The Venn of It

There is a circle that is open at the beginning,
It affords us space and time to breathe.
A permeable thing, that contracts with sorrow,
And expands with the coming of days.
It sees us through the middling and stretches,
Then closes upon another's fears.

A is for Story

Apples in the cheeks; swallows for tongues. In this forest there is no clear way to your heart of hearts. As night falls, I fear the space between shadows. I've left my crumbs behind.

And the shingled hut turns on it's single crooked leg away from my dagger. Every tree here bleeds a life and a song. Where then should I go if not forward into the heart of this story? Grimmer than grim.

It's not the moral at the end that matters but how we interact with the text. Snowfall to matches and hearts to sea foam.

I live, I die, my story remains. ...

And you my dear with your thoughtless words and even more thoughtless world, leave no trace.

Bladed Words

I cannot not lay claim to the apt description
That, ''she used her words like knives.''
There seems to be no better imagery than that of self imposed emotion.
What I find then upon every click, is a step taken.
To where, I do not know,
But what I do know is,
That is not how you tame the beast.
Nor is that how you sweeten the well.


I can choose how to feel,
So that time may prove true as to the relevant chair.
In fact there seems to be no greater need.
What I notice is that I am in a different room
Where the lights flicker
And the question is such
That the monsters beneath the bed
Choose to lay their tired brow on your chest.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2010

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2009

I call you in, you've been out of the dark for too long.
Here is your seat
I've kept it clean, free of guilt.
Remember, how this feels?

Here is your place, it is ready.
Here are your bindings, they are ready.
Here is your old hood.
Remember, life is about to begin.

Behind moonlight, that's where I wait, for you to look up, to be more than a memory.

Anguish Less Than We

Drama is an evil that we men employ
Because we see so little and have so little faith.

That kindness, even to the littlest soul or to the saddest story, 
Will resound well after we are gone.

We will truly never know another's pain
Because we pray so little for them and instead hate.

That compassion, when we are about to hurt or lash out,
May well save a life, later on in the day.

Do this then, let your faith be bigger than anything else,
So that you may see a little more.

Ahem

Testing.

A Monday morning in this new life. I helm and haw. Let's see where this goes. Inertia gets the best of us and yet if our cores are good--the universe unfolds and shimmers. There is nothing that He cannot handle and we forget we can always, always, offer it up.

For good.

http://pandamanila.tumblr.com/

Here we go.

Find me on: http://pandamanila.tumblr.com/

Cheers.

An Intermission

I spent the 24th of December traveling with older cousin to help him take someone home to her province. Along the way he talked about how people differ when expressing love and how my pain and fault is rooted in expecting something in return from showing love. He said that people express love in different ways so the trick is to learn to listen to the other person's language of love. Instead of expecting them to understand right off the bat how you show it. He had to learn this the hard way, as he was married before and is annulled now. The defining moment for him was one rainy day in Makati, where while out on the street in the rain under an umbrella he noticed his wife through a window coiffed, made up, and socializing with other similarly attired people. Love is a verb. You shouldn't expect anything in return. I countered that I believe that love is a decision. He agreed. I guess if you truly believe in a love worth fighting for you will make that decision. And do it.


What is your language of love?

My love consists of a decision and the keeping of a heart large enough to accept everything. I may be stubborn, overtly emotional, and melancholic. I may fall and stumble along the way. It may take me a while to learn things. But what I do know is that I am worth it and that my love is an action with every inhaled breath.

I do it.

That's a good Christmas gift I think.

Deus Ex Machina

Be wary when someone starts to reel you in with puzzling talk and shards of description.  There seems to be a surfeit of fear in the air these days.  It beckons to extinguish. It is a siren call towards the jagged recesses within you.

When you're placed in such a situation, realize, that sometimes the best course of action is to tie yourself down physically.  Even Odysseus frowned thereafter.
-----

Do not expect others to have what is necessary to remain steadfast. Be there for them and stand by them if you can. After all is said and done you can look up with clear eyes.

When you cross streets with them, make sure that they are on your protected side so you face the oncoming traffic.
-----

Learn what it means to be stoic, to be virtuous by maintaining your will.

Learn what it means to be spartan, to be simple in the face of excess.

Know that some people thrive with the canting of tragedy, the recounting of human suffering that paradoxically  provides pleasure to the audience.
-----

Accept hamartia and learn to from it, anagnorisis may just be around the corner.

