Summer, Part 3

I am typing down these words. In the background, Jeff Buckley is singing, "kiss me, please kiss me," and I am wondering who he wrote the song for, and if he really did write it, and I am thinking, there is so much I am uncertain about, there is so much I don't know. There is no point to these words, to these thoughts, but I am hoping there will be. I resist the urge to stop. There is always the urge to. We wonder about the things we do, we wonder about the sense in them, or if there is any sense to the things we do. But we keep at it, we do not stop. At least, not when it matters--when it matters to us. Most of the time, the things that mean so much to us would not make sense to other people. I wonder about other people. I wonder about the things that mean something to them.

The song has ended, another one has begun. I wonder what sound will come out if the last one and "Lilac Wine" overlapped, at some point. If moments of our lives overlapped, what would it be like? Do moments ever overlap? What do the sciences say about time? It is a thought I do not wish to pursue. I can feel the sweat on my temples. "Why is everything so hazy?' Jeff Buckley sings. Outside, the sun is going mad with its own glory. How exaggerated the heat these days, have been. The word "exaggerated" was deliberately chosen, yes. Today is May 1st. It always rains on May 1st. Today, there is no rain, and the heat does not seem to have any plans of making way for rain. The heat always compels me to write. Sunlight such as this stirs up so much, but when I sit down to name them, I keep drawing blanks. There is nothing new in this.

"Oh, that was so real, oh, that was so real, oh, that was so real," Buckley sings. And then there is something about the moon and the wind. I go blank. I am wondering what to write next. Was it so real? This morning, I went through my stash of unfinished stories. I wonder if I would ever get to finish them. These things mean nothing to you, I know. But now, Jeff Buckley is singing, "Well, I heard there was a secret chord", and I pause to listen. Some songs command one to listen. Am I making sense to you?

Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah


The song has ended. I have run out of things to say.

Summer, part 2

Water.

Oh, to soak, to sink

in dreams
of you, to wade through you, or drown, perhaps, but gloriously. Because I cannot swim.

Stop struggling, they say. The tide will bear you to safety. I find it hard to believe, but it's not wholly impossible--nothing ever is. Some things are like water;

so pour me out.

These lines are figments--I am standing somewhere square.

Trickle down my throat, or wash over me.

Solid things wear me down; edges can be scathing. Hard surfaces, those bricks, that street. A rock and a wall, you say, and I, in between.

Let me flow, instead.

Billow, crest, and fall, and start again. And again, and again. There is rhythm in repetition, but beauty lies in swirls. Oh, let me swirl. I want to swirl with you. I want to swirl in you.

It's this darn heat.

"I wish I had a river", Joni once sang. I wish I were a river.

Tonight, the moon glows bright, illuminating the rivulets coursing through my mind, liquid pathways that lead to you.

The moon seldom ever insists its presence, but it always finds its way here. Like you do.

This page is full of abstractions, invisible streams gushing everywhere, taunting my delirious brain.

Will somebody please hand me a glass of water.

Summer

Daybreak. Pale rays of light cleave (your) consciousness into humid halves. Edges start to blur. A book of poetry, sprawled on your left thigh, disappears as your lids finally drop.

Slumber and desire are both fluid--

The ceiling, dock to your longing: this will be your first thought when you open your eyes again, hours later. Oh, merciless heat. When and where, deliverance? A dull ache lingers as a montage of tarnished dreams dissipates from your mind, but

--so let me flow--

not yet. Meanwhile, your mind roams in unbearable brightness, through tepid skin and agitated hands, above rising, and rising heights, underneath the glow of distant moonlight and alongside a frugal, sultry breeze, through restlessness and crawling mist. A dark, nameless hunger, an absent stasis. The eyes seek dim corners, entanglements. Blue lights flit about.

A specter of you, faceless, all brilliance--

On surfaces, sweat breaks, and breaks, and breaks into tiny, oppressive beads and

you dream of skies unfastening,

of you, opening

of rain falling on parched ground, of you catching the drops finally, finally, with your

tongue.

Weather report

The clock said 12:52 when I glanced up at it from the plate of greens I was picking on. A peek out the window yielded a sight of bluish/purplish clouds and a grey-tinted sky.

Non-movement. Muteness.

The beads of sweat forming on my arms, for some reason, ended whatever suspicions of rain/non-rain I had had this morning when I went outside and felt the sting of the sun against my skin. It looks like rain, I remembered thinking, as I looked up and saw the sky ablaze with sunlight.

Meanwhile, and more so because of the inclement state of the sky, I felt that sensation of being suspended nowhere and everywhere. The possibility of renewal lay somewhere, but I insisted on abeyance.

Quagmires lie where there is flux, and we've all been through enough storms to want another mishap, another fall.

But here comes a drizzle, and I find myself begrudgingly wishing the winds of a week ago back, the memory of a just-risen, benevolent sun--eavesdropping on a conversation about moonbeams and pathways and dreams--ambling into my mind like a cool, confiding breeze.

My Summer Shot

I blame the incredible heat and the sheer blueness of the pool's tiles. Yes, I had no extra clothes and had absolutely zero plans of swimming, but, yes, I jumped into the water, anyway.

So, summer.

And now, hello, June.

In-star-gam

The glare. Of the sun.

via Instagram

This girl

Awake by the wee hours. Crisped some corned beef. Toyed with the rice on my plate. Posted on instagram. Put Bon Iver on the player. Tweeted. Threw out the garbage. Washed the dishes. Looked up The Beatles "This Boy" over at YouTube. Felt happy watching the video. Now listening to The Beatles' albums I got from my dad's stash.

Simmer, folks. Have a lovely Saturday.

=)

Oh, summer, bummer.

