Ad Infinitum

Her eyes are sad black pools, not murky, just plain black--dark and still. When she closes them, the water ripples and creates circles within smaller ones. Someday, she'll never have to open them again. Ever.

o0o

How open should a person be to his/her partner? What are the limits? When would you say he/she's lying? Does keeping things unknown to you constitute dishonesty?

Most people would say "no, I'm not lying, I'm just not telling you" or what you don't know won't hurt you. What's the deal? It's plain and simple, for me, that is. When you're found, get out. If you refuse to do so, needless to say, that qualifies as hiding, right?

When two people commit their lives to each other, that would involve merging of two different worlds. There are the respective spaces you both have to keep. Never lose your center, that I believe in. But when one is alienated already from the other's "own" space, I would start believing keeping your center isn't really worth it.

Nonsense? Perhaps.

I just hate lies. And secrets. I will never be able to tolerate deceit--no matter how rosy you put it.

o0o

Maybe because I have experienced deceit in such an early age is the reason why I value openness and transparency so much. But after 27 years, it's still too elusive...

Some things don't really change, or do they?

Exactly two years ago, I wrote:

from the mouth of my babe

he said what i need is diligence. my laziness,according to him, is detrimental to any literary visions i have of myself. i just have to write, write,write, he said. if that's the way i want to live my life, i might as well die writing. and to do so, i must get on with it.

come to think of it, this has always been my problem. i have always been a butterfly when it comes to projects. i work hard,set my heart on things, get my heart broken and move on. as with my life, my relationships,my dreams and fears, i flutter, fly, thrive on whatever's good (even the bad) and move on. and so, i look for more.


i envy naya. first, because i really like and admire her poetry. her metaphors range from the most common to the amazingly profound. her language mesmerizes me,too. i know for certain that when i read a poem of hers without her by-line, i would recognize that voice, resonating on the page,reaching my mind. and second, just like her, i wish i were teaching again.

i am writing this with a sigh.

and of course, there's ian whose works i would always read for sheer pleasure and to simply marvel at his craft. his fiction is comforting no matter what his subject is. there is,in his words, a quiet spectacle that unfolds before my eyes but it is always something calm and fluid that i allow myself to flow along his plots, his characters, his images. i specially love ian's stories on afternoons when my own despair to create swallows me whole like a dragon's open mouth...

then there's pam. this girl simply amazes me.

and dinah? this woman has the most beautiful words and an equally beautiful mind.

there are other things to do and enjoy aside from writing. i love, i am loved, i laugh at myself, cry,weep, eat anything, hug people---there are a million other beautiful things i could make myself do.

but writing eludes me. and i was born to chase anything that runs away from me. chase it, grip its neck, shake it and when everything's done and still nothing else happens, i let it go.

i know when to admit defeat.

o0o

These are still my sentiments except that two years ago, I was agonizing about my job. Now, I am a number of notches higher in my dreams list--I'm teaching now and loving it. However, I'm still in square one, or shall we say, zero, when it comes to my writing.

Why can't I just do it?

Stop deluding yourself, Tin: this should probably be my mantra now but hey, life's too short. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Ride with me, will ya?

00o

How do I make Holden Caulfield interesting to my already disinterested Class 10 students??? Sometimes I just want to give up on them, telling myself, no, it's not my fault they're too out-of-synch in class. I could blame them. Then again, who am I kidding? It's my job to hold their attention once I stand in front of them. It's my job to care whethet they get what themes really mean in literature. It's my job to bring it out of them. The thing is, it's so damn hard...

It's so easy not to care. Sometimes when I'm this exhausted, I wish I really don't care at all.

Love at First Sight

Both are convinced
that a sudden surge of emotion bound them together.
Beautiful is such a certainty,
but uncertainty is more beautiful.

Because they didn't know each other earlier, they suppose that
nothing was happening between them.
What of the streets, stairways and corridors
where they could have passed each other long ago?

I'd like to ask them
whether they remember-- perhaps in a revolving door
ever being face to face?
an "excuse me" in a crowd
or a voice "wrong number" in the receiver.
But I know their answer:
no, they don't remember.

They'd be greatly astonished
to learn that for a long time
chance had been playing with them.

Not yet wholly ready
to transform into fate for them
it approached them, then backed off, stood in their way
and, suppressing a giggle,
jumped to the side.

There were signs, signals:
but what of it if they were illegible.
Perhaps three years ago,
or last Tuesday
did a certain leaflet fly
from shoulder to shoulder?
There was something lost and picked up.
Who knows but what it was a ball
in the bushes of childhood.

There were doorknobs and bells
on which earlier
touch piled on touch.
Bags beside each other in the luggage room.

Perhaps they had the same dream on a certain night,
suddenly erased after waking.

Every beginning
is but a continuation,
and the book of events
is never more than half open.

-(Wislawa Szymborska, translated by Walter Whipple )

o0o

Beautiful, isn't it?

 

Lazy-assed

I'm too lazy to post anything decent now. I watched Manny Pacquiao's match with Erik Morales while Kulas is out, firing with his friends at the range. I'm supposed to be preparing for school now but, hey you guessed it right, I'm here blogging instead.

We watched "Little Manhattan" last night. Simple, nice and nostalgic. We never forget our "first loves", that's what Gabe said at the end of the movie. Do you agree?

Tomorrow, my class and I will be selling the corn we biodynamically planted and harvested. I'm going to tell them about "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld, which I bought last night at Fully Booked Gateway, which incidentally is the farthest I could haul my lazy ass to these days--aside from home and school.

Next week is the start of my Geography block, focusing on Africa and China. Oh and with some basics on Meteorology, too. Can you believe that? Me, teaching geography...amazing.

Of course I'm damn nervous about it. It's not something I know very well. But as Steiner puts it, it's in the striving that a teacher gets it better--or something like that.

I miss shopping. I miss being "shallow"--you know what I mean?

Well, this post has been peppered with questions to be answered by nobody. If people are bound to find out about this blog, they simply will.

So much for random thoughts. Must prepare dinner soon. Meanwhile, let me leave you with this:

"..so tired of the straight life
and eveywhere you turn
there's vultures and thieves at your back..."

Been singing these lines lately. So you, watch out and look behind your back.

It's on days like this...

...when I just feel so lucky I'm alive feeling all I'm feeling, just being me.

It's a beautiful Sunday morning; windy, sunny and quiet. Kulas and I had a breakfast of bacon, salmon, eggs, toast, jam and butter. After that I started popping CDs on the player, one after the other, singing to it while I was washing the dishes and Kulas was reading the paper. I made coffee and for the first time in our married life, he had coffee with him. It's so nice to share my morning coffee pala with him. We danced to Luis Miguel's version of Sabor a Mi after...

I'm blogging here at the study and it's so nice--the kaimito tree swaying outside, I could hear the chimes in the dining room...

I've got to work. I have a crazy day tomorrow in school. But first I want to take note of what I want to blog about soon:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (the movie)
2. The Family Stone
3. Kulas' upcoming birthday.

So far, I'm enjoying my stay here in this blog. I like the quiet.