emote emote

Family

Today, I was lazing around watching a Brad Pitt movie – which is all I ever do at home instead of say, cooking and cleaning – when out of nowhere my mother asks, “Why didn’t you go?”
And I said, “Where?”
And she said, “To the Family Day.”
 And I said, “Do you want to go?”
And she said, “No, but why don’t you go?”
I shrugged, “Do you want to go?”
 “No.”
 “Okay then.”

One weekend when I was in my fourth grade, I came to school all by myself for a Parent-Teacher meeting certainly not to sit there and discuss how I was doing academically or socially but to play with my friends who were there with at least one parent in tow. One of the nuns suddenly called happy sweaty panting me and said, “Charmaine, why don’t your parents come to Parent-Teacher conferences?” I can’t remember what my response was but I do remember wondering if I was in any kind of trouble which at that time was not entirely uncommon. Sister Bernie assured me that I was not but added in a very concerned tone, “Charmaine, you tell your parents that if they love you, they should come for Parent-Teacher meetings.”  So off I went to relay the message to my father and mother, who both burst out laughing. My mother then asked almost dismissively, “Do you doubt how much we love you?”
And I said, “No.”
And she said, “Do we really have to go?”
And I said, “No.”
“Okay then.” 

The school though would continue to call my parents especially when I got myself into trouble. Sometimes after a visit to the principal’s office, I‘d get a dinner-table lecture about goodwill to all men. Sometimes, they’d rally behind my cause with their own twisted sense of justice.

I, for instance, never really got into any trouble for snapping back at elders which in most households was considered a disrespectful thing to do. At home, honesty was the best policy. Authority, just as leadership and credibility, was earned. It was never said that age and wisdom went hand in hand at all times. And it was clearly established that even bratty seven-year-old kids have the same right to free speech as any adult. Everything was up for discussion and in one of those discussions it was unanimously agreed that yes, living things are not limited to things that move. Yes, a plant is a living thing. Yes, it’s not going to move from one corner to another on its own. Of course, you can say so. It was agreed that it'd be a little bit obnoxious to embarrass an honest hardworking  school teacher but the team was nonetheless behind me on that one.

I did not get in trouble too for fighting for as long as it’s not with someone younger or female and my actions do not result in any permanent disability.  My father had a set of clear never-to-be-broken rules of engagement but he was on the whole okay with the idea of me being involved in occasional brawls. The general rule was that it was justifiable in self-defense or after great provocation. My mother of course preferred that I kept the collars from being torn off my blouse but if it could not be helped, it could not be helped.

Way back in the '80s when physical punishment was still an acceptable and common form of correcting misbehavior and instilling positive values, my parents sat me down and told me, “Charmaine, you must not let anyone hit you. Not even your teachers. Not even us.” So all throughout grade school, I’d tell my teachers that my parents said that I should not be hit, spanked or slapped in any part of my body because that teaches a child that violence is sometimes justifiable and it never is.  (Unless in self-defense.)  Needless to say, I was a nightmare. (Once though, I did get spanked with a broomstick in the butt.  I let my sixth grade teacher swing the wooden stick right to my tushy but that was mainly because I was beginning to feel left out.)

My parents did not care about ranking well in school but if I could do better and didn’t, I was certainly told – not always gently.  So here I am a constant disappointment to myself because everything could be better and better and better and it just has to be.

Now, 20 years later, my mother sometimes looks at me with such belligerence as though she was battling with a monster she had created.  And because I am in fact a monster, I snap back and say, “This is all your fault you know.”  She moves from angry to seething but I really do mean that in the best possible way.

Today was family day at work and truth be told, I really wanted to go. Not for the fun and games because I’m not really into that kind of stuff and neither is my mom.  But family days in whatever size and shapes are nice. Families in whatever size and shape are nice.  Mine is kinda nice. Funny at best, indifferent on occasion, combative in general but nonetheless nice. 

