I was spending time with my coworker by Marina some time this week, just to get away for a time from the "prison walls." He's the type of person that comes off as melancholic, if not masochistic (Hehe!!! Just kidding! I'm sure you'll read this man!). So, chronically in despair as we are, we go, as we normally do, through questions about what determines our affects, why does the world look like a blur most times, what were the best memorable times we had in our lives, etc., etc.

Sometimes, talking about this helps. What i find though is that two depressed people may also easily drag each other downwards. So I tried to get our spirits lifted a bit. Rather than being the recipient of a friend's therapeutic expertise, I just started cheering us both. Then I remembered that I left my camera in the glove compartment. I took it out and started fiddling with it. I took some pictures of the bay. I started off taking a panoramic picture as I'm fond of doing, then started focusing on the birds that were braving the winds that day.

While I didn't find myself absorbed in that moment while taking pictures, after I downloaded it on the computer I started to see how pretty the scenery was after all. As the flight of the birds are... seeing them soar and just, just... you know ---just living it!!!

...To some, pictures may talk about a time in the past. But to me today, it reminds me of a unique capacity built in us, in our ability of capturing moments as they come, to take still pictures in one's eye when the moment is ripe, to be able to freeze time, so they say, and look all around and be in there somehow however fleeting time may be, and to just revel in the sweetness of the day wherever you are, in that certain place and time. Like Jessie said to Norman (A River Runs Through It) while they're walking down the trails, after Norman asked her what's wrong and was surprised 'cause she suddenly looked up with tears that resemble so much joy, she said with the best smile, "It's the berries!!!"

I think 2007 for me will be the year of the berries... I wish we all will... but it's kind impossible really, when we live in a cruel world that doesn't make a lot of sense. But at least, I hope we can all have each other, and help each other out in the best way we can ---sharing lives as real as we can... as real as we possibly can.

Happy New Year, everybody!

I think I'm poem'd out. There is not much continuity in what I post. I know I can at least let people know why I post what I post. Yet I can't seem to get out of this lazy attitude in writing but mere verses... tsk! tsk!

Hello? Hello?! Jok naman dyan o! Kelangan ko ng jok!... Daj! Melo! Tulong! Mag-jok naman kayo! Ok lang kung korny! Sanay na ko. Yun pa nga ata yung hinahanap ko eh!!!

Tonight I Can Write

(From Twenty Poems of Love) ---

.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

--- Pablo Neruda

Tonight, I will join the ranks of all the people around the world singing this song--- many with their lives. Merry Christmas to all!!!


Someday At Christmas
Stevie Wonder

Someday at Christmas men won't be boys
Playing with bombs like kids play with toys
One warm December our hearts will see
A world where men are free

Someday at Christmas there'll be no wars
When we have learned what Christmas is for
When we have found what life's really worth
There'll be peace on earth

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime

Someday at Christmas we'll see a Man
No hungry children, no empty hand
One happy morning people will share
Our world where people care

Someday at Christmas there'll be no tears
All men are equal and no men have fears
One shinning moment my heart ran away
From our world today

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime

Someday at Christmas man will not fail
Take hope because Your love will prevail
Someday a new world that we can start
With hope in every heart

Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime

...Someday at Christmastime.

"...But I am not the author of the poems ---you are;
With your grace, your sweetness, and your love."

-William Yeats

No storm, no weather, no disaster
Can determine the turn of the tides
No words, no rhyme, no reason
Can change a foolish heart

No thought, no rationalization
Can bring a soul to its knees
No man, no woman
Can bend your love to me

But the quietspeak of your mind
May enjoy the sunshine air
The diminishing flutters of your heart
May open yourself up to the possibility

That maybe, after all,
When the moon is ripe
And the stars collide
You will see... me.

I took this off the blog because some of my friends think it's kind of freaky and they start getting really worried. I reread the note and somehow, even I got a little worried of myself. But then I woke up and thought, "No! That's not even what I'm saying!" I can't help but laugh at the strangeness of people's reception to this note. Now, I really have to put up a disclaimer:

No! This is NOT a suicide note.

It's funny. The word that came to my mind while I was scribbling the note down was HOPE. Little did I realize my folks thought quite the opposite. Now I'm wondering if hope and despair then are really two sides of the same coin. But anyway, to people who know me really well, I'm pretty sure they would just smile at what I have foolishly written below... here it goes.
---------------------------


there would be a day when i would not be blogging. but the reason would be for the better. i would not be bloggin because there are some things that are not made for story-telling-consumption. rather, they would be a continuous series of moments where one is so tied up to the life that there is no time for stopping. life, like a boat cast to sea, would be sailing off to lord knows where it's going. but my friends, believe me, you are part of me. my friends, be happy. because by then, i am too...

