Just Thoughts

The bud

Stands for all things

For everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing

Though sometimes it is necessary

To reteach a thing its loveliness,

To put a hand on the brow

Of the flower

An retell it in words and in touch

Until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

This poem which is just a portion of the whole thing was written by Galway Kinnell. It is part of the book Ten Poems To Open Your Heart.

My thoughts:

Life is a continuing process of beginnings and endings. A bud grows like a baby fresh from her mother’s womb and you wait for her to cry signifying life. You wait for the bud to bloom and you’ll see how it will look when fully grown.

We nurture, we water it with love. It teaches us that there is something truly wonderful in what nature brings. It teaches us to be a little patient when waiting just like life itself. Days become months and months become years. Sometimes we do encounter those vicissitudes in life and our success or failure depend on our attitude towards it.

The bud stands for all things….

It’s the fullness of life truly lived.

(Wrote this before reading Roger Housden’s interpretation of the poem)

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Musings

Some months ago, I reviewed my early posts which I wrote on my journal. Just remembered them now. These were written at random during the first three years of my blogging journey.

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Saturday Rants And Musings

For about three days now, it’s been raining cats and dogs again because of the “habagat” winds.  I love the rain when it is just for a while but I don’t like the intermittent ones that bring havoc to traffic on the roads and flash flood to streets which unfortunately sometimes even floods homes like ours. I am always wary of it when rainy season comes. The months of August and September are the most rainy months here. The only good thing about it is the weather is cold and it is nice to just stay at home and  read.

Josef connected his Bose sound link to my cellphone and I am tuned in to YouTube listening to the album of the Beatles and other artists of the 60’s and 70’s.  Ah, we’re using the blue tooth features of the CP. It is wonderful to listen to music when the sound is so good. Rainy days bring that nostalgic longing for old songs of yesteryears.

I thought I am lagging behind my reading goals for this year. I haven’t read a book for more than a week when I was in the province.  When I checked my Goodreads account, I am still advanced by 22 books.  I started one last night.  It’s about the Spanish Civil War back in the mid 1930’s. I brought home three books which one of my nieces gave me when I had lunch with them a few days ago – The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld, After the Fall by Charity Norman and The Affair by Santa Montefiore. The last author is quite familiar but I haven’t read books by these three authors yet. Looking forward to reading these three after the historical fiction about Spain that I am reading at the moment. Hopefully….

I am not much updated with the news about our lunatic president. Yesterday though, he even asked the firemen of the country to arm themselves and help the police fight “supposed” crimes in the country. What! Firemen with guns? Aren’t they there to protect the people from the eventualities of fire?  This is insane. I pity our beloved country  going down the drain fast. They are distracting the people from the real issues of extra-judicial killings, drugs, chinese nationals rapidly “invading” some places in the country, the seven-hour-glitch in the last election making all administration candidates win, the corruption galore of those appointed in sensitive positions in the government. I could go on and on and  it really pains me to see our struggling economy since the focus of the government is somewhere else. Sad, really sad.

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Tuesday Musings

Imagine yourself awake at 4 am. Up with the lark so they say.  Imagine yourself holding a broom (walis tingting) and a dustpan in front of your house  sweeping the street with cigarette butts, candy wrappers, plastic with straws thrown by unscrupulous passersby.  Imagine yourself sometimes seeing a whole bag of Jollibee or  McDonald’s trash thrown by people in cars just passing by our place.  How dare they do this, it pollutes the environment and a sight for sore eyes.  But they are undisciplined. One of the reasons why sometimes we get flooded when it rains hard.  You can’t help but shake your head in wonder. Don’t they clean the surroundings of their homes? Are they just happy throwing their trash everywhere? It is a case of, “as long as it is not in my backyard, it is okay”.  Really!

Nowadays, it’s my daily routine, waking up early, meeting the dawn and the sunrise and sometimes enjoying  few precious moments in the garden. I sleep early too. Around 8 pm, I couldn’t get my eyes wide open enough to read a few more chapters. I feel so sleepy.  Maybe that’s what’s growing old is all about.  The routines are comfortably  and necessarily observed and followed in our lives.

