Woman.

http://earthdriver.bandcamp.com/track/womyns-work

Still. Woman.

Promise

Promise. Magsusulat na ako araw-araw. Ayoko na ng guilt feeling pag iniiwasan ko ang mga salita at kwento sa isip ko. Pakiramdam ko mga tao silang pinapatay ko kapag hindi ko naisusulat. Minumulto nila ako tuwing gabi. Kinakatok nila ang takip ng bintana namin sa kwarto. Palakad-lakad sila tuwing alas-tres ng umaga, naghahanap ng katahimikan sa gilid ng kama namin. Kasalanan ko ang kanilang kamatayan. Sinakal ko sila noong kumain ako kaysa magsulat.

Promise. Isusulat ko na ang kwento ng journalist na... Ay! Nakalimutan ko na. Ayan na nga ba ang sinasabi ko, nakakalimutan ko na kung ano ang kwento ng mga napatay ko. Kung bakit sila nabuhay at kung bakit ko sila nasakal. Pero may mga ilan pa akong naaalala. Tulad ng kwento ng mga kaluluwang nagpapaligsahan sa Loyola Memorial Parks, undas, paramihan sila ng bisita. May special award ang may programa pang inihanda ang mga dalaw. May isang kaluluwang wala na ngang puntod, wala pang dalaw.

Aalalahanin ko ang mga kwentong naisulat ko. Nailibing ko na sila nang buhay pero titiyakin ko kung naputol na ngang talaga ang kanilang paghinga. Katulad ng kwento ng isang batang nagsunog ng mga gamit ng kapatid niya dahil iyon ang paborito ng tatay niya.

Ang dami kong kasalanan sa pagsusulat. Kinuntyaba ko ang tula para pagtakpan ang sigaw ng konsyensya kong bumuhay ng nobela. Oo, isang nobelang di pa nababasa saanman!

Bibigyang buhay kong muli ang mga kwento, ang mga salita. Promise. Promise.

Pasko na naman

Pasko na naman. O kay tulin ng araw.

Gusto ko ang Paskong Pinoy. Noong bata pa ko, palagi kong inaaabangan ang pagsapit nito. Excited akong matulog nang maaga para sa simbang gabi kahit na paidlip-idlip ako sa simbahan. Paborito ko ang lakaran pauwi, sinasabayan ng malamig na simoy ng hangin ang bawat hakbang naming magkakapamilya pabalik sa bahay. Tapos kakain kami ng lugaw o kaya e sopas na tinda ng kapitbahay namin. Susundan namin ito ng tulog. Paggising e magkukuwentuhan kami ng mga nakakatawang karanasan ng nakalipas na simbang gabi. Puno man ng pagka-abala sa paghahanda ng mga regalo, may panahon pa rin para umupo kasama ang buong pamilya sa sala para makipagkuwentuhan. Bago matulog, ihehele ako ng mga letra ng mga libro.

Gusto ko ang karoling. Noong bata pa ko, palagi rin akong nangbubulabog ng mga kapitbahay namin, kumakanta ako nang malakas, habang hinihintay ang kalansing ng barya mula sa bulsa ng mga kapitbahay namin. Ngayon, nakakatuwa pa ring marinig ang paulit-ulit at iba-ibang bersyon ng Ang Pasko ay Sumapit, inawit ayon sa pakakarinig ng mga makukulit.

Gusto ko ang noche buena. May handa o wala, masaya ang pamilya. Sinisimulan ito palagi sa pagsisimba at pagdarasal. At tinatapos sa mainit na pagbati ng Maligayang Pasko.

Gusto ko ang ideya na ang Pasko ay para sa pagmamahal at pagbibigayan. Maraming mga gustong mag-abot ng biyaya. Anumang regalo ay nakakapagpasaya. Higit sa lahat ang presensya. Sana araw-araw ay maging Pasko lagi.

I am awaiting your arrival, happiness

You are trapped in the traffic of the busy countryside
Just taking a nap underneath the moonlight
Awaiting nothing

As I look forward
to the leaping of those handsome little eyelashes
to blink once, twice, to finally reveal
those precious stones that are your eyes.

Dear Bro

I'm too worried about you
I hope the medicines work well
I don't want you to be pained
in any way

sure, I hate your drinking
way late in the night
I hate the way you snub
when all I want is your comfort

But a sickness threatens you
Oh how I'd love to bear the pain and the fear
Dear, oh dear bro,
get well soon.

To write is to experience pain

Inside me is a monster who craves for words and ideas I write. Such a gruesome monster he (or she) is. He (or she) lives somewhere deep in my stomach, ready to punch away all the food I gulped along with my digestive acid. When he stretches his (or her) mouth wide open, it crunches my bones to the deep. The pain travels through my veins up to my brain sending signals that it's time for me to write. It won't stop until I switch open my desktop to write and puke, write and puke, write and puke.

Sometimes, I am extremely disgusted by what I spill on a blank word document.

on Books, fictionally speaking

I just learned today that November is National Book Month. Too late for me to know since it's already the 23rd of November. Had I known about it earlier, I should have done some sort of commemmorating the existence of what for me is man's most wonderful creation-- books.

But I guess late is better than never. So in the spirit of my love for books, I scribbled down my favorite books of all times:

1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I read this short novel when I was in grade two. This small book was brought home by Mama one day, I don't remember when. The book still rests on my book shelf up to this day.

2. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Again, Mom's prescription. I didn't get the message of the book not until I read it several times during gradeschool. Uh, and I think I lost whatever concept I had conjured out of its pages when I grew up. But the work somehow made its way through my system that I would list Hemingway as one of the best writers I have ever fictionally met.

3. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. For all its sense and sensibility.

4. My Antonia by Willa Cather. I thought of naming my female child after the main character in this book.

5. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. For all its vivid and ironic imageries.

6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Again, dramatic.

7. Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. This book was a gift from a friend who knows my passion and love for writing. When are we having the Chicken Soup for the Readers' Soul?

8. Vagina Monologue by Eve Ensler and Castel of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino. Ma'am Amy's prescription when I was at the crossroad of my college life.

9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I read it several times. It's definitely something recommended for everyone.

10. Jules Verne's series. Books Mom brought home for me to while away the hour after school.

I'll add more when titles creep on my head in a later time.

Happy National Book Month!

My Slipper's Other Half

I won’t go out of my house with just one slipper on. That’s the rule.

This other half.

It tickles me one time and bits my foot on other times.

It has been a companion in my short yet long journey of struggles, of keeping up, of going along, of standing above this ocean of life.

Yes, a gift it is, for it came from Him who created me.

But there are instances when I want to throw the other half away because of the itch it sometimes causes me.

I have the freedom to choose, right?

So it comes to a point when I feel that the water is already way above the rim and I just have to let go, and find another pair, or perhaps walk barefooted.

This moment of surrendering my slipper’s other half has been coming in various ways and times.

And so in times like those, in moments of giving up, in flashes of turning my back away

I look at it again

And I find it cute, funny, crazy, incomprehensible, healed, imperfect, calloused, wounded, wise, breakable, porous, unbendable, flexible, at service, out of bounds, in love, stupid, practical, illusive, friendly, snub, gentle, appreciative, responsible, harmful, beautiful, all wrapped into one.

How can I throw such an other half?

It’s the only PYM slipper I have. And keep it I should. That’s the rule.

Pinunit na panaginip

Paunti-unti kung bumuo ng pangarap ang tao
Nag-iiba sa bawat hakbang at bawat liko
Hindi makuntento kung hindi ipapangako
Hindi titigil hanggang hindi maabot ang dulo

Hahalughugin ang bawat sulok
Babanatin ang buto't kakalugin ang ulo
Babasag ng bungo, huhukay ng gulo
Hanggang ang panaginip ay magkatotoo

Isang iglap lang, maaaring magbago
Binuong panaginip, pupunitin ng poo't
Ihahagis sa lambak nang pira-piraso
Hanggang mata'y mamulat sa sadyang totoo

Choices

As I look back over the 23 years of my life, I end up wondering about the choices I made of which there must have been already a multitude. And then I end up asking, did I choose this life or did this life choose me?

-written on the 4th of November at 6:44 am, after registering for the 2010 polls

Ano sa Tagalog ang Writer's Block?

Ewan. Hindi ko alam. Basta ang alam ko lang e yung pakiramdam. Di ko masabi. Di ko mahugot sa dulo ng utak ko yung gusto kong sabihin. Wala pala akong masabing anuman. Pinagsusulat ako pero nagliliparan ang mga salita sa kung saan. Uupo ako at tutulala, wala!