Ceyx may not have had a choice.

Memory can be a dangerous thing.  Add ego to that and you create a vehicle capable of destroying dreams.

Where We Wait

I stepped out to walk while everyone was asleep.  My feet led me to the adoration chapel wherein I had stayed overnight one time when I was younger and had no place to go. 6 hours I sat then, until it was light outside. I think I may have cried a bit then, come to think of it. Some people drown it with alcohol and some people take to drugs when things get bad.  Others seek friends to share with, while others run away to make new ones to leave the hurt behind.

I've always wondered why for me it has been otherwise, why at the brink, I end up sitting in quiet and watching my breath rise and fall.  More so, I tend to end up in churches, when truth be told, I'm the last person to attend mass. I miss going to mass, for the simple reason of knowing that every Sunday it will be there to go to.

Adoration chapels have been a refuge for me, a place to retreat and reflect.  For a person who is already mostly internal, these places serve to magnify the feelings and the hurt until they ring in my ears. Until the silence and the quiet of the chapel becomes all that is left.

I think I end up in quiet and in prayer mostly because I have too much hope in me. That's probably why I don't turn to drink or to drugs or something equally stupid when I am depressed. Not that I haven't in the past, mind you.  Mostly, maybe, it's just that I am too stupid not to do anything but hope for the best. Then again, I think I've learned a few things along the way and I know better now--or at least, a little more.  I think what it is, is that I still have the same quality of hope I've had when I was a child.  The quality that allowed me to sit for hours in the parking lot after dismissal waiting for someone to fetch me while everyone else had gone home. I remember how I would sit and sit and believe that the next car to come through the Salamanca gate would be one of ours. Failing that, I would hope that the next unknown car coming in was borrowed and had come to fetch me because no one else would be able to. Many an afternoon I sat waiting: while everyone else had gone home, after the guards had taken down the flag of the pole in front of the theater. I spent many childhood afternoons honing that talent--hoping against time.

Do we actively wait or do we fool ourselves, time and time again, into hoping for the best when in fact we can choose how to feel and how to react?

Next time I end up at that adoration chapel, I will focus on the great white wafer.  Sometimes we forget that adoration should be profound.

Steak and Shiitake Mushroom Cream Pasta (Not Quite Stroganoff)

850 grams. of steak strips (I used 2 large pieces, perforated sirloin, Lawry's Seasoning Salt, then rubbed with Extra Virgin Olive Oil) tossed with crushed garlic (half a head) and more EVOO. Added some fresh lemon as well. Let sit for at least an hour. 


Saute 1 large onion and aforesaid garlic in EVOO (trimmed fat from steak and used in saute). Add butter, then toss in Shiitake (6-8 large whole, julienned) strips.  Sweat the mushroom. Pepper. Put aside. 


Reuse olive oil, add more butter, shock fry steak on high heat (less than a minute).  


Deglaze with a can of Campbell's Mushroom Soup (plus same can with water taken from cooking pasta). Extremely low heat, simmer. Add a can/tetra pack of all purpose cream. Dollop of butter. Adjust seasoning to taste (salt and pepper). 


Toss in pasta (fettucine works better). Parmigiano. 

1 Corinthians 13:4

This is helping me right now be whole.

The Gift of Love

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, 
but do not have love, 
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 
And if I have prophetic powers, 
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, 
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, 
but do not have love, I am nothing. 
If I give away all my possessions, 
and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,
but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient; love is kind; 
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. 
It does not insist on its own way; 
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, 
but rejoices in the truth. 
It bears all things, believes all things, 
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, 
they will come to an end; 
as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, 
it will come to an end. For we know only in part, 
and we prophesy only in part; 
but when the complete comes, 
the partial will come to an end. 
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, 
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; 
when I became an adult, 
I put an end to childish ways. 
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, 
but then we will see face to face. 
Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, 
even as I have been fully known. 
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; 
and the greatest of these is love.

Sitting Here

I sit here, while the long day winds down around me.
There are people around talking and sharing an hour's worth
Music streams words that many want to hear
Here are students leaving the week's worries for a while
The wind wafts the scent of rain, now it doesn't seem too bad
Small birds, hidden, welcome the brightening evening


But more so, there is you.

I never understood "Charlotte's Web" when I was a kid. Never did. Now, suddenly it hits me this waning afternoon: It was about how simple words of love can help save a life. 

Thank you.