Dream

This morning I woke up from a strange dream: I was cleaning a house in preparation for moving in. Then I noticed a figure looking out a window of the house facing my house. I was dreaming, and so I abandoned my task, proceeded towards that house in front, and entered it.

It was bare, devoid of furniture, the walls blank and faded yellow, save for a waist-high, dark-brown wooden cabinet with drawers. I opened the topmost drawer; it contained old photographs, some tattered, some almost crumbling, and all of them faded. They were of kin and friends I knew, and who all have passed away.

Suddenly, the people in the photographs were there, filling the house with chat and commotion. Some smiled at me particularly; one was noticeably insouciant, and while also smiling, she just went past by me. I kidded her about that. But dreams are so free-wheeling, no?

I then woke up (or was awakened by something), and had the urge to write the following poem -

Life is here, Life is
Now, a part of it is
Yesterday; but certainly it is not
Tomorrow;

Death, its kin,
has countless tricks
up its sleeves;
we outpace it each day,

Or so we think:
We eat, drink
and are merry;
we traverse many roads,

Some to great finds,
some to naught;
some to the loveliest of places,
some to the saddest of those;

We walk, we run, we fly,
straight towards coveted,
obscured goals; and oh, so fast!
Around a corner, Death waits, and smiles.

Talking God

These days I find myself questioning my faith: I may have been had; that it has always been merely a superb piece of literature; that all good things are wonderful coincidences, dissociated from earthly plans or divine intervention. Or it could be that faith is a ruse for very profitable business ventures, and that this life is all there is, and there is nothing more beyond it.

I keep score of life's inequities, and I always end up feeling that I have more than my just share. My arguments are strong. The unanswered questions are many. I cannot be faulted for being limited only to what I can see; it is man's nature to be puny and proud. I keep up appearances, and maintain the trappings and fixtures and rituals of faith, not so much out of love, as for the primeval fear of the unknown, and also superstition.

I could use a talking god right now, like I could use love and hope and courage in my time of distress. I am discontented with merely the adornments of faith and veneration. I need miracles!

Lifeline

One day my son asked me whether it's true that each person is a lifeline to another. An insight to marvel at.

How very true. No matter our station in life, somebody looks up to us as a source of happiness or inspiration. We may look at ourselves in an unkindly way, but to some hapless soul, we may be the whole world. We may think of ourselves as worthless, but sometime, somewhere, someone may be thinking that we are an indispensable cog in the wheel of life, an essential element in the universe.

Each one of us is a lifeline to another, and so we are bound to move on, to persevere, to stand up when we fall; if not for ourselves, then for the dreams and hopes entrusted to us. A tall order which leaves no other option other than preserving the integrity of the lifeline.

Seething

Are you
deaf to my pleas?
Are you
merely cut stone?
Lifeless.
Or you
can also be
simply borne
out of
the desperations of men.

I knock
on your door
each day,
spread out my plans,
and then
I go,
sometimes
I linger
and listen intently:

If you will growl,
or else
send me a rainbow,
so that I may be
on my way,
unmindful of
dying dreams.

Good People

Meet Rey. If Willy Wonka were a Filipino, he would be Rey. From a mobile contraption of a store mounted on a motorcycle, he sells stuff children's dreams are made of: The latest trinkets and novelty items; small toys; every imaginable kind, shape and colour of candy; action figures; tiny cars, planes, trucks, and ships; girls' and boys' jewellery and accessories; etcetera, etcetera. Rey makes the rounds of almost all the schools in our town of San Pedro, aware of their respective break and dismissal times (for obvious reasons), hopping efficiently from one school to the next like clockwork.

I have this admiration and respect for Rey, and all the others like him, who earn meagerly but at all times honestly. They are the good people in our midst, the ones who convince me that decency remains alive and well in this impoverished archipelago, made poorer with each passing year by rampant corruption. Whereas, in other still-fortunate places, those who are caught with their hands full of ill-gotten wealth are either banished or made to literally die of shame, in this country we elect them to public office, so that they can all the more acquire ill-gotten riches and flaunt these in our faces, by way of their mansions, expensive cars, and private militias. My faint clue, as to why this is allowed to happen, is either plain and simple idiocy or gullibility.

Rey has been in his trade for, I calculate, almost ten years now, starting out with a much smaller mobile store contraption connected to a bicycle. He has a wife who helps him eke out a living via this amusing, itinerant trade, but it is Rey who pounds the streets of our town rain or shine. He has two children (or maybe three), which he sends to two private schools, with the eldest set to graduate from high school in a few weeks' time, and already having obtained a college scholarship through sheer academic merit!

Rey and his family have this enviable acceptance of their fate and their role in the world. And with their seeming tirelessness and composure to go about their unvaried routine day in and day out, an unquestioning faith that they will persevere and prevail is very apparent. This accomplishment is beyond the reach of many others who are better-heeled and educated. At once, Rey has let me in on one of the secrets to happiness: The absence of too great or too much expectations.

Rey might be unaware of another thing enviable about him. He is assured of a special place in the pleasant and beautiful memories of all those children who patronize his store of dreams. Rey has made me recall some of my own schoolchild memories: Ka Conching's eatery for students, with its piping-hot, home-cooked meals; the Nectar ice cream man and his sweet, multicolored popsicles; Ka Domeng's Kabayan ice cream and buco sherbet; noodle sandwiches; deep-fried pork rinds dipped in spicy vinegar; Rey has opened the floodgate of memories, all of them pleasant and from times that held great promise.

