Us & The Strange Library

Our prone attachment to Murakami stems from the idea that his literature was a piece in our own love story. We were a new, young couple then. We lured each other to fascination as we read the “Second Bakery Attack” together. We had a hunger that we have until now. In the beginning of our relationship, we emailed each other links to “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl.” Those stories laced us into a shared space of consciousness . It helped us form the fondness we enjoy now. It’s literature that helps me fill my own void, with a girl that jumps into that void with me. Many of the stories, after all, are a creative description and attempts to understand loneliness and grief, strangely with many laughs along the way.

And now we have a child, and another one on the way. My void is still there, but it’s really getting cozier with more people in it.

It’s Christmas Eve. D. will be out shopping for maternity clothes and some groceries. I. and myself decide to sit it out in a coffee shop. It was near empty at 10am, rain falling against the window pane. December was cold and wet this year. He warmed up to bread, butter, pieces of dried fruit. I sat beside him with mocha latte and eggs Benedict. He behaved so well, I often forget he’s just four years old. Ready with a hotspot and power bank, I left him to his iPad. But he seemed more interested with the book I brought.

He must’ve been attracted by the art, by the wide eyes on the cover that stared curiously at him. So we shared this story with a familiar fascination. It was a perfect Murakami that involved a labyrinth in library, new leather shoes, a bird/a voiceless girl, the mother waiting at home, a sheep-man and an old man who wanted to fatten and slurp a little boy’s brains. And this one is filled with artful visuals! You were sold and into it like a moth to a flame.

I recited every word as you sat in my lap, blurting it out with all the enthusiasm and animation I could muster. I made a few footnotes on the side, making sure you don’t get traumatized about going to libraries, without necessarily killing the spirit of the story. You weren’t scared, you said, even after the part with the black dog with green eyes and a jewel-encrusted collar. Instead, you responded with such delight and that immediately emitted and transformed into mine. I had a second cup of coffee, savouring how much happiness I’ve been gulping.  It’s how I sometimes feel that this world of voids, lost shoes, the seeming unfairness to fair people, balls and chains, uncertainties and accidents sometimes conspire to bring me to an otherwise perfect moment. We were reading a story and weaving our own.

Days after Christmas, you crave for more. Your attention is caught by the book sitting in our shelf. You ask me to read it to you again.

What you won’t understand now, I suppose, is how you’ll need to dig and jump into your own well one day. I honestly can’t tell you how that’ll go for you. But early indications suggest that you’ll make a really cozy void.

One day, please let us jump into that void of yours.

Random and Unfiltered Scenes from my Endearing Days of Ordinariness

Take none of it for granted, I thought. Write whatever happens.

I’m home at 5.30am after another QBR and client visit. I love how it feels like cutting classes, but legally. I might miss getting nicely suited up when I no longer have this job, I thought. I had to work some more, while munching on vanilla almond cereals with nonfat milk. As soon as he’s up, I read a book to I., his eyes still puffy from sleep. He’s in his Woody costume. Hours later, I’m juicing carrots, apples an s and cucumbers while working some more. I run a 35:29 6k on the treadmill after four rounds of a pretend-battle game with I. He was Wolverine and I was Sabertooth. D. cooks a broiled chicken this for lunch. Compliments to the chef. Work’s done at 1:30 pm. I do toy reviews with I. and we explore the Salvador Dali section of the Museum of Modern Art App on his iPad. We do rescuebot toy reviews. I have a 2.5 hour nap. We walk to the Savemore to pay pills (electric, cable, phone, and water) and have a fantastic 15-peso turon with langka. Chicken sandwiches for dinner. I have coffee, and finish reading a story from Katrina Tuvera’s collection.

It’s only 8.30am and I’m home! We do Transformers toy reviews then do lessons – Q, R, and S today. I download some music, then read Guess How Much I Love You with him again. I covered some errands: water, folding clothes, some clean-up. I slept four hours. We head over to Rockwell and have a sandwich at a Deli: prosciutto, salami, lettuce washed down with apple juice. We get those Messy Bessy dish cleaners. For dinner, D. makes a scattered sushi and sashimi.

Friday. We do the lessons – T, U, and V, along with drills writing his name. We re-read a story from the Spongebob graphic novel, and Dr. Seuss’ Oh the Thinks You Can Think. We build Lego Stars. The best part of the day was I. being scared of the “ugly” lady in the lessons book. He covered it with his hand while his other hand held a pencil while writing the letters. He’s a sleepyhead at 5pm. I go for a 6k run. Nice and quick I’m oozing with endorphins. I finished Katrina Tuvera’s short story collection. Fulfils my craving for local literature and physical books after reading so many on the ebook reader. It was a lonely dinner alone, they were both asleep already. More music downloads, listening to Spotify, then the dishes before heading to work again.

Saturday. Pizza and premium beer for lunch. We go to the park in Greenfield to meet up with with our home’s architect to give him a token gift. Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years of Pilgrimage. I. ran around, chasing the huge bubbles at the park. D. and I. have tokoyaki balls and pad thai from the market. We drop by Mandaluyong for a brief visit. We have more beer and pizza at home while doing some chores – clothes and shoes.

