July 20, 2024
Acacia Hotel
Davao City

Bago magsimula ang panibagong taon sa seminaryo, minabuti kong mag-silent retreat. Palabiro itong Diyos na ito. Sa lahat naman ng pwedeng puntahan ay itong Abbey of Transfiguration ng mga mongheng Benedictine. Tatlong taon ang nakakaraan eh nagpunta na dapat ako dito kaso mo, lango ako noon at hindi nagawang gumising para sa flight. Pero ang Diyos, gagawa ng paraan. 

 

Pagdating sa tuktok ng Malaybalay, sa Bukidnon, iba ang eksena. Simple ang lahat. Malamig at panay ang ulan, ilang beses kong inisip wag maligo. Nagawa kong hindi dumaldal ng ilang araw. Gamit bilang guide ang librong “Becoming Who You Are” ni James Martin, SJ na base sa buhay nila Thomas Merton, Henry Nouwen, at Mother Theresa, sinikap kong kilalaning mabuti ang sarili.

 

Pinilit kong sundan ang schedule ng mga monghe. Gising sa madaling araw para manalangin, uminom ng napakaraming kape na ani nila para magising, nagsulat, nanalangin ulit hanggang bago pumikit. Yung Compline ang pinakapaborito kong sabayan sa schedule nila. Madilim ang buong paligid, ilang ilaw lang ang bukas sapat para maaninag ang itim na birhen sa ibabaw ng altar at ang tabernakulo. Paulit ulit sa utak ko ang unang linya ng kanta ni St. Thomas Aquinas: “Adore te devote, latens Deitas.” Sinasamba kita, nagtatagong Diyos.

 

Sa altar may painting ng eksena ng Transfiguration. Ang Diyos na puting puti ang damit, napagigitnaan nila Moises at Propeta Elias habang nasa bandang paanan ang tatlong apostol na manghang-mangha, ayaw na bumaba ng bundok. “Dito na lang tayo, Lord.”

 

“Anong ginagawa mo rito, Elias?” Yan ang tanong ni Yahweh sa propetang reklamador sa pagbasa ngayong araw. Yan din ang tanong ko buong linggo ko dito sa abbey. Nagpahinga, nag-recharge, kumain ng marami, uminom ng ilang tasang kape. Tumawa rin at nagkaroon ng mga bagong kaibigan. Hinanap ang Diyos na mahilig magtago sa ordinaryo. Pero ang totoo, Diyos ang naghanap sa akin. Handa na ulit bumaba at ituloy ang palabas.

 

Sa huling gabi ko sa abbey, nagpa-iwan ako pagkatapos ng Compline. Maliban sa ilang palaka at ilang uwak na sumilong dahil sa ulan, solo ko ang simbahan. Pagtapos tumunganga sa Blessed Sacrament, naisip kong umakyat sa estatwa ng Mahal na Birhen ng Montserrat. Habang nakatunganga ulit at sinisipat kung totoong ginto ba ang kulay ng birheng maitim, bigla kong naalala na 500 years ago, sa parehas na imaheng ito tumunganga din si San Ignacio de Loyola at inalay ang kanyang espada, simbolo ng dati nyang buhay na kailangang mamatay, paglamayan, at ipagpasa-Diyos. Syempre hindi pwedeng papatalo ako. Wala man akong espadang maialay sa Birhen ng Montserrat, naglitanya ako ang mga hang-ups ko sa buhay at sinabing “Sayo na yan, ‘Nay. Thank you, next na ako.”

 

Pwede na siguro yun.

 

 ———

“Dumaan si Yahweh at umihip ang napakalakas na hangin […] ngunit wala sa hangin si Yahweh. Nang tumigil ang hangin ay lumindol, ngunit wala sa lindol si Yahweh. Pagkalipas ng lindol ay kumidlat, ngunit wala rin sa kidlat si Yahweh. Pagkalipas ng kidlat, narinig niya ang isang banayad na tinig.”

 

July 18, 2024

Abbey of Transfiguration

Malaybalay, Bukidnon

Dear S,

It was a decade ago when I first met you. I still remember it clearly. You were coming down the attic stairs, wearing the same clothes from the night before. I had just arrived early that morning from an assignment in Mindanao. While I was away, the housemates had moved my things to a new place. So from the airport, I took a taxi straight to a new address forever leaving behind that Mahabagin Street warehouse we used to call home.

