(R)evolutions
"The revolution1 inside me is quiet and kind."
I say to myself as I brush my hair for the seventh time last Friday. I wear my hair like my crown: in glory. That is to say, I feel like all the pain in the world is surmountable as long as my shiny black hair cascades down past my shoulders before curling ever so slightly by the end. It's therapeutic, in many ways, when I fidget over my hair. It makes me feel like I am in control over something I do not find attractive naturally. (You see, I have waves, and I hate them. So I straighten them out because it makes me feel better. Control is calming.) How shallow, people say, to not allow yourself to embrace your flaws. In my head, I retort back: How sad, to never let yourself pretend and live out versions of yourself you like better.
Quiet and kind. Quiet and kind.
I have to remind myself to remain as such, even when the world yells out and becomes otherwise.
Another revolution2 around the sun has passed for me. So much of my reflections in the last year, I've never written down. I never even bothered. I think, for the most part, it's because I was too busy living in the moment, enjoying newfound freedom (or the lack thereof, lol, sad reaccs onli), celebrating the biggest triumph of my life thus far.
But also, I think it's because I'm afraid that writing them down somehow diminishes their value. Odd, isn't it? Sometimes, keeping notes for posterity robs them the illusion of being — feeling — real. Because the words can never really fully encapsulate certain moments. And every attempt at restructuring them with sentences is always going to be futile. So I let them stay in my head, where they are pure, and untouched, and vivid, and colorful, and untainted by my incapacity to recreate them. Where I can relive them resoundingly in my head, as I nestle comfortably into muted smiles.
The truth is the revolution in me is loud.
Certain parts of me feel awakened, while other parts feel indifferent. These parts I cannot always reconcile. How dramatic, you say. But it merits a loud, heavy sigh — or a laugh, disguising a cry — every time I realize some clocks are ticking quicker than they used to: biological, emotional, spiritual.
The revolution in me is loud, but every day I try to find reasons to keep it down. Why? Because I actually like the pretense. I like putting on a brave face. I don't mind never letting my guard down. I don't like others fussing over me. I wear my brave face like I wear my hair: in glory. How tiring, people say, to always have to convince others that you are fine. On this space, I say back: How sad, to never let yourself pretend and embrace a braver, softer version of you, one that you actually like better.
Quiet and kind. I have to remind myself to be quiet and kind, always, in all ways. I have the love of people I love, and the grace to accept the present, even if it means embracing the uncertainties of the future. What is there to not be thankful for? What is there to be so noisy about? Why bother myself with worries, when I can instead live in the moment — not verbalizing every thought, not overthinking every concern, not deprecating every second of pure joy?
The revolution2 is both quiet and loud.
But I hope the revolution1 in me will always be kind. It will be compassionate, and it will always surrender to my belief in serendipity, in goodness finding its way back to me at the right time. Because this is what I know best. Because this is the only way I know how. I will manage, and it will be alright,3 and it will be all right.4
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1 - a sudden radical or complete change.
2 - the movement of an object in a circular or elliptical course around an axis.
3 - fine.
4 - according to fact or truth.
But I hope the revolution1 in me will always be kind. It will be compassionate, and it will always surrender to my belief in serendipity, in goodness finding its way back to me at the right time. Because this is what I know best. Because this is the only way I know how. I will manage, and it will be alright,3 and it will be all right.4
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1 - a sudden radical or complete change.
2 - the movement of an object in a circular or elliptical course around an axis.
3 - fine.
4 - according to fact or truth.
Labels: finger exercises
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blues, grays, and permutations thereof
1.
The first time I heard this song in a TV show, a teenager who suffered a heart attack is being resuscitated, a man who murdered his brother is in prison for killing someone else, a fetus' heartbeat is heard for the first time after its pregnant high school mother wakes up from a coma, a heartbroken ex-girlfriend comes to terms with her great love and best friend being together.
Such incredible recovery from dire circumstances. I was fifteen years old, bawling my eyes out, completely alien to losses of this magnitude, but nonetheless affected by it. That episode hit me hard, but for reasons that don't really go beyond the show. Like a dutiful fan, I took that song with me - I found a copy on Limewire, put it on my iPod, and had it filed under my 'One Tree Hill mix.' And life went on as usual.
Read more »
Labels: finger exercises
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and when at last I find you
"Are you... are you crying? Because of a puppy video*?"
"But look at it. It's so cute. And pure. And happy. And cute."
"Yeah. So?"
"Don't you find it cute?!"
"Well--"
"It has the Beatles' 'I Will' playing! How can you resist that?!"
"It's just a dog."
"It's not just a dog. It's the simplicity of happiness in that puppy's face. And the beauty of having a creature just looking at you like that and loving you unconditionally. It's having the Beatles ask you, 'Who knows how long I've loved you?' and without you having to say anything, they answer 'You know I love you still.' It's that certainty. That sudden realization that despite what the world throws at you, despite whatever kind of shit you get yourself into, at the end of the day, this love is simple. Love, in its sincerest, most honest form, is easy. It's the look on a puppy's face when you come home after a long day. It's the honesty of a smile when you ask if you can have the last slice of chocolate cake. It's the way your hand is held after the anesthesia wears off, it's the way your tears are wiped away when the antibiotics kick in. It's when you have someone in your life who finally makes you feel like the entire galaxy is in your chest and all the stars make a constellation of the parts of you that you never thought you will come to lose. It's the way he pauses when Paul McCartney croons 'Will I wait a lonely lifetime?' because in his head, he is building you a house and painting you a fence and giving you the rain showerhead you've always wanted. 'If you want me to I will,' he finally sings. And before the song even ends, he looks at you the way clouds look at the moon, and in that instant, you know it's the life you've always dreamed of, right there in front of you. Like an apparition that makes you believe, like a universe that has come to being and has given you the sun."
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* This is the link to the puppy video. If you can watch it without feeling anything, your heart is made of stone.
"But look at it. It's so cute. And pure. And happy. And cute."
"Yeah. So?"
"Don't you find it cute?!"
"Well--"
"It has the Beatles' 'I Will' playing! How can you resist that?!"
"It's just a dog."
