Fall in love

Every year around this time I fall in love.

Not with someone special but with the promise of the season. Christmas is just around the corner and there's something magical about the drop in temperatures, the longer nights, the softer yet festive lighting, and the thought of gifts - for self, for the ones we love and the people we care for. I fall in love with it all, year after year.

My favorite thing about Christmas approaching is the idea of getting shiny new things that make me feel every inch a woman. And nothing does that for me than sexy intimates, good lingerie that give me the support I need. I was recently looking into Wacoal's fine line of lingerie at Zalora and fell in love with this half-cup t-shirt bra. The fact that it's in a punchy animal print is all sorts of wonderful. 

Don't get me started on animal prints! Wendy Nguyen does it best here. And here. It's all in the details. I like my animal prints strategically peeking from a nonchalant white shirt over shorts and sneakers for a nice weekend out or paired with nude platforms for that quiet femininity with a hint of boldness in the office. 

Often we forget about what's inside in our quest for the perfect outerwear. I like to invest in good quality intimates to take my outfit to the next level.


Speaking of outfits, I took my knee-high boots out for a spin one time, weather-permitting, and I feel like I've run out of outfit ideas. As a big fan of dresses, this funnel neck dress from Mango would look lovely with my boots and a pair of lightweight tights. This outfit idea may seem like a stretch for my tropical Philippines but for someone who works at night, I find myself taking advantage of the cooler temperature to let my imagination soar.

Love me a good neutral paired with an accent piece -- animal print, of course! You know what else I love? A really good book, especially those hard-to-find ones. A good friend recently chanced upon I Wrote This For You and graciously gave me the book. She must have seen how my face lit up like a thousand Christmas lights and felt compelled to give me an early Christmas gift. See what I did there? Here's a favorite from that book ---

The Winter Child
In bright white snow, when everything sleeps.
And hope has left you lonely.
When all you ever remember about summer is how it ended.
I send hope back to you. wherever you are.
I hope you remember all the people you still have time to be.
I hope the little things in your life inspire you to do big things with it.
I hope you remember that summer comes every year and that the sun is still sweet.
I hope you learn to hope again.
I, still, hope.

I have entered a life which requires me to spend a huge chunk of my time with myself. I'm not complaining but there are things I miss. This lonesomeness, so felt and strangely intrusive does something to you. A something that can only be allayed by movement. These days, I no longer count moments or memories. I measure my time in increments: an hour's worth of chores, a couple of hours spent reading. 

On a practical level, the exercise of limbs and mind is always a good thing. Movement is always a good thing. After all, the reaching for something worthwhile begins with putting one foot in front of the other.

Mag-iisang taon...

Ilang segundo, minuto
ang kinailangan mo
upang ibaon ng tuluyan
ang sakit na dulot ng kahapon?

Isang hakbang palayo ---
dagdag sa lumalaking agwat
sa inyong pagitan
para sa ikabubuti ng lahat, ka'mo.

Ngunit nagniningning,
naglalakbay sa iyong mukha
ang mga patak ng pangungulila
na patuloy mong iniluluha.

Ako ang saksi.
Kasama ang nangangalawang
na poste ng kuryente
at ang basang mukha ng kalsada

Sige, sabi ko.
Hindi ko man alam ang dahilan
alay ko ang palad ng pagkakaibigan.
Inom ka pa, eto, ako na bahala sa deposito.

Sulong

Panalangin ang bawat minutong
pumapatak mula sa mga sandaling
kinulayan at hinulma ng mga
mapagmahal na palad.

Kinukumutan ng titig
sa pagnanais na hilumin
ang anumang bahaging
kinukulang sa halaga.

Ganito ang pag-ibig:
Babaybayin ng pandama
ang bawat pangyayari,
lalanghapin ang bawat pagtatangka.

Ipaglalaban upang
maging katotohanan
ang bawat maaari.
Ganito tayo: mandirigma.

Lalabanan ang panahon
at pagkakataon
sa matinding paghahangad
na mahalin din tayo ng tadhana.

Mayakovsky

Stumbled upon Frank O'Hara and thought, "Hoom. This guy loves like everything and nothing in his works." A writer and a curator (cool!), his tone is both casual and spontaneous, which I think very few poets have mastered. Us, writers, we take life and a lot of things (even the small stuff) seriously to a fault. It's hard to find works that simply simplify and yet unfailingly move still.

