house and home

today i did my laundry, cooked pork binagoongan, and then went to the grocery (the mad mad mad grocery store, i might add) with our child.

i did my laundry to get it off the floor so i can replace it with my papers. hehe. oh, sweep it in between.

i think i cook a mean pork binagoongan, but it's really according to my taste. it's spicy sour and salty. what my friends call, "oh-it's-binagoongan-pork-adobo-but-it's-really-good-especially-the-burnt-version!"

then we went to the grocery store after making a couple of stops at two booksale outlets. it was mad! carts-a-crazy with no traffic lights nor proper right-of-ways between lanes. everyone's bent on getting food for New Year's Eve celebrations. i betcha del monte spaghetti sauce makes a killing over the holidays and everything else during the year is just bonus. ha! i bought mine two weeks ago. hehe.

yes, the child :). when i think about our new kasama sa bahay S, i realize how that thief A just wasn't meant to be. S is so easy to be with, so willing to learn, so easy to help. not perfect at all, but so easy! as a result, roommie and i take her with us to many places, and are helping plan her future, like good parents. hahaha. blessing, baga. hayan, the good things that come with letting go. hehe.

tapos, this last half of the year, i've become such a homemaker, haha. i cook stuff, manage a household, do groceries, eat at home to save money, blah blah blah. i even like feeding people.

such a woman, really :P

7 nights, 8 days

here, i am again, i'm back. time for another round of crazy Christmas confessions. i went three-four places in the last eight days, and that certainly makes for a host of experiences. not to mention that i also interacted with most of my significant others based south of Manila.

but here's my dilemma. how do i tell you my stories without coming off like am complaining or whinging or rationalizing. even this next sentence is loaded: sometimes i go through all my friends and family in my head, looking for a person who will simply hear me :). bear with me, i can only live my life one day at a time. i may try to or want to, but it's quite impossible to live my life in accord with the hopes and expectations of people who care about me :). so i can't promise that i will be happy, or that i will be wise, or that i will be nice, or that i will be worthy.

i can only live my life :) ... and as we know, each day is actually a spiritual adventure. and i probably failed half the tests that came my way :) ... wait, am being too generous with myself. maybe i failed all my tests :D. hehe.

there's the test of giving till it hurts :D. i love being generous but am never generous all of the time. i'm not quite generous when i know i might just run out of money already when i land back here and will need cash to pay for the cab home and the house-sitter, plus all the bank holidays endemic to the season making things more complicated. so what happens when we know the need of others is urgent, and yet you don't have quite a lot? plus all the righteous thoughts that come with giving. do they deserve the help that i will give? does helping have to go hand in hand with the issue of being deserving? darn, darn, darn. and then some things (self-serving ones) will always be easier to spend for than others. and so i always ask myself, what makes me think i should be better off than others? am i worthy? (answer: no, not at all, it's just a game of chance).

then, there's the issue of appearances. oh my, people are always hung up on appearances, and family reunions always make my fluffy body prime target. i feel beautiful living alone, but mix me in with relatives i hardly see all year, and there i am hanging back, waiting for the next blow. it's not quite the way to live. even after many years, i still can't quite (read: i can't) pull off the smooth and genius retort that'll pull the rug from under my 'detractors': still haven't found the one wise, understanding and compassionate response that will cure them of commenting on my looks forever and ever, amen. i blame myself: i obviously need to take more responsibility for my health and my emotional wellbeing.

this is so much my issue, that just when i had escaped my cousin and uncle who tailed me with their so-fat-tsk-tsk comments, and had already alienated my auntie once removed by rudely moving chairs when she raised her voice questioning me sternly on why it appeared that i wanted to follow her footsteps of never-marrying, life slapped me with a big one. i was strolling towards the boat, ready to sail by myself, when the security guard asked me if i was pregnant. i said no, wondering why he would ask when in my heart of hearts i feel thin (hahaha, delusional). i climbed the stairs, smiling but he had the nerve to call up to the stewards to ask me to go down again. face-to-face, he asked me again if i was pregnant. (damn, no sex for me, unfortunately). i said no. he said that i must wait for the doctor who would confirm this for him, and proceeded to explain how in a previous voyage, a woman who had given birth had cost the shipping company 200K, baby. F**K, major humiliation after surviving the family ordeal. all sense and reason left me, and i proceeded to curse out said security guard for his rudeness, for his nerve, for asking and not taking my answer into account, for humiliating me, for his stupidity, etc, etc. i didn't care, i was soooo mad, i swore blindly for a long time, and he didn't hesitate to swear right back at me. my rational self knew all the time of course that his greatest sin was merely that of being stupid, stupid enough not to know/ make the right judgment call about when a woman is at risk of giving birth or not, on his stupid boat. damn, i may be fat in the wrong places but sure i don't look 7-9 months pregnant. of course by this time i cried. when the doctor arrived, he chastised me for being so angry on Christmas Day, and i said i wasn't there to argue with him. one press of my tummy and he let me go (as if he could be really sure with that, too), and with one last set of curses aimed at the guard, i stalked up the stairs and cried in my cabin for an hour.

