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!”