Pride vis-à-vis Envy(Originally titled "Resentment and Contentment")

I.

SALUTATION
(by Ezra Pound)

O generation of the thoroughly smug
     and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun.
I have seen them with untidy families.
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
     and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are.
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
     and do not even own clothing.

II.

Listening to Celine Dion's "Immortality," I can only fantasize how, if only I could sing like her.

Reading Marie Curie's biography, I wish I had been the one who made the breakthrough research on radioactivity.

Remembering Anaïs Nin, I get impatient as to finally finding my Henry Miller.

Paris and Nicky Hilton's money: I want.

As much as I want Thalia's body.

The list goes on.


III.

I went on my way, in the midst of the world's transformations, being transformed myself. Every now and then, among the many forms of living beings, I encountered one who "was somebody" more than I was....They all had something, I know, that made them somehow superior to me, sublime, something that made me, compared to them, mediocre. And yet I wouldn't have traded places with any of them.

--Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics

IV.

Yet I wouldn't trade places with any of them.

Time MaterializedAfter Einstein’s Dreams and Big Fish

Behind the glass pane, a girl around my age sits smoking, staring at the cars passing by. Or somehow staring beyond the street. On her table, a glass of iced tea, an ash tray and a ream of cigarettes. She doesn’t have a bag nearby.

I qualify my time by the number of pages I read in the book I brought with me. I qualify her time by the sticks of cigarettes she smokes. Her iced tea has taken thirty pages from my book before it’s gotten half-empty.

Her gaze is empty. No excitement, worry, hesitations, urgency. Just as how my posture is, although I know my excitements, worries, hesitations and urgencies. I cannot find her a story.

Three famous schools in the city have concluded another school-year.

On my way to work, my phone sounded an alarm. When I thought it was a mundane message from my boss, it was a greeting from a good friend whom I last seen in December 2003. It made me smile in relief and grace. In response to the gesture, I sent a message to another good friend from my previous work, saying hi, saying she’s remembered and missed. I asked when I can meet her.

In reading, I come across the word “reeds.” It strikes me. Like a plastic doll loosened from the clasp of seaweeds, resurfacing, I suddenly remember “The Bittern.”

I grab my notebook and pen and write the poem from memory. This is what I remember:

Because I have turned my head in years in order to see the bittern, I won’t mind not finding what I am looking for as long as I know it could be there....

In the end I see nothing. But how I go blindly on loving a life from which something is missing... clouds rushing across the sun, gold blowing down on the reed, nothings like these...

I wonder what the girl in front of me is remembering. I wonder what she painstakingly tries to forget. What is she waiting for? What is her dilemma for the day?

Memory is an organ. The past is a limb, an appendage. There are no lost time, only excess baggage, baggage of regrets and anxiety. What truly separates us human beings from others is that organ. That’s what makes us so vulnerable, powerful, amazing.

Talks of time, to me, is talks of mortality. When I was in grade school, it was an agony for me to wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning, bring myself to shower in the freezing water and think of boring classes that seems to last an eternity. I conceived of mean classmates and poor performance on P.E. class. I thought of ways on how a school day might be cancelled, but I could only think of storm. And when the season was desiccated, I thought of death. I would escape recitations in long division and Philippine History--I would escape making dreary projects--by thinking I might be dead before my name is called in the random list of speakers; I would think I might be dead before any project’s deadline. I would think I might be dead in sleep anyway, so why worry about tomorrow. But death didn’t work as a consolation, as it never came. And so as the feared recitation and the project’s submission nears, I would become a desperate child who would give up everything so as to turn back time.

In one film, it is said that time truly stops when at a moment of magnificence, yet what is not explained to us is how after that moment, time continues from where it stopped at a great speed that it is difficult to catch up. The clock is trickier than the spider web. We may weave our own time as an absolute time is weaved for us.

Each of us has our own bell jar where we want a moment encapsulated. For memory to have a body, we create songs, paintings, poems. But even art is not immortal, only stronger.

Somehow this life is justified, because it cannot be otherwise. What do we need immortality for, and perfection? What is life for if nothing is missing? In such life, ours, fantasy and myth exist because we make them alive; because they are necessary more than they are natural. Magic and beauty can be lived, as believed.

I read the last sentence of the book. I close it, clear my table and prepare myself to leave. I glance in front of me, through the glass pane. The girl is gone and there are two people now sitting on the table she has left.

