That Green Gunk!

See that slimy green gunk on the left? The one that looks like
        a) radioactive waste
        b) something  that´s meant for the garbage can  or
        c) something that´s ermmm, too gross to mention.

Well, that green gunk is the one food that I love above all else in The Netherlands.

Going Home To Ilocos #1: Playing With Frogs

                                 Ilocos landscape

Five years.  It's been five years since I've gone home to my parents' hometown in Ilocos Norte.  I really have no excuse --- life just buzzed by and with my meager vacation days, I could not find the time and the willpower to go home.  I figured it's enough that my mother goes home every couple of years or so,  and that I did see my nieces three years ago when they came to Manila while I was on vacation.  There's  facebook  and  phone conversations to keep us connected.

But who am I kidding?  The truth is that going home to Ilocos somewhat made me uneasy.  It's a mixed bag of joy and frustration, of belonging and not really fitting in.  It was easier and far more comfortable for me not to go.

On the one hand,  Ilocos defined my childhood.  My happiest memories as a child were the two months of summer spent with my mother's parents,  Nana and Tata. This went on every year until I was fifteen when Tata died. 

My brother and I have not much to bank on when it comes to love between our parents.  I am luckier perhaps, because the seven years gap between my younger brother and me  meant I had the gift of time to spend with my grandparents.  Since I was six,  I  have spent my summers nestled within the loving adoration of  Nana and Tata.   They were the sweetest couple ever,  my Tata would arrive from his day at his farm and he'd holler to Nana,  Good evening, Darling ko!  And kiss her on the cheeks. And then he'd tug me and give me a warm embrace.

Despite the simplicity of life in Ilocos, I thrived,  and at the end of every summer I'd come back to Manila healthier and livelier.  In Ilocos, I could not be the picky eater that I was in Manila,  I could not demand for hotdogs and all those processed foods so readily available in the city.  Instead, my Nana taught me a  love for pinakbet, to eat malunggay soup, enjoy adobong saluyot and enjoy the clean taste of ukyang soup --- river crams in a clear broth of ginger and  sliced tomato.

                                Walking through farmlands

In the city, I was a quiet kid who filled her days reading Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins  detective stories.   In Ilocos,  I learned how to climbed trees, joined my cousins in the afternoon walking through farmlands, picking tomatoes and uprooting a few of the peanut plants we passed by  for our snacks( which is bad, now that I think of it), and when the  wet season came at the tailend of the summer I ran with  them to welcome the rain.

                               Image from amigurumiisland.wordpress.com

We'd play in the mud,  overturn  stones, and poke little crevices with walis tingting sticks (broomsticks) in search of ...frogs.  Yes frogs.  We never did anything to the frogs we found except gather them and throw them  back on the wet earth.  It was their croaks and the crazy hops done in panic that amused us, how foolish and funny these creatures were, how totally different from us.  I suppose in this time of political correctness,  our innocent joys of torturing these frogs, plucking them from their hiding places for our amusement, well the high and mighty they might say we were cruel,  but for us kids,  those were precious moments, there was something elemental with our happiness as we watch in amazement how  these little creatures scrammed away from us, mere kids.  Perhaps to them we were big forces of nature who could if we were so mean, squash them in a single  stroke.  But to us, they were these emerald, bug-eyed creatures, our  precious pets at least until we got tired of them, until we are called upon to wash up our muddy limbs.  Until the lure is called on by Nana,  an invitation for a bowl of hot steaming Royco, the chicken noodle soup we so loved as kids.  Food or frog? So easy a choice,  with that we leave the frogs be to their croaking.

UP NEXT:  What to Eat and Buy in Ilocos

Happy New Life 2015 Item 1: Driving for Dummies

Hello! I hope you had a blast celebrating the New Year!  I hope the holidays have energized each of us for the challenges ahead.

Of course we don't forget 2014 entirely,   that we might take stock of what was good, what made us sad and what we could do to make things better from this point onward.

While most people are back to their normal routines, to their jobs and joys of daily living,  I am still on vacation  in our tropical paradise.

                               The road to my hometown in Ilocos Norte

                                Ilocos Pride: Paoay Church, Ilocos Norte

Baking At Midnight and Other Crazy Things

Busy
Work has gobbled me up the past few weeks.  This week in particular has been, to use my teammate's  term, "hellish".   I know, I know I have no right to complain.  I should count my blessings and all that schtick.  It´s just that most days I am just too tired to do the things I used to have time for.  I no longer do my evening walks.  I can´t find the energy to write, and worst,  I even sometimes sleep through Skype calls from family and friends.  And   I have not baked in close to a month.  My current  place  in the sun is a  tiny bubble crammed with work and to-do lists.

Some Sort of Pampering
My one small indulgence the past month is a  weekly massage session at a salon and spa owned by a Filipino couple in Madrid.  The massage therapist at the Spa is actually the wife-owner who was once a religious missionary. She has that refreshing kindness that makes one open up to her. But of course,  her  best feature is those utterly nimble hands which knead unfailingly to untangle tight muscles and ease my usual complaint of  sore back muscles. She uses hot stone massage and oh, it is heavenly! The spa´s massage room is soothing and conducive to relaxation: a table top water fountain provides the calming sound of water streaming down .  The lighting is  muted, scented tea light candles providing both atmosphere and aromatherapy.  There´s instrumental music too, toned down low enough to not be intrusive.  At 30€ a week for  70 minutes of bliss it is a splurge, but then it is the one thing that I look forward to week after week.   I tell myself, I earned this.  I need this hour of pampering to help me prepare for the week ahead.

