Three from this Year

Look Who's Back
by Timur Vermes

In freshman Philosophy class, our professor described what would have been the reaction of the Greek Gods (Zeus, et. al) if they saw the image of who we worshiped these days. Jesus Christ is crucified, bloody, crowned with thorns, a powerless figure of pity. Zeus would have reacted, "Is that your God?" I chuckled. Timur Vermes works on the same premise in this book. Hitler wakes up in present-day Berlin and thinks that the lady in the park scooping her dog's poo is a lunatic. It's funny all throughout, and it's not lacking in historical insight. The truth is, the death toll on this "war on terror" led by America and its Allies almost makes Hitler's war a laughing matter.

Revolution
by Russell Brand

Brand himself concedes that this book is a line-up of ideas of other thinkers/experts such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Joseph Campbell, Che Guevara, Fawzi Ibrahim. He also builds upon concepts from the East, from Feminism and Socialism. He tells his own tale of addiction and poverty. He delves into details but he won't bore you. It's sometimes shocking and often entertaining, without compromising the efficacy of the heavy ideas he is introducing - some of the most urgent and relevant in our time. I take this comedian very seriously. I think it helps that I read the electronic version along with the audio version. I had 37 pages worth of annotations, the most in everything I read this year.

The Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway

I'm still catching up on what I should have read at an earlier part of my life. Hemingway makes machismo sound so romantic. "Now you are getting confused in the head, he thought. You must keep your head clear. Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man." I still love him.

Women and December

On a wet December afternoon, the rain falls on the roofs like so many knocks to the heart. Clad in cardigans, hooded jackets, we were off to see the seventh installment of Star Wars - The Force Awakens. I.'s school sponsored a premier and we thought that a communal experience with his schoolmates was called for. Unlike Episodes 1-3 which heavily leveraged on the new available technology and eye-popping special effects, this new one goes back to touching what was wonderfully familiar: telling stories, exploring characters, along with rekindling a nostalgia.

What struck us the most was the appearance of a new, mysterious young heroine from a planet called Jakku. Rey is strong-willed and charming with an English accent, like a teenage, dolled-up version of Kiera Knightley. She seemed to embody the empowered women of this generation.

A few days forward and the sun begins to shine again this December. And like a ray of hope entering this country, the Philippines through Pia Wurtzbach, bags a Miss Universe crown. To our lot, that's like winning the world cup. But who can really tell that this is a country where the most beautiful women dwell?

A few days later, while D. beats the Christmas shopping rush, I hang out with I. in a coffee shop. I re-read Shakespeare's Macbeth and while I no longer attempt deconstructive or post-colonial readings of texts, I do find something new, or a different view of what I first perceived. The famous quote in Act V, for example:

Life is but a walking shadow, a poor playerthat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury  

Signifying nothing. 

I always thought that this an advocacy of nihilism, but looking at the context these were really the words of a man drunk with overconfidence. When he said those lines, his wife just died, and his castle is about to be attacked. My attention was caught by Lady Macbeth - how she really was the woman behind the man, who gave him the mean streak that things called for.

I remember a line from Martin Scorsese's Casino: "I've decided to complicate my life." That's what Robert de Niro's character said when he decided to marry Sharon Stone's character.

Another few days ago, I found out that I will have another woman in my life.

We first saw her through a sonogram. She bounced around in her mother's belly, looking like she was doing some yoga poses, and she kept on moving as though she was telling us that she will not only be beautiful, but also complicated, brave, sometimes inscrutable and yes, exciting, peering through this promise of enlightenment.

Women are more complicated, and truly more powerful than men. One day she will be a woman, serenaded with music, men wooing about, maybe even with poetry dripping from their tongues.

You're only on your way to this world, but it already feels complicated as it is beautiful. And it also feels affirmatively complete.  It as if the rain has cleared, or a wound has healed and the warmest room in our hearts, with all of our love - eagerly awaits.

The Eternal Recurrence Of Chris

About a month ago, an officemate of mine passed away in a road accident. Like most days, he chose to bike to work that day and was hit by a car he was waiting on the lane to cross. It was between 7-8 am, and he was about a kilometer away from the office when he passed.

I did not know Chris, and I wager he was a far better man than I am.  We do share several stark similarities. Both of us have been in the same company for 10 years, we both have a 5-year old who likes Spiderman, and we both have a baby on the way.

