my so-called life

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

Happiness is fleeting.

We, who long for happy endings, place little importance on this realization that happiness is oftentimes like a flickering light in the midst of darkness.

And so, we take for granted the little moments that make us happy,

not knowing that it is these little moments that make life worthwhile.

A pat on the back and a handshake from a colleague for a job well done.

A smile from that one person you admire the most.

A hug from a long absent friend.

A kiss from the beloved you have waited for so long.

Birthdays. Reunions. Weddings. Celebrations.

Funny how we place little importance on these small moments

when these are the very same ones which set apart

the dullness of our existence.

In a moment, we are in the midst of the revelry.

A second or two, that moment is gone.

letting go is always like a slow death. you "rip" a part of who you are so that it can become a part of who you have once been.

it doesn’t mean forgetting. It only means that you are allowing yourself to grow out of who you once were in order to be the person you were meant to be. we have to change. we have to grow up. that is what life is all about.

i believe we fall in love for a reason. that reason sometimes doesn’t translate into a "happy ever after." maybe it was good enough that you had "once upon a time" with that person.

you fall in love for the first time with your best friend. it doesn’t work out. maybe its because you were just meant to be that. the best of friends.

you stay in a relationship with a man you were once attracted to. but once the attraction fades, you have no other choice but to end it.

you fall in love with an ideal. and you commit to a man whom you think embodied that ideal. but when reality shows its face to you, you cannot help but sever ties.

that is what life is about.

more often than not, we fall for these "once upon a time" people so we could be the people we were meant to be.. the right kind of person for the one God has planned for us.

so its okay to let go. even better to transcend the pain that the end of a love affair would bring coz it leads you to where you are supposed to be.

post a comment for me on this one. a friend of mine wrote an article on this a few years back and i have selected portions of it to start the ball rolling. let me know what you think.

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To end a relationship is like committing murder.  It could be the cruelest thing you can do to a person.  It is death personified.

I know it is painful when someone you care for will leave you; when someone you love walks out of your life. I had experienced and suffered the feeling firsthand. It is tremendously heartbreaking. A sickening feeling of betrayal, of agonizing over broken hopes and shattered dreams.

But I never realized how much painful it is to leave somebody; to leave someone who for better or for worse had become an important part of my life.

At least, when you are the one being left behind, you have only to deal with your own wounded feelings, your broken expectations and your shattered pride. You would not have to face your conscience; you would not have to confront your sense of values, you would not have to scrutinize your orientation of what is right or wrong.

The one consolation of being wronged in a failed relationship is that you can blame the other person for it.  Whatever the reason it did not work out the way you want it to be, at least, it was not your fault. That it was not you who caused the ties to be severed, that your hands were not stained by the bitter blood of guilt. At least, as time would pass, you can make peace with yourself; and someday realize that somehow, what happened was for the best. — by NZL Nov1999

these were musings i wrote a few years back. come to think of it, the question still remains valid today..

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As members of the female sex, we have always been taught by our mothers and grandmothers that in relationships, we play a passive role.  Filipino society has all the more compounded this theory by stipulating that women must wait for the lover to woo them and to always play the game of courtship with a demure hand. This “secret” rule, so they say, has withstood the test of time and has allegedly been the way to snagging a husband. Men must play the hunter, and we women, must mysteriously prolong the chase, mimicking the primeval role of hunter and prey.

Most males opine that the chase seems to be essential as it sets the theme of the whole male-female relationship. The courtship must be prolonged to enhance the thrill and perhaps see the value of one’s object of affection.  Most relationships that are based on whirlwind courtships never seem to last as the fun is sucked out of a relationship much like water after the plug has been removed from the tub.

But in this day and age, when the recurring themes in literature and media and issue advocacy revolve around women empowerment, must a Filipina still play it coy?

what happens when you wake up one day and you realize that this image you have of your life could be shattered as easily as glass?

we live comfortably content on what is familiar to us that at times, we even take that reality for granted. its familiarity to us is like second skin that we hardly notice it. But when it is lost to us, we feel it profoundly. some would say, they are never the same after their comfortable reality has been shattered.

what do you do when you realize that your reality has been shattered like glass? do you weep while you frantically put the pieces back together? do you get angry and blame someone for it? or are you like some people out there, still "in denial" that the glass is broken, still projecting an image so that the world would not know your brokennes?

are you strong enough to accept that broken reality and try to create something new out something that’s broken? are you hopeful that out of a broken reality, something beautiful can still come out of it? Is that, if at all, possible?

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

by Maya Angelou

Last night I had the chance to watch the film “When Harry met Sally” again.

For those of you who have not had the chance to watch this film (hello? From what planet are you?), it poignantly showcases the entwined lives of two friends, Harry and Sally – how their friendship began, the struggles, and how their friendship evolved. For a work of fiction, it resonates a truth that has long plagued us all as it attempts to answer that timeless question: “can a man and a woman truly be friends?”

Harry’s take on that is this – a man and woman can never be friends simply because sex or attraction gets in the way. At some point, one or both of them at the very least, entertains that idea. At some point, one falls for the other.

And while the film eventually ended “Hollywood-style” – with Harry eventually ending up with Sally, in reality, that ending may or may NOT happen at all. In fact, when I saw this new teen show “One Tree Hill” portraying the characters of two childhood friends remaining just that – the best of friends – I was truly relieved that Hollywood is trying to break free from the stereotype. Because in truth, a man and a woman can just be friends… even the best at that. Like what Lucas and Haley from “One Tree Hill” have.

