The
red glow of Valentine’s Day
looms in the distance.
Its tinsel rays reaching out
to event-conscious insects…
and it shines for them
because it is the kind of light
they are attracted to…
but when they approach it, it kills them…
and the alleged light dies, too.
When at fragile intervals I denounce my synthetic spinstership and allow an old stabbing paragraph (which accuses me of having the mark of a cold egoist) to reprove me, that’s when I indulge in thoughts of someone. Not a stranger, but himself a gift waiting for the giver to appoint the illustrious day… and I, the recipient, wait for the same day… and sometimes while I wait, I dream.
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I dream of an immaculate page.
The sacred sheet: our faith.
I the inkpot and he the quill.
Appointed by the Author that if one is absent,
there should be no need for the other.
…and when
he dips his steadfast life
into my delicate soul, we shed our ink.
Sometimes so tenderly,
and sometimes so passionately,
sometimes so furiously,
and sometimes so simply
with only a string of joyful vowels…
we write our life.
We write
our love.
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After such dreams, the poor so-called spinster cannot help but query; if the man is superior to the woman, and even if for him it is not good to be alone, how much more does the weaker vessel need a companion?
.
Cebu never looked as hushed and profound when the glorious moon eclipsed Water
Front’s fairy-tale grandeur so early that morning…
and Vinz was at the wheel
driving extra miles out of his comfort zone to serve friendship.
My eyes crept back and forth between the moon
and Vinz, and saw him as “a traveling companion but on a different kind of
journey,” a line by C. S. Lewis whose reflections on friendship remain
unsurpassed – based on my own reading experience and assessment, at least. In that moment, friendship embraced and
warmed me, and rescued me from the emotional-vehicle-aurora draught.
I was in Cebu because of an unrelenting urge to be with
Tonet. One and twenty is simply too
early an age to lose both parents. I had
to know her state, I had to see with my own eyes whether she was alright or
not, I had to be there for Franz and I, and attempt to be of some reassurance
but especially remind her of the One source of comfort and Love.
Being
driven by such a mighty impulse left me no time to think of hotel
vacancies and other preparations… and that led me to Mae’s doorstep.
Mae, a
childhood best friend who later became Tonet’s choir-mate in college, welcomed
me without hesitation and walked in the rain with me – literally and
metaphorically, as we have always done for each other.
Vinz, also
a childhood best friend who turned out to be Tonet’s instructor in college,
helped Reji and I clean up the chapel by mopping the floors at 4 in the
morning, providing us with a hot breakfast, and offering his driving expertise –
notwithstanding that wrong turn in a one-way road. =P
Marie Vic,
whose mutual concern for Tonet and care for my safety touched me.
Jeremiah,
who helped me pray for Tonet’s strength… and such a powerful prayer that the
answer manifests itself in Tonet’s being!
The
Quartet. “Drawn apart together from the herd,” (Franz, Reji, Tonet, and I),
whose presence in each other’s soul inspires and builds each other up – each
one bringing out the unique light of the other, and each one, “augmenting our
loves.”
What I did
not foresee was that in my attempt to “be there” for one friend, others in turn
lent and shared their hearts and hands and proved that our lives were not
merely intertwined by coincidence, but rather, bound by a greater cause – a
greater truth.
Vinz asked
what I was doing when I strained my neck to get a glimpse of the sky as we
drove down the same road for the second time that day… “I just wanted to see
the sky,” I replied with a smile… but not only that, my heart whispered. I was giving thanks to God for true friends that exceed the number of fingers I have in one hand. I was thanking God for friendship.
Then approached he and confidently clasped the halved heart of my demitasse with utter dignity and gazed upon the intensely melancholic fluid. Perceiving its bitterness, he suggested a dash of what could have been sweeteners then stirred and inhaled that which was my own enigmatic soul.
Stir by stir, the sadness dissolved.
Stir by stir, the riddle he deciphered,
and stir by stir, he credited the java for my hypnosis… but stir by stir, it was already him that my eyes were fastened on.
So subtle but steadfast was this gaze.
Even the opulent liquid yearned to be transformed into this beholding.
.
(Yo-Yo Ma’s Obrigado Brazil brews in the background)
Mama requested that I bake The chocolate cake once again. It is coincidentally odd that she should choose January 15 of all days, for it is after all The cake that I once concocted for he
who must cease to be addressed You in my ink-shedding (whose birthday is on the 15th and whose own mother
did delight in the same cake).
Believing in what I christen “culinary jazz,” Mama and I are barely and rarely obedient to a cookbook. We are not classical musicians in the kitchen – it is there that we improvise, maintaining our rhythm and beat with the whisk and spatula, the flavours and aroma.
The chocolate cake has two major improvisations. You have to become part
of our family in order to learn the other underlying harmony, and the other secret shall no longer be for I am about to divulge it here. The major key is E – Espresso.
