Of Death and Graveyard

I just came back from a cemetery in the northern part of the city. It was my first time to visit such place. It's neither a good experience nor a bad one.

A wide LCD screen welcomed the visitors by showing "Pacman's" recent fights. I wondered if I were in a feast or something.

What amused me is the carnival just beside the cemetery. I saw a ferris wheel, tents of Ukay-ukay (rummage sale) and all sorts of gimmick to allure the visiting relatives and friends. Then there's a pack of vendors of flowers, candles, peanuts, ice cream, accessories, and kakanin (native delicacies). There were bigger tents of an aspiring president and a mayor for some volunteers for rescue and whatever stuff they could provide for the public.

The air was redolent of burning incense... But, what I heard from the graves were the loud noises of people from merry rides.

It is the typical poor man's grave. There are no exclusive gates and tombs are like shanties in squatters' area. Distance between each tomb is barely a meter. There's this thing they call "appartment" which has three levels of piled up tombs if the family of the deceased could not afford a grave lot.

While looking for the tomb of my demised uncle, my mother spoke to me without any expectation for a good conversation. She asked me if she were dead and buried in some place, would any one care to visit her or be as unfortunate as those unattended tombs we passed by.

I just gave her a smirk. "What a question?!" I told myself. But, then, this thought chagrined me for awhile until we came home.

Death is inevitable and being buried in some graveyard is part of it. But, visiting a tomb of a person you're once with is a tradition. It occurred to me that this special visitation is not for the dead ones at all but for those who visit. By visiting and saying prayers for those who left them, they feel at ease. They imagine a reunion with the dead at the last spot where they know the lifeless body went. That is why even if the cemetery is as inconvenient as that one, they still spend time for awhile.

But, I really swore not to go back to such kind of place on all saints or all souls day again.

The soul of the dead could be somewhere else joining the elements in the universe. So, anywhere I may be, I can whispher a prayer for and spare a moment to think of that person. I'm not saying this as an answer to my mother's question. Graveyard is still a holy place for me. I just expected it to be solemn and serene place to meditate and reflect for your deceased love ones.

If my graveyard were as a carnival-like as that one we visited, I'd rather be cremated and blown to the sea. I'd ask my family and special someone to go the beach and experience the breeze while thinking of me.

I pray for peace of all the souls who are now free from this hellish world.

Reclusion

If your shadow is not cast
on my doorstep tonight,
If your eyes do not meet
mine tonight,
if your palms do not touch
mine tonight,
if your breathing is not
near my ear tonight...

then, tonight is not ours.

as the light slowly envelops the night,
and so our mystery ends...

Harder as it gets

In one of the episodes in the first season of Felicity, Felicity Porter (Keri Russell) said "Relationships are hard. They just are..."

This holds true in all relationships. Regardless of race, color, religion and whatever human aspects. There's the thing Descartes calls, Dialectics of relationship. Just when you say there is good, then there is evil. In every thesis, there's anti-thesis. That's dialectics. Two opposites clash but they need each other.

Baxter and Montgomery state that in a relationship there are dialectics that are inevitable.

1. Connectedness and Separatedness
You have this urge to be together most of your time but at the same time, you also want to have some space.

2. Certainty and Uncertainty
Being spontaneous in the relationship makes it more exciting. But, too much spontaneity could also lose the trust. You may think your relationship is getting nowhere.

3. Openness and Closedness
You want your partner to know everything about yourself because you already belong to each other. But, you are scared to tell him or her just about everything in your mind because it may be the reason of your break up because your partner didn't like what you said.

These contradictions rule every close relationship here on Earth. What can you do about it?

Balance. It's easy to spell but really hard to do. Most couples who were not able to do this thing did not actually make it. Some committed themselves through life time but are still struggling. Some divorced, others left. But there are also some who were still there until the other half's death. Who knows if they still had kept the fire burning all through their years together. but the thing is, they were able to struggle and stay.

I'm actually writing this to convince myself. I keep on telling myself the line I mentioned earlier. And, I say, "it's harder as your bond gets stronger and deeper." Sail on and prevail!

Hunches

It occurred to me just yesterday that some of my hunches really were true.

Hunch no. 1:

Corina Sanchez-Mar Roxas wedding is a political tactic for Mar's candidacy for presidency.

What happened when Mar suddenly declared his giving way for Noynoy and run as Vice-President instead?

No more cheeeezzzzyyyy features in showbiz news about the engaged couple.

Hunch no. 2:

The public was just overwhelmed to cry for Noynoy's presidency in 2010 because of Cory's death.

I've been receiving anonymous text messages everyday about how much property does Noynoy's family have, jokes about job generation plans of Noynoy if he were the president --- the companies that will be present in job fairs will be of his family's businesses.


I never disliked the late Cory Aquino for being the kind of president that nobody ever mentioned in the media since her demise. Maybe it was because only few of us have really learned Philippine history. Or that the book we used in our history class was not really telling the truth or somehow was using a different perspective. It must be a perspective to promote and preserve the mask-reputation of the personalities. Well, in fact, history for most of us is just about dates and people.

Nevertheless, if it were all about people, heroes or idiots, nothing so real had been revealed. People deserve to know the real accounts of the events in the past to learn from them and use their lessons for the betterment of the future which eventually become a new history.

There are only a few things that I know about Cory and the Cojuangcos, which prove that I'm not also a diligent student in my History class.