Sunday. 10km Run at 58:00. Not the fastest but feels awesome. We do the groceries, lunch, and read Three Billy Goats Gruff and the Littlest Turtle. We recite proverbs. In the afternoon with go Trick or Treating at Rockwell with little P. M, and L. We had dinner at Wooden Spoon – Seafood Kare Kare, Dinakdakan, Stuffed Pechay. We had drinks at the Chili’s after – beer for the gentlemen, margaritas for the ladies. And nachos. At about midnight, I head out to visit my niece E. It was the only time mama had to head out.
Fast forward to one of these days in December. I was home at about 10am. We make a hotdog sandwich, and have D.’s menudo for lunch. She was craving for canteen food.I washed the dishes and called the bank to request a waiver on my annual fee. I read portions of Winnie the Pooh on the ebook reader with I. We read “But not the hippocampus.” Lessons on the iPad using Leapfrog’s Mr. Pencil. I take a 3-hour nap. In the afternoon, a do a 6.1 km bike ride and run a 35-minute 6k. The December breeze hugged my sweaty skin and the city glowed with Christmas decorations. I do a batch of laundry when I get home, we have dinner, and do the dishes.

Today. I clean the bathroom, do the floors, vacuum the couch. We have leftover pizza and chicken for lunch. We decide against going out for the groceries – there will be ample time this week as we’ll have a holiday break. And I.’s finally recovering from his cough. I read a Bino Realuyo book while having coffee – Arabica with Dark Chocolate Swiss Miss, along with  butter cookies, bread and butter. We read I am Thankful Each day, Three Billy Goats Gruff and the Cat in the Hat. D. threw up in the bathroom and when I see her that way my world crumbles. Someday, the males will bear the babies. But I’m glad she’s fine. She even gives me a massage later in the day. I wanted to go for an outdoor run but it rained right when I was dressed up. So I do 10k on the treadmill while D. cooks Mongo and Ampalaya. I ate like a construction worker. She asked me to buy chips, rice, a roll of tissue and gummy bears for I. I head over to Savemore and they’re both knocked out when I get back. I do the dishes, then shower. I fix myself a vodka and fizzy apple juice, with Davao pomelo on the side while I’m punching letters on the keyboard. I liked the Tranquillity with a Beat playlist: unobtrusive and anonymous with right amount of groove.

On the Right to be Tired

My own parents, at the retired age of 67 and 65, are still actively engaged in their respective lines of work. They’re sleeves-up, hands-on, and walking-the-talk. Mr. A is an elected public servant, and Mrs. A runs a small food business, the beloved Bunny Bunch, catering mostly to overseas placement agencies nearby and taxi drivers.

It’s not unusual to see more seasoned citizens to still be working.  I remember (as one writer put it), a twilight-zone-like experience at a McDonalds in Singapore. They had stores manned by elders instead of a perky, hyperactive crew who looked like they were injected mountain dew directly to the vein. This wasn’t the same set-up in Manila though; probably because there aren’t too many jobs around and even a service crew spot is considered lucrative.

So it was still unusual to see elders working at fast food chains that underpay their overworked staff.  In recent months, there's been a battery of protests in the US by McDonald's and fast food workers. We need more of that here and fight out the limited freedom, the paralysis of choices brought about the the greed of the rich enabled by Capitalism. The elder workers, most especially, should be paid right - if not more.

One of them greeted me this morning. I was travelling from one of the farther sites, and I had to stop by for coffee and apple pie as my eyelids were heavy and I was getting sleepy on the wheel. McDonald's was a convenience I can't deny. The elder crew who greeted me was wiping the floor, big smile, multitasking, firing on all cylinders as he glowed with his “good morning” by the door.

The age and the uniform didn’t appear to match. But when I look at him as I gulped my coffee and gobbled my pie, I didn’t feel pity, or guilt, nor did I condescend. I saw him as a paragon of persistence. I myself was tired and beaten. People like him, and my parents, stripped me of the right to be tired.

A lot of folks who are supposed to be retired are still toiling in physically/mentally demanding occupations – as carpenters, as call center workers.  I remember how I romanticized the elder who pushed the shoe repair cart, and in ways that I should keep quiet, I’d like to think that I helped with respect and dignity rather than just charity. I write again because we collect these experiences. It is connecting us the way a bundle of apparently simple, worthy experiences - make us look at our life and affirm why we keep pushing our rocks.

And while it looks like a long way away, my hairline is receding we are really growing old.

Well Then, Once More

I ran the half-marathon course of the Run United Philippine Marathon last October 5th. I knew I wasn't going to hit a sub-2, but I felt stronger compared to my last 21k race. This time, my training was more robust and I finished at 2:12. Not my best and could be better, yeah. But what was truly rewarding was the steam I had left towards the end, like I wasn't all used up or exhausted. The feeling at the finish line was to want to go through the race again. Beaded beautifully in sweat, that medal dangling on my chest, I asked myself, "When's the next one?" The endorphins kicked in my head, I looked at the open sky, and smelled the 6am air rising from the grass of the race village. I'm walking slowly, stretching, but I'm high, as though earth is moving on my favor.

