Sublimities evolve in us. We just have to “listen” to the insistent voice inside. As a boy, I formulated many questions that didn’t get response/s from adults around me. So I hushed, and sought answers myself. I wrote, I created art, I explored my surroundings. Next, I had to share what I “discovered.” Words on paper weren’t enough. So I made art. Music, as well. Those were better, more peaceful, and certainly a lot more effective—than talking. Or screaming. ✍️🎼✍️
Longest Christmas in the world? In the Philippines. Four months, at least, starts on September—and ends on the first week of January. Not just religious or cultural. It is also primal response after months of typhoon misery. Employees are given a 13th-month pay or extra 1-month pay in November per labor law, excluding bonus. Most workers rest from work, paid, from Dec 15 to Jan 3. No excuse not to party or eat a feast of food! 🏵🎪🏵
I was a media liaison staff for Presidential Commission on Good Government, directly under then President Corazon Aquino. PCGG was tasked to recover ill-gotten wealth by the Marcos family. I also sat with political think-tanks that ran the campaign of presidential candidates. I started my journalism career with Ang Pahayagang Malaya (The Free Newspaper), which battled the dictatorship. Looking back, I realize how different it was then. 1980s and 2000 onwards. So different.☎️📸📰
Winter isn’t here yet but I am already thinking of springtime planting. Flowers and vegetables. Hoping to do “earth romancin’” better in 2022. I guess, gardening comes with old(er) age? My most colorful memory of sweetly tilling the good land is my grandpa Severino diligently tending to his veggie patch in the city and his garlic farm in the province, and grandma Luz and her orchids, roses, bougainvillea etcetera. Nurturing seeds, nourishing life. 🌴🌱🌿
The Lost Art of Chillen. Dogs and cats remind us. No fail, right after the obligatories of morning food and bathroom moment, Arrow and Cyd go chill on the sun room. Chillen. That’s what we humans were before computer technology defocused, distracted, diverted—and divided us. Wake up on rooster’s crow, feed the animals, sweep the yard, cook/eat breakfast, read the morning paper just once, and the day happens sweatin’. We pursued the light irrelevant we waded in the dark.
It’s not like we don’t pursue change or “the light” these days. We do. But we seek change as a massively divided front and broken peripheries. So call for "change" takes the form of a reactive/reactionary yell. 🌼🍂🍀
We don’t observe Thanksgiving back home in the Philippines. And many other “holidays” that we do here in America. It’s fun! All I see and experience are people gathered, cool vibes converged for dinner. Although I am alone today, I am not lonely. I am with the dogs and cat. Enjoying the blessing of sweet warm light in the sun room, old rhythm & blues on the turntable. Later, I’ll share dinner with Arrow The Brat Doog, Rockin’ Riley, and Cyd The Koolcat! ☮️❤️☮️
Day before Thanksgiving. Travel time. Also, the day for many to spew grade school level mischief—insults, shaming, putdowns. `Though I don’t believe kids hurl inane asides in general compared with adults these days who throw all kinds of dirt just to be noticed or “liked.” But I get it. I get the historical backstory, Covid-19 caution, turkey drama. Politics. Yet Thanksgiving is family and collective dinner to thank the God/dess that we are still alive.
I am spending my Thanksgiving alone with the dogs and cat but if it’d be easy to just hop in Elon Musk’s spaceship, I’d be where my family is so far away. ❤️☮️❤️
Remember the days when we had to conserve (camera) films, careful with each shot, not to waste them? We develop negatives in a dark room or wait for a week for a photoshop to process them? We neatly arrange those photographs in an album and show them to visiting friends and kin. These days, easy! Click, presto! Then we post them for the universe to ogle at, anytime of the day! So why would I be concerned if Facebook “steals” them? LOL! I still got a lot and more coming. 📷🤪📸
When holidays approach, especially if it is Christian, expect a lot of dissing, shaming, insults. I don’t get the sense of these at all. We are never contented with spewing fire over political diversity and stuff. There’s just got to be a daily dose of reasons to toss a darkness trash at each other. All I see in holidays are break from work or routinary grind of life and family/friendship gathering. Yet we don’t see those. We see more reasons to thumbs-down. Ah. 🏵🎪🏵
Reading old work and reading new work are worlds apart. It isn’t about 1912 compared with 1985. Not that I am saying writers these days, mostly 21st century authors, are less smart. They could be. The problem is "writers" proliferate these days and we are not even half-certain if they are legit or whatever they wrote, which end up in heavily trafficked memes and links, got credibility. As long as words capture the political bias or cultural prejudice, people click and share.
Exactly what Alvin Toffler wrote in 1970: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” 📚🖊📚
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