Cheeks as red as tomatoes. Sunburn after an hour outdoors. Ants marching in organized multitudes toward unattended food. Then a cold comes along to officially usher me into summer.

=/

Of breezes and blues

Goodness, this heat. These days (and nights), I find myself sorely tempted to forgo my  heels for flip-flops, my turtlenecks for tank tops, these concrete floors for sand. The daily latte has already been replaced by iced coffee.
The chilly breezes have been so unceremoniously shooed away, and summer is irrefutably here, languishing in the sun and partying away the buzzing, moonlit nights.
All these talk of  cool, blue waters and beach bumming are distracting me from my day-to-day, makes me wonder what it would be like to get away, far away, in a little dress abloom with flowers, and just lie on the warm sand, count the stars, and fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing and the drifts of a guitar and the beat of a lone drum cavorting in the distance, a snappy, frisky breeze kissing my cheeks...

Chow King Halo-halo + Fruits in Ice Cream + Yellow Cab NY Classic + Icebergs Halo-halo + Starbucks Iced Grande Mocha + Tater's white cheddar-coated potato chips + Razon's Halo-halo + etc. + etc. + etc.

This insufferable heat is making me fat.

Possible Facebook status posts for today:

is wondering who the next president will be. Would be extremely sad if this country bursts into orange once the counting ends. Yellow is a much friendlier shade.

is musing. So, what are you, really?

feels confined by this world's fences. It's a good thing there are other planes one can escape to. Thank heavens for words.

wants to know when the sun will stop its stinging ways.

is frustrated by all the circumlocution going on in the book she's reading. Or maybe she's just not in the frame of mind to focus.

is questioning her present state. Is she here, or elsewhere?

has gone from hot coffee to iced and realizes that this has been the wisest decision she has made in a long, long while.

---

Oh, gleek.

This darned, friggin' heat is certainly pulling up the cranks. Blame it on the sun, sure. 

And blame it on "Glee" for bringing out this cheese ball of a girl.

But there you have it, I bawled like a baby while watching Kristin Chenoweth sing "Home" in the latest episode's final scene.

And then I watched it again, and again, and again. Meanwhile, the requisite tears just didn't want to stop, until even my emotion-clouded brain misted over with tears, and I kept thinking: it sucks to be a grown-up. I wanna go back to my childhood. I was happier there. I was home, there.

Listen to the song here.

A Visit

Well, what do you know...

It's raining tonight.

April

The days seem to have acquired an aimlessness to them. Perhaps, it's that standstill brought by the heat, that dry, dry mist in the air that paralyzes the mind into a stasis of some sort. The occasional wind, blowing at whim and frugally, too, doesn't prove much of a help.

The mind dreams of rain.

Rain, glorious rain.

For now, we watch our thoughts desiccate, crack into dust.

Teach

the feet to arch, nonchalant, on heels. Each conversation is a potential fight to be won. Paint the eyebrows just so--even a frown should spell not doubt but mere deep thought. Stare when stared at. Don't storm off, just walk away.

Women on glossies and other surfaces: stop looking.

Resist

Simmering after that extended outburst did you think it'd be this soon the blue takes over In the middle of pretending to give options would any of those two have done it for you That secret relief oh that blessing of an exhale over his refusal to choose it brought in the calm oh what heaviness a sigh takes away what appeasement after the knockdown how tempting to give in to the pull of that traitor of a smile tiny and tugging

Seasonal whining

Every summer season seems hotter than the last one.

One feels almost ungrateful for the breeze because the heat it brings along stings the skin like so, just so, so that the mind feels the pinpricks of a dizzying soreness that will not succumb to the numbness that is usually easy enough to assume.

No, not when it's this hot, this dry, so that we are almost prompted to ask why ever did we wish for sun, now that so much sun is here.

Tsk. The heat indeed does things to the mind.

More on the Weather:

Dear, dear me, been getting headaches because of this confused, temperamental weather. Been lazy and cranky and blah and it doesn't help that work has not been a slide down the rainbow lately.

One bright spot to my week is that my dad and brother were in the city for a few days and the kids and I got to spend time with them, roaming Glorietta (which has become a dismal disappointment) and Greenbelt (which is gorgeous, thank you).

Other than that, I've been trying to assuage my weather woes with as much good music as I could get my hands into: lots of India Arie, Carrie Underwood, some Broadway, Christina Aguilera (tried her "Walk Away" and "Save Me From Myself" upon a friend's recommendation), and good ol' Ella Fitzgerald.

Several friends are in La Union for some surfing and I kinda feel a tiny pang of regret that I didn't go with them--even if they had tried to cajole me into it, like tens of times--though, at the same time, these rains would've taken away whatever fun I would have had if I'd gone.

There, you see, the weather has got me all confused, too!

What are you doing to keep dry and sane?
=)

Rain

Another gray day.

The rain falls in an incessant, stubborn rhythm and there's a muffled wailing that accompanies it. After weeks of glaring, yellow mornings and sticky, orange afternoons, this wet grayness is, surprisingly, an unwelcome foil to what is supposed to be the dry season. And in as much as I abhor the heat, I would have wanted a less sudden transition.

If, indeed, we are shifting into the rainy season.

Isn't it a little too early for that, though? Or, perhaps, I am merely letting myself drown in the despondency that hit me unawares this morning, the usual way it catches me when it comes.

The Sky's Mood Swings--and So Does Mine (?)

What's with the shift in the weather's tone?

Suddenly, it's raining (and raining hard!) in the middle of what is supposed to be--and what has promised to be--an excruciatingly hot April.

I overheard someone ask: is it the end of summer?

And, despite my cranky take on the heat, I found myself thinking: I hope not.

I mean, summer ain't all that bad, right?

Tee-hee.