You were wearing a white undershirt, and at the time, you were still with my best friend. You had stayed the night at our new place. I remember how you’d play the cello while he played the violin. You were both artists, creative souls. I kept my feelings buried in a place so deep I didn’t even know it existed—at least not until a few years ago.

We met again after a few years. I reached out because I knew you were working at an offshore bank in BGC, and I had just tried my hand at corporate work there. I landed a job at a forex company. Back then, BGC was just a patchwork of scattered buildings surrounded by empty lots. On my first day, we met up for a quick lunch. We kept meeting now and then until I left that job. Corporate life wasn’t for me, and by then, you and my best friend had already broken up.

The next time we saw each other would be years later.

Fast forward to 2021. That was the year I told my live-in partner that perhaps God was still calling me to be a priest. I saw you on social media and decided to reach out. We met for a meal, and afterward, you insisted on bringing me back to the little store I was about to open. It was a July afternoon. The rain played with the light, painting everything in soft colors. When I was left alone afterward, I felt something, something like a spark. Did you feel it too? Did I ever tell you I was discerning a calling?

From that point on, we became inseparable. Maybe it was me who insisted we spend almost every weekend together. We tried new things. You introduced me to the art of coffee. We explored hidden spots: run-down Chinese restaurants, old bakeries that stopped selling bread by midday, and this old Japanese resto in Timog where I could gorge on unlimited sashimi and oysters. You were crazy enough to drive me to my errands: meeting old nuns in Tagaytay, chatting with rural women who made coco jam in Quezon, walking around unsafe neighborhoods for the sake of my penchant for less-touristy spots. And when I was away for weeks trying to find God in the waves and watering holes of Siargao, it was you who picked me up at the airport, excited to hear my stories. I told you I found God there. But the truth is, God found me.

“Let’s try the mountains this time,” you said. So a few weeks before your birthday, we went to Baguio. At the hotel, we shared the same bed. You didn’t mind. Sex was never on the table. But that week, sleeping beside you, I could feel something shifting. First, my labored breathing. Then, the awkward way I’d position myself so I wouldn’t have to look you in the eye. Then, at night, when we said goodnight, my heartbeat would finally slow down, and I’d fall asleep next to you. You looked incredibly beautiful in the golden light of sunset. Your smile glowed. I’ve never looked at sunsets the same since those afternoons in that mountain city.

I knew how much you loved the stars, especially at night. But it was always cloudy. So on our last night, I had an idea. We drove through Pinewoods to look at the city lights of Baguio, like a manmade galaxy of a hundred million stars. We stood there in silence, as close as two friends could be, staring at that artificial constellation of lightbulbs, streetlights, and headlights.

Every night we parted, we’d hug tightly. I’d wait until you got home, and our goodbyes would continue in the chat. I spent holidays with your family. Your mom and I would spend long afternoons talking about everything and nothing. We said “I love you” to each other in ways we never defined, but we were deliberate in saying them. Maybe to you, it meant something else. And to me, it meant… something. Before you, I never knew intimacy could look like this. This fine, fine line between platonic and romantic. To me, and perhaps more truly to you, it was enough.

You knew my deepest desires. My darkest secrets. Even the ones I hadn’t yet dared to name. You saw how I wrestled with a string of lovers, inebriated sexcapades, family baggage, and ego-driven rants about work. Through it all, you looked at me with tenderness. Maybe that’s why I was - am - so drawn to you. Why did I meet you again in the strangest of times? God, are You somewhere in all of this?

Perhaps it was your understanding of the universe that made me fall for you. While I talked of faith and religion, you spoke of the cosmos and the human condition. Yet somehow, we always arrived at the same truth. Elegantly, and without disagreement. We talked about the universe in ways that stirred our souls. Consider this: we all came from a single point. That the stars had to die and explode. That our atoms have been traveling together through time and space, only to become you and me, at this moment in the history of humankind. I often wonder: what did it take for you to become this gentlest, wisest, kindest soul I’ve ever known?

In one of my medieval philosophy classes, I learned about two kinds of time. One is nunc transiens, the “now that passes.” That’s the time we all know, a chronological sequence of moments. But the other is nunc stans, the “now that stands.” It’s time as God sees it: one eternal moment where everything, everyone, everywhere exists all at once. Looking back on our years of shared moments: meeting and parting, finding and losing. I begin to understand this eternal now.