Having grown up in a co-ed academic institution, having guy friends was not at all that weird for me. It was good to have guy friends as they gave you a different perspective from what your girl friends would see. In fact, I have heard someone say that at times, girl friends see each other as “competition.” For some, this might be a good reason as any to simply hang out with her guy friends.

On more than one occasion, my guy friends have given me insights on what they think a guy’s true intentions are… Are they merely playing the field with me or are they for real? Is he cheating on me and should I give up on him? And I get the answers that I would not totally get if I asked it from my girl friends…brutally frank it may be.

Aside from that, you know that you can always count on your guy friends to pull you out of a jam. It could be with something as simple as being your “rescuer” when your car stalls or the tires have gone flat to something big like coming to your defense if a guy is going all “stalker-mode” on you.

And who says that you cannot carry on a decent conversation with a guy friend? I find that the most meaningful conversations I have had recently were from my guy friends. I was amazed at the level of candidness they would show – one which I feel they seldom show to their male friends for fear of being the butt of jokes if they were to bare their souls to them.

So while “Harry and Sally” puts forth the proposition that in the end, a man and a woman could never be friends because sex is always in the way, I beg to disagree. It is possible to break free from that stereotype.

And when you do break free from that stereotype, you find that having that kind of friendship truly is something worth treasuring.

on the eve of my birthday, the last year in my twenties, i find myself asking this question…

What would be that one thing that would make me happy tomorrow, one that would not cost anything?

my answer is surprisingly simple… if only i could spend it by having a nice quiet dinner with all the people i care about.

for yet another year, my mom is not with me to celebrate my birthday. in fact, tomorrow should be a day i pay tribute to her for bringing me to this world. because of her and the sacrifices she has made, i am where im supposed to be right now.

and yet, i cannot even have that quiet simple dinner with her and the rest of my family tomorrow. It would be tempting to indulge in self-pity, but if i try to look at it from her angle, she is celebrating her birthday too in a few days…the one thing i bet she is truly looking forward to on that day is our phone call, greeting her, as she turns a year older.

it would be nice if i could sit down tomorrow with all of my closest friends– the ones i consider as my second family. friends with whom i have grown up with, friends i constantly hang out with, and friends i have forged ties with for even the briefest of times.

as it is, most of my friends whom i have grown up with are now in places far away. and while my heart longs to see them tomorrow, the distance contraints compel us all to accept the fact that text messages, emails or phone calls are enough.

i am grateful though to have friends who are there, who silently plan a surprise birthday bash yet all the while telling the birthday celebrant that it is a "surprise" party. I am thankful to friends who take the time to call and explain themselves and why things turned out the way they did even if such explanations were no longer necessary. i am blessed to have friends who, despite their hectic schedules, would make time to be there at that simple quiet dinner everyone longs for at the end of the day –not just on one’s birthday — to simply "be with" and catch up on each other’s lives.

and i guess, the heart of the matter is just that simple truth.

while we could all hope that our wishes be granted by some genie, in reality, that never happens. what we do have though, if we only look at it with grateful hearts, truly is enough.  

i have always been a teacher.

when i was eleven years old, i can remember telling the rest of the kids in our neighborhood to drop by our house so i could teach them english or whatever it was that caught my fancy that day. to them, it might have been just a game. For me, it was a sign of things to come.

in 1998, after graduating from college, i immediately signed up as a part time faculty for the philosophy division at the Ateneo. during those three years that i taught intro to philo, philo of God and ethics, i had the opportunity to try to awaken minds that have been so used to comfortable slumber that i could literally see foreheads crinkling and eyebrows joining, trying really hard to understand what the h— the featured philosopher was talking about.

now that i am teaching at the law school, i still see foreheads crinkling and eyebrows joining — with their added nerves wracking everytime i call them for recitation.

and while the students might despise teachers like me for the brunt work they are being forced to do in class, i cannot help but think that they only see the other side of the coin.

when i enter the faculty room, i see my fellow teachers who, despite their long day at work, try to brush up on their lecture notes before going to their respective classes. i see in one corner another colleague, desperately trying to beat the deadline in checking papers — even if it meant giving up another night to just sit back and relax. i see an older faculty member in another corner, sharing his insights and tips to a younger one who, if compared to the former, is still tying to find his niche in the circle.

inside that faculty room, there are no divisions. no separate worlds. its only a group of people who take the time out of their hectic schedules and devote a little bit of themselves in all of their classes in the hope that at least one student learns something from the things they taught.

outside of that faculty room, however, the disparity is all too clear. they are your students. you are their teacher. for that time being, you are not one of them. you are a comple other.

gabriel marcel, in his article, posits that such differentiation is necessary in order for  the educator to illuminate the one who seeks to be educated. in fact, it would be no stretch of the imagination for us to conclude that that small platform on which the teacher stands inside the classroom serves as a physical reminder that fact.

and i guess, such act of distancing is necessary. it makes it easier to temporarily forget the fact there might be some of them in class who are your friends outside of the classroom. it makes the arduous task of checking papers and giving low marks (if warranted) less difficult.

at times though, you try to step out of such boundaries. and in those moments, you meet people and let them in.

some, are worth keeping and breaking those boundaries.

others, you merely want to put back the walls in.