It is the primal process of this recipe. Before the silky oil is poured, before the delicate egg shells are cracked, before the flour is sifted, before I even don my apron, the full-bodied ooze of the espresso should be ready.
The espresso enriches the savour of the chocolate, but it never overpowers it. Both flavours are too symbiotic that when baked, the taster hardly recognizes that there are two… and the procedure takes hours in preparation but only seconds in consumption… and they who consume it will hail the deliciousness and commend the “expensive” chocolate but they do not credit the espresso that enhances this particular chocolate cake to stand out… simply because they are not even aware of its presence. Thus the cake shall remain The extraordinary chocolate cake (with espresso in its soul but not in its name).
…and I shall bake it. Not in celebration for him, knowing that he is celebrated enough in who I am. I shall bake it, simply because the chocolate cake must continue to exist.
Rest assured, my resolution is intact, no tears for secret ingredients there… but surely one is not forbidden to remember him who made life richer – like espresso for chocolate.
.
…and there it lay with one amputated leg dangling by a scarce strip of discoloured skin, its glaring empty eyes ogling at nothingness. Encompassed by red devil ants eager to excise what was left of the death-saturated mound of decomposing flesh, it was the carcass of a rat.
My insides violently churned with horror at the sight. I was face to face with a surreal portrait of a Godless man.
by Cat Power (Charlyn “Chan” Marshall)
Oh I do believe
In all the things you say
What comes is better than what came before
And you’d better come come, come come to me
Better come come, come come to me
Better run, run run, run run to me
Better come
Oh I do believe
In all the things you say
What comes is better that what came before
And you’d better run run, run run to me
Better run, run run, run run to me
Better come, come come, come come to me
You’d better run
Sunday afternoon was a suitable time to snuggle in a little
corner and read a book uninterrupted, though I had to drift to the espresso
machine several times.
It has been long since I last indulged in a love story. But an extremely musical love story I could
not resist, especially when it involves a girl pianist who loves Bach the way I
do and the violist “Michael” (oh, the parallelisms!)… and especially when Franz
had to purchase it from Brunei and deliver it directly to my heart’s doorstep.
[You know how much I appreciate
it, Franz,
but after reading it, I do not know whether your gesture was one of
kindness or cruelty.
Now I blame you
for half the pain my “Michael” has caused me! (Hah! Kidding, kidding, of
course! Besides, Hesse
was way meaner!)]
An Equal Music. “In
the book I read, I recalled him, for he had in many ways been the making of
me…” and it was after all the very same “Schu” of The Trout who stirred up the Arpeggione.
“Music, such music, is a sufficient gift… why not hope to
grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and
to hear such music - not too much, or the soul could not sustain it – from time
to time.”
It was indeed fugue I suffered
from…
but I am purged now. This book was
just an ad lib to a cathartic movement.
It is over.
Fine.
We bid farewell to Franz yesterday.
His presence in our home during the holiday
season was a wonderful present – although it somehow caused me to feel guilty,
knowing that other people dear to him deserved his care as well and that many
were vying for his attention in the course of his brief stay in the Philippines… but I am grateful for every single moment. Along with him came endless music playing, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, draining batteries of every camera
available, reading blogs worth reading, mentioning new loves and past loves – which, mind you,
did not hurt at all, espresso, serious conversations, laughing, jesting, kikiam and
tempura at the boulevard, pasta a la achoo (hahaha), eating, eating, eating, and a pile of books – on top
of that pile, An Equal Music. Thank you
for the books and sharing your music and precious time with us, Franz. It was really wonderful to be with you again. We were… insane again, naturally.
Haha
…
My laptop just crashed but I do not panic.
I believe that even in these things, God has
a purpose. (Perhaps I may sleep earlier
now.)
It will be sent to Cebu for repair this week.
Ugh, I cannot believe my
laptop’s going there and I’m not. I was really hoping to be reunited with PPP
people this month… but then again, it’s God’s will.
…
I just had my first lesson with a student this year, and she
did great. From the fading Beethoven “Tempest”
to “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” I assigned her
pieces randomly, and coincidentally her repertoire tells me that after a storm,
things do get brighter in Jesus’ Light.
…
I expect that this year will be complete with its trials and
joys, but trusting God, I feel that it will be just amazing. I prayed so… and Jeremiah did, too… which
also means that I won’t be getting married this year! hehehe =P
…
While some preferred to squander New Year’s Eve sulking, I had
every reason not to. I thank the Lord
for giving me every blessed reason to be
joyful. Now as the pyrotechnic prelude
closes, January deepens and I wade into a stream of reflection, hopes, and
memories mostly of bliss. Once again,
life settles into a tolerable aloneness. Tolerable for the reason that I know I am not really alone. Haha… and
then I sink deeper into life’s “strange, tangled, unearthly beauty…”