To my family, I cannot promise to cook and clean because as you know I am a nightmare. But I want you to know that I intend on behaving like a difficult seven-year-old brat for the rest of my life. I promise with all my heart to be bitchier with every passing day.  Not even your worst nightmare will get me. I promise not to ask for a pony, a hallmark card or any of those chummy gestures of love. I’ll torment the boys for those.  With you, I promise to be just as sure as I am standing here. Father, this is especially for you: I promise to whack people who hit me…first. No need to do it yourself because hell, under the circumstances that would just freak them out of their minds. Mother, for you: I promise to never let any sound drown out my voice, which very regrettably sounds more and more like yours everyday. Finally I promise to let this constant disappointment define my life so that one day I will die with something better than good. 

Because parents across the universe are all the same.  They nag us about a million different things every day.  They will require that we make them proud.  They will require that we extend goodwill to all men.  But they really only ask one thing as we get ready to leave home for what they already know to be a mad world and there is only one response that’ll work.

Mommy and Daddy, life with all its the possibilities of being alone, silenced, overpowered and hurt, doesn’t scare me. And because it is in selflessness that family finds it grandest moment, that is enough.

The Love Blog

Because I've been wanting to for quite a while now, because it makes me giggle a little, because it makes me teary-eyed a little, because I need to re-learn a few things I thought I had already learned, I‘m opening up my ex files. 


Understand two things though: first, that this is by no means complete because there are stories I cannot tell and that makes me very sad; second, that none of this is real because as a matter of fact, love is blind. It is even blinder when it sits beside me Sunday mornings for a cup of coffee and some conversation. I say to love, “Do you realize that you will live forever?” And because my conviction is as infectious as my sunshine, it gives me a thoughtful look and a quiet nod. 


I cannot tell everybody the circumstances in which we first met -- love and I -- because I do not want to give my uncles, male cousins and all my other substitute brothers a heart attack. Let’s just say that I held its hands with all my heart while world span beyond comprehension. White picket fences then were for the old to shelter their fears of being alone. I had no such concerns. I was never to be alone, never to fail, never to grow old and get ugly and all I had to do was say, “Candy” and love would trade me one for a smile.


Then I lost love because it was not meant to stay just yet. Youth is precisely for getting things mixed up so that ideally when you get a certain age (for example, 29) you can put mixed-up things back in the right order again because such is the job of grownups. Ideally, that is.


I found love again while roaming strange street corners, living at nights, downing unhealthy amounts of gin-po, and losing at games I couldn’t play. Love was with someone else then and although it shared my laughter, played my games and held my hands, it did not really want to be with me. Love had its own thing going and would later send me a very emotional text message which read, “Thanks a lot. You didn’t know me at all.” But what love did to me then was far worse: it did not at all see me.


And so I go on to Cebu for my first real job and for my first real boyfriend. Up until this day, it remains doubtless that we were happy in the most normal sense. Love decided to let me have it easy for a while. It was the time to give me my sunshine back, buy me candy while I was drinking, hold me by the elbows when I wobbled yet insisted that I was perfectly all right, get me extra rice when I was ashamed to ask, wait outside my door when I was angry and jealous, meet my friends when I felt like being a socialite, and listen to me sing even though I didn’t get the lyrics to his rock favorites right. I left promising to be back but love knew better than to believe that. I meant to be back though. I really really did.


Love must have taken this against me though, because the next time it appeared, it was on a motorcycle at an ungodly hour asking me if I wanted a ride. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. And let us leave it at that.


And nobody believes me when I say this but once in a while, love gets multiple personality disorder. I, in fact, have firsthand experience. One day, it came up to me and said, “Hi, my name is Fun.” And I said, “You are not Fun. You are Love.” And it said, “No, seriously I am Fun. If you want, I’ll prove it. I will cheat on you and then I will leave.” And so love, who believed himself to be fun (such a psycho), ran off with some other girl in Australia. It didn’t matter. I knew it was love because love always carries in its pocket a bunch of laughter that jingles a certain way. I recognize the sound every time.


