Kay Luna, Kaibigan

(Isinulat noong Nobyembre 2008, sa gitna ng lubos na pagkalito sa kinahahantungan ng pagbabalik ng ating pagkakaibigan.)
 
Mula sa karimlan, muling nagbalik
Pagtanggap may pag-aalinlangan

Mula sa putikan, muling lumitaw
Hinugasang, nagbagong kalooban

Kung kaibigan ang turing
Yayakapin,Walang pagdududa, walang pangamba

Ngunit kapag katagang may hibla ng pag-ibig, sinasambit
At bahid ng nagdaan ipinaalala
Inog ng puso ko'y naiiba.
Umuusbong na pagtitiwala, nabubura.

Ano nga ba ang iyong nararamdaman?
Ano nga ba ang iyong ninanasa?

Tila di mag-aabot ating mga pangangailangan
Tila di magkakatapat, inaasam mula sa isa't-isa.

Hindi ko alam kung dapat pang magpatuloy
Itong pag-aalinlangan, pagtataka, pagtatanong

Kung ako'y lumayo
Sagot ba ito upang maibalik ang kapanatagan,
Manahan, katahimikan ng kalooban?

Ano nga ba, Luna, kaibigan
Ang tunay na kasagutan?

A recurring dream

Most mornings, I wake up knowing I had a dream but promptly forget what it was all about. Some days, I regret not remembering since I get mThe feeling that there was something important there that I missed. In Freudian fashion, I regret missing the messGe,

But today, the dream was so vivid and there were two dreams. I don't know if each one was related to the other or were two separate dreams.

In Dream 1, Ate Lourdes came to the house demanding to see or ask about    g we had  written for the lectors. I kept on asking her whether it was for one project or the other, she didn't answer me but just kep insisting that I show it to her. So while delaying my giving on to her request, I thought there was no choice so I settled to doing. It for her. I actually had it but was just surprised she would come to the house to ask to take a look at it.

Then he dream segued into a ride I would take on a jeepney. I was looking at a large expanse of field which was not attractive . I honk it was part of a resettlement site for squatters. I took the ride without knowing what to expect. From the initially dreary landscape, it be ang to change into greenery and I was supposed to find a pond filled with lotus blooms. A little further on I espied a building which turned out to be a school. It was graduation time and the graduates were dressed on togas. I then saw the group of PhDs waiting for their turn to march up the stage. They seemed so happy. After this view, I awoke.

I woke up smiling immediately knowing that there was a message there for me.

First of all, it was a scene which was quite different from a theme of my recurrent dreams which always had me climbing up buildings and  towers, riding elevators, choosing wrong corridors and floors and  getting lost along the way, never quite finding the end.

Oblivion by Astor Piazzolla brought tears to my eyes! Perfect background music to this dark, lonely, rainy day.

The last full moon

 Sky awash with pale silver blue
Picture perfect, inspiring awe
But I didn't want to look up
As I always used to do on moonlit nights
When I would imagine it was you.

I could not deny your presence,
Softly shimmering
But to behold you would not have been right
You are no longer there for me
Even a stoic glimpse
Risks punishing pain from your light.

Meltdown blues

In the last few weeks, I have found myself many times tottering on the edge of a meltdown. With family and work matters and countless events in my life seemingly conspiring to attack me all at the same time, I just want to escape into a corner of my world and hide there until the conspirators go away. But that is not really me speaking because the person I know that I am would single-handedly fend off the attackers, kick their asses, and send them flying into oblivion.

 All my life, I have chosen to deal with my own troubles. This was a girl who cried behind doors and suffered asthma attacks under blankets so that my family could sleep undisturbed by my wheezing. Even as a child, on top of my own problems, I was conferred the task of solving the entanglements of people around me. It was not something I asked for, the responsibility just seemed to have been encoded in my DNA. While I did not shirk from this, I spent many days wondering why people always seemed to turn to me for help. All of these have of course turned me into, or at least led me to believe, a strong woman who could be relied upon to save the world!

But the me-of-late has become bruised and lame from charging at windmills. It must be my age - giving rise to diminished faculties for processing information of the ambiguous kind. My constant battles with my conscience and painful memories have unearthed vulnerabilities I never knew I had. Everyday now, I realize that there is only so much that can be contained in my daily calendar. Only a limited data that my neurons can handle at top speed.  And not much more disappointments that my wounded heart can take.

There is simply just too much on my plate these days. I wish that even without me asking, those near to me would offer to ease the load. A hug, a kiss, and words of support and understanding will do too.  Oh yes, in the end I believe that everything will be alright. Occasionally, I just need someone to remind me!