"It's not just a dog. It's the simplicity of happiness in that puppy's face. And the beauty of having a creature just looking at you like that and loving you unconditionally. It's having the Beatles ask you, 'Who knows how long I've loved you?' and without you having to say anything, they answer 'You know I love you still.' It's that certainty. That sudden realization that despite what the world throws at you, despite whatever kind of shit you get yourself into, at the end of the day, this love is simple. Love, in its sincerest, most honest form, is easy. It's the look on a puppy's face when you come home after a long day. It's the honesty of a smile when you ask if you can have the last slice of chocolate cake. It's the way your hand is held after the anesthesia wears off, it's the way your tears are wiped away when the antibiotics kick in. It's when you have someone in your life who finally makes you feel like the entire galaxy is in your chest and all the stars make a constellation of the parts of you that you never thought you will come to lose. It's the way he pauses when Paul McCartney croons 'Will I wait a lonely lifetime?' because in his head, he is building you a house and painting you a fence and giving you the rain showerhead you've always wanted. 'If you want me to I will,' he finally sings. And before the song even ends, he looks at you the way clouds look at the moon, and in that instant, you know it's the life you've always dreamed of, right there in front of you. Like an apparition that makes you believe, like a universe that has come to being and has given you the sun."
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* This is the link to the puppy video. If you can watch it without feeling anything, your heart is made of stone.
Labels: fiction, finger exercises
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The yearbook write-up I could've written for you*
Let me set the scene: 2008, we were freshmen in college, classmates for our first ever PE. We were required to pair up and walk for two hours, twice a week. For most, that's enough interaction with classmates - to end up politely greeting each other across hallways or dutifully saying happy birthday when Facebook prompts you to. And that's fine; it is somehow a feat to still be on minimal contact with a person you spent a few afternoons with more than seven semesters ago. I greet him on his birthday; he likes my posts and comments with something more than a thank you. Fishball tayo, something something, see you around, something something, bonding soon! It's all good. On that front, I can honestly say that Ludwin is definitely a great... acquaintance.
And acquaintances are all that we are, because what do I know about him, really? Aside from the fact that he wasn't born on a leap year, and that he's been in UP all his life? I... know he brings a bottle of water to class every meeting. I know he replies when you ask him if the professor is there. I know he politely laughs at people's jokes, even when he doesn't find them funny; and when he does, he will add on to that because he just gets humor that way. He will hold an umbrella over your head even when it's only drizzling. He won't laugh mockingly at your bright neon green jacket, even when it clashes terribly with your equally bright neon pink bag. He will be amused at the fact that you don't know how to bike. You should let someone teach you, he'd say. And he won't tell you if he had himself in mind when he said so. He won't, because he doesn't belong to you, and he knows his limitations. He plays the drums, and you will remember this because sometimes when you're all sitting down and waiting for your professor you see him tapping his feet to an imaginary bass drum pedal or his fingers playing with imaginary sticks before hitting an imaginary cymbal. He moves his hands in careful precision, accurately inching through each second with a single beat; but his head sometimes sways in a quiet form of abandon, as if in his mind he is preparing for the swell of a finale. He doesn't have the face of someone who fades into the background; he seems like a natural leader, like the rhythm that ties all notes together. But he looks like he has the tenderness of a man who will gratefully concede, to the music, to a girl, to a great love - whichever calls him the loudest. And you can tell by the way he doesn't let you cross the road before him that he knows how to keep one safe, even and especially when you don't ask him to.
Perhaps this is who he is. Perhaps not. Perhaps this is the kind of description I can write about someone I only know from afar, someone I only see on my feed and never in person, someone I haven't really conversed with in five years. Perhaps. But he asked me to describe him, and this was the only way that I could: through vague recollections and hasty projections. In any case, after this, only one of two things can happen - either I get it right, and we are both pleased at how lucky I was to have come up with something so spot on. He will get a nice yearbook write-up from a kind acquaintance, and that is that.
Or I get it wrong, and he finds a way to get back to me, just to tell me how incorrectly I've characterized him, point-by-point, over some ice cream and chocolate cake. You should let someone teach you, he'll say. How to bike? No. How to write about me. And at that instant, we will both know who he has in mind.
_
* In an alternate universe, 2012 would have turned out a little differently than it did. He would've asked me to write him a yearbook description, and I would've been in the proper mindset to do so. He wouldn't have been attached; I wouldn't have been saddled with problems that kept me up at night and terrified me in the mornings. Things would have been a lot different, but hopefully it would've also been the same. We'd like to believe there's a universe out there that would've led to me writing this, and him liking it. And things still falling into place the way it all did.
Labels: finger exercises
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Torrential
"The human memory is treacherous," the professor said.
That is to say, the mind plays tricks on us, so much so that we cannot always rely on its accuracy, especially for things as important as wills. Notarial wills require the signature of at least three credible witnesses, on each and every page thereof, signed in the presence of the testator and each other.
That much he knew, that much he remembered.
He also remembered how, one night in September, some twelve years ago, he received a call from a girl at 10:23 in the evening. He can still vividly recall the annoyance in his mother's voice when she told him that someone called, that a girl called, that a girl called him at this late hour, that a girl called him at this late hour in the middle of the storm.
"Hello?"
"Hi."
Of course, there were preliminaries that had to be asked. Where she was, why she was out at half past ten, why she didn't stay inside her dorm, what led her to the sari-sari store a few blocks away. He could hear the downpour from her end of the line; he could also hear the chatter of a few inebriated men.
"People are still drinking in the middle of the typhoon?"
"The human spirit is unsinkable. Or rather, the distilled spirits are."
It's been approximately eleven hours since the power went out; miraculously the telephone lines seemed unharmed. She had always been afraid of the dark; and always wary of admitting it too. But it's been three hours of hiding under her blanket, of pretending that huddling beneath the sheets cancels out the darkness outside them. She mustered the courage to crawl her way to the door, and finally out the building. She didn't have time (nor the visual capability) to put on decent clothes; she had only her hoodie on - nothing underneath, not even her bra. Which is information he didn't want her to be sharing at that instant — not because he didn't like it — but because she's a beautiful twenty-one year old girl, all by her lonesome, in a neighborhood that was not exactly known for its safety. And he couldn't be there to protect her.
