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My friend Tiki recently told me this story of people he met at a conference in Singapore and I'd like to share it with you.

On the first day of the conference he sat way back the hall where he found himself in the company of "people who looked quite Black." So they got to talking and Tiki learned that they (a man and a woman) are Fijians.

"Wow, my grandparents used to live there!" Tiki said. So the woman asked for his grandparents' names, after Tiki gave her the names, she said: "Oh my God, your grandmother is famous in Fiji."

"She saved my daughter's life. She took care of her. I will always be thankful for your grandma."

Of course Tiki was so bowled over that he cried. Tiki's grandma was a pediatrician and she lived in Fiji for most of her life, she died a couple of years ago.

Upon coming home to the Philippines, Tiki told his grandpa (who now lives here) the story and he said this actually made his grandpa perk up, well of course he had been really sad after his wife's death.

Tiki said, "I could have sat somewhere else, but I chose to sit there, and these people became my friends. Of all people, of all places, wow."

I told him, I have this image of God moving us around like chess pieces. You know, so there's this giant hand and well, because He knows everything, He kind of picks up one person and puts him in front of a certain person who may be an enemy or loved one or simply someone he ought to meet, and then when things go well God will have this silly smile on His face and He'll go "Aaah, there ya go."

Well sometimes He puts us in a position where we feel like we are bludgeoned to death and then one day we find that Oh Hey I didn't die, and I feel better. What I'm saying is, I really believe there's a force larger than us and I'd like to imagine it as a giant hand and the entity Who it belongs to has some Master Plan and at the end of every chess game His goal is always to have that smile on His face, "Aaah, there ya go."

Yes we make our own decisions and all that, but sometimes it wouldn't hurt to believe that things do happen for a reason.

It's always a fine time when it's spent with Tiki, he is one of my best friends and well, I like sharing stories with him and that night when he shared this story with me I couldn't help but further my belief of The Giant Hand.

That night The Giant Hand put me right beside Tiki, in a Starbucks, and made me hear that story of his grandma and the Fijians, and well, it made life just a little bit bearable. So, thank you Giant Hand.

"Aaah, there ya go."

In the coffee shop of the bookstore, two women about my age sat at the table next to me. “I think it’s hormones,” one of them said. “I’m just feeling so emotional. On the way here, I saw a blind man trying to cross the street. I wanted to help, but I didn’t want to offend him if he didn’t need me. So I just watched him for a while. He was listening to the traffic so carefully, his head cocked, and—anyway—finally I just took his arm and said, ‘It’s okay to cross now,’ and he smiled at me—this radiant smile—and it made me feel like bawling, I don’t know why.”

“It is hormones,” her friend said. “I have days like that, when my skin feels peeled back, when I feel completely exposed. And on those days, I cry over everything: Hallmark commercials, dropping a dish…it’s those damn hormones.”

But I wondered if it wasn’t something else. Maybe it was the tender irony of the way that we, blind ourselves, offer our arm to others, hoping to ease the crossing. Maybe it was the odd surges of love one can feel for an absolute stranger. Or maybe it was the way we give so little when it’s in us always to give so much more. Thomas Merton wrote about feeling a sudden awareness of a profound connection to others, understanding that “they were mine and I theirs.” I always loved reading things like that, things that pointed to our oneness and, by extension, our responsibility to others. It’s the execution of anything specific that’s the problem. It’s kneeling down to meet the eyes of someone slouched on a sidewalk that you’d so much rather walk past. It’s bothering to listen with an open heart to someone who smells bad. It’s hard. – The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg 

--ooOoo--

The past week is what I shall call a Good Book Week. Last Monday I bought the following books from Booksale: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Running with Scissors, The Art of Mending, and There are no Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of our Lives. On Tuesday I went to Pasong Tamo to pick up Written on the Body which I was borrowing from Kate and Drea. So when I got home and saw my 'new' books, I had this sweet secret smile, it was as if I was armed for a fight: Have visa, will travel; have books, will survive.

I read Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson) first and it just about killed me with how beautiful it is *almost dies again* I should now call your attention that in that book is a cat named Hopeful.

The next day I read Running with Scissors (Augusten Burroughs), and man, it was like reading David Sedaris and Dave Eggers (the blurbs were right!) at the same time plus something else that was just... magical, this book is now in my top ten. I downloaded the movie version to have a visual and audio experience, only to discover that sometimes, it’s better to trust our own imaginations. Now, in this book is a woman named Hope. And it was at this point that I told the Universe, okay, if there’s a Hope in the next book I will read, it means you’re telling me something (without hope or agenda, ika nga sa Love Actually, IKR, the irony).

But first I researched about the life of Augusten Burroughs. In his interviews he usually mentions his admiration for Elizabeth Berg ("But it's also just the prose; I just find it beautiful, the simplicity of it. It's just very beautiful," he said). Elizabeth Berg, Elizabeth Berg, isn’t that… *looks at her stack of books* Oh wow, I have one of her books right here (The Art of Mending).

So I read The Art of Mending next. Towards the end of the book I already forgot about what I told the universe and then… and then I read about this teddy bear which one of the characters named Hope. *smiley* And then I proceeded to smile at the Universe.