Owning the Maze

The more I go to places, the more I know names of streets and cities--when I get to picture the block behind the block I am in--the more the world becomes small. All seems simple and conquerable. Although the more you know, the more you have to know.

After almost ten years of not going there, I went to Divisoria again this morning with my mother and father. It looks and smells the same as Baclaran except for the horses and Chinese, and it's farther from home; it must also be a better place to shop as my parents prefer going there.

When I got there, I remembered. When we got to the narrow street that has a stall which sells nuts, I remembered going there when I was a kid with my cousins who lived in San Andres and Pandacan. It was there that my mother bought kasoy and Pili nuts. On the other block, a store which sells chocolates.

Divisoria was dirty, crowded and inconvenient; but we got out of it with lots of chocolates and I got two beautiful bags for Php500. My mother haggled with the Chinese owner. The woman only liked to give the bags for as low as Php570. My mother with all her skills turned then walked away, dramatically. After a few steps, the woman shouted at her--"sold!". Mama got the bags and the Chinese woman angrily snatched the 500 pesos in mama's hand.

I would love to shop there on my own. For a thousand pesos, I could have so much, but that is something I think unimaginable for me. I can never haggle the way my mother can. I can never get out of Divisoria with 2 good bags for 500 pesos.

Claiming Manila, acquainting myself with its every inch and corner, memorizing routes and buildings, makes me feel healthy and wise. It's like I have enough knowledge to get me through to the next region, even the next uncharted territory. Knowing the ins and outs of Manila is like mastering a portion of a maze; you know enough dead ends to avoid and some short cuts for future convenience, but there's still so much work to reach exit.

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.

The Embassy

I've been mistaken for so many things. My English professor in college kept asking me if I were Chinese when I told him time and again, no sir, I'm not. People are shocked whenever I tell them I don't have a boyfriend nor am I dating. When I was 16, I was thought of being older--an FX driver even commented once, "Ma'am, mukhang pagod tayo sa trabaho, ah." Now that I'm 21, they still wouldn't let me in an R-18 movie. When I was a college freshman, another freshman sought my help in finding her way around the campus, since she thought I was already in my junior year. When I was feeling wild, I was labeled conservative and low-profile. When I was feeling polite, I was found deviant, intrusive or aloof. Last week, I came from the main office of Equitable PCI Bank. I rode an FX on the way home and the driver told me, Kumusta bisita natin sa embassy? I said I didn't go there, my business was different. Maybe I don't look like the type who'd have something to do with the embassy, but maybe times are really hard that everyone's needing to go some place else. Life is elsewhere. My good self is elsewhere.

I may have many selves--as we all definitely do--but why is it that I seem to have a problem in using the appropriate self in facing certain situations and people?

Crush

Formal Logic class. That was where I first saw her. That was almost two years ago. She'd always come in on time and I'd find her dressed down. Her short hair, cinnamon skin and well-toned body still come clear to my memory. She must be into sports, I thought, as she'd walk in most of the time with her duffel bag, wearing shorts, a shirt and rubber shoes. There was a softness in her that contrasts her athletic bearing, giving her a mystifying air. More than that, she was a smart one. Formal logic was no joke, but it almost seemed elementary to her. She was quiet and she perpetually sat in the first row, near the door. To me, she was perfect. I loved her body. I loved the character that might be in it.

February, another day at work. I was walking around the country club to take some pictures when a familiar figure climbed up the stairs I was climbing. Her hair grew and she tied it in a pony tail. She was in shorts and a baby tee. It was just like another week-end for her. Holding hands with her was a little boy, which I assumed to be her brother. I made sure it was her; double-checked the skin, soft chin, nose and eyes. After ample gawking, I mumbled, "Excuse me, are you from La Salle?"
     She smiled and said "Yes."
     I didn't want it to end there, I tried to stretch the conversation by saying "I think we're classmates before... logic..." It was both a declarative and interrogative sentence. But how can she remember me when all those times, I was sitting at the back and didn't even have the chance to be acquainted with her.
     "Oh yeah," she replied in a faint voice. I'm sure the recognition was about remembering the class and not me.
     "What's your name again?" I had to know, I'd like to attach a name to the body and the face.
     "Andrea."
     She didn't ask for my name. I said it anyway. "So you're a dependent here?" I further inquired.
     "Yeah... how about you?" I thought she'd be one of those anwer-only people.
     "I work here..." I wanted to have her surname, so I could search for her address, but I realized that might be quite intrusive. I was never a stalker. I was only interested.
     She'd already been very polite with me. She definitely wasn't one of those sige-chickahan-pa-tayo type of girl.
     When we reached the second floor, we parted ways. I watched her walk away--her perfect figure, color and skin, still holding hands with the little boy. I didn't want to work, I wanted to chat with her, get to know her, let her know I'd die to have her legs and shoulders.

