Wednesday, January 30, 2008

I do remember that certain feeling, a certain view of life. Content. Happy. A paradise in bloom. That feeling of living joy, or joy of living, always ready for eternal spring, potent of unendless laughter.

I remember that certain state of mind. It is a mind of thankfulness to everything. Thankful to my mom. I remember that one afternoon riding a tricycle with my mother, heading home telling her of a found love, and sharing my appreciation of life in subtle ways. That was a telling moment for me, telling me now that I was truly happy.

I remember that feeling, only because what I feel now resembles something of that nature. What I feel now reminded me of what I was feeling back then. When all past is forgiven, when I actually find joy in my own company (hehe, narcissus, where are you?). I remember that time, because I have the same inkling of sharing my thoughts to my mom, who I'm just about to see...

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

HOME
by Franco Balera

The trace of your lips on mine is gone
The memory of your embrace
Though I can recall my arms on your waist
But barely

I want to feel your warmth
The scent of your hair
The curve on your neck
The softness of your breast

It was the moment that brought us together
However fleeting the hour today
When memories can be lost so easily
Like the bird in flight, the wind on my face

But let hearts be told of us tomorrow
Forever again when we meet
I cradle the lingering thoughts and sprouting dreams
And the imagination of my hands and lips

Speaking of which, my dear
You are my love, my love, my only
Where my dreams continually rest
And my heart forever belonging...

...In the quiet solitude of simple beginnings
You are my home.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

On my first week in PI, I accompanied my cousin to Quezon, purportedly for his girlfriend's family reunion but, in actuality I was there as his "representative" from his family while he was to propose to his soon-to-be fiance. Well, as time told, he is now happily engaged. 'About time, hehe.

On my way home from Quezon, I rode a bus to Manila. I was alone at the time, not lonely, mind you, but pensive. I was thinking about how happy I am to be back home, how all the sceneries I pass by still feel so much like home to me. How I feel home to the culture, that it is this place that my heart still belongs, as compared to all the unfamiliarity I have of the US, ironic because I now have lived more in the US than back home.

I was also thinking of my cousin and his fiance, how they mingle with each other right after the proposal. She was continually saying I-hate-you's though she was obviously exhilerated by what they have just undergone. And my cousin laughing so hard to his heart's content, cherishing every bit of that moment. What strikes me though is the manner of how they, after all these years, have now become really intertwined, like a vine on a wire. They have reached that level of oneness I have rarely seen in a couple. That relationship that defines bestfriends, or what others may prefer to define as soulmates.

So I was thinking about them, and then I realized something of what I want. I then text'ed a good friend of mine, as I have always confided everything dear to my heart to this my friend. I said, "Now I know what I want for a wife. I want someone who can understand the depth of my experienced pain, and from this little beginning be able to share a life with me."

...to be continued.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

So what is love, one may ask? Is it that fire burning inside you that wants to ravage the existing land? Is it that cool spring that soothes the dry earth below? Is it an act of commitment? Is it passion? Is it a humble affection towards another, the quietspeak of the heart?

...I love you inasmuch as I love life. Did I say that before?

...I know this. That love is one of the "precious and fragile things/ that needs special handling..." as Depeche Mode aptly put it. Held too tightly it will break. Thought about too much, it will lose its meaning.

...And I have been in two worlds. The living and the dead. A spirit-world that is real, where creative forces go to work, where hopes and dreams preferably remain, where virtues of humanity construct beauty out of nothing but the will to be (some may say the will to be free). The other world is the world of shadows, of emptiness and despair, devoid of creation, hence devolving into utter destruction.

Love exists to the ones who wants to make love real; and to others it is simply null and void, nonexistent and matters nothing anyway, or so they say.

Love to me then, I have found, lives only in the realm of the living, somewhere in the air above the ground where graves lie.

Funny, I was looking at my blog entries and I wrote a draft of something way back May of 2007. I do not know why I never posted it then, but I think it's worth posting it now.

---5/7/2007---
I had the most interesting dream last night. I met this girl who just blew my heart away. For some reason, I felt genuinely wanting to bond with her, like that of friends and soulmates, and see what life she is living and where we may end up wanting to go. The acquaintance was magical, and that the spark of a soulful interchange made our time more than routine.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!

...how do I describe what I just went through? Two weeks of intense revelation. Two weeks of constant celebration. Two weeks of, after having shed off all the constant ruminations nagging me before, I face today with that sweet spontaneity of every moment.

Philippines to me will always be my home; this I have come to understand. I keep on telling my friends, jokingly, that it's so funny how whenever I come home to PI I endlessly enjoy living and all the time in between my visits (i.e. when I'm in the US), I just wait for when I'm alive again!!! Haha.

One of my dear uncles gave me the most striking lesson of my visit, if not of my whole life. We were sitting together, and he always with his smile kept on revealing to me how much he misses his son, my cousin, who like me has migrated across the seas. And yet he tells me it pains him to miss him so much, and more because his son, my cousin, would not want to hear any of his misery, understandably because his son, my cousin, suffers the same fate of being apart from loved ones, hence being alone. Yet he is not ashamed of his predicament, but rather in a very soft tone adding the wiseness of his age, tells me something like he knew I also needed to hear. He says, "Makakailiw ak ya maung! Pero antam, mas maung balet so makailiw, ta no andi la, mas mairap; Labay ton ibaga akalingwan ka la." (I miss him so much! But you know, it's better to miss, because it's harder if you no longer do; because that would mean you already have forgotten).

Fresh year. Fresh days. Fresh hope, finally. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!