But of course he couldn't bring himself to say that. At least not yet.
"So did you have anything to eat?" he asked.
"Oh shoot. See, I forgot to have dinner. That's how shit scared I was,"
"Don't you have a stash of Sky Flakes in your room?"
"I ate it all the other day after my mom sent me a jar of strawberry jam from back home."
Before he met her, he didn't think there were people who came from Baguio. He didn't think Baguio could be someone's hometown. Which is so incredibly naive of him, and actually a bit stupid too. "How Manila-centric of you," she'd say. For him, Baguio was just home to three things: the Ifugaos, the Americans who settled there, and the sunflowers. It wasn't a theme park. But he had no idea why it didn't occur to him that regular folk lived there.
Although she was anything but a regular girl.
That much he knew, and that much he eventually kept discovering long after that phone call. They got together, fooled around a lot, exchanged cassettes, held hands while studying. They made it through school, through the bar, through work. They made it to blockmates' weddings and best friend's kid's baptisms. They made it through her father's death, and through his sister's depression. They even made it to Court, before a judge, just she and him, and a few family and friends. It was raining that day too, and he almost didn't make it. But he did. They did.
And it was raining that night he went home and found their condo empty. He found her ring on the dresser. The lipstick his colleague left behind a few weeks ago lay beside it. She found out. She had gone back to Baguio, to her sunflowers, to her home.
"I miss home. All my cassettes are there," she said to him, after telling the sari-sari store owner she's extending for fifteen more minutes.
"I have some you can borrow,"
"But you listen to Boyz II Men. And Ginuwine."
"What's so wrong about that?!"
"It's... cheesy."
"Oh please, don't tell me you don't listen to cheesy music. Goo Goo Dolls? Dave Matthews?"
"Hey---"
"I'd give up forever to touch you? Ginuwine's a better poet than that Rzeznik guy!"
"You take that back. Take that back!"
And it went on for hours. No, actually just a few more minutes. (Or half an hour more? Now this he can't recall. Treacherous, indeed.) She had to go back to the dorm because the rain was starting to pour heavily again, and the ale wanted to close up shop. But he wouldn't let her put the phone down until she admitted that "Differences" was a pretty good song.
So good that, she claimed a few days later, it got stuck in her head all night. It kept her company in the dark. Enough to keep the monsters under her bed from grabbing her foot, or something. He was glad to have helped. He had half the mind to brave the typhoon and go over to her place. Knock on her door, hold her hand, cuddle with her under the sheets. Bring his brother's guitar, learn to play Dave Matthews for her. Tell her that maybe home is not a place, but a person. That Manila could be home, that he could be her home. And home meant having someone to hold, not having a place to hold you.
As if on cue, lightning flashed so brightly, bringing him back to the present.
"Where was I?" he asked his students.
"About the human memory, sir."
"Ah, yes. I remember now."
And he does, he does remember. Every little thing, every freckle, every blister, every song on the radio, every time he forgets his umbrella, every time he signs his name and realizes she was right to not take his after all. The professor still remembers. His head reminds him, the pangs of pain crawling across his chest remind him. The knot on his stomach. It's been years. She is happy now, a mother of one; he has been in and out of quasi-serious relationships since. He has taken girls home, one of them a former student, two of them other co-faculty members, none of them he has asked to be his girlfriend. He is in a better place too; time has been kind, he'd like to think, and he is thankful. But sometimes, on days like today, the clouds decide to connive with the deep recesses of his memory, playing dirty tricks on him again. And before he knows it, before he can even try to resist — cue guitars and violins swelling — it's the opening chords of Satellite he's hearing in his head somehow. Satellite in his eyes, like a diamond in the gray, monsoon sky.
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(I have Spotify and Typhoon Luis to thank for the choice of songs and the sudden impulse to write.)
Labels: fiction, finger exercises
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First sentences
I came across a bunch of old notepad files filled with one-liners and unfinished sentences in my hard drive a few weeks ago. I was in the middle of moving and deleting old files to make room for more disk space when I stumbled upon these fragmentary notes. I remembered these from a few months, and even years ago; I used to diligently type whatever random phrase I'd hear or think about during the day. Some of them already had a story in mind, some still have yet to be figured out. Some were cluttered, others already made sense. They were just there, tucked away in different folders, waiting to be found, or finished.
I tried to remember the stories behind some of them; I wanted to finish the stories that awaited some others. It's a marvel wading through words you've long abandoned - it's like seeing a familiar face but not knowing his name. They weren't just mere construction of words - they were sentences that came forth from a time of my life that's long past, that no longer exists. Here were a kid's words. Here were sentences that that version of me thought were good enough to begin stories.
Joan Didion once said something about first sentences. When you write your first sentence, you're stuck with it. And by the time you write your second one, she said, you've closed out on all your options.
Out of curiosity, I attempted to put them together. I wasn't looking for anything, I just wanted to see where they will drive at: on their own, together.
It was twenty-two minutes in and their pancakes have not arrived.
They all promised her the sky, she remembered.
The thing about tuberculosis is you start caring about your lungs, but forget about your heart.
She came in expecting nothing, he expected to come in nothing.
If there was anything he now knew, it's that she didn't come with assembly instructions.
It's interesting where first sentences take you. I don't remember most of them; I don't even know where they came from, nor where they will go. I can't recall if I wrote them down after an interesting jeepney ride, or a tiresome day in school. They don't always have to make sense, but at the very least, you can be sure they will lead to something. That's what they are for anyway.
Funny how they were put together, once the universe decided it's done setting them apart.
_
Hello, May: for the first sentences you brought from a year ago, and all the ones that led to today.
I tried to remember the stories behind some of them; I wanted to finish the stories that awaited some others. It's a marvel wading through words you've long abandoned - it's like seeing a familiar face but not knowing his name. They weren't just mere construction of words - they were sentences that came forth from a time of my life that's long past, that no longer exists. Here were a kid's words. Here were sentences that that version of me thought were good enough to begin stories.
