Beginnings

are wondrous things. A beginning might purport a preceding end, which is a death of sorts. It could be a circling back to something old that had been forgotten, an unearthing (accidental or otherwise) of buried loves, an act of resurrecting, of breathing hope into a previously abandoned dream. It could be a picking up of a scattered life. It could be a fresh start, altogether--one small, but prominent, stroke on a sheet of paper. It could be that sheet of paper, too, clean, white, unscented.

From the (not-so-weekend) couch:

Caught this on the Turner Classic Movies channel last night. My dad had taught me "Over the Rainbow" (yep, that Arlen/Harburg ballad that was to become Judy Garland's signature song) when I was a kid and so I finished the movie, even though it turned out horribly outdated (but what did I expect?).

And yeah, I was Dorothy, too, as she uttered the line "there's no place like home" over and over , on her delirious way back to Kansas.

So, what's new?

Read Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog".

Therese

            She could not stand the anger in her mother’s body and so she made her way out much, much sooner than they had expected. She couldn’t very well refuse the blood that was being pumped into her, a continuous stream of pure pain and anguish welling from her mother’s tight, cramped mind, could not do much with the movements she had been confined to making; her kicks were puny and her turns measly.

            So there she was as the doctor found her, her eyes shut at the bright, yellow lights, her tiny, wrinkly body just a little bigger than her mother’s hand, not a cry escaping her crimped mouth, so that she had to be coaxed into letting out a shout, a soft wail, really, if one thought about it, a wail that multiplied into four others. And with those, they were satisfied, and they put her near her mother’s cheek for a few, perfunctory bonding seconds, but her mother’s cheek wasn’t warm enough for such matters and so they whisked her away to be washed and was, promptly and as part of SOP, examined for further signs of life, and put inside an incubator, where she was to stay for the next two months of her life. And between these two months, a total number of three blood transfusions were done--in essence, none of the blood running through her was her own—the last donor was a friend of her uncle’s, who was now a lawyer.

            She remembered none of these, of course. 

            None of these.

An idle mind...

Thoughts can be such devils. When so much time is in one's hands that one runs out of things to do, the mind takes over and disaster often follows. The mind takes one to places better left alone, and yet one goes to visit because the lure of the imagination is hard to resist. Granted, yes, a wonderland could lie out there from which one could harvest a whole slew of new things (but as if I needed another wonderland!). And what if the wonderland turns out to be Captain Hook's lagoon pala? Pa'no na?

I can't wait to go back to work. Baka mapunta pa ako sa bahay ng "The Others". Ayoko nga.

The Pond

by Louise Gluck

Night covers the pond with its wing.
Under the ringed moon I can make out
your face swimming among minnows and the small
echoing stars. In the night air
the surface of the pond is metal.

Within, your eyes are open. They contain
a memory I recognize, as though
we had been children together. Our ponies
grazed on the hill, they were gray
with white markings. Now they graze
with the dead who wait
like children under their granite breastplates,
lucid and helpless:

The hills are far away. They rise up
blacker than childhood.
What do you think of, lying so quietly
by the water? When you look that way I want
to touch you, but do not, seeing
as in another life we were of the same blood.

(from The House on the Marshland, 1975)

My dad would love this:

And so would I.

From Broadway.com:

DESCRIPTION

Come Fly Away combines the seductive vocals of Frank Sinatra with the sizzling sound of a live 19-piece big band and the visceral thrill of Twyla Tharp’s choreography. Fifteen of the world’s best dancers tell the story of four couples falling in and out of love at a swinging nightclub on a sultry summer night, set to a score of beloved Sinatra classics including “The Summer Wind,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “One for My Baby,” “My Way,” “Theme from New York, New York,” and “I’ve Got the World on a String.”

Once again,

a tree.
This time, the rain.
This time, the night.

One Art

(Elizabeth Bishop) The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster, Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. -- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

To be still.

To be still.

From the weekend couch: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

How is it possible 

that a 30-year-old such as I could still find herself thinking "that's me, I'm Alice," while watching this film?

