mi e mi sombras

originally posted on fb on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 3:31am

People have complained about this and they probably will for as long as there are people.

You meet someone you like. Someone you are so excited about. Someone you think you could love. Someone you know you could love.

Yey for you.

Then you find out. He already has someone else. Or he’s not as excited about you as you are about him. Or it’s the wrong time. Or the many other reasons you will be given that could very well just be varied ways to tell you he’s not interested.

Bummer.

You can’t even get mad. You can’t even throw a fit. It doesn’t even warrant breaking something. Like a storefront window. And why not?

Because you’re not supposed to get mad at losing something you never had in the first place. Correction: losing someone you never had in the first place.

But most of all, you can’t get mad because you too have given so many others the same, if slightly varying ways of dismissal.

Give a guy a break.

The overwhelming expanse of sexual freedom today has made us lose the immediacy of building a relationship. You have this wide variety of beautiful people to choose from who are ready to have a good, if very short, time. Like just for tonight. Not even a night sometimes. Just a few hours. Minutes even. Or while the girlfriend is away. Or while the boyfriend is sleeping.

And who are you to complain? You too have enjoyed playing that field. And it was great fun. And yet you ask yourself… How many moments of great fun do you remember?

Five, maybe? More. Ok, so maybe fifty. But how dull they seem from where you are now. And then you think of the quiet moments that really stay with you. The moments that make you close your eyes. And you remember how you wrapped your arms around someone as he was crying himself to sleep. Not saying a word because you know that the moment doesn’t call for it. That only your presence is the only thing that has hope of reassuring him that he is not alone. The feel of his hair as your ran your fingers through it. How a hand feels. That calloused part of his hand which you asked him what was the cause of. Those closed eyes that you watched while he slept. Or just that warm feeling of someone sleeping next to you whom you know will see your day-to-day face in the morning unflattered by the warm yellow lights of the meet up joints all over the metro. Or falling in bed exhausted after helping him out with stuff he needed to finish for work. These and other achingly beautiful moments.

Why do these moments seem more precious now than the seemingly urgent and mindblowing moments we thought we had? Because they are more meaningful? Because in those quiet moments we have truly connected on a level that is almost divine? Because in those moments you get a glimpse of forever? Why didn’t they last then? Yeah. Try answering that one.

Isn’t it funny how it’s easier to find someone to go to bed with you than to find someone who will want to wake up with you the next day?

Funny. Funny and sad.

I have friends who are in relationships at the moment. I’m happy for most of them. To find someone you can love and who can love you back, that’s quite a feat. And some stroke of luck. Some friends are in relationships for some very foolish reasons. They are afraid to be lonely. The partner, in theory, should be an amazing person to be in a relationship with; but, in practice, is just plain shitty. Some have beards, people they use to pose with. Some have romanticized lackeys. But the genuine ones, I hope they stay together.

And I have some friends who were perfect together but aren’t anymore. How did that happen? Beats me.

I have a friend who doesn’t have fun. He’d rather save himself for someone who will love him. Admirable, yes? Definitely. But he’s been lonely for a very long time. Far longer than I have. But he’s not fooling himself into believing that every chance encounter might turn out to be that which he has waited for all his life. He doesn’t break his heart into a million pieces every time it turns out to be, as Cole Porter called it, just another one of those things. I guess we have different ways of hoping. He hopes by waiting. I hope by looking. Maybe these aren’t ways of hoping. Maybe these are ways of coping with the scarcity of hope.

But tonight, tonight I’m hopeful. I go to bed listening to some old pop song I should be ashamed of listening to. And I’m smiling.

And I have a fresh, beautiful, warm memory of a hand held in mine. And my hand being held in his.

i blame facebook.

and then i blame myself for being lured away by facebook. so much has happened. so much i could have written about. but i wasted them on short status updates on fb.

so i will write about them. my heart has broken several times over and it is healing now. how do i know? i feel the stitches itching. my heart is on the mend. i can write again.

i will write again.

i have written again. this short post is a promise to be back again. a sprout, a green dot after a long drought. the initial stirring of the birds in the forest that is my heart. i hope you will be there to hear them when they break into cacophonous songs.

but i mustn’t scratch at my itchy stitches. so i will write instead.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right. – Jane Goodall

There has been a lot of talk lately. More than the usual.

Talk about the loss of the feeling of being a family in our school. People lamenting bygone halcyon days when there were no backstabbers, nobody marginalizing people coming from the provinces, and no unhealthy competition. Whatever that means. I, for one, cannot attest to that. I wasn’t there. And the people I know who were there talk about supposedly close friends having unhealthy competitions and faking affection for each other while backstabbing each other. No matter. The past is always better when seen through rose-colored glasses of sentimentality. Especially if it’s to drive home a point that is moot and the people you intend to hear it were not there so they cannot argue with you.