Blasted Good News
This week´s high point is the blasted good news  I got which will definitely change my plans for the next few months.  For fear of jinxing it, I shall keep mum for the meantime, but it surely helped me deal with the week´s stress and  put things in perspective.

Down with Sleep
Fridays correspond to spending only half a day at the office.  Today, feeling unusually tired, I went home at 2 PM and went straight to bed.  A friend I have wanted to meet up with for a month or so now, asked me if we could finally have our girl talk moments, and I said, Sure, but just let me get my much needed sleep first.  But I proceeded to sleep for five straight hours and woke up at 8 PM!  Too late to go out, considering that I have to be up by 7 AM tomorrow for a trip with another set of friends, and so while most people were readying for bed, I  was doing my weekend chores --  laundry, folded my clothes, washed the dishes and amazingly I still had enough energy and time to bake.

Midnight Baking 
Midnight. I realised, hell, this is the perfect time to bake.  A check in the pantry yielded an opened pack of dried cranberries, some leftover toasted almonds, an opened pack of chocolate chips, flour, sugar and exactly two eggs.  Perfect!  Just the ingredients I need to make Chocolate Chip Cranberry Muffins.

Here´s the recipe I used: Chocolate Cranberry Muffins
(Of course,as expected, I tweaked the recipe, using water instead of milk, because I had no milk. Milk chocolate chips instead of white, and topping the muffins with some toasted, caramelised almonds.  This is what I love about baking and cooking, the freedom to tweak and make do with what´s available.  BTW, the muffins still turned out great. )

I have always thought of muffins as one of the least fussy things to bake.  Most often, you only need two bowls ---one for the dry ingredients (flour, leavener, salt) and another for the wet ingredients (oil/butter, eggs, milk/water, flavourings such as vanilla or lemon juice).  You also don´t need an electric mixer to make muffins.  A whisk and a wooden spoon would do just fine.  It´s easy peasy.  The only thing to remember about baking muffins is to only mix the dry and wet ingredients until combined.  The science geek explanation is that overmixing muffins will  overwork the gluten in the flour making the muffins denser.  To be honest,  it will not really change your muffin´s taste but the texture would vary.  Just mixed muffins will have a more tender crumb with small uniform holes while an overmixed muffin will be denser and will have usually big irregular holes.

So anyway, I baked a batch of muffins to give away.  Truth: I do not eat wheat-based products at the moment because my food intolerances have flared up these past few weeks so most of the goodies I bake, I give away to friends, officemates and to my apartment building´s guards.  Half of these muffins I´ll bring with me tomorrow on a trip for our snacks.   The rest I have set aside to give to my favourite massage therapist on Sunday.

Make Time
So there.  Nothing much is happening in my life at the moment. Some great and possibly life changing news, lots of work, a weekly pampering session, and sometimes, when I find time, little spaces to do my passions --baking and yes, blogging.

So Cheers! I hope that despite life´s buzzes and demands, you´ll find enough interstitial spaces to do what you love most.  Let´s find time to do the little things that make our lives happier. Enjoy the weekend!

Dear VC: "The Boss Tells Me" Made Me Sick

Tonight,  after  arriving home at midnight from a house party, I felt happy yet  morose.   It was as fun  as  any house party can be.  Hours spent with good friends including a  dip at the pool,  some tennis,  a potluck dinner,  and lots of laughter.   We were a small group of thirteen,  five of them  were my co-engineers´ kids, It was nice to be among my male pinoy co-engineers' families,  great to chat with their Pinay wives and watch their kids´ antics and uncompromised glee.  Still,  a part of me felt more strongly how different my life is from them. It highlighted  how on one hand,  I was most of the time, on my own, alone.  I felt, damn, life is passing me by.  I need to resolve things  now.  I need to take care of myself now because  nobody else would.  And that I am worth it.    So on the train home,  I made a mental list of to-do´s:

1.  Eat Well
2. Read Well
3. Learn to Write Well
4. Open a  Business That Earns Well
5.  Love Well
6. Go Home


But then, just as fast, a darkness hovered.  A blood-sucking, dream-killing dementor howled, scaring me witless.  Who do you think you are.  You will fail, like your numerous attempts at pivoting.  You will die broken, not having achieved your dreams because you are witless.  You are lazy, unfocused.  And because you are not half as good as you delude yourself to be.

Maybe it is fate´s way of helping me out,  but tonight,  as the doubts crept in,  I thought of poetry.  I wanted to read a poem.  Because poems were once the antidote to my inner demons,  back when I was so into words and imagery.  Maybe,  I  thought, since I want to go back to writing and this time do it well, maybe I should start with finding a poem that talks to me.

And that is how I ended up reading you,  VC.


I.

