from the penthouse, looking down

Paranoid. Scared. Quick-tempered. Weak.

But I am not less of a person just because I'm all these and more. You try to change me - for the better, you say. You try to rehabilitate my ways: render gentle my tongue, curb my language, do away with my choice of clothes. You want me to stop fumbling with my answers and my logic by reminding me over and over again that I just don't respond the way I am supposed to.

With these means, yes, I do realize my flaws. But instead of successfully overcoming them all, my pride shatters into smaller pieces with each blow. I draw myself deeper into my shell.

You may prove everyone right. I may fail. Badly. Terribly. With these wounds to my pride, I lose all the remaining respect I have for myself, if any. Each day, my spirit falters and try as I may to push myself upwards again, my arms fail me. Your words drag me down.

I'm on the brink of falling - all 23 floors down.

Just let me save myself.

Hide and Seek

How do you stop being insecure? How do you drown out pessimism? How do you do just that, when all your life, you've been that? How, when you are that?

You see, I hate the feeling of rejection so I do my best to counter it, even if it means acting way before the blow comes. I call it defensive mechanism. Others call it paranoia. Maybe it is. But I have got to do it. I have got to protect myself. I should, of course, especially when there's no one else there who'll protect me.

I remember when I was about 16 years old. I just graduated from high school - salutatorian. (My dad wasn't at all happy. He wanted me to be the best. But I ended up only as second best.) My dad, his assistant, and I went to attend the Easter vigil in our province, Bukidnon. I was feeling quite pretty, with my blue-green chiffon dress and strappy heels. I stayed close to my dad, proud to be the only daughter of a popular public figure in our town.

People greeted him as we made our way to the cathedral's huge doors. I smiled at everyone as we passed, my hand comfortably resting on my dad's arm.

Then we met this middle-aged couple who respectfully greeted my dad. They chatted for a bit, while I stood there by my dad's side, a warm smile on my face. The woman asked my dad who I was. Then it happened.

My dad shifted his feet as if he were a man going through an inquest proceedings. The woman and her husband waited. And stared at me. Ogled, was more like it. My dad said, "My adopted." I froze.

"Ah," the woman replied in the vernacular, "good thing you got a decent looking one. She seems nice enough. You're lucky." Then she turned her back on me and talked to my dad some more.

Somehow, I didn't really notice how I ended up amid a throng of people fighting their way into the church. No, I wasn't elbowing my way into salvation alongside them. I think I just let them walk all over me - literally and otherwise.

Fighting back the tears, hiccuping like there's no tomorrow, I clumsily walked around, looking for Rico, my dad's assistant and, as time has proven, one of my trusted friends. When I did find him, I told him unfeelingly that I'd be sticking with him through the whole religious gathering. (I'm almost tempted to refer to it as "quasi-religious gathering", what with all the hypocrites present. Or should I say "pseudo-religious"?)

I sat through more than an hour's worth of inaudible sermon, preachings I couldn't really understand due to my shallow knowledge of the place's language, and crying babies. And all throughout, I was shifting between trying hard not to cry and cursing the whole damn place - its people included, of course - into oblivion.

I hated my father - yes, my biological father, that same popular public figure who referred to me as his adopted child - for denying me. It wasn't my fault that he accidentally got a woman - my biological mother - pregnant out of wedlock. It wasn't my fault that he couldn't very well tell the world his sins, much less own up to that particular dirty deed even though the finished product has been made available for the physical world to see. It wasn't my fault that he's a bachelor with a baggage, which, if I may add (not for spite but just for further factual matters), he tried to hide for, say, 16 years.

True, I thought to myself while shredding the contribution envelop into strips, he provided for my education (still is), gave me a house to live in, a nanny and two more housekeepers, a driver, and a hefty allowance. But he also deprived me of my mother and a good father, since he shipped me off to Manila "for educational purposes" while he stayed in quiet Bukidnon. And he had the gall to tell people I'm adopted, when in fact, I'm his own flesh and blood.

That, my friends (yes, yes. I only have so many blog readers), has got to be the biggest rejection I had during my adolescent years. And even though I'm okay with my dad now - we don't fight as much, a lot of people know now that I'm his illegitimate but only child, he generally/kinda/somewhat treats me well in public - I haven't really forgotten that event in my young life. Like a scar, it had become attached to me, become a second skin, which also functions as a shield from further damage.

When similar or potentially like situations come my way, I immediately brace myself and my scar does its wonders. It numbs me quickly (maybe that's how drugs work for addicts, too). Like earlier today, I found myself in an elevator with three classmates. My girl classmate was teasing me about someone. Actually, I had swore to her in class that if our professor won't call me for recitation that day, I promise I won't fight with my boyfriend for two whole weeks. She brought that up in the elevator and teased me about it. Our other guy classmate who was also there in the elevator with us rationalized: we (my boyfriend and I) shouldn't be fighting since, in the first place, we weren't together. Yes, because we weren't together. Not a couple. Not romantically affiliated with each other. I froze.

