Recent, Most Tender Memories of Earth

It's two in the morning and I'm hanging onesies, mittens, cloth diapers, boots, towels, and swaddles to the clothesline. The fragrance of Perwoll detergent heightens my senses. I never expected to love doing chores, until I found true reasons to celebrate why and who I'm doing it for. How can we let a stranger do it? How can we let a stranger stare into your eyes and shape your forming soul as we dance you to sleep? These days, we do it ourselves.

It's four in the afternoon and we had cake and snacks in your school with your classmates. On the way out of the gate, you were still wearing the party-hat crown we cut ourselves and holding the balloons that we pumped ourselves. We printed your own stickers and invitations. Everyone around the school gate sang for you, the higher grades, the preschoolers. You had the widest smile in the world. "I got greeted a million times." You said.

It's eleven on a Saturday night. Our children were finally, both asleep. We fire up the laptop, plug on our earphones and watch an episode of the Big Bang Theory while eating instant noodles in mugs and drinking beer at the edge of the bed. Just like those nights when you woke up at 1am so we can watch the latest Game of Thrones after I finish work.

Everyday gives me a reason not to leave Earth, the reason that makes me think I've had it all if I had to meet my end at this very moment.

We All Live in a Cave

this is the city
where carve out our own caves
to hide from each other

Hey Jealousy

Before She Met Me
Julian Barnes
Vintage EPUB 1.8 MB - 161 pages

Here's how the novel introduced the pros and cons of being a middle-aged man in contemporary British society:

 “...he read a great deal, he gardened, he dd the crossword, he protected his property. At thirty-eight, it felt a bit like being retired already.” 

 “fifteen years married, ten years in the same job; halfway through an elastic mortgage. Halfway through life as well, he supposed’ and he could feel the downhill slope already.” 

 “Sheila, Ann’s closest friend, maintained that in any case married men were preferable to single men because they smelt nicer. Their wives were always having their clothes dry-cleaned. Whereas the bachleor's jacket, she delcared, was all cigarette smoke and armpits.” 

In Before She Met Me, a man who found himself fortunate enough to have a second marriage to a younger woman becomes a jealous man. While jealousy was much more elegantly told by say, Graham Greene in The End of the Affair, the character formation in this book was neatly, stylishly woven as a Tom Ford three piece suit. As with most black comedies, we laugh with a tinge of schadenfreude. Imagine the sight of a grown man wanking to pornographic magazines.

Where is he going with all his jealousy? This question dragged on for an extra ten pages and towards the end it got a trifle unamusing. But it’s a satisfying ending, and you’ll gladly find yourself amused again.

 ***

A few highlighted phrases, verbs, and adjectives: mazy enjoyment, congenial, squirt of sympathy, fretful, winced, it was bad manners to point out other people's bad manners to them, unmappable hurt, fastidious, lurid, benign, exhausted by sadness, maunder on about how he loved her, skittish giggle, desiccating.

Enough

For those of us, who
do not seek fame or fortune
rain, falling, is enough.

Nothing Hurts

It's four in the morning on a Sunday. Roxas Boulevard is closed for an organized run. The registered runners must still be at the starting coral. For the next half hour after gun start, this road will appear like it's closed entirely for me, completely empty. As I run, I will watch the sky crack first light by the sea. I will run fast and exhilarated. Perhaps exhilarated is a poor word choice. Whatever it is that sweeps me, I close my eyes, the wind touches my face and configures my mouth into a smile, smudging it with a joyful abandon. I run as if with winged feet.

At 1pm to 4pm in the afternoon on weekdays, I cruise one coffee shop after another, listening to music, reading one book after another.

I drive I. to school everyday, and as we wander the streets we have the best stories and conversations.

Sometime in the morning or in the evening, I read more poetry to my daughter while I hold her. We listen to more music. I prepare her bath. I help with the chores.

And even if I always see my wife, I still always long for her and fill her with my mushiness.

At night, a stress-free, brief and steady stream of work comes to me at home. I even do it with a certain amount of satisfaction and fulfillment. I earn very little now, and reconsider my prospects for the future. I'm beginning to build the confidence that I can truly cement my departure from the Business Process Outsourcing Industry, from high-range salaries and high-level pretension.

For a considerably long time now, I have been free of conflict.

I feel like I'm about to melt with so much of this tenderness.

If you were once lonely, so much happiness feels like you're just cheating.

Guiltily, we live the lives we always wanted.

The future me time travels and tells me now, hold on to that feeling. No, don't just hold on. Cling tenaciously.

Whatever it is that sweeps me, I close my eyes, the wind touches my face and configures my mouth into a smile, smudging it with a joyful abandon.