I finally met someone who knows my pain of losing Sky the night he fell 15 floors to a quick and hopefully painless death.  4 years seems like only yesterday when I remember seeing his frail snow-white little body.  I was a coward not to go near him but I was too afraid to show my weakness in front of those people who only were probably laughing at a person mourning over a tiny kitten with no breed…this little kitten I would not have seen in the dark had he not cried out amongst the tricycles parked along Reliance Street that one night.  My memory remains but my Sky is still gone.  I had almost forgotten till Mia lost Thirty last week.

I had almost forgotten how much it hurt till I saw Mia hurting.   How many people in the office see the Mia that I see?  The past 2 weeks were an emotional upheaval  tainted by people who are not whom they say they are.  Lost or stolen possessions pale in comparison to a mediocre world’s lack of connection magnified by betrayal.  Mia is strong.  Mia is far from mediocre.  Mia, who understands nuclear physics more than tying shoelaces, is different.  Mia makes sense because everyone else and everything else doesn’t.  The irony is that everyone and everything else has become more predictable.  Therefore, it was really a question of acceptance or not.   It might seem rational to embrace what is practical, present or popular but my own kind disgusts me for what the people have become.

Shame…a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety as it is defined by Merriam.  It is rather hilarious to see how it is defined in this country because not much seems to be an  “impropriety” except  when I sent an email putting someone else accidentally  to shame over something he should be ashamed about to begin with.  This individual happens to be a homosexual.  He forgot that.  He belittled his own sister in front of non-family members.  He forgot that.  He went on sick leave when he really was not sick.  He forgot that.  He is only nice to people when he has an immediate need.  He forgot that or he doesn’t see that.  He talked about one instance of shame because it brought light to what he did in front of many people.  Yes, a convenient shame indeed…What a tragedy of a person.

If my shame is only the susceptibility to an emotion, then I accept that for events that transpired in the last 3 weeks.  Poor Mia.  Sweet Mia.  How could I think so much for myself when a friend has been in greater need?  She likens herself to a Venus flytrap though she closed in on herself without a prey…now that’s a shame!

It is lunchtime in the office.  I am listening to  Jo Dee  Messina and Tim McGraw singing “Bring on the Rain”.

Another day has almost come and gone
Can’t imagine what else could wrong
Sometimes I’d like to hide away somewhere and lock the door
A single battle lost but not the war (cause)

Tomorrow’s another day
And I’m thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain

It’s almost like the hard times circle round
A couple drops and they all start coming down
Yeah, I might feel defeated
I might hang my head
I might be barely breathing but I’m not dead

Tomorrow’s another day
And I’m thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain

I’m not gonna let it get me down
I’m not gonna cry
And I’m not gonna lose any sleep tonight. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

I am missing my father who just left before the second storm hits Manila.  I miss my pets.  I miss old and real friends.  I do not have the appetite to eat anything.  I am unafraid of Mother Nature’s anger this weekend.  What terrifies me most is that I am in this  sea of emotions -   waves crashing against one another without goal or direction. It is killing me slowly unless I find, yet again, a channel to calm the waters.  I cannot comprehend my lack of control.  Has my spirit been so free all this time that everything else intangible within me exists in tandem with a wild nature?  After 34 years, has not my subconscious learnt the union of superficiality and human fickle-mindedness?  I may be barely breathing but tomorrow is another day to think about – another day in this sea of conflicting emotions and I bear  the  blows that may as well have been as real as those that Manny Pacquiao delivers.

I need to live again away from anyone who only seeks pleasure in my pain.  I am not them. My father told me to leave my principles at home the moment I went to work.  However, how does one separate two entities that cannot exist without the other to begin with?  I did not ask for what my parents  gave me - intangibles more absolute than most of what life today has to offer in general.  I am not the others because of them.  I am in this sea of emotions because of them.  I love dearly and unconditionally because of them.  I am mostly happy because of them.