Our girl classmate grew uncomfortable. I think I knew how she felt, by the way. She was torn between telling our guy classmate off and actually entertaining the bit of possibility that, indeed, we weren't a couple, as I had led her to believe, and that my stories were just a dreamy product of my sick imagination. After all, the guy classmate, yes, that guy in the elevator, and my boyfriend were good friends.

All throughout the ordeal, in that cramped elevator, I just stuck with my phony smile and ignored both of them. I fixed my gaze at the fourth passenger, another guy classmate who's as confused as the other two were. I prayed to the Lord, my God, to be saved from another rejection, another probable denial of relations.

It's like this: that part of me has been damaged already that it cannot be damaged some more. All I can do now is to prevent the damage from piling up. I have my scar already and I don't want another scar to settle on top of my existing scar. Thus, the defense.

But then they call it insecurity, paranoia, cynicism, and pessimism. Hell. They call it insanity. I say to myself I don't really care. They can call it anything they want. For me, it's my shield.

But, really, I do care. And I want the "insanity" to stop. I want to revel in the world's beauty, to look at the sunflowers as beautiful creations and not as temporary and useless blooms which will wilt away tomorrow or even later. I want to believe that I can do wonderful things, that I can be happy, that I AM happy, and not anticipate misfortunes and a lifetime of misery. I want to trust people and I want them to trust me, too. I want to be accepted and loved. I want others to feel proud of me. I want to laugh, and mean it.

I don't want to be rejected again and denied by those I care about. Where's a sense of security when I need it the most?

writing as if no one could read my thoughts

Are we where we live in?

Yes, that's right. "Are we where we live in?" Somehow I'm not too sure if that's even grammatically correct but that's the question which popped into my head while I was on my way home from school today (or rather, yesterday, as it is already 12:46 am of June 18, 2008).

Stuck in the usual 8pm traffic jam along EDSA, I see wired fences used by the authorities to separate lanes and the gray concrete pillars which hold the MRT. I stare at the gray pillars a little longer than necessary and feel the roughness of the pavement as the car's tires moved lazily towards the tunnel's end. This is Manila, or a part thereof actually. But still, this is Manila.

From where I sat, there's nothing I could find which resembles romance or dreaminess. No feeling of mystique that the cobbled streets and ancient spires of Prague are able to generate easily among its travelers. No desire to French Kiss, Paris-style. No liberating sense of spirit and defiance that even the hustle-and-bustle nebula of New York can evoke. Just slabs of concrete along the stretch of EDSA and a stream of red lights before me, showing just how congested Manila traffic can get.

I look around and see pedestrians and commuters, all waiting for a chance to cross the street - unmindful of the jaywalking statutes, of the clumsily arranged barricades - or for a ride home. The drivers are getting impatient, as you can determine from the way they honk their vehicles' horns and how they trrry tooo incchhh theiirr carrs forward, to the left, to the right in the hope of escaping this traffic jail.

Nothing romantic there too.

After years and scores of living in such a wonderful place (feel both my sarcasm and honesty - yes. Manila is a wonderful place), do we assimilate the gray-ness of EDSA into our very own lives and personal character? Do we do things in a humdrum manner - consciously, unconsciously - because the place does not call for imagination? Do we forget about our respective "inner child" and stop dancing in the rain because of pollution?

Yes, we may get sick and, yes, acid rain is reality, but what about excitement? Laughter? And just plain fun?

The place has taught us how to be independent, practical, and resourceful but I feel that it has also taken away a big chunk of our spirit. It's saddening, when you actually think about it.

Or then again, maybe "sad" is just a tad too romantic a word. And after much effort, we still feel nothing: not the loss of spirit, not the drowning of imagination. We stare into the crowd and see not one soul. But, still, we belong here - in this comfortable routine of indifference and pragmatism.

Still.

Like those gray concrete pillars along the stretch of EDSA.

recycling thoughts

Why do we struggle for a topic to write - just anything to write about - about when, in fact, there are a lot things in the world we see everyday (or don't), which may be the subject of our articles?

In the hope that we would somehow come up with an article a tad more interesting than what our little brother might write about, say, a bruised toe, we write about overused topics: love, death, suicide, changes, love, life, writing itself and its random blocks, the mountains, freedom, paradise, love again. Yet, though we know a lot has been written about these things, we continue to contribute our "expert" opinions. And readers read them, some grudgingly, yes. But, still, the articles generate more interest than nothing at all.

They tell us, "What? That again?" and "Well, that's that. Nothing ever changes with that." And then they launch into a discussion about how those things never change and how pathetic people can get when they dwell in those overused, overrated things. They go on and on about how talking and writing and reading about those things have become so yesterday. And, yet, they talk about the same things for hours - whether they're sober or not. And you smile because you know better than disagree with them on any point.