What I learned though, after all this mad loving and disastrous breaking, is that it is not enough to find love. It is not enough to recognize it in its moments of ridiculous disguise. Some waiting may be necessary. 

Because entirely on its own, it has to come up to you looking all cocky and sure, and say, “I think you’re annoying, but for some reason, I can’t ditch you so we might as well stay together. And just so there is not a lot of hassle, I will try to be nice to you. And I suppose I'll take care of you because you're a little pathetic on your own.” And then of course you say, “You have some nerve. It’s not like you’re hot stuff. As a matter of fact, I think you are very mean. If it weren’t for my sunshine, you would be a very sad man with a very dark aura. But okay… since you beg.” 


With some luck, you might both find yourselves -- far far into the future -- on one of those quiet Sunday mornings sitting at the front porch staring at white picket fences. If you get this strange inexplicable feeling that something inside you will live forever, then maybe you’re good for life.

Because you know

You know you're bored, when late at night, you dance all by yourself to Ghetto Superstar, Getting Jiggy with it, Unbelievable and then after Macarena, sit back down panting and think, "Now what?"

You know you're a little sad, when having been tired of dancing, you decide that next best thing to do is to put together a playlist, which you will artfully entitle, Sorrow.

And you know you're not only bored and sad but you're also bitter because when you get a rare opportunity to meet a real life model, who is as hot in real life as she is in the photos of the magazines you write for (and not pose for), you secretly bet yourself she's an idiot. And you giggle a little bit because as it turns out she kinda is.

That's not actually the only way of being able to tell that you're bitter. You also know you're bitter when you look at wedding photos with love dripping off of them like sickeningly sweet skin-sticking dirty yellow honey, and you find yourself overcome by such unshakable certainty that the groom is gay. And then you launch a very lengthy speech about how you can always tell when love is real because the couple glow in each other's presence, and clearly these two, who just made the biggest mistake of their lives, don't.

You know you're not only bored, sad and bitter, you likewise realize that you're shy and a little paranoid because the prospect of walking into a room full of people, makes you think to yourself: Oh shit. You know you got it bad because the great misfortune of leading the prayer in the company flag ceremony makes you want to file sick leave. There goes your life as a social-climbing drunk and you start building a very emotional relationship with your computer and a software called Utorrent. Whenever you feel that this is just way too much isolation, and that it is absolutely imperative now that you connect to the rest of the world for your own sanity, you surf through the pages of Facebook and chat a little.

There truly are so many things you can learn about yourself when you sit down and think about it. You can even reasonably guess what you were in your past life. For example, if grooving to Cher's "Do you Believe in Life After Love?" strangely enough makes you feel better on a really bad day, clearly, you were once gay.

And you know you're weird too -- in this life and possibly in the last -- because everybody gossips about the fact that you are but you're the only one who doesn't think so. Not only that, you really truly honestly believe that you have never met stranger and sadder men and women in your entire life. The only reason that you're weird and they're not is because there are more of them.

Finally, you know you're not only bored, sad, bitter, shy, paranoid and weird, you're also nasty because you write a statement like that in a public blog even though you know they'd be able to read it. For a moment, you hesitate. But only for a moment. In the end, your mouth forms a hint of a smile, slightly sheepish, and you say: Guys, you know it's only literature....

And then suddenly, just like that, you know you're happy already :)

Mickey

I have to get rid of this small Mickey Mouse myself because Mom is not home and I just can’t take it anymore. So out of the closet came the trap and into a corner which I felt was strategic.  Because I always make it a point to know my audience and all other targets for that matter, not too long after I set up trap, Mickey Mouse indeed ran through the glue board.  He was too fast and too small though. And so cheating gravity, it managed to extricate itself from the adhesive. 

