To Mickey (not her real name)

(A Haiku)

A ordinary day will glow
You're still a flower that remains unspoiled
I can't be your hero.

And We're Part Of History

May, 10, 2010.

The longs lines leading to the precinct show hopeful Filipinos exercising their right to vote. Despite all rumors of a failure of elections, glitches and election-related violence, at last, all systems go for the first automated election in the country.

I, together with my mother and brother went to our respective precincts as early as 7 am. The comelec officers were just setting up the machines. It took us 3 hours to finally cast our votes. The process was efficient (though I have no basis as I say this, considering that this was my first time to vote).

A few hours later, results are being collated already that stunned the whole country and the politicians. With a new administration ushering in, we can only hope that all will go well.

A Post-Mother's Day Post

Without any shame, I claim myself to be a momma's boy. I say this because I love my mother so much and I practically lived my foundational years under her care. Needless to say, my dad, courtesy of his job abroad, is not always around. My mother has become my best friend, so to speak.

I remember, as a teenager, I would seek advise from my mother regarding girls and adolescent troubles. In college, my mother helped my in my thesis after some group issues prompted me to go solo and work on my thesis during sembreak. Now that I'm a young professional and starting to embrace adulthood and the responsibilities that it entails, my mother is still there for me, despite everything, even the things that we would bicker over.

I can say that I'm blessed to have a mother who is not only caring and supportive but also understanding and strong. She has been responsible for shaping the values and morals that I stand for. It is true what she always tells me, that parenthood does not end after sending your kids to school.

Let me honor my mother by expressing here how much I am grateful for every sacrifices and tears shed for me and my siblings. Happy mother's day.

Snippets#4

A failed relationship, career and whatnot is a tragedy like a car crash. And yet one can hardly look away. If I may, without butchering the adjective beautiful, let me say that failures are beautiful tragedies we look back on to remind ourselves to be humble and take to heart the lessons emerging from such.

I say this out of a recent revelation that was brought to my attention. We may choose to try or we may try to choose. Either way seems the most sensible course of action. What is not an option is giving up. Imagine a striving swimmer with the goal of finishing first place in the olympics in mind. The easiest way to achieve the athlete's goal is to train hard. The hard way is if the athlete juts sits around not doing anything. We really have a perverted sense of easy and hard. I believe advertisement did a work on us. Fast food chains say they deliver food fast, but what if my primary need isn't speed? Convenience is overrated. Hard, if you think about it, considering the essence of the word, is easy.

Our hardship is probably a preparation for something great in our lives. How we respond to it is the issue. We may find the "easiest" way out or face it-all the pain and inconvenience. The good book has told us this principle in a form of a parable, its point being that those who are faithful in small things shall be entrusted great things.

The question is how will we respond?

Sentimenting

I may have been avoiding you intentionally, but i never stopped admiring you. In fact I admire you so much, I am honestly intimidated by you; I deem distance necessary to help me stay focus. Sorry maybe appropriate a word to tell you. And I am, I really am. You deserve a prince and I am nothing like it at the moment. It pains me not to tell you how I really feel for you, but I believe wisdom dictates that I should hold my tongue until I know in my heart that I have something to offer you. You are a super imposed memory in my mind. You are pristine.

Goodbye but goodnight my hetero-heroine.

Walking away

You stretch your arms and legs and brace yourself, your half naked self, for an impact. Tonight's not any other. Instead of wounding your journal with haiku and what came to pass during the day, or marinate in the couch in front of the idiot box, you decide the temptation's too much and you go out.

And finally, the inner peace you affectionately name serenity leads you by the pool. The pool, specialists say, is a haven for children with autism, after all one characteristic of such is having the propensity to play in the water. You were once afraid of the pool after a near-death incident you had two years back.

Then you stare at the pool as if staring at an old enemy. Then you take a leap and eventually you come out fine. If anything, you are reminded of the first time you drove a car. You held tight to the wheel, ten and two position as your dad told you, stepped onto the accelerator, you thought you were going to mess it up like you messed up so many events in your life. Then you were fine to the point where your dad handed you the key and let you drive the car for another mile, and another mile and you drove for hours on end.

A few more lapses and the indelible smell of chlorine finally make you decide to emerge from the water. You look around the area. People, mostly scantily clad girls, girls not even ladies, huddle around the corner. Some dive in, others seemingly trying to get your attention, others smoke like there's no tomorrow. Like any hot-blooded male you rest your eyes on them.

But you're a man, and manhood entails you to stand up above your natural male tendencies. Real masculinity, as you have learned, is having a character of a warrior-poet, after all, as men we are called to lead and serve and offer the women our strength, not draw our strength from them. You're doing a them a great disservice and you deceive yourself when give in to lust.

You decide to get out and walk away. You conclude that the city holds a lot of temptation. Then you guard you heart. Then you walk away. You walk away.

Ironing the Irony

This is officially my first post in a long while.

-0-

In 1995 a young, seemingly troubled recording artist named Alanis Morissette came up with a single, that enjoyed a great deal of airplay, called Ironic. The song went on to be a hit despite the fact that it talked about nothing ironic. Listen and see if it would solicit the same reaction I had when I turned old enough to dissect and interpret poetry:

Alanis: An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day...
Isn't it ironic?

Me: That's not ironic, that's coincidental.

(more on this later)