valentines day in a place far away

with Valentine's day happening monday of last week, i find myself in hongkong because of work. it is hongkong... i keep reminding myself. and even when it was because of work why i am here, a lot of people perhaps would like to be in my shoes because of the leisure that will come alongside work in a foreign land. who can resist shopping, ocean park and its abyss ride, the night market?...

well, i thought i can. and up until writing this, i am not really 100% excited being here. well maybe it had something to do with doing what i should be doing here, work, and all the pressures that come with it.

but i know it was something else. i missed Valentines day. i know you might say that i never really missed it because its still Valentines day when i got here in hongkong but it just doesn't feel like it. as they say, home is where your heart is... and my heart is thousands of miles away.

i remember the airport check-in counter lady asking me: Sir, paano yung Valentine's day mo? i just smiled and said, "sayang nga eh."

i know, the best valentines day would be with someone you love, that simple, wherever you may be, as long as you are together...


valentines

valentines,
roses and chocolates
stuff toys and gifts
excitement in planning
exhuberance in giving
heavenly bliss.

valentines,
thoughts and feelings
words and writings
inspiration all abound
caring hands all around
wonderfully sweet.

valentines,
wanting and needing
wishing and hoping
heavenly bliss
wonderfully sweet
dreams of you and me.

sleepless in cainta

hahaha. my title has obvious reference to sleepless in seattle. for those of you who do not know the movie, it starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. it was of romantic-comedy genre and was about destiny...

but the title offers more truth than the obvious reference to the movie. for sometime now, i find myself unable to sleep immediately. i usually resort to either watching tv, reading a book, or writing in my journal until my eyes tire themselves out.

but how come i can't sleep?

let me refer you first to something from the movie sleepless in seattle. the scene was during the phone interview with Samuel Baldwin (Tom Hanks) by Dr. Marsha Fieldstone of Network America. Sam was dragged on the phone by his child Jonah so that he can have some help from a clinical psychologist, who was also hosting a radio show. Dr. Marsha (that's how she wanted Sam to call her), asked what about Sam's wife did he liked the most.


... it was a tiny million things that when you add them up all together, you just knew you were meant to be together. and i knew it! i knew it the very first time i touched her! it was like coming home, only to know home like you've never known before. i was just taking her hand, to help her out of the car, and i knew it. it was just like.... magic.

although it was only in a movie, those lines depicted how much Sam loved her wife. how a man should sometimes cease to find reason for feelings of love and just believe in magic.


that is the reason why i can't sleep... the feeling of magic... i felt it, i am continually feeling it. i never planned to feel this way especially after what i went through last year... but i am feeling it now. it must really be magic.

and like Sam, there was one instance when i knew. and it was really simple. i just took her hand to comfort her during a difficult time and it wasn't even us holding hands. it was more of my hand over hers. but i knew it then, i felt something. i was concerned for her, i didn't even think about anybody or anyone else. my whole being was focused on her, on what she is going through, on what i can do to help. that time, i knew she meant more to me that what i previously thought.

it was my hand over hers... and i knew it! it was just like... magic!

thoughts during sunset

..the following piece was taken from my 2001 office diary. dated November 3, Saturday; i vaguely remember sitting in our front porch looking out. then i wrote this....

the world is how we make it

ever catch that few minutes before night time actually sets in? the time when you can't actually see the sun anymore except for its yellow-orange like reflections on the clouds? you can still see the blue sky, not exactly as bright as earlier but enough to see the clouds that are forming opposite where the sun sets.

in these few remaining moments of light, you could hear the serene tunes of the night wind blowing. you could see the few remaining birds flying in silhouette. you can feel calmness.

as the night post light opens, you have come to realize something, something that these few minutes provided you with... the beauty and grandness of the world. the ongoing phenomena of light-dark-light. the wonder that amid the attached gloomness darkness may bring will also give you hope that light would still be there in the form of the post light, the early visible stars, or the mysterious moon when it finally shows its face.