So you sit and listen to them complain about how the world talks about nothing else but that, that, and that. That nothing is left to be said about this, this, and this. And you silently formulate blog entries about those things. Yes, their essences, their importance in life - all based on you expert and honest opinion, of course.

AS if there's nothing else left to write about.

Bukidnon

where the air is clean and captivating,
where you feel the dewy grass beneath your bare feet;
where the birds awaken your senses at sunrise,
where the trees' roots play with boulders and pebbles alike,
and where the same trees' topmost branches reach skyward to tell the Heavens of your dreams;

where the roads go up and down and up again,
curving toward the hidden inevitability, another magnificent unknown;
where restless souls are given time to think, to breath,
where castaways are welcomed and given space to heal;
where escapists are provided caves to hide their fears and their tales,
and where all abandon and adventure gallop along with the roan horses - unbridled, untamed;

where smiles are free and laughter comes much easily;
where the clouds meet the pale blue mountains in a quiet coexistence,
where the moon and stars shine brightly against the night sky;
where the end starts just like every song's beginning,
and where tomorrow feels like countless of good, harmonious days;

where comfort lies, snugly with a cup of freshly brewed coffee,
where the children play like how our children are supposed to play;
where we sleep, soundly - even dreamlessly,
where the colors are bright and soothingly familiar:
where our true home lies. and waits to warm our tired spirits once more.

Brave weaklings.

Accidents do not happen. My friend tells me such word is only used by those who can't really explain or don't want to understand why such things do happen. There are no coincidences, either. We just use that term to justify the occurrence of subsequent, and usually sinful, affairs.

There's no such thing as a conducive place for sinning. We sin whenever we do. We're the authors, the directors of our own sins. We have no one, or nothing, to blame but our own weak selves.

Weak selves. The adjective resounds in my brain. Whenever we give in to temptation, why do we often call ourselves weak? Wouldn't it be more fitting to say that we dared to do it? So that way, we'd see ourselves as brave wanderers raring for another adventure?

Cliches teach us that we learn from mistakes and that there's no better way to understand a crooked way than to walk along it ourselves. But whatever happens when we've gathered all the learnings? Yes, we learn that plugging an uninsulated wire into an electric socket with damp hands would almost always cause an electric shock. But some of us do that all over again just for the sheer exhilarating conduction. (You never know.)

Doing that doesn't make us cowards. It may make us brave, or, for some, weirdos in our own rights. Sadists, even. But never weaklings.

Or maybe I'm using wrong analogies. And in doing so, trying to justify occurrences, even my own sins.

But there's no way to justify some sins, I know. No matter how hard we try, we can never scrub a midnight black boar clean and turn it into a rosy shade of cream. Unless we skin it. Another improper analogy.

Sinners. Weaklings, since they give in to temptation. It doesn't matter how hard they tried to hold on to their morals and virtues - they give in just the same. Or are they adventurers? Darers? Or reckless hedonists? Maybe. They are brave enough to soak their feet into the bog and feel the grime against their own skin. They are daring enough to pursue their wants and shock the morals and virtues of other people. Maybe.

So, they have sinned. We may call them whatever we want. But let us not cast the first stone. We are no saints and martyrs, though some of us try hard to be. We're neither brave, nor weak. We. Just. Are.

Mountain song

I found a Land in the mountains and beyond
where you cross a river twice,
where blades of grass cut you until you repent.

Up and down I went with a young troop of five
and a wise man who told us stories
of the sky and of the plains.

The wise man taught us a song about journeying
to a bountiful land where welcome would be warm
to a good lady with my own name.

The men joined along but I could not -
not because of shame nor pride but because
I knew the girl was not good, though she tries to be.

On we went, through the raging river, past many questions
until the path ended at a cliff:
across the river stood the sacred Land, the people's Land.

I crossed the river with only the wise man,
his son, and the son's friend. I knew the trip,
like so many others I've had, would change me yet again.

We pitched our tents and swam like kids on summer break
and communed with the natives like it was
our second home. Yes, the Land, like my second home.

The mountains have always brought verve into my life,
a sense of freedom and danger that
no other form of nature could ever give.

Passion. It has always brought me passion.
And in the late hours, I listened to the wise man's tales
of love and dreams. I listened to the cold mountain breeze.

To the constant pattering of the rain.
I listened.
And I listened to Him.


The story ends there, where heaven and hell meet:

across the broad sky, across the mountain ranges
I had come to understand Time and Nature's humor.

The mountains brought me life.
Energy without the usual concomitant weariness.
Questions without the need to find answers.

I found a place I've never gone before
but in hindsight, I realize I'd been mistaken:
I didn't find the Land that I speak of --
the Land found me. And it had the last Laugh.