Death: It Never Really Dies

a place and time forgotten (not)

In the last four years, I have been to places and experienced a variety of things few people will experience in their entire lifetimes. 

Looking at the simplicity of life in rural Taiwan brings me back to the many rural summers of my wonderful childhood.

The lush rainforests of Thailand will always be to me a metaphor to the vastness of longing for my mother’s embrace and love.

Australia’s corporate jungle of brilliant and astute minds will always remind me of my father’s brilliance and strength.

As the moon waxes and wanes, as the seasons change, as I reap one achievement after another, as I change with the times, one thing has remained steadfast and unchanged – the pain of loss.

Death. It never really dies.

Of Chances Missed

Last night’s realization led me to a string of more realizatons.

I was home early from graduate school and was making myself a vegetable salad when I was disturbed by a glare in my window. It is not often that I get that – a view of the sun setting – living as I am on the 28th floor of a condominium building. I went and took a better look (albeit, quick look) from my veranda and I was mesmerized by the beauty of the sun setting upon one of Manila’s metropolitan business districts on a lazy and quiet Saturday afternoon. It was a glorious and amazing view.

Rushing in to get my camera to capture the moment, I heard (rather than saw) the boiling water pot and so I stopped to pour some on my carrots and broccolis. In my mind, I took only a fraction of a minute. It may have been, I wouldn’t know now but that “fraction of a minute” lost me the chance to capture a moment I may not have again for a very long time.

That made me really sad. I have never been one to look back and regret the things that I wasn’t able to do and experience in my life. I have always been the go-getter, move-on-do-better-things kind. Missing that particular sunset got to me, however. I don’t know why but it did. It got me to thinking of the many other things I missed because I chose to do the more predictable, the more mundane, the more comfortable thing to do at a particular moment. It got me to start looking back at the chances I missed in this life and what those chances might have translated to – had I the time, the guts and the good sense to take, capture and embrace them.

I missed my first sunset in the metro for a long time because I was cooking vegetables.

I missed Aerosmith’s concert in Manila because I was too tired from work.

I missed my niece’s 7th birthday because I was rushing for a meeting and so I failed to book a flight.

I missed saying sorry to my ex-boyfriend because I was so busy making a career for myself.

I missed my chance at a final farewell to my Dad because I was helping other people make their own farewells.

Twelve hours later, I am still stringing together all the regrets – the chances that I missed – that I have relegated to the back of my mind. I know some time soon (in a minute, preferrably), I should stop. I should start cutting the strings of regrets and weave together colourful captured moments instead.

I should.

Behind The Hills

It feels so rewarding to witness the sun set behind the hills and mountains of Negros from a small old ferry full of tired passengers. The weight of 8 hours land and sea travel is suddenly feather-light.

It’s been 12 years since I have travelled this route; and only now am I remembering why I was able to endure and even enjoy the then 10 long hours of travel 2-3 times a year. The sheer beauty of the blue (dapitan) seas merging with greens of the Negrense mountains makes you breathless.

The sight of my first sunset in over 2 years brought such terse realities to me as well. It made me realize that it is the moments shared that i sorely miss – not necessarily the one that i shared it with. It is the glorious sight of the orange sun setting that fills me with such poetry. The people I share it with are mere expectators like me.

I thank God for these moments. 

Date Written: 29 Dec 2012

Free Spirit

In the last few years, I have been confronted several times with this very simple question in varied contexts: “what’s next?” Sometimes I am able to give an answer straightaway. But oftentimes, I am taken off-guard. 

Planning my life has ceased to be important to me – something happened that has put me off the idea of making grand plans for the future. It’s kinda tragic, but i guess it’s just the way it is. Now, the only things I plan for is my department’s quarterly goals and my daily potassium intake. (And that has worked really well for me!) Apart from those, I’m pretty much the free spirit. I do what I want to do, go where the fancy takes me, and generally live my life the way i want to. The beautiful people I come in contact with and the wonderful things that I experience – I consider them unexpected gifts for the little things that I somehow did right.

The conventions of the world I live in however, are not very receptive nor welcoming of free spirits. There are always rules and conventions to adhere to, paths to follow and goals to reach.

In less candid moments, I tend to spend considerable time pondering on whether the turn of events in my life has been a blessing or a social curse. 

The famous Camus said: The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. Me being me, there has always been a multitude of potential and resources to rebel. The resistance to  respond to the daily temptation to break free of all conventions and to embrace my rebellious nature is my continuing tribute to a society that has always treated me well.

For me, everyday is a constant invitation to an uprising.  It is an unending challenge to transcend the temptation to give in.