Nevermore!

(my journal entry dated July 1, 2012, a Sunday)

It took me hours before I finally set pen to paper here. I don’t know why I have this obsession that I should have something “worthwhile” to say (or write) here. Yet, here I am, writing anyway.

I’m guessing that’s the reason why ideas tend to get away from me. I’m such a perfectionist, with a lack of drive to pursue to completion the ideas given to me. The sad part about it is that I tend to take things for granted that I often fail to commit those ideas to memory for later retrieval.

Like last night, there was this idea that came to me which I had thought about writing here. But this morning when I woke up, I’ve forgotten what the idea was about, and yep, that’s the main reason why I was not in a hurry to write here. Geez! I should have written it down in that little notebook I keep around me, but no! I just had to trust that I’d remember the idea anyway and get to write it here. Well, serves me right. Now, the idea has gone away, blown off by the wind, now winging on to the open fields of someone else’s waiting mind.

What I find very disturbing about this is that…well, it’s disturbing. An idea that’s gotten away should leave your mind “empty” of it, right? Yet, it just bothers me. It’s like you made reservations for people to attend a party, and they don’t make it, and their absence is just disturbing, to say the least.

It’s the same thing with ideas that get away, I guess. Since they got away—meaning, they’re no longer in your head—that should drive them “out of your mind,” right? But no! They’re still there—whatever they are.  Oh, brain, how I love you and I hate you at the same time!

But then, perhaps, ideas never really get away. They’re still in your head, lost in some labyrinthian trap, still trying to make their way to that area where the senses can make them out into a more recognizable form. Or maybe indeed they are out there, up in the air, up in the heavens, and between us and them, all there is is a tie that is just the inkling of their temporary occupation in our heads.

It’s funny that they’re just like birds that way. They perch awhile on a tree branch that is our brain, and when they fly away, they leave behind bird droppings that serve as their remembrance of having perched there, of having existed in our heads.

But no, dear little birds. You shall not get the better of me. I won’t give up half my kingdom for you. I have plenty of other things to think about. Your distraction is but a trivial nuisance to me. I’ll be good natured about this. Au revoir, little ones! Safe journey then. [Bitter.]

The Five Senses

(my journal entry dated August 23, 2012, a Thursday)

I finally got to dispose of the large tree branch that I cut off from the Neem tree in our backyard. It took me three days to pull off the entire thing—from cutting the massive branch, chopping it up, and then disposing it. After that, I now have a stack of firewood piled up in the front yard. I wonder what I’m going to use it for.

I was thinking of cooking bulalo or halayang ube. Or goto. I was thinking of business yesterday while chopping off the smaller branches and piling up the wood. Perhaps I should open up an eatery or something.

I get uncomfortable with that word: “eatery.” It’s like it was coined by a non-native speaker of English (a Pinoy in this case) and now seeped into popular use. I’ve so long wanted to look it up in the dictionary or the internet but I keep forgetting.

Right now, in the kitchen, Ate Gina is cooking our lunch. Tatay requested for nilagang talong (boiled eggplant) with bagoong as dip; I asked for tortang patatas (potato omelet)—hmmm….ang sarap!

When I was in college (taking up Physical Therapy at La Salle-Dasma), there was this house that my classmates rented and we used to hang out there during breaks. We ate together for lunch, but one time, I fancied tortang patatas and so I cooked it, and it was surprising because some of my classmates didn’t even know what it was.

One of my classmates who grew up in the U.S. saw me “messing up” the omelet (as I don’t know how to “perfectly” cook eggs) and called the dish “pathetic eggs.” He was joking, of course. But when we were already eating, he just couldn’t get enough of it, and he once said, “Could you please pass those ‘pathetic eggs’?” Hah!

It’s such a simple dish, really. You just fry shoe-string-cut potatoes (or if you want, french-fries-cut potatoes) and then add the scrambled eggs (with salt and pepper to taste). Yummy!

Ate Gina is already done with the cooking. She said we can eat now. I said, “yes,” but, man, I still have to finish this up.

I can smell the torta beckoning to me, like in those old cartoons where the smell of a delicious meal takes the form of smoke shaped like a human hand, seducing and then lifting up the craving cartoon character by the nose. Hmmm….that’s just like what that critic said about a Rembrandt portrait—the paint was applied so thick, one could lift up the entire painting by its nose. That’s a nice incident. From food to painting. The senses.

I once did a painting about it (the five senses) for a painting competition. The theme of the contest was “Natural ang ganda ng Pilipinas” (literally, “the beauty of the Philippines is natural”). So I painted a Filipino home scene, where the mother is cooking bañgus (milkfish) stuffed with chopped onions and tomatoes, and an assortment of tropical fruits to represent the sense of taste. There was also a small sharp knife on the table and a sepak takraw ball which a young boy (the son) toys with, representing the sense of touch.

