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.