The boss tells me of the billionaire who likes me              who likes my work again this year        this year I am safe for another year I can stand by                    for another year I can align  myself with the bystanders who have different              standards for another year I can mortgage my heart        in monthly installments for another year I can fill                   my garage with scooters and things

My current project is ending in  October.  And my current contract is until early 2015.  I don´t know what comes after that.   Maybe, if we get a new project,  the boss might tell me I will have my contract renewed again for another year. Or maybe not.  And I´ve been  hiding behind this improbability/probability to not do anything just yet.   The truth is I am a coward.   I  have mortgaged my heart into a job that I am quite good at  year after year because it allows me  to pay for my responsibilities:  mom´s  considerable living allowance, those insurance premiums and small investments, etc. The pay from the job gives me enough leeway to indulge on my whims from time to time.

And so year after year I have done a job that I sometimes like enough for the mental stimulation, for the ego boost it brings, and for being a reliable source of funds.  And yet, most days I feel I should be doing something else.  I should be waking up all agog with energy and ideas .  Instead,  sometimes I wake up scrambling, scared that I may be tripped into stupidity and carelessness with my tasks.  I have been doing this job for more than ten years.  That´s long enough time to develop a love affair with my profession.  But alas, until now,  it is still just a matter of convenience.  And as I push myself to stick with this arrangement,  my despair of watching the years go, of losing the hours and days that I could use to do what I love best, it grows like tumor , eating me up inside.



II.

 when asked about Mary or Tom or Larry I too 
      can say I never saw anything never saw the boss
                  wind them up and point them towards the

edge of the roof before Mary went over the 
            edge I threw down a pillow in the shape of a
      pet and hoped it landed under her I didn’t stay long 
                  enough to see what happened.

I don´t want to wait until I am at the point of no return :  tied to more responsibilities,  too old to start anew,  too stiff to  start from scratch, too bitter for the passions I was not brave enough to pursue.  I want to be brave, just this time.  My one shot to think of myself first, not about other people´s welfare.  It has taken years.  But this need has been there all along.   So each day I am gathering courage bit by bit.  And by next year  I pray that I would be  brave enough to turn my back from the  security of fat pay checks, away from the the  well-drawn path of success  that is expected of someone in my profession,  and give myself a chance to pursue the things I love most, not in small bits, not with splinters of my time, but wholly, in a free fall. The coin may flip either way: success or failure.   But just once   I want to let my inner self reign.  Because this is what I want,  what most of us secretly  want.   To go out of this world knowing that I have lived on the very edge of my dreams and had the courage to jump right through , even though I was uncertain, even though I was still with fear, not knowing where I would land.



P.S.  Forgive my crazy monologue  but this  was inspired by my reading of Victoria Chang´s beautiful poetry, " The Boss Tells Me".  Reading this poem made me gasp, literally.  It was like a sharp  cut, drawing blood from my inner self.   I though, I could have written this poem myself,  that is, if I had talent like hers.  The poem  captures what I feel on  most days:  frustration, the fact that I am doing something I am somewhat good at but secretly pining for another kind of  life.

Baking Day: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcake

I have foregone baking in search of easier hobbies:  running, shopping, reading and blogging.

But there are days when I feel so displaced, my thoughts so astray that I know nothing else can calm me, nothing can help me put things in perspective than  a session of baking therapy.

So one saturday I fought off laziness and brought out my old baking tools.  I chose to make cupcakes because cupcakes are a forgiving lot, and having not baked for months,  I was scared of how unfit I was to attempt baking.

But ordinary cupcakes are a bit too boring.  I needed something that had a twist to it, something I can look forward to.  Not that there´s anything wrong with a vanilla cupcake.  But  this is a baking therapy session, an act of creation,  balm to my crazy thoughts.  I need something more exacting, with a bit more pizzaz.

And so when I stumbled upon this crazy  cookie-dough-in-a-cupcake recipe and read the  five star reviews, I knew that this was the one.

The Original Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcake Recipe

I will not post the entire recipe here because I essentially followed the recipe above.  Instead, here are the must-do´s to make this recipe work for you:

1.  Make the choco chip cookie dough a day ahead.  I made my cookie dough on a Friday afternoon, made  them into balls  and stuck them to the refrigerator. This step does two things,  your dough becomes easier to handle, it becomes firmer and gives you that amazing cookie dough texture when you bite into your cupcake. Second,  cookie dough is delicious! Yes they have raw egg, but that does not stop me from eating through my cookie dough.  Get a cup of vanilla ice cream, plonk in a ball or two of your cookie dough and you´ve got a delicious cookie dough ice cream a la Ben and Jerry´s.

2. The original recipe advises using a baking mix for your cupcake recipe.  But if you are like me and hate baking from mixes,  here´s the cupcake recipe I used:   Smitten Kitchen´s  Basic Cup Cake Recipe
But feel free to use your own cake recipe.  Next time I think I´d try using a chocolate cupcake base so that when one bites into the chocolate cupcake, there would be that awesome color contrast between the  cookie dough center and the chocolate cupcake base.  Or here are other ideas:  red velvet cupcake or a slightly tart lemon cupcake would also do well with that chocochip cookie dough center.