 

Here's to the fate that we love, and everything we do again and again. We squander this love, and do not surrender to just a single piece of joy. We say, “Was that life? Well then, once more.”

 

A few days ago, D. and I received an answer to the question I asked myself after the race. The bun in her oven is six weeks and baking, coming this July 2015.

I remember our reactions when we first saw the results on the pregnancy test kit, or when we went to the doctor to confirm. We didn't jump for joy. I didn't announce it to the neighbors nor did we post it on social media. We had a more sober reaction. It called for a drink. I opened the chilled bottle of Stolichnaya in the ref, and made a vodka seven. It was calm, quiet, celebratory toast. Our reaction did not at all mean that we weren't excited. Our excitement remains unwavering as our happiness has just multiplied. This time we're just more complacent. The first experience of having a child will not diminish that of our second. We're stronger now, as some of the fears that we've known before will be assuaged by experience.

 

And we are so happy for Kuya I. We will be able to grant both of them the opportunity, the powerful bond with a sibling. "I hope it's a boy!" He says. He wants to call the baby Human Torch, and we all could be the fantastic four. Hearing him say that, we light up.

 

We know that the seemingly irreversible dysfunctions of this country, the declining state of the environment, the mere difficulty of living, of having another mouth to feed, makes one rethink the prospect of bringing another child into the world. We knew though, in our hearts, that having a child, and this time a second child, is a repeated expression of our profoundest affirmation of hope. We know for a fact that with our first one, we were not hardened by the daily grind, nor were we disheartened by the chores, errands, exhaustion, the changing of diapers, or miscellaneous surprises that caught us blindsided before. We loved it, we loved being parents, and being at our best at raising children who will be wiser and respectful towards life and the lives of others.

 

We look forward to more of the reading, of watching how a child’s innocence form itself into consciousness, a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. We look forward to the smell of baby cologne wafting through the air, crisp linen scent, the subtle sweetness it leaves in the air. Because in our minds, our souls were stirring, singing in a chorus, and we started seeing ourselves in a circle of four.

 

Yes, we are ready. We are ready to love and give everything, all over again.

Funny Love Stories Versus Capitalism

Oh, dear diary. My youth has passed, but the wisdom of age hardly beckons. Why is it so hard to be a grown-up man in this world?

I read Gary Shtyengart's Super Sad Love Story around the time Israel was bombing Gaza with weapons that are probably financed and politically backed by powerful Jews in America. My FB profile bore the flag of Palestine, formed in a ribbon, standing with them.

Shortly after, the umbrella revolution of Hong Kong begins. China, drunk with its self-discovery as global superpower, quells it, apparently by having the triad’s thugs beat up peaceful protesters.

And while people continue to try to occupy, the world is still owned by the 1%

In the meantime, we are now on iphone 6 and IOS 8.2 while Samsung is beating up Apple in sales.

The book is a preview of the bleak future. The cards we have right now, what's happening around us now, is a tell that Styengart delivers elegantly and effectively in a self-deprecating romantic comedy. Simultaneously, it is a satirical culmination of capitalism, a critique on the culture of consumerism. While the US markets collapse, corporate greed (merged or acquired by the Chinese) has taken itself to the point of exploring physical immortality!

China is the world leader and superpower. The dollar is “yuan-pegged” and American is deep in debt, crushed in a financial crisis. People are judged and constantly monitored by literal credit poles and are described as HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) or LWNI (Low Net Worth Individuals). We go around with “fuckability” ratings. The new fashion is "onion skin" jeans and "total surrenders"or underwear that comes off with a press of a button.

Shtyengart infuses the book with a new language and a culture. This language and culture is a monster, and our generation, already lost to our electronic lives is its baby stage. The iPhone grows up to the “apparat” and we dive deeper into that digital limbo. “Images” is an actual university major and “assertiveness” is a minor. Acronyms has bastardized language and “streaming” and “scanning” as opposed to reading, tarnishing all wisdom.

I read this book in its electronic version, and it’s seemingly intentional how the people of the future despise the smell  of books. The protagonist goes,

“You’re my sacred ones.” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.” I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.

Like many books about the future, this one has a glamorized nostalgia glorifies the present time. New YorkCity is given an eloquent tribute.

Noah told me that there’s a day during the summer when the sun hits the broad avenues at such an angle that you experience the sensation of the whole city being flooded by a melancholy twentieth-century light, even the most prosaic, unloved buildings appearing bright and nuclear the edge of your vision that when this happens you want to both cry for something lost and run out there and welcome the decline of the day.

The trees held fast, but the cityscape was in constant flux. The skyscrapers framing the lower half of the park looked tired of their history, stripped of commerce, the executive upper floors staring down into empty lobbies and concrete plazas where lamb kebabs and hummus spreads once fueled the world’s most storied white-collar workforce. Soon they will be replaced with curt, smart residential units with Arab, Asian and Norse designations.