I didn't have to wait to read what was written on the "Drink Me" potion and the "Eat Me" biscuit and I just had to say them out loud, to my chair's annoyance. The Cheshire Cat was fab, the March Hare quite stressed out, the Red Queen dreadful, and the Mad Hatter so very lovely!

Some people refuse to grow up, I guess. Paging Peter Pan.

I wanted to stay as I was
still as the world is never still,

-from "The Doorway"
Louise Gluck, The Wild Iris-

The great thing
is not having
a mind.

-from "The Red Poppy"
Louise Gluck, The Wild Iris-

Funny Girl

A girl ought to have a sense of humor 
That's one thing you really need for sure 
-Fanny Brice, "Funny Girl"-

Trip lang. hee

from YouTube

I remember telling you

about my childhood--about the quaint, old house I grew up in, about its resident turtle and trusty, ancient Queen, the dog, about the dear, kind people I spent my mornings and evenings with, the chirping birds and squawking hens I woke up to, the crickets I listened to as I drifted off to sweet, innocent sleep.

I remember the sad smile that turned up the corners of your mouth. Most of all, I remember your reply: the world is a cruel place and you're just a little, little girl in the middle of it. And I remember thinking, perhaps you're right. Indeed, there is much evil here, squalor in so many places, greed in some, leftover misery from the first miseries that were, so many lonely people trying to make their way in whatever way they can.

But I remember thinking, too, how there must have been something wrong with what you said. After all, you're here. After all, my dad, my brother and I just had a really nice time catching up with each others' lives a week ago. After all, my other brother just texted me his wish that I get well soon. After all, my mom just called me up several days ago to cheer me up. After all, colleagues are helping me take care of work matters. After all, friends have sent and are still sending get-well-soon messages. After all, you just made me a comforting cup of coffee. After all, the sky is finally dousing the dry earth with its rain. After all, I have a pink towel. After all, tomorrow is another day. After all, there is the gift of words. After all, I continue to dream of and hope for a better life. After all, I know you do, too.

The world can't be all that evil. 

It just isn't possible.

This girl looks so pretty I just had to post her here

Hmm.
I just realized...
I haven't shopped in ages.

photo via the sartorialist

My (fairly) new friends

And then, there's "Glee"

I jumped on the "Glee" bandwagon a long time ago. A couple of things made me do it:

First, the music. "Glee" mixes and mashes show tunes and pop music with unabashed fearlessness, and I think it does today's young people a world of good that this level of musical exposure is made available to them. One moment, we get an REO Speedwagon treat and next, there's a number that educates us on Fanny Brice's warning to anyone who dares rain on her parade, and then we get to share in Elphaba's resolution to defy gravity. The Broadway fanatic will find something to like as much as the next pop music lover will. Plus, the songs span generations, too. From Frank Sinatra to Madonna to Color Me Badd to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch--how awesome can that be? And "Poker Face", a ballad? Sheer genius. The end of each episode strengthens my wish to walk up to its creator/s and give them a strong, extended handshake. Is it a sin to want to shout "encore! encore!" to such bravado? I guess not. Thank goodness for the internet, I can watch any episode any number of times.

Next, the plot. I mean, don't watch the series with a snub-nosed goal to look for credibility and all that crap because you sure won't find it. The show's strength, I guess, would be in its single-mindedness in pursuing a storyline that makes way for the music to be put in and, along the way, sprinkling bits and pieces of life's real drama and social issues that target individual conflicts in order to portray the whole--in a manner of speaking, if it's happening somewhere, then it must be happening somewhere else, too, and if someone experiences something, then, surely, someone else has experienced it, too. Whatever.

Whew, the air's getting kinda heavy around here.

But, yeah, here we get to peek into the lives of a bunch of musically-inclined teenagers (who become outcasts for pursuing their passion(s)--so much for art and the individual!) and see their comings-of-ages as they deal with issues on sexual preference, teenage pregnancy, thwarted dreams of dancing, delusions of stardom, obsessive compulsive behavior, etc.