Complaints have been made about some people being nitpickers during performances and rehearsals. Now, I and my friends, we’re the nitpicking lot. There’s no use denying it, nor do we want to. We have always thought that that’s the way to improve. To fine tune one’s ability to distinguish what is ideal and what isn’t. At a performance of somebody, anybody, we would point out the iffy parts and propose diagnoses of how and why those parts came to be so. He wasn’t grounded. He stiffened the back of his tongue. She raised her larynx. She was squeezing her breath. She wasn’t connected to her body. She blasted her onset. That is how we crystallize our ideas. That is how we make sure we know what we think we know. By comparing notes of performances or rehearsals. Like medical students dissecting a lump, doing a biopsy. These things we tell each other. We whisper. We make notes. Whoever may have seen or heard us doing so seem to have taken it upon themselves to interpret it as bashing and have told higher authorities about it. They have shirked their responsibility. Their responsibility to be discreet. But they will not be held accounted for. It is the nature of gossips to be protected by their act. It is too cowardly to punish. It’s like slapping someone who loves bathing in shit. You risk getting it on your hands. Words have been bandied about. Like all rabbles throughout history. Words are used with cowardly malice. Words that when used make the user take the position of the wronged. Backstabbing. Unethical. Injustice. Unfair. Unhealthy competition. Bigotry. This is nothing new. This is modern-day witch-hunting. Point a finger. Accuse a person. Cite an instance. But don’t tell the whole truth. Leave out your ineptitude. Leave out your fatuity. They cannot blame you. You are being yourself. You can’t help yourself. You are an idiot. A malicious idiot. But as long as you are hurt, no matter if it’s directly caused by your own actions, then you can point a finger at people and other people will come to your rescue. Because here’s the secret you know, probably the only thing you know: you don’t even have to be hurt. You only have to fake it. It doesn’t take much. Snivel a bit. Cause your eyes to water. That’s not too difficult to bring to the glassy-eyed blank stare that is normal to your vacuous mind. You’ve seen it often enough in the telenovelas you live on. The ones you live for. The ones you live. The ones whose scripts you use in your own life. Whenever they suit your purpose. That is why some people do not speak to you. Some people do not want to have anything to do with you. Because you are a shell. You are not a person. You are made up of fears. Your fear of being perceived as an idiot. Your fear that you may not be as talented as you want people to think. Your fear of people not thinking of you as “sosyal”. Your fear that no one can and will love you. You are made up of pretenses. Your pretense to be “mabait.” Your pretense to be more well-off than you actually are. Your pretense that your achievements are more impressive than they are. Your empty, mindless chatter in class so people will think you’re smarter than you actually are. You are a lie. And you accuse other people of bigotry when it’s not where you come from that is the cause of their not liking you. It’s you. Only you. And your emptiness.

A family. I believe that my family should tell me the truth. And the truth often hurts. That was a God-awful performance. That G was flat. Or that whole song was off-key. You kept bad time. And they don’t end there. We watch the video of the performance. Abusing the pause and rewind buttons. We point every painful fact. There, do you see that? You clenched. From the start of the phrase. You lifted your larynx to high-heavens. This part isn’t legato because you kept stiffening and loosening your jaw. And the back of your tongue is stiff. This is how we are taught. This is how we learn. This is how we are empowered. We try to understand. And the learning doesn’t end there. We learn on the jeep on the way home listening to how people speak on the jeep. We test the things we learned by analyzing the singers on the radio of that smelly fx. The people who post performances on youtube. The people whose performances have been posted on facebook. The people at rehearsals. The people at performances. The people at performance forums. We do not compartmentalize learning. It doesn’t begin and end during lessons. It happens every day. Every minute. And only ends when we want it to. When we’re tired. When we’d rather be silly for a change. Another thing people have been raising a ruckus about is that some of us seem to have commented on a teacher being flat. Shouldn’t we as music students be able to say that when we hear it? They say it’s an attack on the person. Did anybody mention the teacher being a bad person? Does she go around sleeping with men? Or women? Did anybody say that? For all we know, she’s an amazing person. She probably is. We don’t know enough to say. It was a statement of a fact. That moment. In that song. With that note. She was flat. She raises her larynx so she hits the ceiling. That may be her technique and that’s what happens. It was not an attack on the person. Just as we should be able to say that we go flat when we raise our larynx. We can say a teacher is flat when she goes flat because we expect more from a teacher. For all we know, the teacher may not have been offended. After all, she’s a professional. She’s made of sterner stuff than most of the people using her as a banner to rally under. She must be more open-minded given the fact that she’s a teacher. As music students we should be able to take it as well as give it. Music is a tough business. The art world is. We will never achieve perfection. But that is the ideal. Shouldn’t we start aiming for it? Shouldn’t we start learning now?

You do not build confidence with lies. You are letting the person you supposedly love tread on air. Or ice. You risk him slipping on the surface. Or worse, you risk him to have the ground collapse under him. You build it with truth. By doing that you help him learn to choose which road to take. Or build a road where there was none. You don’t give the person false ideas of the road. Flowers won’t line the road all the time. It will be hard. But he will be equipped with everything you have given him. And then you wish him luck. That is how you care for family. That is how you love.

How do you love back? You trust. You trust that your family does not mean to hurt you. You will be hurt. Your ego is bound to be. You are being stripped of false ideas. Stripping hurts. Especially if you’ve clung dearly to your illusions. You give up your lies. You bare your soul. You entrust it to the people you love. Your family. To become the artist you aspire to be, you have to become honest. To be honest in a song, you have to be honest in life. That is how you form bonds. Bonds that last. Bonds that are worth keeping. Because a truth is a part of your heart. With the first truth you give a piece of your heart in exchange for a piece of the other person’s. Each succeeding truth is a stitching of those pieces. And a promise. A promise to take care of the other person. Even if it’s to vehemently disagree with the person when you think he is wrong. Because that’s how you really take care of the person. And when they say you did something well and you know you did well, then the joy is boundless. Here is something no one can take away from you. A reassurance that you did right. Nothing imagined. No crumbs to a hungry dog.

These things make us sound all somber and funereal. Do not be misled. We have fun. We can be as silly as the next person. But we try not to waste time on inanities. Laughter can be intelligent. It doesn’t have to be the empty cackle of a fool. It can be the full-throated laugh of learning. We laugh at ourselves. We laugh at our mistakes. And after that, we laugh at others. But never to their faces. As we know full well, the others can laugh behind our backs. Because we know we have different beliefs. Some people think we sing too loud. Some people think we cannot act. Some people think we have bad musicianship. We are loud because our aim is to sing acoustically. On a stage. Without aid of amplification. We do not act because we want to be honest. We want to be as direct as we can be. No mindless gestures. No grotesque faces. No manipulation of the audience. We’re not always successful but that’s the aim. To be sincere. And we mess up our tempo. We sometimes go flat. Especially if we are busy minding the last corrections. Especially if we panic incorporating all the new knowledge we receive on a regular basis. And we are bound to hear about it right after the performance. From our teacher. From each other. And from ourselves. And then we feel bad. As bad as we can allow ourselves to feel. Like not wanting to see other people for days. Not because of what others said but because of what we know were our shortcomings. Our failure. But then our family will seek us out. Point out what we did right. And then we laugh. We shall definitely try again next time. Harder. Because the last performance was a lesson. We learned a lot from that one.