Iyon na nga siguro ang writer's block.

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Ano sa Tagalog ang writer's block? Di ko matranslate.


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Uulitin ko ang tanong: Ano ang Writer's Block?

Uulitin ko ang sagot: Ewan.

Ano sa Tagalog ang 'Writing Break'?

Hindi ako makakapagpatuloy sa isang araw nang di nagsusulat. Ewan ko ba. Basta may hawak akong panulat, bira nang bira ang isip at kamay ko. Nagsasayaw sa papel. Kapag wala naman akong hawak na kahit anong panulat, nagsusulat ako sa hangin atsaka ibibilin sa sariling tandaan ang plot dahil baka makalimutan. Kapag hindi naman ako nagsusulat sa papel o sa hangin, nagbabalak naman akong magsulat. Ganoon din, nagsusulat. Sakit ko na yata ang pagsusulat. Umiikot ang sikmura ko kapag alam kong may nakalimutan akong bagay na dapat ay isinulat ko. Halimbawa ay 'yung kwento tungkol sa mga magkakapitbahay na nitso sa Loyola Memorial Park. Bigla namang sisikdo ang dibdib ko kapag naalala kong tungkol pala iyon sa laro ng mga kaluluwa--paramihan ng bisita at pabonggahan ng selebrasyon ng Araw ng mga Patay.

Minsan, kahit madaling araw, gigising ako dahil may kakaiba akong panaginip. Isusulat ko yun sandali sa isip ko tapos muli akong pipikit. Kapag naalala ko pa iyon sa umaga isusulat ko pa iyon. Sa gitna ng trabaho, kapag may pumuslit na ideya sa isip ko, magbubukas ako ng blog o di kaya'y MS Word tapos ipagsisigawan ko na ang ideyang iyon sa computer. Maski may kausap ako, basta't may hawak akong papel, hala sige, doodle. May dumaang kahel na kuting, maliit, hinahabol ang langaw. Kahit ano, sinusulat ko.

Adik na yata ako.

Ayokong tigilan ang pagsusulat dahil ayaw rin niya akong tigilan. Quits lang.

Ano nga sa Tagalog ang 'Writing Break'?

Musika

May kapangyarihan ang awit magbigay-saysay
Sa bawat bagay na dala ng buhay.
Malaking ginhawa ang kayang idantay
Sa nahahapong isip, kahit walang malay.

Hindi ba't ang awit ang nagbibigay himig
Sa bawat bibig na nawawalan ng tinig?
Hindi ba't saliw ng tugtog ng pag-ibig
ang pumapawi sa matang daluyan ng tubig?

Sa musika maaaring isabay
ang tuwa't saya, sakit at lumbay.
Sa musika maaaring ikampay
ang mga pakpak na nangangalupaypay.

Musika ang ibig marinig
kapag maingay ang paligid
o kahit pa tahimik.
Dahil ang musika ay pag-ibig.

<

There is something greater than

This pain.

Yes, something weighs more than all the piercings

in my heart right now. I lament before the world

for seeing my childhood dream die

right inside me

but I know and I feel that something is greater than

This death.

What is the purpose of this death?

I wouldn’t know until this

ends.

All I need to know is after this dying is resurrection

in any way it is fated to live again.

I believe that indeed, something is greater than

Goodbye.

For in every parting is a new beginning.

For every road that ends, a new road awaits.

I believe I can still tread the more uncertain path.

I have enough life to give for this something greater than

All the happiness and pain put together.

From Luke 11:29-32

There is something greater than.

Putik

Sinisimulan ko nang magligpit.
Ma
la
l
i
m

ang bahang sumalakay
sa
loob ng bahay.

Rumaragasa

ngunit
da-han-da--han
ang paggapang paitaas,
paitaas. At

bumaba.

Putik

ang naiwan.

Kailangan
ko nang magligpit.


-h

Ondoy: Isang laksang pagkabahala at pagmumuni

• Nitong nakalipas na katapusan ng linggo, dumagsa ang tubig-baha sa bahagi ng Central, Northern at Southern Luzon. Sa loob lamang ng anim na oras, isinaboy ni Ondoy ang ulang normal na nakukuha ng Pilipinas sa loob ng isang buwan. Walang tigil ang buhos ng ulang nagtapos sa buhay ng halos 75 katao at nanira sa maraming kabuhayan. Sa 23 taong paninirahan ko sa Lungsod Quezon, ngayon ko lang nakita ang pananalasa ng isang bagyo na umabot mismo sa aming barangay. Ayon sa isa kong kaibigan, 5 bahay ang tinangay ng malakas na agos dala ng pag-apaw ng sapa sa Balara Filitration. Ang mga nawalan ng bahay ay dinala sa aming kapilya. Hanggang kaninang umaga ay naroon pa rin ang mga nasalanta.
• Pumunta kami ng kapatid ko sa Marikina kahapon. Sa unang pagkakataon, nasaksihan ko kung paanong binaybay ng kasawian ang mga kalsada ng Shoe Capital at pinakamalinis na lungsod ng Metro Manila-- ang Marikina. Ilang matitinding larawan ang kumintal sa isip ko habang nakasakay sa jeepney at nakatanghod sa bintana nito. Una, isang batang may kalahating dangkal na tumor sa ilong ang nakaupo sa hagdan ng isang puting bahay sa gilid ng kalsada kasama ang kanyang pamilyang bitbit ang iilang pirasong plastic na naglalaman ng mga kaunting damit. Pangalawa: Isang babaeng umiiyak kasama ang kanyang pamilyang may bitbit ng maletang brown. Pangatlo: Isang pamilyang mukhang mayaman (base sa kinis ng balat) ang naghihintay sa ilalim ng shed papunta sa Riverbanks Mall, putikan, mukhang nag-aalala habang may bitbit na mga maleta. Habang pauwi kami, napapatingin ako sa putikang sahig ng jeep. Iyon ang unang beses na nakakita ako ng putikang sahig ng pangunahing moda ng transportasyon sa bansa.
• Sa lahat ng imahe, pipiliin kong bitbitin ang imahe ng daan-daang Pinoy sa telebisyon man o sa lugar na madalas kong pinupuntahan. Mga Pinoy na piniling tumugon sa tawag ng pangangailangang magsilbi sa mga biktima ng bagyo. Hindi ko na maalala kung ilang beses ko itong nasambit: PROUD AKO SA PAGIGING PINOY. Oo, sa kabila ng lahat.
  

Where are you?

Me?
I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw.
I'm scared of what I did, who I am.

I'm scared of walking out of this room
and never feeling for the rest of my whole life,
the way I feel when I'm with you.

- Dirty Dancing

Ano'ng gusto mo?

Marunong din naman akong sumuko.
Kahit na gustung-gusto ko pang sahurin ang mga ngiti mo
Sabay ibulsa sila isa-isa.
Kaya kong limutin ang nasa kong
punasan ang bawat patak ng luha mo
habang sabay-sabay silang nahuhulog.
Kung hindi mo naman kailangan
Pwede ko pa naman itapon ang naipon kong
pag-aalala sa'yo.
Kaya kong isuko ang lahat ng pangako.
Kung gusto mo.
Kahit naman ano, kaya kong ibigay sayo
Sumaya ka lang.

Sino ang Manunulat? (Unang Salimsim)

Ang pagsusulat ay isang biyaya. Isa itong makapangyarihang paraan ng pagbabahagi. Noong ako'y bata pa hanggang ngayon man, palagi kong hinahangaan ang sinumang matagumpay na nakakapagpaabot ng kanyang isipan at saloobin sa pamamagitan ng sinulat na salita. Pangarap ko ang magsulat. Gawain ko ang magsulat. Tuntunin ko ang makapagbahagi ng aking sarili at ng mundong aking ginagalawan sa pamamagitan ng papel at panulat.

Bilang taong mahilig magsulat (hindi ko pa kayang sabihing ako ay isang ganap nang manunulat kung kaya't maiging ang naunang pahayag ang gamitin bilang panlarawan sa akin), isang hiwaga ang bawat pagsasanib ng mga titik. Isang ganap na uri ng pag-iisip ang pagsusulat at ito'y matagumpay na naisasagawa lamang ng isang taong bukas sa biyaya. Nangangahulugan itong kahit sino'y maaaring maging manunulat kung bukas ang kanyang isipan at nakahanda siyang humawak ng responsibilidad na kaakibat ng tungkulin ng pagsusulat.