Obviously then, the wisest course of action was to move the trap into another strategic corner in the hopes that Mickey would be daft enough not to recognize the trap if he saw it again.  But you see I have never done this before. This being new to me, I suddenly got curious and wondered: Would Mickey be daft enough to fall into the same Trap if it remained in the exact same place looking the exact same way  or is the little rodent smarter than me? 

I wondered too whether it is true what they say that the likes of Mickey Mouse strike back after perceived attacks by chewing on your stuff because the strike back is as instinctive upon all animals as fear and territorialism.  Cats will scratch your eyes out when you step on their tails and dogs will bite your hands off when you get their food.  Mickey Mice, being less confrontational than other animals, attack your stuff.  I read in a book that they have a distinct ability of sensing when something or someone is less able to fight back. 

I’m more inclined to believe though that the holes they leave on plastic wares have less to do with anything else than raw need. Perceived attack or without, the Mickey Mice of the world chew on stuff for the same reason that seagulls lunch on fish. And they’d be like, “Nothing personal, Man. I’m just hungry.”  Mickey chews on stuff because it’s the next best thing to food conveniently laid out on the floor.

But just in case it makes a difference – there is no harm in trying – I began to speak in my most reasonable tone, “Look Mickey, wherever you are, I know you can hear me.  It is not my wish to harm you. However, you here in my house is not good.  There are sanitary standards to conform to.  Since obviously you will not listen to reason (I make no judgment here; A rodent’s gotta do what a rodent’s gotta do) you leave me no other recourse. This is not aggression only self-defense.”

I know my speech is not going to help. It will continue to chew on my stuff until it gets stuck onto the adhesive.  And that’s the one thing I genuinely envy about Mickey: being guided by nothing else but instinct without any regard for sanitary standards, house rules and general sense of decency. Won’t you tell me this before you die: Are you happier? I actually think that you may be.

***

Development: It did run onto the same trap in the exact same place. LOL. Cute.

Hair

I’ve always been a short-haired girl.

That somehow comes with a lot of other qualities that rightly or wrongly I attribute to myself. No girl for instance has ever won the Ms. Universe pageant donning a bob cut. And so growing up, I came to regard myself as NOT a long-haired girl although certainly I had dreams of wearing a long gown and a tiara waving to a sea of gooey eyed admirers. I, unfortunately, was slightly allergic to my own hair so rashes and other very unpleasant things appeared on my ears, neck, scalp, and other places that my hair touched. So every so often, my mother, after giving me a warm bath with guava leaves, would drag me to Manong Junior’s tiny parlor in the town market to get a trim. Manong Junior was the first gay friend I loved because he was quiet, efficient and very fast.  He was my first and only stylist, one who was very patient with my bored and not to mention rude little head as it turned to stare at other waiting customers when it was supposed to not move.  His were the gentlest hands ever to hold a pair of scissors though and my parents and I liked him very much.    So over the years, I came to accept that I was never going to be a long-haired girl for the same reason that I never had any chance of being class secretary  (because that was for long-haired girls) and that I should find my own place in this world as a short-haired  girl.

And so my hair was short the first time my mother brought me to a new place called school. It was still short the first time my teachers said I could dance in center stage and play the angel in our annual reenactment of the birth of Christ. It was short the first time I reduced to tears a boy with my bare hands. Short still, the first time my heart skipped a beat and I learned the meaning of the word, “crush.”  It was also short the first time I took a jeepney all by myself to yet another new place called high school.   It was short the first time I realized that I was not the smartest person in the world (what a catastrophe!) and 13 was the highest place my best efforts could take me.  It was short the first time I figured that boys are biologically wired to be gooey eyed around girls, long-haired ones mostly. It was short the first time I felt a kind of smallness and ugliness I couldn’t explain.  It was also short the first time I said to myself, “F@ck it,” cut class and failed Algebra.  Like I said I’ve been keeping it short. So it was also short the first time I said “Hah!” in a most victorious tone because round and round the musical chairs of life, I managed to secure a coveted seat in a good university in a much bigger city, where I was to learn that some boys did like short-haired  girls after all.

