd always eat mangoes fresh from the tree at their backyard. That Mango tree is older than me or any of my cousins. The new park just across the house is getting better and better every time we visit and my brother and I loves having coffee there. We've yet to try flying a kite in that well-contrived nature. And then there's Tito Joel's motorbike, well, him and his motorbike. My father used to have one, but I was so young then, I didn't have the chance to ride it. Now I can and I always do when I go to Lipa.



My parents say that when my grandparents die, their home will be turned into a rest house. There was once a tree house in the backyard and a small bahay kubo. The bahay kubo was meant for us, the young ones, when we were still children. It was destroyed a couple of years ago. This time the two houses in the lot will be completely destroyed. I don't know if that means they'll also demolish the little village fixture in the backyard, which used to amuse me as a child. I would imagine a whole story set in it.

Lolo speaks up. He wants to go to their old house at San Juan where my father was born. Lola tells us that Lolo loves that place so much, because he loves the people in it. Without hesitation, Lola calls her brother at San Juan. A few more minutes, my father tells us to get ready and get in the car.

The house at San Juan is small, but tidy. The furnishings are color coordinated, the tablewares match.

At the dining table, while having merienda, Lolo animatedly recalls the time he went to Mindoro in search for anting (of all the things he can remember...) He says he found it. The story must be cut short. It's almost four o'clock, which is the hour for the last mass. If we don't hurry, we might suffer the heavy traffic.

Lolo takes the front seat of the revo van, all to himself. He needs that space. Lola sits at the back with my mother. My brother and I are in the middle. Lola tells my mother that she recently brought a monoblock chair with armrests for Lolo.

"Para mas madali kapag pinapaliguan ko siya. 330 ang bili ko. Mabuti iyong matibay," Lola explains to my mother. "Daddy, okay ka lang diyan?" Lola shouts to Lolo. Traffic's getting bad. "Masaya ka ba?"

"Ay hindi pa 'ko natatawa," he answers.

For _____

WHAT I LIKE
by Alice Fulton

Friend--the face I wallow toward
through a scrimmage of shut faces.
Arms like towropes to haul me home, aide-
memoire, my lost childhood docks, a bottled ark
in harbor. Friend--I can't forget
how even the word contains an end.
We circle each other in a scared bolero,
imagining stratagems: postures and imposters.
Cold convictions keep us solo. I ahem
and hedge my affections. Who'll blow the first kiss,
land it like the lifeforces we feel
tickling at each wrist? It should be easy
easy to take your hand, whisper down this distance
labeled hers or his: what I like about you is

I am reminded of this poem after watching "Kung Ako Na Lang Sana," starring Sharon Cuneta and Aga Muhlach.

Collage Of The Day

MY COMPUTER, MY EXECUTIONER

Via Larawan:


THE BLAH IN "BLAH BLAH BLAH"

From a phone conversation with my high school friend, Marie:

MARIE: Sa August ako due--second week.
ME: Alam mo na kung girl o boy?
MARIE: Hindi pa. Huli kasing nagfoform ang genitals.
ME: Talaga? Hindi ko alam yun, ah.
MARIE: Miss na kita, sobra. Kita tayo bukas, sa Festival.
ME: Oo naman, malapit lang naman ako dun.
MARIE: Ay, hindi, 'wag na lang. Makikita kita, ang sexy mo,
maiinsecure lang ako.
ME: Haha.. . . .MARIE: Buti na lang inisip kong ituloy 'to.
ME IN MY HEAD: I knew it. It's unwanted.
MARIE: Pero sabi nila kapag nakita mo na raw yung anak mo, it's all worth it.
ME IN MY HEAD: Naniwala ka naman.
MARIE: Besides, after college, labas ako nang labas--I've had my fun. Tsaka papalakihin lang naman namin 'to ni M, tapos puwede na kami bumalik sa dati.
ME IN MY HEAD: As if ganun kadali yun.. . . .MARIE: Matino na si M ngayon, hindi gaya nung magsyota pa lang kami, laging nangangaliwa. Dalawang beses ko siya nahuli. Buti na lang yung isa inamin niya.
ME: So... paano ka niya napapayag magpakasal?
MARIE: Alam mo, wala ka nang magagawa e...

Sad.


PISCES

From Rob Brezsny:

"What I give form to in daylight is only one percent of what I have seen in darkness," wrote the artist M.C. Escher. Though he wasn't a Pisces, he could have been speaking for you and your tribe when he said that....Now here's some really good news: In the coming weeks, you could raise that to a whopping 10 percent.

CONFESSION

I like Coelho's "By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept."