With nothing better to do, I surfed the net last night and visited a La Salle site. The home page featured two players of the football team. It was her. One of them. I read her full name and then some. In an interview, I found out she really was the laid-back kind of person. The calm one with the killer instinct. And she loves reading. She loves reading.

I never really looked for her, but she kept showing up in times I didn't expect, as with many people that matters. I am excited for our next meeting, as I am excited in meeting (again) some poeple who truly matters to me.

6750

How do you love first times? It was my first time to step foot and drink coffee at Starbucks a while go. That is, Starbucks 6750. I hadn't really been to many places, but that, so far had been the best Starbucks I went into. Why was I there, away from home?

I met someone to discuss my new job. Of course in every new endeavor comes excitement and anxiousness, and of course the hunger for learning. In all truth, I am amazed at how doors suddenly open for me without me even having to knock. I left my previous job by impulse (I now admit my impishness) without a clear path ahead, and then the signs present themselves, all directing me to where I am now. Sometimes I am convinced that if I willed to become an astronaut, or a rocket scientist, I would become one.

I may be repeating myself when I say my fear of failure is actually a fear of being big, a fear of being a maverick. As much as we love kudos and attention, I'm not good at handling too much of both.

The avenue was posh, makes you wish you've got tons of money. The rows of tall buildings block the sky. Suddenly the world I was walking on was narrow. I passed by the same designer stores, fine dining restaurants, arrogant books and people purchasing escape over the counter.

First times for me happen all the time. I went home after the meeting. No more gimiks. I didn't buy anything for myself, the way I'd normally do whenever I go out; rather, I took home with me a question: "How can I know what I think till I see what I say?" (--Graham Wallas) Silly question.

Little Verses, Major Earthquakes

I have an anthology of poetry that I didn't touch for long, until these past few days. One reason I haven't been reading it is as I browsed through the pages, the first time I bought it, some of the poems did not immediately fit my taste. Frederick Nims is right in explaining "when we say we 'love' poetry, it doesn't mean we love the same poetry." I gave it another read and came across little gems of lines.

I was never a fan of Robert Frost. I only respected him for what he had achieved and given to the literate world. My favorite from him was Fire and Ice. Until I read this:

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of the day I rued.

There was a quote preceding the poem in the anthology, from one reader which said, "I think this is a love poem. I feel it is the true story of love." I think I fell in love with Frost after reading this. I could clearly see the color of crow contrasted with snow (and how it made a perfect rime.) How a little and mundane matter as dust can be poetic. How there can never be a day without a saving grace, or simply grace.

Another poem that convinced me Robert Frost is a genius is this one:

TO EARTHWARD

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of--was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

I have read much about what is skyward, seaward, heavenward, but never to earthward. I read this aloud and as I read, I felt like I was back to grade one re-learning what cadence, imagery and tension are all about.

The petal of the rose/ It was that stung. Exactly what poetry is.

Finally, simple and mediocre are not synonymous. There are simple poems that are exceptional, while there are mediocre poems that cannot be anything else, but mediocre. This one is the former:

YEARS OF SOLITUDE
Dionisio Martinez

To the one who sets a second place at the table anyway.

To the one at the back of the empty bus.

To the ones who name each piece of stained glass projected on a white wall.

To anyone convinced that a monologue is a conversation with the past.

To the one who loses with the deck he marked.

To those who are destined to inherit the meek.

To us.

To us.

Happy reading, happy writing, happy being.