Joan Didion once said something about first sentences. When you write your first sentence, you're stuck with it. And by the time you write your second one, she said, you've closed out on all your options.
Out of curiosity, I attempted to put them together. I wasn't looking for anything, I just wanted to see where they will drive at: on their own, together.
It was twenty-two minutes in and their pancakes have not arrived.
They all promised her the sky, she remembered.
The thing about tuberculosis is you start caring about your lungs, but forget about your heart.
She came in expecting nothing, he expected to come in nothing.
If there was anything he now knew, it's that she didn't come with assembly instructions.
It's interesting where first sentences take you. I don't remember most of them; I don't even know where they came from, nor where they will go. I can't recall if I wrote them down after an interesting jeepney ride, or a tiresome day in school. They don't always have to make sense, but at the very least, you can be sure they will lead to something. That's what they are for anyway.
Funny how they were put together, once the universe decided it's done setting them apart.
_
Hello, May: for the first sentences you brought from a year ago, and all the ones that led to today.
Labels: finger exercises
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Fortunes told
The night was yet to start, and the place was still empty, but the music was already blaring. Such was the scene of a club before the start of the party: tables still in place, hair and make up still intact on the face. The drinks were neatly arranged on the bar, with no spills. The girls-in-charge were still trying to put everything to where they belonged.
Suddenly I wanted to know more. Questions that were ripe for asking came out with answers I wanted to hear. I pointed my finger at a card. Surviving law? Yes. I picked another from the pack. Passing the exam ? Yes. I cut the deck. Travelling? Yes. I was to travel the world, with my eyes and my feet, she said. I would find eventual happiness in the legal field. I would always, always find my father in myself. Everything that has ever happened and will ever happen is hugely influenced by my dad. My mother is my soulmate.
She told me that there will be stories heard and told, to be put down on paper, to help the poor. My service will go to the needy, she said, but before that I must first go out and see the world outside the bubble I move in. There will be new shoes to walk into, new languages to speak. There will be peacefulness, at last, and for good.
But the fortune teller already had cards laid out on the table.
When it was finally my turn, I said hello like a nervous high school freshman. It wasn't my first time - there was a fair from years ago, and I had my palms read in a dark little tent - but it was new having her all to myself. No other people waiting outside the curtains yet, no drunk couples making out before their turn. Just me, the empty bar, and the thumping music that no one is dancing to.
I said my name with my palms on the deck, as instructed. Then I cut the deck, and drew my first card.
The emperor, it said.
"An older man," she murmurs. "There's an older man watching over you."
This creeped me out a bit, and immediately the word Wrong flashed itself in neon lights across her forehead.
"Are you a bunso? Or the only girl in the family?"
My eyebrows shoot up, and I nod. "An only child,"
"And a daddy's girl?"
It just became interesting. I said yes, and she smiles, as if she expected the hesitation, and knew she was bound to shatter it.
Everything else seemed to happen in a flash, just as the blinking neon lights of the bar started gaining momentum.
Suddenly I wanted to know more. Questions that were ripe for asking came out with answers I wanted to hear. I pointed my finger at a card. Surviving law? Yes. I picked another from the pack. Passing the exam ? Yes. I cut the deck. Travelling? Yes. I was to travel the world, with my eyes and my feet, she said. I would find eventual happiness in the legal field. I would always, always find my father in myself. Everything that has ever happened and will ever happen is hugely influenced by my dad. My mother is my soulmate.
She told me that there will be stories heard and told, to be put down on paper, to help the poor. My service will go to the needy, she said, but before that I must first go out and see the world outside the bubble I move in. There will be new shoes to walk into, new languages to speak. There will be peacefulness, at last, and for good.
The swelling of music started getting louder, outside, and in my head. I liked what I was hearing. A suspension of disbelief was still in order, though. At that point, I was glad with what I was being told but everything sounded too right. Like it was meant to make me feel good about what lies ahead. It was a party for law students - of course she would draw the destinies we wanted. Align the stars for us, if she must. But still I welcomed the auguries, out of politeness, curiosity, both.
After a few seconds of silence, I was ready to open the curtains and leave, my thank yous and polite pleasantries waiting to be said. I had heard what I wanted to hear - time to go out and go back to the entrance door to welcome guests. But then, she looked me in the eye and asked, "Anything more you want to ask? About..."
She didn't need to finish. I sat back down and drew the next card.
"You're the one," she said. "It was never like this with anyone else. You will bring him places, literally and figuratively."
She didn't look at me yet, the way she did after every question. Other cards were drawn, placed around a circle, around the emperor card that held the center of my orbit. There was a but coming.
"But.. others are still waiting. Two, in fact."
Waiting?
"For you."
I didn't even need to ask. Again, the details came in a flurry. From the past. Both arrived the same year. Feelings unresolved. Etcetera, etcetera.
And then for the first time that night, I was nodding along without much interest in what the other person was saying - kind of like how you usually do in parties, except I wasn't even tipsy yet. I appreciated the warning. I was honestly impressed with the accuracy. I respected the prognosis. But at that point, I was no longer interested. It didn't matter anymore what the cards said. As much as I'd like to believe everything she said until that moment, it was of no significance. The cards, the stars, the universe - yeah, we all like to believe in that. Me, most of all, especially after I've long acknowledged the role that kismet has played for the great part of my life as I now know it.
But the party and everything else has already begun. Outside the curtains, I could already hear people trickling in. The music was getting louder, the neon lights, brighter. As enjoyable it was to momentarily cling on to the magic of tarot, there was a much bigger belief I had to hold on to - something more real, and something actual. Something beyond the cards, the curtains, that club.
In my head was a sudden moment of clarity. I was brought back to a warm June night, made even warmer by the plate of sizzling steak in front of me, and quite possibly, other feelings. A moment after dinner was served, I remembered I have trouble cutting my own food. (I've always had my dad slice my meat and skin my shrimp for me.) I forgot about this little concern when I suggested the steak place earlier that evening, but alas, it was too late, because we were already there and I had no choice. I picked up my knife and fork carefully, like any proper young lady on her third date, and did my best with the slab of oven-roasted chops. But then, after a few seconds of trying (and failing) to cut up a bite, very nicely, my date suggested that he do the slicing for me. I asked him if it was okay, with a sheepish grin, and a very shy chuckle. He said he didn't mind. And he hasn't minded a lot of things since.
