Ride On

Distance Learning. In the afternoons, we sang, in a chorus with your classmates, in a virtual platform, that if the rain were chocolate, how delicious it will be. We checked the weather, wrote the letters, counted, read stories, celebrated birthdays. With the joys and tears of learning.   

Around the biking loop and a step away from heinous selfishness. I go around the lap for 40 or 50 km. At best, 27 km/h average with a 43 km/h top speed. I can't catch up with the faster packs who run on 40 km/h averages. I'm amazed by how pelotons look and the power of the cyclists. Even with much slower groups, you feel an encouraging energy. I usually start when it's still dark. When I look up, I see the office lights of BPO companies around MOA. It's 5 in the morning, New Year's Eve. It's a familiar feeling, with sadness strongly reinforced by this year's pandemic. My thoughts were no longer, I'm glad I'm not up there. My thoughts were, you guys will be coming home pretty soon. 

Ride on, it will be better for all of us. 

A list to whittle the worries

1.) D., with the help of V., baking home baked brownies. Moist and fudgy.  Perfect with 

2.) Sagada Dark Coffee that you buy at a fair price from a local reseller who repack the goods they get up North. Also good with 

3.) Ciabatta bread (bought buy-one-take-one) from a local cafe, with butter, tuna, or beef burger patties. Perfect to eat and drink while reading

4.) Junichiro Tanizaki's Naomi. In conversation with a few students, I learned later on that the title really was 痴人の愛, Chijin no Ai, or literaly, A Fool's Love. It's a little erotic, one of the students commented. It's a good read, especially while listening to 

5.) Chilled Cow's lofi hiphop playlists, or 

6.) I. practicing Chopin's Etude Op. 10. No. 5 in G flat major. 

Sparingly

Manila was spared by 2020's strongest typhoon, and with effects of climate change, probably an epoch's strongest. We were expecting the worst as signal number five was raised. But it was our southern provinces, Albay, Catanduanes, the Bicol Region which was ravaged. We are safe, but ultimately sorry for what we will read/watch in our news feeds in the next few hours. 

It's Sunday. 

Our President's probably sleeping. 

Today's the first of November, the day we remember our dearly departed. 

We are alive, but we constantly think about our loved ones who passed away. 

I always think of my own passing. And if we think of others, how undeserving we are of the joys we've reaped. I'm reading another Joan Didion (Blue Nights) and this was my last highlight: "How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see."

It's been years since I read "The Year of Magical Thinking" but I clearly remember her journalistic account of her husband's passing. It tells a story of grief with personal and historical accounts in an unbelievably elegant literary expression. How could she write and not lose it? I'm am profoundly sympathetic and yet awed. And now I am again, with her daughter's passing.  

If I were to give my own journalistic account of today, here in my own confessional box, I worry and empathize but I'm here in my home doing my most adequate, appreciating of the moment I can afford. Reading ebooks with V., playing the piano with I., two cups of excellent coffee, a movie, and drinks with D. with an amazing beef soup lunch and salad, pasta, and fish balls for dinner. Reading Joan Didion again.  

We grieve just as much we allow ourselves a few joys. 

Still, I'm sorry. 

Riding out, Bigtime

Courtesy of my brother, I've been able to sit on a carbon saddle/post, and ride a carbon fork, aluminum alloy frame road bike. It's still an entry-level bike and relatively less expensive, and I'm certainly not a racer. But it's exhilarating to curl your body up to an an aero position and speed up to 40+ kph with your leg muscles as the main engine. Moving your legs is literally walking out of anxieties. 

The pandemic sparked a cycling surge and Manila has more dedicated bike lanes. Drivers are better understanding the concept of road-sharing and people are rediscovering cycling both for leisure and for practical transport. These days even the small victories seem like incredible conquests. When we all wake up from this dream, I hope we remember a thing or two. People have paid for this with their lives. 

Recovering after a good (albeit short) ride is like a small victory. I re-hydrate at the coconut wholesale store at the public market, because they have the best buco juice at either 5 or 10 pesos a cup. I felt a little nervous about taking off my face mask. A woman and her son asked me, rather politely, for money. The son says he's going to buy buco juice. I ordered for both them. The vendor asks, 5 or 10 pesos? 10 pesos for each of them, I replied. Because of the endorphins, I was feeling bigtime. 

On the treadmill, the other day, I sang along, I don't want to come back down from this cloud. It's taken me all this time to find out what I mean.

I may have already said enough and writing wouldn't rid me of this anxiousness. I thought process-mapping this anxiousness and stepping away from myself would help, but it only temporarily addresses the gaps and failure points. I could never get to the root causes, why the human mind wired this way. 