Chandrika Manogaran. Richard Butler.  Tan Boon Seng. Betty Frois. James Resol. Shah Nawaz. Jean-Philippe Endres. Robert Joseph Torres. Alexis Moyrand. Clotilde Breuillin. Samson Averia.  Alexander Makedon. Nathaniel Angeles. Tatyana Schmakova-House.  Christine Wong. Cindy Zaini. Rosny Kasim. Chris Ngo Chin Ser. Vipada Wongwanachot. Bernard Wang.  Angela Mukirae-Hatier. Mohd Faisal Mohd Ali.  Nadine Husain. Suryani Said. Kim Sowon.  Rex Lee. Marissa Bagunas. Julian Cole. Donna Shin. Lester Susi. Yanny Jung. Fiona Kirsten Woerpel. Lusmiwati Lu. Anita Irmasari. Pimmanas Pongnarikul. Valentina Raho. Harvinder Singh Rai. Judy Whisenhunt. John Kaplan. Monica Kiang Wai Sum. Brandon Wang. Graeme Ortega. Johnny D’aversville Lee.  Priya Pejavar. Rob Zaldua. Sharanya Rao. Supriyo Chatterjea. Kim Gwon. Salik Rizwan Khan. Knut Flottorp. Mia Tijam. Jake Borromeo. Don Wyngard Aguiling. Buddy Kim. Moses Tan. Jose Maria Sison. Cheryl Meyer. Shahzad Manzoor. Ryan Gomito. Francedith Ballarta. Asmah Mahmood. Ann Lorenzo. Pocholo Carmelotes. Maricon Brizuela. Ohnie Reyes. Claudine Ramirez. Malyn Mae Martir.

There are names I remember and there are the people who have remained with some unexpected permanence in my mind perhaps because they are what my spirit hungers for – positive nourishment and intellectual stimulation.  Still, I am not hungry and I am alone.   Has this sea of emotions engulfed me?  Am I dead?  Am I dead to the world?  …but I am here and breathing with all the energy I can muster no matter how things  are…so bring on the rain because I am Lora Morier.

Having just come back from SM Megamall, I thought about what I just did (take a 5-minute taxi ride home) and felt relieved that I was within the confines of my building. Then again, I thought about the walk to EDSA Central…it was the longest walk of my life though it was only 10 minutes in reality because I was in excruciating pain from my infected left foot. What had I done?

Less than 3 weeks ago, the clouds on Mt. Napulauan had been a reality and I was walking on them. I was on cloud nine literally. It didn’t matter how we had been freezing in our tents the night before barely able to sleep from the distractions of frost bites; the time that JM almost went into hypothermic condition almost forgotten. The sun felt having that feeling on being on top of the world. I do not regret a single moment I spent there no matter how I might have thought to turn back because of the others who were unsure that they were going to make it to the peak. Mt. Napulauan is not one mountain to be underestimated because it offers wonders I believe you have to struggle for. True beauty has never been so difficult to come by but when it is in front of you, everything else vanishes and you are left embraced by a moment of awe and perhaps fear because it might all seem unreal.

However, I have learnt some lessons on the trip. First, never go for a foot spa 2 days before the climb. I would never have had the blister to begin with and wouldn’t be in this partial “invalidity” at this moment. The problem is really not the pain or my infected foot but the wound that was near a vein connected to my liver. As a result, the condition of my liver had been compromised. It had only been a blister to begin with. Sometimes, I walk barefoot in the mountains. Being flat-footed and conditioned to handle rough terrain, I was comfortable with the earth right at my feet. At this point, I suppose that a foot spa could have been the death of me. Second, bring a thicker sleeping bag. My black sleeping bag had been too thin to give us any comfort with the chilling air. What was worse was that JM had wet the sleeping bag so it was useless. Still, we managed as the hours ticked by ever so slowly till sunrise saved us from certain depression. I must remember to drop by a North Face outlet to look at its line of sleeping bags because it is the only store I know so far that sells sleeping bags for winter climates like Mt. Everest and I believe that is what I will need for another time! Third, remember to charge the batteries of my digital camera before a major provincial climb! I had actually bought a spare battery for the trip but forgot to charge it as well as the main battery, which I had forgotten had already been used for another occasion. This is my absent-mindedness in motion.  All those beautiful pictures  I could have taken and memories I could have saved were lost forever; the little tourist shops by the Banaue Rice Terraces, pitcher plants along the trail on the way up to the misty forest, the first campsite where both JM and I had to pitch our own tent, the fireplace that kept us silent but warm etc.

