This took my breath away.

I thought it was a scarf.
Turns out it isn't.

In Beautiful Bloom

*All snippets and photos are from the article written by Christopher Jobson, Creator and curator of Colossal, an art and design blog. Go visit! It'll be worth the while.

"In 2003 a building housing the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (MMHC) was slated for demolition to make way for updated facilities. The closure was a time for reflection and remembrance as the MMHC had been in operation for over 9 decades and had touched countless thousands of patients and employees alike, and the pending demolition presented a unique problem. How does one memorialize a building impossibly rich with a history of both hope and sadness, and do it in a way that reflects not only the past but also the future?"

"To answer that question artist Anna Schuleit was commissioned to do the impossible. After an initial tour of the facility she was struck not with what she saw but with what she didn’t see: the presence of life and color. While historically a place of healing, the drab interior, worn hallways, and dull paint needed a respectful infusion of hope. With a limited budget and only three months of planning Schuleit and an enormous team of volunteers executed a massive public art installation called Bloom."

"The concept was simple but absolutely immense in scale. Nearly 28,000 potted flowers would fill almost every square foot of the MMHC including corridors, stairwells, offices and even a swimming pool, all of it brought to life with a sea of blooms. The public was then invited for a limited 4-day viewing as a time for needed reflection and rebirth."

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.

=)

Waiting for Batman

What kind of lazy

The kind of lazy that won't get out of bed.
The kind of lazy that won't lift a finger.
The kind of lazy that lets the dust settle on the floor (or lays out plans of sweeping them under the rug, later).
The kind of lazy that stares at a wall.
The kind of lazy that draws blanks.
The kind of lazy that won't budge from its seat to walk toward the bed (because the bed is in the other room), no matter how sleepy.
The kind of lazy that's too lazy to open its mouth when a yawn comes along.
The kind of lazy that watches (without budging) a cockroach cross the room.
The kind of lazy that will watch you walk away with its favorite shirt.
The kind of lazy that leaves things (all sorts) unfinished.
The kind of lazy that falls asleep with its coat on.
The kind of lazy that will watch you walk away.

That kind of lazy.

How to hurry

un-finish the to-dos so you can grab a wink before the day is done because another one waits in the outskirts of your week but take care not to spill the coffee even if you'd rather have tea but oh oh the tea place is too far and you barely have half an hour to check what needs oiling or fixing or combing yes button up those discs and grab the nearest pair of sleeves shove yourself into those nudes that go along with everything check yourself can you blend into the nearest wall when things get worse than 7 o'clock run run slam the windows shut run is there ever time to pause or pause to look but oh the plug goes un-pulled forgotten until the first stop your life goes past your nose past the last lie the present blurs but your mind is on the lack of light while you smudge your left cheek with pink tint did you put the right shade on the jerk was too sudden good the puppy flees unharmed there's always tissue on hand to wipe the stray brush strokes away relief can't be too far ahead but the clock is never on your side so wring your sweaty hands you think you could wing it everytime and everytime is never anywhere except when you don't need it oh why why don't you ever learn remind yourself to stop making lists of shoulds and musts they never get done anyway--

Happy Birthday, Jay

87 years ago, The Great Gatsby was published.

.

"With every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 7

Posting, post-Lent

In spite of myself, I found my fingers leafing through my CDs and going for my copy of The Madz's "Acclamation", that well-loved compilation of religious hymns ("I Will Sing Forever", "Anima Christi", and "Panalangin sa Pagiging Bukas-Palad" are my favorites), pushing the play button, walking into the porch, sitting on my tiny stool, and falling into reflection at the beautiful strains of the choir's impeccably-blended voices. I was grateful for the quiet that only an early morning can bestow, the mild sunlight, the pause that the world takes come Holy Week.