1. The Cojuangco's owned the Hacienda Luisita. It was the sugar plantation where hundreds of tenants were killed by gunshots when they protested against the injustices they experienced at work. That place was once a blood pool of the toilers of the Cojuangco's land.

2. The Comprehensive Agragrian Reform Program (CARP) was approved during the term of Cory. Before its extension just recently approved during the 14th Congress in the HOuse of Representatives, thousands of farmers marched towards the gates of Batasan calling for a genuine land reform program, because for 20 years, CARP had been a big bogus reform which Cory made for the Filipinos to believe on. The truth is Hacienda Luisita and all other land that her clan owned had never been subjected to CARP. It must have been crafted so cunningly!

I'd like to extend this enumeration up to 5 or more. But, I guess, I'm not just "not good" in History but also in memory as well.

Going back to the hunch thing, those anonymous text messages and satirical jokes are not just black propaganda. They must have some bases aside from the two things I mentioned here.

I haven't decided who to vote in 2010 elections. I'm still thinking who is the lesser evil of all the candidates. But, even if he or she is the least evil of all, I still won't vote for anyone. Only those who could walk what they talk during the campaign period deserve my vote.

In the last three elections that I was able to exercise this "democratic" process, only one candidate had my vote. The partylist -- one that genuinely represents a marginalized sector and not like that of Palparan's.

One last hunch:
Noynoy will endorse Mar to run instead of him. Chismis!

What are birthdays for anyway?

Does my title sound so bitter? Heh... I hope not. I was just caught by this moment of reflection. I guess what has really brought me in to this is the clinging sentimentalism and romanticism passed on by our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so on. You see, my mom had always taken me to a studio for my birthday picture since I was one year old. It lasted until I was seven. I used to have a children's party with my cousins and friends in the neighborhood. My birthday would not be complete without the blowing of candles on my birthday cake and receiving gifts from relatives. Well, those were the birthdays I had until I was seven years old.

Since then, I lost most of my birthday memories. I can't remember when was the year when I had dinner with my family in a Chinese restaurant, or when I just had a lot of drinks with friends. I can't even remember how I celebrated it last year, or did I?

But, there was one birthday that I couldn't forget. It was in the year 2000 when I celebrated it away from home, not even with my closest friends, but with the people I started to live with in some remote area in the island. That was when I chose to spend a few months with the peasants. They were good people. I lived with them, ate with them and even took a bath with them beside the flowing cold spring in the village. They slaughtered their native chicken for me, offered a lot of yellow bananas from their farm, and cooked the maja blanca with the ingredients sent by my parents from the city.

I just turned 17 years old at that time. That's the only birthday that remains so vivid in my memory. A celebration which had given me so much meaning to my existence and defined me as a wonderful human being.

In the next hour, I'll be officially 26 years old. I've been thinking that birthdays are just for kids. When you're still a kid, you always look forward to your birthdays because you wanted to be a big girl or boy so soon like your older siblings. When you're still a kid, you wanted to grow old sooner than a year so you could do things on your own, without asking permission from mom or asking money from dad.

But when you started to age like 25 or 26 (like me), you started to deliberately forget about your birthday. You wanted to stop aging and be like or look like a child again. When a new acquaintance asked me about my age, I asked them back what they think. Most of them said, I look like 19, 20, someone even said 16. I know most of them have similar answers because I have this conscious effort to look younger by staying cheerful and youthful.

I'm evasive in a way to tenaciously deny my true age. Unconsciously (of which now I'm conscious about), I deny this growing old because I don't think I have grown up. By coming out young, feeling young, I create my elusive world of less responsibilities. It's not that I hate responsibilities or that I don't want to be responsible enough. I just don't think I'm able to fight procrastination to move on and face the challenges of growing up or being mature in that sense.

I think that's the story behind all this "bitterness" on birthday. That's how I started to be practical and non-sentimental about it. I don't even celebrate it anymore nor ask for something special to happen to make it memorable just like owning a balloon that my parents bought from church after lighting some candles for a prayer.

It just dawned on me that I should still give this birthday some sentimental value especially that I've already passed a quarter of a hundred lifetime (or that I have 4 or 5 years left to complete the numbers in the calendar). I feel like shaking and chiding to myself: "Hey, don't you get it? You're already 26! Grow up! Make a life! Make a person out of yourself!"

I'd like to have a toast for that tomorrow! Happy Birthday to me!

Monetize

I was in the mood to customize the look of this blog when I noticed the MONETIZE tab next to layout. With a bit of compunction whether or not this will surely give me money, I tried it. Because I had seen almost everyone's blog has it, I followed the instructions and enabled third party cookies and java scripting. And, then I signed up for adsense account.

So, there I have it --- "Ads by google!" I hope I'm making sense (cents) here.

Procrastination

It's been three months since I came home.

Although it brings me back to the people I love, coming home is not actually a relief. In fact, it has given me a clearer picture of a life that I should have been ready to face and struggle through five or six years ago.

Going back home is facing the things I had evaded. Top of the list is financial responsibility. Being the eldest offspring gives me an automatic conscience to be aware of the needs of my family and to assume some vital tasks when my parents could no longer provide.

Things of this sort have preoccupied my mind since I came home. I would like to take a leap and materialize my plans. I would like to see the person I should be at this age and at this level of experiences.

Unfortunately, I feel that I am stranded. I landed on a wrong ground, not my niche.

I cannot focus and do the things to be done because of tormenting preoccupations. Preoccupations that are full of "What if?", "How to?" and "How I wish!"

I had been too much preoccupied. I didn't realize that I was procrastinating.