For friends who went away...

Fort San Pedro, Cebu City

Years from now

I shall have forgotten

where you went to school

the number on your gatepost

your mother's maiden name

But I shall not forget

the merciless affectionate teasing

your bunny rabbit smile

when you're happy

and that your favorite color

is indigo

Years from now

I shall have forgotten

who you are

but I shall remember you.

For the past few years, there has been an exodus of my friends leaving the country in search of greener pastures. Jo, one of my best friends, left for Canada about 5 years ago. Former officemates, classmates, friends and acquaintances followed. Miles in Dallas, Arni in New York, Cecille, Maeann and Jojie in Toronto, Chari and Merlie in New Zealand, Mel in Houston, Vicky in New Jersey, Jean in Bahrain, Bobby in Manchester, Helen in Boston, Jeana in Las Vegas, Terry in Georgia, Chubby in Riyadh, Gemma in Reno, Fred in Nigeria, Alma in Dublin, Yvette in Ontario, Malou in Milan, Rina in Burbank, Jun in Seattle, Stella in Frankfurt, Josie and Chat in Hong Kong, Bong and Girlie in San Francisco, Sally and Sallie in Dubai, and recently, Jonathan left for London. While I understand their life’s journey, it saddens me that my friends believe that the realization of their dreams is not here, but out there.

with Jonathan and Kong in Fort San Pedro

The heart is a lonely hunter...

dawn in Romblon

When I think of loneliness, the novel "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" is the first thing that comes to mind.

Is it OK to talk about loneliness nowadays? Probably not. There’s always shame and disgrace attached to admitting loneliness. Maybe this is the reason why I sometimes wrap it in fancy names like depression (sounds like a medical condition), blues (a personal idiosyncrasy), PMS (can’t help it). I have friends and family and I can find the company I want if I really want it…but it’s the type of company that adds to my feelings of isolation. For a couple of weeks now, I can never quite seem to shake this state of discontented estrangement. I'm having a hard time getting up in the morning--all I want to do is sleep.

My co-worker suggested that I go out of town with friends, that I need a break. I was thinking of going to Baguio last Friday for the Panagbenga festival, but I was too lazy to even pack! I like the idea of going out of town---anywhere---but I don’t like company. Right now, I want to just drive alone without a definite destination. The scheduled trip to Cebu next week is probably a good thing.

I was out with friends almost every night last week…watched a movie, drinks and blabber---but I felt incredibly lonely in the middle of it all. I hugged Fritz last night and was overcome by that same emptiness.

Maybe it's the literature I've been reading---I’ve finished Orhan Pamuk’s “Istanbul” and have started on “The Kite Runner” by an Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. I guess the melancholy (or huzun) of “Istanbul” didn’t leave me.

Huzun is a Turkish word whose Arabic root (it appears five times in the Koran) denotes a feeling of deep spiritual loss but also a hopeful way of looking at life, “a state of mind that is ultimately as life-affirming as it is negating.” For the Sufis, huzun is the spiritual anguish one feels at not being close enough to God; for Saint John of the Cross, this anguish causes the sufferer to plummet so far down that his soul will, as a result, soar to its divine desire. Huzun is therefore a sought-after state, and it is the absence, not the presence, of huzun that causes the sufferer distress.

While some of us spend a lifetime trying to escape loneliness with shoe shopping, binge eating, alcohol, one-night stands…I believe that the only real way through it is by forming true connections with people. But as I grow older, I sometimes feel that I seem to have lost the connection with people, that I indulge myself in solitude. Have I become indifferent? Have I opted to emails, internet chats, blogging, and text messages in order not to get my hands dirty in the humus of humanity? Are these technologies little arrows targeting at the heart of loneliness, or they’re the contributing factors?

