10.31.08
Posted in Life Betwixt Book Covers at 9:30 pm by Miracle ♪♫
(The Right Choice)
It would not be very wise to deny that men rule and lead the literary world, and that a number of these men lived heroic, godly, sagacious lives. Despite appreciating women’s writing abilities (George Eliot’s, De Beauvoir’s, Sido’s), I find it a sad truth that one rarely finds good role models in dynamic women writers.
On another earmark, even though one may insist that words have no gender, there is still a subtle and almost unnoticeable stiffness in men’s writing no matter how romantic or passionate their words percolate. Even Anaïs Nin experimented with her need to write erotica seeing that “…the mysteries of woman’s sensuality, so different from man’s and for which man’s language was inadequate.” (from the preface of Delta of Venus. Do not be so surprised that I own a copy. Franz gave it to me – to “educate” me, perhaps. The book remains unfinished… and I remain… “uneducated”? =P)
Each time I come across an impressive literary work and utter with amazement, “A man can write like this?” further research divulges that the author of the particular work was homosexual. Therefore, I realized that even in literature, there is a feminine touch that is by no means inferior, but recognizable… and so I kept on asking, “have we [women], no one of our same gender who is heroic, godly, sagacious, or past the confines of “kilig” romantic stories, to wonder at in the literary world?” Men have the likes of Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, C.S. Lewis, and etcetera, to exalt and look up to. On the other hand, I still jokingly dub Jane Austen “the original superior chick-lit author” no matter how I love her novels most ardently. Ask a male bookworm and he will name several male authors he would wish to coincide with or take after, while there are many female authors worthy of acclaim yet there was not one I could really look up to completely, or in contemporary lingo, affirm that “I so wanna be like her…”
Well, not until the discovery of Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678). Another Novemberian – another autumnal soul I feel I could very much learn from… and admire to the point of hoping to be like her. She is the epitome and hero of women’s plenary education. She was a musician, a writer, a painter, and a linguist among other things, but foremostly, an earnest follower of God.
Since I have only passages from her works, any of her rare literary opuses are welcome on the 16th of November. *winks* haha
If that’s too much to ask, as it is the nature of most items in a wishlist, links to free e-files of the following will be equally embraced:
Eukleria
Opuscula
Dissertatio
Whether the Study of Letters Is Fitting for a Christian Woman
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I am thrilled about posting these passages by van Schurman on my Multiply calendar soon!
¤ If we were at some time permitted by the grace of God to enjoy one and the same companionship, I do not doubt that in such a union of minds and studies we could better encourage one another to virtue….
¤ The goal of studies is presumed not to be vainglory and show or idle curiosity but rather the general goal of the glory of God and the salvation of one’s soul.
¤ Let us define the phrase “fitting or expedient” not as whether the study of letters is… precisely necessary to eternal salvation, nor indeed as a good that makes for the essence itself of happiness in this life, but as an occupation or means that can contribute to our integrity in this same life and, to a degree, through the contemplation of very beautiful things, move us that much more easily to love of God and to eternal salvation.
¤ For since wisdom is so much an ornament of the human races that it ought by right to be extended to one and all, I do not see why the most beautiful adornment of all by far is not fitting for a maiden, in whom we allow diligence in tending and adorning herself.
The whole circle of liberal arts… is entirely fitting to a Christian woman (just as it is a proper and universal good or adornment of humanity).
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10.27.08
Posted in 2008 Potpourri at 1:34 am by Miracle ♪♫
A venerated childhood amusement well-nigh forgotten has been recently revived in our family. Scrabble.
It enhanced TV-less nights during my tender age, led to the discovery of peculiar and funny vocabulary, increased addition skills for whoever was totaling points, and produced essential family time most importantly. Misha was not born then, so four family members were Scrabble-perfect. I recall Dandi and Mama being the steadfast highest scorers while I maintained the lowest rank unwaveringly and consoled myself with a phrase taken out of context; “the first will be last and the last will be first.” C’mon, at least I did not resort to “grant me serenity to accept the words I cannot change, the courage to play the tiles I can, and the wisdom to use the triple word score.” Every time we assembled for a game, I knew I would always finish with the least worthy words to my name, but would end up having the grandest time nonetheless. Mama held the banner for the most complicated terms, while Dandi followed with long words that usually managed to stretch towards Double and Triple Word Scores. Papa’s style was interesting seeing that he was able to weave words, and score greatly with a minimal use of letters. He remains artistic even in Scrabble. As for myself? I had no strategies and panicked at the sight of a “Q” without a “U” along my seven tiles.