Mar-red chance

He backed out.
Said it's for the country.
Said it's for the people.
Threw away his chance.
So the other could shine.
To throw in his own time.
To change.
To make a change.
Skeptics ponder,
Wait for the turn of events.
Does not everyone deserve
the benefit of the doubt?
Who knows what?
Who knows why?
The days are long
Yet time is short
In time we'll know
The man behind the lectern.

Paghihintay: Unang Hinuha sa Pelikulang Time Traveler's Wife

Ang sumusunod na artikulo ay lubhang personal na atake sa pelikula. Isusunod ko ang intelektwal (kuno) na paghihimay pag humupa na ang emosyon.

Ang umiibig ay naghihintay. Ang naghihintay ay umiibig. Ang paghihintay ay parang pagsasanla ng buhay sa isang bagay na walang katiyakan. Ang pag-ibig ay nagbibigay katiyakan sa mga bagay na walang kasiguraduhan.

Iyan ang naiuwi kong baon mula sa panonood ng Time Traveler's Wife ni Robert Schwentke.

Noong isang linggo pa naming binalak na panoorin ng mga kaopisina ko ang pelikula kaso ay nagkaroon ako ng ibang nakatakdang gawain kaya nakansela. Nagdalawang-isip pa kong sumama kina Mian at Ms. Chanda para panoorin ang pelikula pero balintunot man, tumuloy pa rin ako. Nakalendaryo ko na ang panonood ngayong gabi. Wala nang burahan.

Nagkukumahog kami papuntang SM Marikina. Minadali ni Ms. Chanda ang pagmamaneho. Shortcut dito, shortcut doon. Bumili kami ng pagkain sa Burger King, mabilisan. Takbo papuntang escalator. Nauna na sina Ms. Chanda at Mian. Dumudukot ako ng fries sa plastic habang naglalakad-tumatakbo. May sumingit na mag-nobyo sa harap ko. Ginawang Luneta ang hagdan. Humihinto ang mundo nila samantalang ako, sa likod, nagmamadali.

Nag-uumpisa na ang Time Traveler's Wife nung pumasok kami. Parang bumagal ang mundo sa loob ng sinehan. Kinakapa ng mga mata ko ang daan. Kay hirap ng malabo ang paningin.

Aksidente. Isang batang Henry ang naulila sa ina. Nagpatuloy ang kwento. Isang Matandang Henry ang nakatagpo ng batang Clare. Nagtagpo sila sa iba't-ibang panahon ng kanilang buhay. Normal si Clare. Time-Traveler si Henry. Naghihintay palagi si Clare. Palaging umaalis si Henry. Isa lang ang pagkakatulad nila, umiibig sila-- sa isa't isa.

Ang pag-ibig na iyon ang nagtutulak kay Henry para bumalik kay Clare. Iyon din ang pag-ibig na nagtutulak sa kanya para umalis. Ganoon palagi ang eksena, alis, balik, alis, balik. Hanggang mamatay si Henry. Alis, balik, alis, balik. Palaging umaalis at bumabalik si Henry. Palaging naghihintay si Clare.

Hinatid ako ni Ms. Chanda at ng asawa niya pauwi. Habang naglalakad, nakasabay ko ang 2 mag-nobyo. Yung isang pares, kilala ko. Binati ko sandali. Pagkalampas nila, yumuko ako.

Hinagod ko ng tingin ang madilim na kalsada. Gaano pa kaya katagal ang paghihintay?

Sa Silangan

Lupang Tigang, Anne Fer


Sa tagal ng itinulog ko
Nagising akong
tulad pa rin ng kahapon
ang pagbubukas ng araw.

May lumilisang pag-asa
at may isinisilang na pangarap
May nagpapatayan pa rin
para sa kalayaang magkaiba
May nagpapapatay
para sa di lubos na maunawaang dahilan
May mga batang sa sariling bahay
natutuhan ang mga karahasan ng buhay.
May mga batang gustong
matupad ang mga pangarap
May mga matatandang naglilibing
ng mga pangarap

Hindi pala nagbabago ang ikot ng mundo
kahit ipikit ko ang mga mata ko
at mahimbing na matulog
Pag gising ko kasi
sa Silangan pa rin sumisikat ang araw.

-h

Dead Stars by Paz Marquez Benitez

DEAD STARS
by Paz Marquez Benitez

Photo courtesy of NASA

THROUGH the open window the air-steeped outdoors passed into his room, quietly enveloping him, stealing into his very thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he had made of life, the years to come even now beginning to weigh down, to crush--they lost concreteness, diffused into formless melancholy. The tranquil murmur of conversation issued from the brick-tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen were busy puttering away among the rose pots.

"Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?"

"I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next month."

Carmen sighed impatiently. "Why is he not a bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty, is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza must be tired waiting."

"She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either," Don Julian nasally commented, while his rose scissors busily snipped away.

"How can a woman be in a hurry when the man does not hurry her?" Carmen returned, pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat absent air. "Papa, do you remember how much in love he was?"

"In love? With whom?"

"With Esperanza, of course. He has not had another love affair that I know of," she said with good-natured contempt. "What I mean is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic--flowers, serenades, notes, and things like that--"

Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the moon was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by life? Love--he seemed to have missed it. Or was the love that others told about a mere fabrication of perfervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid monotonies such as made up his love life? Was love a combination of circumstances, or sheer native capacity of soul? In those days love was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love, as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he divined it might be.

Sitting quietly in his room now, he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. "Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it," someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of Love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza.

Why would men so mismanage their lives? Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many. Greed--the desire to crowd into a moment all the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men commit themselves when but half-meaning to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate.

"What do you think happened?" asked Carmen, pursuing her thought.

"I supposed long-engaged people are like that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they are oftener cool than warm. The very fact that an engagement has been allowed to prolong itself argues a certain placidity of temperament--or of affection--on the part of either, or both." Don Julian loved to philosophize. He was talking now with an evident relish in words, his resonant, very nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch. "That phase you were speaking of is natural enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I see it, was Alfredo's last race with escaping youth--"

Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her brother's perfect physical repose--almost indolence--disturbed in the role suggested by her father's figurative language.

"A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old man.

Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar with hot blood. Even his friends had amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and slender, he moved with an indolent ease that verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of forehead, slow, dreamer's eyes, and astonishing freshness of lips--indeed Alfredo Salazar's appearance betokened little of exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with wayward humor, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain.

He rose and quietly went out of the house. He lingered a moment on the stone steps; then went down the path shaded by immature acacias, through the little tarred gate which he left swinging back and forth, now opening, now closing, on the gravel road bordered along the farther side by madre cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom.

The gravel road narrowed as it slanted up to the house on the hill, whose wide, open porches he could glimpse through the heat-shrivelled tamarinds in the Martinez yard.

Six weeks ago that house meant nothing to him save that it was the Martinez house, rented and occupied by Judge del Valle and his family. Six weeks ago Julia Salas meant nothing to him; he did not even know her name; but now--

One evening he had gone "neighboring" with Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since he made it a point to avoid all appearance of currying favor with the Judge. This particular evening however, he had allowed himself to be persuaded. "A little mental relaxation now and then is beneficial," the old man had said. "Besides, a judge's good will, you know;" the rest of the thought--"is worth a rising young lawyer's trouble"--Don Julian conveyed through a shrug and a smile that derided his own worldly wisdom.

A young woman had met them at the door. It was evident from the excitement of the Judge's children that she was a recent and very welcome arrival. In the characteristic Filipino way formal introductions had been omitted--the judge limiting himself to a casual "Ah, ya se conocen?"--with the consequence that Alfredo called her Miss del Valle throughout the evening.

He was puzzled that she should smile with evident delight every time he addressed her thus. Later Don Julian informed him that she was not the Judge's sister, as he had supposed, but his sister-in-law, and that her name was Julia Salas. A very dignified rather austere name, he thought. Still, the young lady should have corrected him. As it was, he was greatly embarrassed, and felt that he should explain.

To his apology, she replied, "That is nothing, Each time I was about to correct you, but I remembered a similar experience I had once before."

"Oh," he drawled out, vastly relieved.

"A man named Manalang--I kept calling him Manalo. After the tenth time or so, the young man rose from his seat and said suddenly, 'Pardon me, but my name is Manalang, Manalang.' You know, I never forgave him!"

He laughed with her.

"The best thing to do under the circumstances, I have found out," she pursued, "is to pretend not to hear, and to let the other person find out his mistake without help."

"As you did this time. Still, you looked amused every time I--"

"I was thinking of Mr. Manalang."

Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend, the Judge, were absorbed in a game of chess. The young man had tired of playing appreciative spectator and desultory conversationalist, so he and Julia Salas had gone off to chat in the vine-covered porch. The lone piano in the neighborhood alternately tinkled and banged away as the player's moods altered. He listened, and wondered irrelevantly if Miss Salas could sing; she had such a charming speaking voice.

He was mildly surprised to note from her appearance that she was unmistakably a sister of the Judge's wife, although Doña Adela was of a different type altogether. She was small and plump, with wide brown eyes, clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately modeled hips--a pretty woman with the complexion of a baby and the expression of a likable cow. Julia was taller, not so obviously pretty. She had the same eyebrows and lips, but she was much darker, of a smooth rich brown with underlying tones of crimson which heightened the impression she gave of abounding vitality.

On Sunday mornings after mass, father and son would go crunching up the gravel road to the house on the hill. The Judge's wife invariably offered them beer, which Don Julian enjoyed and Alfredo did not. After a half hour or so, the chessboard would be brought out; then Alfredo and Julia Salas would go out to the porch to chat. She sat in the low hammock and he in a rocking chair and the hours--warm, quiet March hours--sped by. He enjoyed talking with her and it was evident that she liked his company; yet what feeling there was between them was so undisturbed that it seemed a matter of course. Only when Esperanza chanced to ask him indirectly about those visits did some uneasiness creep into his thoughts of the girl next door.

Esperanza had wanted to know if he went straight home after mass. Alfredo suddenly realized that for several Sundays now he had not waited for Esperanza to come out of the church as he had been wont to do. He had been eager to go "neighboring."

He answered that he went home to work. And, because he was not habitually untruthful, added, "Sometimes I go with Papa to Judge del Valle's."

She dropped the topic. Esperanza was not prone to indulge in unprovoked jealousies. She was a believer in the regenerative virtue of institutions, in their power to regulate feeling as well as conduct. If a man were married, why, of course, he loved his wife; if he were engaged, he could not possibly love another woman.

That half-lie told him what he had not admitted openly to himself, that he was giving Julia Salas something which he was not free to give. He realized that; yet something that would not be denied beckoned imperiously, and he followed on.

It was so easy to forget up there, away from the prying eyes of the world, so easy and so poignantly sweet. The beloved woman, he standing close to her, the shadows around, enfolding.

"Up here I find--something--"

He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity, laughed, woman-like, asking, "Amusement?"

"No; youth--its spirit--"

"Are you so old?"

"And heart's desire."

Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet lurking in the heart of every man?

"Down there," he had continued, his voice somewhat indistinct, "the road is too broad, too trodden by feet, too barren of mystery."

"Down there" beyond the ancient tamarinds lay the road, upturned to the stars. In the darkness the fireflies glimmered, while an errant breeze strayed in from somewhere, bringing elusive, faraway sounds as of voices in a dream.

"Mystery--" she answered lightly, "that is so brief--"

"Not in some," quickly. "Not in you."

"You have known me a few weeks; so the mystery."

"I could study you all my life and still not find it."

"So long?"

"I should like to."

Those six weeks were now so swift--seeming in the memory, yet had they been so deep in the living, so charged with compelling power and sweetness. Because neither the past nor the future had relevance or meaning, he lived only the present, day by day, lived it intensely, with such a willful shutting out of fact as astounded him in his calmer moments.

Just before Holy Week, Don Julian invited the judge and his family to spend Sunday afternoon at Tanda where he had a coconut plantation and a house on the beach. Carmen also came with her four energetic children. She and Doña Adela spent most of the time indoors directing the preparation of the merienda and discussing the likeable absurdities of their husbands--how Carmen's Vicente was so absorbed in his farms that he would not even take time off to accompany her on this visit to her father; how Doña Adela's Dionisio was the most absentminded of men, sometimes going out without his collar, or with unmatched socks.

After the merienda, Don Julian sauntered off with the judge to show him what a thriving young coconut looked like--"plenty of leaves, close set, rich green"--while the children, convoyed by Julia Salas, found unending entertainment in the rippling sand left by the ebbing tide. They were far down, walking at the edge of the water, indistinctly outlined against the gray of the out-curving beach.

Alfredo left his perch on the bamboo ladder of the house and followed. Here were her footsteps, narrow, arched. He laughed at himself for his black canvas footwear which he removed forthwith and tossed high up on dry sand.

When he came up, she flushed, then smiled with frank pleasure.

"I hope you are enjoying this," he said with a questioning inflection.

"Very much. It looks like home to me, except that we do not have such a lovely beach."

There was a breeze from the water. It blew the hair away from her forehead, and whipped the tucked-up skirt around her straight, slender figure. In the picture was something of eager freedom as of wings poised in flight. The girl had grace, distinction. Her face was not notably pretty; yet she had a tantalizing charm, all the more compelling because it was an inner quality, an achievement of the spirit. The lure was there, of naturalness, of an alert vitality of mind and body, of a thoughtful, sunny temper, and of a piquant perverseness which is sauce to charm.

"The afternoon has seemed very short, hasn't it?" Then, "This, I think, is the last time--we can visit."

"The last? Why?"

"Oh, you will be too busy perhaps."

He noted an evasive quality in the answer.

"Do I seem especially industrious to you?"

"If you are, you never look it."

"Not perspiring or breathless, as a busy man ought to be."

"But--"

"Always unhurried, too unhurried, and calm." She smiled to herself.

"I wish that were true," he said after a meditative pause.

She waited.

"A man is happier if he is, as you say, calm and placid."

"Like a carabao in a mud pool," she retorted perversely

"Who? I?"

"Oh, no!"

"You said I am calm and placid."

"That is what I think."

"I used to think so too. Shows how little we know ourselves."

It was strange to him that he could be wooing thus: with tone and look and covert phrase.

"I should like to see your home town."

"There is nothing to see--little crooked streets, bunut roofs with ferns growing on them, and sometimes squashes."

That was the background. It made her seem less detached, less unrelated, yet withal more distant, as if that background claimed her and excluded him.

"Nothing? There is you."

"Oh, me? But I am here."

"I will not go, of course, until you are there."

"Will you come? You will find it dull. There isn't even one American there!"

"Well--Americans are rather essential to my entertainment."

She laughed.

"We live on Calle Luz, a little street with trees."

"Could I find that?"

"If you don't ask for Miss del Valle," she smiled teasingly.

"I'll inquire about--"

"What?"

"The house of the prettiest girl in the town."

"There is where you will lose your way." Then she turned serious. "Now, that is not quite sincere."

"It is," he averred slowly, but emphatically.

"I thought you, at least, would not say such things."

"Pretty--pretty--a foolish word! But there is none other more handy I did not mean that quite--"

"Are you withdrawing the compliment?"

"Re-enforcing it, maybe. Something is pretty when it pleases the eye--it is more than that when--"

"If it saddens?" she interrupted hastily.

"Exactly."

"It must be ugly."

"Always?"

Toward the west, the sunlight lay on the dimming waters in a broad, glinting streamer of crimsoned gold.

"No, of course you are right."

"Why did you say this is the last time?" he asked quietly as they turned back.

"I am going home."

The end of an impossible dream!

"When?" after a long silence.

"Tomorrow. I received a letter from Father and Mother yesterday. They want me to spend Holy Week at home."

She seemed to be waiting for him to speak. "That is why I said this is the last time."

"Can't I come to say good-bye?"

"Oh, you don't need to!"

"No, but I want to."

"There is no time."

The golden streamer was withdrawing, shortening, until it looked no more than a pool far away at the rim of the world. Stillness, a vibrant quiet that affects the senses as does solemn harmony; a peace that is not contentment but a cessation of tumult when all violence of feeling tones down to the wistful serenity of regret. She turned and looked into his face, in her dark eyes a ghost of sunset sadness.

"Home seems so far from here. This is almost like another life."

"I know. This is Elsewhere, and yet strange enough, I cannot get rid of the old things."

"Old things?"

"Oh, old things, mistakes, encumbrances, old baggage." He said it lightly, unwilling to mar the hour. He walked close, his hand sometimes touching hers for one whirling second.

Don Julian's nasal summons came to them on the wind.

Alfredo gripped the soft hand so near his own. At his touch, the girl turned her face away, but he heard her voice say very low, "Good-bye."