The way people are – we should not just be pointlessly disconnected. The grief is real, and even those who did not know him will be able to relate, sympathize or even drive change. His death has started a stir in the city for more share-the-road advocates, eye-openers for drivers to become more mindful of bikers.

I’ve been wanting to bike to the office for some time. It’s a laughable 5km distance and I have to ride the car alone with no one to carpool with. But true enough, our roads, the world-record-breaking traffic and raging drivers are not ready for bicycles. And I’ve been moved, thinking that nothing will ever happen if we just leave things as how they are now if we literally just burn more fuel into the system.

And so I got myself a helmet, borrowed my brother’s bike, and set myself pedaling to work on some days. I also added cycling to my cross-training. It’s just a start.

My eyes opened not only to a driver’s mindfulness, but to the serenity and hidden stories, sounds, and smells of a city that I often take for granted when I drive past through it the air-conditioned enclosing of a car. Now I can really pause for a few minutes to see the sunset. And every time, I also honor Chris.

Now let’s get this company to incentivize employees who bike to work, and have them start installing showers.

Ang Iyong Hinabing Haraya

Limang taon na ang nakalilipas mula ng tumapak kami sa loob ng tanghalan. Madalas, dati, bilang magkasintahan, malikhain ang mga gabi namin sa pagpanood ng mga dula, pagtanghal, pelikula, at sayaw. Hanggang sa pinayaman at inubos ang oras namin ng pagiging magulang. Hanggang muli naming panonood ang iyong dula sa eskwela.

“Sumabay ang puso ko sa paglundag,” sinabi mo. My heart skipped along. Isa ka sa mga ibon na umawit ng “Tignan mo, tignan mo, galing ko at talento. Di ko akalain na meron akong, natatanging lakas.” Akmang akma at napapanahon ang mga linya ng isang dula na umikot sa temang bullying.

Hindi naman drama ang palabas, pero tuloy tuloy ang tahimik ko na pagluha sa galak – lalo na kung paano pumusisyon ang pagkilos ng dula kasama ang mga ka-eskwela mo na iba ang abilidad (dating tinatawag na may kapansanan). Hindi rin bilang bida ang pagganap mo, pero mukha namang natural ang paggalaw mo sa ilalim ng ilaw.

Hindi lang ang dula ang pinapood namin. Pinapanood din namin kung paano hinuhugis ng karanasang ito ang puso mo sa pagiging mabuti at malikhain. Kung hindi ko hinayaan na pagyamanin at ubusin ng pagiging magulang ang oras ko, hindi ko sana nakita ang palabas na ito. Tulad mo sa dulang ito, tuloy ko paring tinutuklasan ang mga sarili kong hiwaga.

Meron din mga hiwaga na malinaw na sa amin ngayon. Tulad ng ligaya bilang magulang. Tulad ng buong puso naming pagmamahal sayo at higit pa.

At hindi lang ikaw ang nagsayaw ngayong gabi. Habang nasa entablado ka, sumabay din ang munti mong kapatid, hinahabi sa sinapupunan.

Evening Plans

A year ago, on late evenings like this, I would have been dragging myself off to work in faraway Nova, stopping by fast food drive thrus for terrible coffee. The gloom in my heart was as dark as the streets, piercing like a thorn. I spend the rest of the night pretending, performing my unforgiving job. A year ago, I tried to quit my job.

Tonight, and many nights like this, when the D. and I. are tucked in, I temporarily regain a sense of aloneness. I take to literature, writing, music, whisky, beer, coffee, squandering time on the internet, watching some TV series.

A year ago, all I wanted was to do what I'm doing tonight. Stay home, read a book or a back issue of the New Yorker (listing down more books to read and movies to watch) while drinking iced coffee, bluetooth speakers pouring beautiful sonic showers from Death Cab for Cutie, Ra Ra Riot, Tokyo Police Club, Arctic Monkeys with pangs of nostalgia from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. I feel like a stitched wound of mine has healed, or that I've pulled that thorn out of my heart.

Oh, and I managed to keep my job. Now I'm looking for new reasons to quit. The more I fuel that desire, the more I light my passion and start either believing or fooling myself that there is always something even more grand in the night.

