Don't think about tomorrow - tape 2

I walked all the way from the GT Toyota Center at UP to Technohub just to kill time. Call it a deviation from the unpleasant to make sense of things. It's Friday after all, and I don't believe that there should be anything to be done on a Friday night, let alone anything that wants to get done.

I've been trying to loosen up, this week most frequently. Just trying to feel how things are like when they are not so cramped up within the tiny lobes of my brain, or when I could not feel the slightest tinge of fear run down my nerves anymore. Maybe then, things will not be so bad.

So UP.

I have this volume of Childcraft encyclopedias, which delighted me as a child. I never read them. At that time, I couldn't yet. I was drawn first to the pictures. I'm talking about 80's to early 90's Childcraft: definitely not new photos now, but not completely old either. I loved those photos. I still do. I especially loved pictures of houses in forests, countrysides, hills, and what people do in them. They're all so simple, yet whenever I look at them, I wanted so badly to be in those pictures - in that exact situation, at that exact time frame. It was magical to me.

This afternoon, UP and its expanse of land - the shadows of branches on red bricks, the rustle of leaves in tune with the cold whistle of the monsoon, the range of woods beyond every lamppost - all laid out those photos in front of me, displayed them within my reach as though they were real, alive. I was living in them.

The sun is setting.

I had wondered before how things would be had I been allowed to take the test in UP, and had I passed. I realize now that that doesn't matter. Fact is: I don't know, and I will never know because it never really was a dream. I could never really transform it into one, try as I might. I feel at ease knowing that this is the only perspective in which I shall see UP. Best that I not ruin the illusion that I have of it as I had destroyed my previous dreams.

I was there this afternoon, just walking, taking in the reality of being there, and yet never actually making it. I felt magnified by time, scooped up by its hand, cupped into a feeling of security. It's okay, it seemed to say. Everything will be all right.

I'm okay.

It got dark eventually. The lampposts could only give ample light for writing, but I wanted to stay. I just wanted to be there. It was exactly childhood, that simple and that real. That beautiful and breathtaking memory of childhood to which I could never serve justice. I want to return to it, to be coupled by the greenness of being a child. I'd live there forever, I swear to god, if I could. I'd give anything to have it back.

It would take me an hour to find my way out.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.

- Robert Frost

When the water gets high above your head

I haven't been writing, though I think I should lest I lose the drive to want to. I don't know if you feel that way sometimes. When you do things because you have to in order for you to want to. I feel like that most of the time, especially when it comes to writing. It's frustrating having to feel this way about such mundane matters because it would often come off as an excuse until eventually, I'd grow uninterested altogether. I don't know if this makes much sense to you. But, I've thought about this just now, and the idea seemed right when I wrote it down. I feel that I have to keep thinking like this so I will be inspired, so I cannot be broken down into a hopeless and desperate fragment of a molecule.

It's March today. I feel an overwhelming relief rushing through me that finally - it's here, that the worst February of my life has come to an end. Things have been really bad lately. Been spiraling out of control, and I'm afraid I can't patch this one back up. No cure, no way out. Less than a month and sooner or later, summer will once again be knocking at my door, ready to catapult me into yet another adventure.

I spent a time of my day skimming through long-lost photos of Summer '11 - the great seasonal escapade, the forgotten story, the best one I had. Now more than ever, I miss everything that represents that summer: the Oxygen scent whiffing past newly-painted classroom walls, the mixture of sweat and perfume on body protectors and floor mats, the morning sun beating down on my face as I backfloat on the swimming pool, the sound of Latin music on an eight-year old keyboard.

The song that gave me the summer feels today was Hard Enough by Brandon Flowers. I remember listening to it last year just before graduation practices began, and becoming completely at ease with it, completely one with it. And those were the tough days, when I just wanted to leave high school behind, just turn the damn place upside-down because there was nothing more in it for me. It was hard enough for me, not wanting to get up in the morning and see all these people that I hate and who hate me in return. I don't miss that feeling. I don't miss those moments.

Yet, when I think about last year, and I think about that song, and all the elements that force me to unearth the nostalgia that binds them together, I can't help feeling as though everything is going to be all right after all. And that I don't have to be anxious anymore, or angry, or sad. Because, I got though that period. I got through those days. And I shall crawl out of them again if I have to.

Let's not let time's bitter flood rise before my thoughts begin to run. I think I'm getting older now. 

