From Here
February 2, 2003

The elders are outside, chatting away over this and that, him and her, we and them. It's still very dark but they're up early because they'll cook for the first death anniversary of my grandmother. I woke up to the chirps of these old, early birds. I couldn't sleep anymore. Dawn was just too cold here in Quisao. If you let your coffee stand for a minute you'll lose that scalding quality. Let it stand for five? Then don't bother calling it my-morning-coffee anymore.

My mistake was to leave my journal in Makati. To travel light, I brought only the necessaries. Aside from clothes and personal effects, I packed materials for tomorrow's afternoon meeting and evening class. I only allowed myself a thin volume by C.S. Lewis, "The Abolition of Man."

I forgot that during short visits to Quisao, I don't naturally take to the book. I take to the pen. So I am here, awake at early dawn, pinning thoughts on a multi-purpose notepad. I will have to tear these leaves off afterwards. They belong to another tree.

I want to write a letter. I don't know exactly who I want to write to. Definitely though, it can't be a letter to Her. I can never place Her here, in the depths of Rizal. Sure, the nights and dawns are particularly lovely. Yes, the calm of the dark is especially reassuring when the moon governs, ruling by reflecting everything else in a concentrated, enticing light. However, when the sun is up, all sorts of rumors, bad-mouthing, complaints, and resultant problems arise. Bad faith wakes up with the people. And I cannot bring Her here.

I have this theory that everybody I ever wrote to from this place was somehow touched by what I gave them at the time. Yet, come years, all these relationships would end unceremoniously, sometimes after turning very sour. In any case, all these ties are now gathering moss. There is no exception I can recall.

I have an example. It is not the only example, it is not even the one foremost, but it is the example I now choose to be first since this was the severance I most recently suffered. During the college summers I spent here, I wrote greeting cards and letters to the Seven. Some of their letters fell on summer dates, see? A few summers and half a year hence, the Seven are all up at arms against my Thebes. Maybe this Theban isn't blameless. Still, it is the thread of fate we are examining here, not the bounds of will. Maybe some responsibility is shed from the agent in such a study. Well, come to think of it, is not the escape of responsibility the natural intention?

So there, a wooden caveat should be nailed somewhere here to warn me that I cannot wash my hands in the waters of this encompassing, deterministic river. Should I so attempt the forbidden ablution, I would find my stark red hands magnified by the waters.

With the horrid sign in place, let us return to the study. The Seven is lost, friends all, sisters almost. Maybe some even remaining friends I could die for. Still, that remains a plain conjecture until death itself is before me. Even if it were really true, I won't spread the word too far. Why would I show my bare throat to those on my tail and after my head?

So, to preserve them and me, I maintain my great walls. With the hubris I am heir to, I claim that these are impregnable! Not even admissions such as those given above are true entries to the bulwark.

I also wrote them from here, the first Her and the second Her. Maybe also others, I'm not certain if they merit the capitalization, much less sure if they want it at all. So do the numbers grind, halting at seven and two? I've written from this place since secondary school! Why do the years feel like lost lifetimes? Why do the hopes and loves dashed seem numberless here? Numberless, yes, like the ripples of the great Laguna de Bay, all broken as petty waves upon the common shore.

Let us study the student. I view all these now like a neo-Grecian posturing among the ruins of some dead acropolis. Ruins always have that inviting, faintly bitter smell of tragedy about them. We come to them, all eyes, hands, and noses, trying to gather meaning from the victims of entropy. They have survived countless warriors wearing evolving coats and arms. They have survived generations of stealthy plunderers and young, ignorant vandals.

Yet even as mere pieces of a once grand entirety, they remain, surviving as physical memory becoming several wholes through generations of legends and histories. We claim these texts and they belong to every claimant.

If the warriors would bring final war upon the ruins and reduce even the stumps of old pillars to finest rubble, all of the Parthenon survives with the dodging Greek. If the heavens stop falling on her and the air becomes breathable again, the stones are embedded in her as shrapnels from a defiant, dying past. It becomes a part of her stories, her very Story. The meaning will evolve come new conflicts and temporary unities. She has it all in her until she herself becomes such a ruin. Until everyone she has contaminated with it is reduced to the minute dust or fine ash.

