Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The old key


I lost an old key.

...The key to a wooden chest that knows many things. Big things. Things that can make distant worlds appear before my very eyes. Most are magical; they can lift me to the skies. A few are a somewhat melancholy but always with wee bits of rosy sparks by their edges.

Oh, a tiny pouch that once belonged to a bear with a band of silver hearts is in there. A scrawny note. Long letters. Some folded funny things. Stamps. Ribbons. Rose petals. Two big hearts…

Every single thing in that chest is a piece of awe. Once in there, it does not lose its sweet, fresh smell. Whenever opened, lovely chimes even hum a tune, lulled by a soft breeze that would gently blow.

My special wooden chest is indestructible and heeds only to that one key. So unlike any other...

Yet, for all its magic, only the past can reveal itself in an endless shuffle. It cannot see the future. Nothing spills a premonition.

A big flood came to my charming, modest land, one awful day. In a glimpse, we were all washed ashore. A bit broken here and there but all in one piece. More than enough to be thankful for.

Little else was left of what has been though. It was a hapless sight.

But hope sprung like wings on my feet when the special wooden chest appeared. To which I thought, “There are so many magical things in there… they can save us amidst this sad affair.”

But another tragedy came in the heels. Despite its nifty place close to heart, I lost the key. And as tragedies come in three’s, notions of what life is slowly faded… I simply plunged in misery.

And so, a search that spanned many seas was immediately set in pace. My beautiful friends with their delicate wings, bright halos and sparkly wands joined in great haste.

Deep prayers. Incantations. Spells. All that in vain.

The key was swept into the ocean’s deepest trench. It is a place where even a faint glow of hope has no chance of thriving. Or was it deliberately tossed in there by some green-eyed little creatures, which, in their tiny, obscure and hollow existence, everything is just pure mischief?

The world’s grief is their recreation.

The greatest shaman can only do miracles where miracles are supposed to work, I was told.

It took a million years for a stubborn thing called “acceptance” to snuggle in my old, weary heart. My special wooden chest had been locked forever. That is the truth.

Nowadays, a little smile has come to my lips nudged by a little sunny thought. A new chest will, one day, beckon to a special song. Maybe it will come in colors of glee. One can never tell. I’ll be patient for that one pretty mystery.

But this time, I’ll make sure it does not come with lock and key.

For what is a treasure when it is not shared? In a sad twist of fate everything can be forgotten. Nothing spared. And in this world of ours where virtues are dared, odd events, indeed, cannot be rare.

Image: http://www.publicsurplus.com/smsweb/images/ps/img_indexllave.jpg

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Singapore Post No. 4: Where you'll find the most curves


There are just too many curves in this place that apparently, many men have manifested temporary insanity seeing them…
…someone lost this boot


…another, this spoon!!!


I know… you must be thinking of Orchard Road... and that vivid imagination of yours with well-endowed women sashaying the street just leaped out of my screen!!!

Nope. This road is much too subtle. Rather quaint but can rival that shopping strip’s financial “ka-shing!” for its rich albeit tragic history.

Welcome to South Buona Vista Road!!! The only road in Singapore with more than a dozen twists and turns! Some cabbies love cruising along this sloping and winding road in Kent Ridge Park. They know by heart how many curves there are. Or so they seem. One cabbie said, fourteen? Another said, thirteen? Hmmm. I would also try to count each time but… I get dizzy!


Of course, some simply hate it. They have serious doubts over navigating this road. You just know they do. With them you pray real hard for the road to suddenly turn straight. But if I happen to have a bad cabbie—you know, the morose and ranting, or the rock-a-bye-sleepy baby, or the tire-screeching types—this one surely zaps the “evil spirits” out of them. They become quiet, with both hands on the wheel, and eyes focused on the road. Yes.


I love this road. It suits my sedentary lifestyle which needs a bit of low-impact walking exercise every now and then. When in a reflective mood, the trees on the slopes and the pavement are good company. Really. Never fails to remind me of how life is, in general—a meandering obstacle course.

