Tomorrow

I will not make sense today. I really won't. I will just take a few minutes off this night and hope I can wake up early enough for Simbang Gabi. Early enough or not, I will definitely not keep the kids waiting for their prelims.

I used to do this a lot. I just list down everything I'm thinking of at the moment, related or not. Here it goes then.

No further ado.

Carol. Prof. Dadufalza. Birthdays. Beginnings. Ends. Jol and his mysterious problem. Nathan. Arlyn and Thursday. Angas. Monica will join us on Thursday. Asian Center. Jurgen Habermas. Kantianism. Dr. Serafin Talisayon. Christmas Monitos: Ronnie at the NGO, Norberto at the PTC. Kids. Parents. Blue and his awareness of his own pettiness. Alish and the question of happiness. Pauline and her secret problem. Omar Khayyam and his two classmates: Mulk and Hasan. Mulk became vizier to the sultan while Hasan is the man after whom "assassin" was named after. I wonder how Monica will fare? How is everybody doing right at this moment, 11:20 pm? Will the kids be the better for my classes? Critique of Knowledge. Mystic solution to the problem of evil.

Fitzgerald. Translators. Hasan, Mulk, and Omar made this youthful pact: whoever made his fortune will share it equally with the other two. I wonder if Jol and Nathan would agree to such a vow? Mulk got the fortune. Hasan asked for his share and an office under the sultan. He got both. Later, he would strike back at his benefactors. Mulk would suffer assassination from the progenitor of the word. Omar didn't take his half, only a small pension so that he could concentrate on learning. He would achieve eminence in the sciences. He would also create a unique Persian voice in world poetry.

In the Rubaiyat, we have his conclusion: there is nothing on this world to stand on, only here and now, in this moment we know as today. Tomorrow is unborn and Yesterday is dead, he says. I wonder. Tomorrow is the birthday of two people I know. And earlier today...

I wonder what my own conclusion will be?

Lantern parades. Naked oblations. Must go drinking with an Aussie for funds. Else, no clinic. Must check the kids' journals. And hear their English one more time before I retire for the holidays. Holidays.

Ends. Beginnings. Sense? I promised I won't make any. Will I make it early tomorrow? It's just a few minutes before tomorrow. Happy birthday, to whom it may concern! I wonder how everyone is doing. I look up at everything I wrote. I feel distant. Yet I am no different. Here, for example, I edited some things from this line of thought. So I have my own secret and mysterious things. I look up at my list, so much like the frayed ends of some hideous tapestry made from so many different pieces of cloth. Some pieces have more color, more significance. Others are hidden beneath stitches. Others aren't hidden although they aren't important either.

Nevertheless, they are there. They just are. I look up at the list, from a distance now so that I can see the whole. Maybe I'm hoping to put some unifying sense where there is none.

Oh I see. I am distant but no different. I am now also aware of my own pettiness.

(It will not matter much to you my dear celebrant - yes it's almost your birthday - but my tomorrow's Mass is for you and her. For whatever it's worth. Despite or because of everything, please have the best of the holidays.)