3.  I don´t have a proper frosting piping bag in Madrid so I just slapped on buttercream frosting using a small rubber scraper.  As you can see these are not the daintiest cupcakes, but they do taste delicious!

I now have enough cupcakes for a whole week´s breakfast.  I am sure it will make waking up each day a bit more sweeter :)  But more than that,   this short baking session  reminded me why I have for years loved the quiet joy of baking.

“There was a mood of magic and frenzy to the room. Crystalline swirls of sugar and flour still lingered in the air like kite tails. And then there was the smell-the smell of hope, the kind of smell that brought people home.”  Sarah Addison Allen on Baking

Living With Acne and Scars: My Story

Once upon a time, when I was in high school,  I considered myself pretty.  I was tall and people would tell me I looked like Kuh Ledesma / Marina Benipayo / Ruffa Gutierrez, which thinking back now, was weird, because these three beautiful women don´t really resemble each other.  I suppose what they meant then was that I had the dusky color of Kuh Ledesma, the small oriental eyes of Miss Benipayo, and the facial shape of Ruffa.  My cousins and even taxi drivers tried to prod me  to join beauty contests or try out modelling,  but even then, I was a shy introvert and could not for the life of me, think of going out of my comfort zone,  so I retreated to books and doing good in school.

My journey to ugliness came rolling in college.  It must have been the combination of teenage  hormones, the stress of studying engineering at UP and the psychological fear I had going from a small all-girls' school into the free-for-all, do-what-you-like-as-long-as-you-pass-your-exams culture of UP.  Acne became my one constant, unwanted companion  in college.  It marred my face so horridly that even my cousins, those who just a year before were pushing me to join beauty contests,  commented how my face have "changed".  "Change"  being their gentle way of telling me how  I went from pretty to hideous.

It wasn´t for the lack of effort that my college acne wasn´t treated.  I think I went through three dermatologists all throughout my college years.  All three did nothing but prick my skin every single session.  The word "tiis-ganda" was the perfect word to describe the pain a young pubescent girl has to endure in the hands of a dermatologist who pricks her face to get rid of whiteheads, blackheads, and to push out the pus and little balls of dead skin out of those painful, swollen  zits. With all the meds  I was given,   I became an expert in Acne medications --- Clindamycin Solution,  Azelaic Acid, Erythromycin Solution, Acne Aid Soap, Benzac Wash,  Benzoyl Peroxide of all forms, Salicylic Acid and Glycolic Soaps, I have tried them all.  The dermas I saw while in college  have prescribed combinations of these supposed acne fighters in the hope of getting rid of my acne.

But despite trying out three dermas,  nothing totally eliminated my acne.  There were months when it would go from severe to mild and then all of a sudden I would have this massive flareups of zits.  In desperation,  I even tried to self-medicate with benzoyl peroxide.  Covering my face with the stuff every night in the hope of drying out those big, swollen, painful zits fast.  Well,  I learned too late that my skin does not really agree with benzoyl peroxide.  It left me with dry, scaly skin with dark marks.

The painful thing was,  despite all my effort to clear my pimples,  I would  still  hear random people comment on how terrible my acne was.  As if, I didn't know about it.  It was hard to look at the mirror every day, trying to be brave, trying to be dismissive and nonchalant with the burrowed looks and the turning of heads away from my acne bomb of a face.  Imagine what that does to a girl who is in her late teens.  I remember one time hearing someone on the bus say  "Tignan mo yung dalaga o, buhay pa pero parang naagnas ang mukha" then laughter.    Or that time when someone in an escalator looked at me commented, "Yuck pimples!"  loud enough for other people to hear and for them to also  take a look at  my horrendous face.  People would remark," Sayang ka, maganda ka pa man din sana kaya lang bakit nagkaganyan ang mukha mo?"  I  learned to take them all quietly, gritting my tears, thinking, they're rude and harsh and insensitive, but what can I do? What they're saying was the truth.

College was somewhat depressing for me in part  because the course I was taking was incredibly hard,  but more so  because I felt like a walking monster, ugly as hell.  At an age when I should have been enjoying my youth,  I was secretly hoping for a life where I would never need to leave home and show my face to the world.  Because, here´s what I learned while I was in college,  people look at those with physical deformations, from a disability to  severe acne, with a mixture of pity and dismissal, as if  these these flaws render  us  less of  of a person. Yet even though  I had no love life to talk of in college,   I was lucky to be a part of a large group of friends who took me in,  oozing pimples and all.

After college,  I looked for a new dermatologist, and finally! The good doctor, recognizing how severe my acne was and how sensitive I was to harsh topical medications, ordered me to take  a battery of blood lab tests to check if I could take what was then a new revolutionary drug that could help me get rid of acne for good.  The drug, Roaccutane, was potent and could and cause depression, liver problems and high cholesterol so strict doctor's supervision is needed.  Taking Roaccutane for close to a year was not a walk in the park,  but I must say that it started the turnaround of my skin from severe acne to a more manageable breakout cycle.    These days, Roaccutane is a popular dermatologist prescription for those who have moderate to severe acne,  but this is still a potent drug and must be taken with strict monitoring of the dermatologist.