I could’ve told you, with courage, that I wanted you. That I could walk away from this calling I’ve obsessed over my whole life. But I let time pass. I was foolish. I stayed silent. Not because I feared you’d run away. No, it was something else that held me back.

But there comes a time when a man must choose. I didn’t want to keep sitting on the fence, keeping every door open. So one day, I told you: I wanted to try this call to priesthood one last time. Try . That was the word. Going back to the seminary doesn’t guarantee anything. You knew that. But what was clear to me was this: I needed to find out, once and for all, if my desires were God’s desires too.

You congratulated me. You affirmed my decision. You said you wouldn’t have it any other way.

The last time we saw each other, you picked me up and drove me to the seminary. You waited until I was indeed, inside the hallowed walls I will call home for many years. Then you drove away and never looked back. That was three years ago. No calls. No messages. Almost no trace of the time we once shared.

S, did you really give me away to God?

——————————

From the right perspective (and yes, unfortunately one that three-dimensional creatures like us can’t see), all of time would be laid out before you, every instant that has ever existed or ever will exist.

There’s really nothing more real about this moment right now than moments that are billions of years in the future or millions of years in what we think of as the past. Not only am I made of life and death, but I am, individually, all those things at once. The earth has not formed yet. The sun has died and all the stars gone dark for uncountable trillions of years. Now.

I think of that when contemplating love and loss; it helps me, honestly just a little, but it does help me, to deal with the fear and loneliness that are as much a part of my life as breath. I’ve said to my husband, “When the universe began, I was holding your hand, and when the universe ends, I’ll be holding your hand.” And we actually believe that to be literally true.

Michelle Thaller, Finding meaning in the vastness of the universe

——————————

July 15, 2024

Abbey of Transfiguration

Malaybalay, Bukidnon 

I never devoted specific moment before to analyze where the ardent attraction to my faith comes from. It has never occurred to me to examine the sources of such attraction and how I came to appreciate my Catholic faith with a deep and profound reverence. But reading the short sketch of Merton’s life, I resonate with his way to conversion through various ways - he came to know Christ and decided to convert to the Catholic faith through his intellect, through art, through his emotional life, and through the example of the few Catholics he knew. 

I am not a convert like Merton. I grew up Catholic in a household that put primacy on piety and service in the parish. I remember the afternoons when my Amma would gather us siblings and cousins to pray the Angelus and to say the Rosary. We knew better than to hurry back home from playing after the first stars appear in the sky. Whoever is late in the orasyon will earn an earful. Looking back, it was my first exposure to the faith my Amma would hold so dear until the very end of her life.

But I grew up and became more critical of things around me. At the very young age, I know I will not be satisfied by simply obeying.  I have to know why and I had the itch to find out for myself what is this living a certain faith must be like. I joined Bible studies or bukluran where I would always be the youngest attendee carrying the biggest Bible. I can find the correct verse rapidly. I knew all the songs. My reflections were very adult. Everyone in the neighborhood would want that their children would be just like me. But it wasn’t simply enough. So I found myself getting active in the parish as an altar boy. Then a lector. Then a member of the youth ministry. Then a close aid of the parish priest. Those years serving in the Nativity of Our Lady Parish were the most formative of my life. I learned to love the human aspect of my Catholic faith. I learned that gossip and friendship can come hand in hand, that friends and foes can have common grounds, that parish life is exciting and thrilling if you have the knack for it. My friends come from both poor streets and gated villages of the parish. I never felt different from the other teens my age and we all treated each other despite knowing some of us are effeminate. Old people would suspect and talk in hushed voices but among those of my age and those who knew better, our sexuality was never a hindrance in our participation in the parish life. Despite all its imperfections, I found my parish life a strong foundation for a deep sense of who I am. In God’s eyes, I was made as fearfully and wonderfully like the others.