The domain of childhood memories is sacred ground. It defines the man. It sets him off to his journey in life. Depending on the quality of these memories, they either provide solid anchoring or shaky foundation. Good people like Rey give to society the former. Not too many people may lay claim to this achievement. I can't. I most probably will be remembered as a moody, cantankerous man, an impractical dreamer, given to fits and episodes of rage, desperation and elation. My only consolation, however, is not being lumped together with the greedy, the murderers, the corrupt. As politicians are.

50

A few days from now, I am turning half-a-century old. It is only because the event is some sort of a milestone that I'm writing about it. I have not acquired the habit of fussing over my own birthday. If it passes uneventfully, without anyone recalling it or greeting me, then so much the better. I would never feel hurt in any way. I've always thought and believed that one can see and appreciate life better in anonymity. I can be as unobtrusive as possible as I witness life's fluid events. A famous (or infamous) person simply cannot indulge in this luxury, unless he wants to be mobbed by those obsessed with his presence, or those who crave to do him harm.

At half-a-century old, I most probably have less than half-a-century more to go. Not that I'm not avid about longevity, but I have looked at the lifespan of males from both my parents' families, and as far as I know, none among them were ever centenarians.

It was a sobering discovery and, considering that I still desire to accomplish a lot of things, makes me feel pressured and hurried. I think that, generally, we all leave behind a lot of unfinished business when we finally go. It's either because a lifetime is insufficient to do everything we have and want to do, or because we have a tendency, in the initial, to waste a considerable number of our years.

At this point in my life, I'm beginning to deal with the possibility that I may be unable to give substance to all my dreams. But I will do my very best to give justice to the gift of life. I will always look for happiness and hope in even the unlikeliest of places and circumstances.

I look older. My face looks more weathered, with wrinkles creeping and catching up in every nook. My grays seem to be multiplying exponentially among hair strands that grow longer but not thicker. I'm pleasantly surprised by all these. I feel basically the same. I find myself more forgiving and tolerant, though, and also more appreciative of quiet solitude.

I think the years of clean living are actually paying off. I feel that I have the stamina and endurance I had ten years ago, give or take a few occasional aches in the joints here and there. The emphasis of my efforts is on the quality of life, rather than on its longevity. I don't intend to be a long-lived cripple. Good health and being ambulatory are important for me, the requisites for survival among the human species and its kind of societies.

"Life is like a box of chocolates..."

It could well be my favorite quote from Hollywood, coming from one of my favorite films. I seriously consider the quote as potential epitaph material, if I will be unable to choose from among my writings. Lest I be misunderstood as being preoccupied with the thought of death, I am not. I know we're all headed in its general direction, and I've just come to accept that we will all have to stare it in the face one day. I do believe that many of us do not fear death per se, instead, it is the pain that leads to it. We all have a natural abhorrence for suffering, and this is evident in our preference for convenience and creature comforts.

I saw "Forrest Gump" (again) on television, and for the nth time I was held captive by its moving story. I know it's fictional, but the wisdom, the emotions have parallels in real life. Innocence, the struggle to keep it, and losing it eventually; death and the feeling of betrayal; perseverance and prayer, and redemption in the end. Life proceeds inexorably, only momentarily stopping for our tragedies, and then it picks up its pace again. We choose to be either left behind or to move on and keep pace with it.

Although Forrest is the unmistakable central figure in the film, I identify more with Lieutenant Dan. Gung-ho and audacious, with enviable deftness and intrepidness. But the ironclad persona is a facade, like the facades we all have, and Lt. Dan crumbles and comes crashing down under the weight of physical and emotional pain. He then finds Life as only either rancid or tasteless. He lives his days with a simmering disgust for the world and even God. He stays on though, either out of perseverance, or the cowardice to take his own life. He has the good fortune, however, to have a redeemer in the person of Forrest, who makes him an offer and, maybe unwittingly, provides the lieutenant an avenue to possibly re-route his static and wasting life. He succeeds eventually, and finds himself back in the mainstream, all the more wiser and materially affluent.

We are all looking for our own Forrest Gumps to redeem us from our inextricable situations, to redirect our lost paths, or to help us find peace and contentment. This is why we take up religion, do yoga, recite mantras, get immersed in mysticism and the occult, or convert to Buddhism. Exploiting this desperation, the unscrupulous among us have turned God and gods into a profitable business enterprise, with gullibility the best assurance of its success. While there are those who succeed in finding what they seek, there are more who do not, and the best they can manage is to languish in despair and disappointment throughout their lives.

My favourite Hollywood quote, although very befitting to one of my favourite films, seems to be wanting in accuracy. Our boxes of chocolates do not offer us plain sight of everything once opened. Rather, the morsels are wrapped individually, each enticing in its unique shape, colour, contour, and aroma. I'm more than halfway through my box; I've had some really good and tasty pieces. There are those that delivered expected goodness, and others which caught me pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised, off-guard even. Some were so good, I only took small bites off each, re-wrapped and saved them for another day. These are the ones made up of hope, love, and happiness, the pieces I do not wish to run out of.