Speaking of obstacles, during the World War II the British thought they had their best defense against the Japanese invaders in Kent Ridge. It was invaluable, having the best vantage point for incoming enemy ships. Sadly, as the British had their eyes towards the sea, the Japanese conquered Singapore in a stealthy come-from-behind attack by foot and bike.*

See how this bit of history deepens our insight on life? But let’s not get into that.

See you at the next curve!


*Mahbubani, Kishore. "Can Asians Think?," Times Books International, Singapore, p. 38.


Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Pico Iyer: The eloquent sounds of silence

Breathtaking sunset in the southernmost tip of the Philippines
... a moment of peace in a place of strife

PICO IYER is one of the most accomplished travel essayist of our time. Here is his beautiful piece on silence, printed in 1993 by Time magazine.

EVERY ONE OF US KNOWS the sensation of going up, on retreat, to a high place and feeling ourselves so lifted up that we can hardly imagine the circumstances of our usual lives, or all the things that make us fret. In such a place, in such a state, we start to recite the standard litany: that silence is sunshine, where company is clouds; that silence is rapture, where company is doubt; that silence is golden, where company is brass.

But silence is not so easily won. And before we race off to go prospecting in those hills, we might usefully recall that fool's gold is much more common and that gold has to be panned for, dug out from other substances. "All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence," wrote Herman Melville, one of the loftiest and most eloquent of souls. Working himself up to an ever more thunderous cry of affirmation, he went on, "Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is the only Voice of our God." For Melville, though, silence finally meant darkness and hopelessness and self-annihilation. Devastated by the silence that greeted his heartfelt novels, he retired into a public silence from which he did not emerge for more than 30 years. Then, just before his death, he came forth with his final utterance -- the luminous tale of Billy Budd -- and showed that silence is only as worthy as what we can bring back from it.

We have to earn silence, then, to work for it: to make it not an absence but a presence; not emptiness but repletion. Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below our selves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows. In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

Or simply breathe. For silence is responsiveness, and in silence we can listen to something behind the clamor of the world. "A man who loves God, necessarily loves silence," wrote Thomas Merton, who was, as a Trappist, a connoisseur, a caretaker of silences. It is no coincidence that places of worship are places of silence: if idleness is the devil's playground, silence may be the angels'. It is no surprise that silence is an anagram of license. And it is only right that Quakers all but worship silence, for it is the place where everyone finds his God, however he may express it. Silence is an ecumenical state, beyond the doctrines and divisions created by the mind. If everyone has a spiritual story to tell of his life, everyone has a spiritual silence to preserve.

So it is that we might almost say silence is the tribute we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred space, just as we slip off shoes. A "moment of silence" is the highest honor we can pay someone; it is the point at which the mind stops and something else takes over (words run out when feelings rush in). A "vow of silence" is for holy men the highest devotional act. We hold our breath, we hold our words; we suspend our chattering selves and let ourselves "fall silent," and fall into the highest place of all.

It often seems that the world is getting noisier these days: in Japan, which may be a model of our future, cars and buses have voices, doors and elevators speak. The answering machine talks to us, and for us, somewhere above the din of the TV; the Walkman preserves a public silence but ensures that we need never -- in the bathtub, on a mountaintop, even at our desks -- be without the clangor of the world. White noise becomes the aural equivalent of the clash of images, the nonstop blast of fragments that increasingly agitates our minds. As Ben Okri, the young Nigerian novelist, puts it, "When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument."

There is, of course, a place for noise, as there is for daily lives. There is a place for roaring, for the shouting exultation of a baseball game, for hymns and spoken prayers, for orchestras and cries of pleasure. Silence, like all the best things, is best appreciated in its absence: if noise is the signature tune of the world, silence is the music of the other world, the closest thing we know to the harmony of the spheres. But the greatest charm of noise is when it ceases. In silence, suddenly, it seems as if all the windows of the world are thrown open and everything is as clear as on a morning after rain. Silence, ideally, hums. It charges the air. In Tibet, where the silence has a tragic cause, it is still quickened by the fluttering of prayer flags, the tolling of temple bells, the roar of wind across the plains, the memory of chant.