Hydration Belt Dessert Menu

It's Monday most despised. We return to the grinding reality of work after the ephemeral pleasures of the weekend. I consider myself fortunate because I have one of the reserved parking slots in a spanking new building and live within a short running distance (about 6k) away from the office. The rest of my fellow workers are packed like sardines in a train, or enduring abominable traffic in buses that crawl and crisscross the highways like drunken turtles. Even that metaphor seems like an understatement. The struggle to go to work is a job in itself. Work and the working conditions for most workers are terrible. We should just all run against Capitalism.   

It’s Monday, there’s a lot of heavy lifting (just figurative, I scarcely lift even a pen here) at the office today, and the muscles in my legs feel fatigued from Sunday’s 21k Run. Mondays like these, there’s a twisted irony on how the fatigue in my legs actually fuels my endurance to live through another day at work. This pain is my spark. This pain comes from running.  

Running has been my representation of self-overcoming. I jog my memory now and realize how it’s always been the role of the runs to create these metaphors.

I made several milestones this year. Last March – I’ve reached the elusive sub-2 on a 21k run. The mantra for that run was to execute the rhythm spontaneously instead of fussing over the linear details of a plan. To truly run, not to chase, and to be flexible enough to change.  I didn’t even think I was stronger, or that my training was better than the last couple of organized runs where I attempted a sub-2 21k PR. The training was only more rigorous because I made it an outlet against a big blow to D. and I – there was the miscarriage. She had to endure more. Looking back to it now, that’s how the run felt: to run strong is like speaking the truth with conviction. But I wouldn’t carry my own chair too much, because it was a literal sprint to the finish. I’m only sub-2 by 9 seconds (chip time). Nevertheless, it is what it is, and to speak the truth with conviction you have comfortable with who you are. Right after that race, while I can still feel the cramps, I was decided on running a full marathon.  

Last June – I ran the longest run of my life (thus far), completing 32k in 3:32. The mantra was to conserve yourself, run at your pace. And while that was going through my mind, I enjoyed the irony of running along with the 3:05 pacers up until the 25k mark towards Makati and Ayala Avenue. There was a contagious positive vibe among the pack, like you belonged. It felt even better than having a seat in the conference room of a high-level meeting. But even after three energy gels, I didn’t have enough, and I knew I didn’t have enough steam to follow them through the finish. So I run at my own pace, the same way I have to collapse my own walls and staggered on my own to the finish line. This way, running is a joyful emptiness as opposed to a proud accomplishment. The former is preferable.  

Now I’m Training for a 42k. The gun start is in about three weeks. For the last four months of training, while limited to running twice a week I added at least 243 km under my belt. The real training, the metaphors, was piped in since 2008. I imagine they are all more solidly ingrained and flowing into my life now.

I bought myself a new GPS watch. Little I. asked if we could buy him a pumpkin.

Sure I recently did some pretty stupid stuff too. I bought the Brooks reflective hat that lights up, another pair of pure project shoes that “hug-every-turn.” I bought a new Garmin GPS watch that doubles as a fitness tracker, since my old one’s battery won’t last four hours on GPS. I’ll expect to finish the marathon in over 5. I’ve already selected the flavours of my energy GU gels for the marathon: Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Outrage and Espresso Love. It’s a dessert menu that I’ll stick to my belt while running. This reminds me that I also scored the second hydration belt of my life. I got the Fitletic one with silicone grippers to eliminate the “bounce.”  Congratulations, Capitalism, you’ve ruined the earth and you’ve ruined running. Capitalism is the real wall we need to collapse.

I didn’t stop drinking alcohol, sometimes bingeing, with no radical changes on my diet. I shed and earn a few pounds, within BMI but could precariously and easily be off if I lose control. Sure, it all sounds stupid, but I couldn’t say it wasn’t any fun.

I’m excited about creating a new metaphor for the 42k. It’s shaping up as we move to the final stages. It’s going to be brilliant. But for now, it’s really just “Fuck you, Monday, I despise you.” 

Now We're Lightyears Away

Before we go to sleep, we are astronauts. The bed is our spaceship. Wrapped in the sheets, a flashlight spinning on the top of our heads, we count to blast off.

Here with you, we didn't need to go very far to be in outerspace.

In the moon, we have a picnic. We brought tomatoes and sandwiches, until we realize we can't take our helmets off.

---

A week or two ago, we saw a blue moon. A few months back we saw the blood moon.

Last July 1st, there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. Best we can, we told you about the scientific view of orbits and conjunctions. And then we told how mighty Jupiter, coming from far away, crossed our galaxy to gaze at the beauty of Venus. That evening, we saw the planets waltz in the night sky. That's how our world moves us, we told you, to persist in finding what fascinates us.

