Transition Entry

#148: The Transition Begins

It's my 2nd day in Sydney. I feel better than I did during Day 0 and Day 1 when the littlest thing sent me either crying or throwing up. I remember looking back at our house and at friends I've known for more than 10 years walking away as I got inside the car. I remember praying with a friend before finally going inside the airport to leave. I remember taking a nap before take-off then opening my eyes just in time to see the lights along the coastline of the Philippines pulling away.

I arrived in Sydney in a state of trauma (thanks to this cold turkey sandwich they served us inflight in the middle of the night which I ended up pumping out of my stomach the whole morning). Andrew was missing and couldn't be contacted. I started wandering towards the bookshop. Bookshops will always provide refuge. Then I heard someone call out, "Gladys." Familiar yet unfamiliar. The only thing that was real in that moment.

And what is real now? I look out the window and see with eyes that no longer belong to a tourist. I ride the bus, no longer the BMW. I count change, bite apples and wash dishes. The thought of a massage crosses my mind but I kick it out because TonTon's Php250.00 Authentic full-body Thai Massage is no longer just 5 minutes away from the office. It is now AUD50.00 beyond my reach. I get hit on by a lesbian and it leaves me wide-eyed with disbelief for more than a moment. (Longer than normal because she's prettier than I am.) I go for a whole day without a trace of make-up and walk for blocks in flats. I pick out cutlery, haul chairs and assemble furniture. I survive a day without my cellphone, return to find its inbox not full, and I am both disappointed (because I miss hearing from my friends), and relieved, (because I am not getting charged with exorbitant roaming rates for receiving SMS.)

But I am not sad. I am not worse off. I am just finding myself in my simplest, barest form. A "me" I cannot easily recognize but which I need to embrace. As celebrated during my birthday, here is the princess turning into an outback Jack.

The process has begun.

Let Me Fall

#147: Let Me Fly

"Let Me Fall (From Cirque De Soleil)"

Let me fall
Let me climb
There's a moment when fear
And dreams must collide

Someone I am
Is waiting for courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me

So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear them

Let me fall
If I fall
Though the phoenix may
Or may not rise

I will dance so freely
Holding on to no one
You can hold me only
If you too will fall
Away from all these
Useless fears and chains

Someone I am
Is waiting for my courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me

So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear

Let me fall
If I fall
There's no reason
To miss this one chance
This perfect moment
Just let me fall



I lack words as I lack time but this describes best how I feel now and where I am. Forgive me for my silence. For my empty stare colored only by tears. I am in a state of suspension. Wrestling with a mad flurry of emotions that never fully reach the surface. They just boil beneath. And so I hold my breath as I await the one I will become to catch me.

Remembering Ingrid

#146: Excerpts from Janet Fitch's "White Oleander"

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"I saw the goat man again," she said.

"He stared at me the entire time," she said. "Barry Kolker."

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"I've been thinking about you," he said, coming closer.
"I'd rather you wouldn't," she said.
"You'll change your mind about me, " he said. He...put his arm around a pretty girl, kissed her neck. [Ingrid] turned away. That kiss went against everything she believed. In her universe, it simply would never happen.

-------------

Forced to wait, she made small, jerky movements with her arms, her hands. "Late. How despicable. He's probably off rutting in some field with the other goats. Remind me never to make plans with quadrupeds."

-------------

"Men," she said. "No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy."

-------------

She took one look at him and closed her eyes. "That jacket is so ugly I can't even look at you. Did you steal it from a dead man?"

-------------

That was Ingrid Magnussen. She made up rules and suddenly they were engraved on the Rosetta Stone, they'd been brought to the surface from a cave under the Dead Sea, they were inscribed on scrolls from the T'ang Dynasty.

--------------

...Barry told us of his travels in the Orient where we had never been. The time he ordered magic mushrooms off the menu at a beachside shack in Bali and ended up wandering the turquoise shore hallucinating Paradise. His trip to the temples of Angkor Wat in the Cambodian jungle accompanied by Thai opium smugglers. His week spent in the floating brothels of Bangkok. He had forgotten me entirely, was too absorbed in hypnotizing my mother (Ingrid). His voice was cloves and nightingales, it took us to spice markets in the Celebes, we drifted with him on a houseboat beyond the Coral Sea. We were like cobras following a reed flute.

--------------

She was breaking her rules. They weren't stone after all, only small and fragile as paper cranes.

--------------

Something happened. All I remember is that the winds had started. The skeleton rattlings of wind in the palms. It was a night Barry said he would come at nine, but then it was eleven and he hadn't arrived.

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A half hour later she reappeared, stumbling out to the car, tripping over a sprinkler, as if she were blind. She got in and sat behind the steering wheel and rocked back and forth, her mouth open in a square, but there was no sound. My mother was crying. It was the final impossibility.

--------------

Now I wished she'd never broken any of her rules. I understood why she held to them so hard. Once you broke the first one, they all broke, one by one, like firecrackers exploding in your face in a parking lot on the Fourth of July.

--------------

"I should shave my head," she said. "Paint my face with ashes."
Her eyes were strange, circled dark like bruises, and her hair was greasy and lank. She lay on her bed, or stared at herself in the mirror.

"How can I shed tears for a man I should never have allowed to touch me in any way?"

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Goodbye Good Hair Days

#145: Hairy Worries

All glammed up with nowhere to go. I'm loving my wispy, wavy new cut but at the same time feeling sad that my hairstylist said it out loud, "I won't see you anymore so this is what I'll do to your hair." I wanted her to take it back. I will see you again.

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, see all the crap I will leave behind and I can't slide back to restful sleep anymore. It forces me to spend a great deal of time thinking about how poor I'll be when I get to Sydney. After 6 years of having income I can blow on the most useless of things like a furry princess crown, I will go back to living on allowance and wondering when I'll be able to buy my next pair of shoes. Or when I'll have my next visit to the spa or the salon.

I need to get a job when I get there. I'll be a shampoo girl. Then I'll live on tips and convince the stlylist to give me a free cut every now and then. Great plan. Now all I have to worry about are spa visits and princess crowns.

Adventures in the Great Outback

#144: December 2 Party


Gladys Turns Outback Jack


Best In Costume Winner & Her Prize Catch


Outback, John. Not Texas.


Aileen Outrocks James


Colegio San Agustin Gals Feed Gladys to a Croc


Coke People


Three's Company


Globe People


Flower Power


Bubbly Personalities

Loved!

#143: 2005 Birthday Review

My birthday is officially over. I had two parties with most of the people I love surrounding me. My Outback party had scrumptuous food and an official soundtrack. My Back-to-School party had crazy games and hilarious dance choreography for "First Day Funk." Overflowing fun x 2.

I received 3 bouquets of flowers when all I hoped for was one. Tulips from a childhood friend, white roses from a very dear girl-friend, and red roses from the Youth of our church. Big smile multiplied by 3. (Sorry. I have a thing for birthday flowers. I would've really been disappointed if I didn't get Birthday flowers this year.)

On the morning of my birthday, the Lord reminded me of 5 songs that centered on His immutability. He is unchanging and His love will forever be unfailing. The string of songs was salve to the silence one had decided to give me. Tears shouldn't be sad on one's birthday, you know. That is never right.

The Lord has been good to me. Two friends play the guitar while another one sits and beats on the kahon. We sing of singing of His love forever. My heart celebrates. Then one guitarist sings of Napoli and the moon hitting one's eye like a big pizza pie... and it makes me laugh. That's amore.