Gaps, patches and in-betweens

a post too late for mother's day this year, yet too early for the next... She gets up before anyone in the planet does, Bone-swollen from earning what’s for breakfast Gulps down the first part of the coffee Thawing the frozen stomach. She gathers strength And fries the eggs to feed The citizens of the planet. Calling for the day to start, The citizens rise. Darna fluffs pillows and folds blankets Where well-loved sleepy heads laid last night at rest. They are still babies, the citizens Off to school the planet beings go So does she to another world Change costume, play the part Earn dinner, the next day’s food and pay the bills. In all the planets nobody knows nor can they fathom Much less appreciate her secret identity. She calls on her super friends for help to pick up the kids Learning their ABCs. Darna dashes off to the market. At home she zips, zaps, zooms again School and working clothes down the washer While preparing dinner. She stands in the middle of her world Where she c...

Art? Doesn't matter Wednesday, June 07, 2006 I am sad. I met four people I know today all looking for work. Two were looking for any work, one was diverting to entreprenuership for a while, just something to do to earn while waiting for something better, and the last, confronting the root of the problem out of immediate necessity, was borrowing money. That actually is the bottomline. And then there was a fifth one declaring his flat broke financial circumstance and there I was also looking for work, which makes it six people in a span of four hours. Everyone of them, us, are artists, in a relationship with art, and or artists one way or another. Go figure. And these people are not even purist as we call artists who shun any form of commercialism. We are actually looking at artists who can and will compromise and "sacrifice" their art for their families. An artistic being in the Philippines is blessed if they have foreign aid or they belong to an old-rich family, or have a...

So, pinanindigan ko ang pagtatahi. This morning I sat beside Kigao, he, gumagawa ng tao, while I stitch and mend and got my finger pricked (just once! O, ha!) I finished most of the adjustments in the uniforms and I enjoyed my triumph over my third cup of coffee, admired my basic stitching and the humungous victory of getting something I don't do, actually done. Give me something to write any time. Give me a topic and shove me into a training anytime. Set me a meeting with FAs and aid groups, and embassies. But this, this is an actual triumph. And I never could have done it without Mrs. Osum or all the other HE teachers I had. No matter if it took some 20 years for me to realize I actually have fingers that work! I really would not have been able to do what I did this morning without HE. Honest. I wouldn't know how. I raised my coffee and sipped my thanks to my HE teachers. As a flash of inspiration, I thought of getting those small sewing machines for small sewing needs. I lik...

My head reels when characters tell the pivotal person in their life everything they’ve been holding in at the very last moment - "I love you", "I'm sorry please forgive me" then a speech to summarize a life of baseless accusations, pretences, I thoughts, if only I knews, I should haves -- when they had all the time while the person was well and alive, and technology at its best: email, snail mail, cel phones, landlines, text messages, door-to-door deliveries, or personal visits with cars, planes, trains, boats, buses, jeeps, tricycles... And they're lucky if the dying person is alive enough to even understand or hear them say what they have to say, or feel their apologies or their love from a squeeze on a hand with dead dermis. There should be a “tell-all” day and a rally to celebrate it with slogans like: Save yourself and your loved ones the lifetime agony! Tell them how you feel right now! Free them and yourself! Or maybe not tell them at all (one's o...

A slice in the sky Just a piece really before the depression Then lunacy. Yet even before that, dyslexia Alzeheimer’s Sloth Internal body aches Emotional cancer. Cars conk in the middle of the street Keys are lost Computers hang Late for an important meeting Kids are late for school The daily grind The body contorts as it hungers to hear something for the soul You turn to strong spirits for a kick in the gut Fangs come out You wish you have wings or can at least find your broomstick Night falls still the mind prowls With only that piece of light Illuminating life Thank goodness for stars. When the slice becomes a full bowl Bask in the strength bestowed by More light now. Tempered wildness And bizarre, seemingly senseless irrationality. The world fast forward in slow motion Puzzle bits of reality fall into place Life is almost sane And everything is possible and acceptable. I wear my silver. Until the night dims again And only the owls can see Insanity lurks in the darkness with the res...

The theory of relativity is based on two assumptions: that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant, and that physical laws have the same mathematical form throughout the universe. - Microsoft® Encarta® Premium Suite 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. typical [adjective], typicality [noun] 1. representative: having all or most of the characteristics shared by others of a type and therefore suitable as an example of the type 2. conforming to expectation: conforming to what is expected 3. resembling others in taxonomic group: used to describe an organism, species, or genus that has most of the characteristics that identify the larger taxonomic group to which it belongs - Microsoft® Encarta® Premium Suite 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. Funny how when we watch a movie with the usual weddings and the bride in white, Kigao asks me if I ever long for those things. Now that is weird. I had to remind him that I'm the one who does not want to get married. I never had that ...

Because the nearby tailor in our place decided to diversify, and rather than bring my daughter’s uniform to town for a small adjustment in size, I opted for a more practical “mommy” thing to do: I tried to sew it myself. While at it, I got high school flashbacks. As I struggled not to prick myself with the needle, I told my kids how in high school, I used to always have someone to do the needlework and yes, most of the hands-on projects for me. Well, it sometimes came with a price of an English assignment but some friends were too nice to ask for an exchange gift and would do it because they either enjoyed doing it and maybe because it was for me. Then off I went into a tale of good friends and the kind my kids should be and should have. Hail all friends! But one name reverberated in my head in-between the tale and the running stitches: Mrs. Osum. (tama ba spelling)? Now I’m not even sure if she was an HE (home economics) teacher. But yesterday it was like… everytime I put the needle i...