Greetings From Your Kerouac-Quoting Father

"Nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old." -On the Road, Jack Kerouac. But right now, right now Anak, you seem really happy." 

Happy Birthday. Infinite love from Mum and Dad. 

Cuffs

I’ll be wearing cuff links tonight. The bosses from Denver flew in and I’m booked for an hour-long presentation. That calls for the smartest-looking long-sleeved shirt with the crispiest collar. I'll be

slipping on the 5-grand pair of hand-made leather shoes that I've maintained for four years. We saw seven episodes of Madmen’s Season 5 earlier this week and it always convinces you to at least try to dress better. If clothes didn't make a man, clothes certainly made that show.

Its ten thirty and D. is still in a conference call in her Ortigas office – one of the few times her actual presence was required since she turned work-at-home. I’m prettied up and ready to go. My mother will stay with I. until D. arrives in about an hour.

I have to go. I. says bye-bye and I love you and I don’t need any luck. I've already won. That’s all I need tonight. 

The bosses were onsite by midnight. Their plane landed just a few hours earlier. Only a shower at the hotel came between the office and the airport. I’m first to present to K., an E.D., and he is always in a polite, excited disposition but his questions always slice through any sweet or smooth talking so I always keep it honest while trying to be cunning. C., an SVP, walks in to the room to greet us, tells us about her connecting flights. She embraces K., then R., then walks towards me. There I was, awkwardly half-embracing an SVP who several other Directors advised me to stay below her radar. I’m not sure why they say that, as she’s been warm, analytical reasonable to me and I'm not even trying to suck up. Either I'm wrong or I’m lucky I don’t report to her directly. She takes her leave and I proceed with my deck. After a minute or two, C. slips back to the room and tells K. that she qualified for Boston. Now this is about me. And I’m a bottom-of-the-barrel manager who almost made a sub-2 21k.

I go through the rest of my slides, show how we climbed the numbers. It’s steady with good strides here and there. I didn't feel like I had to jump through a lot of difficult hurdles like I was expecting. I suppose it went well.

The most trying part came at the end of the day. Like a heartbreak hill feeling that's about to decimate the knees,  I end up asking, who am I? Like when I read Socrates for the first time, I went through a guilty realization. Only this time I didn't imagine myself as a budding philosopher. And this is why: it dawned on me that I've made a career chasing numbers over dreams.Not even money. Just numbers that justified me to keep my job. 

I drive home. I read a chapter of a good book. One chapter is a story in itself: generation after generation of dreams lost and won, triumph and desperation coinciding in an intelligible complexity as it is written in a lucid work of art. I figured that’s how it happens. Only when I come home can I tell how my own dreams are fascinating. How they are within easy reach and how they reveal who I am.

I take off my cuff links. To be truthful, they barely cost me anything. But if it locks in the dreams and the taste that simply can’t be purchased, they sure won’t look cheap.

Counting to Four

There is no other way to tell it, other than to tell it as is. No embellishments. Nothing fancy. Our first four years of marriage was a honeymoon. We loved each other purely.

It was still drizzling in the morning, as with the night before. When a drizzle turns into rain, he always remembers a Kerima Polotan story, “The Sounds of Sunday.” There’s a line that goes, (and I’m paraphrasing) rain falling on tin roofs like a thousand I-love-yous. Our music played on the empty, pothole-free Skyway to Tagaytay. We were married there four years ago. Running on 100 km/h on our inexpensive car, remembrances flash before our eyes but slowly. It’s as if we are in a space ship, feeling more fortunate than the millionaires in chartered planes. An iPhone connected to the radio played Sigur Ros.

Brosandi
Hendumst í hringi
Höldumst í hendur 

(smiling
spinning in circles
holding hands)

We chose Hoppipolla for our wedding video song.

At the back of the car, the little one sleeps soundly. He wakes up to the sight of Taal Volcano. Around here, the rain has cleared and he sees the volcano in full view.  “A volcano, like in Little Einsteins,” he says. He forms his memories, and discovers himself both through an inherent, curious fascination of the world around him and by imitation. He says things like he really means it: “You’re very pretty, mommy.” “Thanks for cooking, mommy.” Children his age may not always be intelligible, but they are spotlessly sincere.

We stop at a place called Cliff House by the highway. For a Friday, it was desirably empty save for a small Korean tour group, some Europeans with their girlfriends, then another family or two. The little one runs around but he sits with us to have margheritta pizza and salmon asparagus risotto.

We hang out a little bit more before we head to our hotel. We read a little, sit down to rocking chairs, run around some more and have fruits in ice cream for dessert in this perfect, crisp weather.

“You have the lake-view suite,” the concierge announces to us, handing out the key card, breakfast and drink stubs. We notice high school kids in suits and prom dresses at barely four in the afternoon. We learned later on that it was La Salle Canlubang’s junior senior prom night.

The suite was spacious. The little one jumps up and down the king-size bed. They go for a long bubble bath while I go out for beer, cigarettes, chicken pies, beef turnovers, and multi-grain pringles. It's raining cats and dogs outside, which will make it even more cozy inside. Back in Manila, we heard that Edsa on this rainy Friday a night was a huge parking lot.