New York, as it is now, is a melting of cultures. It celebrates and hinges upon this blending, as it attacks American Xenophobia. And this is supposed to be a funny story, and I laugh at the racial stereotypes that were presented precisely. The Korean mom goes:

How do you think you have Mommy for? Anyway, you have trouble write to me not only when you need money. When you work lawyer Mommy proud of you and you do not ask her for money. You will be proud because you help Mommy and family. Family is most important, otherwise, why GOD put us on earth? …Revernd Cho say all young people have special path? Please tell me if you know, other wise we look together. And keep Jesu in your heart, it is important! Also there are Korean boys everywhere. Go to Korean church and you will find date.

Perhaps it isn't so precise, or I haven't looked hard enough. I've been trying too look up a reference of this supposed Korean Proverb, to no avail: 

Beyond the mountains, according to the old Korean proverb Grace had once told me, were more mountains. We’d only just begun.

Gary Shteyngart, with girlfriend Mabel Hwang;
photo by Melissa Hom; from New York Magazine

The Ghost's Perspective

The wholesome-is-awesome pace of my family-centered life settles in a consistent trend. Work is stressful, the travelling makes me lose my bearings even more quickly but I've more or less adapted in settling with it in my own amicable way. 

The truth is I spend the largest slice of my time with family. I have consciously chosen to enjoy conversations with I. and D. At age 4, he sings Yellow Submarine and Strawberry Fields Forever, and duets with D. on songs from Disney. Spending time with them is something like being introverts, altogether. Nonetheless, I allocated alone time and ran 71.5km last August including an organized half-marathon. 

I've made the most progress in reading this year, thanks to the ebook reader. When Haruki Murakami's new novel came out in bookstore shelves, I rewarded myself with the First American Edition and smelled all the creaminess out of the paper. I finished it in a week. Reading it and holding it was like making a sugary, intangible feeling - tangible. And I know I will find the time to write about that separately. And with everything that occupies our time - we had renovations going on at home.  

I do not find a sense of fulfillment in work. I will not glamorize the lifestyle it has enabled, nor romanticize how the industry I belong to has supported the economy and generated 1 million jobs. But I do find fulfillment in what I do outside work. If I lose my job, I know I have found how to sustain what truly fills me with joy and continue striving to shape life with some meaning.  

For all that I've received, I am thankful. I step away from myself now and become a ghost that looks at the spot where I am. It's not so bad. I go back and tell myself never to take this fleeting thing for granted. 

As a family, we have lunches and dinners out every so often. A Sunday or two ago we were at a Korean restaurant. The sun had just set. We start with romaine lettuce, kimchi, drink barley tea. We order a platter of meat. A waitress grilled the meat at our table: thin short ribs, beef top blade, beef chuck roll. The smoke rises in my face. 

There goes the ghost. I hear it beneath the fizz, humming a quiet Sunday piano piece. It's familiar. Joe Hisaishi's playing the theme from Spirited Away.

 

Drafting Dreams

How does one endeavor to build someone's happiness and draft the blueprint of an early history of someone's dreams? We are never really too conscious of this question as we fulfill our day-to-day obligations as parents - feeding, clothing, reading, introducing the world and being at best efforts to hand off values and a sense of responsibility. We were never the type of parents who think that they will be grooming a genius who will end the evils of greed and capitalism, but we try in our own humble, neutral way, to show him how we went about this fascinating and often perplexing planet that somehow afforded us some joys. 

Our answer to the question is to reciprocate the happiness that has been passed on to us, then let him learn to build it on his own and make it real by sharing it with others and spreading kindness. Now, that's not bad coming from a rather preachy, slightly eccentric father who makes an effort to keep his own table and eat alone during lunch at the office. 

Our answer to the question is to make you thirst for knowing, and discovering joy as you immerse into the process of knowing through books, through your interactions with people, through travelling, through the internet (your favorite). And while you are only four, we also respected your interests and inclinations - which is probably shaped from our own. One of the few things your father believed in Plato was that Intelligence results to Goodness. I simplify it, or maybe made it less generalized, in saying that wisdom persuades us to be kind. 

So to celebrate your fourth 360-degree spin around the earth, we didn't take you to Greece to learn about the ancients, or to Sudan to experience hunger first-hand, nor did we buy you a new Mac, or a new book. Heavily weighing upon your own interests as a four year old, and our middle-class inclinations, we took you to Hong Kong Disneyland. 

So it was now all part of the building of your happiness, drafted upon the blueprint of the early history of your dreams. This is the beginning of your learning about the fascination and consternation that you will gather in life as your travel. You sat on my shoulders while we watched the fireworks blasting in tune with themes from Disney movies. We saw your favorite Philharmagic twice, our perceptions of reality made positively phantasmal by 3D, by evocative scents, by water squirted to us while in the theater. You were wearing your Woody costume in the flights of fancy parade, and Woody stopped by to hug you. We had breakfast with Chef Mickey. 

It was all as if the draft of your dreams was a fulfillment of one of our own. 

