letter - 080429

Dear n,

August, 2007. We both missed our deadline. And I thought I missed it for good. But perhaps there is one more chance, most likely a last one. Come, dear friend, the grandest of all metropolis awaits us.

s.

[diary] 080428

Three for three.

A third call from a headhunter in three months.

This time, I asked for details.

[diary] 080426

A woman, some twenty plus years into a marriage, catches her husband at a brink of an affair. And to what she thinks to be the world, she announces, referring to the other woman, "that c*nt had an affair with my husband."

* * * * *

Years ago beyond the time my memory could capture, my father had an affair with an older, richer woman. Upon discovery, my mother did something entirely unexpected. Instead of confronting the woman, instead of confronting my dad, instead of making a scene and ruining his professional and social reputation, she went home to her parents, leaving all three of her children behind. It was no more than three days before my grandmother ordered my father to go and beg her to come back. She resisted and let it stretch out an entire week. When she came back home, the affair was over. For good. This story lay buried until many many years after my father passed away.

* * * * *

Apparently the woman's comment was made when my friend and I attended a concert in Santa Monica some months ago. She said it to Mr. S., who later told my friend of it. And my friend decided to tell me tonight, I guess, in celebration of our first get-together in five months.

"Did you see an old flame that night?" he asked me.

"No," I said. I was not lying.
"She probably mistook you for someone else. Of course, I defended your reputation."

I kept my cool smile and spared my words. We moved the conversation on to different subjects.

I had long sixty miles of drive home afterwards to think about what I might have said had I decided to flaunt my words. Perhaps that my reputation is not his to defend nor anyone else's. Or that this reputation he felt compelled to protect means nothing whatsoever to me. Or perhaps that the woman's comment was less a testament of my character than the reality of her marriage and her insecurities.

I thought about my mother. I thanked her for what little strength and wisdom she was able to pass onto me. With that, I pushed the accelerator further. I wanted to get home fast.

[dream] Glory in gray

I was in London. Early to mid forties in age, I suppose. Under the gray sky were the gray streets along which I walked, wearing gray slacks, gray turtleneck and a woolen gray coat that fell past my knees. I had success. But that was all I had. I wandered the streets aimlessly until I could walk no more.

Back in the hotel suite, I sat next to a luggage I left open in the middle of the room. Some personal belongings were scattered carelessly around the floor. And I just sat there in dead silence, not moving, until time stood still.

This dream dates back to my college days. I'll have to wait another decade to see if this dream was a prophetic one.

[dream] Knulp

Along the green pasture I began a long journey on foot.
There were sheep and herding dogs and tranquility around.

I woke up with the sun shining in my eyes.

Henceforth I begin a long journey, one different than the journey I have led so far.
I have finally accepted the person that I am.
And that changed everything.

Why I write

I think in most abstract yet most universal language of all--images. And in those images I preserve all the sentiments that go with it. Writing, to me, seemed most counterintuitive of tasks.

Precisely why I began writing, I cannot now recall. But at some point in my adulthood I learned to transcript my thoughts, dreams and remembrances into words. To each disorganized fragments of images I gave bones and flesh, and in my words each image molded, forever encapsulated in as much beauty and honesty as I could afford to give it. And in so doing, something unexpected happened--I learned to forget. These capsules of images could now be set aside to make room for others. I stopped reminiscing. Now I simply collect, in my vault that has no end.
In remembering we forget, and in forgetting we remember. If I must and it seems that I must, I choose the latter. And that is indeed why I write, of old and new wounds alike.

[dream] Small heart still beating in my hands

I was just moved into a new apartment. Seven floors up, it had a balcony looking out to a marvelous cityscape. With the final dust settling from the move, I grabbed the red nylon leash for my new dog, a black and white Jack Russell, and handed it to a friend leaning against the railings of the balcony. The dog followed the leash. With my back turned to him, my friend threw the leash out the balcony for reasons that went unsaid. And the dog jumped through the railing to follow it.

I gasped in horror and ran downstairs. Miraculously, the dog was still alive. But I could not find a veterinarian anywhere. I held onto the bleeding dog, heartbeats of its poor little life numbered in my own hands.

[diary] 080416

"Girls, I have an announcement to make," I yelled out.

"Are you getting married?"

"Are you pregnant?" asked two girls simultaneously.

I said, "No," looking at one, then turning to the other one, I said, "if I am, it would be the second coming of Jesus Christ."

"I am just announcing that I'm going home, even though I'm far from ready for tomorrow's presentation."

They all chuckled.

Another one threw me a question from the left field.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"No," I said.

"Do you have a 'friend'?"

"No."

"Are you dating?"

"No."

With perplexed look she asked, "why not?"

"I am emotionally unavailable," I said, "and I'm going home."

I left the girls behind. I typically stay with them through their over time to boost their morale. But this day was a tiring one. I cried on my way home. I just wanted to go to bed and curl up in my dreams, the only place where I can let my heart go abound.

[diary] 080415

This afternoon I received a second call in three months from a headhunter.
It seems that the likes of me are hot commodities despite the recessing market.
I am flattered, I told her, but I am not considering.
That I ultimately want bigger and better things--it's a thought I left within the confines of my head.

850413

One morning in early summer of 1984, I woke up and looked over to where my dad was supposed to be sleeping. He wasn't there. In his place was my sister, still sleeping. I went over to the kitchen to find my mom. She asked if I slept well, but instead of answering, I asked where dad was. He's at the hospital, she said. She did not look me in the eye.

The discovery of his illness came suddenly. He was out drinking with his friends the night before when he noticed slight tremor in his left hand. Among the group was a neurologist with his own practice. So at midnight, they decided to go to the good doctor's office for what they thought would be a routine exam. Within an hour dad was admitted to a hospital. Brain tumor was the diagnosis. They gave him two months to live.