we find comfort that amid all these, HE is there for us, showering us with beauty! these few minutes before darkness showed me something i would be treasuring forever. for it showed me beauty, hope, comfort, and the realization that the world is how we make it. i choose to make it WONDERFUL.

anybody want a cigarette?

i have posted here, my only 2 works that was published somewhere, sometime ago. one piece i made just recently (actually a couple of months ago) , an essay, i thought i could pass on into Youngblood again and hoped to be published. but since Youngblood has sort of re-formatted into publishing only one work per week, i knew my chances to have this one published is slim. so i decided on the next best thing, posting it here in my blog... after all this was meant to be a repository of words and writings...

i made this essay several months after a particularly painful event in my life. it came when i was in a crossroad and i had to choose whether to continue with the road i am trekking now or to go a different direction. following what i was feeling at that particular point, i chose the latter.

in the realm of writing something true and heartfelt, this was one that would be true to my ideals in writing... that is putting into words, the emotions and feelings that i have...


yosi tayo!

One of the things I was proud of before was that I never succumbed to the temptations of smoking. I never even tried a single puff. Not even when most of my closest friends have been smoking for most of the time that we were together. Not even when I have dated several women who do smoke. Not even when I had a girlfriend who does smoke.

Then, a couple of months after my 29th birthday, I saw myself asking one of my closest friends if I can have one cigarette. With a smile that belies disbelief, he handed me one. Before I knew it, I already consumed four cigarettes. All of my friends were finding the whole thing amusing; they even took several pictures of me smoking. But for me it was never amusing, because several hours before, my fiancée and I had a major disagreement over the phone. I never told my friends about it, I just asked them if they would want to get together for a round of drinks and they accepted. During the whole night-out, we were all laughing and joking around but deep inside I was hurting. I wanted to scream and shout but I can't do that. I wanted to do something crazy, something surprising, something that is not within my character… so I smoked a cigarette, for the first time in my life.

A couple of days had come to past, after we patched things up, I told my fiancée about me smoking. She was generally surprised but knew and understood why I did it. She herself is into smoking albeit only occasionally and never out of a whim. We just didn't talk about it anymore.

Several days after, she asked me if she could smoke while with me. I asked her why but she said she just needed to smoke. I relented and then bought her a pack of her cigarette brand and a lighter. I then gave her a stick then lighted it. I took one myself and lighted it. She just looked at me. We puffed the cigarette in silence. Halfway to my cigarette stick, I felt I had enough and threw it out. I then crumpled the rest of the pack of cigarettes together and threw it out of the car together with the lighter. My fiancée looked at me and asked why. I said "I really didn't want to smoke."

The next month saw us breaking the engagement and then breaking up altogether. It was a very difficult time for me but I managed with the help of my family and friends. I was tempted to smoke again but found the strength to resist it.

Then several months after, while with a group of officemates in Tagaytay, this new girl from our group approached me and offered a cigarette from her pack of Marlboro Lights. Instinctively, I took one. That night, I started to smoke again.

Before long, I understood what other smokers are saying when they contend that it's great to smoke after a hearty meal, or that smoking while on a night out helps you when the beer starts to taste differently (roughly the same time you feel like you are nearing your intoxication tolerance level). But for me, smoking came as a challenge; if I can do something I really did not want to do (that is smoking), then I can do something my heart doesn't want me to do (to forget my feelings for my ex- fiancée). It was psychological to say the least but if I can learn to like smoking, then I can learn to accept what fate held up for me and my ex, then I can let go.

I've had different reasons for smoking. It started when I was just pissed off. Then, it became a challenge. Right now, if I do smoke, I'll do it because I am willingly letting myself be influenced by the same girl from the office (although she has a few months tucked under her belt now so she isn't new anymore) who offered me a cigarette in Tagaytay. I really have come to know her more and enjoyed her presence in and out of the office. She has added color to my life that has become more of black and white the past several months.

I long to hear her say again; "tara, yosi tayo!" This time around, I'll light up a cigarette, smoke it, and then enjoy the company of the one person that made me smile again and be hopeful for the future.