So I come here, back to the place where I launched my thousand ships toward previous Helens. They are all lost to me now, friends and lovers. I write from myriad locations now, offices, faculty rooms, libraries, halls. Other homes.

Let me never take pen to paper here except to polish what little I saved from the losses of youth. Let me not build over the ruins in the hills and plains of San Diego de Alcala. Let the rocks stand where they are until the final hand comes. Until the great lake would rise and come a few hundred feet closer to the seduction of the still-distant moon.

Let me never write anybody from this place. That may somehow assure me that I will not lose Her, my great triumph. Not Her or anybody still left to me.

The mending masonry of life advances, brick by brick, forward and upward. Or so I hope. I fancy that I now build on solid rock, not the great shifting sands of youth.

Who can say though? What if I can always leave this place but the place can never leave me? What if this land is too much in the heart that my heart is now nothing but this land? If so, then it matters not wherever I stay, whenever i write, whomsoever I address. I cannot but write from here.

Even so, I cannot but travel, think, write, sing, love, and act until my will's end.

Even if I can only come from here.

The sun is almost up. The elders are actually just getting warmed up. I don't recall any moment of silence in the background. I also don't remember finishing my cup...

As I expected.

Nakasulat sa susmariosep na nakokonsumisyon, a este, nakokomisyon ako ng mga kaibigan sa kolehiyo na gumawa ng kanilang mga write-up sa yearbook. Matatamis na salamat ang sukli dyan kaya masayang-masaya naman ako nuong mga panahong iyon!

Itong si Jol, kasamahan sa block angas, ang pinakahuli at pinakanagmamadali sa kanilang lahat. Pinakamahaba pa ang hinihiling na sulatin sa KAL! Kaya isa lang ang naibigay ko, wala na siyang napagpilian. Ayos na ang kanyang sariling blog kaya't inaasahan kong mapapadali ang aking misyong ibugaw ang nilalang na iyan. Balita ko nawala raw niya ang kanyang kopya para ipost.

O heto. Uunahan ko na para sa akin ang cut pag nabenta na siya.

Mjolnir

Jol seems to want to live up to his namesake, the Norse Mallet (sans the inclination to divinity). You feel the pounding of strange, puissant beats undergirding the scathing sentimentality of his poetry. The forceful description behind his narratives articulates and mutes him at the same time - as the smith is silent among his blows.

The Beetle named Kikai is his vehicle of choice, of identity. The Bug's the only thing, it seems, exempt from his cold critiques. We fancy that he's learned to commit under her tutelage. His rapture's an ugly sight. We dare call it love.

We call the artist brooding - but why stop there? - call him angsty-feisty. The point is to irritate him by boxing him into these adjectives. But we may have misled. You see, despite all his political rancor, hermetic predisposition, and the ever-excusable artistic temperament, Jol still practices the art of the hearty laugh - alcohol or no alcohol.

His humor wears many faces and is most (in)famous for being boisterous, unsubtle, sardonic, morbid, black, disgusting - the stuff that takes the spirit to transcendental heights. Very charming.

The Mjolnir principle of creation-critique isn't too far off. Blunt, frank, hammer-heavy. Slicing's just too clean and final for him. Pummeling sounds much better. He always loves gory, messy repetition. He can't be accused of finesse, but his operations are deathly methodical. His art - comic strips, posters, essays, fiction, poetry - reveal this uncanny path to beauty. He'll bludgeon it into you.

Ah Jol! - Poor guy thinks self-deprecation is fashionable. False humility, the works. It's ugly. And, somehow shamelessly, we love him.

Happy today?

January

Janus is the nominal divinity for the parts of the world that follow the Roman calendar and start their years with "January." With delinquencies in my Bulfinch and Hamilton noted, I say Janus was one Roman god who was not copied from some Greek precedent. If the scholars are right, he was formed before much of the Greek influence came. He evolved from the native Latin spirit of doorways, ianua.

As you may have read in the volumes or heard in homilies of the more classical-thinking priests, Janus was remarkable for his head. It had two faces, one looking forward, another looking back. He was a god of new beginnings, new years. He also presides over ends. As the deity of the doorway, he is the god of both entry and departure. His immortal eyes stare down both things to come and things past.