II

ALFREDO Salazar turned to the right where, farther on, the road broadened and entered the heart of the town--heart of Chinese stores sheltered under low-hung roofs, of indolent drug stores and tailor shops, of dingy shoe-repairing establishments, and a cluttered goldsmith's cubbyhole where a consumptive bent over a magnifying lens; heart of old brick-roofed houses with quaint hand-and-ball knockers on the door; heart of grass-grown plaza reposeful with trees, of ancient church and convento, now circled by swallows gliding in flight as smooth and soft as the afternoon itself. Into the quickly deepening twilight, the voice of the biggest of the church bells kept ringing its insistent summons. Flocking came the devout with their long wax candles, young women in vivid apparel (for this was Holy Thursday and the Lord was still alive), older women in sober black skirts. Came too the young men in droves, elbowing each other under the talisay tree near the church door. The gaily decked rice-paper lanterns were again on display while from the windows of the older houses hung colored glass globes, heirlooms from a day when grasspith wicks floating in coconut oil were the chief lighting device.

Soon a double row of lights emerged from the church and uncoiled down the length of the street like a huge jewelled band studded with glittering clusters where the saints' platforms were. Above the measured music rose the untutored voices of the choir, steeped in incense and the acrid fumes of burning wax.

The sight of Esperanza and her mother sedately pacing behind Our Lady of Sorrows suddenly destroyed the illusion of continuity and broke up those lines of light into component individuals. Esperanza stiffened self-consciously, tried to look unaware, and could not.

The line moved on.

Suddenly, Alfredo's slow blood began to beat violently, irregularly. A girl was coming down the line--a girl that was striking, and vividly alive, the woman that could cause violent commotion in his heart, yet had no place in the completed ordering of his life.

Her glance of abstracted devotion fell on him and came to a brief stop.

The line kept moving on, wending its circuitous route away from the church and then back again, where, according to the old proverb, all processions end.

At last Our Lady of Sorrows entered the church, and with her the priest and the choir, whose voices now echoed from the arched ceiling. The bells rang the close of the procession.

A round orange moon, "huge as a winnowing basket," rose lazily into a clear sky, whitening the iron roofs and dimming the lanterns at the windows. Along the still densely shadowed streets the young women with their rear guard of males loitered and, maybe, took the longest way home.

Toward the end of the row of Chinese stores, he caught up with Julia Salas. The crowd had dispersed into the side streets, leaving Calle Real to those who lived farther out. It was past eight, and Esperanza would be expecting him in a little while: yet the thought did not hurry him as he said "Good evening" and fell into step with the girl.

"I had been thinking all this time that you had gone," he said in a voice that was both excited and troubled.

"No, my sister asked me to stay until they are ready to go."

"Oh, is the Judge going?"

"Yes."

The provincial docket had been cleared, and Judge del Valle had been assigned elsewhere. As lawyer--and as lover--Alfredo had found that out long before.

"Mr. Salazar," she broke into his silence, "I wish to congratulate you."

Her tone told him that she had learned, at last. That was inevitable.

"For what?"

"For your approaching wedding."

Some explanation was due her, surely. Yet what could he say that would not offend?

"I should have offered congratulations long before, but you know mere visitors are slow about getting the news," she continued.

He listened not so much to what she said as to the nuances in her voice. He heard nothing to enlighten him, except that she had reverted to the formal tones of early acquaintance. No revelation there; simply the old voice--cool, almost detached from personality, flexible and vibrant, suggesting potentialities of song.

"Are weddings interesting to you?" he finally brought out quietly

"When they are of friends, yes."

"Would you come if I asked you?"

"When is it going to be?"

"May," he replied briefly, after a long pause.

"May is the month of happiness they say," she said, with what seemed to him a shade of irony.

"They say," slowly, indifferently. "Would you come?"

"Why not?"

"No reason. I am just asking. Then you will?"

"If you will ask me," she said with disdain.

"Then I ask you."

"Then I will be there."

The gravel road lay before them; at the road's end the lighted windows of the house on the hill. There swept over the spirit of Alfredo Salazar a longing so keen that it was pain, a wish that, that house were his, that all the bewilderments of the present were not, and that this woman by his side were his long wedded wife, returning with him to the peace of home.

"Julita," he said in his slow, thoughtful manner, "did you ever have to choose between something you wanted to do and something you had to do?"

"No!"

"I thought maybe you had had that experience; then you could understand a man who was in such a situation."

"You are fortunate," he pursued when she did not answer.

"Is--is this man sure of what he should do?"

"I don't know, Julita. Perhaps not. But there is a point where a thing escapes us and rushes downward of its own weight, dragging us along. Then it is foolish to ask whether one will or will not, because it no longer depends on him."

"But then why--why--" her muffled voice came. "Oh, what do I know? That is his problem after all."

"Doesn't it--interest you?"

"Why must it? I--I have to say good-bye, Mr. Salazar; we are at the house."

Without lifting her eyes she quickly turned and walked away.

Had the final word been said? He wondered. It had. Yet a feeble flutter of hope trembled in his mind though set against that hope were three years of engagement, a very near wedding, perfect understanding between the parents, his own conscience, and Esperanza herself--Esperanza waiting, Esperanza no longer young, Esperanza the efficient, the literal-minded, the intensely acquisitive.

He looked attentively at her where she sat on the sofa, appraisingly, and with a kind of aversion which he tried to control.

She was one of those fortunate women who have the gift of uniformly acceptable appearance. She never surprised one with unexpected homeliness nor with startling reserves of beauty. At home, in church, on the street, she was always herself, a woman past first bloom, light and clear of complexion, spare of arms and of breast, with a slight convexity to thin throat; a woman dressed with self-conscious care, even elegance; a woman distinctly not average.

She was pursuing an indignant relation about something or other, something about Calixta, their note-carrier, Alfredo perceived, so he merely half-listened, understanding imperfectly. At a pause he drawled out to fill in the gap: "Well, what of it?" The remark sounded ruder than he had intended.

"She is not married to him," Esperanza insisted in her thin, nervously pitched voice. "Besides, she should have thought of us. Nanay practically brought her up. We never thought she would turn out bad."

What had Calixta done? Homely, middle-aged Calixta?

"You are very positive about her badness," he commented dryly. Esperanza was always positive.

"But do you approve?"

"Of what?"

"What she did."

"No," indifferently.

"Well?"

He was suddenly impelled by a desire to disturb the unvexed orthodoxy of her mind. "All I say is that it is not necessarily wicked."

"Why shouldn't it be? You talked like an--immoral man. I did not know that your ideas were like that."

"My ideas?" he retorted, goaded by a deep, accumulated exasperation. "The only test I wish to apply to conduct is the test of fairness. Am I injuring anybody? No? Then I am justified in my conscience. I am right. Living with a man to whom she is not married--is that it? It may be wrong, and again it may not."

"She has injured us. She was ungrateful." Her voice was tight with resentment.

"The trouble with you, Esperanza, is that you are--" he stopped, appalled by the passion in his voice.

"Why do you get angry? I do not understand you at all! I think I know why you have been indifferent to me lately. I am not blind, or deaf; I see and hear what perhaps some are trying to keep from me." The blood surged into his very eyes and his hearing sharpened to points of acute pain. What would she say next?

"Why don't you speak out frankly before it is too late? You need not think of me and of what people will say." Her voice trembled.

Alfredo was suffering as he could not remember ever having suffered before. What people will say--what will they not say? What don't they say when long engagements are broken almost on the eve of the wedding?

"Yes," he said hesitatingly, diffidently, as if merely thinking aloud, "one tries to be fair--according to his lights--but it is hard. One would like to be fair to one's self first. But that is too easy, one does not dare--"

"What do you mean?" she asked with repressed violence. "Whatever my shortcomings, and no doubt they are many in your eyes, I have never gone out of my way, of my place, to find a man."

Did she mean by this irrelevant remark that he it was who had sought her; or was that a covert attack on Julia Salas?

"Esperanza--" a desperate plea lay in his stumbling words. "If you--suppose I--" Yet how could a mere man word such a plea?

"If you mean you want to take back your word, if you are tired of--why don't you tell me you are tired of me?" she burst out in a storm of weeping that left him completely shamed and unnerved.

The last word had been said.

III

AS Alfredo Salazar leaned against the boat rail to watch the evening settling over the lake, he wondered if Esperanza would attribute any significance to this trip of his. He was supposed to be in Sta. Cruz whither the case of the People of the Philippine Islands vs. Belina et al had kept him, and there he would have been if Brigida Samuy had not been so important to the defense. He had to find that elusive old woman. That the search was leading him to that particular lake town which was Julia Salas' home should not disturb him unduly Yet he was disturbed to a degree utterly out of proportion to the prosaicalness of his errand. That inner tumult was no surprise to him; in the last eight years he had become used to such occasional storms. He had long realized that he could not forget Julia Salas. Still, he had tried to be content and not to remember too much. The climber of mountains who has known the back-break, the lonesomeness, and the chill, finds a certain restfulness in level paths made easy to his feet. He looks up sometimes from the valley where settles the dusk of evening, but he knows he must not heed the radiant beckoning. Maybe, in time, he would cease even to look up.