It was an evening of good steak. And many other good things.
I said my thank yous to the kind woman, hardworker that she is. She seemed like an earnest, kind-natured lady. There was already a line outside as I stepped out the tiny room - couples, candidates, friends, people who were ready to have their futures momentarily revealed. I already knew of mine long before I stepped in, I realized. It was never up to the cards.
A friend handed me my first beer. A dubstep version of Frank Ocean was playing. The beat was barely recognizable, but the words were there. This time, it was the chorus asking me.
Or do you not think so far ahead? Because I've been thinking 'bout forever.
Yes, likewise.
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Labels: finger exercises
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this is how it doesn't start, in eleven parts
1.
this is how it doesn't start.
you are sixteen, it was the first week of class, and his surname happened to start with the same letter as yours.
i want you to pair up with someone from the opposite sex, the professor said. and the three of you, convent school-bred and boy-deprived, giggled out of excitement, fear, both. the prospect of taking this class seemed like an inside joke waiting to happen, begging to be told, as an icebreaker for what would be unabashed boasting and exchanging of stories about college amongst high school friends. so what’s your PE? oh. ha, you’ll never guess what ours is. guess. nope. walking. i’m totally serious. cue laughter.
and suddenly there you all were already. no longer telling people about it; actually being there for it. the professor was explaining something about wearing white shirts and making new friends and the possibility of walking until six in the evening. god, you said to yourself, i just wanted to survive one hour.
he said hi. cue pleasantries.
2.
this is how it doesn't start.
boy culture was the name of the movie, and it had gays having sex. there wasn’t even a question. three twenty-peso bills, three tickets, three convent school girls.
this is it, we really are in UP now.
we might be late for class.
what the hell!
the trailers were starting. they were mostly of women, living in the slums and wearing immaculately white dresses by day, and dancing in a bar naked at night. the titles of the movies were either garden-variety vegetables, or the first name of a seemingly-innocent woman. somewhere in paranaque, a nun is praying a mystery of the rosary for you and your two friends’ souls.
missing class didn’t seem like a bad idea.
we can catch up? you said.
an hour into the movie, you looked down on your phone and started typing.
andyan na ba si sir? :)
wala pa. :)
3.
this is how it doesn't start.
lantern parade, and he said you went over and greeted him. you tried to remember if this happened, but all you recall now was that he was wearing orange. but wait, everyone was wearing orange.
a few weeks later you get a text. happy new year! it said. you didn’t believe it yet, at that time, but you didn’t take offense, especially when the greeting came as a surprise, and came with an invitation. come over, it said. when law school bores the hell out of you. haha.
it was around almost midnight, a little before the end of what was a very, very difficult year.
you now look at the old phone and realize you never replied.
4.
but it could've started somewhere, it could've started here.
you don’t remember much about how that class ended, other than the part where the class went to a nature park, and that you had a practical test around the oval. everything was well and good, you suppose, because you know you had good memories of that class. not the best, not the fondest, but good. okay.
you’d see him in the corridors and sometimes you wouldn’t say hi. sometimes you would.
until one day you crossed paths on the stairs, in a building that wasn’t yours. you said hello, and it was cordial and comfortable and not at all contrived, and you remember thinking, why did we stop talking again? then you recalled, and asked him how they were. apparently, that was over. (meanwhile you were happy with where you were that time.)
you said see you, like people always do when they say goodbye to acquaintances they make future plans with but never follow through. let’s have ice cream one of these days. like an empty promise. cue pleasant goodbyes.
5.
or it could've started here.
i don’t know what you told your girlfriend, but last time i checked, talking to a classmate was not equivalent to destroying a relationship.
you deleted it before you could send it.
you saw each other that week like nothing happened. even then you two were good at shrugging off the unpleasant.
6.
or maybe here.
i don’t wanna wait for our lives to be over, you and your friends sang. he looked at you, at the three of you, and started laughing. one of the boys started commenting on how you just might summon the anger of the gods. you didn’t care. you kept singing. dawson and the gang would have been proud.
a few minutes later, the gray clouds started hovering above all of you.
the class was somewhere outside the campus when it started to rain. it was ten minutes after the period was supposed to end, yet you were still well outside the vicinity of the yellow-roofed jeepneys. you were in the middle of crossing the street, when he tugged your left arm and went over to you right, perhaps, out of habit. there were no vehicles approaching.
7.
maybe this is where it did start.
happy birthday! took fifteen minutes to compose the text. sent it because what the hell.
two days later and you two were outside the shopping center, cracking jokes and exchanging stories with ice cream cones in hand. it was almost like the old times, except that it wasn’t, because for one you were no longer wearing white shirts and rubber shoes, and two, you had no plans of walking.
just staying put.
and you were fine with that.
8.
this is how it did start.
the mother had been revealed.
there’s going to be a next season, right?
she looks like a mix of robin and lily.
it surprised you how effortless it was, how easy, how simple. like it always was. then again, it was never a problem picking up where you both left off, even though you never really remembered where you two left off. how did we leave it off? but it didn’t matter. because you weren’t running out of words, and you weren’t second-guessing your colons and parentheses.
he said he was in baguio. greater than, colon, capital D, less than.
that friday, he brought you ube jam. you sat around the oval and talked for hours you barely noticed passing. a little later, two korean girls approached you. they wanted to just talk, in english, and you obliged them, in english. are you guys together? they asked. cue laughter.
9.
this is how it starts.
it was property class and you were getting bored. you couldn’t hear your professor – the block was in a room famed for bad acoustics, a room that reeked of bad criminal law memories. your head was facing the teacher’s table, but your mind was somewhere else.
then you got a text.
sure i’ll buy that book for you, it said.
10.
this is how it starts.
do you want to have breakfast tomorrow?
11.
this is how it starts, and this is how i'll tell it.
i was sixteen, it was the first week of class, and his surname happened to start with the same letter as mine.