Transition

I never thought I'd speak of daybreak as how it had been spoken of for so many times. I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and had a three-hour reading. A quarter before six a.m., the Maya birds started to make sounds. They were not singing, or at least what they were making were short of a melody. I didn't know what those sounds meant, what they were all about, all I knew was I always hear those during dawn, in the afternoon and before twilight; and that I was thankful there was a tree adjacent my bedroom. I turned off the lights as I could see the sun's rising from my window. My room's situated at the corner of the house's second floor and I've built a habit of locking my door. I was much amazed and amused at how the scent of food finds its way up to my room from the kitchen. I knew it. Fried rice. And then, that smell of salt distinctly from my favorite victual--fish. Danggit, in particular. Before the aroma faded, I was quick to fantasize taking a bite of that crispy paper-thin Danggit, dipped in vinegar with chilies--and the rice, fried with garlic, egg, with shaves of tocino, chorizo and ham. I didn't go down to eat. I wasn't hungry. My radio was turned on, the music was Toxic. I was thinking of lingering in the moment some more until I finally dove again into sleep. By eight a.m., I dozed off. Until I heard the door opened, un-gently by my mother, waking me with a sharp pound of a declarative sentence, about an urgent phone call. I rose and went downstairs to finish some business over the phone. After a few minutes, I went back to my room, locked my door and had my sleep.

From the Skies to the Center Stage

Star. That word is one of the most abused words there is. Say one of the most abused metaphors as well.

Starstruck. Star Circle. Search for a Star. Star in a Million. Star for a Night. Star Search. The susurrous and sibilance in these phrases really tickles the ear. Haven't we all dreamt about our fifteen minutes of fame, that moment in time, of our glory? Who among us would deny of ever wanting to become a rock star, a drama queen, a Nobel Prize Awardee, cum laude? Haven't you desired going to the moon? Or farther there in Jupiter?

I just finished watching one of those TV shows with thousands of hopefuls vying for the title: STAR. As an outsider, I pity those who, at first glance, I know will never make it--or have not yet reached their "time." I also cringe not only at the sight and sound of horrendous singing and the foolhardiness to do it, but with talks of "my family is poor," "I've got to help my sick mother," et cetera. Judgmental? Maybe. Is this really showbizness in the Philippines? Personalan to the core? For all its worth, it is in watching these kinds of shows that I get to train my eyes back to myself and figure what is the difference between courage and foolishness, between arrogance and confidence.

I believe that "stars" are "real" people (what are real people, anyway?), capable of nobility, humility and service. If there is one thing I truly admire about them, that is their honesty in asserting their need for fame. A need for judgment that is acknowledgement. This is what poets and showbiz stars have in common, they thrive in relation to their audience.

Funny whenever I think of Margaret Atwood's little verse (forgive me if I won't be able to present it in its proper versification, I'm all relaying this from memory): "I'd like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only, I'd like to be that unnoticed and that necessary." Beautiful and breath-taking, isn't it? But would you really like to be unnoticed? And only necessary in the meantime? In these instances I get quite convinced lies are more beautiful than facts. Romanticized reality sells. While we like to serve and are willing to sacrifice, some recognition would have to be required.

You are a star when there are so many stars. What separates one star from the others? Your brand of light from theirs? Your breath of life from the rest? What have you got to offer? To whom will you give? What would you demand in return?

Going Solo On A Meal For Two

As usual, I went solo on an eating escapade. California Pizza Kitchen. I can't get enough Italian in my stomach.

How can they do that? How can they not have a meal for one person? Why is it that all servings are good for two to three people? They have no consideration for introverts and loners like me.

I ate anyway. Marinara something. Good for two. Bottomless iced tea. Takaw.

I stuffed everything in my belly, the plate was clean afterwards. My palate, satisfied. I was proud of myself, because I didn't force myself to finish everything, as I had the option to have half of it wrapped. It so happened that when I started chewing, I went on and on. I felt good, for suddenly I envisioned myself into this fluffy world of fiction. Suddenly I thought of myself as Nathan in David Leavitt's "A Place I've Never Been." I felt I was beeing seen, watched and admired, because of my "boyish hunger for food" that is "so perpetual, so faithful in [its] daily revival." The exhibitionist in me came out.

The Weight of Fields

Every day I take a walk at the baseball and polo field to wander, move myself and think. If I'm lucky, I'd get to catch a baseball game, even if I don't understand it, at least I see action, spirit and cute boys.

There is always a heaviness that comes with my walks. It is the consciousness of my limits, that I am meandering in the meads of a prison. In the midst of silence, apprehension.