I grant that we are not always patient in our intent to do the work well. We are not always politically correct. Our ill-hidden snickers at booboos will look hurtful to people. Our suggestions for improvement can be misinterpreted as haughty instructions of know-it-alls. Take for example a recent event:

People took offense at a comment made by some friends at a rehearsal for a choral piece we were doing. “WE sound apologetic. We should sound more convinced.” What’s offensive about that? It was not: “YOU, YOU, AND ESPECIALLY YOU, you sound flat. You have awful voice production.” It has been proposed by someone that because some people do not know other people, they MIGHT have misinterpreted and taken offense at what was said. Thank you very much for the input. My question is: Who are these people? Where are these people? Shouldn’t they step forward and explain where and how they took offense? So that the people concerned can explain or apologize as the case may be? Because weren’t those comments made to improve our performance. It was a rehearsal of students. There was no teacher. We are equals. Shouldn’t we test out our knowledge? We are going to teach choirs after we graduate. Isn’t this where we are supposed to make sure we know what we think we know? Should we rather make a fool of ourselves later outside the safe walls of the school instead of testing our knowledge here and now? Because those comments were well-intentioned. They were even invitations to debate. Tell us what you think. So we can test our knowledge against what you know. That is how we make each other sharp. That is how we keep each other sharp. But some people choose to shrink inside themselves. Some people would rather take offense. It’s the easier choice. Don’t make me work too hard. I just want to graduate. I don’t want to think. Look here, here is my frequent-user victim card. A few more stamps and I’m entitled to a free victim mug and organizer.

And even if taking offense was understandable, what’s worse is the habit of going around telling people you have been victimized instead of going up to the perceived offender and tell him, “Hey, look here. That remark there was offensive.” And then you point out why. And you reason out. And if you can explain it then you will have helped the other person expand his understanding. Or if the person can change your mind then you will have been helped to expand yours. But again, it’s easier to cling to old illusions. Spout the old party lines: They are the enemy. We are the victims. Justice to the oppressed. But let me ask you: aren’t you the ones bullying us? By resorting to underhanded ways? Where you cannot be held responsible for your actions? For your accusations? Again: Witch-hunting. McCarthyism. The go-to of the dim of mind.

Unity. Unity doesn’t come from false or blind acceptance of each other. It’s not going to arise from giving up your mind. It’s going to come from asking questions. Hopefully relevant. And opening your mind to the answers proposed. Real life outside the school is made up of collaborative work to solve problems. People welcome you to share your thoughts not to expose your ignorance but in hopes that your thoughts will help in finding the answer. Unless of course, you are ignorant. So you’d rather stay quiet lest that ignorance be exposed. Even then the more you should speak up. So you can be helped. People speak their minds not to make you feel or think less of yourself. But to share with you the tools they have. So you can work together towards the common goal you share. The common goal we believe we share. That of making great music. Maybe you’ll find better use of those tools. Or maybe you have better tools. But the act of dialogue will strengthen the group. It will unify us. Don’t slink in the shadows and hurl shit at people. You’re bound to hit one of your friends or family. Or since you may be hurling at people above you, you risk having the shit fall back on you. There will be disagreements. But they should be talked about. Intelligently. Shall we?

But first, slice that card in half and burn it up. Then be the person you’re supposed to be. Not the cut-up pastiche made up of telenovela characters and cheap movies you are wont to fill your mind with.

Recently, I was reminded of things and people I’ve pushed into the farthest reaches of my mind.

I was at an occasion with some people from my long distant past. How distant? Let’s just say, we grew up together during the Stone Age. The occasion was the wedding of a classmate of ours. After warming up to each other by recalling old wars, alliances, and enmities, we started updating each other on comrades, those still standing and even of one who has fallen. I was saddened by this news. Atan was a latecomer to our school. He came around 4th grade when most of us have known each other since we were in kindergarten. Atan was the son of a soldier and was uprooted every so often when his father was transferred to another post until it was decided he was to stay with his grandparents who lived in our town. We were very soon convinced that Atan wasn’t very smart. He wasn’t quite as quick as we were in class. He didn’t speak very good English like most of us did. One classmate remembers him only for being asked in class how to spell DOG and he answered: D. O. G. When asked to spell THIS, he answered: D.I.S. Looking back, I think it was unfair of us. He must have been at a disadvantage. His family life wasn’t the most ideal. And lord knows what schools he attended during those times when his father was posted in far flung areas. But children are cruel. And they are ever so ready to attack at the slightest sign of weakness. And we were Spartans in that sense. But what I remember him most for was his kindness. My weakness was my size. I was one of the smallest in class. There was Edward, whom we called Darling, and me. Another sign of weakness was my propensity to break out in song and dance which was of course taken to mean I was gay. That turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy but it still didn’t keep me from being hurt when people teased me about it. Of course, everybody else had their own weaknesses. The trick was how to manage through a day without getting teased with your “curse”. I had several tricks up my sleeve. One was to spend the most time that I can in the library. The other was to entertain people. I made people laugh. That way, we were all laughing and not at my expense. I had control on who and what to laugh at. And when all else failed, then it was just my luck. During those few times when I was out of luck, there were people who came to my rescue. Funny how it’s not always the people you expect to be behind you who will be behind you at those times. Atan was one of my surprising champions. He was bigger than most of us. He also had the reputation of being a hardened kid. He’s been known to pick fights with some of the toughs from a public school across town. These turf fights were often held at our town plaza and Atan was the reigning tough as soon as he got in town. To me he carried the air of the exotic. He was the boy I wanted to be.