Sometimes, I don’t understand myself. Sometimes, I don’t know where Common Sense has gone. JM likes to remind me of that but he’s still a friend. I suppose it takes an extraordinary person to understand someone like me. I like to think that I am a person out of the ordinary. …and so I experience my highs and lows never alone. Here in my little world, I think of pain in general, my pain, and what other pain may come. If that is what I have to go through over and over again, then it is still worth it because I have the best out of my life with my family and the few friends I have who share my joys, surprises, and challenges that always make better people out of us. It is never the end of the world because when Death comes, it is simply another door to another life beyond our human comprehension for now.

Tell me now, dear Sir.

Do high selfish peaks require

Your intervention?

I have been labelled a perfectionist. Friends assume that I set my standards too high to allow any man to be too intimate with me. When I was younger, there was the thrill of doing something that was absolutely forbidden by my parents. Perhaps I was bored, curious or I was about to do something I thought could not be normally achieved by my peers. After all, I was fond of collecting trophies and medals in anything from reciting a poem, scoring the highest marks in a Math test or running a race; an obsession I inherited from my mother. I spent most of my childhood resenting her when most of my accomplishments were subconsciously meant to please her. Nothing, it seemed, was ever enough for her and so my siblings and I struggled to be what she could never be or have. I do not hate my mother because when I think as an adult, she simply wanted the best or bring the best out of her offspring. Now, as I think as an adult, how many mothers these days are like her because many children these days are misguided lambs lacking focus with a distorted sense of priorities.

Then, I wonder about my sexual orientation. I had my momentous fascination with the opposite gender as I was growing up to my mother’s grievance especially when I spent most of my youth away from her. Should I have been fortunate? Perhaps her presence might just have driven me to some extreme behavior just to annoy her. Nevertheless, my youth was not without its difficulties. I never had sex education in secondary school just before I found myself confronted with blossoming males of every nationality. I might have called it a buffet of a magnanimous order and I was curious but afraid… I did not want to disappoint my parents. How could I? My father was the personification of silent patience and understanding while my mother’s only fault was to drive me to be accomplished and remain a good girl unlike most Filipino girls, she thought. I guess, more than anything in the world, she did not want me to become a penniless teenaged unwed mother who did not complete her tertiary education. No mother would want that for her daughter. Naturally, I did not understand that at the time. Still, I was cautious of all those tempting beautiful bodies. There was no harm indulging in viewing pleasures from a distance. My eyes had to be made better use of besides their basic visual function.

I lost my one love in the process. The distance between us made it easier as well. Both of us had parents, families, and obligations. I had to remember Propriety and “first things first”. My parents could not set a better example. How could I forget that? Then, I wonder…was that the best or worst of the fusion of Singaporean and Filipino values? My mother was a rare Filipina; not one to compromise and commanding of her life. She was indifferent to people’s perception of her. My father was British and worse…Chinese. We were just another family in old-fashioned and predictable Singapore. I would never truly appreciate our togetherness until years later in Manila infested by rampant corruption, immorality, and illegitimacy. It is not my intention to put emotion into my opinions of Manila because they are facts that I live with. It is also a fact that I live in a primarily Christian society. I can now laugh at myself as a paradox living in another paradox. My seemingly libertine idiosyncrasies hardly confess to a celibacy maintained for as long as I can remember at this point perhaps borne out of my disgust for what my eyes have seen in liberal males. I do not think their behavior has anything to do with modernity but the vast opportunities that have been created from population explosion and exposure.

It is said that asexuality is based on purely emotionally-based relationships. I may be the heteroromantic with just a romantic attraction for the opposite sex but certainly not lacking in sexual desires. I just believe, more than ever, that sexual activities are best conducted in their proper place and time. Then, it will be no one else’s business how or what I do with or to my partner. Perhaps, I may be called the particular intellectual sexual strategist (P.I.S.S.). This would frustrate my male friends both gay and straight because of the implication of deprivation there. Am I starving? Consider it a prolonged fasting that when broken, would surely reap the rewards beyond my imagination. This is perhaps why I cannot comprehend the autoerotic woman who prefers to satisfy her desires alone. However, she does exist. I exist. Society does not understand. Instead, it assumes we must be bordering on lunacy, ascetic or asexual. Some people assume that I cannot be happy the way I am so I do not have many friends since they have failed to impose their lifestyles on me.