__
this is how it doesn't start.
you are sixteen, it was the first week of class, and his surname happened to start with the same letter as yours.
i want you to pair up with someone from the opposite sex, the professor said. and the three of you, convent school-bred and boy-deprived, giggled out of excitement, fear, both. the prospect of taking this class seemed like an inside joke waiting to happen, begging to be told, as an icebreaker for what would be unabashed boasting and exchanging of stories about college amongst high school friends. so what’s your PE? oh. ha, you’ll never guess what ours is. guess. nope. walking. i’m totally serious. cue laughter.
and suddenly there you all were already. no longer telling people about it; actually being there for it. the professor was explaining something about wearing white shirts and making new friends and the possibility of walking until six in the evening. god, you said to yourself, i just wanted to survive one hour.
he said hi. cue pleasantries.
2.
this is how it doesn't start.
boy culture was the name of the movie, and it had gays having sex. there wasn’t even a question. three twenty-peso bills, three tickets, three convent school girls.
this is it, we really are in UP now.
we might be late for class.
what the hell!
the trailers were starting. they were mostly of women, living in the slums and wearing immaculately white dresses by day, and dancing in a bar naked at night. the titles of the movies were either garden-variety vegetables, or the first name of a seemingly-innocent woman. somewhere in paranaque, a nun is praying a mystery of the rosary for you and your two friends’ souls.
missing class didn’t seem like a bad idea.
we can catch up? you said.
an hour into the movie, you looked down on your phone and started typing.
andyan na ba si sir? :)
wala pa. :)
3.
this is how it doesn't start.
lantern parade, and he said you went over and greeted him. you tried to remember if this happened, but all you recall now was that he was wearing orange. but wait, everyone was wearing orange.
a few weeks later you get a text. happy new year! it said. you didn’t believe it yet, at that time, but you didn’t take offense, especially when the greeting came as a surprise, and came with an invitation. come over, it said. when law school bores the hell out of you. haha.
it was around almost midnight, a little before the end of what was a very, very difficult year.
you now look at the old phone and realize you never replied.
4.
but it could've started somewhere, it could've started here.
you don’t remember much about how that class ended, other than the part where the class went to a nature park, and that you had a practical test around the oval. everything was well and good, you suppose, because you know you had good memories of that class. not the best, not the fondest, but good. okay.
you’d see him in the corridors and sometimes you wouldn’t say hi. sometimes you would.
until one day you crossed paths on the stairs, in a building that wasn’t yours. you said hello, and it was cordial and comfortable and not at all contrived, and you remember thinking, why did we stop talking again? then you recalled, and asked him how they were. apparently, that was over. (meanwhile you were happy with where you were that time.)
you said see you, like people always do when they say goodbye to acquaintances they make future plans with but never follow through. let’s have ice cream one of these days. like an empty promise. cue pleasant goodbyes.
5.
or it could've started here.
i don’t know what you told your girlfriend, but last time i checked, talking to a classmate was not equivalent to destroying a relationship.
you deleted it before you could send it.
you saw each other that week like nothing happened. even then you two were good at shrugging off the unpleasant.
6.
or maybe here.
i don’t wanna wait for our lives to be over, you and your friends sang. he looked at you, at the three of you, and started laughing. one of the boys started commenting on how you just might summon the anger of the gods. you didn’t care. you kept singing. dawson and the gang would have been proud.
a few minutes later, the gray clouds started hovering above all of you.
the class was somewhere outside the campus when it started to rain. it was ten minutes after the period was supposed to end, yet you were still well outside the vicinity of the yellow-roofed jeepneys. you were in the middle of crossing the street, when he tugged your left arm and went over to you right, perhaps, out of habit. there were no vehicles approaching.
7.
maybe this is where it did start.
happy birthday! took fifteen minutes to compose the text. sent it because what the hell.
two days later and you two were outside the shopping center, cracking jokes and exchanging stories with ice cream cones in hand. it was almost like the old times, except that it wasn’t, because for one you were no longer wearing white shirts and rubber shoes, and two, you had no plans of walking.
just staying put.
and you were fine with that.
8.
this is how it did start.
the mother had been revealed.
there’s going to be a next season, right?
she looks like a mix of robin and lily.
it surprised you how effortless it was, how easy, how simple. like it always was. then again, it was never a problem picking up where you both left off, even though you never really remembered where you two left off. how did we leave it off? but it didn’t matter. because you weren’t running out of words, and you weren’t second-guessing your colons and parentheses.
he said he was in baguio. greater than, colon, capital D, less than.
that friday, he brought you ube jam. you sat around the oval and talked for hours you barely noticed passing. a little later, two korean girls approached you. they wanted to just talk, in english, and you obliged them, in english. are you guys together? they asked. cue laughter.
9.
this is how it starts.
it was property class and you were getting bored. you couldn’t hear your professor – the block was in a room famed for bad acoustics, a room that reeked of bad criminal law memories. your head was facing the teacher’s table, but your mind was somewhere else.
then you got a text.
sure i’ll buy that book for you, it said.
10.
this is how it starts.
do you want to have breakfast tomorrow?
11.
this is how it starts, and this is how i'll tell it.
i was sixteen, it was the first week of class, and his surname happened to start with the same letter as mine.
__
Labels: finger exercises
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where small tears go
i have often wondered if there was a place where small kinds of sadness come to die, where faint shades of grey dissolve back to white, where tiny sighs can be heard. i often think that days aren't exactly seamless, that they are held together by little silences that speak louder than our words. those tender moments, those glances at the clock realizing we are late, or the quiet panic as we remember we forgot something, the uneasy glimpses at our still unlit cellphone screens; they are not heavy like paperweights dangling on your chest. they are blisters on your feet when you try to walk with new shoes. they are small tears you never try to wipe, those you leave on your cheek to dry.
__
__
Labels: An attempt at poetry, finger exercises
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what she wore
you take your skirt off because it somehow felt heavy. the mint was a lovely backdrop to the pink belt, but only your mirror paid you a compliment, and it wasn't even convincing. they didn't understand what they were looking at when they see the gray bruise on your inner arm, the one that said blood had been taken away; a part of you had been taken away. your phone rings and you somehow know where this is going. your shirt is immaculate in white lace, but somehow it feels dirty, unclean, like a sorry that has been said but not meant, like an okay that hovers in the mouth but only faintly honest.
