Okay, I am reviving my month-ender and “happy new month” blog. I used to do it in some of my posts but sometimes, in the midst of daily living, you forget things that were part of your routine.
May has quietly faded into June and as always it left something to cherish and to treasure. It was terribly hot but the afternoon showers that we got during the last week somehow diffused the humid feel of the month. Yesterday, I visited my daughter at her office at BPI to get a package sent by a friend from the US. I took an FX taxi from our place to Ayala Avenue and along the way I was like a child getting re-acquainted with an old place and taking note of changes that were not there thirteen years ago. Thirteen years, seems so long ago - yes, it’s been thirteen years since I left Bank of the Philippine Islands when I availed of an early retirement to take care of my two kids. Seeing new faces but looking for old ones who were my former office mates, I now can’t imagine myself as part of the young crowd waiting for elevator rides and beating the 8:30am rush to log in to work. I was with BPI for more than twenty-one years, right after I graduated from college. Waking up early, car pooling, early morning masses at Greenbelt chapel, lunch breaks and quick walks to Glorietta, afternoon rush to share a ride with friends on the way home, the routine of a working mom, they came rushing back when I saw the facade of BPI. Ayala Avenue has changed of course with more high-rise buildings sprouting from every nook and cranny, it’s after all the Makati Central Business District. What I noticed though was there were lots of people lining up the sidewalk of Ayala Avenue smoking. I am glad I brought a face mask. During my time, smokers just stay at the back of our building at the open parking space. Why can’t they totally prohibit smoking in public?
Sometime last October, I wrote a blog on the newest book of Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings dreaming of having a copy of it when it’s published. It has become one of my top-rated posts although it was more of me than the book. Yesterday, I finally got hold of it and perused each word, smiling like crazy holding it in my hands, enjoying the feel of silk because the dust jacket is so smooth to the touch.
This is my second book of Mary Oliver and I love how she portrays nature in so many different ways. It feels like you are beside a brook or just looking at an unknown bloom by the wayside or discovering the glint of the moon on a dark night. Odette, who has become a close friend sent me all these, three books, two latest publications from my favorite author Richard Paul Evans and a copy of A Thousand Mornings together with a hard drive which she says I could use for all the shots that I want to save. Speaking of blessings, they pour in a thousand ways too.
Let me share one of her poems with you. Reading her words always keep me inspired, silently smiling to myself and telling the old me, I am lucky, aren’t I? The journey is long but I am blessed.
The Gardener
Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I
come to any conclusion?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?
I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much.
Then I step out into the garden,
where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,
is tending his children, the roses.
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