just a thought

If we're tired of being asked questions, perhaps it's because we failed to give clear and precise instructions. Just as it is imperative to answer (even to questions we'd rather sweep under the rug), it is equally necessary to spare one another from constant second-guessing. State all intentions and interrogations clearly. We are not psychics.

on asin tibuok

Cheers to the team who made Alburquerque, Bohol’s asin tibuok part of UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding. But I hope media would stop calling it “dinosaur egg” in their headlines and start calling it as it is—asin tibuok.

just a thought

 When your vision is so small, you will mistake a window for the world. The small of sight always finds its horizon in a box.

just a thought

 The Philippines has endured too much to be told how to protest. You just can’t tell anyone that there is a proper way of rallying after generations of agony and state neglect.

familiar portrait

“Jo detaches herself. When she’s very stressed, she’ll detach herself and only trust one person, and that’s herself. So everyone gets blocked out and she becomes more and more stressed and less and less able to accept any help.”

- Neil Murray on Joanne Kathleen Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series

[ read more here ]

alyza, read this

“Writing is a genuinely laborious and abstract process. When it is fun, the pleasure is wholly different from the pleasure of drawing. With drawing, I am acutely aware of creating something on a sheet of paper. It is a sensual act, which you cannot say about the act of writing. In fact, I often turn to drawing to recover from the writing.”

- Gunter Grass, 1991

worries

We are lighter than we think until we learn how to pick up some stones and pocket them.

for mother

A mother is a desert,
the sway of her hips
the changing hills of sand,
as days rise and fall,
curves shift from slopes to dunes,
sometimes warm,
sometimes parched;

a mother is a desert,
vast,
embracing,
cupping an oasis
no mirage
can ever fool.
May 09/10 (10:59am)


No one could carry so much love other than a mother.

This isn’t exactly an argument on which role of parenthood does best, since this will only beat the bush like determining which comes first, the hen or the egg. The very bottom line of that premise is this:

Our mothers bring us all into this world. Just imagine such responsibility.

That is why in as early as the days of ancient Greece mothers are esteemed in highest regards, festivals being commemorated for her. Through time, the importance of a mother finally finds its day of celebration indelibly marked on the second Sunday of May in almost all calendars across the globe.

But being a mother is no easy job. Aside from giving up her curves, she endures all forms of pain from the birthing of a child to the last aching sight of a grocery list. The coming and going of her children must also be one of the most trying times in her life, but like everything else, she handles this with grace and endurance. Beyond the usual façade of vulnerability is a character of strong will.

Whether this day does or doesn’t have any special bearing to some people, there’s no denying that there are many days for men and about men, accounting to the numerous holidays of our heroes and won wars. That’s why on this day, let us show our gratitude to our mothers for bringing us into this world, for giving us a chance to love them the way they love us through the years.

To all mothers, mommies, mamas, and nanays, thank you.

not just a post to update this blog

"Tire yourself with the bounty of other people's love

and not by the absence of once-held affections."

Jan 11 / 09 (01:14am)

I didn’t really know the drill. The dog followed you and you stopped. It took for a while before you found your senses back and tried to talk with the dog. It barked. It was not a daunting bark but something pleasant. Maybe even polite. This dog is worth keeping, you said to yourself. But you left the dog and continued towards your destination knowing that someone else owned it. But it ran after you, chased you. You stopped again and asked why: Something wrong? Master’s gone? No one to shelter you? You gave the dog a hug. And that was all. But the dog must be so down and dejected it licked your face. How cute. But still, I believed you were thinking that you had no right to own the dog so you left. As you arrived in your place, the dog ran away outside, its padded feet leaving a series of thuds in your heart.

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unexpected

And the wind stopped whistling when the bamboo bent the other way.
Oct 21 / 08 (12:59am)


There are some dusts in a room’s corners that are better off not swept. Just there, staying like little ornaments, to add a touch of rusticity and the like. You don’t remember them for a long time but suddenly, like the feeling of being stared at, there’s this flicker that makes you think of the dusts. You consider cleaning them up so that everything will be clean, spotless from the scrupulous and criticizing eyes, but then again, you think, how? What for? And most especially, why should I?