But childhood rashes could be outgrown. The moment I realized I already could, I decided to wear my hair long.  This was following some very dark years characterized by a feeling of smallness that is too ugly to explain. Every time since then that I thought about donning a bob again, I’d get all fidgety and nervous and I’d end up just having my hair trimmed by a couple of inches.  When all else fails, I was at the very least a long-haired girl.

But then today I woke up and said to myself, “Today, I shall update my look.” I began by searching the net for various ways in which I could style my long hair. Photo after photo, it was like looking at the flicker account of Ruffa Guttierez. My curious mother wanted to know what was up with me and this sudden desire to get a haircut and so I told her something we which both knew to be true, “I’ve always been a short-haired girl.”

So off I went to a younger and louder version of Manong Junior (who also told me to stop looking around) and I said to him, “Please cut my hair.”

“And make it curly.” And now, we shall see.

Free

There has never been and there will never be one man who can wisely decide a nation’s fate. I was taught my first lesson in political science while being dressed in yellow kikay blouse, shorts and matching headband way back in 1986 when I was too young to fully understand the concept of checks and balances and the lack of them.  My parents (they would later tell me) stayed up all night to wait for updates over the radio.  Bombo Radyo, in spite of directives not to air their coverage, was able to bring to us news about the peaceful revolution in EDSA islands away from Iloilo City where we lived.  We were able to experience only this much of the Philippine revolution, which astounded the world and inspired subsequent protests against bondage in other parts of the globe.

Today, 25 years after the EDSA revolution, I watch with a bit of envy video clips of the people who walked hand in hand in 1986.  I read bits and pieces of these stories of defiance, courage, compassion and unity which all together made world history and which continue to give us hope and pride whenever we let ourselves down as we stumble on the way to progress.  Egypt has just been freed and Libya is following suit but we -- in spite of our occasional poor judgement in electing public officials -- were ahead of our time.

And all I could add is that I was five years old when it happened and I wore a yellow blouse and yellow shorts and I didn’t even understand that a dictator, simply by quieting voices, can undo our collective efforts to become better people. I only knew that yellow meant free and free is what we must insist on being.

Moonlight

a short story by Guy de Maupassant 

***

Abbe Marignan's martial name suited him well. He was a tall, thin priest, fanatic, excitable, yet upright. All his beliefs were fixed, never varying. He believed sincerely that he knew his God, understood His plans, desires and intentions.

When he walked with long strides along the garden walk of his little country parsonage, he would sometimes ask himself the question: "Why has God done this?" And he would dwell on this continually, putting himself in the place of God, and he almost invariably found an answer. He would never have cried out in an outburst of pious humility: "Thy ways, O Lord, are past finding out."

He said to himself: "I am the servant of God; it is right for me to know the reason of His deeds, or to guess it if I do not know it."

Everything in nature seemed to him to have been created in accordance with an admirable and absolute logic. The "whys" and "becauses" always balanced. Dawn was given to make our awakening pleasant, the days to ripen the harvest, the rains to moisten it, the evenings for preparation for slumber, and the dark nights for sleep.

The four seasons corresponded perfectly to the needs of agriculture, and no suspicion had ever come to the priest of the fact that nature has no intentions; that, on the contrary, everything which exists must conform to the hard demands of seasons, climates and matter.

But he hated woman--hated her unconsciously, and despised her by instinct. He often repeated the words of Christ: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" and he would add: "It seems as though God, Himself, were dissatisfied with this work of His." She was the tempter who led the first man astray, and who since then had ever been busy with her work of damnation, the feeble creature, dangerous and mysteriously affecting one.

And even more than their sinful bodies, he hated their loving hearts.

He had often felt their tenderness directed toward himself, and though he knew that he was invulnerable, he grew angry at this need of love that is always vibrating in them.