why do i write this here? i want to cure myself of my humiliation :). i do not want to keep secret, secrets such as this. i want to know the law about pregnant women and public transportation. do buses and airplanes and boats have the right to turn away pregnant women at certain points in their pregnancy? but most of all, i want to discern the lesson behind the incident. it has in no way escaped my attention that my private issue was made so glaringly public and so much bigger. it was like a streamer saying: VV, learn something from this. to be sure, i still don't know what the lesson is. am sure, it was not about cursing and quarreling like a crazed person. so there, i didn't do so well.

then there's the matter of love. somewhere along these years, i have slowly (slowly and quite painstakingly) taken responsibility for my emotional wellbeing when it comes to my lovelife. i have come to realize, and to act on the fact that some (many) things you can't expect on demand (and lots of pouting). some things you have to create and build yourself. you have to enable/ create the lovelife that you want, you have to make yourself and your needs and wants understood, even as you are also understanding and loving the other. and that there's no such thing as a perfect partner/ relationship, some things are as good as they are ever going to get. my problem is this: in which direction am i deluded? am i being down on something that's workable, and is being worked out in the long long loooong run; or am i consigning myself to not-quite-happiness. to be sure, things are better by me, i am no longer wildly expecting but am quite more accepting, but is that really better? you know how it is when you are no longer struggling as hard against something you can't control, it becomes less difficult. but what happens next? do you find peace or death? i don't know. is my idea of what am looking for, really still out there, or is it just another case of thinking my happiness lies in somebody outside my self?

thank the Mother, I have my thesis to do, or there will never be an end to this.

someday, sometime, love will be.

but far be it for me to say it was a tragic and uncomfortable trip. on the contrary. i had a safe and relaxing flight to cdo. my grandmother was pleased to see me and feed me. i spent time, and scooped ice cream for lovely uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and nephews, and thanked heaven for generous relatives who give up the very bed they sleep in just for me (goodness me!). my dad came to my rescue, and stopped 'abandoning' me (hahaha, joke), plus i have been having really good times lately with dad and tita and b. you know you can just put me in a car, and you drive, and i'd be happy (oh make sure to make toilet pit-stops). then after the gangplank trauma, i absolutely loved the privacy of my cabin-room for one. i actually love boat rides. hihi. i look forward to them. then i had good times with friends in iloilo. then i had a really good talk with my brother.

so in the end, it was quite a whirlwind but happening vacation where i got the chance to learn many things, some of which i still haven't learned yet, hahaha.

pictures to follow.

Mahal na Ina

"I met my old lover on the street last night."
- Still Crazy After All These Years, Paul Simon

I bumped into my old self last night. I started reading this book and it brought back to me how much of my awareness, consciousness and growth came from my life with books. Books are like friends. They are the unconditional teachers that offer what you Yourself will take.

I was first a feminist from reading. Then friends came along, who brought more books. And of course, there's always Life.

And now, there is Her, our God, the Mother. It brings tears to my eyes, when I read how women have not been free to also define the spiritual. We hold up half the sky, and within us, lies the Divine.

I would give each of you a copy but since I can't, take notice if it pops up in your life :) Bless you, Merry Christmas, mula kay Nanay.


The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
For years, award-winning author Sue Monk Kidd was a conventionally religious woman. Then, in the late 1980s, Kidd experienced an unexpected awakening, and began a journey toward a feminine spirituality. With the exceptional storytelling skills that have helped make her name, the acclaimed author of When the Heart Waits tells her very personal story of the fear, anger, healing, and freedom she experienced on the path toward the wholeness that women have lost within patriarchal faith traditions. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore, to monastery retreats and to rituals in the caves of Crete, she reveals a new level of feminine spiritual consciousness for all women— one that retains a meaningful connection with the “deep song of Christianity,” embraces the sacredness of ordinary women’s experience, and has the power to transform in the most positive ways every fundamental relationship in a woman’s life— her marriage, her career, and her religion.

P.S. Thanks HB for pointing out this book to me :)

have Yourself

Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree,
For me. Been an awful good girl,
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.

Santa baby, a 54 convertible too,
Light blue. I'll wait up for you dear,
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.

I have a confession to make ;)

It's been the longest time since I have felt ...errr, wait for this... the spirit of Christmas! Yes, it's been a long time :D

Previous to this, it's just been a string of romantic disasters, that just made me scrunch up my face at Christmas. Plus the discomfort and fright at traveling; plus the potential emotional minefield that's family. Hahaha!

But then, maybe it's the more regular meditation, the inner dance, the comfort of my space, and the ever-present connections that make the calls of my heart more clear, easier to discern and listen to. And makes me calmer.

Such that, though things haven't changed (hahaha), maybe I am changing.

THANK YOU :)

But wait, I wanted to share with you the signs ...

1. I've put up (as in put up on the hall table as it's super-small hahaha) our tree.
2. I've bought two Christmas motif cushion covers. Hahaha, so cheesy but fun.
3. I plan to buy more red tinsel for the banisters. I like red and green tinsel, it reminds me of my childhood.
4. I also brought down the Christmas CDs. Hahaha.
5. I've made a Christmas playlist on Fiolo (not Christmas songs).
6. And I've decided to make the Christmas trip. On my own. Regardless ... And brave the flippin' flight too. Hahaha.
7. And I say Merry Christmas on YM.

And don't forget, that I haven't even mentioned anything about clothes or presents. Now, that is truly the most hopeful sign of all.

And so, Merry Christmas!