A day at work finds me feeling a bit better thinking that the inspectors are done going through stuff in my department. Their inspection, while it carries the sort of paranoia felt by management which of course trickles down to the ordinary worker (like me!) , had me 'prep'ing up as well since i was supposed to be the one running the machines when they come. Ordinarily, i wouldn't care about what the company thinks; however, I have come to build relationships with my coworkers and the floor supervisors that I felt I needed to be there to carry my load as well. At least now that it's done, I can go about my business again and take care of thinks that deserves caring.

During lunch, I was asking my coworker if she has ever been depressed. She said quite promptly, "what do you mean? of course! back when I was 13, I felt that I did not matter. I wanted to kill myself. people around me were being mean to me about my complexion that it was hard to go through every day." Then I asked her how she got over it and she replied, "I'm not sure. I guess it was because of my grandma, and how she told me that she loved me everyday, and that in fact, I did matter for her." Then she added, "nowadays, I am a lot happier, because I do not depend on others to make me happy."

After work, the words of the E-heads song Hard To Believe continue to reverberate in my head:

..."It's so hard to believe when everything you see is different from the things that you've been told."

It never fails. Realizations of truth always bring about a sort of fresh feeling that normally comes at birth. A brand new day. An open-wide horizon. For some time now, I have meant to post a poem I found off of the internet archives. It is a popular poem, at least in parts. But when I read the whole thing in its entirety, it came to me with a new meaning, something of a discovery of a certain truth that has always been evading me for some time before. Nowadays it makes more sense, and hopefully it does to whoever reads it as well. So here it goes... (don't mind the title... it's quite deceiving! :)

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LOVE
by Roy Croft

I love you,

Not only for what you are,

But for what I am

When I am with you.

I love you,

Not only for what

You have made of yourself,

But for what

You are making of me.

I love you

For the part of me

That you bring out;

I love you

For putting your hand

Into my heaped-up heart

And passing over

All the foolish, weak things

That you can't help

Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out

Into the light

All the beautiful belongings

That no one else had looked

Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you

Are helping me to make

Of the lumber of my life

Not a tavern

But a temple;

Out of the works

Of my every day

Not a reproach

But a song.

I love you

Because you have done

More than any creed

Could have done

To make me good,

And more than any fate

Could have done

To make me happy.

You have done it

Without a touch,

Without a word,

Without a sign.

You have done it

By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,

After all.

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...I've been thinking lately, and I wonder ---really, is there any other basis for love other than this?

hmmm... what do i want to blog? a sentimental script of some sorts? or a whatever-i'm-doing-nowadays-or-how-are-people-really-doing? while i stare into the computer, i continue to wonder about what the world is, both personal and political, and just drift into segments of 'hmmm's...

until now, i have yet to contact daj, and get a conversation going with how his life is and how he is. i surf through the blogs of friends and find miss pinkipod ecstatic of her new-found friend (haha!). i am still sick from last week but that did not keep me from working aside from a day and a half of in-bed recoup. i continue to read emails from long-distance friends and smile at their wackiness and playfulness, but at times profoundly pensive spirits. i have a text buddy :)! i am thinking of fixing my old crappy car so i don't have to worry about the problems of my other beat-up car that i'm now using. i would like to pretend that someone gave me an i-trip for my ipod but i actually had her buy me one (oh well, it still feels like a gift, hehe!). i have fun picking up my cousin from work and drive all the way home teasing her about whoever her new-found 'crush' is. i talk to my other cousin who we're both dealing with another cousin who needs to sort out her plans. i drive my car at freezing dawn and see a part that i need to install on my ex-but-of-course-still-a-dear-friend's car. and i despite my being sick continue to stay outside in the tropical gazebo (bahay-kubo) in our backyard on the computer writing a blog.

hmmm... btw, did i mention about the freezing cold weather here?

The bogeyman got me by the arm. But I wrestled my way out of its hold. I ran but he was able to catch up with me and breathe on me the foulest stench one can even imagine... then I woke up, it's time to go to work.

At work, I started to sweat and I could not concentrate on the tasks assigned to me. After four hours of trying to wing the day through, i just had it. I left for home with a slight fever and an aching arm.

I wake up from a dream
And in my waking I see you
A beauty that transcends
The hollow shame of a life--- of an empty past;

I like it much to take a walk together
With you from now on
And I fancy myself with thoughts
That you do like it too... or do you?

Yes. yes. Salamat naman at nakaligtas na si bespren Ely sa kanyang ordeal. After second operation, he's back in business na raw. Hopefully this time around, he can find a new set of lyrics other than groping-in-the-dark scenes and why-does-life-seem-so-meaningless type thoughts. Maybe it is these lyrics which I gravitate around pero... kasi... uhhh... TWO THOUSAND SEVEN NA KASI, MGA TSONG!!! It's about time, I think, na the worlds should reconfigure for the better :)

New-found faith, new-found belief systems, new-found strength to carry on, new-found friends (and love ones)... new-found cognitive disposition to intermittent sets of contingencies that display chaotic albeit now-stable attractors in one's thought processes (in other words, a world inside my head turned right-side up) ---I do believe, even if it is just a mere belief to start with, that life can be better for me and the people around me. This time around, the caimito tree will be bearing gifts of sweet caimitos and branches for kids to climb on, and a shade for old folks like me to spend an afternoon in quiet reflection of the world...