By the time I'm back they are ready for the playroom. I go for a 10k on a treadmill. Walking around the hotel, we saw the halls and the prom is in full swing, crowning their kings and queens. The fellow who operated the machine let us wear the silly hats and we took souvenir pictures in the prom photo booth.

We order some more room service for dinner, eat the pies while watching baby TV on a 42" LED. We were also instagramming just a few photos from this perfect life. Nowadays, you have to make sure that the pictures were few enough to preserve the spontaneity.

By the time the little one sleeps, D. and I drink our Super Dry lagers on the terrace. The rain has passed, the skies cleared, the lights of stars and the houses below dance in the distance. That's one of the reasons why people come up here: to feel this cold, to be clouded int his fog. We had to wear jackets. I let cigarette smoke drag through my lungs.

Up on the terrace, we saw some of the prom folks far out in the lawn. We suspected and laughed at our assumptions, this is the night they finally became "them" as we saw a couple wrapped in an embrace while staring at the dark horizon. More I love-yous tonight, I'm sure. But it was really cold and I wanted to call out to the guy and tell him to give his girl that coat he's wearing. She'll be a pneumonia victim in that prom dress.

We drink some more. I smoke and we sleep in those thick white sheets. It feels like a thousand threads. The hugs are warm and tight as they could be. We have a perfect life tonight, and you can never instagram this, no.

We wake up and open the curtains to a sunny day with this view.

I read the last few chapters of a Kazuo Ishiguro in the terrace. Golden weather. The sun lands on the perforated, creamy pages of the hard-bound.

This hotel is among the first ones in Tagaytay, and some of the spots look old but it's big enough to take walks with excellent views. Especially after a heavy, buffet breakfast with tapa that's cooked with barako coffee, paninis, fruits and pretty much everything you can think of for breakfast.

Mommy and the little one dip a little in the pool. By the poolside, there's a young couple. The girl is crying, and we suppose it's probably due to an incident in the prom last night. If were that guy, I'd probably quote something from Kerouac's On the Road, "This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." Mommy remembers the crying she did in her teens, and I'm just glad she won't have to cry like that again.

We'll check out and drive around some more, eat again somewhere.

On the Pursuit of Ideals, Light, Madness, & Humility

(Subtitle: This is how we felt when we gave in and bought you an iPad mini.)

Fathers often wish to have children who follow their footsteps.We want our little ones to eventually fancy movies like Dead Poet’s Society, The Color Trilogy, or the History Boys. We want them to read Nietzsche, Camus, understand some Derrida and Foucault. We want them to listen to Pearl Jam, Phoenix, John Coltrane, and Chopin.

The children grow, and they discover the things we haven’t. Their futures beam even more brilliantly. Our children will not just be improved versions of ourselves. Yes, they will fall and falter, and all over again. But we are right behind, their very own Catcher in the Rye.

They will stand on their own. They will be fresh and crisp. They will be more elegant in their pursuit of their ideals, light, madness, humility. In their attainment of wisdom and resulting peace, they will make their own way, deciphering that fire, (paraphrasing Neruda).

In the meantime, my little one, mommy and I present the world to you. Let's build your core. I would never tell you though that we are now just growing up -- together. There are so many things I have just seen and learned.

Your Top-Shelf Books

The Sunset after our Sunday Ocenarium Scuba Dive

Groupers

You finally found Nemo

Drizzling

Belated post. 2.21.2013 

It's drizzling. We are celebrating her birthday in a dimly-lit restaurant, telling her in a hushed voice (some spanakpoita still in my mouth), life feels like a dream.

 

This little dream almost didn't happen. It's Thursday evening rush hour and we ran late. The restaurant called me and they were about to give our table away. I love it when this happens, because it makes Makati feel like New York. They held on to the reservation.

The Corner Tree Cafe is quite literally, in the corner and beneath by a huge tree. It looked homey and that took it to us. Inside, there's framed poster listing them on the Miele Guide. They served a wide range of vegan, glutten-free cuisine. We had Spanakopita for starters, spinach & mushroom lasagna, and baked tofu walnut burger. It must have been the lights on dim, the slow flicker of candles, but something compelled the crowd to keep the conversations on a low volume. While the setting was intimate, "children are welcome," their website announced. So we happily brought our little one along. There were ladies in office attire having cocktails while waiting for their takeout and they exchanged smiles with him. This pre-schooler sure is smooth. And I'm glad I'm smooth myself, but only to the birthday girl. It all flashed before my eyes, the birthdays of hers we celebrated in beautiful islands, the birthday I got her a watch, the birthday I got her a refrigerator. Every time, she was beautiful.

It's drizzling. It's just the right amount of rain to keep a cool breeze. The clouds maybe thick, but my stars are all twinkling tonight.

Gentlemen

The crossing of his legs gave emphasis to his otherwise unnoticed shoes. A pair of hand-made oxfords, perfectly pointed and well-formed, brushed clean as though it made him stand as a pillar of self-respect. A black pair of socks covered what would have been a revealed portion of his shins. He thought he understood the requirements of sock-length. He had some foolish, useless pride in telling an Oxford from a Venetian or a penny loafer. He thought his shoes earned him a modest, quiet dignity. So he thought.