The Act

Sohee was the first Korean I formally tutored. She was 9 years old. She had this rule: on Mondays, I had to call her Sandy; on Tuesdays, Candy; Wednesdays, Winny; Thursdays, Annie; then she'd be back to being Sandy (her English name) on Fridays. That's how cute she was.

Imagine the horror I felt when I was assigned to tutor her for 3 hours every day, from 8 to 11 am. I had to teach her 2 books. She was naughty, playful, proud, smart. After a week, we learned to fall in love with each other. But this is about the first time we met, and something else.

We drew and played games for an hour and a half, as she didn't like to study. When I started feeling too irresponsible for not doing my job, I thought of being strict and forced her to read with me. After a few minutes, she acted as if she was choking. I just looked at her, thinking, What do I do with this kid... Since she got no response from me, she stopped her act, sat on her chair, then read with me.

It came to my mind all those times I acted myself, cheated my way with things. I first remembered my parents, when I would tell them about fictive school projects, so as to get some money to buy cassette tapes. Then there was high school when I would fake headaches and sleep in the clinic so as to skip unwanted classes.

And then now. Somehow I am amazed at our ability--or our choice--to let people we care about act like fools around us. I know now that my parents all along knew about those lies. It's embarrassing.

I recently found this Robert Walser statement: "No one has the right to act as though he knows me." Ouch. The very thing I love and fear most about people is their intelligence.

Prose's Power

From Natasha Bedingfield (my current favorite):

These words are my own

Threw some chords together, the combination D-E-F
It's who I am, it's what I do, and I was gonna lay it down for you
I tried to focus my attention, but I feel so A-D-D
I need some help, some inspiration, but it's not coming easily

Trying to find the magic
Trying to write a classic
Don't you know, don't you know, don't you know?
Waste-bin, full of paper
Clever rhymes- see you later

These words are my own, from my heart flow
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you
There's no other way to better say
I love you, I love you

Read some Byron, Shelley and Keats
Recited it over a hip-hop beat
I'm having trouble saying what I mean
With dead poets and a drum machine

You know I had some studio time booked
But I couldn't find the killer hook
Now you're gonna raise the bar right up
Nothing I write is ever good enough

I'm getting off my stage
The curtains pull away
No hyperboles to hide behind
My naked soul exposes

I love you, I love you, that's all I got to say
Can't think of a better way, and that's all I got to say
I love you, is that ok?

I love that part where she says: "These words are my own... I love you." It reminds of the first few sentences of Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body."

You said 'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? 'I love you' is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them.

I've always believed in prose's characteristic power.

Forever 21

There is a store I usually pass by, Forever 21, as I go home from work. It's located at Festival Mall, Alabang. I always say I'm a very ordinary girl. I like clothes, shoes, I wish for better hair days, et cetera. The store has clothes that I really like--from fabric to design.

The point of this writing is: what's so special about 21? I'm sure the store would like to promote the idea that youth is a state of mind, an attitude. But why 21?

Every time I pass by that store, I feel good, because I am 21. I think, so this is the coveted female age... mamatay kayo sa inggit! Now that I'm a few days away from 22, I don't want to go near that place. I believe that that store is not meant for 21-year-old girls. First, do they have enough money to buy one of their cute skirts? Maybe yes, and maybe they'd buy on a whim.

Since that store's making a big deal about being 21, and some girls make a big deal out of being 18, I guess I should start finding reasons why 22 is the best of all them ages! But that's the task ahead. In the meantime, I should enjoy the rest of the day.

Buy me a skirt. Haha. My waist line's 28 and my hips, 40 something. Hahaha.

When Awe Is Overrated

The book on my bedside table is Robert H. March's "Physics for Poets." I borrowed it from the library when I wrote an essay about my former Physics teacher. It was a Brother who recommended to me this book. I was browsing through this big astronomy book and he seemed pleased that someone was interested in the sciences. He then told me about March's book and how good and comprehensive it was.

Indeed it is. What is good about the book is that while it is an introductory text to Physics, the author, Robert H. March, approaches the subject in a way that he tells a story. The story of Physics.

Here are some of the things that I find enlightening that I wish to share with you, dear reader/s:

An idea must be more than right--it must also be pretty...

. . . .

...It has become a cliche to call a scientific research a great adventure. Well it may be; but the student approaching his first hard science course with this maxim in mind is in for a rude shock. Rarely does much of the sense of adventure manage to come through the hard work, for the subject matter often seems both difficult and dull. The student headed for a scientific career is usually told that he must face years of diligent drill before he can understand anything really profound.