Atan always treated me like I was everybody else. No derisive smirk that my other classmates reserved for a nancy boy like me. He never thought twice about putting his arm around my shoulders during games or while walking. This meant a lot to someone whose friends were mostly girls or boys who were also teased, in their cases, wrongly, as nancy boys. We also had this game that we called “Kick” involving a bottle cap or a flat pewter disc with a hole in the middle threaded with shredded tinfoil from packages of chips which we kept up by kicking at it and each kick that it doesn’t fall is counted as a point. A variation of this was to kick it around a circle with an “it” who tries to catch it. Each time he fails to catch it, his term as “it” piles up. I was at a decided disadvantage because of my size. But there was a loophole. One’s friends can take off your terms off your hands and do it for you. Atan would always, always help me out with mine. I never understood that. Maybe he just liked protecting the oppressed. Maybe I had a little crush on him. I’m not sure anymore. Mostly, I was just glad to be his friend. He later on became the boyfriend of a good friend of mine, and I was glad for both of them.

One memory stands out in my mind. In our playground we had those cement tunnels used to make sewers scattered around. They were painted with bright colors and patterns that were repainted every time they wore out. I remember running into one of them to cry during lunch break. I don’t remember anymore what I was crying about. Selective memory does that. I just know that I was taunted by some classmates. Atan followed me and told me that it was ok. That I shouldn’t mind them. That if I wanted, I can go with him and have lunch at their house. Composing myself, I sniffled my acceptance of his offer. We walked to their house which was some ways. It was also near the town cemetery. When we got there, I remember having the impression of it being a sad house. It obviously had seen better days. But it was still in good shape. But the sadness permeated the whole place. The feeling of loss and despair. Not really poverty because I know poverty. I thought they were more well off than us. What it was was hearts and spirits broken. I wonder now how it must have been for Atan to grow up in such a home. I guess that explained why he was always ready to slug it out with the worst in town. It may have been preferable to the leaden feeling of home. There is a sense of life that one feels during a fight. Despite my size, I have taken on some kids twice my size when especially enraged. I remember the burst of red that blurred everything in front of me. The roar of the blood in my veins. The beating of the battle drum that my heart became. I only had my pride to defend. Atan was fighting for life. Atan wanted to feel alive. I don’t remember the rest of that afternoon. Only the despair. And the knowledge that it was a gift. He was telling me that my little sorrow is just that. Little. A pebble in my shoe. His was a boulder. Life isn’t fair. Big deal. We all have our crosses. And that I should learn how to carry mine. We didn’t talk much. But all that and more was said. We also knew that we had very little in common. That we may be friends but there was no way we could be any closer. I will want my books and I cannot go on turf patrol with him. The few times I broke into a fury, I couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Besides, I had to have a good reason to turn into a killing machine. Territorial protection wasn’t good enough. Or at least, I thought the town plaza wasn’t a territory I’d like to keep. I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to help him with his sadness. But he was always protective of me even after that.

After elementary, I transferred to a public school in the city and most of my classmates remained in our town in that school ran by nuns. I would visit every now and then and except for the few friends I was very close to in elementary, I drifted away from the others. The self-formation that happens in adolescence have also drawn even starker lines between us. The things you enjoy doing, they don’t. The things they enjoy doing, you don’t. And there was no need for you to like the same things. You just wave at each other across the lines and hope they are having as much fun as you are. Later in our fourth year of high school, I heard talk of Atan doing drugs with other boys. Atan’s problems seemed to have mounted with the onslaught of the years. I only heard cryptic sighs and head wagging whenever I asked after Atan from our old classmates. The last I heard about him was that he was in a bad marriage and had kids.

And then some two weeks ago, a friend told me Atan died a few years back by shooting himself in the head.

I was more troubled about it than I let on. I knew he was a good guy. He was a great guy. Was. Past tense. Somehow somewhere he lost his way. And never found his way back. And like every survivor, I got this feeling of guilt. Like maybe I should have reached out more. Like I should have done something. Anything. I don’t know what. Of course, that’s irrational. I was fighting my own battles. I was trying to survive myself. And by that I mean, I was ALSO trying to survive AND I was trying to survive the natural disaster that was me. I can think of several people whom I know who can shoot themselves in the head and I won’t even shrug a shoulder. But Atan, the news of Atan’s death is a blow I am still ricocheting from. I hope Atan, wherever he is has found the happiness and peace that he couldn’t find in this life.

Later, during that get together, the conversation turned to what we were doing nowadays. We were all unanimous about being underwhelmed by each other’s lives. They didn’t quite know how to react to my forays in music. I wasn’t very excited about what they were doing themselves. One was into medical supplies or something like that and the other two worked in call centers. A funny anecdote: they chided me for not inviting them to shows I’m in. Without thinking, I said, Oh, but we do classical music. You’d get bored. Which was of course wrong of me. It was out of my mouth before I could think. Which prompted one of them to launch into a speech that they too were cultured and would very much appreciate classical music performances. I was profuse with my apologies and quite sincere too. It was wrong of me. And later on, at the reception, I sang at the request of the bride. I sang Some Enchanted Evening and La Serenata. The couple was very appreciative of my efforts but my classmates whom I could see from where I was singing obviously were not. They told me so as soon as I got to our table. They scolded me for my choice of songs. They said it bored them and almost made them go to sleep. I retorted with, and you blame me for not inviting you to our shows. This here is the answer to all those questions of why I don’t go home. I do not relish being belittled. I do not enjoy having the things I am passionate about being dismissed as trivial. I want to remain fond of the people and places of my past. I want to keep only the memories worth keeping and not make distasteful new ones. This definitely was one. Funny how despite the distance and the stretch of time, they can still hurt you. Even if you know it shouldn’t matter. Your lives are so far apart now. It really shouldn’t matter. But it does sting a little. I brushed it off and filed it away. It was our classmate, the bride’s night, and I shall not be the one to spoil it.