He lived past the two months he was given. Summer passed and autumn came. He was discharged from the hospital not because he was getting better but because there was nothing else they could do. My mom convinced him to get baptized. Augustine, they named him, and my mom, Monica, was his spiritual mother.

With the approach of winter, his condition worsened. By then he quit the expensive radiation therapy and stayed home. He lost all of his handsomely thick, graying hair and was visibly weakening each day. He went on a million different medications, some prescription, some herbal, some just plain nonsense. His liver, too, started failing.

By the morning of April 13th, 1985, he had been unconscious for a few days. It was first Saturday after Easter and the weather was glorious. I woke up from a terrible nightmare and looked over at dad on his bed. He looked the same as the day before and the day before that.

Back then, schools were on for six days a week, so I got ready and left for school. On the way I met my grandmother who was coming back home from a sleep over at her friend's house. How is your dad doing, she asked. He's fine, I said. He's fine. I don't recall anything from school that day, but I do recall that I kept to myself. I even walked home alone without any friends, which was rare. On the way home, I counted four butterflies. Four white butterflies.

When I turned onto our street, I saw my dad's best friend walking out from our house. He walked to a post nearby and taped on a sheet of paper with two Chinese characters written on it. I could not read what it said, but I remembered seeing it once before when an old lady across the street had passed away. I tried not to think of it and went over to say hi. He said nothing and looked away. He moved on to the next post.

The main gate to the house was open. The gate was never open except when we received important guests. I walked in and went up the terrazzo steps. At the entry to the house, there were many pairs of shoes, so many that I had to leave mine outside. I saw my grandparents in the living room and said hello. They did not say anything back. Then I walked into the small room adjoining the master bedroom.

My mom saw me and got up from where she was sitting. I looked into the master bedroom where there hung a black cloth with white embroidered cross in the middle about a third of a way out from the opposite wall. Many people gathered and sat in front of it, reciting prayers in unison. I turned and looked at my mom who now stood in front of me. Daddy passed away, she said. I burst into tears. She put her arms around me.

We joined the prayer group and sat close to the black drapery, behind which was my father's lifeless body. The undertaker was working behind the drapes. All I could hear over the murmurs of prayer was the sound of cloth ripping. Silk, I presume. From the sound of it, the undertaker would have ended up with many long strips of cloth. I wondered what he needed them for. My sisters came home later at different times. Both of them, as if they had made a pact to do so, just sat down and cried silently. I felt embarrassed for how I reacted.

My dad's funeral procession was the biggest that the neighborhood had ever seen. I heard later that easily a thousand people had gathered. The body was moved from our house to the church for the funeral mass, then to the cemetery that was an hour drive away where there were lake and frogs and tadpoles and birds, where red dragonflies rested on tips of grass complacently.

I have not gone back to his grave in twenty-two years. Now I'm afraid to go, afraid things will not be as I remember them. Perhaps I would go back some day when these past years and changes and grief bear meaning no longer. I hope to find that day at some point in my lifetime.

[dream] Rain

I was wearing a white dress. As I walked down the street rain started coming, heavy drops in slow steadiness. The dress eventually soaked in rain. It felt liberating.

Vincent Desiderio, Woman in White Dress, 2003.

[dream] Ugly

And I looked in the mirror to find myself distastefully ugly. He was near, I knew, so I went in frantic search for my make up set. I needed something, anything, to cover my deplorable looks.

How true some dreams are!

[diary] Windy City

First time I went, I absolutely abhorred Chicago. It was a business trip and I had to dine at Red Lobster, for the first and last time in my life. On the way back home, the airline canceled my late night flight. I had to find a hotel room to stay the night in pouring rain. The hotel charged me double tax.

My second visit of opposite experience happened, ironically, because of my first visit. The airline had given out vouchers for a round trip ticket in exchange for canceled flight, and the expiration date was drawing near. A friend had just moved to Chicago a few months prior and I decided to use the ticket to visit him. It was below freezing in March, but my friend and I went bar hopping and midnight subway-riding. And I bought a white leather Wassily chair, disassembled and packed it in a box, and brought it home with me (it was before 9-11).

This last visit was seven years ago. Since, the airline that flew me out there both times went under, my friend twice moved about different continents, and I sold the white Wassily chair and bought a black one in a better condition at a better price.

I expect my third Chicago trip to be the best. Besides having to partake in the company's business development, I should be mostly free to do as I wish in that vast Merchandise Mart, seeing new things and mingling with people to do a bit of self-promo. Finer food will surely come my way. And when all that chaos is over, I will once again find indescribable peace and serenity in Onekama, Michigan....

Never before was I ever so excited as thus about my vacation plans. Santa Fe Opera will have to wait yet another year, but I don't feel too bad about it. In fact, I will wait gladly.

View from Hancock Tower, Chicago, IL, March 2001

[diary] 080404 - un moment

Night after night in the land of Sandman I see a face, one so dear and familiar with eyes in which I once found home for my little soul.

I met those eyes among the sea of people today, looking at me wandering aimlessly with a glass of Chivas in my hand. All I could see were the blue of his eyes...and all I could hear was the pounding of my heart. A split second later, I turned around and walked the opposite way. I had to be perfect tonight. I could not break down, not here, not now.

I met many people tonight. I was jovial, conversant, maybe even charming. But all night long through all the Scotch they sent my way, I thought of that split second moment, the only moment we could afford for one another, a moment that, for us now, is too much luxury.

[diary] 080331

Eighteen heads rolled today.

Mine is well intact.

In fact, the company is diligently looking to hire another one like me.

I should still be perturbed but I'm not.

It was a house cleaning well done.