- Brandon Flowers (Hard Enough) 

Don't think about tomorrow

"Once last summer I was coming home from Fort Stockton. I parked the car out at the sandhills, and walked a far way from the road, so that I didn't see the lights anymore. The moon wasn't bright  it seemed to say, I'm tired, I'll shine some other night. But the sky was like cloth, close enough to touch. I sat there, kind of burrowed down in the sand, and I just knew, for that little while, that I was part of - of everything. That if I put my hand out what it touched was far away from Basin, far away from my whole life right now. I realized, if I just hold on, I'll find out what I'm supposed to do."

- Walking Dunes by Sandra Scofield, p. 188

I saw the vast expanse of the ocean glitter under the eternal skyline, the self-luminous planetary bodies of heaven and the night lights from edifices reflected on its waters - a steady reminder of how beautiful humanities can be. Debris has lined the shores of the ocean, but in the distance, it is nothing short of scenic beauty. For a while, there was a sweeping feeling of tranquility pressing unto my soul that all worries and apprehensions had seemingly subsided. This is South Harbor at the dead of night.

It was just the thing that I needed to view; a sign, perhaps, the one that we often ask for when we feel lost. It was sheer serenity, one that I haven't felt in a long time. Never had I felt so homely and safe than I ever did tonight. Never mind the lateness of the hour, or these things that I am obliged to do tomorrow - never mind those things that keep a a tight knot in my stomach. It's a slaughterhouse; discombobulation at its finest. But then, there it is. And I get sucked into a round of gratitude and comfort.

Tomorrow will be what it is: the future. Vague, incomprehensible; luminous, nerve-wrecking. Everything else is here. Everything else is divine. Everything else is worth it.

Ang baha sa Maynila

Akala ko set ng Walking Dead

Magsusulat sana ako tungkol sa mga nangyari (o kakulangan ng pangyayari) nitong nakalipas na dalawang araw - noong kasukdulan ng unos. Irereklamo ko sana na, dahil lakas ng ulan at ankle-deep na bahang namuo sa bungad ng pension house, dalawang araw din akong stranded sa dormitoryo. Inip na inip, tila walang magawa kundi magbasa na libro (eh natapos ko na nga mula Chapter 4 ang Gerald's Game), dalawang araw kong hiniling na matapos na ang ulan at nang makapag-SM Manila na ako, o di kaya'y makauwi na. Pero wala. Dalawang araw at walang pinagbago ang panahon.

Sa labas ng dormitoryo

Nilisan ko ang dormitoryo kaninang umaga nang medyo tumila na ang ulan. Ang yabang ko pa maglakad kasi medyo nawala rin ang baha sa labas. Balak pang mag-underpass upang makabili doon ng mumurahing libro. Tuloy tanggi pa sa mga pedicab; akala ko kasi, kaya ko naman ang "baha". Bigla kong nakita ang malalang bahagi ng Maynila; ang daan na dapat ay tatahakin ko.

Kinilabutan ako. Pramis, tumayo ang mga balahibo sa katawan ko. Sa may underpass nagsimula ang baha. At hindi lang baha kundi dagat. Kung ankle-deep lamang kagabi ang baha sa labas ng dormitoryo, abot na tuhod hanggang balakang na ang baha sa parteng ito ng Maynila. Hindi ko malaman kung totoo. Dapat ba akong matawa o maiyak?

Aba'y ang sarap pa ng swimming ni kuya

Nakatayo sa mismong upuan ng pedicab upang hindi mabasa ang mga paa, umaalingawngaw sa isipan ang kanta ng Jukebox the Ghost, "It's the end of the world,  la da di da da da da da...". Nakakatakot. Naging tourist attraction ang Maynila - puwede nang dikitan ng "It's more fun in the Philippines". Pakiramdam ko'y nasa Baguio ulit ako, nakasakay sa bangka. O 'di kaya'y sa mga ferry ng Puerta Galera. "... I'm innocent, keep me out of this."

Sa SM Manila

Agad kong binura mula sa camera ko ang lahat ng walang kuwentang bagay na na-pikturan ko sa loob ng dormitoryo, iyong mga dapat na irereklamo ko ngayon. Ano namang karapatan ko, 'di ba, kung  ligtas na ligtas naman pala ako sa third floor ng pensiyon house samantalang nandito itong mga taong ito. Habang ganoon ang sitwasyon. Parang ang lungkot-lungkot ko noong nakita ko iyon, lalo na noong pumasok sa isipan ko na nararanasan ko na iyon mismo.