Quite a load we got here, one might say, so where does restraint figure in all these? The answer is--nowhere. The in-your-face drama of "Glee" will surely get to a number of us, but then again, didn't a famous bard once say that life is a stage and we are but actors? So, if you're like me, who's more than a bit theatrical, you'd probably find something to like in the series. And by "theatrical" I didn't mean that you have a background in theater, but that you find drama in the small pockets of your everyday life. You know, like, you feel the urge to bawl your eyes out each time someone tells you the sad story of their lost love, or if you walk out of the movie house with a twinkle in your eyes because the film you saw just cemented your belief in magic. Or, and here's the real deal, if you feel the urge to burst into song every time you cross a milestone in your wonderfully colorful painting of a life.

Shit like that.
You know.
=)

Ripple

That's how it is when it comes. First, a teardrop of a thought that falls into clean, clear space. Next, an encumbrance of pain struggling out of the quiet. Then, the surge of memories swelling outward, outward.

And one is back, again, to the stillness.

Except that it's seldom ever the same one.

Equilibrium: 7%

...because, in the delicate ecosystem of our body, too much of anything will disturb the balance. So, in this sense, pain really is a sign that we're out of harmony with Nature. -Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of The Senses-

From this episode of illness, I learned:

1) that the body can only take so much of the mind's anxiety binges--
one's gotta give if the other is to make it, and in the end, they conspire to jolt one into reflection;

2) that in sickness, we are equals--
our body can be hosts to the same virus, the same rash

and none is spared the squalor and the ugliness;

3) that my God does have strange ways of delivering messages across--
this time I'm being told to shut up with my bickerings and just enjoy the view, for once.

Finally, some breeze comin' our way.

In the meantime, I'm sick and hived all over. 

Meet Apollo:

Myth of the moment (for a month now):

"Apollo and Daphne" oil on canvas, John William Waterhouse, 1908

Daphne and Apollo

At the end of the pursuit
is a reversal:
set down
upon the earth at last,
she takes root,
splinters
into branch and leaf,
her shape turning lush,
verdant and immortal.
Abandoned
to the windy fill
of his arms,
he clutches at damp sod,
breathes in such loss,
and snaps off
bright sprigs of her hair
to weave them
into his own.
In the heart
of the wood,
a god learns too late:
love transforms
never quite in one way.
The one who loves
survives, remembers
in his solitude
his body's dark
sorrow.
The one loved,
slight and always fleeing,
lets fly a light-borne wish
to the air,
and painlessly escapes
into another beauty:
a new lover
or a tree.

-J. Neil C. Garcia,
from The Sorrows of Water

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.

Gravity

The mind and the heart hunger for flight but the feet remain on the ground.

The soul dreams of its displaced darkness.

Walang Magawa...

The Night House

by Billy Collins

Every day the body works in the fields of the world
Mending a stone wall
Or swinging a sickle through the tall grass—
The grass of civics, the grass of money—
And every night the body curls around itself
And listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
From the body in the middle of the night,
Leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
With its thick, pictureless walls
To sit by herself at the kitchen table
And heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
And goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
And opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
And roams from room to room in the dark,
Darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
In her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
Singing a song about the wildness of the sea
Until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
The way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

Resuming their daily colloquy,
Talking to each other or themselves
Even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body—the house of voices—
Sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
To stare into the distance,

To listen to all its names being called
Before bending again to its labor.


found here.

Chalk

The girl in the purple dress always feels a jolt when she walks into a club, no matter how hard she tries to prepare herself, and tonight is no exception. The lurch feels strangely strong now, she thinks, as two burly men in black open the glass doors for her and she steps into dim lights, blaring music (electronica, as they call it), cigarette smoke, black-clad people from the twenty-something demographic, laughter and talk, beer bottles, the smell of beer. A quick glance around the room points her to the friend whose birthday it is, the friend who had asked her to come. After the requisite smile, the peck on the cheek and the greeting, she singles out a seat in the corner of the bar and walks towards it, all the while holding her chin high and trying extremely hard to act nonchalant, even when all she wants to do is to turn on her heels and run away, out into the evening air, the friendly, quiet evening air. Instead, she sits down on her chosen nook, exchanges hellos with the couple nearby, orders a coke, and stares at the empty napkin holder on the table in front of her. The music seems to have gotten louder and she is grateful that the couple she is sharing the table with seems to be as spiritless as she is. Cigarette smoke starts to sting her eyes and she shuts them tight for ten seconds, feeling the urge to keep them closed for ten more. Instead, she opens them and sees the same tarnished lights blurring the same, nameless faces, hears the same thundering music drowning the small, shallow conversations. She takes a sip from her coke and thinks of her soft, warm bed.