Down on the mortal, local, and more culturally significant plane, we have our very own saying about people who do not acknowledge their origins:

"Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan,
di makararating sa paroroonan."

Despite the resonance of this theme in our contemporary literature and even in popular culture products such as films, somehow the still mechanistic world-view tells us that we don't have to look back. Where to and where from are two distinct points in any map. Alpha is irrelevant and Omega is entirely up to you. No need to confuse the two.

Well, that is one way of looking at it. Nevertheless, someone can always stand up and dare say, despite all the points and lines, it's still just one map. It's just one door.

Whatever. Happy new year.

Mapagpapasensyahan kaya ako sa pagiging matanong? Kumusta ang panahon ng Kapaskuhan ninyo? Ano ang pinagkakaabalahan ninyo ngayon? Marami bang lakad o pipirmi lamang sa bahay? Magiging masaya kaya? E manigo?

Mawalang-galang na ha? Nangungumusta lang.

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.)

Morning Jog

"It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul."

From Invictus
William Ernest Henley

I now meet Jol, Monica and Nathan on a more or less weekly basis. I must insert a note before anything else. Notwithstanding seemingly contrary indices in the following entry, I am happy with this situation.

We begin the day with the ritual jog around the UP acad oval. We go round and round, numeric rhythm interspersed with a sweaty exchange of ideology. We had no trumpets, only the vocal instruments we shaped in the heat of this academic forge. One would think we were in Jerico's business of breaking down some wall. There being no such barrier enclosing the acad oval, it may be more logically speculated that we were trying to summon one.

Here we stretch and walk and run, the viridian blades of grass always within the mobile purview. Trees attend us, sentries marking our passage with hidden eyes and deacades-old silence. Their artificial relievers, the lamp posts, seem superfluous. Anyway, the sun is high and they're supposed to be redundant in the morning. Meanwhile, the buildings never seem to change, either in appearance or significance.

The people, with their respective businesses (classes, meetings, trysts, and the like), also seem essentially the same. It's as if nobody left the university though there's not a single familiar face. I see them, still with my mobile line-of-sight, as different bodies inhabiting the same spirits.

The morning birds chirp, almost entirely ignored. I wonder what makes these halting, bursting songs more beautiful than our panting, counting, and verbal abstracting. None of our ideologies ever seem to approximate such expressive abandon and grace. Maybe it's because they are in flight and they know no walls. Maybe because they are taken cared of or they have that feeling.

Here we run, around all greens until we are sure the grass is never really greener anywhere. What I'd give for those birds' point of view! Again and always, the birds. Maybe their song is lovelier because it's not ours.

Here we run. Here at the acad oval, the hollow center of our vanities. I feel renewed everytime I pound my feet on these sidewalks. I don't know why exactly. I wonder if the other students or alumni walking and running in the campus feel as I do. Are we all thus recharged as some Antaeus upon his alma mater Terra?

I must ask too if they run here with some hidden misery. Something - some pain or general exhaustion - from which renewal and recovery is necessary. What makes us go around in circles like this? Maybe we're trying to gain something, some strength, some state. I may never know. It would be telling, really, if we're somehow looking for something. Is this something we lost along the way? It is different when you're trying to get something and when you're trying to get something back. Maybe some of us here are in that search for the left-behind.

What is it? What was left behind? Some strength? Some idea or ideal? Some spirit maybe?

Before we went our separate ways, Jol and Nathan discussed metaphysics. They threw around the "problem of evil" like some ball. Or hardfruit from some Tree. They went on to ethics, fate, free will, responsibility, and such; angels and beasts; man and eternity. At one point, the idea of the five or six-dimensional God arose.

Meanwhile, by either chance or fate, a woolly caterpillar, what we know as the nasty higad, went a-wandering on the back of my neck. Not knowing what was crawling there, I instinctively crushed it. The minute corpse, now enveloped with its yellowish blood, stuck to my hand. Too late. I now freely sport an ugly, livid, four-inch long rash, half-bracing my neck.

All told, I hope we'll all meet again next weekend.

"This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders."

Captain Ahab unto Starbuck, the First Mate
From Moby-Dick
Herman Melville