But one wonders how many peope would love music if they were required to master a good deal of piano technique before they were allowed to listen to, for example, the Beethoven sonatas. True, a concert pianist probably enjoys the sonatas on some levels denied to others, but a reasonably sensitive person with totally untrained fingers can appreciate their becauty.

. . . .

It is possible to understand nature in terms of approximation to an ideal state even if that state cannot possibly exist in nature.

Finally, I love it when he said, "The worst possible attitude with which to approach the study of physics is one of awe."

There's more, but that's it for now. Take care.

The Burden Of Requirement

In Creative Non-Fiction class, we've been asked to write 30 journal entries. Why is it that after having that requirement, all things that are happening to me suddenly seem trivial and uninteresting?

The truth is, all things that are happening to me are trivial and uninteresting. The difference is, I make a big deal out of them. I am a master of sensationalizing my life.

Now that a journal is required, the word and act of contemplation becomes icky.

You see, last Saturday, I went home as I usually do, I rode an FX. In that particular night in that particular FX, there was this huge cockroach. I sat at the middle part of the vehicle, beside the right window. The cockroach was walking at the back of the front seat. It was very near me. It was the first time I've seen such ugly and big cockroach that it made the cockroaches in our house cute. Here is an illustration:


I was terrified and disgusted to death. But since God is good, that particular cockroach, unlike the cockroaches in our house, doesn't fly. The second person at my left tried killing it using her Johnson's baby powder. Calmly, she crushed the pest. It wasn't one quick thump, no, it was one long grueling squishing (as she was trying to crush it against a soft surface.) Like all roaches, that one was still alive after you thought you've killed it. It walked towards the passenger's seat. The man beside me grabbed the girl's Johnson's baby powder and did his own squishing and in one huge effort, there was that sound--the cockroach's innards oozed out. The driver grabbed a plastic bag and the passenger beside him took it, wrapped it in her hand and then took the remains of the cockroach. She finally threw it outside the window. I definitely froze while all that was happening and the hair at the back of my neck stood. I almost opened the door to go out, but my senses caught up with me. I didn't want to be that maarte girl.

Would I tell this story for my journal requirement? Well, if I am in my normal mode, I would've easily turned this event into something profound, political, poetic, significantly comic, or all of the above. But since there is a consciousness of writing for a grade, I lose my appetite for sensationalizing. For now, that event is just icky.

Some Words

An afterword from R.H.M.'s well-loved Physics book:

To be human is to wonder. Children wonder for a while, before we teach them to be smug about the obvious and to stop asking silly questions. It is easier to pay someone to retain a little of the child and do our wondering for us. We then take comfort in the assumption that anyone devoted to such esoteric pursuits must be insensitive, perhaps even inhuman. With our artists, we perform the equal disservice of regarding them as too sensitive.

Occasionally we are given a glimpse of the finished product. the baby is displayed beind glass, well-scrubbed, and one need not know about the delivery room (it is soundproofed). Thus we are spared the agony of wonder, which is not unlike love and makes as little (or as much) sense as love. But wonder is just too human to fully repress, and it does turn up elsewhere. Some of us turn to fads for the occult, which, interpreted by our twentieth-century minds, becomes a "pop-art" science. More often, we find ourselves left with nothing to wonder about (or to love) but what remains of ourselves after the loss of yet another portion of our humanity.

I, for one, refuse to believe that nothing can be done about this empty place, or about the more general disease of which it is but a minor symptom. But as long as we are sundered so, let me remain one of the children and wonder.

—Robert H. March

From Ervin, my friend, who wonders:

ang tanong: paano mo babasahin ang isang
tula kung naglalakad ito?

Words make the world. Go round.

The Story So Far

I want to write something better than this
(I strive to be in a better state of mind):

Am about to finish my first year of graduate studies and time has never run faster than this. I'm still sort of--floating. Not that wind association. Meaning directionless. The wind has direction, I don't.

I completely appreciate Carla's job hunting accounts. She's able to articulate some things (feelings) that'll take me years more to talk about, simply because I got so frustrated. Therefore her mere act of telling such stories is something I envy. One thing we have in common is that we both finished with a BA degree in Literature. Now, no matter what the professors in the Lit Dept. say about how wonderful Literature is (yes it is truly wonderful and I believe that with conviction), they will never convince me that it is something you take up as a major if you envision yourself working in a corporate environment.

Ah, the corporate world...

It's true (this is the part where I talk strictly to myself and indirectly to you, my gorgeous reader): even for a job that requires you to be creative, the people and environment makes you soulless. You'd become a yaya to your boss; you'd be accused of having an attitude problem; everyone around you is stupid and those very stupid people are the ones with the C.E.O. and G.M. title; they gossip maliciously... And they're paying you how much?