Staying alive amidst this pandemic. Barely having any trouble with an all-too-familiar isolation because I'm with a loving family that has brought me unspeakable joy. And while it wasn't a lot, there's literature, literature turned into series, series, treadmill runs, Philosophy podcasts, Japanese lessons, distance learning, dark roasted Sagada coffee, frothed milk, dark roasted beer, citrusy craft beers, music, never-ending conversations with my D. and I. and V. 

I may have already said enough and writing wouldn't rid me of this anxiousness. So I write, because I will never be rid of the anxiousness. But it's not just the devil that's in the detail. Life, at best, is to live for these little stories.

It's V. telling us, "when there's no more virus, we'll go to the coffeeshop." She often says our house is like a coffeeshop. She strums her bright yellow ukulele. She sings You are my Sunshine.  

And don't worry if you don't write it all. You've lived. Pretty soon you'll climb up those anxious steps again. But now. Stay in the clouds. Oh it's so puffy. There there.  

Around our Cave

 

Around us in over One Hundred Forty Days of Quarantine. It was 2am, we were awakened by the whir of a vehicle. We peeked through the opaque jalousies opened in a steep angle and saw an ambulance is parked in front of our house. Two medical personnel in white hazmat suits scurry out. Red and yellow hazard lights are flashing soundlessly. One of our elderly neighbors board the ambulance, her face mask and face shield on. We hear muffled voices. 

It's 2:30 am and I have to drive D. to work. I'm glad I can. I'm glad we can both continue to work and our children can continue distance learning. The car smells like it's been doused with chlorine. There's a small bottle of alcohol I don't recognize. I learned from my father later on that they used the car and sanitized it. He asked my brother to drive one of his constituents, a pregnant woman, to the hospital. She tested negative on COVID, but positive on tuberculosis. She was coughing blood, my father said. 

We have the most number of COVID 19 cases in Southeast Asia, the most badly impacted economy and the government's health agency faces a 15-billion peso fraud. We have a president can't even be lucid, but has fanatical enablers.  

We'd really have to live in caves. 

Enduring Pens

With a few hours off on the fifth week. Fully functional, even more beautiful with their mended imperfections. Loyal, never quitting, not wasting, not wanting. I didn't repair it with gold, but it sure feels like gold. They are tangible stories in themselves.

They've both been around for around 20 years. With me they wrote drafts of journals, work notes, university notes, signed a thing or two. At some point, they've stopped working, or using them felt too fancy.

They reappeared at the right moment. Now I try to identify with them, with their equanimity and endurance. All the more reasons why I should keep writing.

Obituary at 39

He loved, most of all. He read. He laughed with friends. He ran. He worked and learned and taught a few others a thing or two. He lived his life as if it will always be repeated. He tried to be kind. With a few inevitable what-ifs and quiet regrets. With a full heart.

Still, Wake-Up, You Haven't Died.

First thing in the morning. Spreading through the opaque glass windows, the morning sun landed on the book's yellowing pages. I acquired it years ago, proving that even if it takes years, book backlogs are justified. Enthralling, entertaining first chapters. My son and daughter in bed with me, two drowsy sleepyheads already tinkering their devices. My wife is already in the other room, working from home.

---------------------------------------------

I wrote this a decade earlier, and today, I. who turned 10 recently, reads the words that I dedicated to him and his party guests.

A few days ago, I made a fart joke, to which he responded, "That's gross. How are we even related?"

It's been days, and we're still laughing.

It's been a decade. Happy Birthday, I.

Wake Up, You Haven't Died.

This pandemic, combined with a corrupt government, is literally twice as deadly. It gets into our bodies, numbs our minds, crushes our spirits.

The doublespeak seems to be part of the new norm.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/744862/ntc-stops-abs-cbn-from-operating-channel-43-which-airs-tv-plus-programs/story/

Malacañang on Tuesday maintained that the government has disproved the projection of experts that the country's COVID-19 cases will reach 40,000 by the end of the month. During his virtual briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque happily exclaimed that the country proved the forecast of the University of the Philippines wrong, with 36,438 recorded COVID-19 cases as of Monday noon.

This man, a former human rights lawyer, has opened his eyes, only to be blind again. And now blinds so many others.

Whatever's evil is winning. That's for sure.

May

The kids haven't been out in 3 months. It doesn't even seem strange anymore that they will stay at home for a year, studying online, no outdoors, inevitably increasing their screen time. But more importantly, we're lucky there's screens to look at, there's distance learning, there's even space to live, that we're surviving without much difficulty compared to the terrible plight of so many people.