Noon, akala ko hindi naman ako aabutan ng ganitong pangyayari. Akala ko, lagi akong nasa timing, o di kaya'y advantage ang paninirahan sa urban na lupalop ng Pilipinas. Alam kong maaari pang magbago ang mga pananaw ko sapagkat unang beses ko pa lamang ito naranasan. Pero, totoo, hindi lang ang mga bata, ang mga tao, o ang driver ang kaaawaan mo. Pati sarili mo mismo, bilang Pilipino. At kahit sumilong ka pa sa ilalim ng isang bubong habang kumakain ng pancake, o nakasakay sa punong LRT, bitbit mo iyon. Ang saklap, lalo na ngayong naiisip ko ulit.

Nakakapagpabagabag.

As fireworks burst over the land

I could've sworn I felt the influence of an unseen hand

the ghost of someone else's dream

a forgotten god stopping by to survey the scene

And the lights were complicated and so we all just

prayed to the spirits above and below

that the water would never reach us in time

but I had a feeling that we'd never get to 2009

Didn't want a wave but a wave was coming, yeah

we didn't want to swim but the cities were sinking

and though we wanted to react we were too busy sleeping through

the ground that was shaking and the bass was thumping

There's a tidal wave coming so you'd better start learning to swim

and now's as good as any as a time and place to begin

On TV, they said the storms wouldn't last

but their answers didn't correlate to the questions we'd asked

They said a spark that's gone is not a spark to mourn

you can't resuscitate a person who was never born

So I climbed to the tallest building in town

to see the rain rushing in, to feel my heart breaking down

and as the blue sheen drew nearer I saw a window to another world

strange fish I'd never seen, and in that moment I realized

Didn't want a wave but a wave was coming

we didn't want to swim but the cities were sinking

and though we wanted to react we were too busy sleeping through

the ground that was shaking and the bass was thumping

There's a tidal wave coming so you'd better start learning to swim

and now's as good as any as a time and place to begin

I should have known this was coming, yeah

it could not have been more obvious

Like the flood that Noah dreamed about

except bigger and more ominous

I should have known this was unfolding, yeah

it could not have been more obvious

Like the flood that Noah dreamed about

except bigger and more ominous

Every moment lost someone else has won

every time you breathe there's another gone

Every passing second is a minute late

Every breath can escalate a hurricane

And do you think we'd realize just what we'd done

tore down the canvas that held up the sun

We ripped down the canvas hung up above

but what if we were created to gaze at the stars up above

Didn't want a wave but a wave was coming, yeah

we didn't want to swim but the cities were sinking

and though we wanted to react we were too busy sleeping through

the ground that was shaking and the bass was thumping

The first time ever I saw your face

For my Hum1 assignment, I created this mosaic made entirely out of plastic strips. I call it "Big Eyes" after the Bouncing Souls song, which lyrics seem apt to me more than ever. I view this art as an expression of confusion, uncertainty; dubiousness. I had initially thought that coming to Manila everyday would suit my fancy, yet what I have perceived has not satiated my expectations. What I have witnessed so far has left me sad, even a little angry.

This is the first time in my life that I've had a liking for someone so much so that I can call him my "inspiration". I used to disregard that kind of crap, for I simply never believed in it. But here is this guy who is living proof that an infatuation can actually lead to motivation. For some days now, I've been finding myself striving to do well in class because of his genius, which, for the most part, has surpassed our professors' demands. Relatively, the guy is, well, brilliant.

It is sad for me to realize that that feeling of inspiration has expired today because I lost. No chance in hell. I am not envious, never. But I feel dejected for losing that drive. For being keenly interested, but for being indifferent now. For not being able to summon any other sensible topic to write about other than this. I feel silly thinking about it. A month has barely passed after all.

Today, I lost an inspiration, not to someone, as I like to believe it. But I lost it only to myself, whose perspective sporadically and drastically alters. No harm in that.

Feelings suck.

You left home for the first time when you were seventeen

Searching for a life, beginning a new dream

Drove the car all night to learn your way around

Feeling so alone in the parking lot downtown

You had your love to give, so much life to live

Hey little girl, don't look so sad

It's not the end of the world

Seen this film before

Already know the ending

Some of the faces change, but the plot it stays the same

Take my hand

Let's walk away

What did those big eyes see

A world where nothing's free

Your innocent beauty, slipping quietly

With every turn you found no one to understand

Why would you feel so down, no one to really see

What a woman you could be

Hey little girl, don't look so sad

It's not the end of the world

Seen this film before

Already know the ending

Some of the faces change, but the plot it stays the same

You gave your heart

Every moment when no one can

They made you small

They couldn't make you fall

Hey little girl

Hey, hey little girl

Hey little girl

Hey little girl, don't look so sad

It's not the end of the world

Seen this film before

Already know the ending

Some of the faces change, but the plot it stays the same

So take my hand

Take my hand

So take my hand

Let's walk away