Being 27

Another year was added to a growing number of years of a not-so-constant trend in living a life that seemed to be so intricately intertwined now. I was born on Valentine’s Day, 1982, so my mother says and my birth certificate indicates. Foggy memories of an estranged mother always speak about a crammed room full of unmarried women in their late 20s giggling, a traditional birth attendant preparing birthing paraphernalia, boiling water in a kettle shooting hot vapor. The cynic in me always thinks about loose perspectives brought about by excessive infatuation with the idea of a child’s birthday falling on February 14th, of the idea that it is too emblematic of a lover’s fruit so executed in complicity, of the idea that so a relationship may be glorified in the height of its heydays. Maybe it was on the 13th or the 15th or on the 29th and because of the fears of a drought in leap years.

But it is, 14th etched indelibly in the registers consistently. All those years when I get to be socially active and was entering the realm of social environments did I come to realize that there are some consistencies, commonalities within the celebration of a birthday so engrossing for people except me. Why aren’t you named Valentino? was a question never to be not asked because it’s a protocol and You must be kulang-kulang because you were born in February was a supposition I can quite vouch? For 27 years I have been rammed up with those conjectures that sometimes distress me for their built-up ordinariness and sometimes elate me because I am a figure or a ¬go-figure elated to have more and more people remember my birthday and be a recipient of all their bright and common wishes of a longer life, many-more-birthdays-come, and wishes of well-wishers of a sumptuous treat at a fancy restaurant (just-kidding).

Yesterday I had a steamed white chicken for breakfast at a Chinese Restaurant, a call from my mom all the way from Oregon, a morning song from my love streamed all the way through my ear canal like a cleaning cotton bud tickling the softest part of me, a dinner treat from my boss at a Korean Restaurant with her lovely daughter seated in front of me were the best gifts I ever had. There are wishes, yes, like enrolling in the Environmental Law Program of the Lewis and Clark Law School, a better economy at the close of the year, bright prospects for this year, my name included in the Rolls, a cure for my sickness, a life with my love still intertwined strongly beyond a boa-constrictor’s capability, purging in the government, more rights for the underprivileged like me, alleviation of poverty, more sincere and true leaders for this country and more aftertastes of coffee from my love.

27 and I am old. Woke up early this morning quite a bit terrified by the documentary on the ice meltdown, the rising sea levels and the cataclysmic consequences. There’s not enough action to stop it, taking out of the picture the role of governments, the fact is that there is really no stopping now the phenomenon because all the efforts to cut carbon emissions today if and when the IPCC’s instruction will be followed without skirmishing sovereign egos, will really never halt anything except only to mitigate the catastrophe. The documentary has a footnote on climate change refugees, its rise and its probable impact on matters of survival, dwindling resources, and state-to-state conflict. There’s a lot ahead really. I may never cross through such events within my time but it keeps me wondering about the future of the world and generations. Sometimes this news really makes you old but the inescapable fact is that you’re part of it.

So here’s my definition of being 27 in this century. It is about thinking, trying to belong to a world of causes making even the slightest of difference, making one’s voice heard, trying to blend love with every issue that comes, trying to live life to the fullest while you can, achieving for others, and just being me, being you.

Pursuing Little Stars

On January 23rd we cruised the bay
Calm and still waters
Lying beneath
Silent witnesses of flourishing love
Our eyes meet somewhere
There at the ebbing tide
The moon-shadowed beach
Wind lashed waves
There at the harbour
A lamppost
That illuminates lovers
Regaling a night
Of bliss
Pursuing little stars
That blanketed the night sky
And mirrored in our eyes
In the depth of the waters
Sparkling

Thursday, 3:00 pm

Since I have no motivation to continue my work on the glass ceiling phenomenon (a research on the problem of women climbing up the corporate ladder and tracing such problem on the case of women who experienced such phenomenon and ended up becoming entrepreneurs) , alone in the room with nothing to do in mind, I just have to talk to you. Yes, you.

You know, I don’t feel like as in okay today. I feel so very unproductive lying on bed almost all day punctuated only by the call of nature, the call of my stomach, and other calls of what have you. Of course, I don’t spend all day lying only because that would be transgressing the desires of the mind. So from time to time my friend and I watch DVDs of all sorts. The one that made me broke into thunderous laughter is Marley and Me. And who’s not, the Labrador is just so adorable his masters just can’t throw him away with all the wreck that he is causing the family. It made me so envious. The dog brought prosperity out of all the shards he left each day of his existence. He brought materials for the writer to pen in his column, a bond to keep the love in the family, and a lot of guffaws and licking that warm the heart. Marley’s a horrific mad dog minus rabidity. Perfect.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button may be some kind of a lullaby that keeps on weighing down your eyelids forever. But it has definitely a unique story: a man who’s born to grow backwards, literally. The plot is quite worth the guess at the start. Okay, yes, your guess is as good as mine: two lovers . . .one’s growing backwards (counter-clockwise) the other growing, ah ,normally (clockwise). Of course, you might say like me that they would surely meet at one point in time where they both have the same age. They surely did, hah. The periods close or near that meeting point are cloud nine. But imagine a wife nursing his husband at old age. . .quite terrible. Terible. But of course if love really matters, faithful and forever. . .as Kenny Rankin has proposed. . .then that isn’t quite a problem except that the baby-husband should be bottle-fed now. Seriously, what I like about the film is its different take on the problem of time. . . love is blind, age doesn’t matter neither height, ah-ah. Benjamin might have changed his mind he wanted to become a Dracula instead than to look old, clueless. F. Scott Fitzgerald might have other reason why such portrayal. Better read.

Still with me? Just had cheesecake doughnut for snack. The fan’s spinning since last night because it’s hot as hell inside. The beach is a perfect getaway. We might dip ourselves tomorrow. A siren could be heard from here. A piano’s being played slowly. Then just the sound of the fan. . .A framed picture of two lovers in front of me. A soul who would like to be freed. . .Bye for now.

Portal at Room 206

It was night at Room 206 when it was day outside,
The drapes in auburn and black fall like veils taunting time.
They fall down deep into the mystique recesses of two souls,
Far, distant they thwart two worlds.

The lone window shrouded and now opaque,
Like a fortress, it gave sanctuary for us to revel,
The warmth of nights, without light,
Only a gleam that escapes the drapes,
Glowing there at two corners,
Tamed yet foreboding.

Like a portal to a hostile world,
It speaks no reason against happiness.
We have our own here at Room 206.
Though one departs early than the morning zephyr,
One says I am here.
The other whispers, the memory will live.

Life is a metaphor

My love to moonlight caused this poem. It read:

5:18 in the afternoon

my sunshine,

let me be the wind that gently brushes your face
the melody that echoes through time and space.
let me be your light when the stars in heaven aren't so bright
to walk with you in path's so dimly lit.

your face is like the breaking of dawn
the very promise of a new day,
the dusk that soothes my worried mind
that gives me the best of good nights.

the face that made me glow everyday in our stay,
that makes me smile in every glance i make
the face that i want to see before retiring the day,
the very same to see the morning i awake.

i painted you in my memories,
with vivid colors that i made.
i will treasure you, today, tomorrow and the days to come,
framed with love and sealed by fate .

Early in the day, I made this in response,

For you, moonlight, 6:27 am

you're so far, yet so near.
you seemed to have brought with you
the joys left
in this solitary soul.

but mornings are like
sweet souvenirs.

i remember now
like strings gently swayed,
that your heart kissed mine
and stamped a mark
that glowed together
with the break of dawn
to remind me that
our love springs eternal.

a cycle unbroken
by time and distance