Chumu-Chunking Express

It's past midnight. We just finished an obligatory trek up to Victoria Peak via the tram, the ding-ding tram, and a bus on the way down. We went along with our friend B. and her two kids after Xiao Long Baos at the Din Tai Fung. Up at the peak, We congratulated ourselves for the toursity effort with a 22oz Stella Artois each and spent an hour drinking with a panoramic view of the city by the window. I. sleeps on my shoulder.

As soon as we were back in our Causeway Bay hotel at Pennington St., I go down again to get more booze. I'm on the lookout for cheaper beer, as the prices at Victoria Peak and Disneyland had been criminal. During this trip, we've dined at two Michelin star restaurants. In this midnight walk, I spot a hole in the wall and point a picture of a dimsum. The old man, alone at the counter, didn't speak any english but gestured there's no more but gave me a plate of something anyway. I hold my money in my open palm and he takes how much its worth.

I found a supposedly-famous Danish Bakery and it was closed. I peek through the window and in the dark - a baker wearing a sando is mixing the dough as early as 1am.

I remember Chunking Express.  It "depcited a paradox... even though the characters live in densely packed Hong Kong, they are mostly lonely and live in their own inner worlds." I keep walking.

The 7-11's still busy at this time of day, and I get 500ml cans of Stella Artois at about HK$16. A relief after paying almost HK$99 for 22oz earlier at the peak. I try some of the local chips. Back at the hotel, the pleasant staff greet me good night. Chillout music pipes in at the elevator, giving the hotel an urban, contemporary feel. There is an aromatic scent of wood, halogen lights glowing against the black walls and mirrors.  I have my beer and chips by the bed, world cup on the TV along with watching my wife and son sleep in a part of the city that always sells and never seems to get tired. It's like slipping back in this cozy space inside me, lodged in some inner world, in some other country. Only this time, I'm certainly not lonely. 

The Reveling in Between

D. has a way of conjuring an element of spontaneity in her planning. An itinerary she's designed will have several options, room for surprises, room for being lost and amazed. Her intent and thought-process is around being sunk into the fun and learned experience of travel as opposed to a mechanical following of instructions, guides or maps.

We traverse life this way, not going from point A to point B, but reveling in between.

Our four-day trip to Hong Kong revolved around a two-day pass to Disneyland in celebration of our boy's Fourth. In my mind, that was our sole agenda, almost as if I had a mercantile approach to planning a trip alongside achieving an objective. I had to be reminded, or perhaps enlightened, with the fact that we needed to delve and enjoy the most minute of details as opposed to seeing a trip as a purchased experience. That was the look on the little one's face when he saw his own Mickey Mouse hotel slippers, of Mickey Mouse speaking in the elevator, or Mickey Mouse as the chef in the restaurant.

Though I didn't even count on being able to run because we had a full agenda, she did ask me to pack my running shoes. I might find Victoria Park or the well-equipped hotel gym's treadmill inviting. When I looked down from the window of the tasteful hotel she picked for us in Lantau Island, the view unfolded like a well thought-out running path. My feet tickled. From nine floors up, I looked down and said, I'm running there.

As I may have only run this path once, I dropped the idea of keeping a decent pace or even covering a set distance. Beaded in sweat, I ran this path with the purest of reasons: seeing the breathtaking views, inhaling the mountain air, immersing in another country's everyday life and finding myself, in yet another unfamiliar path - where I ran for the first time.

Security

The coffee shop is within an enclosed, glass stadium in the shape of an almond eye. It's Wednesday morning and the place is near-empty, except for a few office workers who order to-go. The coffee shop's security guard also takes his break. He gets his complimentary grande coffee jelly frapuccino in a plastic glass that's faded with drinks and time. A straw stabs the coffee through a swirl of whipped cream. He sits with a gun in his holster. Against the background of newly-erected condominiums in this land that used to be all sea, cigarette smoke exhales through his nostrils. He tears open a packet of chocolate biscuits. He tinkers with touch screen Samsung smart phone. His white ear phones are pressed against his lobes, as if to tie him up in amused concentration. The scene, against the pane of tempered glass that divided us, is an abstract, living painting.

A timer makes a faint alarm. He goes back to opening doors for people, greeting them as they enter, doing his job to keep them all secure.

Jairus is Thirty-Two

It was my (our) birthday. I thought this looked nice. I get to wear a a fitted navy blue suit, checkered shirt (supposedly in fashion these days) with a bronze red tie. The intent wasn't to try to look glamorous (or decent) because I'm celebrating life and my thirty-third spin around the earth, or having dinner somewhere fancy with my D. (which would I really would have preferred).

I had to wear this because we had a Quarterly Business Review that day and high-level clients flew in. We were required to suit-up, with  touch of red, after the client's brand. And like most days, I had a long drive passing through bottleneck traffic.

Pleasantly and conveniently enough, I managed, with an effective effort, to keep most people in the office and social media distracted about the day we were born. It spares us the awkwardness of the obligation to reciprocate with thank yous. And we escaped those blow-outs, ha!

But I will not digress, or worse, appear dramatic or appear cheap.

I wore that suit to keep up an illusory character, to keep up with phony smiles and speak in the language of call center twiddle-twaddle that I do for a living.