Farewell, Uncle L.

I have lived my life for quite a while now. I got to know people along the way. My parents, my family, my relatives, my classmates, my playmates, my collegues, etc., etc. But I lump them into one group, only because I have only one heart. Nowadays, I call them friends, as I always want them to be. A friend is another soul, another being that you share yourself with. Each holds a place in your heart. With the advent of the ID system and all these deindividualization of man in today's corporate sham (you are just a number, remember?), I have to constantly remind myself that we are more than the statistics that we are portrayed to be. Because we are people... my friends are my friends. Each of them mean something to me.

One of my uncles (my mother's brother's wife's youngest brother) passed away two days ago. He's so young, I don't think he's even 50. I remember he used to pick me up from school in my younger days. I remember he used to live in our home (practically) when I was growing up. I remember him with his characteristic smile; lighthearted he is, warm and affectionate. He gave up a kidney when he was in his twenties (I believe) to someone who needed it to live. Like a lot of my friends though, I never knew much of him after I came to the US. But I always think of him with fondness.

Last night, me and my brother were having the usual night session. We talked about Uncle L. Then I said, "He's so young! I can't believe it! It's amazing how life is!" My brother agreed and said, "Life is so short, really. The only thing we can do is to think of something and do it, and then to pass it on to our kids." Then he continued on saying that a lot of times, our kids won't even listen to us because we already live in different worlds. But we can teach others who are a bit younger than us (cause at least, they still listen), and hope that someday they too will teach our children the way we taught them. "We relay things to them in whatever avenues we find," he added. I nodded my head.

I still don't know the reason for our being here, this I can say. But a lot of times nowadays I think it is really the wrong question to make only because our life is not meant to be thought of; if anything, it is meant to be lived. And to live does not mean just the day-to-day waking up and eating and going to work and coming home and doing things every now and then. It is more like reflecting on what you want to do then do it, creating a world that you foresee in your heart, spending moments with friends, share the beauty that you see and be open to surprises your friends will be sure to make. Above all, it is good to remember that we are all part of each other, and that my life is as much mine as my friends'.

I had a conversation with a friend, and she claimed to have empathic powers. She said that she can sense a man's inner being by the way he kisses---- what?! yep! my retort indeed!

She claims that how a guy kisses shows the way he is; whether he's forgiving or he's resentful; either softhearted or stonecold; pushy or shy; in tune with himself or not. Hmmm...

I don't know. I have heard of scientific evidence supporting the phrase "first impressions last," and personality profiles detected from a person't gait (or the way he carries himself). But I've never heard of psychoanalysis via kissing styles. Then a thought occurred to me. Wow! What if indeed it may be true! If it can ever be proven, maybe that will be the day. Imagine a therapist analyzing a patient's psyche by a kiss. That would be a therapist heaven!

Maybe I should finish my studies after all, get a therapist certification, and invent my own method of psychoanalysis--- J's Own Kiss (Hahaha!). I'm sure I'll be having a lot of clients in line for my sessions... but hopefully not male!!!

"Ang paglaki ay pagtuklas ng iba't ibang laro, pagkadapa at pagkagasgas at pagkatalo't pagkatuto... unti-unti nakikita mong may iba't ibang mukha ang mga tao, isa-isa'y matutunugan mo ang iba't ibang kahulugan ng mga ingay at tinig. Sa paglaki, napapansin mong may mga tanong na mahirap sagutin, at may mga utos na mahirap sundin. Higit sa lahat, natutuklasan mo na habang naririnig mo ang mga sagot, lalong dumarami ang naisip mong mga tanong... mula tiyan hanggang duyan, mula bahay hanggang eskuwelahan, pagkatuklas na sa labas pala nito'y maraming mapag-aaralan.. Lahat ng dapat niyang matututunan ngayon pa lang.... hindi pagkamasunurin at pagkakimi... kundi pagkibo kung may sasabihin at paglaban pag kailangan... lahat ng panahon ay hindi panahon para sa takot at pagtitimpi... lahat ng panahon ay panahon ng pagpapasya..."

-Lualhati Bautista

...

Our fathers swam the same rivers
And drank from the same well
They swam the same beaches
And flew kites in the same air

You left
And so did I
To a singular place we lived our lives
Though we never met

Yet I moved again, once more
So did you
We crossed the same seas
Though at different times

But by reasons of fate
I happen to see your face
While you gaze into my eyes
I can only imagine your life

It is quite a restless dream, I suppose
To move from place to place
Looking at our hearts
We see our fathers' faces...

...In the depths of space and time
Lies another dream
In the shadows of the past
Bids a certain destination

Where there is no place to be but here
Where time fizzles into tiny fractions
Of moments that we breathe
Today---

Maybe this time, both you and I decide to stay.