On your fifth year on earth our fascination is fueled by planets, the constellations and the cosmos. We often sing songs about the planets in our solar system.

---

Sometime last July, the New Horizons mission reached the edge of the solar system, surveying Pluto, the farthest its been 10 years into its journey. We had real time updates and high-resolution pictures as we scroll through smart phones and tablets. How only some years ago, Pluto was a planet, then science contradicts itself saying Pluto is no longer a planet. Earlier this year, re-analysis suggest that previously declared uninhabitable planets are now potentially habitable.

Our knowledge only seems vast.  Our lives are really just minuscule. But the love under our sheets, in our pretend spaceship, I am certain that it is infinite.

---

We always go back home.

It's Okay I'm Asian (Too)

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
By Yiyun Li
Paperback,  205 pages

Why is it that award-winning books by non-American authors are often about patronizing America? Or even stories about non-Americans in America are always patronizing (Recently read – Dave Egger’s “What is the What?”) And it's easy to see in movies, too easy to see in films that win the Academy Award's foreign-language category.

An author, it appears, will have a fatter chance of getting published if they are biased towards American culture by nurturing an anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-middle east, pro-American agenda.

Yiyun Li is undeniably a gifted writer who wrote a charming collection of short stories for her first book, regardless of her agenda. She has the ability to comfortably and swiftly glide the reader through one generation to another, crossing the gaps, telling in a wonderful clarity instead of preaching or judging. She can swing you from one perception to another. We relate to her stories in the way we are renounced, and then redeemed. In the way we all thought that our parents did stupid things until we do these stupid things ourselves.

Outside the school gate, Sansan finds her mother leaning onto the wooden wheelbarrow she pushes to the marketplace every day. Stacked in a it are a coal stove, a big aluminium pot, packs of eggs, bottles of spices, and a small wooden stool. For forty years, Sansan’s mother has been selling hard-boiled eggs in the marketplace by the train station, mostly to travelers. 

There were a lot of sacrifices told in her stories. Stories about families, uncles, husbands and wives, our parents and their seemingly inscrutable reasoning.

This writer is most remarkable in the stories that heartfully explores and precisely describes the sibling-parent relationship. Even if we choose to fall far from the tree, forces find a balanced way to mend.

No matter how non-American authors appear to patronize America, the more insightful and forward-thinking of us will see through it. We will see beyond what many in the West sees as happiness. We will do right by those who came before us, of how self-centered happiness is not the only life-affirming legacy.

Patronizing America is a writer’s sacrifice.

We Glimmer

We were excited for July because of a shallow, artful reason. Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" was coming up on the calendar. Whenever I show I. the the picture, I tell him that this is what happens when we embrace and love, we glimmer bright as gold, we burn like fire revealing the truth.

The real one is Vienna and our poster-calendar by the door is an aid to our playful imagination in bridging the problem of proximity and the problem of fare money. Activated and powered by freshly-ground, pressed barako coffee in a rainy Sunday spent with family, my memory jogs back to February. The association game is on. The sky's gray but it didn't rain. We had a nice drive to Tagaytay. At the restaurant's reception, we stand before a Klimt-looking painting. I recall the feeling that while we will never be rich as Croesus, or rich at all, once in a while we allow ourselves to feel all golden. Here we glow and glimmer as in a Klimt painting.

I had one of the most delicious meals of my life that day. We started with a mushroom cappuccino, along with salads, farm-to-table, with foie gras. For mains, we had medium-rare mayura steak and rack of lamb, fruit sorbets in between, panna cotta and souffle for dessert. And for all of it, we had each other, celebrating six years of marriage with a honeymoon that persists.

We stayed the night in Tagaytay, in a bed and breakfast about 20 minutes away from the restaurant. There was a swing in the playground, where we spent the afternoon pushing against the cool wind.. Right before sunset, I had a chance to run around the Tagaytay-Mendez area. I was, after all, training for an upcoming 32k long run. Some of the roads were uphill, some of them nice and quiet, and I tried to avoid the busy main roads. The altitude was relatively higher, and my lungs enjoyed the rich oxygen from trees and late-afternoon mountain air. On the way back, I hit a road on a residential area with a stray dogs and I got a lot of heavy barking. I got chased by one too. I kept thinking how dogs can smell fear. I kept running along with a thankfulness in my mind, and that our fears, the loneliness that will constantly haunt us, evaporates little by little in beads of sweat, the salt in my skin masking the smell of fear, if not diluting it all. That evening, we diluted it some more with Russian Standard Vodka and apple juice before sleeping in a king-size bed.