Noreen, the bride deserves it. A whole day of nothing but joy. She too was subject to a lot of ridicule when we were growing up. And a lot of us were guilty for making it harder than was necessary for her. But despite of how hard we made it for Noreen, she has prevailed. I saw how she grew in confidence in high school. On through college when we all have comfortably distanced ourselves from the past and our past crimes and became closer than we actually were back in elementary. Noreen went on to become a nurse and now lives in London. She has proven to be a responsible daughter to her parents and also helps out her sisters. Noreen, too, had her share of challenges. But she never lost her grace and courage through it all. That’s why when I first heard of her wedding, I readily and enthusiastically expressed my desire to attend. I want to bear witness to her triumph. She’s earned it. More than most of us. If our lot, our classmates who attended and I, disagreed on a lot of things, this was one thing we agreed on: We were all happy for Noreen. That she found someone to share her life with and that someone found her to share his life with. In this world full of heartaches and sorrow, Noreen has found someone to be happy with. Nothing short of a miracle. And the wedding was one of the most touching I’ve ever been to. I admire the couple for their courage to insist on what they wanted. They had a wedding for themselves. Unlike other people who have weddings for other people. When you come from a small town like ours, you are pressured to have it there. Where all the ten thousand relatives can come and ogle and criticize every little detail and complain about the food or make observations about who came and every bit of gossip that can be had at the cost of the couple. They insisted to have their wedding someplace that was special to both of them. This meant that it was an intimate wedding as all weddings should be. And the preparations. Despite hiring an organizer, I saw that the effort and time the couple put into the whole affair was just stupendous. Oh, there were some things that went wrong, but they were minor things or things that nobody had any control whatsoever. On the whole, it was a lovely, intimate wedding.

Another friend, a more recent one, but I daresay a dearer one is getting married soon, too. And I’m all excited for it too. Also because I will be helping out on a lot of the preparations and the wedding itself. She plans to have a non-traditional one and of course, who else would be a better accomplice at non-traditional as myself? Topic jump: Have you ever noticed how the friends you choose later in life are the ones you most enjoy being around with? I mean around the time when you really can choose. In elementary, you’re mostly stuck with the people you’re with. They’re like relatives. They’re yours no matter what. You’re saddled together by a common history that refuses to die. The more recent ones, you choose because you know now that you don’t have to be friends with people you don’t like. No history need be made.

A journey to one’s past almost always brings up old wounds especially for those of us with long memories. Yet there also are trunkfuls of bright, shining moments lining the way. I hope those gems remain when I look back again someday. But for now, I’m stacking up on making gems out of each day. We all have somewhere, some time decided on which road to take. I hope we all end up in a happier place than where we are right now. It would be sad lives if all our joys were in the past.

Ta.

Yesterday, I sang. I mean really sang.

I’ve never had that feeling before.

That feeling that you are one with the song. The song has ceased to be something you have to do as something you have to be. The song swells and you swell, it ebbs and you ebb. Yet at the same time, it’s like an out of the body experience. You can see yourself, you can see the audience. You are connected. You are one. Their hush is a direct reaction to the hush inside you. And the song is enveloping you and them. They know what you are feeling. They have a sense of how the heart can break like the way the song says it can. That feeling. That feeling. That is what makes all of this worthwhile. This toil. These sacrifices. The snickers of derisive relatives and neighbors from that small town. The disappointment of your mother that you didn’t go and become a doctor or a lawyer or something more respectable. More stable.

We sang at Pam’s Thanksgiving recital. Pam is a friend of ours who has had a remission of her cancer. She came back after undergoing treatment and what a comeback. She sang with so much stability and knowledge of her instrument that it would have been shameful for us who were healthy to give anything less than what she was giving.

But first, last Thursday’s lesson.

It was a fabulous session. I am not overstating. It was a fabulous session. I knew that even from the beginning everything was in place. My breathing, my placement. I was intuitively making fine adjustments with my instrument and it reacted in ways I wanted it to. Sure, once in a while old habits would kick in but I was able to catch myself or understand what my teacher wanted when he gave me corrections. It was a fabulous session.

And then I sang. It was awful. My concentration was off. My energy was going every which way but where it should be going. My larynx wasn’t staying in one place. I was panicking. I was grasping at the sensations I had during the lesson but the more I grasped, the more they eluded me. Because the sensations depended on being calm. The control was from being relaxed and being conscious of every little sensation that panic shatters to smithereens. It was a complete disaster. I’m being overly dramatic here. But it was bad. It only seems a disaster in contrast to how well the lesson went before I sang. My teacher noted that it would only get worse during performance because my panic level rises during performance. I was deep in thought when we called it a night and I said a hasty, absent-minded goodbye. I was deep in thought all the way home. I tossed and turned in bed developing a plan on how to solve my problem. I finally fell asleep after making a decision to work on my tendency to panic during performances.

The next day was a working day and I got home very late. As soon as I could I worked on my rhythm, counting out the beats. Then, it being very late in the night, I couldn’t sing anymore because I would be disturbing the whole household. I thought of doing what I’ve always been doing when I needed to sing my lungs out. I went for a walk.

It was 2 am. I walked to Taft and sang while walking the length from Estrada to Quirino and sang again all the way back. Making sure I sounded out by just vibrating and not forcing out the air. I memorized the sensation of being grounded. The sensation of just flowing out with my breath. I disturbed some sleeping security guards with my experiment but nobody shushed me or shouted me down. I think I sounded too convinced with what I was doing that nobody dared to disturb me. That or they thought I was a crazy person and was better left alone.

I got home around 4am. That was how long I worked on one song. It was like ironing out the kinks in the song and repeating it over and over so that my body knew exactly what to do in the places I had problems with.

I woke up late that day. Almost 12 noon. Alfie who was coming to the recital as well to help out with the ushering with some of our other classmates accompanied me to lunch and we headed for the hall. I first grabbed a coke and reminded myself that one of two things can happen. I can cling to my problem and reinforce it by panicking and really own it short of having it patented. Or I can just relax, trust that my body has the knowledge I need to do what I should do, and share the music.