Even as I have learned, over the years, that religion is in one's heart, or that respect for all kinds of faiths is the right thing to cultivate, or that prayer is best done heartfelt and not through routine and custom, I still found myself pulled in by the impressions of muteness that had embraced my side of the world, saw my much, much younger self lost in a sea of people, staring down at a dusty road peopled by people's shod feet, trailing the heels of a life-sized figure of a Mary Magdalene decked in a deep-blue, bejeweled cassock, the scent of burning candles saturating the air, the drone of prayers and conversation filtered by a warm summer breeze, that younger self walking, walking, feeling the ache in her feet, but trudging on despite the dust in her new sandals, because Mama said to keep walking, and besides, friends (who had decided they would rather be St. Peter's disciples because he was first to go) waited somewhere along the fringes of the church, where there was promise of five-peso hotcakes and softdrinks-in-plastic later, endless chatter on the way home, where Dad and Mom waited, a cup of hot tablea chocolate on the table.

Oh, but how far back it was I had gone. I had not meant to. And I didn't mean to, now, thinking of that peaceful morning when I was pensive and quiet. I didn't mean to look that far back, not with the distance cleaving those two worlds. But I long to cross the chasm. If only time weren't so locked in. I would have jumped, head-on, if jumping meant going back.

Coolio!

from this site

What do you know, My father has the makings of a blogger.

A couple of weeks ago, my dad posted this on his Facebook:

The Son Also Rises (With apologies to Hemingway)

After waking up in the morning the father, still with ruffled hair and his maintenance medicine awaiting, immediately pounds the keys of his laptop for his FB...

...while the son, awkward for lack of skill, prepares their breakfast.

The title totally cracked me up. My father has a quirky sense of humor.

=D

The strength of my father

The strength of my father tears down walls. It builds bridges. It resurrects dead faiths, rekindles dying fires. The strength of my father sneers at pride and walks over the hot coals of weakness.
The strength of my father has kept this family whole; the years have only served to deepen the ties that he has so lovingly preserved.
The strength of my father pushes lives forward.
I march on, with him ever by my side.

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.

=/

"For suffering, it seems, is infinite, and our capacity without limit."
-C.S. Lewis, Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold

haha

from flavorwire

"I think you can tell, when you meet someone, whether they read novels. There's some hollowness if they don't."
- Philip Hensher

"So cry all you want. I won't tell anybody."
-David Foster Wallace, Oblivion

"As if we are all trying to see each other through these tiny keyholes.

But it does have a knob, the door can open. But not in the way you think...The truth is you've already heard this. That this is what it's like. That it's what makes room for the universes inside you, all the endless inbent fractals of connection and symphonies of different voices, the infinities you can never show another soul. "

I will always regret not buying that DFW book.

Errors in Conjunctions

1. And my breath catches at the discovery that you still haunt these roads, and those.
2. But I curb the vagaries of thought and feeling; the heart is weakest where memory dictates.
3. Or I could have bought the old book of watches, the bag of coffee beans, the barely-touched Dostoyevsky volume.
4. Yet sunlight still slants sadly over my little shelf of books.
5. For much of this story is undone--locked inside drawers, shut behind doors, swept under rugs.
6. So the hours go by, sinking into slumbers.

from Explore

Kung kasadlakan man ng pula't pag-ayop 

tubo ko'y dakila sa puhunang pagod; 

kung binabasa mo'y isa mang himutok 

ay alalahanin yaring naghahandog. 

- hango sa "Florante at Laura"

This little banquet

"It struck her... that here was spring, and the whole year to be lived through, once more."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

My current fixations:

milk tea, scented oils, tea light candles.

After a long day at work, and a drawn-out week crunching away at data, daylight, and anxiety, there's nothing like a large cup of cool milk tea, or the sustained whiff of fragrant oil kindling mildly over the soft flicker of a tea light candle.

The milk tea invigorates, the scents bring pleasure to the tired mind, the sight of the candle's softly quivering flame subdues the cares and the distress... ah, but life seems kinder when the air is filled with strawberries, or apples, or amber, or vanilla-and-cinnamon-flavored donuts...

And outside, flits a lone moth and nine fireflies, a breeze lingers just a bit longer, trees breathe over weary pavements, moonlight slants,  invisible, on the surfaces of things.

The daily grind is sapping enough, so sip away and take it easy.
Have some tea and candlelight today.

Just Little Things

The small things are often the most neglected. 

But catching them could just turn out to be the best moments of our day.

more here