Watching A HEAD IN THE CLOUDS, Gilda’s character reminded me of how perhaps my personification of free-spiritedness was out of place even in this time of modernity and open-mindedness.     This love story of 3 people divided by values survives time, distance, and separation.  It was sad not because it did not survive World War II  but because Guy could not get to Gilda before her demise.  Yes, one day would have made a difference (had I had someone beside me, I would have told him or her, “I told you so…”) …and so I live my life in a hurry, it seems by the average people’s standards.  I have to remind myself that I am no longer in Singapore but in Metro Manila, and though it is a buzzling city, it still doesn’t quite match up to Singapore’s pace in at least most aspects of living; looking out for the bus impatiently, hurrying to the train station, checking my cellphone, shopping at the supermarket, etc…and thinking about it, I do things fast when I am alone.  It is when I meet a friend over coffee or when the family is in town, that I do slow slow down NOT for their benefit but for mine.  How selfish I am.   The word “savor” comes to mind when I breathe and live the moment to cherish, to remember…partly because I have to remind myself that I am such a forgetful person afterall!

Oh, the horrors of being Lora Morier.   Rushes are fixtures in my life so much so that accidents just wait to happen for everyone else’s entertainment, which doesn’t primarily bother me.  I must thank someone up there that I still have my limbs and digits intact to enjoy what each day presents.  One would think that each life-changing event might bring someone down from the clouds.  Perhaps so in ordinary circumstances but I refuse to be mediocre preferring to believe that another world could be possible if everyone were selfless despite our contrasting personalities.  We could not possibly live without such because the world would be such a boring place to live in.  I just wish that we could be more charitable, considerate, and compassionate.   All we need is pure love!  The answer is so simple.  I would rather remain in the clouds than bend to  the reality; to admit to our weaknesses as humans repeated time after time without remorse.  Of course, some people might feel remorse for a time.  Then, all is forgiven, forgotten…and another cycle of tragedies begin again.  How people easily forget.  Will we ever stop?  A tragedy is replayed over and over again.  The characters remain though the actors may be changed.  Then again, the same actors may reprise their roles.

…so I continue to live in my own world still loving and being loved…and the music  plays again.  The music played again.   At the end of the movie, it  created a bigger sense of tragedy.  The music…the piano…affecting me so easily but in a nice way.  It awakened emotions without asking my permission.  The extract below was from the last scene when Guy was back in Gilda’s apartment apparently too late.

Well, my love, I’m trying to make sense of things of how I was and how I am now.  I have always believed our first duty is to ourselves, to live life to the full but I have also been haunted by another conviction – that everything is preordained, lying in wait and time is running out.  I seem to have charged through my life in a kind of panic and looking back I feel I have achieved little of worth beyond our friendship, yours and mine, and Mia’s.  …and one day, I woke…and found I had lost the 2 people I cared for most.  Only then did I begin to realize that we cannot live alone aloof from the world and that to believe we cannot fight  against fate as an act of surrender. You were right when you said that once I cared for your opinion of me… but wrong in thinking I ever stopped caring…I love you.

Greed makes for wanting

More that we become smaller

To what existence.

This afternoon, I thought about what someone wrote in his books (or at least what I think he wrote because they were written in French) about architecture, mathematics, ancient civilization etc. all brought together to present his opinions. Nothing makes me ask more questions than the past especially as we stretch back to thousands or millions of years ago. How did it all really begin? There so many of us in this world to know there are so many possibilities concerning a human’s origin and death. This brings us to the topic of phylogeny or the evolutionary development and history of a species. Humans are such a young species and still very limited in facility despite our level of intelligence. No one has all the answers. Even if we put all our heads together to find answers, we wouldn’t be able to. Time machines make me feel even more frustrated because they are just fiction and an impossibility at the moment. Limitations, limitations, limitations! …knowing there is nothing you can do about it or that your own intelligence is only capable of understanding so much (or so little?)