Roaccutane paved the way for my acne to be manageable, but by then my face have been marked by scars. After the acne treatment  came the nearly impossible task of improving the ugly pitted scars on my face.  I think I have tried it all : subcision, diamond peeling, two sessions of Fraxel, deep peelsand skin needling.  But they have not done anything  remarkable to my scars.  Up to this day I carry these pitted scars on my face,  testimony to my terrible bout with acne.

Acne is an awful disease, acne because not only does it destroy your skin  it can also leave you with psychological stigma. More so if you are left with disfiguring scars.    is neverending.  But it is a battle I have learned to live with.  There are people who at even the age of 60 would still  go and jump into the latest hyped treatment to eliminate acne scars.  A few years ago,  I decided that I do not want to go into that cycle again --- hope, dissilussionment, and sadness.  I told myself,  accept your scars, accept that you will never be that flawless beauty people would fawn over.   And so no,  I have said no to all those beauty treatments that subjects one to days and days of downtime,  no to ablative lasers that practically skins you with the slim hope that your inner skin could produce enough collagen to be more supple and to raise your pits.


Not to say that I have stopped using any beauty products,  I am like any other girl who wants a skincare regimen that can make my skin better.  But I know that these skincare regimens can only do so much.  They can make my skin a bit whiter, a bit brighter,  they can help me prevent pimples and wrinkles from appearing,  but I know that they cannot do anything for the deep scars that are already in my face.

Acne and my scarring changed my personality.  And there are still bad days when I wake up, look in the mirror,  and see nothing but these pits,  but these days are  now few and far between.  And everytime I feel this way,.  I tell myself, yes I am flawed,  but I am still beautiful and I have so much to offer to this world.  And I look at what I have accomplished despite these flaws,  and the other things that I can still do and I settle down into  the rational  realisation that,   hey,  my scars, these are my battle marks.  They show how I have conquered something limiting and how I continue to face the world bravely with hope and dreams despite being imperfect.

And that´s the biggest lesson, the biggest gift horrible acne gave me:  You don´t need to be perfect to be  loved,  to be special or to accomplish something.   Life will gives us curveballs.   My curveball in college was  my acne and scars.  And until now the scars are still with me.  My scars are both  sources of consternation  and a metaphor for how we can go on to follow our dreams if we can just take our limitations as they are.   It took years, but now, older and more mature,   I  have finally come to terms with the fact that I will always have imperfect skin.  And that in the scheme of my life,  it´s not really that big a deal and it will not limit me from becoming my best self.

                                          Acne Survivor:  This is me.  Acne scars, flaws and all.

                   My worst side:  I have particularly deep pitted scars on the left side of my face.


Scars will not kill you  but if you let  them, they may kill your spirit. So be vigilant.  Always remember, it is okay to be imperfect. 

Letter to My Brother

Dear  K,

I am sorry if I shouted at you just minutes ago.   Sorry if I turned into a madwoman crying, but this is so hard for me to take.

It is your birthday,  this should be a happy day.  But you woke me up at 12 midnight with skype messages telling me you can no longer do this, that you want this to be over.  And you tell me gusto mong ibangga ang kotse mo para matapos na ito.

I promised you as only a sister who loves you more than anything in the world can, that that I would be here, I would listen, I would talk you through anything, just call me when you need someone to talk to and I will be there.

But you waking me up at 12 midnight, on your birthday, threatening to end your life is too much.  Sorry if I shouted at you in skype, but how could you be so selfish as to wake me up and make me feel so utterly  incapable and  helpless?  How can you be so selfish  with no regard to what I am feeling, or to what Mom and Dad would feel at your thoughts?

We are doing our best, K.  But your healing will take time.  And I am pissed off because you want so much to get better and yet the first thing you do after getting your meds  and your therapy protocol is to run off to LB so you missed taking your meds.   You tell me you hear voices in your head.  It´s the depression talking,  it´s  why you need help,  it´s why we are doing our best to be here for you.  Dad, me, Mom.  Despite my conflict with Dad,  I emailed him for help because I want us to be united in  helping you.   Do you know that today, Mom and Dad talked for the first time in years?  They talked about your medicines,  how to supervise you so that you  don´t miss out on your meds.  And Dad trusted you enough to allow you to drive on your own to LB after your psych. session  because you wanted to see your best friends and you promised that you´d take care of yourself and that you´d come home early in time for your meds.

You know what I felt like telling you while I listen to you crying, telling me you´ve had it and you just want to end everything? I wanted to ask,  Why?    Why do you torture me this way?  I am trying to give my all in helping you BUT  WHY IS IT NOT ENOUGH ?   Why do I have to carry this on my own?  You tell me,  as I shout at you, mad and crying,  Please ate do not shout at me, ikaw na lang ang kakampi ko.   Yes, I know,  Ikaw lang din ang kakampi ko kaya galit na galit ako sa mga sinabi kasi I have been here with you all through your heartaches  I have always been here for you.   I have always tried to conquer  my own pains and hide them from you and Mom so that you two would have someone to count on, someone you can depend.  Why then, despite of all my efforts to be strong for you,  why is it not enough?  

I told you, please don´t be selfish.  Please think not only about your pain.  Think of me, who have been here these difficult weeks, I who have spent my four day holiday  at home, so I could talk you through every little twitch of sadness you are feeling.   Please K,  push yourself to be stronger.  For me,  for Mom,  for Dad, for the people who love you.  But most especially, for the future you.