When we woke up in the morning, we swam in the cold pool. I.'s lips were turning purple from the cold, so we let him warm up a little, as he insisted on swimming some more. The Tagaytay breeze was still powerful against the sun. It felt all good, because we probably really glowed, our truths burning us up inside.

Pinagtagpi-tagping Pagkakaton Kung Kailan ang Buhay ay Parang Masining na Panaginip

Biyernes ng hapon, at may pagkakataon na dumungaw sa bintana para panoorin ang paglubog ng araw. Kung saan sinabi ng gusali sa kapwa niya gusali, "pahinga tayo."

Ipinaliwanag ko sa iyo kung ano ang photosynthesis, ang kahalagahan at proseso, ang kahalagahan ng detalye. Muli ko din natuklasan ang tunay na may kahulugan, kung ano lang talaga ang ating kailangan.

Limang taong gulang na si Iñigo at ambisyon niyang palitan si Rizal bilang pambansang bayani. Hangarin niyang ayusin ang mga sirang tren sa Pilipinas at ipadala ang mga bata sa mahusay na eskwela. Tinawanan namin siya pero tunay ang aming ligaya. Nagdiwang kami ng kanyang kaarawan kasama ang mga klasmeyt niya, na nagsalo sa keyk na may temang mula sa paborito niyang "Where the Wild Things Are." 

Sa gabi ng kanyang ika-5 kaarawan, nakatulog si I. na walang hapunan, tulad ni Max as kwentong "Where the Wild Things Are." Ilang beses namin siyang sinubukan gisingin para kumain, pero napakahimbing ng kanyang pagtulog. Napansin namin na tumatawa siya't ngumingiti. Nakabilang ako ng tatlong pagkakataon na tumatawa siya habang tulog. Isang klase ng ngiti at tawa na ikinatuwa namin kung ano man kanyang paniginip. Naalala ko din na hangganan ang kanyang paghagikgik nung Sabado at Linggo, habang naliligo sa dagat! Napaginipan niya din kaya ang mga alon na humalik sa buhangin? Naging malikhain kaya ang kanyang pag-iisip at tulad ni Max, sumakay sa maliit na barko, naging hari ng wild things, at nag-"rumpus"? 

Sa gabi ng kanyang ika-5 kaarawan, natulog si I. na higit sa labing-tatlong oras. 

Retirement Plan

The books settled on this shelf are witnesses to my plead: this life is thoughtful.

There are a few books there I haven't read, a small percentage to the tune of roughly about 5% These are mint-conditioned cultural surpluses shipped from other countries to our shores, landing on the bargain. They were too precious to be sitting there, and giving them due dignity, I got them, for a quarter or less of their original value and much less than their price tags in regular bookstores.

Aside from that, I have 60 or so books in ePub format that I acquired but haven't read yet. Who can tell, though, if the epub formats will stand the tests of time? Many of the the physical books are the same ones that filled my shelves in 2013. I picked up an old one, and it had a dedication dated 1996. I picked up another one and it was signed last 1998. This only reinforces the logic of why I tend to hoard physical books. While others consider the unread in their shelves as backlogs, I see them differently.

I look at the shelf and I see how was I then, how am I now, and how I"ll be in the future.

I look at the isolated portion of the 5% I haven't read. I see an old man reading.

Anchored

Here comes another sunset.I sit out the remaining coding hours after work, reading in a coffee shop. The book takes me to Sudan during its civil war, when the murahaleen was burning Dinka villages and adolescent boys from South Sudan were joining the SPLA. It's both enraging and depressing, and while I take no pleasure in the suffering of others, I secretly feel grateful for my own lot in life. My own country, myself, we've had our own plight. But right now the sun is in my face. I have another serving of a sunset.

I set the book down and let the day's last rays of gold activate a memory. It hits spontaneously, like a potent, mnemonic drug.  It was the same sun that fell on us when we were at the beach, with D. and I. I was also reading then, happy hour beers clenched in my fist. It was the same sun that fell on the steep roads we were driving to Tagaytay. I see a view of the mountain, yellow and purple flowers in sight, so much green all over. I taste mango dressings, organic salads, a rainbow in my mouth lifted from heavy plates on a cooler, late afternoon weather. It was always with great company. Especially with D. and I. It's nice to remember that when you're all alone. I remember runs during sunset, and grateful for the time and strength covering an 80km total distance last month.