Been reading a lot --- Yeats, the guy mentioned above, some local bloggers/poets --- and just started doodling some (this is what I call my imitation of art; I don't think I'm any good but I've managed to produce decent sumthin' sumthins').

I have a theory --- If you really are good at what you do (writing, et.al), you wouldn't need all the shit that comes with life and love to produce something decent. Nor do you have to keep fucking things up on purpose to experience exquisite sorrow as fuel to regurgitate a few heartfelt verses. Here's a thought: Just keep doing what you do.

So, in the spirit of self-preservation and enjoying every millisecond of my Days Have Finally Gotten Better With You Know Who You Are aka V (See subtlety isn't one of my strong points. #SMH), I will keep writing, churning out prose, poetry, prosaic on various topics regardless of how I'm feeling at the moment. Understand: Writing is hugely personal and you guessed it, meanings are in people. Also, I will keep doodling and will undertake that something ambitious soon and by that I mean something that's 24x30 and will find itself vulnerable to the world in a semi-corner office.

In the meantime, enjoy Mayakovsky ---

1

My heart’s aflutter!

I am standing in the bath tub

crying. Mother, mother

who am I? If he

will just come back once

and kiss me on the face

his coarse hair brush

my temple, it’s throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes

I guess, and walk the streets.

2

I love you. I love you,

but I’m turning to my verses

and my heart is closing

like a fist.

Words! be

sick as I am sick, swoon,

roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I’ll stare down

at my wounded beauty

which at best is only a talent

for poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or win

what a poet!

and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.

I embrace a cloud,

but when I soared

it rained.

3

That’s funny! there’s blood on my chest

oh yes, I’ve been carrying bricks

what a funny place to rupture!

and now it is raining on the ailanthus

as I step out onto the window ledge

the tracks below me are smoky and

glistening with a passion for running

I leap into the leaves, green like the sea

4

Now I am quietly waiting for

the catastrophe of my personality

to seem beautiful again,

and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and

brown and white in trees,

snows and skies of laughter

always diminishing, less funny

not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of

the year, what does he think of

that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,

perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O’Hara, “Mayakovsky” from Meditations in an Emergency.

Kambyo

Diretso't sigurado ang mga hakbang mo.

Walang takot, kahit aminadong masikip

pa rin ang pasilyo ng puso ko.

Lakad lang, Mahal, 

pasikut-sikot man ang mga daanang ito

at walang nakakaalam sa maaaring

maging hantungan nito.

Pero nandito ka na rin

at narito din ako.

Pakiusap, huwag ka munang lumayo,
huwag munang kumambiyo.

---

Naks.

Task Planner Thoughts

Rewriting to remind me that it gets better.

"April 2, 2012, 6:44 p.m.

Stuck at work and hating every minute of it. I've been enveloped with disappointment all day. I am mostly disappointed at myself, how I let things get the better of me, how I am suffering the effects of how I react to some things, how I let them affect me so much. But truth be told, I am getting by the best I can --- one foot in front of the other. There is no other way. [Insert expletive here], I am too old for this."

In other news:

I owe this blog a poem. Or two. Is it happiness if it takes you away from the things you love to do, i.e., writing? The curious result of this exquisite feeling is that I am bursting with words and images, ingredients for a poem or a painting, but no way to rein them in, no means of capture in the hopes of immortalizing them. Happiness, I guess, is the poem, the story I do not write.

But write I will. There is no way to silence the words. Some stories need to be told. It's just the way it is.

Stay tuned.

Dahil minsan kitang minahal

hindi ko magagawang talikuran ang mga alaala

subalit sisimulan ko ang maingat na paghahakbang

palayo sa iyo

kakalimutan ka ng unti-unti

at sa pagkawala ko ng tuluyan

hindi mo na ako maaring balikan

marahil mananatili bilang huling habilin ang tulang ito;

kumakatawan sa mga araw 

na sa panaginip na lamang muling masisilayan.

---

Hello and goodbye.

Atin Ang Gabi

Ikaw, ako,

kape at kuwento.

Dala ng magkaugnay na hapdi

itong higpit ng pagsalubong sa sandali.

Ito ang naging simula:

Minsan tayo ay tumigil sa paggalaw

at nanatili sa iisang lugar.

Hinayaan ang banggaan ng mga kapalarang iba-iba ang tangan.

Bumalik tayo sa nagdaang panahon.

Ikaw at ako, sila --- ang pinagsaluhan.

Binilang ang araw ng pagsasama

nang sabay tapon sa mga panghihinayang.

