Sheltered by this roof

In the wake of the typhoon that has passed our way, the slightest darkening in some patch of sky now brings with it some foreboding of disaster.

The mind's eye conjures an entire city well on its way to being wiped out of the map; the heart remembers the shudders that came with the images flooding the news; a little fist of conscience recalls the shame one felt while digging in to a tub of popcorn to chomp away the fury one felt because the internet connection during the last few days was faulty, when distances away, families may have lost everything they had worked all their lives for, death tolls have come up to alarming heights, psyches have been forever tainted by the trauma of having lost so much, of having been lashed at by winds and rains so merciless, that living will never be the same again, even after the wounds have become scars.

It seems almost a sacrilege to be surrounded by so much warmth and safety, and to still be wanting more than what comfort and luxury there already is, when one has become aware of the loss and devastation that has been gone through by countless others, in one single afternoon, within the stretch of one night. 

If one were to look back at the headlines, one would see the glaringly sorry state that our corner of the world has come to: Trailing the Napoles brouhaha, typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda comes along. Do not mistake me for blaming one for the other; because in the scheme of things--where, after all, there is no scheme--there is no connection, whatsoever. I juxtapose these two events not out of superstition, but merely to illustrate--and highlight--the outrage that the former ought to incite in us, and the contemplation that the other inevitably brings with it.

It is at times like these that one, in spite of oneself, is made to pause, and reflect on the the significance of living: what is it that truly matters? 

And your hunger is not for experience
but for understanding, as though it could be had in the abstract.
-Louise Gluck, "Moonbeam"

What are these promises for, if not for breaking?

Steadfast, this loop, that goes round, and round, and round, and arrives, always, to give and take, and take away more than was given to be taken.
Nobody said that wish you wished, once upon a transient star, would ever be more than what it was when it slipped out of some random, fugitive dream.

There is reason to all this naming.

"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.

These days...

image from erinsavage

Whisked away

It saddens me to think of all the words I should have written down that I had let go of, instead. The absoluteness of their loss weighs down on me like some long-forgotten heartbreak that has come back and refuses to go away.

What wind, which wind, I wonder, had carried them off, and where to?

And what about the journals I had misplaced, or may have thrown away out of some sort of anger I may have felt that time, what of the many manuscripts I had written, in longhand, typed and edited and re-typed, and then lost? What of them? What of the sleep given up just so the words could be strung together, just so the lines could be worthy, at all, of touching the whiteness of paper?

And what of the aches so deliberately recalled, what of the joys so painstakingly pinned down, labored over so they could be just as real on the page?

You know how there are topics that we avoid, words, even, or names that we try so hard not to utter in conversations, both with someone else and with ourselves, or else the pain will seep through us, just like that, and totally water down our soldered brace on reason, and make hash of whatever semblance of cheerfulness we may have been feigning, for the longest time?

Browsing...

How cheerless are these lines?

The rain is falling and it is awfully dark outside. It’s two forty in the afternoon and yet it seems like twilight. There is a congruence to the words twilight and gloom.
Loneliness is a terrible thing. It makes the soul shrink unto itself, like there’s nowhere else to go except inwards, and one does not know what one will find there. Lonely. There is a sense of finality in the letters, as if there is nothing in between them, not even shadows. Just nothing. (July, '05)

or these:

But loneliness. It is twilight, and then the darkness that comes after twilight. It goes away, but is certain to come back. Daylight obscures it, but only for so long.
It is part of, if not the, landscape.
Loneliness, I have to confess, has become one of my favorite words.(July, '05)

Even the description of Maria Callas' singing does not escape the dismals:

...and yet, ultimately, its greatest achievement is that it is able to touch the core of one’s humanity, to stir dormant feelings of sadness, whose cause one can’t seem to trace, exactly. It is, I believe, the primeval sense of loneliness that lives in each of us, and it is this that “La Mamma Morta” gropes around for, and then raises for us to see, if not to acknowledge. (July, '07)

And then add this to the dreariness:

I have long ago taught myself, little by little, to close myself into a bud whenever I feel the threat of pain. (July, '07)

But wait, there's more:

We feel the gargantuan pain (and we're talking physical pain) shooting up from the chest to the throat and we push, push it downwards so that the effort makes breathing difficult that tears start to well up in the eyes. But we don't stop until we know for sure that we've dug deep enough to bury the scream. And, with it, the pain. (January, '08)

Sheesh. I'm glad to have outgrown those.

Or, I hope I have.

Despondency always arrives unannounced.

But why does it need to come, at all, in the first place? And for no apparent reason? Or does this happen only to some people? You know, the ones with certain personality traits that make them baits for its hook, like those possessed of some, or all, kinds of neuroses, heavy to moderate angst supply, or some kind--distant relative, even--of artistic temperament, if you will.

You know how it is, when a host of negative thoughts and anxieties suddenly descend upon your hapless little brain and decide to stay for some time and you're left with the task of entertaining said host and you, frowning as you do, would be side-tracked long enough to stop and question the sense of what you are doing.

Yeah, that sort of thing.