A story goes in my head. A ship is lost at sea. It found this island, set its anchors and saw this sunset. Profusely thankful, I write repeatedly about this light.

Morning Shift

After a decade working at night, so much sunshine entered my life when I went shifted back to the morning. The world appears more alive. Yellow gold spreading itself on the skin, peering through glass panes and the buildings of the city, beautifully blazing the afternoons with tropical heat. The sunsets happen everyday but we never get exhausted in saying that it's spectacular. The drive along the bay at 5pm, coming home to see D. and I. - being able to say, I have lived the day and I saw a bright spark or two.

Coffee tastes better in the morning when it perks you up from a night's sleep, as opposed to trying to stay up when I work the nights. I've also been able to run more often. And I've been drinking spirits more often - the nights are just too seductive. At the same time, we no longer demand so much out of the nights and evenings. We recognize the rhythm that granted us some happiness and the recent days allowed us to keep pressing that button: lovingly prepared meals at home, some dinners out, many conversations on the collected stories of our days, movies and books over beer, vodka or whisky.

It's largely because the job's still too easy at this stage. This relaxed state will change when I'm out of the training and transition phase. Worrying is a natural propensity but over the years I'd like to think I've developed a slightly sensible, if not a more poetic perspective. I saw a spectacular sunset, and there will be another one tomorrow.

Icarus and Daedalus

I was already in high school when I consciously read about Icarus and Daedalus. It was from Edith Hamilton's Mythology. Some of my friends liked it too.

Recently, I scored a copy of the same book in an electronic version. At age four, the story of Icarus and Deadalus was one which you frequently wished to read.

At age thirty-three, I spoon-fed you the moral of the story. Stay humble. Follow your parents. Don't let the attractive brightness of the sun deceive you into having the wax in your wings melted.

Let's soar, and let's remember never to fly too high.

Here with You Where the Wild Things Are

At age four and a half, I. eats stories for breakfast, and demands for it all day. He asks mostly from D. And I pitch in to give him a healthy dose.

"Where the Wild Things Are" is one of the stories he can read along to, a favorite among those I read to him. We both love the drawings. We set ourselves off to a wild rumpus when we read it. It's always fun, with sparks of unpretentious, ambiguous profundity.

There's a movie adaptation by Spike Jonze.

It gets more wild, and crazy, more incredibly real. Children really are like that, and so are adults. So we had to do some explaining. And it's really beginning, he's figuring out some many things on his own. But the wild things cried, “Oh please don't go- We'll eat you up- we love you so!”

And in my Head, An Octopus

A season of Spring Snow out in the green with specks of gold, in a country with neither spring nor snow. 

Spring Snow
by Yukio Mishima
ePub version 512kb, 394 pages

We can only surmise how many dissertations have been written to try to figure out why Yukio Mishima committed seppuku after completing his Sea of Fertility Tetralogy. It also seems like the wrong question to ask, especially when you’re reading him for the first time.

The richness of Mishima’s metaphors takes a life of their own. When I read Spring Snow it is as if a huge octopus sat in my head. The octopus started moving its hands – orchestrating the story in my imagination.  Take the ubiquitous kimono as a symbolism, for instance. The color, folds, and movement are intricately woven into the story.

"What it was he didn't know, but whenever this bright certainty seemed to shine within his grasp, the fluttering sleeves of Satoko's aquamarine kimono interposed themselves, trapping him once again in the quicksands of indecision."

It may not be the best comparison, but I succumb to saying how it often swiftly flew me to the feelings of aflutter as in a Jane Austen novel, or even Downton Abbey. The Japanese, as always, take the world’s best without forgetting their own.

So the novel was not just all nervousness and gushing excitement. The sorrows were so gracefully written, and the characters carried out their conflicts pitting elegance against logic.

This octopus sure works with such elegant hands.

Bloody Distractions, Growing-Up and Immortality

We are grieving, groping in this darkness in a path with no recovery. The what-ifs repeat themselves and we draw from the new emptiness inside us. No matter how strongly we handle these fresh wounds, we know we are permanently scarred.

The movies come as welcome distractions. On weekend nights, the couch turns into a twin bed, and we let the TV interfere with movies acquired as the millenials would.