I'm a pressure cooker incarnate. And this is one of those moments (merely) when I just have to let the heat out.

By the way, everyone I know seems to be resigning from work. Why? (Because they can afford to.)

So there are those who want to get in and those who want out.

Me? I'm beginning to really consider marrying Richard Gutierrez. He's rich and handsome and he can work all he could, party all he could while I take care of the money. But of course you know that being the person that I am, I cannot simply settle on rich and handsome. And Richard Gutierrez is really too neat for me.

So how about school? Um, well, er...

...after 5 hours...

Lord, I just want another fiction teacher in the next school year for the second fiction class. (And I'm not being unfair here to my previous teacher, as I've already reported her to the Department Chair and Graduate Studies Coordinator. Meaning I have followed proper grievance proceedings.) They say it's her birthday today. Happy birthday to her.

That's the story so far. No story. Sorry.

Paralyzed By Fact

EPILOGUE
Robert Lowell

Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme--
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?
I hear the noise of my own voice:
The painter's vision is not a lens,
it trembles to caress the light.
But sometimes everything I write
with dim eyes and threadbare art
seems a snapshot
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All's misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
Pray for the grace of accuracy
Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination
stealing like the tide across a map
to his girl solid with yearning.
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.

Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme--

I Never Get Around

We love Booksale, because we're cheapskates. Primarily. More than that, we feel this weird happiness in finding something we greatly value being undervalued by other people. We'd take the secondhand at any time.

I. PIPSISSEWAS
I bought a tiny book about flowers. It was only until I got home that I read the dedication written on the first page. It says, For you Sokng Ioo. I never get around to read any more. What a sad message. The book made me happy, on the other hand, as the flowers were beautifully painted. And look at this description of the Pipsissewas (Pipsissewa, my new favorite flower name): The narrow, leather leaves, 1 to 3 inches long, are strongly toothed.

II. CHOCTAW
There was an English to Choctaw dictionary that found its way to me. When I saw the book, I immediately looked at the words that are important to me:

life - aiokchanya, ilhfiopak, nana okchanya, nana yukpa, okchanya
death - aiilli, illi, illi atukla, nan illi
passion - annushkunna, nuklibishlikachi, nukoa
desire - na banna
desire, a - ahni
desire, to - ahni, anushkunna, banna, chunkash ia
sin - aiashachi, aiashachika, aiyoshoba, ashachi, na yoshoba, nan aiashacheka, nan ashacheka, nan ashachi, yoshoba
sin, to - ashachi, yoshoba

They have a lot of terms synonymous to sin. Interestingly, they have no synonymous term for sex. More interestingly, they have no synonymous term for art, but they have one for "artless," ikhana. Most interesting of all is that ikhana is also their term for "literate."

Normal

The transformations that happen. You like them, you don't like them. You don't know exactly how to feel about them.

Going to Lipa City in Batangas before would take a three-hour drive. It meant anticipating seeing admired relatives. It meant going to a quiet place; sound meant strictly the stories and laughter you share with each other.

Now it's like just any another city in Metro Manila. Not that it's entirely bad. I'm not just in the mood to appreciate it entirely.

Licensed To Have Fun

SETTING: Inside a taxi cab, on the way home.

ATE: Manong, puwede ba'ng magyosi?

MANONG: Sure!

ATE: Manong pasensya na, nalalaglag yung abo sa loob ng sasakyan.

MANONG: Wag kang humingi ng pasensya, 'yang pasensya doon lang 'yan sa bakery.

LLESNER: Grabe'ng trapik dito sa Sucat. 'Yang stoplight kaka-go lang, stop na naman.

MANONG: Hayaan mo, pagbalik ko, titiradorin ko 'yan. May tirador ako rito, e, holen pa iyong ipantitira ko. 'Tamo, bukas wasak na 'yan.

ATE: Dinadaya tayo ng mga stoplight na 'yan, e.

Stoplight reads green.

MANONG: Iyan, pag nag-red pa agad ulit 'yan, isasauli ko na lisensya ko bukas.

Morning Wants

I keep telling people that when you eat with someone, at that moment, the two of you become exactly the same person, stripped of your status in life. You become two people administering a hunger call. Both of you are seated at the same level on the same table. I forget if I have come up with this concept on my own, or if I have heard of it and internalized it perfectly that I've learned to live by it as if I was born with that thought.

