Inkblots

4.29

4:29am. I wake up to the sound of a hundred cars zooming by. Being so close to the boulevard has its down sides. I stare at the ceiling for a good ten seconds, which seems more like a thousand years. Something about the early morning hours makes everything move in slow motion. A few more thousand years pass, and I still can’t shake the thought of you. 4:30am.

In The Event I Leave

In the event I leave..I want you to understand that it is not because of the lack of love I have for this place.

It is because I cannot take the deafening silence of what is not said, nor the twisted undertones of what is.

I have become complaisant and uninspired.

The suffocating pressure in these halls both pulls me from and towards you. It is the only reason I stay. And the only reason I must leave.

The 375.

A couple of entries ago, I tearfully wrote about home. Unfortunately, I write about it again in the same state.

Baguio City. On its official website, you will see Baguio described as a 49-square kilometer city approximately 250 kilometers north of Manila (to you out there who define distance by the time it takes to get from point A to B, Baguio is 6- 8 hours away from Manila if you take the daytime, 2-stopover bus ride). The Summer Capital of the Philippines is landlocked and bound by La Trinidad, Itogon, and Tuba, and is accessible by land through three national roads: Quirino Highway (aka Naguilian Road), Kennon Road, and Marcos Highway. Due to the elevation and the thickly forested mountain ranges, Baguio receives the most amount of rainfall in the country; twice the amount received by Manila.

Forecasted to exceed the 300,000 population mark by 2010, Baguio is famous for four major things: the climate, the tourist attractions, the educational institutions, and the culture.

There it is, an espresso shot of Baguio according to the references. A hand-woven bag of coordinates, statistics, and other impressive numerical values bound by a ribbon-like list of sensory delights that I know I took for granted for all those years.

This year the City of Pines turned a hundred, and on this year, it temporarily measured less than 49 square kilometers of visible land. Still at 250 kilometers north of Manila, travel time took at least half a day. Those stranded in neighboring towns and provinces waited for days to get home. With a huge gap in one of the national roads and landslide-affected sections on the other two, the city became virtually inaccessible.

Isolated, paralyzed, and on the brink of chaos. In one week, a storm thrice wreaked havoc on this saturated dot on the map, this small piece of land that I (and hundreds of thousands) call home.

I want to desperately tell you how heartbroken I was watching Baguio suffer; how angry I was at how impersonal the news about the north aired; how bullied I felt that this random act of nature had to destroy the place I grew up in and am protective of; how crushed I was each time I saw a picture of a lifeless body being unearthed.

Bruised, barely recognizable, and wrapped in body bags. They could have been someone’s family or friend; they could have been mine.

By 2010, Baguio will be home to more than 300,000. For this year, however, let us not forget the 375 lost.

the aftertaste.

a yesterday buried.

left behind.

a today alone.

without you.

a tomorrow that could have been.

that should have been.

capital sleep.

six whole hours of killing time.

could have done better things if today was not today.

midnight. silently, stealthily.

i came home to the sound of you not caring.

should have done better things. even if today was today.

power verbs

Spark.

up,

down,

down.

emphasize.

name,

label.

yell.

(comma)

Exercise.

visualize.

exercise again.

rest

yawn

observe

negotiate

evaluate’

satiate

Adapt.

not!

Attack

retract

test

intensify

solidify

throw away.

Suddenly everyone’s an artist.

Making It Home

Today, on the fourth day of me being a “fully grown” 24-year-old, I cried.

A year ago, I moved to a cozy apartment near my place of work. The daily trip took me fifteen minutes, which usually consisted of a short walk, a dustless jeepney ride, and another short walk.

Two months ago, my sister started moved in with me. My then cozy apartment started to seem increasingly cramped. When she started work, the daily trip to work consisted of a shared cab ride with my sister, and a short walk to work. Going home took me the same fifteen minute routine as before.

Two saturdays ago, my sister and I moved to a roomier place —much farther from my place of work. Around that time I had already come to terms with the fact that it would take me at least two rides within one hour per destination.

Two days ago, feeling adventurous and quite liking my newly acquired 24-year vibe, I commuted to work for the first time. The trip took me one dryer-effect jeepney ride, one sardine-style bus ride, and a short walk. It cost me forty whole minutes. “Normal traffic” are two words to describe losing forty whole minutes on the road. “Total waste of time” are four.

Yesterday, I left the office later than usual and commuted home — the first time in that general heading. With a little more than the same amount of time as the day before, my trip now consisted of a bus ride, a short walk, a jeepney ride, and one final long walk ..with five flights of stairs to finish it with. The cherry on top of an oh-so-spectacular quarter-hour.

