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.

Learning Integrity.

Integrity. For an educational counseling class, I chose 'Pagkamatapat' as the Filipino translation. Lord, grant me the strength to make this quality a pillar of my life.  Translated 'pagkamatapat' pertains to the quality of being strong and true. I could have chosen 'karangalan' or 'dangal' but those words seem to have dignity as a root.


Integrity, I think, is something much more powerful.  My mother has it and I think that is what has allowed her to live each day as if it were her last despite the depression, suffering, pain, and what not.


Lord, grant me the strength to live with grace, the strength to face everyday with integrity.


Thanks Jim, Joel, Not Being Eaten By Cush, and other people I am proud to have as friends, distance or divide not withstanding.


How can you descend to anger or futility or madness when you have so much more to do?

Stolen

I find a thrill in keeping it apart,
Risking it all for nothing
But a heartbeat rush.
I expect a little suffering,
Towards this morning's start.
Who would have it any other way?
(Then again my feet are made of clay
And I know the sin of inertia.)


Given it is a crime to want
What you cannot keep beyond tomorrow.
And its sorrows, they stand up front,
Then keep you from wanting more.


Dated 06June2009

Square Knots and Now

When you know more than you should, what do you do?


Do you keep quiet knowing that it may destroy you? Or do you kneel and pray when it hits you without mercy--without warning?  Vince says that these are intrusions and that in the end they are not yours to deal with but theirs. What then?  How do you keep the music playing?  Is prayer enough when the walls around you are crashing and no one else notices when you scream?  How do you make sure that the music moves towards denouement?


Who will unravel this for me if not myself? Relief work has consisted mostly of repacking and carrying. Somewhere down the line I realized I could help make things more efficient. So I took time out to teach others how to tie square knots when completing the relief bags. Many listened and things worked out faster then before--no more messy knots and goods slipping out. I showed them how when you follow a pattern: right over left, then left over right, and then pull on both ends, that you create something that works.

I learned how to make that knot because someone, Mamita actually, invested time in me to go through Boy Scouts of America.  From Cub to Life, she drove me to den meetings and council meetings; she made sure I had the uniforms and equipment.  She gave me my first Swiss knife just so you know. Pappi gave me one as well, a Swiss Champ, complete with messages he scribed himself onto the blades but that was much, much later.  Mamita was there to sew the badges. She was there to take the pictures.  Pappi helped me with that Pinewood Derby Car that you see in the sala (the camouflage one) but it was Mamita who ordered it through the APO. Bottom line, I think, is that when I remember my experience with Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, it's her insistence that I always had Welch's grape juice for camping trips that makes me smile.


She knew what was important and through the years she knew more than she was supposed to. And yet, she still comes back. She still makes sure there is enough and that when truly needed, things are acted upon. She's understood the need for good knots, I guess. Wow, after almost 20 years of fighting and talking back to her, I've finally realized that I have the best mom in the world.


What about Pappi? That's interesting too, actually. When I think about it, it was Mamita who was always practical and who always made plans but it was Pappi who knew what to do when emergencies struck. When Pinatubo and the earthquake happened in the 90's--he was the one who acted.  Mamita crushed us to her chest but it was Pappi who made sure we were out and safe.  Whenever it flooded in the old house, he would be out making sure the roofs were fine and the second floor terrace wouldn't turn into a swimming pool (which it had a propensity to become). When the Lumber and Hardware store burned, he was the first one to assess.  Last year, a little before Christmas, when I got really sick and was asphyxiating and paralyzed from Tonsillitis he was the one who took me to Medical City. There you go, after almost 20 years of hating him, I see that despite his failings he is someone I will never turn my back on.  More so now, that I have made new choices and have stuck my guns to them.


I'm rambling, trying to make sense and connect the events of the past few days--both external and internal. I said this rain has changed everything, I see it is true for many people.


I learned from the BSA guidebook, which I still have and have kept for you (complete with Mamita's sign off on the parent's signature parts), that this is the best knot to know. As you pull on the finished ends it holds tight and true and yet you can allow it to have give so it can be adjusted. This is a good knot.


This is the same knot I've used over the years when I chose The Way. From white, to green, to brown, then to black--this is the knot that held my center down.  The belts would fray and fade over time, but the knot held true. The colors and stripes have changed, but the center remains true.


I guess that's what you do when you know more than you should then.  You take a deep breath, and you move with the strength that your parents built into you while growing up. Whether one parent spent more time with you than the other--what is important is you hold on to the fact that you are loved more than anything else.  You will see later on that there is truly no school to learn how to be a good parent but that is hurdle compared to bonds that cannot be broken. That is part of the fraying and the fading. The knots hold true though.  You have a good core.  We are blessed that you have the gift of joy in you.  Hold fast to that. When things get tough, remain true. Repetition worked? Good.


At this point I've come unraveled a bit, to be honest.  I know much more than I should and I think too much. I've worried needlessly. Typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana came and went. I've gone out to help--with my best friend and on my own. I've seen how true it is when Tito BQ said that you can choose how you feel and how you are affected.  I don't regret the sore back and muscles nor things that I've shared nor the choices I've made. The benefit is I got to sweat out indolence anyway. Well, that and other things.


I write this entry to align the bonds.  I always quote Jane Sibbery that, "it can't rain all the time," but accept that it can't be 'sunshiney' all year either.  I write this entry to add to the length of square knots that have made up my life. I write this entry to reaffirm the gift that my own parents bequeathed me, that of passion.


I take this time out to center myself and I follow your lead as well. Joy is good. Sometimes passion drowns. If you keep both close though, I have a feeling it will work out.  I banish fear then. I choose joy. I choose now where to direct passion.  I pull to me the threads that have come loose and reweave the tapestry of music. Wait. That was verbose. Here then:


Even when it floods know that your knots will hold true. You know the Boy Scout motto yourself: Be prepared. Sometimes it doesn't work out so well, so add this then to that.  Be true.


High five Coral.