__
__
Labels: finger exercises
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Certain capacities
Sometimes I find myself randomly surprised at the many things our bodies and minds can do under pressure, or strong will.
For instance, memorizing more or less a hundred and fifty provisions for a single test that requires specificity and particularity - an ironically difficult task for someone like me who appreciates the stories in the details, but who has the memory of a slightly-more-retentive goldfish - and writing them over and over again, until your hands no longer seeem to move within your control;
holing up in the library for an entire Saturday, just going through cases and reciting provisions alternately, endlessly, without the privilege (and peril) of a high-speed internet connection or other such good enough distraction (i.e. an actual person);
running, without pause, twice around the Oval, even when your legs hurt and your mind is tired, because you realize now that there is a certain kind of comfort, a physical kind of relief that washes over you and makes your cheeks flush, after catching your breath and realizing you have done what no one expects of you;
waking up earlier than usual to read more: to catch up on things forgotten, or to get a step ahead;
starting to like the place that has, since the beginning, only pushed you away, and seeing the beauty in the little things that make it whole: the wooden tables, the marbled tiles, the view of the Sunken Garden, the chatter of people both eager and afraid to get through the day;
looking away when the sound of a private message pops up from the laptop beside yours;
growing deaf to the sound of feelings you're afraid to admit you're slowly turning indifferent to;
choosing to see past mistakes and imperfections; or understanding what it means to mess up and realize what one wants;
forgiving;
welcoming the quiet and the chaos inside your heart that can only be traced to one;
putting yourself back together again, with the pieces that feel right, and the questions that know the answers even without being asked.
__
For instance, memorizing more or less a hundred and fifty provisions for a single test that requires specificity and particularity - an ironically difficult task for someone like me who appreciates the stories in the details, but who has the memory of a slightly-more-retentive goldfish - and writing them over and over again, until your hands no longer seeem to move within your control;
holing up in the library for an entire Saturday, just going through cases and reciting provisions alternately, endlessly, without the privilege (and peril) of a high-speed internet connection or other such good enough distraction (i.e. an actual person);
running, without pause, twice around the Oval, even when your legs hurt and your mind is tired, because you realize now that there is a certain kind of comfort, a physical kind of relief that washes over you and makes your cheeks flush, after catching your breath and realizing you have done what no one expects of you;
waking up earlier than usual to read more: to catch up on things forgotten, or to get a step ahead;
starting to like the place that has, since the beginning, only pushed you away, and seeing the beauty in the little things that make it whole: the wooden tables, the marbled tiles, the view of the Sunken Garden, the chatter of people both eager and afraid to get through the day;
looking away when the sound of a private message pops up from the laptop beside yours;
growing deaf to the sound of feelings you're afraid to admit you're slowly turning indifferent to;
choosing to see past mistakes and imperfections; or understanding what it means to mess up and realize what one wants;
forgiving;
welcoming the quiet and the chaos inside your heart that can only be traced to one;
putting yourself back together again, with the pieces that feel right, and the questions that know the answers even without being asked.
__
Labels: bullets, finger exercises
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Signs of life
It's the night before the night before Christmas, and you are trying desperately to remember the last time your bedside table was this clumsy, this full of books still unread.
But nostalgia isn't a direct flight, and it isn't even a taxi ride. Before it gets you to where you want to go it stops at different locations: bizarre ones, heavily-populated ones, ones you used to go to, ones you never thought you'd buckle yourself into again. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it surprises you how quickly you're brought back to a place, a person, a point. Once you're there, you're confused and ecstatic and all kinds of lost, because you know this isn't where you're going but it feels almost sublime - not quite, but almost, and God knows how enough that almost feels like. You stay, you linger, you latch on to it, until you realize it's been a while and you're not supposed to be there on those steps (or at least not anymore). You start walking, in an effort to get to your stop - or maybe just back to your point of origin, you're not sure, you're kind of disconcerted now, the landing was kind of bumpy and you forgot to take your aspirin - but do your feet bring you there? Do your hands?
You look at you bedside table, and you are only halfway through you stack of unfinished books. Then you see No One Belongs Here More Than You, bottom of the pile on the other shelf, yellow cover still pristine - and of course you reach out for it, of course you do, but not before mouthing the words to the first few lines like the chorus to a favorite song.
--
But nostalgia isn't a direct flight, and it isn't even a taxi ride. Before it gets you to where you want to go it stops at different locations: bizarre ones, heavily-populated ones, ones you used to go to, ones you never thought you'd buckle yourself into again. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it surprises you how quickly you're brought back to a place, a person, a point. Once you're there, you're confused and ecstatic and all kinds of lost, because you know this isn't where you're going but it feels almost sublime - not quite, but almost, and God knows how enough that almost feels like. You stay, you linger, you latch on to it, until you realize it's been a while and you're not supposed to be there on those steps (or at least not anymore). You start walking, in an effort to get to your stop - or maybe just back to your point of origin, you're not sure, you're kind of disconcerted now, the landing was kind of bumpy and you forgot to take your aspirin - but do your feet bring you there? Do your hands?
You look at you bedside table, and you are only halfway through you stack of unfinished books. Then you see No One Belongs Here More Than You, bottom of the pile on the other shelf, yellow cover still pristine - and of course you reach out for it, of course you do, but not before mouthing the words to the first few lines like the chorus to a favorite song.
--
Labels: finger exercises
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The things I carry
Phone, keys, umbrella, coins, I.D. (picture with red background), pens, more pens, colored pens, a highlighter (in pink), The Likhaan Book of Philippine Literature, notebooks, paper, letters, sentences, thoughts: like the color of your shirt or what you ate for breakfast, MRT card, hairpins, the scent of your hair, perfume, tissue, handkerchief, tears of all kinds (for laughing and also crying but I don't fancy that kind), smiles fake and otherwise, camera, iPod, speakers, earphones, the sound of crisply folded letters being opened from dark pockets, wallet, SM Advantage Card, receipts, tickets, your fingerprints on the tickets (you bought them for me), your hands on my cheeks, the heat, a jacket, a scarf, a cold biting fear of the unknown, a compromise, a resolution, envelopes, folders, readings, theories, Post-structuralism, binary oppositions: black and white, one and zero, antonyms and synonyms, the way we both lean in after the door is closed, open-minded view on things, more coins, band-aids, lipstick, the day we both stopped hating the red light, lime, line, life, lib, alliterations, a list of things to not forget, the way you said Me too the day you sat behind me after I said I've never tried this before.