Today, I left the office on time. 45 failed minutes patiently waiting at the loading zone surrounded by properly dressed yet horribly mannered women; 15 failed minutes lined up at the FX terminal that charged 30 pesos for the same distance a jeepney would charge only 7 pesos for; Another 15 failed minutes somewhere between taxi lanes where four different cabbies made each of their I-don’t-want-to-go-that-direction-unless-you-make-an-offer-to-double-the-meter-fare grimace; Five failed minutes listlessly walking around thinking I’d never get home; One glorious second for one miraculously empty jeepney, and; Forty minutes to zero the distance.

As I mustered whatever energy I had left to climb that last flight of stairs, I cried — tired, sticky, and practically willing to fall to the floor if my ego allowed.

Four days of being 24 and all I wanted at that moment was to be back in the place of my childhood..where women act like ladies; where cabbies don’t make silly facial hook-and-bait gestures; where nothing is overpriced; where a jeepney ride will not require a shower after..and where it only takes you fifteen minutes to get home.

Reblog Rehab

Unfortunately, we cannot all be creative..and mothering brainchildren you yourself did not give birth to is sacrilegeous. Kidnapping them in multitudes, even more so.

This guilt trip is lovingly dedicated to the reblog addicts.

I want to write

But there is no inspiration.

zero.

The Complexity of Simplification.

The Friday sun rests against my cheek. I welcome the warmth for a minute or two while comfortably lazed under three layers of blankets, then acknowledge the fact that the morning sun is no different from any other nurturing entity in this life: inevitably destructive. It starts to burn my cheek, forcing me to get up from bed. Of course I am still open to the option to stay in my now makeshift oven, but shrug it off.

Yawn. Stretch. Today seems like a good day for a quarter life crisis.

After washing my face I look into the mirror. Good morning, eyebags. Thank you once again for reminding me not to take pictures with the flash on, and for reminding me to get more sleep.

I drag my feet to the kitchen and toast yesterday’s pandesal before dunking it into a warm serving of mushroom soup. I take breakfast to my room and finish it while I talk to papa over the net. Before I know it breakfast’s over. Mmm, soup. I like how it’s always served hot and thick..and how it coats my spoon and saturates the bread with its flavor.

One more serving later I sit outside and sunbathe a little, while taking pictures of whatnot. I like the first whatnot shot so much that I take another, and another. Maybe I’ll name it The Concrete Series. Again, with the sun being the huge lovable pain in the butt it is, I retreat to the safety of the indoors. Only losers get sunburned before 10am.

I itch to hear the tappity tap of the keyboard. It has been a while since I sat and wrote anything. So I borrow my brother’s notebook and start typing away. I do not know how to start it and what it will be about but I type anyway, only aiming to hear the crisp melody of my fingers drumming away on those black keys. It is only now that I wonder who designed the keyboard and why he or she designed it that way..because I sure wouldn’t have thought of purposely putting W in between Q and E, or assigning the semicolon a space symmetric to that of the first letter of the alphabet.

I hear my grandmother looking for my late grandfather. It is only a matter of time before she starts wailing. Both my sister and mother try to calm her down, and it works..for now. The house becomes silent for a couple of minutes, save the boob tube tuned in to a local station and, of course, the beat of this portable device. I think. And wait. It’s about to hit me – ah, there: quarter life crisis. Right on cue.

The first step, as far as Hollywood and self-help books go, is admitting the problem. So here is my admission:

Hi, I am Miya, and I am an undecided dreamer.

I dream of writing, as there is beauty in language, and art in communication;

I dream of capturing visual artistry, as there is a certain grace and force in touching someone’s life with a single image;

I dream of studying, as there is no atmosphere like one drenched in intelligence and creativity and individuality;

I dream of staying, as there is dignity in nurturing what I have; yet it is for this same reason that I dream of leaving; and

I dream of dreaming, as there is much more I want to do without having to accept the unbearable limit of time in this waking life.

At this point I am full. I have satiated my culinary, aural, and visual cravings, and to force myself to resolve my issues at this moment is more than I can handle. I sit up, and before I know it two hours have passed. I reach for the hand mirror and again see those two deposits sitting under my eyes. Just like that, the answer stares me in my face.

Rest. Sleep. Undecided dreamers have to continue dreaming.


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The Concrete Series - Molting
1 of 4

The Concrete Series - Nonconformist
2 of 4

The Concrete Series - Spat Out
3 of 4

The Concrete Series - The Beach

4 of 4