He was not unhappy in his marriage. He felt no rebellion: only the calm of capitulation to what he recognized as irresistible forces of circumstance and of character. His life had simply ordered itself; no more struggles, no more stirring up of emotions that got a man nowhere. From his capacity of complete detachment he derived a strange solace. The essential himself, the himself that had its being in the core of his thought, would, he reflected, always be free and alone. When claims encroached too insistently, as sometimes they did, he retreated into the inner fastness, and from that vantage he saw things and people around him as remote and alien, as incidents that did not matter. At such times did Esperanza feel baffled and helpless; he was gentle, even tender, but immeasurably far away, beyond her reach.

Lights were springing into life on the shore. That was the town, a little up-tilted town nestling in the dark greenness of the groves. A snubcrested belfry stood beside the ancient church. On the outskirts the evening smudges glowed red through the sinuous mists of smoke that rose and lost themselves in the purple shadows of the hills. There was a young moon which grew slowly luminous as the coral tints in the sky yielded to the darker blues of evening.

The vessel approached the landing quietly, trailing a wake of long golden ripples on the dark water. Peculiar hill inflections came to his ears from the crowd assembled to meet the boat--slow, singing cadences, characteristic of the Laguna lake-shore speech. From where he stood he could not distinguish faces, so he had no way of knowing whether the presidente was there to meet him or not. Just then a voice shouted.

"Is the abogado there? Abogado!"

"What abogado?" someone irately asked.

That must be the presidente, he thought, and went down to the landing.

It was a policeman, a tall pock-marked individual. The presidente had left with Brigida Samuy--Tandang "Binday"--that noon for Santa Cruz. Señor Salazar's second letter had arrived late, but the wife had read it and said, "Go and meet the abogado and invite him to our house."

Alfredo Salazar courteously declined the invitation. He would sleep on board since the boat would leave at four the next morning anyway. So the presidente had received his first letter? Alfredo did not know because that official had not sent an answer. "Yes," the policeman replied, "but he could not write because we heard that Tandang Binday was in San Antonio so we went there to find her."

San Antonio was up in the hills! Good man, the presidente! He, Alfredo, must do something for him. It was not every day that one met with such willingness to help.

Eight o'clock, lugubriously tolled from the bell tower, found the boat settled into a somnolent quiet. A cot had been brought out and spread for him, but it was too bare to be inviting at that hour. It was too early to sleep: he would walk around the town. His heart beat faster as he picked his way to shore over the rafts made fast to sundry piles driven into the water.

How peaceful the town was! Here and there a little tienda was still open, its dim light issuing forlornly through the single window which served as counter. An occasional couple sauntered by, the women's chinelas making scraping sounds. From a distance came the shrill voices of children playing games on the street--tubigan perhaps, or "hawk-and-chicken." The thought of Julia Salas in that quiet place filled him with a pitying sadness.

How would life seem now if he had married Julia Salas? Had he meant anything to her? That unforgettable red-and-gold afternoon in early April haunted him with a sense of incompleteness as restless as other unlaid ghosts. She had not married--why? Faithfulness, he reflected, was not a conscious effort at regretful memory. It was something unvolitional, maybe a recurrent awareness of irreplaceability. Irrelevant trifles--a cool wind on his forehead, far-away sounds as of voices in a dream--at times moved him to an oddly irresistible impulse to listen as to an insistent, unfinished prayer.

A few inquiries led him to a certain little tree-ceilinged street where the young moon wove indistinct filigrees of fight and shadow. In the gardens the cotton tree threw its angular shadow athwart the low stone wall; and in the cool, stilly midnight the cock's first call rose in tall, soaring jets of sound. Calle Luz.

Somehow or other, he had known that he would find her house because she would surely be sitting at the window. Where else, before bedtime on a moonlit night? The house was low and the light in the sala behind her threw her head into unmistakable relief. He sensed rather than saw her start of vivid surprise.

"Good evening," he said, raising his hat.

"Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?"

"On some little business," he answered with a feeling of painful constraint.

"Won't you come up?"

He considered. His vague plans had not included this. But Julia Salas had left the window, calling to her mother as she did so. After a while, someone came downstairs with a lighted candle to open the door. At last--he was shaking her hand.

She had not changed much--a little less slender, not so eagerly alive, yet something had gone. He missed it, sitting opposite her, looking thoughtfully into her fine dark eyes. She asked him about the home town, about this and that, in a sober, somewhat meditative tone. He conversed with increasing ease, though with a growing wonder that he should be there at all. He could not take his eyes from her face. What had she lost? Or was the loss his? He felt an impersonal curiosity creeping into his gaze. The girl must have noticed, for her cheek darkened in a blush.

Gently--was it experimentally?--he pressed her hand at parting; but his own felt undisturbed and emotionless. Did she still care? The answer to the question hardly interested him.

The young moon had set, and from the uninviting cot he could see one half of a star-studded sky.

So that was all over.

Why had he obstinately clung to that dream?

So all these years--since when?--he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens.

An immense sadness as of loss invaded his spirit, a vast homesickness for some immutable refuge of the heart far away where faded gardens bloom again, and where live on in unchanging freshness, the dear, dead loves of vanished youth.

This is the 1925 short story that gave birth to modern Philippine writing in English.

Here's to Richard Carpenters

I have just freshly set my feet on the same old ground.
This waiting is taking so long.
This journey seems eternal.
I wonder deeply why
but I'm here anyway.
Taking the old familiar route
yet lost again.


-h

Living the Questions

For a couple of days, the Good Lord has been holding my hands amidst the river of uncertainties where my soul drifts. Many things have been going on inside my heart. For so many weeks, my mind has been tortured with illusions of hopes and frustrations. What if I fail? What if other people fail me? What if in the end, everything that I ever wanted was not really what the Lord wants for me? How will I cope when the time comes that I have to let go of even the littlest of my dreams? What if I won’t go to law school this coming school year? What if he does not return? What if the waiting is futile? How will I survive after this? Or am I going to survive it after all? Who will be with me in this journey? Am I really facing this battle alone with Christ? Then why am I fearful? Why do I doubt? Why do I ask questions? These are just some of the many questions that haunt me even in my sleep.

I try hard to wade through my young life with these questions that wake me up every morning and send me to sleep at night. I wonder if all young people go through this path of seemingly unending doubts and confusions. If so, it could be that this in itself is a natural process that makes a woman.

But this formation is exhaustive. It drains me of my energy and willpower. It maims my passion and questions my abilities. It weakens me like a burning candle. It prods me to vacate my current lake and move on to another safer surface. But I don’t want to be safe and live a life of only if’s.

I do not want to leave these questions. I want to live them. I believe that someday, I will find the answers. God will lead me safely to the shore. And in the ambiguities of my reaching that shore, I know God is sailing with me. Wherever He wants me to be, there I want to be.

A Hero's Letter to His Son

Below is the letter written by Benigno Aquino to his only son, Noynoy.


August 25, 1973

Fort Bonifacio

11:30pm

Mr. Benigno S. Aquino III

P E R S O N A L

My dearest Son:

One of these days , when you have completed your studies I am sure you will have the opportunity to visit many countries. And in your travels you will witness a bullfight.

In Spanish bullfighting as you know, a man – the matador – is pitted against an angry bull.

The man goads the bull to extreme anger and madness. Then a moment comes when the bull, maddened, bleeding and covered with darts, feeling his last moment has come, stops rushing about and grimly turns his face on the man with the scarlet "muleta" and sword. The Spaniards call this "the moment of truth." This is the climax of the bullfight.

This afternoon, I have arrived at my own moment of truth. After a lengthy conference with my lawyers, Senators Jovito R. Salonga and Lorenzo M. Tanada I made a very crucial and vital decision that will surely affect all our lives: mommie's, your sisters', yours and all our loved ones as well as mine.

I have decided not to participate in the proceedings of the Military Commission assigned to try the charges filed against me by the army prosecution staff. As you know, I've been charged with illegal possession of firearms, violation of RA 1700 otherwise known as the "Anti-Subversion Act" and murder.