Behind them, there was a guitar hanging on one corner of the wall (sense of hearing); a mirror showing a man—the father coming in the house from work—through the reflected front door (sense of sight); and at the center, a big window letting in the breeze and a picturesque view of the Manila Bay sunset (senses of smell and of sight).

Yep! The five senses.

It didn’t win. :)

Detail from "The Five Senses" (by yours truly)

Sting and his father

(June 13 is my mother’s birthday. The feast day of St. Anthony. That’s why she’s “Antonita.” But since it’s Fathers’ Day, this “writeup” is about fathers. It could be about my father (whom I don’t get along with sometimes) or your father, or just about anyone whom we didn’t get along with and they died without us having expressed our love for them. I’m thinking if one day, years from now, after Tatay had passed on, I would be following the same line of thought as Sting did in this song. I think I would. I write this because Nanay would have liked me to write this, even if it’s her birthday.)

In 1989, Sting’s father died. Suffice it to say that Sting (Gordon Summers) and his father had a difficult relationship. In the song “Why Should I Cry for You?” Sting was questioning the conventions of showing love for someone. I heard somewhere that he did not attend his father’s funeral. Big rock star that he was then (and still is, in my opinion), he did not want to turn his father’s funeral into some kind of circus/carnival for the press, fans, etc. Had he been at the funeral and cried over his father, would that have sufficed as evidence of his love?

However, despite his seeming indifference, his father’s death was a terrible blow to him which took him years to come to terms with. And then in 1999, he released the album “Brand New Day,” which included the song “Ghost Story.” It begins at dusk:

I watch the western sky
The sun is sinking
The geese are flying south
It sets me thinking....

With the approaching night, Sting is haunted once again by the memory of his father.

I did not miss you much
I did not suffer
What did not kill me
Just made me tougher....

Despite this “obliviousness” to his father’s death, there was something about the winter landscape that was urging him to go to “trial” again—re-examine his feelings for his father.

I feel the winter come
His icy sinews
Now in the firelight
The case continues

Another night in court
The same old trial
The same old questions asked
The same denial....

He stays awake the whole night through, keeping himself warm by the fire, staring at it for answers, while all around him, the dark of the night awaits his defense.

The shadows closing 'round
Like jury members
I look for answers in
The fire's embers

Why was I missing then
That whole December?
I give my usual line:
I don't remember....

Was it a December when his father died? Or was he referring to that December of the year before his father died, which should have served as their last chance to be together for Christmas? In any case, Sting did not make it to be with his father that December. He assumed that with his busy schedule, not making it to the occasion was understandable; whatever he was busy with at the time was not worth mentioning: “I don’t remember….” But now, another December has come and haunts him with that memory:

Another winter comes
His icy fingers creep
Into these bones of mine
These memories never sleep....

And then he realizes that all those years, he had been making up all those excuses (a “cloak” which he wrapped himself in) so as not to be with his father.

And all these differences
A cloak I borrow....

Yet, despite their differences, despite the distance between them, Sting concludes nonetheless that he must have loved his father all the same:

We kept our distances
Why should it follow
I must have loved you?

Sting questions the gap in logic, though. “We hated each other, but how come I am now realizing I must have loved him?” The answer is a mystery, which Sting nevertheless provides: It is that force that renders all his resistance futile, his excuses lame, and his denials mere delusions; the most powerful, most mysterious force of them all: Love.

What is a force that binds the stars?
I wore this mask to hide my scars
What is the power that moves the tide?
Never could find a place to hide

What moves the earth around the sun?
What could I do but run and run and run?
Afraid to love, afraid to fail
A mast without a sail....

Dawn comes. Another “dark night of the soul” has passed. But this time, Sting has reached a resolution. He finally accepts his “defeat” by admitting that, while masquerading in indifference, everything he did and accomplished was for his father’s approval:

The moon's a fingernail
And slowly sinking
Another day begins
And now I'm thinking

That this indifference
Was my invention
When everything I did
Sought your attention....

He finally acknowledges that all this time, his father had always been his guide, idol, and hitherto an undiscovered source of enrichment.

You were my compass star
You were my measure
You were a pirate's map
Of buried treasure....

Sting ends the song with a recap of his conclusion, amid a bevy of folk instruments and strings on a steady rhythm.

If this was all correct
The last thing I'd expect
The prosecution rests
It's time that I confessed
I must have loved you
I must have loved you.

Sting titled the song "Ghost Story" because he thought ghosts are like that: "They haunt you until you acknowledge them."

I dedicate this song and this writeup to my father. I'm a Momma's boy, but at this early I'd like this to serve as a testimony of my love for him despite our differences. Happy Fathers' Day, everyone!

“Ghost Story” (Sting)