As I finish high school, I developed a deeper sense of social involvement. I had classmates in Quirino High School who often get into trouble with the admin for organizing students and attending rallies. Two of them, Carlo and Hiyas Laya, were some of the most eloquent speakers I ever encountered. They had passion in their speech and even greater passion in their deeds. Add to the fact that they are extremely intelligent students, going to class is never their priority but can always catch up quickly. They never recruited me to join the movement, but they opened my eyes to look at life in the eyes of the oppressed and disadvantaged. Later on, I would come to know that Hiyas and her cousin went to the countryside and joined the armed struggle. I don’t know if she is still alive these days. When my first year in the Oblate seminary came to an end after a year, the same summer my mother died, I was suddenly a grown up. Everything turned messy at home from then on. Even when we are used to poverty, it was different this time because my mother seemed to make everything around her light and now she has gone. At seventeen years old, I left home and took the courage to raise myself. I faked my birth certificate so I can work in a call center company. I shared a room with several officemates and random strangers I met online, tried my best to be an adult despite all the evidences that I am just a child. After few years, I enrolled in the University of the Philippines. It was there that fate would allow me to meet a new set of friends - a collection of artistic, courageous, and joyful souls. Leroy (who is my classmate originally in Oblate seminary), and Jerome became my constants along with a series and parade of film and music majors, activists of every kind of causes, lovers, hookups, mentors, and villains - mostly gays and lesbians of all sorts.

My early twenties was a time of intellectual awakening for me. But it is as if somehow I looked for God in everything, I had an awareness of everything I consumed during those years as a faith experience. What I read, what I watch, what I devote much of my thinking, are done in the lense of my Catholic faith. Thanks to my teenage years, I looked and participated into the world of artistic freedom, existential crises, countless booze and cigarettes, perennial hunger, and revolutionary angst with my senses sensitive to anything that can mean spiritual. “There is mercy here somewhere, if I look hard enough.” I even approached relationships as an experience of finding God. Or at the very least, a learning experience. I always liked the words from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” I saw God too in my emotional and sexual encounters. I cannot help but spiritualize my experiences such that even these days, I look at every experience of my life - good and bad, carnal and sacred, mundane and profound - as God’s gentle and ever loving presence.

When I decided to quit college indefinitely to focus on building a career in development, my faith took another turn. I was a secretly a very proud young man then because I knew I am smart and capable of many things. I built my professional credential by making my way up the ladder in many non-profits and development agencies until I saw myself taking leadership and representative roles, seating on the table with people much older than myself. Despite my pride, I always find myself attracted to working with Catholic and faith-based organizations. The best spiritual and professional formation I had was with the Good Shepherd Sisters. I don’t know what they saw in me but I flourished in wisdom and in faith because of the trust they gave to me to participate in their mission. Whenever I have the opportunity to slip it into conversations, I would always declare that I am raised well by the Good Shepherd Sisters.

Even when I was no longer active in the parish, I would see to it to attend Mass and spend quiet time in front of the Blessed Sacrament wherever I find myself assigned. And even when I was in a relationship with other men, faith always precedes everything. All my exes could sense there is something deeply wired in me that despite what many calls an abomination or contrary to faith, I never had difficulty navigating through my emotional life and that of my faith. This God of mine permeates everything and I am not afraid that He will stop loving me for something I did or just being my authentic self.

The image of a water lily comes into mind. Despite how dirty the water around it, the lily plant produces the whitest flower undefiled. The lily knows its nature, purpose, and design - to give glory to God despite the harshness and impossibility of the situation.

The lily’s white flower is a silent revolt to the world around it. A dissent to everyone saying it cannot be done. I like that imagery very much.

Dear my most unfortunate beloved,

I met you online in the most decent dating app a little short of a year ago. When I met you, I was in the middle of calming raging storms inside my heart. I broke up with my partner, I was sort of going out with a wonderful person who I unwittingly has been in love with for more than a decade, and I was discerning for religious life, a call I have been delaying responding to for God knows how long. I was torn with all the life options that I was presented with. I think the right term was dread. In the face of freedom, one cannot help but feel the weight of just having one life to lead.

Meeting you was never an accident. In the realm of things which we are too human to understand, we also made it happen to meet. When I met you, I felt a strange connection and a possibility. Maybe this guy is the compromise of all things I want in life? I was never sure and wasn’t ever brave to make choices. So instead, I intentionally pursued to know you much deeper.