The reawakening of Scrabble in our home brings back happy memories and gathering for another game is more enjoyable than ever. Moreover, this time gives me the chance to score better due to my age, and it is now Misha at the bottom rank. This won’t be for long, however. At eight years of age, Misha is catching up with the adults. He even gave me a start when he struck a pose at the dinner table a la Rodin’s The Thinker and asked me, “Ate, what is philosophy?” I never asked questions like that when I was eight! I have accepted my lot – and with cheerfulness – that I will always be the sub(4x)ordinate brain of the family. But! Scrabble has taught me more than triple word scores could offer.
In Scrabble, we are given an opportunity to create, we are endowed with this expanse of a board, occasional big-scoring tiles, a bombardment of less-scoring tiles, pure vowels or unmixed consonants at intervals, but we are required to use whatever we have. The challenge lies in how we do that. Otherwise, we end up wasting the valuable tiles on trivial spots and arsy versy, the insignificant tiles on important places, or worse, make the tiles provided of non effect by allowing its value to be subtracted from our tabulation due to neglect and non-use. Yet, the challenge does not end there. We must choose the best of companions. Life is a scrabble. A challenge, a struggle – but it is wonderful. Ain’t it scrabulous to be alive?!
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Scrabble-aficionado t-shirt idea: “I panic without U.” =P
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10.19.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:45 pm by Miracle ♪♫
Books, a violin, and me: A picture that some of you are all too accustomed with, even to the point of eidetic precision - or aversion, and yet, all these, mostly because of Vera.
Although my violin photos are tolerably aesthetic, thanks to having artistic intimates who know my very few better angles; they eclipse the truth that I am a lousy violinist. They camouflage the not discourteous but not exactly encouraging you’re-better-off-as-a-pianist look that several audiences have propounded. But why do I persist and refuse to be held back at the risk of being accused of trying too hard, why impose this certain difficulty on myself, why believe that someday I’ll be nearly as good as Franz? (Insert Franz’ haw-haw here)
But who is Vera? Despite descending from a lineage of paternal and maternal musical ancestors, Vera was the vital inspiration for my passion concerning the violin… and believe it or not, she was but a mere character from a book I once read when I was only four or five years old. Notwithstanding the fact that details of the story are enveloped in two decades of hazy memory, I still remember her as a violinist whose Ukrainian hometown experienced a great flood. Having salvaged no other personal belonging but her violin, she sought sanctuary at the well-built opera house along with other townspeople. While around her hundreds of disheartened victims lamented over lives and possessions washed away, she brought out her violin and comforted them with her music. Through music, she lifted up their drenched spirits and through music, she gave hope.
Not only was she the probable subconscious antecedent of my Slavic attraction or the testament that literature and music will forever be synergic in my life, her story was what fueled my desire and yearning to play the violin and transmit hope through it. Howbeit, as it is the nature of most desires, achieving this particular passion is a long and winding road, (shh… nobody notify the cliché police) and it took me circa fifteen years later to be able to run my hands through the becoming curves and details of a real violin and essentially, produce a sound from the violin. It screeched horribly the first time… but to me, it was not solely a screech, it was the sonus of my outstretched fingers finally in contact with a dream train that was at the same time arriving and embarking, and slowing down for me somewhere in between.
We should not play an instrument, hone our voices, and focus on our professions only because we dream of being able to do so skillfully, we should aspire that through music and whatever it is that we do, we will be able to praise The Giver, convey love, and provide hope to our fellow pilgrims. We are all in our own musical and spiritual journeys I believe, and giving hope is a definite goal in our lives, but it is only logical that we must first nurture this hope in ourselves until our cup runneth over, and then may others sip of the hope emanating from our own cups – demitasse in my case. Sometimes, I am guilty of losing consciousness of these things… and then I revive Vera anew in my memory and whisper hopefully, “Someday, I’ll be nearly as good as Franz…”
*giggles and disappears*
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10.15.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:14 pm by Miracle ♪♫
These hands that embrace in devotion at the rising and the setting of the sun,
and in between,
These hands that sends forth bouquets of piquant scents
after tending the rosemary, basil, and tarragon each morning,
These hands that prod blacks and whites, bovid guts and equid hairs
by musical suasion,
These hands that bequeath literal flowers in a book,
and glean literary flowers from a book,
These identical sisters who trace legatos of words and
p . i . z . z . i . c . a . t . o . s .