Then, we also never live long enough to find out or witness the wondrous progress that mankind has made. Of course, there history is always made but we never get to hang around long enough to relish a victory or achievement. Then, the fascination with eschatology begins (again) – the branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind – that just serves to urge my curiosity even more. It is a bit sad to know I am just an ordinary being whose existence is only a tiny particle or atom in this universe. Why do we really even have to exist? Why am I in this body? Why am I in a woman’s body? Why am I Asian? Why I feel all these emotions, most of which I hide or risk being taken for a lunatic. Does anybody really have answers for final things such as death, the Last Judgment, Heaven, Hell, and the ultimate destiny of humankind? Religion was created to keep humans tamed, convinced of a “purpose”. Roman Catholicism has filled up some void but I do not know enough of it nor do I have the time to consider it as my path of enlightenment and tranquility of motion and emotion. However, it accounts for several pieces of this jigsaw puzzle that is my life. Can I blame it then for partly making me the way I am or how I think?   Do I accept the fact that though I did not ask to be born into this world, that I am unentitled to answers?

This morning was easy to handle partly because the dress that I was supposed to wear for work was already laid out.  There was no need to iron it nor the the blazer that I was supposed to wear with it.  What a hassle it was being a woman biologically.  “Management” had superfluous requirements specific to my gender that necessitated much of my time; time that I could have much better use of for other purposes besides making myself pretty for other people.  Unfortunately, I belong to a “plastic” industry where presentation is always the first order of the day.  Where was my lipstick?  I had forgotten where I placed it, which could be about anywhere depending on where I had been, which I would not usually remember considering that I was usually in so many places within such a short span of time.  Bullocks!  Here was a scatterbrain attempting to keep herself in order for the first 30 minutes of her life standing up getting ready for work.  Why do I keep asking myself about whether it is really necessary to go through this transformation?   The most important fact is that I was bathed and clothed.  Looking at what I have, I didn’t have any of the following – any bottle of lotion, pressed powder, deodorant, mascara or eyeshadow “nonsense” etc.  I didn’t even carry a comb in my femine-looking bag that Mother had given me for Christmas.  Naturally, I preferred my unisex black leather Prada bag that fits all the things I expected in my own bag – a book, a file, my wallet of debit and credit cards, coins, pens, a cellphone, a packet of peanuts perhaps, an umbrella (a must for those you-never-know-when-it-rains days), my housekeys, and my bluetooth headset etc.

…and so the ordeal continues on a daily basis, 5 days a week.   Over the years, I’d learnt to remind the people who were going to buy me clothes to get those that required minimal maintenance and didn’t require ironing.  I decided that unless it was my wedding day, I was never going to wear anything white because it soiled easily, which could be seen easily or the creases that I’d made screamed “Look at me!”  Another challenge was or is being “adequately” covered so that my cleavage, my legs (looking like a map of scars from my provincial or outdoor  activities) or my feet etc didn’t prove to be the scandal of the day at the office.   Everyday is a lesson or a discovery of more Filipino corporate etiquette indeed.  I never thought I would have to worry about the valley my breasts would create or perhaps my brassiere just got in the way.   I would have actually preferred not to wear any but I am in a society where it is ESSENTIAL to hide the nipples from the public eye but ultra-mini skirts and spaghetti-strapped plunging blouses are acceptable.   In fact, I don’t wear anything in my own apartment when I’m alone.   If I were at my parents’ house,  there was propriety to observe so I do wear clothes but nothing is nothing more liberating than nudity in the comfort of your own domain or at the beach where “less is best”  is what I preach so Brazilian bikinis are absolutely my cup of tea.  That is the least I can do for a society mentally-unprepared for my audacity.  People seem to have forgotten that we enter this world naked as a newborn baby…and I wonder who invented stockings or pantyhoses.  Some women cannot seem to live without them.  Would that be a sign of insecurity?  No one needs a magnifying glass to look closely (in analyzing my legs) at the “potholes”, birthmarks, and any other form of evidence to suggest my pastime.  This reminds me that the world is still monstrous enough to dissipate my boredom.  There is so much more to see.  I am thankful for my feet!  My one advice to people today who have grown accustomed to sitting more in their cars or taking taxies only too willingly is to use their feet more often because essentially, if their goals were to look good, walking would  really help without any additional cost.  We underestimate our legs and feet but I don’t condone abusing them.  There needs to be balance because they can be a woman’s main asset.  That itself is another challenge; my challenge that I try to remedy with periodic trips to the the salon for a massage and pedicures.  I just haven’t found the time to ask a man for his comments.

