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.

Living out of a Duffel Bag

A throbbing pain in the head, clammy feeling over my whole body, oily hair that shines until now because of the wax I put on yesterday, empty thoughts, load of writing engagements in the wait, hushed overtones of a bad day ahead. Had doughnuts and two bananas over milk as breakfast alone because my friend had just left me here in his flat. I wasn’t able to sleep last night because I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America. Had to stay up until past three in the morning to watch the whole coverage of CNN of the event at Capitol Hill. My friend told me that he’s been there and said that the space underneath where the podium stands lies a fountain . “What’s the statue at the top of the dome?, “ he asked me. I said I have no idea. He said that it is Lady Freedom and that there is a policy in Washington that there will be no other structure that will be built in the state that will be higher than Lady Freedom. “But it seems that the Washington Monument is taller than it?,”I asked. He said that it is not. I don’t believe him (but I never told this so as not to embarrass him). I just have to google it. He was fascinated by the frozen pond and the people walking on it. It seemed (it actually is) that everybody’s freezing but the news feed just showed that the people we’re feeling like it was 17 degrees. With the hordes of people that must be because they produce body heat that could higher the temperature around the area. At least one million people have shown up to hear Obama at Capitol Hill. The world has watched him speak of global unity and a new era in US leadership. Obama’s rise to politics and his election as President will be an inspiration and a mark of a new dawn in history if he will be able to deliver his mission to win global cooperation in response to the pressing needs and problems of the global community only a leader as charismatic as him may be able to achieve.

As for me, hah, don’t feel well now. I have to eat my lunch and pack my things in a duffel bag, laundry (lot of it) caused by my days of stay here in southern Philippines. It’s been a blissful week that ended with, well, learning that every day is a growing battle, not fought, not won over neither lost, but a battle that stretches to infinity only I could imagine. A friend has a good idea of how our personality becomes a hero and anti-hero at the same time. She said that in the process of finding ourselves we become protagonist and sometimes antagonist clinching in a battle deep inside us. It is a painful process she says and then abruptly, “I hate you.” “For what?”, I asked. “I don’t want to read you, it keeps me nostalgic.” Cannot do anything about that.

By the way, to you who’s reading this, I will bitterly miss the aura of a French villa, the chirping of caged birds, and the quiet solitude of a flat which you told me to treat as my mi casa. Baguio, here I come.

Comeback

I am hundred miles away from home. I have come this far to pursue happiness. Never sure if I will really find it here but I am hoping that the journey to it would bring me back to my old self: the secured, content, and vigorous me. I don’t know if my foresight still works for me to plan things ahead. What I do know is limited to the time and space which surrounds my existence at the moment. I am too young they say to think about these things, to think about dark solstice and frozen nights. I myself can’t imagine why I have become the person that I am now; to reach this phase where life seems to weigh down on your being so much: a stomp to the reality that life can never be for those who slack behind and wait till the coming of the inevitable ending.

So here I am trying to make an impression out of things that I am not yet bound to live miserably if I choose not to be. So here I am returning to what I love most: telling you my story.

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

Peek-throughs

A lot of things happened I should say. It has been a very, very long month that has mutated into years. I have waited for six months for the bar to come and another six months for the results. I have been incognito for a long time because the whole process almost sucked the marrow left in my life. I still didn't give up the flat I rented back in the university and I couldn't imagine the feeling when I return there next week to pack my books and my other belongings. The picture of the narrow pathway shadowed by plush acacia trees, the lonely walks there for months rain or shine, the silent houses I pass through, the patio of the nearby hotel where someone plays beautiful pieces on the piano every Friday nights. All of it that has become part of me, I never said goodbye to when I discreetly left.

The exam was truly a heartbreaker, not to mention a shatterer of health, sanity, and well-being in itself. I had ulcer because of stress and the pain caused by it still lingers up to now. I hope it would still be cured through medication. I am quite fearful of the visit to the doctor tomorrow.

Sometimes I am left with the thought. . what would I do next? I know it's a general feeling of most of those who took the bar but what delineates me from them would surely be the quality of support system I have. Loosely I would say, I have myself and the world. All the brunt I take as they come.

And then there was this transient love. A love grown out of peek-throughs. Peek-throughs through the heart. How fond it is to rekindle the experience and live through it day by day. It's one of the reasons I try to exist and live now.Would you believe?

Wake me up when September Ends

A pail of tears, now.

I remember you, thirty thousand fishes, drifting in a pond like fallen silver leaves catching the last rays of light in that morose afternoon.

Would there be bliss when September ends?

Thank you, Mom. My confidant, my comrade in battle.