According to his belief, God had created woman for the sole purpose of tempting and testing man. One must not approach her without defensive precautions and fear of possible snares. She was, indeed, just like a snare, with her lips open and her arms stretched out to man.

He had no indulgence except for nuns, whom their vows had rendered inoffensive; but he was stern with them, nevertheless, because he felt that at the bottom of their fettered and humble hearts the everlasting tenderness was burning brightly--that tenderness which was shown even to him, a priest.

He felt this cursed tenderness, even in their docility, in the low tones of their voices when speaking to him, in their lowered eyes, and in their resigned tears when he reproved them roughly. And he would shake his cassock on leaving the convent doors, and walk off, lengthening his stride as though flying from danger.

He had a niece who lived with her mother in a little house near him. He was bent upon making a sister of charity of her.

She was a pretty, brainless madcap. When the abbe preached she laughed, and when he was angry with her she would give him a hug, drawing him to her heart, while he sought unconsciously to release himself from this embrace which nevertheless filled him with a sweet pleasure, awakening in his depths the sensation of paternity which slumbers in every man.

Often, when walking by her side, along the country road, he would speak to her of God, of his God. She never listened to him, but looked about her at the sky, the grass and flowers, and one could see the joy of life sparkling in her eyes. Sometimes she would dart forward to catch some flying creature, crying out as she brought it back: "Look, uncle, how pretty it is! I want to hug it!" And this desire to "hug" flies or lilac blossoms disquieted, angered, and roused the priest, who saw, even in this, the ineradicable tenderness that is always budding in women's hearts.

Then there came a day when the sexton's wife, who kept house for Abbe Marignan, told him, with caution, that his niece had a lover.

Almost suffocated by the fearful emotion this news roused in him, he stood there, his face covered with soap, for he was in the act of shaving.

When he had sufficiently recovered to think and speak he cried: "It is not true; you lie, Melanie!"

But the peasant woman put her hand on her heart, saying: "May our Lord judge me if I lie, Monsieur le Cure! I tell you, she goes there every night when your sister has gone to bed. They meet by the river side; you have only to go there and see, between ten o'clock and midnight."

He ceased scraping his chin, and began to walk up and down impetuously, as he always did when he was in deep thought. When he began shaving again he cut himself three times from his nose to his ear.

All day long he was silent, full of anger and indignation. To his priestly hatred of this invincible love was added the exasperation of her spiritual father, of her guardian and pastor, deceived and tricked by a child, and the selfish emotion shown by parents when their daughter announces that she has chosen a husband without them, and in spite of them.

After dinner he tried to read a little, but could not, growing more and, more angry. When ten o'clock struck he seized his cane, a formidable oak stick, which he was accustomed to carry in his nocturnal walks when visiting the sick. And he smiled at the enormous club which he twirled in a threatening manner in his strong, country fist. Then he raised it suddenly and, gritting his teeth, brought it down on a chair, the broken back of which fell over on the floor.

He opened the door to go out, but stopped on the sill, surprised by the splendid moonlight, of such brilliance as is seldom seen.

And, as he was gifted with an emotional nature, one such as had all those poetic dreamers, the Fathers of the Church, he felt suddenly distracted and moved by all the grand and serene beauty of this pale night.

In his little garden, all bathed in soft light, his fruit trees in a row cast on the ground the shadow of their slender branches, scarcely in full leaf, while the giant honeysuckle, clinging to the wall of his house, exhaled a delicious sweetness, filling the warm moonlit atmosphere with a kind of perfumed soul.

He began to take long breaths, drinking in the air as drunkards drink wine, and he walked along slowly, delighted, marveling, almost forgetting his niece.

As soon as he was outside of the garden, he stopped to gaze upon the plain all flooded with the caressing light, bathed in that tender, languishing charm of serene nights. At each moment was heard the short, metallic note of the cricket, and distant nightingales shook out their scattered notes--their light, vibrant music that sets one dreaming, without thinking, a music made for kisses, for the seduction of moonlight.