You are still too young to grasp the full impact of my decision. Briefly: by not participating in the proceedings, I will not be represented by counsel, the prosecution will present its witnesses without any cross examinations, I will not put up any defense, I will remain passive and quiet through the entire trial and I will merely await the verdict. Inasmuch as it will be a completely one-sided affair, I suppose it is reasonable to expect the maximum penalty will be given to me. I expect to be sentenced to imprisonment the rest of my natural life, or possibly be sent to stand before a firing squad. By adopting the course of action I decided upon this afternoon, I have literally decided to walk into the very jaws of death.

You may ask: why did you do it?

Son, my decision is an act of conscience. It is an act of protest against the structures of injustice that have been imposed upon our hapless countrymen. Futile and puny, as it will surely appear to many, it is my last act of defiance against tyranny and dictatorship.

You are my only son. You carry my name and the name of my father. I have no material wealth to leave you. I never had time to make money while I was in the hire of our people.

For this I am very sorry. I had hopes of building a little nest egg for you. I bought a ranch in Masbate in the hope that after ten or fifteen years, the coconut trees I planted there would be yielding enough to assure you a modest but comfortable existence.

Unfortunately, I had to sell all our properties as I fought battle after political battle as a beleaguered member of the opposition. And after the last battle, I had more obligations than assets.

The only valuable asset I can bequeath to you now is the name you carry. I have tried my best during my years of public service to keep that name untarnished and respected, unmarked by sorry compromises for expediency. I now pass it on to you, as good, I pray, as when my father, your grandfather passed it on to me.

I prepared a statement which I intend to read before the military commission on Monday at the opening of my trial. I hope the commission members will be understanding and kind enough to allow me to read my statement into the record. This may well be my first and only participation in the entire proceedings.

In this statement, I said: Some people suggested that I beg for mercy from the present powers that be. Son, this I cannot do in conscience. I would rather die on my feet with honor, than live on bended knees in shame.

Your great grandfather, Gen. Servilliano Aquino was twice condemned to death by both the Spaniards and the American colonizers. Fortunately, he survived both by a twist of fate.

Your grandfather, my father was also imprisoned by the Americans because he loved his people more than the Americans who colonized us. He was finally vindicated. Our ancestors have shared the pains, the sorrows and the anguish of Mother Filipinas when she was in bondage.

It is a rare privilege for me to join the Motherland in the dark dungeon where she was led back by one of her own sons whom she lavished with love and glory.

I ended my statement thus: I have chosen to follow my conscience and accept the tyrant's revenge.

It takes little effort to stop a tyrant. I have no doubt in the ultimate victory of right over wrong, of evil over good, in the awakening of the Filipino.

Forgive me for passing unto your young shoulders the great responsibility for our family. I trust you will love your mother and your sisters and lavish them with the care and protection I would have given them.

I was barely fifteen years old when my father died. His death was my most traumatic experience. I loved and hero-worshipped him so much, I wanted to join him in his grave when he passed away. But as in all sorrows, eventually they are washed away by the rains of time.

In the coming years, I hope you will study very hard so that you will have a solid foundation on which to build your future. I may no longer be around to give you my fatherly advice. I have asked many of your uncles to help you along should the need arise and I pray you will have the humility to drink from their fountain of experiences.

Look after your two younger sisters with understanding and affection. Viel and Krissy will need your umbrella of protection for a long time. Krissy is still very young and fate has been most unkind to both of us. Our parting came too soon. Please make up for me. Take care of her as I would have taken care of her with patience and warm affection.

Finally, stand by your mother as she stood beside me through the buffeting winds of crisis and uncertainties firm and resolute and uncowed. I pray to God, you inherit her indomitable spirit and her rare brand of silent courage.

I had hopes of introducing you to my friends, showing you the world and guide you through the maze of survival. I am afraid, you will now have to go it alone without your guide.

The only advice I can give you: Live with honor and follow your conscience.

There is no greater nation on earth than our Motherland. No greater people than our own. Serve them with all your heart, with all your might and with all your strength.

Son, the ball is now in your hands.

Lovingly,

Dad

Of Sometimes and Oftentimes

Yes, sometimes I hear you.
In times I never count
I can almost hear you calling me
Through a little yellow flower along my way.
Yes, I sometimes hear you
But on many times, I choose not to.
I don’t know.
You made me this way.
Listening, but only for a while.

Sometimes I feel you.
In moments when a friend
Hugs me I could breathe her breath
And I know inside her were you
Wanting to hug me tight
And I breathe you in
But soon forget that I had
I don’t know.
You made me this way.
Feeling, but rarely remembering .

Sometimes I walk with you
When the road seems smooth and sure
I could see your footprints in beat with mine
And even when the road lurks dark towards the end
There is someone to cast my fears out
And I know it’s you
But many times I hesitate.
I don’t know.
You made me this way.
Believing, but not always.

Sometimes I couldn’t contain
The mystery of how much
You tolerate
This being who incessantly wonders.

Of sometimes and oftentimes.

-h
19 July 2009
Sacred Heart of Jesus Novitiate

Sa Wakas

Matutulog rin akong walang
dalang bigat sa puso.

Gigising akong nakangiti
sa pagbukas ng araw.

Bababa sa hagdan
nang lumulundag-lundag.

Kakanta habang naliligo sa banyo.
Sisipul-sipol habang nagbibihis.

Tsaka lalabas ng bahay
para salubungin ka.

Balang araw.


-h

Sa libu-libong labong dala mo sa buhay ko at ko sa buhay mo

Sa libu-libong labong dala mo sa buhay ko at ko sa buhay mo
Hindi ko maintindihan kung bakit nagpapakita pa rin ako sa'yo
Nagbabakasakali ba kong makakasundo kita?
Gayong kahit magkaisa ang ating pananaw
magkaibang-magkaiba ang daan nating dalawa

Ikaw papuntang kanan
Ako pakaliwa

Sa libu-libong labong dala mo sa buhay ko at ko sa buhay mo
Hindi ko maintindihan kung bakit naririnig mo pa rin ako
Kahit walang binubusal ang bibig ko
Dinig mo sa pagkunot ng noo ko

Pero di mo pa rin naiintindihan
At gayon din ako naman

Sa libu-libong labong dala mo sa buhay ko at ko sa buhay mo
Nagkakanda-loko-loko na ang trabaho
tuloy pa rin tayo sa paglalarong walang biro
At pagbibirong walang laro

Kaya hindi tayo nalilibang
nagtatrabaho lang.

Ganito ang ibig sabihin ng iyong paglisang muli

Ganito ang ibig sabihin ng iyong paglisang muli

Isang sanggol ang hindi na ipinanganak

Isang bata ang di natutong maglaro

Isang bintana ang naisara sa pangalawang pagkakataon

Isang awitin ang kinatha ngunit di na tinugtog

Isang tula ang hindi naisulat kaya di naging tula

Isang ngiti ang nagkubli sa mga labi

Isang bituin ang sumabog

Isang bahay ang hindi naitayo kaya tinirhan na lang ng gagamba

Isang manok ang di natutong tumilaok

Isang umaga ang di na sisikat muli.

-h

Mabuhay Ka!

Mabuhay ka. Wag lang basta-basta huminga.


TAGUBILIN AT HABILIN
Ni Jose F. Lacaba

Mabuhay ka, kaibigan!
Mabuhay ka!
Iyan ang una't huli kong
Tagubilin at habilin:
Mabuhay ka!

Sa edad kong ito, marami akong maibibigay na payo.
Mayaman ako sa payo.

Maghugas ka ng kamay bago kumain.
Maghugas ka ng kamay pagkatapos kumain.
Pero huwag kang maghuhugas ng kamay para lang makaiwas sa sisi.
Huwag kang maghuhugas ng kamay kung may inaapi
Na kaya mong tulungan.

Paupuin sa bus ang matatanda at ang mga may kalong na sanggol.
Magpasalamat sa nagmamagandang-loob.
Matuto sa karanasan ng matatanda
Pero huwag magpatali sa kaisipang makaluma.

Huwag piliting matulog kung ayaw kang dalawin ng antok.
Huwag pag-aksayahan ng panahon ang walang utang na loob.
Huwag makipagtalo sa bobo at baka ka mapagkamalang bobo.
Huwag bubulong-bulong sa mga panahong kailangang sumigaw.

Huwag kang manalig sa bulung-bulungan.
Huwag kang papatay-patay sa ilalim ng pabitin.
Huwag kang tutulog-tulog sa pansitan.

Umawit ka kung nag-iisa sa banyo.
Umawit ka sa piling ng barkada.
Umawit ka kung nalulungkot.
Umawit ka kung masaya.

Ingat lang.

