Hers

#199: She Was Here.

They were hers. The place. The name. Him amidst the lights that encircled Cockle Bay.

I scour the tags I've attached to it: Where I had my first lunch in Sydney with Elna, Ian and Carlo. Where I took my Coke friends after we giggled over one of the guys from class. Where I celebrated my 6th year of freedom from 6-year guy. Where we embraced Anand as part of our circle.

Where I met him. Then went to her place that overlooked the lights encircling Cockle Bay. Her name softly spoken last night echoed loudly: they were hers still.

She is here.

Still.

Mulatto

#198: Celebrity Look-alikes
























I got the link to this from Java Junkie's blog. Go to www.MyHeritage.com. Quite a novel tool. Thing is, the results made me raise my eyebrows more than once. The first set of results gave me Sofia Coppola plus all Asian girls looking like Heart Evangelista (a Filipino celebrity I don't particularly like.) The second set of results gave me more Asian girls (including Zhang Ziyi! Gasp!) plus Kirstin Kreuk (did I even spell that right?). Now these two are lovely girls and I would be flattered to death to be told that I look like them. But while my eyesight is bad, I'm not completely blind. And while I may sometimes have a deranged view of my abilities, I am not deluded with my looks. I probably look like them to a 30 year-old dog (which makes it a 210 year-old color-blind dog, really).

Not one to give up easily (nor to let go so quickly of a fascinating new toy), I uploaded a third pic for a more "reasonable" set of results. And here it is. Sofia Coppola is a constant. Strange.

And so I am really more a mix of blacks, whites and Latinas than Asians. (Or, to be more precise - black, white and Latin celebrities than Asian celebrities. Which means, Asian celebrities become celebrities because of their strong Tsino features. Who has seen a Filipino international star? Well, outside of your usual mixes - Tia Carrere and Lou Diamond Phillips. And even they are casted more as Latinos/Latinas than Asians.)

Someone I just met last month told me the other day: You don't look Filipino. It's like you have a mix somewhere... I can't put my finger on it. (Hmm. Try Bagoong mix. My parents are both Ilocanos from Urdaneta). The captain of the sailboat we were on last week swore I was Thai. (Well, that's a good Asian guess.) I remember one of my work colleagues in Boots who insisted I looked very Spanish to him. (Maybe the huge rose on my hair and the lace dress tilted the odds a bit? Or perhaps he hasn't seen a Spaniard before.)

But the winning entry is from this young architect I was dealing with for our office renovation a couple of years ago. She was fresh out of the board exams, into a small architectural firm, managing her first big project. In short - eager to please. She shook my hand, looked at me and gushed, "Are you pure Filipino? You look very Mulatto." I knew Mulatto was a band. I didn't know what the word meant however. I smiled graciously and proceeded with business. When I asked around, Mulatto turned out to be the offspring of one black and one white parent. Which isn't bad at all. Think Mariah Carey.

Oh well. Back to the Celebrity-look-alike thingie. I'm very happy with the 83% Beyonce bit. If I squint at the image in the mirror and do a bit of "Crazy in Love" dance, I can almost see it. (uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh) 3% of the 83%. Which is better than the Zhang Ziyi bit. Now to Photoshop my photos to come up with a mix that includes Halle Berry, Eva Longoria, Victoria Beckham and Naomi Robson. Oooh. Let the delusion set in. (Insert manic Mulatto laugh here.)

Watson's Bay

#197: Revisited

You know how it is when you start seeing a place in a different light?
I've always had this thing about attaching people to certain places. Place X is A's place. Or place Y is my place with B, C, and D when we were at this point in life. It's part of recalling things in a holistic fashion - the scents, the colors, the emotions included. So when those have been frozen in memory, they are already owned.

But as with many things, ownership can either be shared or transferred. All you need to do is create more fascinating memories to attach to the place. And if they are strong enough, ownership just changes hands. Just like that. Just like this.

A Philippine Love Song

#196: Lupang Hinirang

I'm working on a 4-page write-up on the Philippines and it's breaking my heart to see how we continue to lag behind other Asian nations in all possible economic indicators. And not only do we fall behind, our rankings get worse and worse over the years. According to the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, from 2002 to 2006, the Philippines slid nine levels in overall competitiveness from Rank #40 to Rank #49. In terms of Economic Performance, we've slid from Rank#34 in 2002 to Rank #52 in 2006. In terms of Government Efficiency, from Rank#32 in 2002 to Rank#45 in 2006. In terms of Infrastructure, from Rank#47 to Rank#56. In Business Efficiency, Rank#40 to Rank#44. We are also seen as very high in security risk with armed conflict, civil unrest, organized crime and terrorism posted as caveats in our country profile published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Look at what has become of the country that was the most developed and most progressive Southeast Asian nation in the late 1950's. When my parents were children, they had reason to stand proud as Filipinos. I, on the other hand, seem to have every reason to bow my head because of my Filipino nose.