They said you will know a person deeper when you travel with him and it is true. You are one of the most patient and the most serene person I have ever travelled with, almost textbook stoic. You let everything happen to you – beauty, terror, me. Yet despite of it all, you remained the kind person that you are. It’s never a mask unlike many of us, your kindness is your true self all the time.

I have met too many people in my life and there was never one like you in ways that I could not put words on. It is sufficient to say that with you, I felt a very strange calmness in knowing I am wanted and longed for, yet you are so restrained to allow our freedoms to operate. You have the qualities and more for an ideal person, at least to me. Let us say that in front of you, I cannot lie. In front of you, I see a possibility of a fulfilled identity. You have that strange ability to look at me and not need too many words to understand and make me liable.

The day we saw each other the last time, I was on my way back to the seminary. I kept on delaying it because I knew that things will not be the same anymore. I am preparing to dedicate my whole life to God and here I am presented the person of you who has captured my heart in many ways I could ever talk about. It is the reason why I could not be more available than wanted because I have given up some freedoms to follow this call. I thought my job was enough to suffice that desire to serve the Lord but later, I realized it wasn’t really about the great things I want to do for Him, but the truth is in the reverse, following this call is all about letting God do all the great things to me. It’s a long journey from here and I am not even sure enough if becoming a priest is for me. Add to that the fact that I have a medical condition which many people may not be able to fully understand for now, so I keep it to a few people. With all philosophizing I have learned and read about, nothing prepared me for this crossroads.

Consider the notion “accident” and all the things you can remember that ever happened in your life. Some thinkers say life is meaningless, that what we experience is just a succession of one event after another, that there is no grand design, no order, no pattern. But another half of the world also thinks that this existence we live out is ordained, willed, and determined.

And there are people like you and me, believing in the weight of both worldviews.

You were perfect. The way your brown hair flows down your forehead to match the contour of your brown eyes, the way you form your words and how they break and make me, the little things that concern the totality of your person. I met you when there was no reason to believe that good things can come my way, when every proclivity of my heart and all my desires to be wanted and to be had had fallen into that trap of endless search for one night stands and temporary euphorias. I meant it when I told you that you picked me from my own shallowness. That when you decided to accept this wayward heart of mine, it became easier for me to relearn how to forgive others and myself.

See, you took a damaged good. But with all the uncertainties and infirmities I had to offer, you managed to make me a different person. You may admit it or not but you slowly shaped my heart and made it more human - insecure of a future for two men falling in love but fierce in choosing to continue our interwoven narrative everyday trusting that somehow, heaven will someday ordain such arrangements. We became braver. Especially you. You become this brave person capable of understanding and forgiving. And compromising.

"Are you sure about me? I may not become a rich guy and provide our future family with everything they deserve. I always just want a simple life. To live with less, so I can give to others some more."

"I'd be happy to live that life. As long as we are together."

We lived together and everything is conjugally shared. From cooking pots to bank accounts to our two beloved dogs who are now a reminder of that great love we shared, we always tried to have everything together. My pains were you pains, your joys were my heart's joys too. I thought I knew everything before we decided to be together. Yet, you beautifully taught me how wonderful it is to become vulnerable. Whenever you are sick, I can't stop thinking how I can live without you. What if I lose you because I was so selfish and careless? I knew I have to take care of you. For the second time in my life, I was afraid of losing something so valuable.

And then, it was time for us to continue our love stories separately. We had two beautiful years.

It was almost evening when I broke to you the news. You kept your cool and you seemed to agreed. It took you a while to find the right words and tell me what I needed to hear. "You are selfish." Those months when we had to share a bed knowing that despite all the love that we had, it was not nearly enough to make me stay. Those empty days when we both had to fake our smiles because there was really nothing to lose but our togetherness. I knew you were wrestling with your own thoughts, even questioning your own faith and convictions.

So I bunked into friends' for days only to return to our place in the morning before everyone would notice that I had not spend the night with my partner. I took you anger in all its forms. And then I took your deafening silence. You deserved to be vulnerable. I learned that for you, remember?

Then one quiet night you told me to come home. As soon as the dogs were tucked in bed and the lights were out, you finally faced me and said,

"I forgive you."

You are a fearfully wonderful soul.

Everyone was enjoying the cheap booze I prepared. I used to listen a lot to Hale those days and that probably their melody was filling the arid air of that night of June.