I am getting nostalgic again. I think of the younger days trying to recapture those moments of bliss.  See what the morning brings? Nostalgia  🙂

“People leave traces of themselves where they feel most comfortable, most worthwhile.” 
― Haruki Murakami

 

 

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Musings On a Monday Morning

It’s not anymore surprising that every day, the social media is full of unpalatable news and what not and you won’t be surprised either that these same trolls and the people behind them are doing their best to destroy those so few good-thinking, sensible and seriously concerned politicians  in  the country.

Two  days ago, the breaking news was that Duterte appointed Teresita de Castro as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, same gal who was one of the responsible judges of the court to oust CJ Sereno. What the hell are these guys thinking? Imagine, she will only serve for more than a month because she will be retiring by October 08 and yet she gets all the additional benefits of a CJ. Good luck to us,  that’s people’s money.  That’s clearly a “pabaon”  for siding with  Duterte. She’s known as the “ampalaya” queen in social media, bitter about not being chosen before by Pres. Aquino. Opposition lawmakers have criticized her appointment, they see it as a reward for testifying against former  CJ Sereno.   She’ll be the head of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal where election protests are heard.  Will she be impartial? That’s the big question. People think  it is a done deal that she will favor Marcos’ claim to the vice-presidency despite the fact that  VP Leni  won. A refusal to accept defeat in good grace.

With all their billions, I wonder why the Marcoses  still covet power in the government. They cannot take the money to their graves, sad to say. They cannot buy their place in heaven.  Imelda Marcos wants her son to be president before she dies. Haha…what a deep sense of entitlement.  And trolls are working non-stop.

 

 

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Musings

Yesterday.

We were able to get our EMV cards at the bank. We have to wait for Jovy to come home so she could drive us there.

There are always long lines both at the counters and  at the customer service booths. I have to approach one of their officers and introduced myself as a former employee of BPI. She immediately looked for the replacement cards and let Mom sign hers but I have to replace the PIN numbers for both cards at the ATM machine.

We went to SM East Ortigas later to have early dinner at  the Classic Savory Chicken.   Mom  said that the place was familiar so I told her, we had eaten there before. We dined on buttered chicken, pork chops, pancit canton, chop suey,  crab and corn soup.  Oreo is now allowed to eat veggies like carrots and chayote and minced chicken liver too so we had to separate them and put them in a glass of water to remove the flavor before he could eat them.  He loved the veggies.  We also ordered dinner for Josef and brought it home with us.

Tired.

Started trimming the grass as soon as it is light.Wow, it has grown after more than a month. Went back to the garden around 4 PM. Planted another packet of Zinnia today. I hope they would sprout in a week. I noticed while I was weeding, there are new shoots of my Vinca, probably from the flowers that have fallen to the ground. I am envisioning how this would all look when they bloom.

I gave our neighbor bottle gourd. There are more  than ten of them on our trellis in different sizes.  Did you know that there are amazing benefits of bottle  gourd?  It is  a vegetable often ignored by many but it acts as a diuretic, improve digestion and prevents constipation.  It also reduces risk of urinary infection and lowers blood sugar levels. Since it is low in calories, it also aids in weight loss. There are also so many ways to cook it.

Finally.

I can now update my reading. Just done with a book about nature and biodiversity. The importance of a healthy natural environment. ” Biodiversity is in decline all over the world. The number of species of animals, plants and microorganisms is decreasing”. I hope to see our little sparrows moving back to the garden again.  I miss their sweet voices early in the morning.

 

 

 

 

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Sunday Musings

“We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine”

I am having a LSS. Yesterday this song was played on Spotify  We  used  Josef’s Bose sound link mini. Imagine three voices blending with this chorus, Nate’s childish almost shouting voice, Nissa’s  lovely voice and mine.

While we were at church today, I remember Nate changing the word “yellow” into gold, green and red whichever took his fancy.The three of us were laughing while the song was being played.  Ah,  the joys of having them around. Listening to the Beatles brings back memories too, good old memories of my childhood.

Earlier in the mass today,  Josef commented that the homily was brief, all of ten minutes. I told him that it was  Pope Francis’ directive to limit delivering homilies in ten minutes.  Pope Francis said the homily “is not a casual discourse, nor a conference or a lesson,” but is rather a way of resuming “that dialogue which has already been opened between the Lord and his people, so that it finds fulfillment in life.”