Ipinaaalala sa atin na wala na rin namang silbi

ang pag-inda sa lungkot na minsan nilang dala.

Tiyak ang paglaho ng kung anong bahid ng alinlangan.

Hindi natin sila kailangan.

At naganap ang hindi inaasahan: Napunit ang langit

sa pagsiklab ng sandali.

Ating ipinagdiwang itong minsang pagtatagpo

sa pinakamahabang gabi.

Ngunit walang katiyakan

itong pananatili ng mga sandali,

bagamat magkatabi at masaya

hanggang sa tahimik na pag-uwi.

Sa ngayon nababalutan ng pag-unawa itong pagsasama.

Isinantabi sa kaloob-loobang sulok ang pananabik.

Maselan ang pagbitaw sa mga salita.

Walang nangangako sa takot na walang maaako.

Hanggang sa muli,

mananatili sa kalagitnaan itong tagpo.

Di tiyak ang pagpapatuloy o pagtatapos

ng ating kuwento.

The Story of Remembrance

1

is the ceaseless attempt to forget.

2

When all that is left is the sound of wanting ---

the soft whisper of loneliness

aching to be spun into song.

Your name escapes from my parched lips;

a sigh barely heard for it has been too long,

far too long.

I give it another try.

Chords for want of stronger sound

straining.

I must utter your name

so there will be no forgetting.

3

On days when the past knocks on my front door like an old friend, I do not quite know how to react. Or if I want to welcome it at all.

But it comes bearing gifts; and almost always, I cannot resist. How can I when they come in such beautiful, ornate boxes? And when, deep inside, I am hoping, encased in perhaps an intricate decoupage of gold, green and silver, I will uncover You?

4

Today I stand before the place where I met you.

My hands are formed into cups nestling the box I have chosen.

This box: striking in its beauty feels oddly heavy in my hands,

its weight shooting daggers of hope in my heart.

I am itching to open the box, anticipating our reunion.

Already my mind is racing ---

How are you? Do you remember me? What do you remember?

Tell me, tell me.

In my haste, I almost didn’t hear the moon.

Its mellifluous voice, mocking, calling me foolish

for believing too much,

for believing in so many things.  

5

It is said that dust is formed from our skins and that if we stay in one place for a long time, an eventual mound of dust shall have formed at our feet.

If this is true, and if by some unfortunate circumstance, the wind comes our way, what will become of us? Particles in the wind, we spin away from each other bearing versions of our story. Away and away, the distance erecting walls between us. What once was ours shall have become yours and mine.

Open it, said the moon. And I oblige.

Nothing.

Save for a thin coating of dust.

I waited too long, I told the moon.

6

Dust in the wind. You and I.

If so be the case, do we still hold the right to ourselves? Do we not become properties of the wind --- our story becoming the wind’s own?

7

The moon was witness to our story and its beginnings. And she tells me in dulcet tones that with each of her motions mapping our days apart, underscoring the absence of sight and sound and touch, a memory is taken away.

The smoke wafting from your half-opened lips, the color of the night, the feel of your palms on the small of my back as you steered me to our spot by a palm tree. Or was it a potted plant?

See how the details are easily forgotten? The moon whispers.

8

I empty the contents of the box into my hands but I am not careful enough.

You slip easily between the slits of my fingers to be blown away by the wind.

9

What am I to make of this?

It seems so unfair when all I want is to talk to you so desperately.

And so I whisper stories of my day to the wind hoping that somehow it gets to you. 

Bagong Buwan

Sa sandaling iyon

Umiral ang isang tagpo

Nang kinuha mo sa aking kamay

Ang isang tala at ibinalik ito sa kalangitan.

Ang sabi mo:

Mahal, ako lamang

Sa gabing ito, ako lamang.

Sabay tayong maglalakbay

Patungo sa isang banyagang dalampasigan

At doon, mag-aabang ng panibagong buwan.

Kung paano sa mga sandaling iyon

Umiral ang pag-asa, hawak kamay.

Hindi natin namalayan ang paghilum

Ng mga kung anu-anong sugat

Na dala-dala ng nakaraan,

Habang tinatalunan natin ang mga alon

Ng walang pag-aalinlangan.

Ang ating mga tawa umaalingawngaw

Habang tangay natin ang isa’t isa ---

Hudyat ng umuusbong at namumukadkad na simula.

---

If you listen, ever so closely, you will hear my sigh. The sound of feathers, my choosing to nurse this ache happy.