Four friends came before me. Aissa and Ivan opened the recital with a meaningful rendition of Take Me as I Am. Nomher was an inspiration with his usual finesse and calm followed with Maria and gave me more insight into calmness. Precy who was still groggy from a night of partying showed grit with how fiercely she fought to stay with her song.

And then me. I got up the stage, stood next to the baby grand, put my hand on one side of it, smiled at my teacher as she smiled back. Nodded. I heard the opening strains of the song. My teacher was at the piano. I knew my teacher knew where my problems were. I knew she would be there for me. I could relax. I looked out to the audience and the light of the video recording crew blotted everybody into faint outlines washed with white. I heard my entrance and I trusted myself. It was there. I was there. My voice was in place. I was in place. I was rooted but pliant. Like a tree swaying in a breeze. And with that feeling came a serenity. I can just go with how the notes seem to take me. Without meaning to, I was accessing dark places in me, deep reserves of grief and hurt. I got out of the way. And there I laid bare all the secret million deaths that no one has seen me die. There is no shame in that. There and then, I knew that everyone has died those deaths in secret too. And we were sharing something very private. An acknowledgment of our frailty. Every time I felt like I could milk the moment, I called myself back to get out of the way. Just let the music do it. Some time near the end of the song, where the vocal line ends before the piano wraps up the song, I saw the outline of my other teacher at the back of the hall stand up and soundlessly hold his hands in applause for me. I knew I wasn’t imagining that I did something special during that song. And then much too soon, the song was over. The silence after the song even after the piano’s last strains meant more than the applause. Applause would have been out of place. I knew they were thinking. And most of all, they were feeling something I was feeling while singing the song. A feeling of loss. That hesitation to applaud was wrought with meaning for me. And the applause when it came was welcome too. I may have put in more meaning than there was to how the audience felt. I can only guess. But even Frank Gehry who is quoting a playwright is saying that on the video I’m watching now: You never know for sure.

Everybody performed well after me but I was bursting with excitement inside of me to notice too much. I knew that Pam was kicking ass during her solos even if her energy was slightly lesser than she had during rehearsals. She must have tired a little or maybe was pressured by having to sing for the first time in public since her becoming sick again. Still, it was amazing what she was doing.

We ended the recital with Libiamo and I was bursting at the seams with excitement. I’ve seen what is possible. I’m seeing with new eyes. And I want to remember. And never forget. So grant me the right to this giddy post.

About 2 weeks ago, I was going around checking on the havoc the summer heat has done to our plants in the orchidarium when I saw a budgie chick slumped over the edge of a bonsai pot I put in among the finches and budgies sharing an enclosure. It had a huge wound covering most of the top of its head. With some panic, I called for our birdkeeper on duty to hurry and get me the keys to the cage. I picked up the chick and checked out the extent of the wounds. I saw it had several. The gaping wound on its head, a smaller one on its neck, another one on the left wing, and one on its back. I had great doubts of its ever surviving but the vigor with which it reared its head to be fed gave me courage. I cleaned its wounds with iodine and got some of the baby food we feed our nectar drinkers. I prepared the baby food and added some drops of vitamins to it. The chick was so tiny with most of its porcupine feathers barely out. I wondered how it will survive the cold nights without a mother to keep it warm. I checked its crop and it was half full. Its mother has been feeding it. But it lapped up the baby food in less than a minute despite its wounds and soon enough its crop bulged freakishly out of its neck. It was all I could do to keep the food from its wounds. Ants easily find their way to food here at the park and they could be attracted to the wound especially if it was smeared with food. I weighed the options, I can put in back in its nest and have his mother take care of him. No care like momma care. Or take care of it myself. It was finals week. I was moving out of my old apartment. Deadlines were up to my neck. I cannot take care of it. So I decided, I have to put it back. Maybe this time the other budgies who want the nest will stop hurting it. That must how it must have happened. Other budgies who wanted the nest fought its mother and tried to kill it so that its mother would stop fighting for the nest. So I put it back. I asked our birdkeeper to monitor if the other birds will start attacking it again. He said yes. I fixed up the newly installed enrichment toys in the sun conure enclosure and that took some time. Later, much later, I went back to check on the budgie chick. It was now on the ground. Its mother bravely fighting for the nest hanging above the bonsai. A big male budgie worrying a part of its scalp off its head. Its head profusely bleeding again. I called again for the birdkeeper to get me the keys. We took it out. Again I cleaned its wounds. I put it in a dish lined with nesting material. I had to leave that same night because my piano exams were the next day. I left it to my assistant to care for and I wasn’t sure it was going to make the week. We once took a young budgie we wanted to tame. It already had most of its mature feathers out and it didn’t survive a week. This chick had more odds against it.

Two weeks. Unsatisfactory performance during the final exams, paco park concert, moving out of the old apartment, moving into a small room, two unsatisfactory lessons, an affair that fizzled out faster than I wanted it to, missing deadlines, missing a reunion with a dear friend. Tired from traveling without any sleep, I woke up and checked out on the stuff I sent over from the old apartment when I heard loud, desperate peeping. It was still alive. And hungry. I marveled at its desire to live. Makes me think about how sorry my complaints are. This chick was fighting bravely for its life. What am I doing moping about things I have control over? Like doing better in my music studies. Or not giving up on finding the one. I’ll take my cue from this chick. I’ll just do what I need to do to survive. Before I know it, the wounds will heal, I will find the warmth I need, and I will discover flight.

I didn’t want to name it last time because I didn’t know if my heart can take the breakage of losing again something I named and have attached myself to. I feel braver now. I think I’ll name it Vick after William Ernest Henley’s Invictus for its bloody but unbowed head. If it turns out to be a girl, I can always make it Vicky. I should have washed my hands before typing this. The keyboard’s all sticky from the baby food. Ta.