This afternoon, I got to catch a softball game between Ateneo and Northfield. I took a seat beside 2 kids--perhaps in grade three. One is wearing the Northfield shirt and the other, an Ateneo cap. They seem to be very good buds. It is in flashes of innocence that my gut wrenches. How I wish I could immerse myself in play. Be a kid devoid of tomorrow.

I always start my walk thinking of the things I will return to: Responsibilities; Possibilities. I cannot enjoy my walks. I cannot enjoy the vast field, the bounties of the sky and time.

I wanna be a child at play.

I want to delve into Santa's gift and not his truth.

"I Hate Quotations. Tell Me What You Know." *

A co-employee whom I rarely speak with, told me something very intelligent, so intelligent that it got me irritated.

I asked him, "do you love your job?" As if I said something out of context. As if I did something wild. And indeed I did. "Yeah"... with a sigh of disbelief... "Why did you ask?"
I don't know. "Buti ka pa."
"Why, you?"
"Honestly?... Honestly... No."
"Then why are you still here?"


(*Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Rossell

I am one of those people christened with an unordinary name (it's not that unique, since there are several people I share the exact name with.)

Whenever people call me, or read my name, I always find myself correcting their mispronunciation, or misspelling.

Here is the exemption:
One of my office mates pronounce my name as Rossell, and before I can react, I already find myself caught in the net of her sincerity and sweet, enthusiastic smile. Her calling and recognition has the warmth of pure attention. I feel, then know it is me she is naming. That is enough.

Fire Play

I treated myself with Catch-22, Pesto, Four Seasons and Fire in the Sky.

Straight from a mediocre day at work, I hung at the Town Center to wait for the fireworks display at 7:00 pm. I came there at 5:30 and went to PowerBooks to engage myself in book-hunting; and the gold I found was Joseph Heller's Catch-22. I'd been wanting to read this book for four years already and it was just a while ago that I took possession of it. Scouting the bountiful bookstore took much time, but it seemed to have flown so fast as I clearly immersed myself in the wanderland of words.

After the book-hunt, I went to Seattle's Best to taste their new fruit juice concoction. The Four Seasons wasn't disappointing. I finished my snack then checked my watch: 6:30 pm. Time slowed down.

I stood from my chair and readied myself to leave. Passing by the town plaza hallway, I saw the pack of people at the center of the square. I was wondering if there was a concert ahead, or other performances. I asked someone what the fuzz was all about and he mentioned the fireworks. Without thinking, I sat on the bench and stilled myself for a while. I browsed through my new book, and what do you know, it's a few minutes before seven.

And then it was 7:00 pm. An announcer introduced the fireworks display and a number of firecrackers were set ablaze. I was amazed by the unabashed display of excitement of the crowd. They were wowing from the onset of the sky show.

In my view, the sky wasn't a clear slate. There was a tall tree at the forefront and so there were leaves and some branches overlapping the display of fire play.

Marguerite Yourcenar tells of the stars' light that often only astonishes and enlightens, but doesn't warm. I didn't find any enlightenment by the dazzling and distant lights I just witnessed, but I was absolutely indulged in delight. I was spoiled by the fancy display of fire. More than anything else, I felt a strange warmth. A strange relief. I figured it was sourced from the oohs and ahhs of the people around me. I was one with them in that minute and minor pleasure. My bones softened at the sight of colors fusing, with cold and black as their backdrop--with people with different businesses to mind afterwards. I felt that no one among us there--at that moment--was shallow. Euphoria is difficult to quantify. Pleasure is in itself its purpose.

At that point when I realized I was enjoying myself, I looked at my watch to see the time and hoped that there were still more to come. Like with all good things, I became afraid of the fireworks display's conclusion. Like many good things, it was for free. My watch read 7:04. Fast. Fast gone as the embers erased by air, immediately after the fire. After the light.

The warmth lingers. And that is why I am writing this. To extend its life.

A greeting, a wish

Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves

—Robert Frost

May the gift we give be the beauty that is ourselves, the way Jesus did.

Gestures of grace

What you have is not yours; what you give is yours.

—From the cartoon, Committed

Thought doesn't count for me. Good intention is a quarter of a good thing. The well-thought-out and well-prepared gift is what truly matters.

Gift-preparation is one of my favorite activities. I consider it a project. I even love it during my college days when my budget is at its littlest. I get to be creative. More than that, I get to test my ingenuity and intuition about the person whom I intend to give something.