I don't know if my loneliness is a symptom of not being “present” in my life. Do I live in the past or the future? Am I denying myself this moment? I ask myself lots of difficult questions when I’m in this mood, and I don’t have the answers. But I learned from experience that loneliness is part of the puzzle of existence, a passing phase, a flatulence of the soul—so I know, I’ll snap out of it. It’s just a question of when.

Don't Quote Me

All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement.

~ Ovid

“The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It's the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun."

~Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)

Bamboo at Greenbelt 5

A Thousand Marbles

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the study with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it. I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net.

Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital." He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little math. The average person lives about 75 years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime." "Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part." "It took me until I was 55 years old to think about all this in any detail"; he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over 2800 Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy."

"So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out." "I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focus more on the important things in life." There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time." "It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 75 year Old Man, this is K9NZQ, clear and going, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out?

I need to buy some marbles....

www.llerrah.com/thousandmarbles.htm

Unexplained phenomena

Inexplicable things bother me. It’s those random, chronic silly little details, mannerisms, events, accepted but incomprehensible. But no one bothers to explain or ask why. Maybe it’s the mole on my forehead. Maybe it’s from lack of sleep and over-analyzing everything. Maybe I am indeed kooky. But do you ever stop to wonder why some things are and why do we let it grow and fester and the next thing we know, it’s got a life of its own, like some infectious disease. There are things that defy explanation that nags me endlessly. Here’s my current list:

• Why “me” not “I”? I’m sure you got at least one text message like this---“d2 na me wer na u”, or “go lang me sa SM”, “busy lang me” then it mutated and now I actually hear it being said. “Buy lang me sa 7-11”, “paid na me this morning”. Where did this come from? I can’t even say that it shortens a sentence! It’s getting pervasive like the weird adding of the silent H in everything from “ubeh” to “Anahbelle”. My co-worker, Tomas, signs his name as Thom (ewwwww)! Whoever invented this and thought it’s cute, I hope you would grow a huge boil in your armpits. Meanwhile, cry na lang me! :(

• The white supremacy. Whitening products are all over the place. Look at the billboards with women showing off their white, flawless armpits. And Juday on TV, proud of her white elbows, knees, back, and face. Another set of celebs telling us that nothing touch their [fair, white] skin but Belo! With the deluge of whitening products to whiten the face, body, armpits, even food supplements we should have erased the brown race by now. My neighbor who used to be a morena has now a delicate pinkish white complexion that looks like the underbelly of a fish. I see women in the streets with white/reddish faces---like they were skinned and left to burn under the noontime sun; weird thing is, their necks are brown! Aside from papaya soap, does eating achara could turn our skin white, too?

• The photo menace: the V for sungay! While the Nazi had the Hitler salute, the Japanese have the trademark “peace sign” in every photo op, we have the devil’s horn by the way of the V sign. I can’t explain it or why I even do it occasionally. An American friend once asked me what it meant…I just said that maybe it’s from a need to pass blame and say---the devil made me do it and look, HERE HE IS! V sign and click!

• Naked men in webcams. I can’t explain why there are men who invite you to view their webcams and there he is in all his naked glory! Their profiles are also filled with their naked or half-naked photos. What did you eat to make you think it’s sexy? Jessica Zafra was right when she said it on her radio show that when men see a naked woman, they become silent. But when women see a naked man, they laugh! Totoo nga! Unless you’re a male underwear model, please keep your clothes on. Maawa ka sa makaka-view sa ‘yo! Sorry, boys!

• The flock that go to the women’s toilet. Often discussed but even as a woman, I can’t explain it myself why anytime, anywhere, anyplace, if one goes, all the ladies have to go too. Why is that? They say we gossip about the men left behind but isn’t it a better strategy to let one stay behind to listen in to what they say about us?

There is a great deal of unexplained phenomena from “why do men have nipples?” to “why are there still people who believe Erap is innocent of plunder?” I must share though, one mind boggling thing that drives all those around me bonkers: why I have closets full of clothes and yet, claim to have nothing to wear? I know. It baffles me, too.