How so much runs through my mind remains a mystery before I have even attempted to use the bathroom. Still, tackling time management to get myself dressed and punctual for work is a talent I might have.  Its marriage with multi-tasking has allowed me to maximize the number of hours I need for sleep and accomplish the errands of the day (and of the next day’s, if possible)   It never ceases to amaze me how most women have made putting on makeup a religion strictly abided by.  When I was much younger, Mother could spend 2 hours in front of the mirror while my lower extremities would have gone dead by then watching her prepare for work or a party.  Then, I never understood how much time was dedicated to a cheek or eyelash to achieve the “perfect” look.  I never understood and I never will.  I do not think that women have to embrace such a routine for the throngs of men out there who probably don’t deserve the effort they have made.  As far as I am concerned, I just need one man who will have to make do with what he has or does not have with me.  The irony is that with more than 2 billion people on Earth, it is still THAT difficult to find just one person.  Now, I ask myself again why God had created Man and Woman to complement each other.   Is it not just possible to have no need whatsoever for the opposite gender?  Is it not sufficient to just acknowledge each other’s existence without complicating relationships by the attachments we make?  Is it not just so funny that I still have all these questions when I have the answers already.   I feel better being dumb or at least pretending to be because I refuse to embrace the “impracticalities” of reality.  Nothing is more depressing than the truth about the superior intelligence of homo sapiens, which has led them to reduce themselves to decoration pieces with no guarantee for rewards.

I was back in secondary school. Huang Liping was there. We were on an excursion in some neighbourhood in Singapore. Like obedient little children, we walked silently in pairs through a row of shops. I couldn’t understand why we had to be there. As we stopped to rest on the sidewalk, Huang Liping predicted that someone was going to win $100,000. The figures were as clear to my eyes as the back of my hands. It made no sense why she mentioned it to us because we were mostly a bunch of teenagers struggling with Elementary Mathematics. She laughed. Someone screamed in the distance. All heads turned in the direction the scream came from. A man was jumping among several people huddled in front of a Toto shop. He was undoubtedly happy for some reason, which we soon found out to be having won $100,000. What did that mean? I didn’t remember being happy for the man. I stared at him in the distance and then I looked at my “buddy” Huang Caiping. She was quiet looking sad. Oblivious to what was happening, her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere in a somber if not grim domain. I opened my mouth to say something. I woke up feeling my head weighed heavier. I thought I hadn’t had enough sleep because my youth had again creeped into my subconscious out of the blue.

Why had Liping been so prominent in my dream? Did my memory hang on to Christmas Eve when Caiping called me? I had been at home watching the television with my father. I looked on my cellphone and the number that appeared on the screen revealed that it was from Singapore. A female voice immediately familiar spoke. My sweet friend Caiping who deserved every happiness in the world because of someone’s absence and disloyalty. Was she talking to anyone? Was Liping helping her? Did anyone else really care to remember that another human was torn inside? Where was everyone? Where were her other friends? Have we become so absorbed with the present that we have forgotten the things that should matter most? What do Huang Liping, Huang Caiping, and $100,000 have in common? Was it worth the headache in the morning? They become more vivid now…these dreams…details of faces and places of another time. I never seem to think of the present or perhaps I do but they are never deep enough for me to remember the moment I wake up. Perhaps,  it was better that way for life’s unnecessary interruptions that would only cause undue mental and psychological challenges. In the first place, I do not think I enter the realm of dreams often because I do not think there is any reason to. The present has granted me some sense of reliability and stability to warrant a rude intrusion of a disciplined mind. I am where I am. That is all.

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