A New Year

Thankfully, December has passed, and I can now get on with the business of living. While Christmas is not as appealing and magical as it used to be for me, I have to defer to how a large part of humanity observes it. Time seems to stop for a while, most routines are discarded, people become more generous, the disparity between haves and have-nots turns more pronounced, and HOPE is the word of the season. This last one is something the people of this archipelago are famous for. Year in, year out, the surveys report the same thing: Hope is a natural resource in this country, and it appears to have a limitless supply even in the face of everyday crime, natural and man-made disasters, delayed justice, horrendous traffic jams, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, and hoverboarding priests. I am proud to be among this race of ever hopeful people, although hope has become an on-and-off thing for me, so like the flickering holiday lights I stringed outside our home.

I don't know what to expect this year. It could be that I don't expect anything anymore after years of much expectation and coming up empty-handed. But I hope I can once more breeze through another 365 days quickly and safely, without unpleasant surprises. Of course, I also hope for better things, but at my age and in the light of the history of my life and my prevailing circumstances, "better things" seems to be too grand an aspiration. It will most likely be another year of being preoccupied with day-to-day survival and preserving life and sanity. Money has always been in short supply these past several years, and the trend may well continue this year. A complete upgrade of my fortunes requires nothing short of a miracle. It is becoming easier by the year for me to imagine myself passing away in penury and homelessness. I find comforting the fact that I'm over half a century old now, and it's highly unlikely that I'll go on for another half-century. It's only between sooner or later before the secrets of the universe play out before me like a movie. That'll be the day!

I've been bearded for over a year now. I just decided to stop shaving. That was it. I'm still surprised by how spur-of-the-moment decisions can produce varied outcomes. Positive comments outnumber the negative ones, and so I think I'm going to keep the beard. It also partly obscures my sagging cheeks and neck, two very telltale signs of advancing age. All the more reason for me to keep the beard. In addition, I feel (make that "imagine") that it makes me appear more virile, aggressive, and intimidating, thereby upping my beleaguered self-esteem. This would be the best reason for me to keep the beard. And while I tenaciously cling to my facial hair, I've let go of all manner and measure of hope that I can keep my scalp hair. No amount of cajoling, coaxing, pleading, or massaging can ever bring it back to its former lush glory. The strands become shorter, thinner and sparser by the month, revealing a barren and shiny scalp. It's the reason why I need a haircut more often now. My hair only grows along the sides and at the back of my head. At the top, growth is excruciatingly slow, like how life grinds on sometimes. It advertises my mid-life crisis.

Fortunately (and gratefully) I'm still in good health, and I hope I can exert enough to keep the status quo. I remain disappointed, though, with my mid-section. The paunch and love handles remain, even after vigorous exercising. Ripped abs will remain a distant dream, I suppose. I don't have the luxury of focusing on having them. Life's many other concerns bid for my attention.

For this year, and all throughout the remainder of my life, I believe I'll be very much into sentimentality and nostalgia. Many say it comes with the territory of growing old, and it falls outside of what my beard can cover up or remedy. I'm always on the lookout for photos from my favorite eras, the sixties and seventies, and for kindred souls, people who more or less belong to my generation and with whom I can talk reminiscences. But I'm a baby-boomer among mostly millenials. I'm outnumbered and feel out of place most times. I don't comprehend their flimsy and trivial preoccupations and pursuits, and they don't appreciate my tales of the good old days. There is this generation gap. I can occasionally feel very alone and it can get lonely. But during instances when I act somewhat childish, I manage to put smiles on their faces. They probably think I'm trying to belong through acting their age, when in fact I'm just not acting my age. I allow myself to lose it sometimes, if only to break the monotony of my existence. There might come a time when I may not be able to snap out of it and lose it forever.

Many of those who cared for me as a child, those who delighted in my antics, and who thought they foresaw that I would end up being useful to society and make my family proud, have passed away. Only a handful remain. They are now privy to what I've actually become: A balding, bearded, disillusioned man. I've disappointed them, I think, as much as I've disappointed myself. Or maybe they see me as yet another affirmation that there are only a handful in this life who find what they're looking for, and most of us go through life and the motions of living like souls herded by unseen, uncontrollable forces, always at the mercy of life's whim and caprices.

I've just about completed the painful process of abandoning many of my life-long dreams, physically and figuratively throwing away the final vestiges of aspirations that will never be, those sparks of hope and inspiration that saw me through some of my most discouraging days, the ones that lent color to an otherwise drab existence. I'm replacing them with simple, easy, lackadaisical goals that I can immediately dispose of at the first sign of failure. I don't want to be consumed by my dreams ever again. Dreams are manipulative, wonderful, magical figments of the imagination that can haul you off to previously unheard and unthought of places. Beautiful but dangerous. I steer clear of them now.

Last year in November I again offered masses at the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran to mark Mom's and Benjie's passing away, a ritual I've promised to do yearly as long as I can, until such time I'm no longer physically able to do the task. Going to familiar places where memories hold sway is like traveling back in time: My business done, I lingered for quite some time at the church's left side where the parking area and those ancient trees are. As a light plane passed overhead for a landing at the nearby airport, I instinctively looked up and the sight and sound immediately transported me back to Sunday morning masses. I saw our family standing next to one of the massive, heavy wooden doors, in our Sunday best.

It was last year when I discovered the magic and joys of a new hobby, photography. My son had photography class and we had to procure a used camera for him. I very soon realized that I was more keen than my son in discovering the myriad, magical combinations of lighting, subject, camera, and imagination. I found delight in being able to produce manipulated images from my own brand of reality. As a student of this art and science, I'm quite slow, but diligent. My slowness is deliberate, I think. From experience, the novelty in something newly-learned or newly-acquired wears off quite quickly. I can feel proud of my photographic creations for a while, or find sheer joy in wearing a new wristwatch for weeks, but then everything reverts to my original hunger for something new to possess or experience. So I try not to hurry things up, that I may have these small, simple dreams in my head, dreams I can easily manage and put a stop to if I want.

I took photos of the full moon on Christmas night because it was something of a rarity. The last full moon on a Christmas night happened 38 years ago, when I was 17. At the time I didn't know, and even if I did I most probably couldn't care any less. The phenomenon won't happen again until 2034, and at my age now events of this nature become noteworthy. A lot can and can't happen in the span of 18 years. I may still be very much around by that time to again mark the astronomical rarity, or I may not. The same possibility applies to the people that matter to me. And so I told them about the rarity of this one full moon, and they all happily obliged and looked towards the heavens.