The world is your oyster, Kiko.  Unlike me who has to work hard to earn a living  and  achieve my dreams,  you have  always gotten things the easy way.  You have a brand new car,   you get all the gadgets you want.   You could, if you want, quit work and get the MBA you are contemplating on getting, and Dad will support you.  You can go on trips abroad and someone will foot the bill.    While I on the other hand  have to work hard, live abroad alone so I can get to my dreams.  I have taken full responsibility of providing for Mom so you have the leeway to do what you want.  You have Dad´s full financial support  while I, the good but stubborn daughter works my ass off to prove that I can do it on my own.   And yet I  have never been bitter about this.  I am always thankful that at least you could play your life any which way you want.  To my mind, that´s blessing enough,  that at least one of us gets the benefits of our father´s love.   So why don´t you see how lucky you are to have these privileges?  Please, do not throw away all these advantages,  put them to good use.  Fight the sadness,  I am here, I am always here. 

I get so sad living abroad on my own too, K.  If you only knew,  ang lungkot lungkot mag-isa.  It´s the reason I travel often,  to ease any sadness.  To reinvent my emotions and attitude.  Sometimes I think,  uuwi na lang ako sa Pinas.  I know I would find a good paying job in Pinas.  Pero I have something to prove eh and plans to fulfill.    I made a promise to Mom about fixing the house in Ilocos and  I have my dream of opening  a business, and the easiest way to save for those big expenses is to work abroad, kaya I am still here, toughing it out, kahit minsan sobrang lungkot.

Sometimes, when my arrhythmia strikes, and I wake up in the middle of the night with difficulty in breathing,  I pray, that Lord please,  let me go home po muna to my family.  I want to be with people I love when I go.   And you know, the first thing I was told to avoid  with my arrhythmia is sudden movement and emotional outburst after waking up, when my heart rhythm isn´t as stable.  Pero kanina, wala among pakialam,  sobrang takot ko, galit at desperation sa mga sinasabi mo sa akin.

Natatalo din ako ng lungkot,  K.  There are times na parang wala ring direction ang life path ko.  Pero I try so hard to be tough for  my dreams..  Also for you and Mom, so you are spared any added burdens.

So please be strong.  I am sorry if I blew my top earlier.  But please do not call me again at midnight threatening to kill yourself,  because  I do not deserve it, I have always been here for you throughout all our pain.  I witnessed  and felt the abandonment you kept  mentioning.  Remember I was there too when Dad chose a different life.   Ako pa nga ang nakipag-away for  Mom eh,  and I didn´t care if it meant that I  will be the prodigal daughter who was cut off from everything.   I will never  regret  standing up for the wrong that was done to Mom.  I have also broken someone else´s heart and in the aftermath, had my heart trampled upon too, I know how painful it it is to see your dreams of togetherness  vanish.   I know how difficult it is to let go of dashed plans of forever after.

Sabi mo,  Binigay ko naman lahat ate eh, pero bakit pa ako iniwan?  And the only answer I can give you is the one that I have learned from living my small life.  Ganun talaga eh, sometimes  hindi sapat na nagmahal tayo at binigay natin lahat ng meron tayo. Hindi natin macontrol yung ibang tao, K.  Hindi natin pwedeng ipilit ang gusto natin kung iba naman ang gusto nila para sa kaligayahan nila.  We can only do our best and then accept what comes out of it.  We have no control of other people´s decisions,  but  we can control ourselves, our emotions, how we react to situations.  Yan lang ang kaya nating panghawakan.  Doon ka lang magfocus sa kaya mong icontrol.

Minsan iniisip ko, malapit na rin ang breaking point ko but I am trying my best to be here for you. 

So fight it out, please.   I will do everything in my power to help you, but you have to help yourself too.  I know this is not a happy birthday for you, but I promise,  if we fight this out, next year will be infinitely better.

I cannot tell you enough how much I love you.

Ate

Not Love, Actually

I feel like I am in the middle of a love hurricane.  Everyone around me has issues with love. 

The Brother

My brother, to whom I´d  give my kidney, my liver, my aorta, my eyes,  and everything I own without hesitation is going through a terrible heart break.   It´s so bad that even though I am a continent away with a seven hour time difference,  I am constantly on Skype alert, talking him through his sadness and his crying bouts.   It is so bad that we have urged him to seek professional counselling so that all the other emotional baggages from the past can be treshed out and he can be whole again. 

His relationship with T is a complicated one.  T is separated but  is still legally married.  And there´s a child involved.  We of course accepted the girl and kid with open arms.  My mother, after going through so much heartache, is one who accepts everyone.  Walang masamang tinapay for her as long as she sees that the person loves her children, okay agad sa kanya.  But  the girl my brother loves is young, smart and has something to prove to herself.   Having married young,  perhaps she also wants to  enjoy the freedom of  being only accountable for herself and her kid, to not depend on anyone else  for their happiness.  I do understand her  completely so I cannot, for the life of me, get mad at her for deciding to break things off with my brother.  The reality is that sometimes we break things up not  because we no longer love the person, sometimes it's just a matter of choosing your goals and dreams above all else, loving yourself more than any other person.

