Never-Accomplished Writing

It was first time I caught a whiff of her. She smelled like a new book. You pick up a new book from the fancy store shelf, the crisp and the newly minted yellow leaves summoning you. Untouched and tempting. You press the edge of the bound pages against your nostrils. Your thumb slowly flares the pages against your nose, as though to squeeze the smell out.

It smelled like a spirit that my spirit longed to be acquainted.

Leftover Magic Dust in my Coffee

We return to be smothered by the exhaustion of normal life.

In one of the afternoons during this holiday break, I uncovered a secret. Maybe I’m exaggerating again, as it’s just a simple recipe. Now I’m going to sound like a cretin. I poured a strong blend of drip coffee over finely powdered chocolate milk along with a packet of a natural zero-calorie sweetener and the result was Cafe Mocha.

The simplicity made it magical. I want to say, it’s not like chasing my own tail as I know for certain that it’s magic. But maybe it was just the holidays – which are over now. Tomorrow, life reverts to normal. Once again, we’ve got less time to see family and friends. We’re done with being drunk fizzy with elation. We return to be smothered by the exhaustion of normal life.

This afternoon and this evening were the final exceptions. After a short morning run, house chores, a warm bath, and a delightful lunch prepared by D., we saw another wonderful-enough Woody Allen.

...Whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.


Following the film, I made coffee and put the magic dust to spend the afternoon reading these delicious, bite-size stories from Italo Calvino in Numbers in the Dark, along with a back issue of Harper’s. The reads were fantastic and I feel enriched. Imagine this quote from Calvino, for example:

...I still live in a castle of meanings, not things.

In a Celebration of H.’s, in one of those hardcore drunken conversations when you spoke of what agitated your life, I told my good friend M., “I realized I don’t want to get rich.” Maybe that’s what I meant, I didn’t want to amass things. I yearned for meaning. I know now, I wouldn't be rich, but be like living like a king in a castle.

When evening came today, we heard mass and had a filling dinner at a tea house near the church. Ceremoniously, they stirred chilli in the soy sauce. Life felt like a Murakami novel. We retreat home for her to rest, and me to write.

We wish more of the magic dust. And all we have to do is think of next Christmas, when we’re going to be a family of our own. J, D, and the little one.

Within Thy Wounds Hide Me

Towards a Re-evaluation of Values?

In this Sunday’s sermon, the priest said we should have an ear for trajectory of the scriptures and another ear for the trajectory of history. He said that it’s similar to the accomplishment of the Second Vatican Council, when it rode with the spirit of the times. Geist. Fresh out of Copenhagen, and disappointed with the poor outcome of Copenhagen, he insightfully highlighted the necessity of environmental consciousness and the reduction of carbon emissions. For your children and your children’s children, he said.

In his trajectory of history going hand in hand with the trajectory of the scriptures, he cited Mahatma Ghandi as a paragon – as Ghandi embodied and enacted the values of Christianity in aptness to a historical period. In front of the tabernacle, the priest was this close to saying (in a rather charming Irish accent) that Buddha is more Christian than Christians.

The previous Sunday, while singing the Lamb of God, a child was acting out the lyrics. It was so sincere, and so truthfully cherished, as only a child could pray. The most unblemished form of prayer comes from children.

In morning masses at 9am, it’s usually a children’s choir who sings in Malate. It poses a more magical efficacy when children in chorus beautifully voices out “hide me in thy wounds...” or “your children have grown weary in living in confusion.”

Religion is the opium of the masses, so Marx says. But they’ didn’t have rehab back then. I've sort of gone through a religious rehab. Now that I am free, but not necessarily enlightened, I want my opium.

Religion is also the childlike condition of humanity, Feuerbach goes. I still believe in Feuerbach. Since I am going to be a father soon, I’ve merrily reawakened the child in me. I’ve also concluded that Catholicism is essential to the value formation of our child, a necessary step towards a Nietzschean re-evaluation of values.

But know that all your life, you will have to seek out the Truth, my child. Have faith in what is good, hope fervently, uphold what is right, and as your mother says: pray, pray, pray from your heart.

After Sideways

“I‘m a thumbprint in window a skyscraper. I’m a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage... I think it’s Bukowski." – Miles, the failed writer in “Sideways.”

Torn between an afternoon run and watching Sideways while drinking. For days now, I’ve been waiting for some good afternoon sunshine and some adrenaline to be pumped into my lungs. It’s a rush and it’s relaxation juxtaposed: a run in the late-afternoon- getting-really-Christmasey-October air. But how can the inconsistency of human decision fare compared to the irresistible cocktail of gin, concentrated calamansi juice, honey and lemon slices? I slip the perfect movie in the DVD tray, something I’ve longed to see again. Now I’m watching Sideways while having a drink, toasting and laughing with the characters.

Human inconsistency, my frailty, fared wonderfully.

But now I’m sideways. Oh well, we’ll get it straightened out later.

Recurring

Recurring. That’s what’s happening now. Again and again, I weep, I whine, and I witness a happy ending in the middle of my story. What’s happening is an immersion to my own life. It’s been injected with more intimacies dispersing itself daily, ubiquitously. Here, now and elsewhere, every second. Every moment with D., every story, every taste, every shared laugh, every run, every pleasant drive, every chore, every read, every family, friend, every love all around.

I long, inextinguishably, to repeat every moment of my life.

I Am Just Quietly Untamed

Evenflow,
Thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh, he don’t know
So he chases them away.

Nobody could have expressed our angst better. Not the way Pearl Jam and the grunge music of our generation made whatever absurdity we felt less shapeless. We were on the way to the beach, aboard the bus to Batangas and I was reading Oscar Wao with the grunge playlist plugged in. I heard Eddie Vedder's deep yet screechy voice accompanied by guitar distortion. The lyrics were powerful and furious. With its hidden meanings, it made me understand why the world worked in wayward ways. It made all the Emo music of this generation seem sissy and just cretinous. We didn’t have Google yet back then, but we understood.

And precisely because I understood, I protested. I was young and ready to make world spin in idealized directions. I wanted to change the world’s wayward ways. And then the music grew too loud. I got drunk silly, chased girls, and youth disappeared. I grew up, silencing myself.

Hearing this again now, I understood. I am just quietly untamed.