About 2 weeks ago, I was going around checking on the havoc the summer heat has done to our plants in the orchidarium when I saw a budgie chick slumped over the edge of a bonsai pot I put in among the finches and budgies sharing an enclosure. It had a huge wound covering most of the top of its head. With some panic, I called for our birdkeeper on duty to hurry and get me the keys to the cage. I picked up the chick and checked out the extent of the wounds. I saw it had several. The gaping wound on its head, a smaller one on its neck, another one on the left wing, and one on its back. I had great doubts of its ever surviving but the vigor with which it reared its head to be fed gave me courage. I cleaned its wounds with iodine and got some of the baby food we feed our nectar drinkers. I prepared the baby food and added some drops of vitamins to it. The chick was so tiny with most of its porcupine feathers barely out. I wondered how it will survive the cold nights without a mother to keep it warm. I checked its crop and it was half full. Its mother has been feeding it. But it lapped up the baby food in less than a minute despite its wounds and soon enough its crop bulged freakishly out of its neck. It was all I could do to keep the food from its wounds. Ants easily find their way to food here at the park and they could be attracted to the wound especially if it was smeared with food. I weighed the options, I can put in back in its nest and have his mother take care of him. No care like momma care. Or take care of it myself. It was finals week. I was moving out of my old apartment. Deadlines were up to my neck. I cannot take care of it. So I decided, I have to put it back. Maybe this time the other budgies who want the nest will stop hurting it. That must how it must have happened. Other budgies who wanted the nest fought its mother and tried to kill it so that its mother would stop fighting for the nest. So I put it back. I asked our birdkeeper to monitor if the other birds will start attacking it again. He said yes. I fixed up the newly installed enrichment toys in the sun conure enclosure and that took some time. Later, much later, I went back to check on the budgie chick. It was now on the ground. Its mother bravely fighting for the nest hanging above the bonsai. A big male budgie worrying a part of its scalp off its head. Its head profusely bleeding again. I called again for the birdkeeper to get me the keys. We took it out. Again I cleaned its wounds. I put it in a dish lined with nesting material. I had to leave that same night because my piano exams were the next day. I left it to my assistant to care for and I wasn’t sure it was going to make the week. We once took a young budgie we wanted to tame. It already had most of its mature feathers out and it didn’t survive a week. This chick had more odds against it.

Two weeks. Unsatisfactory performance during the final exams, paco park concert, moving out of the old apartment, moving into a small room, two unsatisfactory lessons, an affair that fizzled out faster than I wanted it to, missing deadlines, missing a reunion with a dear friend. Tired from traveling without any sleep, I woke up and checked out on the stuff I sent over from the old apartment when I heard loud, desperate peeping. It was still alive. And hungry. I marveled at its desire to live. Makes me think about how sorry my complaints are. This chick was fighting bravely for its life. What am I doing moping about things I have control over? Like doing better in my music studies. Or not giving up on finding the one. I’ll take my cue from this chick. I’ll just do what I need to do to survive. Before I know it, the wounds will heal, I will find the warmth I need, and I will discover flight.

I didn’t want to name it last time because I didn’t know if my heart can take the breakage of losing again something I named and have attached myself to. I feel braver now. I think I’ll name it Vick after William Ernest Henley’s Invictus for its bloody but unbowed head. If it turns out to be a girl, I can always make it Vicky. I should have washed my hands before typing this. The keyboard’s all sticky from the baby food. Ta.

It’s 3:50 am.

A lone night bird sings below. I’m on the viewdeck of our restaurant. The viewdeck is perched high on a mountainside and I can see the whole of subic from where I’m sitting.

I’m taking a break. I’ve been putting together a first aid manual. I went to the Health and Safety Department for an interview last week and I’ve been told that one of the things they’ll be checking when they come over would be a first aid manual. When an idea strikes me, I work a bit on our project proposal. Hence, this late night. But I’m on a break. I’m having noodles and a coke. I’m also reviewing my songs for the voice finals.

I’m isolated on this mountain. The nearest person would be some fifty meters away in our office fast asleep. So even if I sung my lungs out, I wouldn’t be disturbing anyone. Well, there are the birds. It’s the lone night bird’s fault. It’s singing so beautifully somewhere in the forest. It was singing a haunting song. To my mind, it’s a call to be found. A mating call. And in my imagination, there’s no one there to hear it. It is the last of its kind and it is calling vainly. Of course, it’s not. It’s seeming loneliness may be because female birds do not often answer. Nor can they most of the time. In most species of birds, females don’t have a song. Only the males need it to attract females. If it’s not a song, then it’s bright colored plumage. Not very different from humans, don’t you think? If it’s not ability manifested by achievements, wealth, or acquisitions, it’s looks. Well, that bird was singing. And something about his singing caught at something in my chest. It tugged at it and loosened some dam I didn’t know was filling up unnoticed. Maybe it’s the fragility of its song. Or the seeming futility of it. It’s stopped now. Maybe it’s found a mate. Or several.

So now I’m singing. I’m trying to find the same fragility in that bird’s song. I’m imagining being perched on a branch. The leaves have fallen off from the intense summer heat. The breezes uninterrupted by the bare branches are chilly. I am calling. Somebody hear my song. Somebody come. Somebody find me. And only the breeze comes. Mute. Cold. Empty.

I liked the sound of that. But there’s no one else to hear it.

Back to work.

Around 5 am everyday, just before the first light touches the horizon, the forest starts to wake up. The birds start their early morning cacophony. Our peacocks here at the park are by far the noisiest. Theirs are the ugliest voices too. Despite their regal attire and bearing, peacocks cannot sing to save their lives. They squawk like uncouth fishwives with nothing better to do but annoy people. Still, with the rest of the singing in the forest, one cannot help but think what a glorious orchestra all of nature is. From the small melodious calls of the songbirds, punctuated with the louder calls of the hornbills, parrots, and wild doves, to the grating squawks of the peacocks, macaws, and cockatoos. The woodpeckers providing an ostinato on dead branches. All around is an unrehearsed, spontaneous performance every morning. Add to that the rustling of the leaves if there happens to be a breeze, or if you’re near the falls, the chatter of the water tumbling upon rocks.