The Virgin

A  thirty-something friend, in her bid to finally  lose her virginity,  have  bravely  hooked up with some guy from her  apartment building.   So I asked her the questions:  

Is there any chance of it developing into love?  

Nah, I don´t think so. He seems to be in it for the bootycall lang.

 But  what if you fall for him?  

I will stop before that happens.  This is just for experience.  

Aaaah, so para prepared na pag dumating na ang true love, ganun? 

Yes.

She tells me:  Alam ko naman ang dapat gawin eh.  Siguro one month pa.   

I comment:  Oh sya sige, bilang gusto mo naman yan, sige magipon ka muna ng experience.  But take care and be prepared to get hurt kahit na ba sa ngayon eh  sa tingin mo eh for experience lang yang ginagawa mo.

The Friend

She´s actually the most down-to-earth  Pinay engineer I know.  She´s  close to a decade older than me but  the past few weeks we´ve gotten quite close  and we have swapped life stories.  And listening to her I realized one thing, all women, no matter how wise,  fall for the same trap every time.

. 

Her story is like a template for what not to do if you don´t want to get hurt in the end:  A few years ago she had this crush on a co-engineer.  Turns out this co-engineer  was the only one who speaks good English  in their team so they interacted frequently and before long  became friends.  The guy, in true Spanish fashion, is muy simpatico;  kind, helpful and easy to deal with.  So of course, she liked him even more.  So, she narrates, it really began when I asked him if we can use his car to go to Ikea because I had to buy something big and of course he agreed.  Then when he dropped off the item at my  house, late in the evening, things happened.   “At first, ayaw ko pa nga eh.”  So yeah, they became  “friends with benefits”.  It´s been close to three years and the situation´s  still the same.  

One time, she shares,  he surprised me.  He came to my flat at 2 AM!  I told him, you are drunk.  He said, not too much.  Syempre I offered coffee no.  Pero nahuli na ang coffee!  And I could see  that really, she likes the guy.  She takes all the little sweet things that he has done for her and ties it into a necklace of affection.  I ask,  Did you ever tell him that you really love him, ate?  

Yes I did but he said,  dear this is enough, I do not want you in pain.  So okay lang, pero sa isip ko, “ Matututunan mo rin akong mahalin!”

At this point, I have to say, that those writers for teledramas  who propagated these lines should be shot for  inculcating these godawful lines to every  Pinay woman out there.  See how these are imbibed so easily even by those whom we expect to know better?

Now these two friends of mine are highly educated, successful engineers who have travelled the world and  are confident in all other matters.  They´re articulate and vocal with their opinions and yet  they fall into the grayness of  these not quite  love but pwede na rin situations. And can one blame them?  I´ve been through a similar path a long time ago, and I usually credit my youthful impulsiveness and immaturity for these bad choices.  But at thirty something, and forty something, with all their accomplishments why would women settle for these kind of set-ups?  And  what do we say of the men who enjoy the free booty calls and take full advantage  of the no commitment just friends thing? Is there something, a gene, societal pressure, an innate insecurity that makes us women accept such unequal status in relationships?   

How many times have we heard these lines:  “Mamahalin din nya ako balang araw”,  and in the process  you turn into a true blue doormat,  giving  it all,  including your best acrobatic performances tapos in the end, malamang hindi ka pa rin pipiliin.

Because, let´s admit it.  The truth is we take for granted those that we can easily get.   How can you ever expect a guy to suddenly look at you  in a totally different, lovestruck  light when you are always at his beck and call?  Chances are you will just blend in the background and he will only run to you when he needs you or he has an itch to scratch.

Funny, because in a fit of lucidity, I made a pact with myself.  I am ready to go back into the game .  Enough of the ice queen and aloof and shy persona.   I will no longer stare back blankly  at people who show interest. I will fake my smiles until it becomes natural again to smile at strangers.  I´ve had it with being  mailap sa tao.   I want to go back to being the bubbly person I once was before all those heartaches (romantic and otherwise)  triggered my personality shift.

But yes,  there are caveats to being open to new experiences.  Us women most especially, should be wary of going into situations where we will be at the losing end.   I  still think  that men still want to hunt and pursue. even if they will certainly accept  the cherry on the cake if it were offered to them.  But remember,  being the uncomplaining doormat/slave to his whims will not be the reason for them to choose you,  because really, why would they  go through the hassle of turning your relationship from just friends to seriously dating when they can get away with enjoying the perks without any strings attached?

So this piece is really for myself,  a written reminder, and also for women out there who are single and who might be tempted to take whatever comes their way.  Let´s be careful of the relationships we go into.  Hope is good, but it is futile when in the face of your hope, the other person is thinking  that what you have is not love, actually.

Four Movies You Should Watch: Jiro, Dinner Rush, About Time and Saving Mr. Banks

I  stayed home and watched four movies this weekend.  Yes, I have no life.  Pity me, please. Just kidding ;-)

Truth is I stayed in to relax because this  coming week I will be off on a trip to Scandinavia.  I wanted to stay in and just chill, do some reading, watch movies and hopefully write something intelligible. And yeah, I  needed to fix the flat because after my trip,  a friend is set  stay over  for a few days.  It was time to wash  the towels and freshen up the sofa bed.  Yes, boring stuff.  But sometimes boring chores is what we need, no?