Silence, then, could be said to be the ultimate province of trust: it is the place where we trust ourselves to be alone; where we trust others to understand the things we do not say; where we trust a higher harmony to assert itself. We all know how treacherous are words, and how often we use them to paper over embarrassment, or emptiness, or fear of the larger spaces that silence brings. "Words, words, words" commit us to positions we do not really hold, the imperatives of chatter; words are what we use for lies, false promises and gossip. We babble with strangers; with intimates we can be silent. We "make conversation" when we are at a loss; we unmake it when we are alone, or with those so close to us that we can afford to be alone with them.

In love, we are speechless; in awe, we say, words fail us.


Credit: The scenic sunset was snapped by Queenie Rojo

Monday, September 3, 2007

Kidapawan Post No. 2: A pair

I found these two rather ordinary-looking, neglected poles many years ago in my walks around the backyard. I haven’t quite figured out what they’re for… but I was drawn to them because they look so peaceful and comfortable beside each other.

Quite a nice pair.


Humans like things in pairs. We are wired for symmetry. Whatever is on the left side of our bodies must have something alike on the right. Something to that effect. That’s why babies find perfectly symmetrical faces more appealing.


I’ve also come across some study saying that our bodies have naturally occurring “pheromones”… some kind of odorless smell which helps us find our pair. Although this claim has been much debated since, I still find it cool. Neat.


And, yes, that great biblical story on the great flood cannot overemphasize the importance of pairs.


The underlying message in both stories is this: people are not “designed” to be alone. People need or are bound to find someone, their best possible chemical or spiritual match. Two lives can have separate meandering journeys but will cross paths somewhere. Meant to be, as they say.


For those who have found theirs, natural and biblical truths must have worked for them at a much faster rate. For those
who haven’t and for those who thought their search was over but were mistaken (a false positive, according to statisticians), that someone must be just a “sniff” away.

Isn’t that a relief?


…Just pray it doesn’t have to take another biblical event to find that right pair.

On turning 30

Ya, many of you know that was four years ago but I was kind of inspired to think of how it was when I read this blog. Somehow, I was able to relate with the author’s anxieties over having her “BIG 3-0” next year…

I remember when I was a lot younger I thought 30 was pretty old. Of course, I know now that nothing can be farther from the truth. Hmm.


Looking back, most of the memories have been brought to life by the many photos we have on year 2003. When I turned 30 it was no big deal, no hoopla... I found a picture of a little but fun office birthday treat... My circumstances had been very different at that time. I did not have the "chance" to ask my “existential questions” the year before.


It was a bit anti-climactic actually… Growing-old-by-leaps-and-bounds moment happened for me two years back when our then-newborn Enzo went through a very rough patch... My personal version of skydiving or bungee jumping. Sort of.
.. Hard-earned lessons on life’s essentials. On what else I want to prove to myself. On what my purpose is in this world.

But I remember 2003 was a very beautiful year because we started to live like any ordinary family. The heartbreaks of two years ago healed. And the best gift for turning 30 thankfully came a year early. My son has been able to hear, see, talk and walk. Despite his dreaded "terrible two stage" everything about it was a "happy problem."

A whiney toddler one moment...

A sweet little angel the next.

I realized just now that, indeed, I had a fresh page when I turned 30. It was the start of our charming little family life. And my accidental foray into social development work has really taken root.

Still, I think being 30 did not make me feel THAT old. Even so, at 34… When I’ll turn forty (with the grace of my Maker), I think, only then can I start calling myself OLD. And I would embrace it with as much fervor as I could.

We can grow old like this.