The abbe walked on again, his heart failing, though he knew not why. He seemed weakened, suddenly exhausted; he wanted to sit down, to rest there, to think, to admire God in His works.

Down yonder, following the undulations of the little river, a great line of poplars wound in and out. A fine mist, a white haze through which the moonbeams passed, silvering it and making it gleam, hung around and above the mountains, covering all the tortuous course of the water with a kind of light and transparent cotton.

The priest stopped once again, his soul filled with a growing and irresistible tenderness.

And a doubt, a vague feeling of disquiet came over him; he was asking one of those questions that he sometimes put to himself.

"Why did God make this? Since the night is destined for sleep, unconsciousness, repose, forgetfulness of everything, why make it more charming than day, softer than dawn or evening? And does why this seductive planet, more poetic than the sun, that seems destined, so discreet is it, to illuminate things too delicate and mysterious for the light of day, make the darkness so transparent?

"Why does not the greatest of feathered songsters sleep like the others? Why does it pour forth its voice in the mysterious night?

"Why this half-veil cast over the world? Why these tremblings of the heart, this emotion of the spirit, this enervation of the body? Why this display of enchantments that human beings do not see, since they are lying in their beds? For whom is destined this sublime spectacle, this abundance of poetry cast from heaven to earth?"

And the abbe could not understand.

But see, out there, on the edge of the meadow, under the arch of trees bathed in a shining mist, two figures are walking side by side.

The man was the taller, and held his arm about his sweetheart's neck and kissed her brow every little while. They imparted life, all at once, to the placid landscape in which they were framed as by a heavenly hand. The two seemed but a single being, the being for whom was destined this calm and silent night, and they came toward the priest as a living answer, the response his Master sent to his questionings.

He stood still, his heart beating, all upset; and it seemed to him that he saw before him some biblical scene, like the loves of Ruth and Boaz, the accomplishment of the will of the Lord, in some of those glorious stories of which the sacred books tell. The verses of the Song of Songs began to ring in his ears, the appeal of passion, all the poetry of this poem replete with tenderness.

And he said unto himself: "Perhaps God has made such nights as these to idealize the love of men."

He shrank back from this couple that still advanced with arms intertwined. Yet it was his niece. But he asked himself now if he would not be disobeying God. And does not God permit love, since He surrounds it with such visible splendor?

And he went back musing, almost ashamed, as if he had intruded into a temple where he had, no right to enter.

***

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents.

This Ridiculousness That Sells

Family members spend a lifetime teaching us the basic safety precautions of life: look to the left and right before crossing the street, don’t fall in love too early or too much, save pennies for rainy days and stay away from deals that aren’t fair and the people who offer them to you. Priests, nuns and nosy co-workers – our spiritual consultants having lived life far more righteously than we have – spend as much time at pulpits and office cubicles warning us against worldly pleasures that seduce us into ruining our lives now and in the afterlife.  In the world is a concerted, highly organized and not mention, unceasing effort to impress upon us the importance of living life sensibly and piously and actually all for good reason.  Life doesn’t have to be complicated.  Study well in the early years of your life, find an honest job after learning all you need and marry a hard working man who would be happy to have you. This is the easiest most sensible course of action, and one which we have no reason not to take.

Still, we hear a story about two star-crossed sweethearts, who speak of love through a crack in the wall, run away into the night, and stain the earth with their blood because life is absolutely unimaginable apart and we say that right there is true love knowing full well that taking one’s own life is – as a matter of clinical fact— a clear sign of psychological disorder.