--
Labels: finger exercises
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The spaces you fill.
Last night, I found myself still awake by half past midnight, my thoughts aimlessly drifting to prose then equations then finally, hunger. I went up to the fridge, like I always do, but I was welcomed by a leftover box of chicken I couldn't remember eating. Beside it was a can of diet soda, a beverage I don't allow myself to drink. There was an opened pack of gummy bears, which I eventually reach for and behead one by one, but junk food of this variety I don't buy for my own.
And that was it, that was when it hit me: I couldn't not find you in my room. Not a place where a piece of you wasn't left behind. Not my pillow where our heads rested after a night of watching films on our stomachs. Not my wooden spoon that I used to mix the pancake batter, because we chose to have breakfast for dinner. Not the paper clip that held together your reading "Places & Landscapes for a Changing World" which you will never bother browsing for class. Not my mirror that revealed to you the man who has me wrapped around his finger. Not the shampoo you used that threatened to linger on my hair, my clothes. Not even in the song that played inside my head over and over and over again, the sound of the waves colliding on the ocean of skin that barely separated me from you.
You had no problems littering everyday with traces of you, attaching yourselves to songs I mouth with my eyes closed. My clothes are your clothes, your perfume my own. The pronouns you have permanently replaced, no more "I" or "you," only "us." I try to look for a piece of my space that you haven't yet found, but your fingerprints are everywhere, your heartbeat, always just a whisper away. My blanket holds me in your embrace and the cool blow of the fan scratches my back like your hand spelling out my name.
No, you are everywhere, I realized, and I finally fell asleep, in the comfort of the promise you kept the other night when I said can we stay here a little longer?
--
I wrote this in about twenty minutes, the story having been in my head for the entire day now. There's just a sudden enchantment about this Thursday snuggle-weather that brewed something up inside my head. Consider this my apology for being away for too long: working on my thesis is taking up most of my time, and not having an Internet connection at the dorm is not helping at all. On the contrary, this gives me a legitimate enough excuse to just sleep and hop around from one college library to another. Here's to wishing I can (still) survive the absence of wi-fi.
Labels: fiction, finger exercises
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Progress.
The last time he ever wrote about her was right after their last– was at a friend's– before their fifth– when she was drunk and he wasn't– it was during– or was it after?– he wrote of her cheeks, no, her wrists—
It was a long time since he last wrote about her.
--
Labels: fiction, finger exercises
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Growing Sentences.
(1)
So I walked into the room and it reeked of us.
(2)
So I walked into the room and it reeked of pizza and beer, with a little bit of sunshine spying on us.
(3)
So I walked into the room but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer. The sun is creeping through my blinds, like an intruder spying on my sheets that smelled of us.
(4)
So I walked into the room hoping to get some sleep but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer. It's a very humid Tuesday afternoon, and the sun is creeping through my blinds, spying on my sheets that always smelled of us.
(5)
So I walked into the room hoping to get some sleep but it reeked of leftover pizza and beer, like it usually does on a Friday night, except it's a very humid Tuesday afternoon with the sun creeping through my blinds like an intruder spying on us, except there wasn't even that anymore, only your toothbrush and my sheets that would not stop smelling of us.
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Labels: fiction, finger exercises
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Tap on my window, knock on my door.
On the car stereo. Outside my bedroom window. Alone at night downstairs. At two o'clock in the morning on MTV. On shuffle mode. In the backseat. On my ride to school. In the shower. In between the sheets. Inside my head. While tangled up in you.
It doesn't really go away, this song. How it lingers in my head long after the last note has been played, how it adores me despite no mention of my name. How it drives for miles and miles and winds up at my door. How you've made it ring true after endless playbacks. How you know where I hide, how you want to make me feel beautiful. How it's so much like you.
I've had you so many times but somehow I want more.
--
Labels: creative nonfiction, finger exercises
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Elsewhere.
I am sitting on a chair, typing on my laptop, on the dining table, in our little blue house, somewhere in Paranaque. And yet where I sit does not exactly define where I am. Where are you? you ask, which roughly translates to What are you doing? to which responses could be: (1) in a corner sandwiched between two windows, (2) writing a paper on suicide, death, and liberation, (3) finding comfort in being alone, (4) coming to terms with what lies ahead, (5) really craving for Oreos, (6) riding 'em like a cowgirl, (7) in front of a glass of water, (8) suppressing desires, (9) "co-mingling my blood with yours" because that's what John Donne said, (10) submitting myself to some cosmic, patterned fate.
Between the boundaries of my apparent self and my real self lies a yearning for release. I want to drift away, to float around, to be somewhere else. I want to be on top, inside, upside down, standing up -- anywhere but here, where lines are black and white, where urges are damned, where standards stand in the way of letting my hair down. But I am neither here nor there. Just somewhere in between the lines of finding myself and never coming back.
Where am I? is not as important as Where would I rather be? The rain was falling hard last night, and the car was glistening with the glow of its aftermath.
Labels: finger exercises, Things one attempts after a cathartic downpour and creative nonfiction class
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January 14th.
Little black shadows of rain droplets covered her legs. She hugged herself a little and felt the warmth of her new jacket. It was a new feeling, taking a ride with him. Disturbed was playing in the background, but somehow in the iPod inside her head, it was John Mayer providing the score to that moment.
She steals a glance at him. Eyes firmly planted on the road. She wanted to say something to break the silence, but decided not to. It was raining hard that afternoon, but she felt warm and fuzzy inside.
She could get used to this.
Labels: finger exercises, Things one finds scribbled on scratch papers scattered on the desk
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