The Anatomy of Despair

You don't know exactly where it resides. It's just there piercing your very being. It's a silent hand constricting your throat. Like a coffee-induced allergy that you endure because well, it won't kill you anyway. It weighs down on your head, threatening to let go only if you imbibe drugstore poison. It wrestler-grips your neck and the soft pillows are no help. The shoulders and back, unexplained twisted bundle of muscles and nerves calling for relief. The arms, the leaden legs needing your will to move. Then there is the stone in your heart. 

You don't know exactly why. Maybe the throat is holding back the words that need and want to be said. Maybe the neck is unable to support the weight of recurring insane thoughts and unrealized dreams. Maybe the shoulders and back wish to give up the burden of the Ideal Self. Maybe the limbs dread the journey to the Twilight that has begun. And maybe the heart has no more room for scars.


You don't know exactly how long it lasts. Sometimes it is gone in a flash. Lately, for days and days. It just won't go away. I need for it to go away. Please.


(Published in  Virtual Writer) 

Forgiveness

(From John 8: 1-11)              

So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "No one, sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, do not sin any more."

On the brink

Candles dripping slowly
Ice melting away
A leaf clinging to a dying tree
Standing at the edge of a precipe.

Sunset fading into darkness
Wilting flowers, cradled in hope-weary arms
Gasping, desperately recalling, humming
The last strains of a beloved song.

Oh, Light of the night
From the brink of desolation, rescue me
Oh, Breath of a new day, ignite the distant embers
Lest I forget... why and how much I love you.

HFP meets the Habagat

For three days, our parish church served as an evacuation center for some 1,300 people who had to leave their submerged homes due to the flood brought about by the non-stop Southwest monsoon rains ("habagat"). The parish volunteers provided a dry place and meals for them through generous donations from both the public and private sectors.They're back in their homes now, trying to get back to to their lives.

On Learning Happiness

 Some years ago, my siblings and I created what we would imagine could be the titles to Mama's life story if it were to be filmed.

1. LIFE SUCKS!

2. Luluha Ako ng Dugo

3. Balang Araw, Mararamdaman Nyo Rin

4. I Have 3 Beautiful Children, 4 Adorable Grandchildren...ay, at Handsome Husband Pala. But Life Sucks Anyway!
5.The Many Angst of D

6. Survivor of Own Torments

7. I Live to Grieve

8. Why Me, Lord?

9. I'm Happy Being Unhappy

10. Disgruntled Granny, Sucking the Life of Unsuspecting Relatives 

     The titles were borne out of our frustration with having to deal with a mother who was to my mind pathologically unhappy. It all sounds really irreverent but humor was one way my siblings and I faced what was a pretty regular situation in our family.  It was the weapon we used to prevent our spirits from being weighed down too much. It took quite an effort (at least, for me) to soar away from the doldrums because unhappiness can be quite contagious. To this day, I wonder why none of us siblings ended up seeing the world in this dim light, or in psychological terms, how we managed to construe the world differently from our mother.

            In a Positive Psychology class I attended, our  discussions on Happiness validated my belief that it is how we view our life events, whether we interpret them as positive or negative, that dictates whether we experience happiness or its opposite. This much I gathered from my interactions with significant people in my life who exemplified the descriptions of people who could be considered happy or unhappy individuals. In the article by Sonja Lyubomirsky, it was stated that there are people who appear to have a “talent for happiness” in that they “see the world around them through rose-colored glasses, make out the silver lining even in misfortune, live in the present, and find joy in the little things from day to day.” Then there are people who, “even in the best of times, seem chronically unhappy, peering at the world through gray-colored spectacles, always complaining, accentuating the negative, dwelling on the downside of both the trivial and the sublime, and generally deriving little pleasure from life”.

            

            After going through the list of differences between happy and unhappy people and possible reasons for these differences, I could clearly see to where certain people in my life belonged and how living in separate subjective worlds affected the way they conducted their lives. Like watching scenes of my interactions with them, I now understood how their perception of their worlds differed in the “cognitive, judgmental, and motivational strategies” they used in making sense of their experiences. An eye-opener for me was the qualification that these operations were “largely automatically and without awareness.”

              It was also at this point that I begun to absolve myself of my almost nil record of success at trying to assuage the misery that these people periodically went through. My attempts to remind them of their blessings against the lower rate of failures and deprivations were largely unsuccessful to bring them to a state of happiness. And this led me to feel frustration, anger, and guilt for my inability to bring them to see a different point of view. Plainly stated, I could now forgive myself for these negative feelings if I could believe that there was really nothing I could do if there was no desire in them to change their perceptions.

