A friend told me just the other day, "It is easy to be a man. The difficult part is how to be a human." Like the carrots and the eggs, we go through life and suffer pain without our acceptance of it, of course. And just the other day, I witnessed myself cursing life and cursing death and, with fist in the air, whispered, "I did not asked for this! Yet why do I bear it?!!"

...Like a brat that waits for the food to be set on the table, I am now in my thirties. I did not asked for sour soup. I wanted honeys. But without any precondition of thought, I get served with what I did not expect. And the anger and the fury ang the rage. "D@#$ you!!! D#$%# you to death!!!" as I reckon with Fate.

...Yet I had years of listening to Silence and have been an earnest student of it. Somewhere along the way, it has taught me the significance of the Now, and the restlessness of oneself when bogged down by terrible Fate from the past. One's present condition cannot be denied, but One should not be paralyzed by it. We become hard shells because of the Wicked Past and how we fear of it's repetition. And yet this is the one thing we should definitely avoid, because by being so, hardened as hard can be, we become immune to what really gives life meaning, like zombies, the walking dead (sorry, one of my favorite symbolisms).

Some time ago, I talked about my being schizophrenic in my memory ---I can remember my high school life and the Now but not in between. And yet my life has become disjointed and jumbled and jaded and broken to millions of pieces. But lately, I somehow have been able to reconnect the dots. I do not know how, but that I can now. Maybe to fashion my state of mind and understanding with full acceptance of where I am, I have been able to see my feet today as the same feet that has been journeying life since then in my memorable youth. And to have captured today who I was then, with all the stupidity, cupidity, and openness of the heart, and be able to commune with that Soul of the Past, I said to my feet, "Well, this is where we are now. So, where to next?" as I look around at the Living World.

...Today, life can't be any better, only for reasons that now I can stand, open, and walking again. I sure still miss my friends though. Ah! Such is just the classic Immigrant Life!!! >:b

Sundays...

I wake up to the morning rattle of household chores. Feet walking to the kitchen, hands trying to prepare food for breakfast, bathroom doors opening and closing, and the television turning on to kids' cartoons. The family is preparing to go to church! I get woken up by my cousin telling me it's time for church. I wake up, and try to get to making coffee, when I decide instead I feel like going to the bathroom (wait, actually, it was my body who decided for me). But when I get to the door, somebody else beat me to it. So I wait in line, until when I checked again, another person beat me to it! So then I announce to everybody I want to go next, so whoever would use the shower must wait after the other bathroom errands get taken cared of!!! Grrrr!

But despite the morning wake up call, I do not mind it at all. My Sunday experiences bring me back to a time of happiness. A dozen people living in a townhouse (when we initially migrated in the US) with only one bathroom to share! Folks are crammed up into the small living space and trying to make use of whatever we got. And only one television then, which of course my grandmother get first dibs watching filipino tv. But despite the lack of resources as compared to others, it was a time of sweet harmony, with a lot of love, a lot of sharing. Jokes naturally pop up in conversations, and tricksters like me would come up with whatever pops up in my head. Help comes natural. Moments endlessly sprout. I could never forget that time in my life, and I will always cherish and remember that time with fondness. It is in this time that my grandmother is immortalized in my mind, who has been the centerpoint and origin of our family's love. There is a Filipino saying that my grandmother always says, "Aanhin mo ba ang isang mansyon kung hindi naman ito tahanan?" (What good is a mansion if it cannot be called a home?)

And so this is my home. Friends always joke me about being unavailable on the weekends cause I'm always with my family. But it is this family that surely feeds my heart, and continues to do so. They have been there for me especially in the darkest moments of my life, especially my only brother (I think he's the only one, hehe!!!), and I will always be thankful for this all my life.

A Chinese Folktale...

There was once a beautiful maiden taking a bath in a pond surrounded by trees, naked. As she was enjoying the warm waters, she said, "If someone will see me right now, I promise, I will marry him." And in an instant from the nearby bushes out comes this young man who then replied, "Well, I saw you. You have to marry me." And they then got married and were in so much love.

The young man never wanted to leave his wife, so the wife told him, "I know it is hard for you to leave me, so I made a picture of myself that you can carry with you wherever you go. When you miss me, just look at the picture like I am there right beside you, and you will be fine." So that was how he was able to leave her beside.

One day as he was looking, the wind took the picture away from his hands and carried it to the emperor's palace, and into the emperor's lap. Upon seeing it, the emperor said, "Can this be true? Is there such beauty in this world?" He then sent his men to look for the girl.

When he found that she was indeed real, the emperor summoned his knights to take the girl to the palace to be his wife. When the knights reached the girl, she was with her husband, who fought them, to his death, from his wife being taken from him.

When the woman was brought to the palace, the emperor looked at her, and told her she will be his wife. But the woman said, "I will marry you, if you can do three things for me. First, you must give me an elegant dress full of pearls which I can wear. Second, you must build me a three-story house right beside that river. And third, on the top floor you must build a terrace where I can have a view of the water." And the emperor agreed with all his riches.

When all the three wishes were made, the woman then wore the magnificent dress and went up to the terrace on the top floor. Once there, she look at the emperor and cursed him, with all the misery and rage he has cast upon her soul, and jumped into the river to her death. And the emperor, to his madness, ordered his men to chop her body into tiny pieces and throw then back into the river. When this was done, and the pieces were thrown, they became tiny silver fishes that have come to swim the waters ever since...