I opened the doors several times that night. You and your partner then were the last to arrive. I found you cute but that was all. I was too busy juggling work and study to think about liking you or any other person. Nothing mattered to me except that that moment was for making toasts with friends. Your partner puked just beside a welcoming potted fortune plant. He missed his fortune.

It was seven years ago and I was turning twenty.

Ah, twenty. I had my share of U-belt boys and nothing really profound. Who has figured out things about themselves at that age?

The next time I saw you was last year, you appeared in my social media accounts. I added you and thought it would be a good idea to reconnect. I simply had to.

And we talked. I shared my experiences inside the seminary and you would tell me about your daily stuff and how your love for family brought you to the Middle East. You were not difficult to like, I affirmed.

There were times when I feel that we talked like how lovers would, how you deeply cared about the tiny details of my stories. But it somehow stopped there, in that point between desire and fear, the fear of distance, the fear of how distance may affect the both of us.

So whenever you leave little crumbs of yourself in your poetry, I can’t help but think how much of those little crumbs are about me and my coward dispositions.

Maybe you like me. Maybe you really do. How will I know?

I planned to see you for Christmas but family obligations kept me from spending the holidays with you. Perhaps, some other time. Some other circumstance. But if that day comes, I’d read a nice novel until you sleep beside me.

If only you are nearer.

There is this group that visits retired priests around the country that I joined when I was in highschool. Our group fondly calls these priests Lolo Monsi, Lolo Bishop, or Lolo Father. We would often visit them in hospitals and convents where nuns take care of them. We would ask them how they are doing, what keeps them busy, occasionally we would sing with them, and most of the time, listen to them.

It was a beautiful experience of my early teen years. Once I was asked to write about my experience about the visits. I felt honored.  

Looking back, I could remember how joy and pain could impress on an old man’s face - from sick bed to their coffin, I have seen them. 

 

When do we start to grow old? Is it when we begin to be crippled and weighed down by aging bones? Is it, when all the love and all passion seem to consumed and given away, we feel exhausted and betrayed? Amos Alcott said in one of her short stories. The surest sign of age is loneliness. And upon the passing of age in our faces, loneliness is our constant visitor.

I wonder, how often loneliness will visit an old gay man. I do not have a clue. But for me, if I will be alive enough to be toothless and bald, I will always make sure that the tea is warm and the cookie jar full.

And to memories, what kinds of memories will we remember when we become toothless? Or is the most fitting question is, what memories will we forget? What qualifies the memory to be forgotten? I cannot answer. For one, I have seen many old people who remember all things that are painful.

There's a story I know about a woman who brought up four generations of children.

Now in her eighties, she is forgetful. When my cousins would get annoyed by her frequent asking, I would try to answer her again in a gentle voice. Once very recently, she got very sick and hyperventilated. I embraced her tight, that little bundle of bony figure, to keep her warm. We were like that for five minutes. She asked who I am. I said my name and held my tears. I remember you now she said.

I felt the fear of losing her. Fear of losing the woman I shared my childhood with more than anyone. The memory of a childhood she shaped and may not be able to remember.

There in my arms was the woman who cuddled me to sleep when I was a small child. I will not cry in front of her just because she forgot my name. She remembers who I am. I remember you now.

Despite all sorrows, pains and loneliness she bears, a memory of me remains in her mind. The child me. And she was glad that I was there.

Enter you. Days after that, I asked you what will happen if we have grown old and the children we brought up have their own families. Raise them well, give them what they need, teach them things that they should know. Then it will be up to them.

Beyond the fear of becoming toothless and bald, your promise of growing old together. There will be loneliness, yes. But you are a clear manifestation of inspiration. You make me believe age doesn't make us fearful but hopeful. There will be forgetting and constant complain, but in hearts that truly love, all is remembered. Aging becomes a definition of looking forward, of milestone.

I am twenty and you are nineteen. But by life and experience, we learn like from thousand years. Thus we understand. Thus we feel.

So what age makes us? It makes us love.

The breeze was cold enough for us to wear jackets and here in a small pub facing the sea, we grabbed chilled beers and flicked lighters every five minutes. It is a small pub. Anyone can remember everyone's face and name.

It was my first night in Puerto Galera, in that little shore town lined with drinking spots.