How your day was

The tumult in the heart
keeps asking questions. 
-Elizabeth Bishop, "Conversation"-

The mirror throws back a child's face, the only tell-tale windows of sadness and years, the tired eyes. What a relief it is to lie down and stretch the legs, to move the toes that for hours and hours had been confined in the narrow, triangular concaves of the three-inch stilettos you knew had been a mistake, not when you knew the extent of wandering that was to come when you slipped into them yesterday. But now, it's the evening after the day of that afternoon and the body lies supine on a soft, familiar bed--because there often is softness in the familiar--even as streams of the last nineteen hours' sundry conversations still intersect in your head and the approaching twilight shows little promise of a peaceful night. In your head, too, the lines of a song weave themselves into the lines of a poem, and you become the "you" in the song, and one of everyone else in the poem. You, walking, and the memory of aimlessness, the aimlessness of your  feet as they took a path that led nowhere that you wanted to believe was somewhere, and that did take you somewhere: you, alone, there, somewhere. And, finally, as the day finds its end: you, here, somewhere, and somewhere else.

Shut Your Eyes (Snow Patrol)

Shut your eyes and think of somewhere
Somewhere cold and caked in snow
By the fire we break the quiet
Learn to wear each other well

And when the worrying starts to hurt
and the world feels like graves of dirt
Just close your eyes until
you can imagine this place, yeah, our secret space at will

Shut your eyes, I spin the big chair
And you'll feel dizzy, light, and free
And falling gently on the cushion
You can come and sing to me

And when the worrying starts to hurt
and the world feels like graves of dirt
Just close your eyes until
you can imagine this place, yeah, our secret space at will

Shut your eyes
Shut your eyes and sing to me
Shut your eyes and sing to me


*video

Your lethargy,

sprawled, limp, on the chair.

My eyes trace its drowsy lines and I ask "why the weariness?" and you say, "I don't know. Maybe it's this sudden shift from hopelessness to hope."

I nod. 

Still,

this restlessness, this wandering into near nearness, this wondering if that scent is the scent of rain, of evening, or of something else. If I kept still, still enough, long enough to be still, will this wandering, this wondering, this maddening roaming in pursuit of that stillness, cease?

"At the end of my suffering there was a door."

-"The Wild Iris", Louise Gluck-

Last night, just before I fell asleep, I remembered that May was my dark month. The thought fell in, unannounced. Just like that.

I remembered: everything that came after that May was a climb out of some hollow, some grave.

I am grateful I never really tried to find out what specific day it was in May I had begun digging, or when I stopped. Even the hour eludes me, and that's a good thing, I guess.

Those details, at least, would not come back to haunt, and the memory's edges would, somehow, be blurred.

"Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday."
-author unknown-

One line, another.

Twilight is almost here.
Someone just sighed.
Repression is maddening.
Last night's laughter and songs have been left on last night's doorstep.
One realizes that one has to move with the hours.
The minutes go by and soon we find ourselves in the same second, on the same spot.
Nothing stays where you put it.
The heart sinks more often than one wishes it to.
Help me give a name to this absence between us.
We connect one certainty to another and come up with uncertainty.
Stop wondering what will happen next.
If I knock, will you let me in?
Good night.

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.

---

Astig.

Vantage Couch

Ted Neeley, "Gethsemane"

Slim, 40-something, Caucasian woman in a tie-dyed sleeveless top, sitting very straight and very tall. She is eating a muffin and sipping some iced, tea-like drink. She is reading something from her laptop. Or maybe she's just staring at the screen. Freckled arms. Shoulder-length, auburn, wavy hair. Very pretty bag, zebra print, red handles. It is lying carelessly on the floor.

Keri Hilson and Kanye west, "Knock You Down"
Skip.

Simply Red, "Fairground"
Good enough.

Man who looks like Santa Claus (hair, moustache and beard all white as snow) typing something on his flip-top phone. Message to Mrs. Claus, maybe? Hurry up, dear, I'm getting bored here..