These hands that find ecstasy in fondling pages,
These hands that steadfastly obliterate tears,
These members that breaks and mends,
These hands whose perspiration are anathema to touch,
This dyad who have been sinners and saints,
These hands that along with the heart and mind have been in exceeding ways
the shaping of me.
These hands that are part minstrel, part toiler,
are they not half mine, half yours?
Were they not meant to rest in yours,
ab ovo,
ad infinitum?
.
.
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10.14.08
Posted in Unauthored by Me at 11:20 pm by Miracle ♪♫
By Wislawa Szymborska (1996 Nobel Laureate)
_____________________________________________________________________
For my Soprano Twinnie: Coloratura
Poised beneath a twig-wigged tree,
she spills her sparkling vocal powder:
slippery sound slivers, silvery
like spider’s spittle, only louder.
Oh yes, she Cares (with a high C)
for Fellow Humans (you and me);
for us she’ll twitter nothing bitter;
she’ll knit her fitter, sweeter glitter;
her vocal chords mince words for us
and crumble croutons, with crisp crunch
(lunch for her little lambs to munch)
into a cream-filled demitasse.
But hark! It’s dark! Oh doom too soon!
She’s threatened by the black bassoon!
It’s hoarse and coarse, it’s grim and gruff,
it calls her dainty voice’s bluff -
Basso Profondo, end this terror,
do-re-mi mene tekel et cetera!
You want to silence her, abduct her
to our chilly life behind the scenes?
To our Siberian steppes of stopped-up sinuses,
frogs in all throats, eternal hems and haws,
where we, poor souls, gape soundlessly
like fish? And this is what you wish?
Oh nay! Oh nay! Though doom be nigh,
she’ll keep her chin and pitch up high!
Her fate is hanging by a hair
of voice so thin it sounds like air,
but that’s enough for her to take
a breath and soar, without a break,
chandelierward; and while she’s there,
her vox humana crystal-clears
the whole world up. And we’re all ears.
_____________________________________________________________________
For my Constant Consonant Gardener: The Joy of Writing
(for you know this joy)
Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word “woods.”
Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they’ll never let her get away.
Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.
They forget that what’s here isn’t life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop.
Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?
The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.
_____________________________________________________________________
For my… Hope: Golden Anniversary
They have been different once,
fire and water, miles apart,
robbing and giving in desire,
that assault on one another’s otherness.
Embracing, they appropriated and expropriated each other for so long,
that only air was left within their arms,
transparent as if after lightning.
One day the answer came before the question.
Another night they guessed their eyes’ expression
by the type of silence in the dark.
Gender fades, mysteries molder,
distinctions meet in all-resemblance
just as all colors coincide in white.
Which of them is doubled and which missing?
Which one is smiling with two smiles?
Whose voice forms a two-part canon?
When both heads nod, which one agrees?
Whose gesture lifts the teaspoon to their lips?
Who’s flayed the other one alive?
Which one lives and which has died
entangled in the lines of whose palm?
They gazed into each other’s eyes and slowly twins emerged.
Familiarity breeds the most perfect of mothers –
it favors neither of the little darlings,
it scarcely can recall which one is which.
On this festive day, their golden anniversary,
a dove, seen identically, perched on the windowsill.
_____________________________________________________________________
For my Bestfriend Shmuckie: Openness
(”Reactionary” people, don’t take this maliciously.
I’m just providing him some inspiration. ;-))
Here we are, naked lovers,
beautiful to each other—and that’s enough.
The leaves of our eyelids our only covers,
we’re lying amidst deep night.
But they know about us, they know,
the four corners, and the chairs nearby us.
Discerning shadows also know,
and even the table keeps quiet.
Our teacups know full well
why the tea is getting cold.
And old Swift can surely tell
that his book’s been put on hold.
Even the birds are in the know:
I saw them writing in the sky
brazenly and openly
the very name I call you by.
The trees? Could you explain to me
their unrelenting whispering?
The wind may know, you say to me,
but how is just a mystery.
A moth surprised us through the blinds,
its wings in fuzzy flutter.
Its silent path—see how it winds
in a stubborn holding pattern.
Maybe it sees where our eyes fail
with an insect’s inborn sharpness.
I never sensed, nor could you tell
that our hearts were aglow in the darkness.
_____________________________________________________________________
For my Familiar Raindrop: Nothing Twice
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.