I could recall how he moved and watched and smiled at us all, like a god looking down on his playful creatures. The eyes full of wisdom and hair washed by years. He would transfer from table to table and talk to everyone- us the only locals, Frankfurters, Londoners, Aussies. I am Swedish, travel by boat and more Filipino than any Immigration officer of this country he said introducing. He owns the pub.


He went to our table, to us, two men and a woman from the smoke. He calls Manila smoke, for obvious reasons.


I like your hair he said to the woman. Long, not straight, not curly. Very Filipina. Do not change that, do not follow those women who color their hair and get rebond so they will be noticed. Do not change. You are beautiful.

He went home a little after. He was very drunk he could piss pure vodka.


Everyone got free beer that night and the Londoner gave another round next. It was difficult to refuse but I managed, my companions are engaged in cultural argument with the Aussies. With the last gulp, I picked my cigarette and took a deep breath and listen to Abba sing Fernando and began thinking about what the old man said.


Do not change. In a world that tells us change is the only precursor of beauty and acceptance is a drunk old man who tells otherwise. Lying next to you in daylight and months after that night only I realized what he means.

Para kay M

Nagtagpo tayong walang mukha

sa isang mundo.

At unti-unti

marahang marahan

di lamang ngiti

ang nasilayan ko.

Pati ang ayos at kuntento.

Ganito pala ang pakiramdam ng

dalampasigan

sa pagdampi ng mga alon

at ng pokpok na naka-quota

pagsilip ng liwanag.

 
Ikaw ang kapahingahan at payapa,
ang sakto at ang kuntento. Ang hindi kailanman inasahang darating. Ikaw ang pinanggagalingan, daluyan at hantungan.

May dalawang salitang Kastila ang sakto sayo: solo at basta.

Ikaw ay sapat na.

Huli kitang nakasama noong nakaraang linggo. Suot mo ang paborito mong shorts na pang-alis, nandun pa rin ang mantsa ng bolpen na kagagawan ko. Isang bagay lang ang nakapanibago sayo nung gabing yon. Magaling na ang sugat na tinahi sa kaliwa mong pisngi. Nakakalibog nakaka-ibig ka na ulit ngumiti. May sugat ako ngayon sa braso, naalala ko tuloy ang mga binili mong band aid. Isang kahon ng kulay yellow. At isa pang kahon na kulay blue. Ako nagpapalit ng takip sa tahi mo kapag dumarating ka. Wala, naalala ko lang.

Pano ba wakasan ang isang magandang mailking kwento? Sa pagwawakas ba ng isang talata natatapos ang isang magandang kasaysayan? Pinipilit kong alalahanin ang mga detalye. Siguro sa tagal ko na ring nahumaling sa mga ala-ala mo, nawala na ang orihinal na bersyon ng mga nangyari.

Kailanma'y di naging isyu sa akin ang kung sino ka. Kuntento ako sa payapang binibigay sakin ng katahimikan tuwing magkasama tayo. Nangako akong iibigin kita kasama ng mga bagahe mo. Pero may dapat kang simulan. May dapat kang ayusin. At ako, may kailangan akong tapusin.

Pero higit kaylanman, hindi ko kakalimutan ang aking Setyembre.

Kaya, paano nga tinutuldukan ang isang maikling kwento?

Sa salitang di hihigit sa sandaan, ganito kita iniwan.

Marami ka pang dapat matutunan, A. Kung paano ko natagpuan ang pag-ibig na sayo ko lang naramdaman, gusto kong mahanap mo ang sarili mo sa paraang ikamamangha mo. Ayokong dumating ang araw na magsisi ka dahil sa mga sinasabi ko. Hanapin mo kung sino ka at saan nahahagilap ang hiwaga at panatag ng isang malayang pamumuhay. Iba ang ikaw na nagpapanggap at ang ikaw na haharap sayo salamin. Walang dapat magsabi ng kung sino ka. Kaya hahayaan kitang hinahunin ang sarili mong unos. At ako pipiliting lumikha ng pag-ibig o maghintay depende sa agos at takbo ng buhay.

Ikaw ang pag-ibig ko sa panahon ng tag-ulan. Ikaw ang nagmulat sa akin sa payapang taglay ng paghihintay sa pag-tila nito, sa ligaya ng paglusong dito. Tapos na ko sa kasaysayang sinulat natin sa pagtatapos ng Agosto. At ngayong kailangan kitang paliparin tulad sa tutubing napatid sa patibong ng isang bata, hindi kita malilimutan.