            But looking back at our family’s experience, I would not entirely discount how life deprivations may contribute to one’s experience of happiness. I couldn’t say that using the objectivist-bottom up tradition to understand happiness is entirely useless. I still think that if Mama had the advantages of a “comfortable income, robust health, a supportive marriage, and lack of tragedy” in her life, she would have been a happier person. And this is where I guess I understand why Mama was the way she was. From her youth to her old age, deprivations, challenges, and tragedies were constantly thrown her way. Relative to how our lives have been so far, I can say we had it better than what she had.  Who can say how we would interpret life events if we had gone through what she did?

               And so when I read again the "movie titles" in the context of what I know now about happiness, I feel a tinge of regret for being harshly judgmental at that time. Maybe how I look at life differently from her, I owe to Mama. When I go back to the past I realize now that I had forgotten how her joy and celebratory spirit during successes and good times had become an inspiration for me to pursue that kind of life for myself. It was her strength to rise above tragedies that instilled that resolve in me not to drown in sorrow in the face of failures and instead turn to my blessings to lift me up.  Could it be I taught myself to be happy by using humor and gratitude as tools to help me through tough times?  If I did, am I teaching the same lessons to my children now? I hope that when they write about me in my old age, they will say they learned happiness from me.    

Maybe I always knew this

Mediterranean kitchen

We had Mediterranean food and best-in-the-world ice cream in Fr. Ronnie's kitchen in his parish. Good food + good friends + good conversation = great time!

Birds in flight

For more than 15 years, the view from our bedroom window, as I lay on our bed, was that of a pristine sky which was ocassionally graced by the flight of birds. Since last year, that view is now marred by a high-rise building. Sigh! But I'm glad the birds still circle the remaining space near our home. I wish I had a better of documenting this aside from my amateurish attempt using my mobile phone camera but it will just have to do for now.

Kiddos & bebes of 2012

Aplaya Laiya

I was 11 years old when I first set foot here. To get here then, we had to travel through unpaved roads and we ended up with dust-covered hair when we got here. There were no resorts, no huts for rent, no garbage, no vendors - just beautiful, pristine sand and clear waters. It was first time in any beach and glad to be back where I started my life-long romance with the sand and the sea.

Mayflower madness

Got carried away by the beauty (and bargain price) of white roses and got dozens of them. They're all over the house now!

My husband, the HULK!

T and I watched "The Avengers" last Monday. It was one of two days that Senior Citizens in Quezon City could watch a movie for free. So after queuing in the line which was NOT for Seniors (that is another story!), we got our tickets, had a quick lunch, then settled into our seats in the movie theater.

Just when the movie trailers were ending, two senior ladies went in and occupied the two vacant seats beside me. They were engaged in a lively chat and continued in their normal tone of voice even until the movie had started. Hoping that they would quiet down after the Introduction, I kept my tongue but couldn't resist doing a "Sssssh" after a few more seconds of their kwentuhan (chatting). That didn't work and the lady beside me (In fairness, her companion was speaking in whispers) didn't seem to notice that the dialogue had begun between the characters. She was more intent on competing with that which was onscreen. Of course, we were more interested in what was happening in the movie and not about some tisimis (gossip)!

When a second shushing from me failed to silence her, my usual docile, mild-mannered, and sweet-tempered Dr. Banner-of-a-husband let out a bellowing "May balak po ba kayong manood ng sine o magkukwentuhan lang kayo. Kasi kami, gusto naming manood dito!!!" ("Do you have plans of watching the movie or do you just want to chat? As for us, we want to watch the movie!!!) I had to push him back to his seat as he seemed ready to pounce on them if they didn't stop. To my relief, the lady beside me readily apologized and quieted down. We didn't hear a sound from her or anyone else in our vicinity until the movie ended!

When I was telling the story to the kids later in the evening, T could only laugh and explained that on occassions like that, there was a need for his Inner Hulk to emerge. Yikes! Buti na lang at hindi hinamba-hambalos na parang basahan yung ale! (Good thing he didn't throw around that woman like a rag!)

Salads

Greens with tomotaoes, cucumbers, and carrots. Food styling c/o Yaya Neneth. Ganda, di ba?

Our family love salads, homemade or restaurant-ordered. Not only for their nutritional value but the beautiful play of colors, flavors, and textures in them. Here's some we have enjoyed!

Labyu, MM!

Holed up in an obscure hotel, waiting for something that never came to be, my afternoon was pleasantly interrupted by an almost 2-year-old cutie who would not smile for my camera. That is, until he espied my cookies on the bed! It was really a delightful encounter even if his yaya kept on referring to me as "Lola". Hay!

CSSP Araw ng Pagkilala 2012

Here we are in our official graduation regalia - with the official University Sablay. No stifingly hot academic gowns for us!