What urges me to give is the idea of letting someone know that they are remembered and loved. Not only that, since gifts are symbols, it is also important for me that the they not only feel remembered and loved, but seen. It's like silently saying, From what I understand of you, you might need and like this.

It's nice to open this month with the gift of attention. Attend not only to your friends or yourself, but to your environment as well. Do the curtains need washing? The study desk, polishing? Mind to plant another tree in your front yard? These are all in return, gifts to yourself.

How about the gift of reconciliation? That's another smashing idea, but it is so much easier said than done. Perhaps one of the grandest things money can't buy.

I love making people feel that I have seen them the way they wanted to be seen. I also love finding in their faces the expression of surprise and delight. And of course, affirmation. The last thing I would want to make them feel is guilt—that they should reciprocate the act. I'm not a fan of utang na loob. Often, after giving something with the extravagance of pure sincerity, the receiver would say to me, Oh, you shouldn't have done that, or You shouldn't have bothered. I think they forget that gestures of gratitude, admiration and tenderness are non-obligatory.

Toy, Lolo

There are just some people you get along with even without words. Relationships without words. How about that?

Lolo Toy was my grandfather from my mother's side. He died when I was about 12. When I was in grade school, he used to bring me to the academy. He drove the pedicab. I felt proud and cool being seen with my grandfather looking hip and healthy pedalling his way through the streets. I can't recall why I felt high-and-mighty, but perhaps it's because I was the only kid who had been doing that. I was the only one being brought to and fetched from school in such fashion.

That is the most resonant image I have of him (the only one of roughly three). Just that, an image, and a faint one at that. I remember no talks, no profound conversation, not even a funny exchange. But I do recall him smiling and smirking, and sometimes a feeble sound of a grouch. I do remember his false teeth. Yet I will always go back to that five-minute ride where I would sit back and relax inside the pedicab, put my small feet on a metal support in front and Lolo Toy would just pedal away. His energy spent with me and for me.

Part of the Crime

Dada. That's the name of my family's first beloved bunny. Rabbits are wonderful pets. They're not threatening. They're fun to cuddle, they smell good, they're not noisy, their waste is very easy to clean as well as they're very easy to feed, and of course, they're very cute.

One late Saturday morning, I was awakened by a squeak. Instinct propelled me to look out the window and what I saw was so far then the most horrid sight I had ever seen. A cat quite bigger than Dada was biting him in the neck. Dada was standing on two feet, his front legs were hanging paralyzed in the air as I became paralyzed myself watching the scene in silence. That was a long moment of shock and devastation. When I came to my senses, I said to myself he was dead. I tried burying myself back to bed, as if hoping it was just a dream, or my senses were just fooling me, since I wasn't completely awake.

That was one of those week-end mornings where the whole family had errands to do except for me. I was never a morning person. Thank God for my Ate. She just came back from buying food from the nearby 7/11 and immediately after she saw Dada's condition, she calmly carried him in the house, laid him on the living room's floor and searched the house for bandages and a box to place Dada as she would bring him to a vet. That was one of the few times when I just admired my sister with amazement--one of the few times I wish I had her attitude--and to be blunt in admitting it--her concern and courage. It was at that moment when guilt buried its teeth hard through my neck. What happened to me? I chickened out. Shock and cowardice got the better of me.

Dada did not die. The doctors and my sister had saved him. He even looked cute with a bandage around his head. A wounded bunny and very much loved. In fact, that was not his first wound, he lost his tail before for reasons the family could not figure. Some cat or snake might've wanted to take him in their stomach, but Dada was some fighter. I added to his pains, but he gave me a great dose of guilt in return.

Off-key

I was in my third year in highschool when I joined a band contest. I was so confident and convinced that I was good. Extremely good that my band and I would emerge as the best. In the middle of my performance, one of the supervising teachers came to me and whispered, wala ka sa tono. The rest is memory.

I didn't cry that night after that incident. We lost, of course. In my naive and selfish mind, I figured and accepted that I blew if off. I didn't touch the piano since then, but I loved it so much. I had to make amends with it. I felt sorry for the instrument for misusing it.

That moment is one of those moments I just hope to forget. Weird is this memory with how it chooses what to reserve and what to discard; when to revive an incident or a thought and when to keep it unnoticed.

For now that memory serves like a nagging mother that tells me I'm neither on top nor ahead of anything. It's a din reminder for me to always be in tune with reality.