We quietly hold on to some significance, silently cherishing our little joys, with a deepening empathy for those who couldn't.

**

When I run on the machine, I zone out to a memory, fiercely remembering how feet lands on the pavement instead of this belt. Late evenings or early mornings outside, traces of clouds, magnificent sunsets, that hot air or mild chill blowing on my face, even seeing other runners.  It's going to be a while before we race again.

**

The human race has failed itself many times, but it also kept writing so many good books and telling good stories. Even the most fundamental questions of Philosophy are left unanswered, there are so many other stories that render life worth living. I am thankful for the time to read, even if work stays full time.

Then it turns into TV. What fun, watching this, having it all over again with D.

**

 After work. A ひきこもり Hikikomori's 飲み会 Nomikai.

**

By the end of May, they're going to lift the world's longest corona virus lock down (probably also the stupidest, as we didn't do enough mass testing, without any solid plan, and billions of borrowed that made no significant impact).

We're going to stay inside a little bit more, missing the world.

V.4

Happy Birthday, V.

If not for you, we never would have basked in the joy of rainbows and unicorns.

(And then eat them as your cake).

Sunday Still in Quarantine

We're in quarantine, but fortunately (unlike many, I'm so sorry to tell, who have lost their incomes) work goes on business as usual for both D. and I. So yes, Sunday is still a more treasured day off. 

I wake up an hour or two later than usual since there are no morning classes. D. and V. are already playing dolls, while practicing numbers and letters. The grocery delivery arrives and I pick it up at the street corner. We had pizza for lunch, the first time we ordered restaurant/fast food since we've been locked up. I take over playing with the dolls while D. gets another hour or two of sleep. V. and I try to practice a little bit of writing. I. help out I. with his PE homework, recording a video of himself stretching and exercising along with his preferred music. They both snack on tomatoes and piknik. D. and I sneak in an episode of Terrace House. 

D. prepares an early dinner. Tiger prawns bought online from direct sellers. Her cooking is absolutely better than restaurant food. We sit at the table, treasuring this togetherness. 

We play some more together, building Legos, laughing at memes, laughing with each other, along with inevitable embraces. 

I. does his math homework online, we practice our Katakana. They're asleep before 9pm. 

I go for a run 6km at the treadmill, virtually running around the Marina Bay Sands area in Singapore along with YouTube runner. It's pathetic, but it does the job and gets you in the zone. I was running in Waikiki Beach last night. I'll be running in Boracay tomorrow. 

D. wakes up to start her night shift, it's 8am in California. I shower, then take my time making coffee. Grinding Starbucks winter collection beans because our friends bought it on our behalf on a glorious bargain, using the French press again, pouring for me and D. 

The city imposed a liquor ban, so coffee will have to do in these quarantined evenings. It will try, it will work your imagination, because one of the things you'll miss most when you're in isolation, is sitting in a coffee shop (still in isolation). There are better things though. Nights like these. Sipping coffee while reading a book, listening to NPR tiny desk concerts at an ikea kindergarten table and chair at the edge of the bed, watching the children sleep with so much peace, allowing myself, recklessly, to forget that the world is dying. 

Quarantine Days in a Lonely City

The Lonely City

Adeventures in the art of being alone

Olivia Laing

The current, unfortunate situation suits this book as half the world is locked out in isolation. The latest figures - 1,224,894 infected with COVID-19 with 66,497 deaths. There will be more, my heart crumbles. Our days in isolation will drag on. So this book was deeply relatable, as it renders the sadness as extremely real. Even more emphasized, perhaps, because I was reading and listening in screens. I read it in an ebook and listened to it thorough the Audible app. "Tethered to our devices, leery of real contact, how we are heading for a crisis of intimacy, as our ability to socialize withers and atrophies."

These days we have "virtual hangouts" in video conference apps, zoom 飲み会, e-numan. Loneliness here is a longing not just for acceptance, but also for integration. 

It's as if the book was written not only about a city that epitomized solitude, but as a preamble for all the cities and entire countries that's been locked out or quarantined. The back-firing isolation that the internet brought, previous pandemics and diseases such as AIDS, SARS, were all soft-openings and warms ups to this virus and future iterations that will emerge.

It's fascinating how with all the grimness and  loneliness, there were bright souls who channeled it to a comforting creativity. The books re-acquaints me with Andy Warhol. It introduces me to Edward Hopper, who's popularity, incidentally, resurfaced in this these days of isolation. There is a redemptive quality in reading about loneliness that turns into art.