I really don’t mind a long homily if it has an inspiring content, if it does not lack focus and it is direct to the point. I’d rather listen to practical applications based on the Gospel than something repetitive, sometimes even to the point of quoting some parts of the Gospel just read.  When a priest has delivered the “meat” of his homily in ten minutes flat, that is wonderful. “Please,” he said, “be brief…no more than 10 minutes, please!”  For two masses now since February 7 when Pope Francis touched on this topic, I listened to brief but inspiring homilies. I remember Fr. Lovell  telling me before what they have learned in Homiletics, a seven-minute homily is enough.

Have a good  Sunday everyone! Let us start the week with a smile 🙂

 

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Tuesday Musings

Woke up to another cold morning and it is raining again.  I wonder when I’ll get to see the sun’s face again in all  its glory. I wonder if we’ll spend Christmas day like this one.

I spent sometime yesterday planning  what to prepare for our Noche Buena.  I have actually cooked two kilos of embutido the other day and  put  it in the freezer. Embutido is our Filipino version of meatloaf which is cooked by steaming.  It consists of ground pork, raisins, sausage, cheese, eggs, pickle relish, carrots and other seasonings. You can freeze it for  more  than just a month and it does not lose its flavor.  Of course, fruit, macaroni or potato salad won’t be left behind since Mom is here.  She loves anything that spells S-A-L-A-D. And  pasta dishes  and sweet delicacies won’t be left behind.   Nissa is on a Keto diet and she does not eat carbohydrates so sometimes I find it hard to prepare something for her. We always have rice in our every meal so it’s a no, no for her.  Aside from attending the Christmas  Eve mass, sharing the Noche Buena feast at midnight, we have the opening of gifts to look forward to and Nate  is the happiest kid around.   He could only clutch his gifts and does a guessing game before he opens them with gusto.

 

Nate at 5.

Nate is quite tall for his age. He just finished his workshop at  Trimedia Int’l. with a fashion show last week  with other kid participants. Got his first trophy at five.  I’m envious  but he deserves it after eight sessions of workshop and that lovely fashion  show in the end.  A proud  Nonna obviously.

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Musings

I found my old tattered journal from wayback. The spine  has detached itself from the pages that were yellowed with age. Has it been 38 years ago? Yes,it was and  this was the younger me.

Dear Mayblue

It hurts really, this empty feeling within me. I like to be strong again just like old  times when I used to laugh my worries away, just like those days when I could wear a smile amidst problems. Oh, whats the use of recounting those things.

I used to be part of the audience, passive and all that but how I came to be the actress myself, I never know. All I am sure of is that, now, there is no turning back, no matter what reality has  in store for me, no matter how it hurts. I must go on. Can’t you see Mayblue, I am trying to be brave.

Some people think what a fine actress I am.  Others perhaps look down with disdain. The only thing that consoles me is the fact that every one of us in this cruel  world  is a thespian, the only difference is that are cast in different roles. Some play the lead role,  some are afraid to plunge their hands in the deep water lest they be drowned. I was one of the latter until I found myself playing the big part of the game.

I was sure of myself then. Call it the magic  of love reigning over me. I looked at life with rose-colored eye glasses with misty mornings and sun-bright days. I was way up and I felt great. See what love can bring Mayblue?

But when you have loved deeply and have been hurt so bad, you see things  in a different perspective, in a different light. I found myself running away from my own ghost, even to the point of  pitying myself sometimes. One thing I can assure you is that, I  never regretted what has been, after all, love was such a beautiful experience.

Don’t be deceived by what you see. Despite that calm facade, that undisturbed countenance, look closely and you’ll see a girl crying inside.

P.S.

I wish you were here. I  want to have a good cry.

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Those Were The Days

Ah, to remember those days of old. They make you smile  and nostalgic of course. Taking a trip  down memory lane to the max 🙂

Nissa called me up early this morning looking for a box where she put some CDs, a copy of their wedding invites and baby pictures which their official photographer used during their wedding reception. All of our photo albums were flooded six years ago when typhoon Ondoy hit Metro Manila. My son painstakingly wiped dry all our photos and collated those which can still be saved.  I looked at the photos she chose for the video, some are frayed at the edges but they evoked memories.

Nissa was around five or six here and Josef was 3.

Then I found this too, mixed with their baby pictures.  A former office mate took this shot years ago when I was still with BPI.

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
– ansel adams

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