Nowadays, aside from our birds in the park, we have more feathered visitors than we usually have for the rest of the year. With the forest all abloom and fruiting, the park is frequented by native birds feeding on our fruit trees. Flashes of color catch one’s eye every so often as the birds dart from tree to tree. Orioles with their vivid yellow are the most surprising when they cross paths with you. Theirs are the most interesting song in the mornings too. I have seen them doing their elaborate mating ritual among the branches. With birds there’s more foreplay than the actual sex. The display and the courtship is so elaborate and labor intensive and the actual mating is almost anticlimactic. A mere cloacal kiss. Literally, asses kissing and that’s it. That’s all it takes for the male to deposit sperm into the female. One is reminded that humans are maybe one of the few species who look at sex as recreation as well as procreation.

I remember how as a child I felt a restlessness as soon as the weather turned warm. Fruits are calling to be picked. Nests waiting to be discovered. Rivers demanding to be fallen into. How have I become such a worry wart about the dearth of rains? Maybe because then, I knew the forest can rebuild itself. Now, I have bonsai and orchids to worry about. With our plan of rehabilitating the soil and encouraging local plants to survive, this will be less of a problem next year. I just need the rains to break down the thick layers of leaves we have collected to help the soil recover.

Visitors have been complaining about the leaves because they think it’s unsightly. I have to remind them that they are in a forest and fallen leaves are a part of the forest’s way of replenishing itself. The thick layer of leaves prevents the water from escaping into the air too quickly. It also cools down the forest floor by retaining the water, by slowly releasing the water into the air, and deflecting the bright sunlight by breaking it into pieces instead of concentrating it as one wide swath as would a patch of exposed earth. This also helps the trees by preventing the delicate root hairs from drying out. When the leaves break down when the rainy seasons come, they provide nourishment for the plants. They also encourage helpful microorganisms to grow. Without fallen leaves, the ground would be compacted and dry which will be difficult for plants and helpful microorganisms to grow in.

Our peacocks have started laying eggs. So have our pheasants. Our parrots have not because we have not provided them with nest boxes. We probably should finish rehabilitating the park before encouraging our birds to breed. It’s a long haul, and the other day, the earthquake must have dislodged our termite-ridden ceiling in one area of the park and a portion of it fell. Oh well, there will be less to tear down when reconstruction starts.

I have a feeling, I will fall in love with the summer again before it’s over.

It’s been a grueling schedule. Late nights for design projects. Long hours of travel to work. Manual labor. But I cannot complain. Nor do I want to.

It’s dusk and the sun is dipping behind the mountains. I am on one. A mountain. Our restaurant here at the park overlooks the sea. After a long day of changing the perches of birds, switching birds to more appropriate cages, tending to our gardens, etc., I am eating a humble dinner alone but the chimes tinkling with the caress of a breeze and the murmuring of the birds roosting makes it a feast. One of our peacocks struts idly by to roost and doesn’t even bother to nod good night to me. I do not mind. All day he’s been displaying his tail and he has earned the right to be a snob.

Our perches have been chewed out. Parrots, being incorrigible chewers, will not stop chewing even if their lives depended on it. In fact some parrots have died because their owners have not been vigilant about poisonous branches being made as perches. In the wild, it is theorized that parrots get away with chewing on poisonous branches, fruits, and leaves by swallowing clay and other types of soil to neutralize the poisons they have ingested. In captivity, clean sources of clay and other types of soil is not always possible so the elimination of poisonous substances are a prime concern. This makes the replacement of perches more difficult than just putting in new branches. One has to know which plants are not poisonous. You’d be surprised how many plants are poisonous. Even the benign looking acacia is one. Some things that are not toxic to humans are toxic to birds. Green mango which we enjoy so much mustn’t be given in large amounts to birds. Tannic acid can accumulate which can result to sever poisoning. Add to that the problems of aesthetics. Some branches, even if safe are just plain ugly.

Garbage collection has been one of the problems I had to contend with when I inherited this job. Years of mindless littering and dumping by the employees and visitors have covered the mountainsides with horrible unsightly garbage. Lately, after one of our major problems have been solved, clearing the mountainsides of garbage has been one of my priorities. Our boys hang by ropes along the mountainsides and collect the garbage into a can tied to a rope. It has been slow progress with only our resourcefulness to use in place of proper equipment but progress there has been. Today, I was following a trail of litter which led me into a forest when I saw a wild boar going through a garbage bag. I wondered how a black garbage bag got deep into the forest when I saw my answer. A trap. It has been set so that a wild pig will root through the garbage inside and not notice the trap it was going into. The metal screens were from the park, so were the plastic screens covering the whole trap. I was relieved that the wild boar wasn’t trapped but was distressed that one of my people may have set the trap. After calming myself down, I made inquiries and found out that the forest rangers themselves have set the trap up. I told them to dismantle the trap and collect the garbage from that place. How very Filipino. The very people tasked to prevent hunting are the ones who hunt. Typical.

It rained the other day. You can almost hear the plants happily sighing at the sun’s leave-taking of the sky. It’s amazing how much leaves have grown with one night of rain. It’s like they have been waiting impatiently and the rain triggered an outburst of leaves and flowers. Even the forest trees are flowering. Some are bearing fruit. The rain has washed all the dust away. All the colors are more vivid. Everything is hopeful. Like our very own little park. It’s suffered a lot of setbacks but slowly we’re getting back on our feet. It’s a long road to where we want to go but we’re on the way. And as the most mundane quotation I can use goes, It’s not what’s waiting on the other side. It’s the climb. I don’t know why I’m quoting her. I don’t even like her. But it’s Hannah Montana for you today, folks. No great poet. No philosopher. Just some pop singer I hate.

My closest friends will know and remember that I’ve always dreamed of living on the fringes of a forest on top of a hill overlooking the sea. I’m working in a park inside a forest and it overlooks the sea. Funny how life works out. You don’t get it perfect. But dreams come true if you recognize them when you meet them in real life. And aching muscles, chapped hands, and sunburned face there’s no other way of putting it: I love my job.