I've noticed how what I wrote here recently is often positively charged. It's as if my life is candy-coated with a cheery loquaciousness that colorfully censors or omits the rueful portions, or that I've been shamelessly, selfishly happy especially in a country that plagued with corruption and the world, with injustice and greed.

I would think that you'd read this one day. There are plights in life, but you'll decipher that all on your own, and your own terms. I'll throw in as much as you will receive. In secret, all fathers hope that their children will be better wo/men that they are. I would lie to you if I tell you that's it's only been all good, or that I didn't regret to try out what would have been braver or maybe better in electing what I do for a living.

Inside me, I would have stayed with you and mom that day. You are both the real, inequitable joy that makes me no longer want to ask for anything. We grow old, and I think ahead to how to convey, that it's not just about what you wear.

The Transformation Of Memory

From 2005

The resort's service drove us over to Station Two. This was the bustle of the beach on a Monday: blonde European (Eastern European, seems like) stick figures paraded in their bikinis. Preschool American girls walked like barbie dolls, their southern-accented parents scouting the restaurant menus for cheeseburgers and french fries. Foreigners from the Asia Pacific stuttered in broken English as they ordered mango shakes. The dazed voices of teenagers. The lethargic, hung-over hum of twenty-somethings in conversation. A little while later, when the tides are low for the sunset, the hardworking middle class of the Philippines visiting this island will take pictures of themselves during sunset in a fleeting moment of majesty. The last embers of sunshine will paint the landscape golden, against blue sails, powdery white sand and green turning into teal then blue waters.

2014

It's all beautiful, but there's also an unconsoling effect in how places lose their old-world flair. "It didn't have the charm it had when you first brought me here." D. says. We were dismayed with how overly commercialized the place was, with how the back of the beach looked like a typical busy street in downtown Manila. The beach also had a Starbucks, Pancake House, Andoks, several banks. While we don't loathe those establishments it was certainly a sign of decay for a place such as the beach. Many years ago, there were small-scale, not-so-known restaurants here which played good music, served decent food and nurtured a thriving spirit. What we truly abhored, with a passion, were people who leave their garbage and cigarette butts in the beach.

And while our expectations were properly gauged, the beach remains spectacular enough to assuage our disappointments. The moment our heels pressed against the purity, the softness the sand, we were delighted to be back. We sipped the welcome drink. We've only been to a couple of beaches, but this had the most immaculate sand greeting our toes like old friends. The little one found the sand irresistible. The sand was anthropomorphic - it was a living playmate to him.

Summer is on its way to its peak, but it drizzled every now and then and it was mostly cloudy. There was a better spread of sunshine and it wasn't too scorchingly hot.

D. made a terrific choice in our resort. Beach-front, quiet, less cramped and fits our tastes and preferences like a glove - family oriented, decent liquor prices during happy hour, and excellent pizza. We associate the beach with the smell of baking bread. As we gobbled their thin crust four-cheese with pale pilsen, we were gearing up for a new high.

The enzymes of food was being broken down by my mouth, and it lights a neuron in my brain: the margherita pizza I had in Hey Jude, here, around a decade ago. I was eating it while watching a Daliesque sunset, like being inside his "Persistence of Memory," watching time melt. I was lot more alone, and I only thought I was wiser. I can't say I'm any wiser now, but I certainly have developed an ability to positively, more strongly adapt and respond to change, to my own life's catalytic actions. I didn't know what I really wanted back then. And looking at what I have now, so less of myself, I have everything.

We spent a lot of time lying down in the beach-front cabanas. There was a bigger foreigner versus local resident ratio and people mostly read while getting a tan. You can hear some faint chillout music which was back from the late 90s and that's a nice glimmer of an older, kindred spirit. 

On our second day, we went to a music bar that's been around since the first time I was here. It was 2pm and couples were having drinks and enjoying the music. In conversation, D. remarked, “That’s what it’s supposed to be like. Like Riley bay with the music.”

Boracay is known as a party resort, but that perspective really depends on what you do when you get here. We weren't here to party or meet people, but we sought out our own unique pleasures. We didn't go para-sailing or the water sports. I. and D. were sun-worshiping and building sandcastles. And we all went swimming too, the pressures and worries of ordinary life getting cleansed. The resulting saltiness in our tongue was washed away with Jonah's fruit shakes. I did go running barefoot in this soft sand, spanning all the stations of the island. I also started juggling a football with my legs and toes and a moment later, I was doing some passes with a Russian family. All in this in between enjoying the 1pm - 8pm happy hour.

On the resort's wide beach front, there were poles of a volleyball court and a net planted on the sand. There was a home vs away set-up: foreigners vs locals. I took time off my book tow watch and look around. Two Caucasian gentlemen who had their skin toasted to an orange were playing racket. Around them, some teenagers, in their bikinis and board shorts, were throwing each other a frisbee.

There's an LTE signal and the beach air was thick with wifi, but we preferred conversations with each other and with some guests at the resort. We barely touched our phones, and only posted a picture or two. We didn't expect to make friends, but from a good distance, we naturally do some small talk with a family from Canada who traveled with their one year old, and exchanged a welcoming gesture to the family we rode with in the resort's shuttle. I suppose our little one was friendlier than us. He sits with kids in 

the sand, and borrows or trades the beach toys.