Boyhood

It had the missing elements of a grandiose film I was looking for in the “Before” series: for one, a sensibility that was sustained with a powerful, 12-year stamina. Acting out what appeared to be “spontaneous” conversations were rehearsed expertly to the appearance of reality. You’d remember Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight as good films sometimes bordering on the so-so. Boyhood, to me, is a period-definitive magnum opus: more than a bold step, it is a creative, methodical, patient leap.

The first scene bursts brightly with Coldplay’s Yellow, and while the narrative is non-linear, the time sequences become recognizable through the soundtrack. The time was defined by both Britney Spears, but also by Phoenix.  A line from  Mishima in Spring Snow, spoken by Honda goes:  “You see that is the easiest way to establish the essence of our era--- to take the lowest common denominator.” This movie endeavored to present not just the lowest common denominator to define an era. It escaped the catch-all presentations of adolescent milestones such as acne, losing one’s virginity, the prom date, graduation. In it their places were the difficult conversations around those milestones.

“You know how everyone's always saying seize the moment? I don't know, I'm kind of thinking it's the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us.”

Some lines were probably intended to sound silly – because that how it is, to feel things: our enlightenment, our awkwardness. Nobody comes out of it elegantly. And I’m thinking it’s never really too late grow up.

Only Lovers Left Alive

Creativity, genius, art, scientific progress: these are inevitable consequences of immortality. Vintage equipment, good books and music are weapons of choice versus an all-powerful boredom and disgust with humans. It’s a vampire movie tailor-fit for hipsters. It calls out pseudo-intellectuals too, bringing up literary controversies such as: Shakespeare is Christopher Marlowe’s ghost writer. He faked his death four centuries ago and he's been lurking in Morocco. The science of Galileo and Tesla, the music of Paganini – it was handed down to them because the vampires wanted "to put something good out there."

Tilda Swinton delivers a commanding performance as Eve. As a vampire  - she danced, listened to music surrounded herself with pillars of books (including recent ones such as Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace). They had iPhones, traveled red-eye flights.They drank blood from cocktail glasses as if it were shots of Patron. She tells her bored lover:

“How can you've live for so long and still not get it? This self obsession is a waste of living. It could be spent in surviving things, appreciating nature, nurturing kindness and friendship, and dancing.”

There’s a formula for immortality! There's the holy grail. But sometimes you have to resort to biting off someone’s neck.

Land Ho

A coming-of-old film, which is the senior equivalent of a coming-of-age film. A well-delivered road-trip comedy.

Some of the most earnest discoveries, the funnest things come later in life. This time around, you'd think you're never too old enough for anything: travel, drugs, being charming.

These two friends do get it: why waste the rest of your life when you can spend it surviving things? Appreciate nature, nurture kindness and friendship, dance. Reykjavik, Skógar, Jökulsárlón, Landmannalaugar, Gullfoss, Strokkur, and Blue Lagoon are the perfect places do all of it.

Francesco

The Pope Francis frenzy filled Manila's streets. He arrived a day before you decided to make your way into the world, rather too soon to come out of your mother's womb. The apostolic nunciature is less than a kilometer away from our house and when the pope's motorcade passes by, people come out to see him wave from his vehicle. Seven million of our countrymen heard him say mass. And while we weren't one of them, we follow him and believed profoundly in his crusade against greed in the form of the economic and political systems. And while we frowned upon his conservative views on gay marriage, he did open the doors of the church to other religions, atheists, and scientific ideas. We were touched by his genuine compassion for workers and the poor. The pope is also coming out with an encyclical in support of action against climate change.

We didn't know then if we were having a boy or a girl, but we knew Pope Francis would be your namesake. And little I. was right, he would have had a brother.

I was wrong about a thing or two. I saw D.'s pregnancy as a fragile one and as she wasn't as young, I thought she wasn't as strong as before. Seeing her bleed life out, I realized that she is strong as ever. We were ready, I thought. But we weren't ready for you leaving us before you can grace our lives. We weren't ready to fall off the cusp of our happiness.

We may try again, our doctor says. And one day things might even appear normal. We will mend, but there will be a special, empty chamber in our hearts that will always be meant for you. We will be peppered by what-ifs, both regretting what wasn't meant to be and thinking about  reaping the joys of what could have been. I know because I live this way. I had a brother who was born and died the same day. I took his name, wrote as him.

We live our lives not just as our own.