And it's exactly the kind of thing that would make you want to turn your back on everything--up to and including what, or who, is in front of you right then--and run off to build a little cottage in some hill-surrounded clearing where all you'll have to deal with are your cat, the laundry and your adobo.

How convenient that it should come now, I mean, with J.D.'s passing away, and all. Not that they're in any way connected to each other, heavens, no. How presumptuous--and downright rude--of me if that were true, or if I allowed myself to think that that was so. So, no. The thought just crossed the writing of this post, that's all.

Oh, to be a hermit.

The thought seems tempting enough. Can't blame the fella.

And if I could sing myself a merry little tune

...I'd be fine.

It was the saddest thing. As I and a friend were walking in the mall just last week, my mind's eye captured the sights and sounds of the holiday cheer--the glitter, the carols, the laughter, the reds, the yellows, the greens--and I thought, all these will be gone before we know it. I looked around and saw lights disappearing into the air, saw the dying smiles on folks' faces.

I shook myself out of it.

Brr. It's been awfully cold, lately.

Allow me to add this to all that's been said

"The blackout takes over the night erases the city from the map erases everything"
-Conchitina Cruz, "I Must Say This About The City", from Dark Hours-

Since everybody has written, is writing, and will write about the typhoon that has recently come our way, I told myself, I won't write about it. So I kept it away, put off the urge for as long as I could. But the images in the news, the horror stories (made even more horrifying by the fact that they were not fiction, but fact) were just too much for me to take, while keeping mum and being passive.

It seemed almost irreverent to remain silent, when the rest of everything and everyone was, and is raging.

On my September 26 post, I wrote:

Let's all stay indoors. This is not a good time to be out.

It was morning when I typed those words and I was, as yet, completely unaware of the catastrophic scale the inclement weather (I thought it merely "inclement" at that time) was about to shoot up to. I was lucky that where I lived remained untouched by floodwater. The only complaint I could come up with was that rainwater came in through the window, creating puddles on the room's wooden floor. I grumbled even as I wiped. But still, I wiped.

The shame I felt, then, when, after turning the TV on, the screen presented coverage of a furious typhoon gone mad on the city and its people. Flood, flood everywhere, making lakes out of streets where people remained trapped inside floating cars; dark, filthy water risen and still rising to alarming heights, climbing up staircases, reaching up to terraces, chasing people up, up, so that they had to brave the rain and the wind in order to seek safety on their roofs. There were places where even the roofs failed to provide the shelter so desperately sought.

Really, who could have been prepared for this?

No one, I guess. And so the typhoon has left us in shock, in shambles, in shreds.

Facebook Status: Such gray, despondent weather. The rains must be bringing on the gloom for some of us.

A room that is really a box, its walls wrapped in ash-tinted blue. Light without rays, barely illuminating a third of the place. Outside, an angry sky pelting heavy sheets of rain and wind.

Where I am, I am not there. I am somewhere else.

Though in that place, I am unsure of my presence, too.

I was in one of my pensive moods this morning and a line from Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood" blew across my thoughts, as the line was connected to the chains my mind was piecing together. I decided to look the poem up and I found myself starting to feel sad upon reading the first lines of the first verse and grew even sadder as I moved onward...

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more...

Oh, to be a kid again! Adulthood is such a sad affair.

Pause

and the one thing that might cause me to shift
is the dancer's step.
-From "Vase Painting," by Rainer Maria Rilke-

I am waiting for Mercury to go direct. There is so much tension in the air, suspended tautly in this hot, dry weather; lying in silent, stagnant pools inside my brain.

All this waiting, and waiting, and waiting isn't good for repressed people. The possibility of an implosion--or implosions, if one may, because there are many repressed people--rises to dangerous heights.

May 30th.
I wonder what's in store.

People are breaking, breaking, breaking... Dear God, please help them get through whatever it is they need to get through.

Meanwhile, I stand silently by, a mere observer, calm and steady; a witness following scenes with eyes that see too much from looking, and a heart saddened by the confusion, the griefs that friends try hard to keep between folded hands, yet which push themselves out, even so.

And in the middle of this seemingly aimless, static wait, I remember thinking how I was once where they are now, how I was them, once. And I remember how it felt, only, now, because I have learned how it is to keep oneself detached, the pain feels very faint, like a sigh on one's palm, a murmur in one's mind.

Remembering--and always remembering, because forgetting will not be possible--how it was and how it is, I find myself inching forward and reaching out a hand. I cannot, cannot keep looking and remain a bystander.

Because turning my back on them would be like keeping the door shut on my knocking, pleading self.

All those cliches about merry-go-rounds, roller coasters, wheels, et cetera have more than a grain of truth in them: round things do turn; circles make cycles; cycles go in circles.

If, at any point in our lives, we may have felt that rock-bottom was within reach--or if we've actually touched rock-bottom, or even spent a while lying on its hard, jagged surface--really, don't the hands of the clock always tick towards the left?

Of course, I'm right.

So if your back is touching cold, hard stone today, do look upward--you'll be on your way there, soon.

Might as well get used to the discomfort, though. Better to remember the feel of rock-bottom than to have to start all over in befriending the pain once the next drop comes.

And what do you know of my griefs?

Energy Conservation Tip:

shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down shut the mind down