But enough of my yip yaps.  I watched four movies these weekend and they totally rocked my outlook in life.  It does feel  serendipitous as these four  all have something in them that I found  nourishing.  It felt like I was having a Chicken Soup for The Soul weekend,  the movie version.   These are  movies that make you think about your own life.  Mind you, these four movies are very different: 

One is a documentary film about the life of the 85 year old sushi chef  of what is considered as the best sushi restaurant in the world.  Set in Japan,  watching Jiro  makes you want to aspire to  be like him.  No, not to be a sushi chef but to have his focused determination to dedicate your life to your one passion.

                                          JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI

    JIRO´S ADVICE

DINNER RUSH plays out  in a single night, during the dinner rush at a trendy restaurant in New York.  As expected, it portrays the intensity of  a professional kitchen, with delicious food images and snippets of crazy conversations and pretensions one gets to endure when dining at a trendy restaurant.  

A food lover would love the sensational food porn,  but ultimately, it is the family-centric story and the delightful and explosive ending that ties this movie dish together.

Now it does seem that after  The Time Traveller´s Wife and Benjamin Button, time travel  has become a convenient plot in films, so I was skeptical about the film ABOUT TIME.   It was billed as a romantic comedy, so I expected kitsch and a ludicrous plot.  But in this film,  the time travel aspect is used  beautifully, serving only as a backdrop to the central themes of familial love and death.  And don´t we all have to deal with these issues at least once in our lives?

     And there is also the amazing photography of Cornwall.  So pretty and beautiful without being prissy.  After watching this movie,  I wanted to book a flight to Cornwall immediately.  Sad, how druing my stay in UK I did not travel much.  Cornwall looks positively  picturesque.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!  If as a child this was your favorite expression, then you are like me.  I loved Mary Poppins.   Before  I discovered The  Sound of Music, there was Mary Poppins.  But even if you have no idea who Mary Poppins is,  please,  watch Saving Mr. Banks.  It is a (somewhat) true narration of how Walt Disney  finally obtained the rights to film Mary Poppins from the writer PL Travers after twenty years of trying.  It is not about Walt Disney, but about the life of Mary Poppin´s creator.  It is heartwarming, a little sad, but ultimately uplifting.

 More than anything else,  Saving Mr. Banks is about how life´s dissapointments change us and how we can move through  these changes and become better.  Because we all have issues, it is always heartening to know that nothing have stopped other people from becoming  successful.  And that should also apply to us.

Watch these movies.  I hope you´d love them like I do.  And if you´ve seen them, let me know what you think. :)

F*cking Out the Sadness (Part 2): Birthday Boy

*This isn´t my life story. Although it is loosely based from a close friend´s life and though I write this in part because it is his birthday,  I have given myself the liberty flip out the facts, insert bombs as I see fit.  So think about this as a story where you can take what you need,  then go  forth, try to be happy*

Image from ezgerty.blogspot.com

Happy 36th to me! Happy 36th to me!  Happing effing birthday to me!

These kids don´t really care or know that it´s my birthday.  What they care about is why I am playing Big Brother in the house with them.  These beautiful kids probably miss their mom,  or want their dad now, but hey, they  just have to make do with the birthday gay.  

Babysitting on my birthday.  How´s that for a celebration?   But in the face of  a friend´s  tearful wail as she drops the news of her mother´s death, how do you say no to her pleas to please, please look after her kids for a few days so she can catch a plane to the Philippines immediately.  

I know the pain, the guilt, the questions, the I-should-haves that  ran through her as she tried to arrange a trip home on a short notice.  Two years ago, the day after my birthday, while I was still  in midair somewhere over the Pacific Ocean,  my sick mother died.

   

My sister recounted how  in her last conscious moments, my mother would ask softly, “Anong araw na ngayon?”   She was fighting off the darkness long enough so that I can be saved from the added despair  of her death on my birthday.  In the scheme of things, what does it matter that she died a day later?  Not much. But that she thought of what it might mean to me, protecting me from at least that psychological pain, that was her gift.

It is cold outside, so ordinary a day.   There is no wine  nor friends  to clink glasses with, not even the casual birthday booty call, but it is okay.  This is perhaps me getting old and piecing together some wholeness after the grieving years.   I am ready, I tell myself and my friends.  I am ready to be real, to not turn to the call of flesh to deaden the pain,  I am ready to be happy without destroying myself.  I am ready to accept that perhaps I am to live alone and love alone. 

So I sit here on a house not my own, fussing over  kids who know me  only as their mother´s friend.  Four more days in this place until their Dutch father is free to take them in.   In the meantime  I sit here thinking, this isn´t so bad.   My life isn´t so bad:  I got promoted at work,  I have been traveling a lot last year, and I am calmer now.  

To spend the day to help a friend in need,  I think how it does seem like the best gift to give.  From me to the world, a thank you for a life, though flawed and imperfect, is a life strewn with small good things.

***F*ucking Out the Sadness: Part 1