One of the biggest gems I discovered in this book, Henry Darger. A Chicago janitor who posthumously achieved fame as one of the world's most celebrated 'outsider' artists. How many more isolated and Vivian Maiers and Henry Dargers are in the world, their works hidden treasures in attics.

What good fortune it is, what privilege, to be merely distracting (if not amusing) myself with reading in an ebook (listening to a smartphone audio book) at the same time, in a world that is locked out, its people dying dying. What replaces loneliness, but an overwhelming sense of guilt and powerlessness, until loneliness returns, reinforced, as it will even when the cities re-open, as if it has never left at all.

The Usual

The powerful Princess V., savior, superhero and ruler of the Shopkins in planet TV, with the power of rainbows, wands her magic pencil and writes letters of the alphabet to defeat a monster who wants to devour her people.

I. fulfills his dream of being home-schooled. He does chores to earn more screen time (even if he already has an incredible amount of screen time). On his school's musical weekly journal, he writes, "I learned the first part of Etude no. 6 by Lizst/Paganini on the piano."

D. and I both work from home. 100% of the meals are home-cooked, we spend 100% of our time together. We stay home, conscientious with our optimism, quietly critical about the collective ignorance in politics and social media.

We are locked out from the world, and the world has suddenly changed radically, abruptly. Cities in the world has locked itself out. Within our invisible walls, there's the hungry, the greedy, and many dying by tens of thousands. Global economies are fighting out its collapse.

It's as if we are in the final scene of Melancholia. The warm feeling of being together at a grim end. Except that we will come out of this alive. She's already saved us, our powerful Princess V.

Etude no. 6 by Liszt will be playing as the curtains fall.

Zombies are Other People

We are each other's zombies these days. Haven't we always been? Carriers of tiny, invisible viruses, self-restrained and self- quarantined and holed-up in our homes like ひきこもり (hikikumori). In a war going on in some parts of the world, people are fighting over toilet paper and hoarding face masks. Going viral in 3-camera, 4 camera, 6GB. 12GB  RAM  smartphones. There's the real virus.

But I shouldn't catastrophize. We can't let humanity be wiped out without watching a few more Netfix series, reading a few more books, and loving each other some more. We have got to have a laugh when all this is over. I'm sorry to have thought that. People are dying. 

The gods must be watching.

We must hide. We ourselves must stay sane, make them aware but bear as much burden as we can for our children. Reminding ourselves of what's normal, of brief golden moments:

1. Patiently teaching V. how to write the letters. R for rainbow. T for tutles. V. being incredibly cute, incredibly eloquent at still 3 years old and bossing everyone around.
2. Putting my face against D.'s when we sleep. Hearing her feel fulfilled not only in life, but in a budding new career.
3. Discussing Diogenes and cynicism with the 10-year-old I. Hearing him play the piano and hearing him rap along to lofi hiphop.
4. The look of a student's face when you know they are really learning.
5. Running in good form, tasting freedom in your lungs, strength in your legs until you are tired and it goes away. Then returns for a second wind when you don't give up.
6. Being stuck in phrase while you're reading. Reading something then saying, fuck, I wish I could talk like that.

7. Late night drinks (the beer is local and made with roasted malt ) alone writing about how zombies are other people. A nice bath and a few hours of sleep. 

The New Malady

Streaming, social media, online shopping. Boredom is no longer the malady of the 21st century. Perhaps it was just my procrastination. Perhaps it was the amassing depression last January as Taal erupted, and towards February the Corona virus broke out.  Local and world events that claim victims. And there's always the verbal diarrhea that shits out of our President's mouth, digested by his followers as if it was their communion. There's always the stress of living in a dense city officially with the second heaviest traffic in the world.

When you feel so mad, and want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four. 

Catching-up On What Would Have Been Forgotten

With indecision, the minutes turns to hours and days. We lose so many things. I didn't write because of being overly conscious, of saying that's not creative or insightful enough. Nothing would have been worth writing. It would have been worth the time to look back on things (in this case, mostly what made this life worth living) or that once in a while I was even insightful or that I was capable of critical thought.

So here's a pair of real, ordinary things that are worth writing.

I could never claim to understand women, but mostly they are right. I can't tell if Barbies are good for you, V., but we did talk about women empowerment and diversity. You flagged me for cultural appropriation when I called her "Asian Barbie." That's not her name, you said. "That's racist, Dad." Kuya followed up. I can't help but wonder what you'd call me out for when you're no longer just 3 and 9, respectively. 

It takes so little to feel like a king. A dip in a saltwater poor with your family, a working staycation, a drink in between, a chess game in gold versus silver with salted caramel ice cream and coffee.