Right now I’m on Zen and I read a little of There are no Accidents from time to time, plus I’m rereading Written on the Body and The Art of Mending. Thank you God for books.

--ooOoo--

Random college memory: I once read a passage somewhere which said, 'Do something good and it becomes your job'.

My interpretation of this at the time was, if you do something good to someone, it becomes something you enjoy doing that you do it again and again without expecting something in return. Like, if you donate something to the needy, you find enormous joy in it that you will do it for the rest of your life and never fail to find joy in it whatever happens. But then my roommate said that her interpretation of the passage was that: If you do something good, the people you do it for will depend on you from then on and make it your job/duty/obligation to always do it for them that you end up doing something because you have to do it. I find that sad.

Maybe it was naivete or maybe I (thought I) was too kind (barf)? Or maybe my roommate was just cynical and realistic? I think, as always, it depends on the situation.

It is the sound of someone curled up in a tiny ball crying softly in the night, the sound of the first unwanted teardrop touching your skin, it's the sound of a telephone that doesn't ring, the sound of regret pounding inside your brain with every heartbeat, it's the whispers of the toy animals s/he gave you.

It's the shuffling of feet walking away from you, the sound of your soul shattering into a million pieces at recognizing the word "goodbye," it’s the soundtrack of memories torturing you, it's the sound of feeble hands trying to push back the obstinate hands of time, it's the sound of a cherub's dying breath, the sound of all those years disappearing in the vortex of Cupid's kitchen sink, it's the unrelenting plaintive baby meows of an abandoned kitten outside an ignoring door.

It's the sound of the rain that doesn't ever stop, the sound of all the doors shutting and closing in your face at the same time, of raging, howling storms in the night when there's no one there to hold you, the sound of your voice as it screams back at you, the echo of "I love yous" burning holes in you, the sound your heart makes as it tells you to lie still because nothing you will ever do will matter without love.

The sound of the waves of the polluted beach you went to as it moves from the shore and crashes inside your mind, of the sniffles that make up your pathetic "SOS-to-the-world," the cracking of the brittle black-red petals from the sidewalk vendor roses s/he gave, the sound of the music s/he used to make going to your gut.

The sound of things in your room being thrown around and landing on the floor, the caress of kitchen knives on skin, the sound your throat makes as you swallow your saltiest tear.

It's the sound of your own voice calling out to someone who isn't there, of dying birds getting splattered on a city pavement, of terms of endearment used a hundred times a day struggling to crawl into a vacuum of forgetfulness, it's the sound of your own sobs keeping you company, it's the cold, uncaring stillness of the air you share your space with.

Destruction isn't always as noisy as bombs exploding. Sometimes the ultimate catastrophes are as quiet as a feather falling on the floor of a Zen monastery. No one else can really hear your heart breaking except you.

For this edition of the Baguio City Chronicles, I asked Atty Jang to write for me because I am too busy with Tumblr hahaha. Kidding aside, I just wanted to know what’s in her head and so that there will be something new to read around here other than my rants blah blah blah.

HERE GOES: (-:

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“Mamuy, I’m bored… ” that was my statement for two days about a week ago. Kat would look at me and ask what I wanted to do. I would say I don’t know and try to find something to amuse me for the time being. For herself, she would be playing on the computer or watching one of her downloads. For the most part, I would just go to bed early. Kat would sleep a bit later than me. But always, she’d nudge me or something before she drifted off to her own dreams.

Baguio Day No. 672 – Kat still likes me. It always makes me feel better. She always says that I make her feel better but from my point of view, it’s the other way around. She still holds my hand, looks at me as if I were the only person there, smiles at my non-sense, and laughs with and at me. She still makes me feel good about myself and about being in this relationship.

Mamuy, I’m bored again… “Tara, nai-cha tayo!” She would say this to me at 10 in the evening when every sane being should be in bed or at least at home preparing to rest for the next day. As a nai-cha addict and because I want to do something other than sleep, we go out of the house and stay out til past midnight for Internet and a tall ice cold glass of nai-cha. It’s good to be in Baguio where you can go out at night and not worry about how far you would have to travel to get where you want to go.

June 3, 2007 was my last day as a Starbucks barista. It was a Sunday and my last shift ended at 3 in the afternoon. On that day my mother and younger brother picked me up from the store and I made them frappuccinos. (-:

After my shift I treated my co-baristas to [possibly] the best pancit in Mandaluyong (Bermuda Hotel’s!), headed home, then promptly went back to the store to spend more time with the later shift, most of whom are good friends who I have gained for the last seven months. It was two weeks before I moved to Baguio City again.

I won’t write about how I miss the job (I do, terribly) or how I regard it as one of the most enjoyable jobs I have ever had (I was errands person, editorial assistant, reporter, waitress/secretary/cashier, call center trainee [for two nights haha], etc.)

Instead I will write about this friend who asked me in high school (almost 12 years ago) “Wala na bang ibang alam gawin ang pamilya mo kundi ang mag-waiter?”

(Read more ...)

water babies.

the rage today.
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Instructions that came with the package:

1. add water 400G on the product. About 4 hours it will grow up.
2. one clear beauty satiety face will grow up.
3. when the flower want to oxygen and nutrition, I will help you too much.