This is the irony of it all; you are seen as someone unclean but there’s no denying, you know, that once you’ve tried to settle things out but it won’t just work.

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patience

Alright, keep it that way,
wait for the clouds to rain on you
and let us see what good it is
to be drenched in cold water
when the sun has already promised us
the break we've always longed for.

Oct 16 / 08 (12:38 am)

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acacias

"Tempt this leaf to fold
under the scrutiny of your sharp eyes
and realize that morning dews
never get too close
to this secret plane."

Jun 25 / 08 (01:09 am)

caution: mind-dead ahead

"I’ve always been lonely. I’ve even chosen a lonely path; writing.
That’s why you can call me a loner for writing is masturbatory
just for the reason that I write. That’s why most writers are lean.
No, not because they’re frequently masturbating. They’re just lonely.
Lonely for they eat alone, alone which make them eat less
for they have no one to talk to while biting, munching, and digesting.
But I eat a lot yet I am lean. Maybe I am only lonely.
Not even a writer. No one should proclaim one’s self as a writer."

June 6 / 08 (08:55pm)

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downhill

I can clearly remember that I have mentioned in one of my old posts “people are like sparklers; they ignite a distinct flicker so exhilarating and engaging but when suddenly they fade, they leave you in earnest sacrifice of waiting.” Up to now, I still believe in it. But through constant enforcement of strong scolding at myself, I can now attest to the last seven words of that quote. I don’t wait. There’s no need to wait because from now on, I have to decide whether I would be dragged downhill with all these difficulty or climb up as mightily as I can while at the same time hate everyone who made me fall. I can’t think of any solution than to hate in order for me to forget. Any suggestions? Please tell me; I know this is not right.

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hard to forget

If memory and history cannot be separated,

the chance of removing the notes on the corkboard

that we leave for the taking

will eternaly remain an impossibility.

Apr 11 / 08 (01:24am)

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because from now on

"Ah, when to the heart of man was it ever less than a treason

to go with the drift of things to yield with a grace

to reason and bow and accept at the end of a love or a season."

Robert Frost

"Some people swallow the universe like a pill;

they travel on through the world,

like smiling images pushed from behind."

Robert Louis Stevenson

"Differences of habit and language are nothing at all

if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."
Joanne Kathleen Rowling

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with someone

It is by sleeping with them that we favor
the momentary illustriousness of bogus perfection
and disregard the realism of chaos
and undermined pain.
Feb 22 / 08 (02:11am)

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a thought

“Cast me a sculpture of my image with your sober hands

and let all those who are in grief worship me

and if the results are ominous,

please, stone me to death.”

(December 15, 2007 / 1:55 am)

In this time of the year, everyone must be glad but it turns out that I have more things to deal with than being happy.

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miss my hair

(before)

(after)

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threaded

Have you ever experienced a day when you intently wait for something to happen—which is supposed to happen—only to realize the happening go nowhere out of sight, gone into oblivion? I just did.

This may be one of the most mundane thing to “wait for something” in this era of extensive logical thinking but what I had just waited a while ago was for my stitch (in my recently operated wisdom tooth, as if it matters, euch) to be removed, only to discover that the thread was not already there. Gone. I am sure it’s there in the bowels of my being.

Argh. I’ve waited for about an hour in the clinic just for my dentist to recommend this in a two-minute talk: “Oh, the thread is gone. And gargle it up with Bactidol at home, okay?”

And so that was it. Now I have doubts on what Lyde had quoted from my very own short story I let him read last week through text messaging:

“Waiting is never a stressful task nor is unproductive, as long as you are
willing to accept the end as it is, good or bad. Waiting is rewarding.”

-Waiting Days and Story Nights

Argh. That silly thread!

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