We listen to Kate Beckinsale in her adorable English accent saying that in that one moment beneath the pale moonlight, it was as if the world existed only for her and John Cusack, who unlike 97% of the average male (who are straight) believe in destiny.  And as the story unfolds, the universe does in fact conspire to bring them together. Everywhere else in the world, there is hunger and strife with no apparent intervention from the universe: people have very little to feed their children, a freedom fighter’s wife weeps amidst air raids and gunshots as enemy planes charge the sky, and the leaders of the world fancy themselves larger than the nations they serve. Still, here comes Kate Beckinsale with the audacity to claim that the universe existed for her and a soul mate and we cry.

Because every movie is our life. Every line sums up our soul. Every song is our very own soundtrack. We sing “I can’t take the distance” to someone just right around the corner probably buying a pack of cigarettes and will be back in a few minutes. We say we can relate to songs of love unnoticed, written by seventeen year-old super celebrities, which, at 30, should really be more embarrassing than romantic. 

But the romantic within us will argue this disbelief in true love, destiny, love at first sight and the whole lot is a product— not of sheer good sense — but of cynicism and bitterness.  On account of a two-week love affair, we will continue to declare with dreamy eyes that “we just know.” This, in spite of the fact that we have also “known” a couple of times in the past and it is entirely possible that two weeks later we’ll come around saying we're not all that sure after all.  We’ll be back with a different person in tow one day and we’ll “know” again.

And because we just “know,” it matters less that we’re hell-bound, broke, near death, mocked, or ostracized.  So much less.

It really is beyond comprehension how – without even the slightest intervention of the universe and despite all efforts towards our enlightenment – we allow good sense to lose to this ridiculousness all the time.  It triumphs even in places where we least expect it to, darker places in the world where people have little for their children and enemy planes charge the sky.  All we really need, it seems, is a little bit of that pale moonlight. 

Happy Valentines.

    

This week

In another continent, people have taken to the streets calling for the resignation of a president who has been in power for as long as I have put up with this world and all its crap. That's a helluva long time, I tell you. My friend, Jae, has decided to change her profile pic from an I'm-a-fashionable-geek photo to one that shows her on the street holding up a piece of paper that says "Mubarak game over." I am tempted to write a blog about freedom and democracy just to respond to so many friends who say this country of jaywalking, boozing and late-coming people needs a dictator who will whip misbehavior out of everyone and show the way to progress but I'm not going to do that. First, because it's a bit geeky. Second, because if I tried to respond, I wouldnt know where to begin and how to stop. Third, because we should give the spotlight and our full support to Egypt. I will however tell you a brief story about a foreigner who said that the best thing about the AM radio is that it doesnt rob people of imagination, which supposedly TV does. That's what you get when you live in a country where the government writes the news on air and in print so the only accurate thing you can gather from the media is the traffic report. The best thing about the radio is the news, dude. In this country, at least.


So that's what's going in Egypt. Not much here in my room at exactly 11:30 on the 6th of February. I worked only two days this week because of an embarrassingly bad cough that has kept me cooped up in my room with absolutely nothing to do but close my eyes and imagine far more interesting things waiting on my doorstep. My computer has been acting up lately; I can't hear anything from my earphones or my speakers. My DVD player is broken. And although I vowed to finish 1984, it's just way too geeky. (Many times when I was home alone and idle, it called me for more discussion on the idea that war is peace, freedom is slavery and so on but I managed to intimidate it into shutting up. And so again, I close my eyes and see what bundle of joy awaits on my doorstep.)


I dont feel like being geeky eight days before Valentines Day, which is by the way NOT just another day. The way things are going I am NOT going to have a date -- AGAIN! And I'm not going to get any more text messages reading "V-DAY sucks" to which I can respond "Down with VDAY!" because Dianne is happily married.


I am so sad. There are only four reasons that I am not absolutely depressed. First, it's a little off to be so down when the world has bigger problems: for one, Egypt needs to be free (Must not be self-centered.) Second, I have reason to believe I will enjoy the book after 1984 (Must look forward to better things.) Third, I am just never depressed. And finally, because the world can be a pretty messed up place but not when I close my eyes.