Florence and the Machine, "Drumming Song"

Oh, turns out it wasn't Mrs. Claus sir claus was waiting for, after all. Some guy who looks like Ken Watanabe (from the back, at least) arrives and sits on the couch in front of Mr. Claus. His smile is warm (I could not see Ken, but I figure he's smiling, too). They talk. Mr. Claus's eyes are blue. He has very nice, very white teeth.

Fiona Apple, "Waltz"

Teen-aged girl reading Tuesdays With Morrie. Green shirt with white piping, denim shorts, sneakers. Hair tied carelessly in a ponytail. She seems so earnest, as if she were reading something really engrossing, something really... good. Hmm. I wouldn't wanna be in her shoes.

Oh, look, there's another guy with a white beard. I was gonna say "another Claus look-alike" but I figured he looked more like some character straight out of a Dickens novel.

Edie Brickell, "Good Times"

“I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. … We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside.”

David Foster Wallace
-via
 Jonathan Carroll

Overheard, over lunch:

A: This is really cool!
B: What is?
A: Waffle. Sevendust.
B: Whoa. You like that song?
A: I already told you, I fell in love with it the first time you let me listen to it.
B: Oh, yeah, I forgot...

...
B: But that's metal.
A: And so?
B: Okay. Okay.

...
A: Oh, look what's playing next.
B: What?
A: Aretha. Hahaha. From Sevendust to Aretha. Awesome.
B: hahaha. That's some eclectic shit you've got there.
A: Thank you for giving me this iPod.
B: You've thanked me a hundred times.
A: You know what this is? It's more than just an iPod. It chronicles the evolution of my musical tastes. Plus, it's the physical manifestation of your music and my music, blending. This iPod is us.

Awww.
Keso.

Pffftt...

If somebody asked me what the verbal equivalent of a rolling of the eyes is---

--I don't think I'd know what to answer.

We chase art and don't know it--

the iPod we patiently save part of our paychecks for; the concert we brave the Friday rush hour to get to, on time; that painting in the cafe we always find ourselves staring at, because the taste of the coffee goes so well with the sight of the colors on the canvas; that tune we hum inside our heads the entire day; that novel, that book of poetry we forego lunch for; those few, short lines we hunt pen and paper to scribble down. That itch to see, that craving to hear.

We often feel the urge to burst into song and almost always find that there is no crowd, no one, to sing for.

Hence, we sing to ourselves.

And that would do, for now.

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.

But she knew what it was like to be still, that piece
of a moment when the mind wakes up to the sound
of something crashing...

-from "Sleepwalking" by Joy Icayan-

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.

Girlfriends

Forsaking despair, we are keen
on shoving this faith into ourselves...

-J. Neil Garcia, "Smoked Salmon Surprise"-


The two of us, facing each other across a wooden table in the middle of a hot afternoon, 1:04, to be exact. Beer in a glass, half-finished iced tea on another. A breather, right after the quarrel with the boyfriend who's oceans and oceans away, accusing you of "never being there" for him just because you were unable to answer the phone when he called, an hour earlier. Then, forty minutes of talk, of explaining, of assuring, of telling him he's a great guy, in spite of his inability to find work, of reminding him to take some medicine or another for his flu, of promises, hush, it's alright, it's alright. After the click, a sigh.

Dearie, it's alright, you know how men can be. Yeah, I know. He needs you, you see, needs you to be strong for him. But he can get so paranoid, at times, you know? It gets to me, it really does. You love him. So it is all about that, no? Not all the time, I'm just saying he's a lucky guy because you love him and you stick by. Oh my God, imagine if I got tired of it all and just left him. You've got to be kidding. He will absolutely go mad. Yeah, he's already mad, the way things are. But, see, it can't be easy for him, too, I mean, being so far away and all alone. I guess you're right. I have to be strong for him.

Men. They are such boys.

One nods, the other shakes her head. Laughter.

Cheers to us. 

(giggle)

You'll be fine. We'll be fine.

Madaya ka, you didn't finish your beer. 

*For L--*

Weekend browse:

A walk across the rooftops 
by Luis Katigbak

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