We only spent three days, and put as much sun block on the little one as possible. But he was surprisingly all tan after the trip. Well, we all were. We will light up afterward, but in the meantime we will enjoy this color. Its the sun's thousand kisses scattering itself on its skin. And in our minds, it creates this beautiful, impermanent ripple of memories that's always positively transforming.

Muscovado Versus the World

I was out there for work in the first place, but I didn't want work to distort my notion of travelling. While I was concentrated on business as I will only be on the locations only for a very brief visit, I wouldn't want to let the company steal the too little personal time I'll have left.

We often commit these sins against ourselves: being all busy and self-important all savvy on smart phones while building someone else's empire. 

I came straight from a full 8-hour shift and upon arriving to the airport, the flight on the way to Bacolod was delayed. I kept answering a few emails and received a call or two. There was time, and it would have been another sin to be bored. So I pull that ebook reader out and rekindled my penchant for being alone. I got a chapter each from David Sedaris, David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. The stomach grumbles and I head to a shop for shepherd's pie and coffee while I watch an episode of Bourdain's No Reservations on the phone. He takes me to Argentina, somewhere I wouldn't mind going but somewhere I'll probably never be. I'm in the airport, so, close enough. The sun is bright and and it's a glorious day for travel. I'll see the cities and the islands from the plane's window. 

From the airport to the hotel, Bacolod greets you with sugarcane fields as they claim the landscape. My memory fills me with a short story or two I read about hacienderos and their children who marry their cousins to keep their estate within the family. I learned from one of the managers later on that the local sugar industry's struggling as it has to compete with importers from abroad who came here from the free trade agreements. Not to mention that the world is also brimming over with high-fructose corn syrup. 

I'm out here in a beautiful province where the air supposed to be fresh. I arrive at the hotel and smell of their many cleaning agents and air fresheners a lot like the fabric conditioner in my newly dry-cleaned suit. I go down for another merienda and the pasalubong has a small kiosk for freshly-made (right in front of you), hot purple-yam flavored piyaya almost for the price of a piece of hard candy or a stick of gum. Before we head to work, C., drives me to town for dinner. We had coffee and cake at place called Calea. The place was packed and I can taste why. You can tell that this food is a craft, a family oriented specialty as opposed to being a mass-produced industrial product. Coffee is served along with a jar of muscovado. Interestingly enough, the place is owned by the same person or family who also owns a hotel chain, or maybe a row of cane fields.  

The lifestyle's laid back and the crowd speaks in dialect that's almost like a song. It's no wonder they don't need much corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. 

And a Little of Iloilo

A meal is a gastronomical handshake and I'm glad to be here again and be acquainted even for just a little bit more. You expect everything from Iloilo's La Paz Batchoy: pork rinds, liver slices, beef, innards, noodles, an egg, soup. There's the warmth, and a sip's a relief that has the effectiveness of an embrace. It made me feel alive after last night's chugging of beers with clients and our office folks. While I consciously enjoyed myself, I know how tentative this pleasure is, as I've always been intent on leaving the company. I've been saying, but I haven't left for over eight years.

It's a quiet Tuesday afternoon. I'm having this tablea frappe at a dessert place in Iloilo's Smallville. The local chocolate tastes more natural and delicious, and it's not as sweet. As it fizzles out in my body, i'm trusting that it's helping me recover from an almost heart-attack induced by La Paz Batchoy The breeze though, is the one that's rich and sweet, there must have been muscovado in the air. This is also the area where we had dinner last night. Interestingly enough, you've got six or so different restaurants and a hotel owned by the same person or family.

A young crowd fills the other chairs: students in uniform or clad in the trendy fashion of the young. The chairs beside me are empty, so I start to imagine the two of you sitting like we do when we are out together. Wherever I go without the two of you, I am empty and I've never really gone anywhere.

The Way Light Falls

While I do not fear contradiction, I am nagged by a feeling of guilt for being too quick to judge. I think I am still right about everything I said about books in this post a few months ago, but in a sense I've also betrayed the books. I feel unfaithful for abandoning my profoundly sentimental reasons.

I gave in to ebooks for practical reasons. While I had to dish out six grand for an ebook reader and another grand or two for the smart sleep cover, it was easy to redeem the value of the investment. Even if I've been selective, I have gathered enough reading material to last me a few years. I've acquired an decent line-up of ePub versions. To name a few: Hauruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, Italo Calivno, Umberto Eco, Banana Yoshimoto, Tom Wolfe, as well as more recent ones I haven't read from Jonathan Franzen, Nicole Krauss, Junot Diaz, Gary Shtyengart, David Foster Wallace and even a short story collection edited by Jeffrey Eugenides that included one from Alice Murno. I also got some current magazine issues and for the first time in my life, I wasn't just reading New Yorker back issues that I pick-up from second-hand bookshops.