One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you’re here with me,
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
_____________________________________________________________________
For Myself: Miracle Fair
The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.
The usual miracles:
invisible dogs barking
in the dead of night.
One of many miracles:
a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.
Several miracles in one:
an alder is reflected in the water
and is reversed from left to right
and grows from crown to root
and never hits bottom
though the water isn’t deep.
A run-of-the-mill miracle:
winds mild to moderate
turning gusty in storms.
A miracle in the first place:
cows will be cows.
Next but not least:
just this cherry orchard
from just this cherry pit.
A miracle minus top hat and tails:
fluttering white doves.
A miracle (what else can you call it):
the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.
and will set tonight at one past eight.
A miracle that’s lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it’s go more than four.
A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.
An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.
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10.11.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:39 am by Miracle ♪♫
We are all aware that doodling is a bored schoolgirl’s activity. But what is doodling when one is no longer a schoolgirl and ultimately un-bored? Ah! Is it the aftermath of a bleak season of the heart? Is it a subconscious desire to return to the innocent little girl that once was, and the yearning to rise above the meandering and interlaced scribbles of life - or a distress signal that one is drowning in them? Is it the underwhelming absence of words or the overwhelming excess of it that the pen is compelled to write nothing but nondescript lines and curves… until a heart fortuitously manifests itself from the gallimaufry of consonants and squiggles?
♥ ♥ ♥
…and so I turned to another polybibliogamist who was and forever will be my partner in the consonant business, “Mar… I just realized something while doodling. In order to draw a heart, one must write a curved “M” and then a “V” beneath it… and after that… we can go on writing/talking about its symbolisms and significances.”
The knowing answered, “Mir, this is the only thing I can say: that in every heart of an “M” is a “V”. “M” without the “V” are limbs hanging limp or wings refusing to fly, or feet desperately trying to walk out but end up remaining still, rooted to grievous “V”-less experience… In the case of “V”, regardless of the fact that essentially all of “V” is contained in an “M”, “V” remains what it is: a letter already in flight.
I was left amazed at the poetic precision.
One more thing Mar, a heart is also a leaning, mirrored, upside down “J”.
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10.07.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:28 am by Miracle ♪♫
One of the most painful things in life
is not being in the saddest moment of your life per se.
It is when you are in the saddest state
and you are expected to be happy.
Then you find that you are genuinely happy,
but you are verily sad.
Then you stop making sense in the most sensible way.
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10.05.08
Posted in 2008 Potpourri at 11:46 pm by Miracle ♪♫
Understand, this day
Was never envisioned without me.
Had I a choice, I would not miss it
But it seems that I have to.
Permit these words
To take the place of that hug
(nga dili pina takilid)
For it is the last thing left to do.
~~~
Understand, that if I
Have not said it enough
Or convinced you enough
Understand enough that I understand enough.
I am happy. Overjoyed even.
That we have traveled life
As true friends, and remain so
Up to this day.
~~~
Understand, do not think
For even one moment that I
Envy you for reaching
Your happily-ever-after.
I do not. But I envy you
For tomorrow you will not
Open your eyes to a happy ending
But to a happy beginning.
~~~
Understand, I’ll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when I see the pale
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.
I’ll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream –
Understand. Do the lines sound familiar?
You may finish it for me…
…and may God bless you
and the woman of your choice
as you live happily ever after.
=)
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10.04.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:10 pm by Miracle ♪♫
It has been established that it is the human heart’s nature to have “a little disorder in its geometry” as Bernières expressed, so must it be broken in order to be whole. But woe! For the heart is merely a fraction of what ought to crumble. So too, must the body and the soul… and when that happens –
Oh, but there are books! Infinite sweet-smelling pages to indulge in, thus overcoming dejection with words, blooming ideas, and a sense of scholarship. There are the stars, the moon, the sun! Endless celestial wonders to humble and expel petty, terrestrial worries. There are chores, inexhaustible duties to occupy oneself with more pragmatic cares instead of entertaining romantic despondency. There are children, those vessels of laughter and hope that we must nurture so that melancholia would not be too harsh on them when their time comes. There is music, a heavenly gift! All these things but which are almost akin to the entertaining function of crochet hooks and knitting needles to a naturally nostalgic aged woman who has outlived her past and her future.
But what joy, what glory! To be able to perform these things for another purpose – for the author knows that there is another divine reason within reach – other than the lone intention of escaping the all too savage and etiolating malady. Melancholy.
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