I saw Lolita Carbon of the legendary Filipino folk band Asin late last year in concert. There was one song that I haven't heard her sing, but when she sang it, I sank into a moment where everything started colliding and falling into their places... like the words and the world and I communed in that single place and time... it was then that I knew life was beckoning me to take our walk together, one more time...

And who was I to refuse such an offer?... :)

-------------------------------

Hawak-Kamay
Lolita Carbon
Nene

Kung di rin lang pakikinggan
Ang samo ng katauhan,
Hanggang saan ka tatanaw
Kung isip ay alinlangan

Bukang-bibig kong tinanggap
Ang salot na pumipiglas
Hindi na rin matatago
Anino ng bawat likha,

At kung handog ay pagsinta
Humayo ka huwag mangamba
Sa pagdaloy nitong mundo
Hawak-kamay,

Mapaparang na ang lumbay
Sa bawat sulok ng buhay
Kahit landas ay magsanga
Hindi ka na maliligaw,

At kung hangad ay kalinga
Ang bisig ay nakalaan
Sa pagdaloy nitong mundo
Hawak kamay,

At kung handog ay pagsinta
Humayo ka huwag mangamba
Sa pagdaloy nitong mundo
Hawak-kamay,

Hmmmm... Hawak-kamay.

No... Ely had a heart what?!!!

I like Sir Jodl's blog header. In silent moments along the day, I keep thinking of how I used to see things. "Go back to your roots! Go back to your roots!" is all I can say at times that I feel lost. And in the shallow way of how I can bring myself back to how I used to be, I feel a sense of belonging somehow, that I can feel home in my thoughts, that then can I move again to new levels of my awareness. This is the person I know, this kid that wonders aimlessly through pebbles in the backyard, the one who can be a superpassionate brat, a relentless challenger, one who laughs like crazy it infects some while others run away annoyed... this is me, while others think it a curse, it is still my face I want others to see. It is in this self that I am truly me, where true friends gravitate towards; others simply flee.

--------------------------------

I was with my cousins yesterday celebrating our lovely cousin J4's b-day. We watched Cars, as our 5-yr old cousin J5 simply confessed that it is the best movie he has seen thus far. Then, while everybody was gathering around for the cutting of the cake, I pulled a prank on my other cousin J2 using clip hangers with dangling balls on the back of his coat. J2's wife thought it was so funny she couldn't help herself. J2 insisted on telling him what the heck is going on and he discovered the clip which he then took off. He felt proud to have discovered the prank without anybody's aid. He started mocking us saying "Haaha! Funny! Funny!!!" and that was when I just fell down and burst out laughing that my stomach was about ready to cramp. He did not realize that there was another one left dangling!!! Everybody started cracking up until J2 look back again and saw the remaining clip and felt so embarrassed. I have to say, I never laughed this much in a long time...

---------------------------------

A friend told me once (and I must have blogged it somewhere) that it is a mistake to find your happiness in another person. What she meant was that if you think you need another person to make you happy (or complete), you're totally mistaken. Happiness is what you find in yourself, and it is this happiness that you then share, not the other way around. Though I was retorting back saying, "But 'no man is an island' and that you need people to survive," in a lot of ways I admit she's most right. It was when I was happiest in my life that I found myself loving so much, and it was when I was saddest in my life that I found loving so hard. Psychologists know that depressed people lack the capacity to love. I just found that out just now.

"There is beauty in engaging with the world. You have to find yourself, in order to find yourself engaging..."

"Happy New Year!!! Ano, ready ka na ba?" ------

...got nothing new to blog, except that it's been three days pa lang since the new year started and I already feel exhausted from work. Good thing lang na may bago akong set ng bakasyon to take whenever I want to. I thought I was gonna have time to wind down through the holidays pero for some reason I felt pressed to do things. It kind of sucks that I didn't get to enjoy the family as much as I hoped to but everybody was feeling hectic din in a way so the whole interaction was not really set for joking each other and playing at least two rounds of poker...I guess the fun and games would have to wait another day, hopefully sooner than later.

hmmm... I wonder how often a normal person feel a sense of disconnect with his/her life? Some say it is the sickness of grown-up people: learned apathy. I wonder, how often do you feel this way? Once a month? Once a year? Or once a day? There is another word for this trait ---"the blues." Some people sing, some people sulk, some people have an escapist heart.

I can probably attribute times in my life that moulded my learned apathy. A broken brat, a broken heart, a broken child. These things, grounded up and placed in a salt shaker, and sprinkled over my day-to-day diet of living probably determines about 90% of why I get the blues. The worst part of it all is when one starts to feel the tingling feeling of a jaded, jagged, meaningless life. I still get that. Maybe not as much as I used to, but I still get surrounded by the fear of a wasted time. Today's blues started yesterday. I got into this mode of going through the mundane motions of working and I struggled to get my bearing, trying to make sense of where I'm at and what I'm doing. The only good thing about now is that I just think of the relationships I am slowly building (yes, very slowly, but only because I care), with my renewed sense of sensibility, and the humbleness of heart knowing that I too have to actually become a chalice (yep! I did watch Da Vinci Code) only to be filled by whatever people let fall.

I miss the jokes that dear friends make with their unique twist of perverted minds... (no daj, honestly, I was not thinking about you and your ways of fondling, I mean fiddling, I mean rocking yourself to sleep).