Salamat sa malalamig na gabi ng Setyembreng ating pinagsaluhan. Pina-ibig mo ako ng wagas at lubos. Iibig akong muli. Mas wagas at higit na lubos.

Maraming salamat. Panibagong simula, lumipad ka.

When fate comes into play choice sometimes goes out the window, and that I would be lucky if I ever experienced that type of true love. At the ripe old age of 13, I was very clear that love, like life, is about making choices. And fate has nothing to do with it. Everyone thinks it's so romantic, Romeo and Juliet, true love, how sad. If Juliet was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink the bottle of poison, and go to sleep in a mausoleum, she deserved whatever she got.

 -Let it Be, Grey's Anatomy (Season 1)

If it was not for the bloggers whom you owe a lot of gratitude, you would be just home, staring at the wall that doesn't stare back. Soon that night you found yourself in Ayala. And it was raining.

How can life be so ironic than this? You laugh with friends genuinely yet deeper within, you are troubled. Storm is crushing your boat. Winds tearing your sail. You were there, drinking coffee with them and you are in somewhere else as well. You hate too much drama but this what you are becoming, the drama king. Too vulnerable and already too broken, you still decided to look happy that night wishing that somehow the stars will look down with favor at you. You were happy, friends make you happy.

But something else was in store for you that night.

On your way home, you saw him instantly, upon climbing up the bus going home, a tall good looking boy in his early twenties. He was wearing jacket and on his lap, a big sports bag. Balancing to find a good seat, your eyes betrayed you and looked at him. He was smiling, showing a set of beautiful teeth completely striking. You suddenly felt warm and remember Babit telling you minutes ago about his friends who met on a bus and has been a couple for several years now. You made a little wish that he was actually smiling at you. You hoped. And after many days and nights of nursing sadness, fireworks inside you exploded.

When Babit dropped off at Shaw, you were nervously furious. He was looking at you through the reflection on the glass window and you were looking back. He touched his crotch with his right and motioned his left signaling you to sit beside him. Very sweet.

We can find the ideal person in an ordinary or extraordinary way if we are willing to wait, you always say to your single friends.

You are not used to these kinds of introductions, I know of that for sure. Your heart was a hummingbird, it beats fast whenever you are excited. And this is not an ordinary exitement. This is an oxtraordinarily ordinary night. If this isn't fate, then it must be choice. After few minutes, you gave in. You sat beside him, held his hand and asked for his name. He showed his PRC card. The boy is an accountant.

"San baba mo?"

"Sa Tandang Sora, pauwi ako."

"Ah. Philcoa lang ako. Haha. Pasensya ha. Salamat na rin. It's not everyday that you meet someone in the bus like you."

You are a flirt. A slutty flirt. But it's fine honey, for all we do for love.

"It's my stop. Do you want to come over?" you said.

He didn't say yes or no. He just smiled with that commercial smile. You stood up and he did too, holding his bag with one hand and with the other, if my memory serves me right, your hand.

All the troubles and sadness went abay. Suddenly, you thought good things can really happen to those who wait. Even to those who wait in sadness, even to those who wait for long. The irony, all day you thought of staying home staring at the wall you filled with sweet and bitter words. In your mind, you thank the bloggers for forcing you.

So this is how boy meets boy.

That night, you slept together. Your bed was too small for two persons which made you think of all naughty things can be done in such a very limited sleeping space by two strangers. He embraced you until the morning and you wish this is the the boy you are looking and waiting for. The boy you can read your poems to, the boy who will listen to your silly stories, the boy you will choose to say all the cheesy lines from your favorite songs. For the first time ever, you felt very special. You translated it to love, a big flame of emotion from a complete stranger. After weeks of sadness you cannot identify, you had a break. You became happy again.

Destiny has nothing to do with you bringing this boy home. You played with chances, made your choice and called it fate and next thing you know, you leave everything else to grace.

Even now, I believe that for the most part, love is about choices. It's about putting down the poison and the dagger and making your own happy ending...most of the time. And that sometimes, despite all your best choices and all your best intentions... fate wins anyway.

-Let it Be, Grey's Anatomy (Season 1)