Perhaps it's an infatuation, but I did read a lot quicker and more often. The convenience of technology allowed me some advantages. With a built-in comfort light that's not too glaring, I can read in bed and still lay beside my D. and little I. I've spent a lot of time at airports the past few weeks and with a device that can carry thousands of books, it allowed me to switch back forth a few that I've stored. I've made an attempt to read "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. If that gets too heavy, I couple it with a chaser or two of non-fiction from David Sedaris (Exploring Diabetes with Owls) or Jonathan Franzen (Farther Away) which I honestly end up reading more.

A perfect handle, adjustable font sizes/margins, a variety of font selections, long battery life, a web browser, a dictionary, highlights and annotations in a touch are also built-in conveniences. There's barely anything poetic about technology but I feel fascinated with what goes on whenever light falls on the surface of the ebook reader. From halogens of coffeeshops, the CFCs of our bedsides lamps, and especially sunlight, the pearl-ink screen gives off a magical glow. There is a perfect scientific explanation with what's going on behind that gray-scale screen. But each swipe of a finger still feels like alchemy: the wave of a magic wand, a foretelling of the future or an accumulation of an imagined experience. This must have been how enthralled people were after the invention of the Gutenburg press and when books started getting published.

It's a different medium of consuming content, an enabler to feed your imagination as a novel or  mere words, come to life. It wasn't as soulless as I thought it would be, given that it was just a perfunctory 6-inch, colorless tab.

Perhaps all my self-contradiction and incongruity is really just being romantic. The old man is now sitting in his lazy boy, all the while dreaming about his old chair.

No technology, no chemical could ever replace the smells.

We are Still High

The evening's city lights and wine as we celebrated five years of marriage.

We called our wedding "the making of our lives as a truly blissful trip." We've settled down since then. While the ride has been smooth sailing, we remained on a high. 

The Hipsterrific, Instagrammy Future

While I am no one important or influential myself, I credit Spike Jonze as a profound influence in my taste for consuming media. In the zit-ridden absurdity of my teens, his work was a sweet bubble gum that my vivid imagination kept chewing, spending countless hours as though drugged on MTV. It had the randomness, creativity, formlessness, vicissitudes  of joy versus pain, and perhaps plain insensibility of videos such as Buddy Holly by Weezer, Cannonball by the Breeders, It’s oh So Quiet by Bjork, Diamond Sea by Sonic Youth and Praise You by Fat Boy Slim. It made all the weirdness I felt --- pleasant. Moreover, the tenets of the Spike Jonze’s “Her” has been entrenched in me long before and I have finally witnessed a fulfilling, enlightening culmination that is the movie.

Okay, that was a little vague, most especially for kids who were just born in the late 90s. But I’m an avid reader, and in fact I have read something from a hotshot contemporary author like Jonathan Franzen that references, and certainly better explains the foundational possibility of the Spike Jonze love story, “Her.”

“…according to the logic of technoconsumerism, in which markets discover and respond to what consumers most want, our technology has become extremely adept at creating products that correspond to our fantasy ideal of an erotic relationship, in which the beloved object asks of nothing and gives everything, instantly and makes us feel all-powerful…. the ultimate goal of technology, the telos of techne, ” is to replace a natural world that is indifferent to our wishes – a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance – with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self. Let me suggest, finally, that the world of technoconsumerism is therefore troubled by real love, and that it has no choice but o trouble love in return.”
By Jonathan Franzen, in Pain Won’t Kill You, commencement address, Kenyon College, May 2011. Published in the collection Farther Away  

In Her, the not-so-distant future is hipsterrific and instagrammy. My, I’m even inventing my own terminology! The fashion of the day is high-waist and inelegant, but it looks like it finally makes sense as nobody could care less. This future is a logical result of a love affair that begun with our ubiquitous iPhones. Siri’s descendant is an “OS” that speaks with the voice of Scarlett Johansson. This OS, with its fuck-worthy voice, is also super-customized to be simultaneously everything we ever wanted, while being an effective extension of ourselves.

Theodore: Well, you seem like a person but you're just a voice in a computer.
Samantha: I can understand how the limited perspective of an unartificial mind might perceive it that way. You'll get used to it.
[Theodore laughs]
Samantha: Was that funny?
Theodore: Yeah.
Samantha: Oh good, I'm funny!

Several, even canonical works of literature tossed out the idea that technology will surpass humanity. Maybe so, but maybe not always in a way that we get gobbled up by the monsters we create. In the space made in-between, there will be so much novelty . There are dance numbers, great conversations, the aesthetic strangeness I felt when I saw the video of Diamond Sea, Buddy Holly or Praise You.

In a witty dialogue seemingly tailor-fit to a hipster audience, a line from the movie goes, “We are only here briefly, and in this moment I want to allow myself joy.”

And A Chummy Side Note

On this first You Tube Music Awards, Spike Jonze directed a live music-video performance of Arcade Fire's Afterlife, featuring Greta Gerwig. I posted it on Facebook, with the intention of spreading a piece of joy and the privilege of being fascinated, to friends who share the same tastes.

Nobody but my Her liked it. We watched it again and again, fending off all the aloneness that may have been rooted upon (quite ironically) by social media and the technology that enables it.