I was walking home a couple of weeks ago (in this foreign land with a 9.22/10 rating in terms of quality of life vs. the Philippines' 4.16/10) when I remembered our National Anthem. There is an official English translation that exists somewhere but for my purpose, I wanted to go through the exercise of finding my own words for a song that has, inside of me, somehow died.

"Bayang magiliw
Nation of Joy
Perlas ng Silanganan
Pearl of the Orient
Alab ng puso sa dibdib mo'y buhay.
The beat of my heart in your chest is alive.

Lupang hinirang,
Land of Honor
Duyan ka ng Magiting
Cradle of the Brave
Sa manlulupig
Before conquerors
Di ka pasisiil.
You will not succumb.

Sa dagat at bundok
In your seas and mountains
Sa simoy at sa langit mong bughaw
In your air and skies of blue
May dilag ang tula at awit
There is life in poetry and song
Sa paglayang minamahal.
For the freedom that we love.

Ang kislap ng watawat mo'y
The sparkle of your flag
Tagumpay na nagniningning.
Triumphantly shines.
Ang bituin at araw niyang kailan pa ma'y
Your stars and sun forever
Di magdidilim.
Shall not dim.

Lupa ng Araw
Land of the Morning
Ng luwalhati't pagsinta
Of Glory and Love
Buhay ay langit sa piling mo.
Life is heaven in your arms.
Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi
Our joy will be, in the face of the enemy,
Ang mamatay ng dahil sa 'yo.
To lay our lives for you.

-----------
I never realized how beautiful our anthem is until I borrowed foreign words to make them real to me again. I never realized how painful they can be in light of how far away the verses now sound. They seem to come from an era wherein they were true. I live in one where they are not.

I wonder if the day will come when I could sing such love song for my country again.

The Glory of God

#195: In His Creation

01 Sept 2006
We sat on the beach. On a warm blanket laid on wet sand.
Over cold pizza, but under the vast sky. With half a moon looking down on the half bottle of orange soda. It was as if you could see forever and now at the same time. Overlapping with the lapping of the waves. Overwhelming in its simplicity.

"Oh Lord, our Lord,
How excellent Your Name is
How excellent Your Name in all the earth
Your glory fills the heavens
Beyond the farthest star
How excellent Your Name in all the earth.

When I look into the heavens
The moon and all the stars
I wonder what You even saw in me
But You took me and You loved me
And You've given me a crown
And now I praise your name eternally."

02 Sept 2006
We went to a cliff overlooking the open sea on one end and the lights of the harbor on the other. Up and down pathways as shrubs extended their arms. As rocks called out and winds whistled. Embraced by a green shawl as we were embraced by beauty.

"Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing
Power and majesty, praise to the King
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name

I sing for joy at the works of Your Hands
Forever I'll love You
Forever I'll stand
Nothing compares to the promise I have in You."

05 Sept 2006
Borrowed from a footnote in John Piper's book, "The Pleasures of God"
Clyde Kilby's 11 Resolutions:

1.) At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2.) Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death, when he said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”

3.) I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence but, just as likely, ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4.) I shall not turn my life into a thin straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5.) I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6.) I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are, but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying, and ecstatic” existence.

7.) I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

8.) I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

9.) If for nothing more than the sake of a change of view, I shall assume myancestry to be from the heavens rather than from the caves.

10.) Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this veryday, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the Architect who calls Himself Alpha and Omega.

11.) I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child of thepure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

Lost Words

#194: Dear Stranger



















There was a time we used to write each other. Long letters. Short notes. Postcards. Scribbles on scratch papers. Poems on notepads. Turtles on dog-eared corners of books. A series of dots on LCD screens. Melting. Wrenching. Warming.

And I would find them in my Inbox with a short subject like "hi." Or a silly one like "Heinz." They would be on my table. Passed from one hand to the next. Or tucked amidst pages of borrowed books. On yellow post-its. Attached to boxes of cinnamon pretzels or bars of white chocolate. Or flowers. Or wishes.

You would write them on my back and I would write them on yours. The words would find their way to my palms, on my lips. As chuckles or whispers. Then back to my pen or keyboard as replies. With smileys. Without. With color. With captions. With calligraphy. With capital letters. Or not.

And the strokes on the pages, virtual or not, would come alive with glimpses of who you are. Or who you were. More or less of a stranger than who you are now.

The stranger and I used to write.