Huwag kang aawit ng “My Way” sa videoke bar at baka ka mabaril.
Huwag kang magsindi ng sigarilyo sa gasolinahan.
Dahan-dahan sa matatarik na landas.
Dahan-dahan sa malulubak na daan.

Higit sa lahat, inuulit ko:

Mabuhay ka, kaibigan!
Mabuhay ka!
Iyan ang una't huli kong
Tagubilin at habilin:
Mabuhay ka!

Maraming bagay sa mundo na nakakadismaya.
Mabuhay ka.
Maraming problema ang mundo na wala na yatang lunas.
Mabuhay ka.

Sa hirap ng panahon, sa harap ng kabiguan,
Kung minsan ay gusto mo nang mamatay.
Gusto mong maglaslas ng pulso kung sawi sa pag-ibig.
Gusto mong uminom ng lason kung wala nang makain.
Gusto mong magbigti kung napakabigat ng mga pasanin.
Gusto mong pasabugin ang bungo mo kung maraming gumugulo sa utak.

Huwag kang patatalo. Huwag kang susuko.

Narinig mo ang sinasabi ng awitin:
“Gising at magbangon sa pagkagupiling,
Sa pagkakatulog na lubhang mahimbing.”
Gumising ka kung hinaharana ka ng pag-ibig.
Bumangon ka kung nananawagan ang kapuspalad.

Ang sabi ng iba: “Ang matapang ay walang-takot lumaban.”
Ang sabi ko naman: Ang tunay na matapang ay lumalaban
Kahit natatakot.

Lumaban ka kung inginungodngod ang nguso mo sa putik.
Bumalikwas ka kung tinatapak-tapakan ka.
Buong-tapang mong ipaglaban ang iyong mga prinsipyo
Kahit hindi ka sigurado na agad-agad kang mananalo.

Mabuhay ka, kaibigan!
Mabuhay ka!
Iyan ang una't huli kong
Tagubilin at habilin:
Mabuhay ka!

Wish Wash

I wished
for
the
sun

but

you gave
me
rain.

-h

Rainy Days and Mondays

Rainy days won't let me down. Much more Mondays.

Despite the storms, I would always want to wake up every Monday morning for it ushers either of the two-- an ending or a new beginning.

If it's an ending, sadness might creep from within but it would eventually turn into a pebble of precious memories leading to learning and promises of better ways of proceeding the next time I'd pass the same road.

If it's a beginning, it might be a new-born hope or hope reincarnated. I might start planning all over again, figuring out how best to move forward.

I wear a smile on Mondays for it slowly brings in a new week as it shuts the old. And more, I wear a smile on Mondays, even if it rains.

Tungkol kay Papa ang post na ito

Papa's girl ako, nung bata pa ko.

Kung nasan si Papa, nandun ako. Kahit sa tambayan sa may tindahan. O kaya sa green na sasakyan ng barkada niya. O kaya sa bahay ng Lola. Kahit sa tapat ng bukas na pintuan ng bahay, kapag nakaupo si Papa dun, tiyak, nakasalampak din ako sa sahig. Minsan tinitingnan k0 lang siya. Madalas dinadaldal tungkol sa mga bago kong kalaro o tungkol sa school. Minsan naman tagahithit lang ako ng sigarilyo niya, second hand. Basta lagi lang akong nasa gilid niya, nakikinig, sa likod, sumusunod, o kaya minsan sa harap, nagkukuwento.

Nung 2 years old ako, classic na kwento ng mga magulang ko na nabulunan daw ako ng Stork candy. Ang kwento, nginunguya ko raw ang candy, nang mahuli ng malilikot kong mga mata si Papa, palabas ng bahay, tinawag ko at presto, muntik akong mamatay kung di lang dumating ang Tito ko at syempre si Papa, para pisilin ang leeg ko para lumabas ang candy.Hindi na daw pumasok sa trabaho si Papa noon para aliwin lang ako. Hindi ko kasi siya tinantanan.

Kahit sa trabaho, sinasama niya ko noon, doon sa mga bahay na pinagpipinturahan niya, kilala ako ng mga katrabaho niya.

Kahit tsinelas niyang nagmumukhang barko sa paa ko, sinusuot ko palagi. Madalas akong madapa noon dahil suot ko ang alpombra niyang tsinelas pero tuloy pa rin ako sa paggamit ng mga iyon. Kapag nawala ang mga tsinelas ni Papa, alam na ni Mama kung saan hahanapin yun.

Lagi ko ring inaabangan ang pag-uwi ni Papa galing sa trabaho. Sabik na sabik ako sa mga kwento at pangungulit niya. Kapag malapit nang lumubog ang araw, nasa labas na ko ng bahay, sa may terminal ng mga traysikel, nag-aabang. Naglalambitin ako sa rehas na gate ng barangay namin habang naghihintay. Madalas, sa likuran ng traysikel nakasakay si Papa kaya malayo pa lang, kapag natanaw ko na siya ay naglulundag na ko sa tuwa.

Tuwing Sabado, may dagdag bonus ang pag-uwi ni Papa. Pinapasalubungan niya kami ng Jo Kuan noodles. Pero kahit walang Jo Kuan noodles, napapalundag pa rin ako pag nasa bahay na ang tatay ko. Iniiwan ko ang mga kalaro ko kapag natanaw ko na siyang paakyat ng block namin. Pag-uwi niya, titimplahan ko siya ng kape tapos ibibigay ko sa na sa kanya ang damit pambahay at mga tsinelas. Kapag nakapagpahinga na siya, kakanta kami. Minsan sinasabayan niya ng sayaw ang mga kanta niya. Isa sa madalas naming kantahin nang sabay ay ang kantang "Ang mga ibon, na lumilipad, ay mahal ng Diyos. Hindi kumukupas...".

Madalas mapalo ng mga tatay nila ang mga kalaro ko, pero ako, ni isang beses ay wala akong latay na natanggap kay Papa kahit makulit ako. Hindi rin niya ko kinurot, na madalas gawin ni Mama.

Kahit na noong nagdalaga na ako, malapit pa rin ako kay Papa. Siya pa rin ang madalas kong kausap sa bahay. Alam niya ang mga pangarap at takot ko. Pati lovelife kong walang kabuhay-buhay, alam niya.

Pero nitong mga nakalipas na araw, napapansin kong hindi na kami nag-uusap. Masyado na kong naging busy. At siya rin. Masyado na siyang nag-aalala sa mga kailangan pa niyang gawin para sa amin. Hindi ko na siya nilalapitan tuwing uupo siya sa harap ng pintuan ng bahay. Ayoko na rin ng amoy ng sigarilyo niya dahil hinihika ako.

Hindi na niya ko kinakantahan at sinasayawan. Hindi ko na inaabangan ang pag-uwi niya. Hindi na ko excited sa paglubog ng araw.

Pero kahit ganun, Papa's girl pa rin ako.

Unang Lundag

Sa wakas, nagkatapang muli akong mag-blog. Wala kasing oras, madalas. Pero ngayon, susubukan kong magkaoras sa pagsusulat. Sabi nung isang guro ko nung college, ang isang manunulat, dapat nagsusulat. Dapat gumagawa ng oras para magsulat. Kung gusto, maraming paraan. Sumulat araw-araw tungkol sa anuman, patungo saanman. Basta magsulat.

At heto na. Ginising ako ng kunsyensya ko para ituloy ang dati ko pang gustong gawin-- ang magsulat.

Dahil unang lundag ko ito, magpapakilala muna ko sa inyo at sa sarili ko.

May kinalaman sa salitang dahilan ang pangalan ko. Noong bata pa ko, dahil ang tawag sa akin ng mga kaibigan ko sa school. Kapag may sumigaw ng 'DAHIL' lumilingon na ko. Pero mas madalas akong mapalingon sa tawag ng 'BRUHILDA'. Ewan ko ba. Mabait naman ako noon, sabi ko.

Iilang tao lang ang tatango pag sinabi kong mabait ako. Yung mga talagang nakakakilala sakin, alam nilang ayokong sinasabihan na mabait ako. Parang napaplastikan ako pag sinabing ang bait ko. Mas kampante akong sabihin na masungit ako. Mataray. Pilya. Kanya-kanya naman tayo ng gusto sa buhay pero ayoko lang ng salitang mabait para sakin.

Gusto ko ang mansanas. Direct descendant ako ni Eva. Pero wala namang ahas na nagtulak saking maging paborito ang mansanas. Basta nakalakihan ko na lang ang prutas na iyon.

Gusto ko ang ulan. Ang ingay ng ulan. Gustung-gusto ko.

At higit sa lahat, buhay ko ang ang sinulat na salita.