In college, I had a Saturday class in one term, at 8 o' clock in the morning. There was a time when I went to school an hour and a half before class. My brain wasn't functioning as my stomach commanded my body, telling it to eat breakfast. Remembering a very good friend that used to stay at a nearby dormitory, I thought of inviting her to join me. I sent her a text message: "Are you awake already?" She didn't reply after several minutes. I thought I would just have breakfast on my own. I finished my meal and still didn't hear from my friend (I eat slow, it can take me up to an hour to finish my food). So I went to class. In a break from the class, I checked my phone and my friend already replied to my message: "I'm awake now." In reply, I explained to her that I was hoping she could join me for breakfast, but she seemed to be enjoying her extended Saturday sleep. She got mad. She said, I should have made her phone ring till she wakes up. She said she wanted nothing more than have breakfast with me. I realized I also wanted nothing more than share a morning meal with someone great to open the day.

Which brings me to a lot of dinner memories with friends. And lunch dates and snacks (I love our word better: merienda) with someone. These eating escapades are all too common (at least for me). I hope that soon I'd get to eat breakfast with someone. Of course someone that I truly adore.

This Thing Called Universal Gravitation

Twenty Billion Light Years Of Loneliness
Shuntaro Tanikawa

Mankind on a little globe
Sleeps, awakes and works
Wishing at times to be friends with Mars.

Martians on a little globe
Are probably doing something; I don't know what
(Maybe sleep-sleeping, wear-wearing, or fret-fretting)
While wishing at time to be friends with Earth
This is a fact I'm sure of.

This thing called universal gravitation
Is the power of loneliness pulling together.
The universe is distorted
So all join in desire.

The universe goes on expanding
So all feel uneasy.

At the loneliness of twenty billion light years
Without thinking, I sneezed.

(translated by Harold Wright)

I always sneeze. I wonder why. A lot of dust and dirt around me, perhaps. Or lack of shower. Or both.

A Last Gossip

Spring Snow
by William Matthews

Here comes the powdered milk I drank
as a child, and the money it saved.
Here comes the papers I delivered,
the spotted dog in heat that followed me home

and the dogs that followed her.
Here comes a load of white laundry
from basketball practice, and sheets
with their watermarks of semen.

And here comes snow, a language
in which no word is ever repeated,
love is impossible, and remorse....
Yet childhood doesn't end,

but accumulates, each memory
knit to the next, and the fields
become one field. If to die is to lose
all detail, then death is not

so distinguished, but a profusion
of detail, a last gossip, character
passed wholly into fate and fate
in flecks, like dust, like flour, like snow.

Death is not so distinguished.

The Ridiculousness That Is Vaginal Deodorant

And other feminine thingies you are supposed to use on your vulva to make it a better vulva.

Please spare the vagina from these vulgarities (gross pretentiousness). With the popularity of feminine wash (thank you very much, Sharon Cuneta and your pH Care), we ladies begin to forget that we are better off taking care of our vagina, washing it with clean plain water--number one, it is the healthiest way to do it and number two, it is natural (take note of the root word, nature).

Another reason why I am very much against such products (aside from the medical discouragement of their use) is that it perpetuates the myth (and craziness) that the vagina is dirty and therefore must be improved with these deodorants. (Would you believe me if I say that the vagina is the cleanest part of our body, while our mouth is the dirtiest?)

Finally, these vaginal deodorants make the ladies feel insecure about the natural odor of their vulva, as well as of the fluid it emits. In case you want to hear it, I'll say it out loud, yes, it smells wonderful the way, as is!

A Tsunami of a Thought

There is something profound I would like to articulate, and something funny. Something clever. But I can't find the words for now. Maybe next time.

For the meantime, here are some of the best water metaphors I've encountered in my short life. I just have to share these with you, my dear friends:

Marianne Moore (from “A Grave”, where the persona speaks of sea as a grave):

It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing,
but you cannot stand in the middle of this.

Paul Monett (from “Committing to Memory”, where the male persona speaks to his beloved man):

...you seemed a sort of mirage,
until I drank you.

An Aeta riddle:

Ajar tangapakking nga niuk
Awayya ipagalliuk.

Kapag hiniwa mo,
Naghihilom nang walang pilat.

The Pilot's Relief on Landing is No Release

The Smiles Of The Bathers
Weldon Kees

The smiles of the bathers fade as they leave the water,
And the lover feels sadness fall as it ends, as he leaves his love.
The scholar, closing his book as the midnight clock strikes, is hollow and old:
The pilot's relief on landing is no release.
These perfect and private things, walling us in, have imperfect and public endings--
Water and wind and flight, remembered words and the act of love
Are but interruptions. And the world, like a beast, impatient and quick,
Waits only for those who are dead. No death for you. You are involved.

No death for me.