Rituals and Holidays and Christmas

Previously posted on my Facebook page.

CHRISTMAS, celebrating the birth of the Christian God. Thanksgiving day, giving thanks for the blessing of harvest? Do we point the cursor at religious feasts? Spanish explorer in San Elizario, Texas in 1598 or in Saint Augustine, Florida in 1565, or the Virginia Colony or the Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia in 1619? The New England Calvinist Thanksgiving? Or do we gather and mourn this day to restoke the fires of anger in our chest, memory of that tragic day in 1637 in Mystic, Connecticut, the blood of the 700 Pequot humanity?

 

       Or what is Saint Patrick's Day, or what the Irish call, “Lá Fhéile Pádraig”? The death date of the most commonly-recognized patron saint of Ireland, Saint Patrick—who brought forth Christianity in the land? Or do we also pause and light a candle to those who perished from the creeks to the pulpit in the name of religion? Or what about Christmas Day? An exalting convergence central to the Christian liturgical year? Mistletoes and Santa Claus? Or should I turn back the pages of time that it was the Christian cross that subjugated my people and pummeled their beautiful, wealthy earth to submission?

       Or is Thanksgiving simply an Earth Fare turkey baked with Food Lion stuffings, Saint Patrick's Day is a keg of Guinness, Christmas is an ornamented tree circled by colorful gifts recycled from Goodwill, flea market, and Dollar Tree purchases? Maybe. For whatever it is, and whatever historical, political, or commercial backstory or front-story that we choose to interject with these holidays, these are simply moments of pause and ease. Moments of family, friends, community. 

       So let us cease to crowd our template of dogmatic hatred with more hatred. Holidays will never be “just another day,” because “just another day” is a tedious grind in the workplace, lumbering traffic of harassed souls in the street, necks and wrists bloodied by credit card gallows, and unmitigated smoke of war in the prairie of our discontent. There must be a day or days when we just have to easy up on the psychoanalytical bombast or sociopolitical bravado of knowing too much and too deeply, lest our spirit starts to slip slide away to a swamp of numbed, synthetic existence. 🎁✝️🎅

REST the redundant bickerings with mom or dad, set up the chess set for bro and cousin, start the grill with compadre and comadre while Bee Gees music plays along, hand over a slice of appleberry cake to the new neighbor, share a PBR or Guinness with whoever happens to be without a family around that time and talk about Kobe or LeBron or Pacquiao or Kim Kardashian, nothing heavy. 

       Somewhere in an island-galaxy so far away, I was born in and around a wounded humanity that bury their dead in thousands after almost 6 months of calamities, and they weep and weep days and nights—enough for tears to nourish the earth again for springtime harvest and summertime revelry. On Christmas season, they pause and take it easy for more than 30 days—and just live, just live like what life is all about. Let life and love happen while these gifts are still beating from within and without. There are no Thanksgiving or Saint Patrick's Day where I came from. But there are people, diverse people from 7,107 islands who speak 19 languages and worship a dozen or more different gods—who gather when a holiday ensues and just, well, they just gather. It's all about a holiday of hearts that talk and speak with a singular language. Maybe that language speaks about love, sumptuous turkey, or queso de bola, or best brew ever. Whatever it is, it's all good. 🎁✝️🎅

GIFT-GIVING. Do we have to overthink or intellectualize handing over a gift to a friend, loved one or even a random acquaintance? To give love is to receive love 7 times. Even long-ago tribal homeys and visiting travelers exchanged sweet little things to proclaim their new friendship. Commercialization of holidays? Consumerism of humanity? Do we really believe that there'll be nothing but a “handcrafted, politically-correct and environmentally-sweet” bauble and necessity sold in our neighborhood store one day someday? Do we sincerely believe that we will never consume beyond sea salt and backyard leeks? “Commerce” and consumption are all personal. As in giving... 

       Hence “giving” or buying should not be sweepingly categorized as objects of another's sociopolitical (or even ultra-religious) point of view. We are all wading and working around the commercial queue before us. We are all consuming on the basis of what we individually need as long as we can afford them or we don't steal them. If you are unable to, it is not others' fault—please don't make them feel guilty. On Christmas Day (or any holiday), we give and we share. That wrapped blessing is not $100 or $10, that is a heart in a physical body of a scarf or a baby doll. The receiver may already have 101 copies of “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack LP but his 102nd copy came from you, so that is VERY special. 

       As in the Little Prince to the Rose, “You are my rose—the rose in a hundred other roses...” The Bee Gees LP from the hundred other Bee Gees LPs—the one that we keep in a glass globe of our heart. So please don't see the negative shadow of a human tradition of love and giving. The few dollars that we spend for three Higland Gaelics, or the gasoline that we let our cars guzzle in to drive to the next bend to score a condom, the little materials that help us create our personalized keepsake to a friend—are not owned by some Enlightened Gnome that vibe with our girth, somehow the One Percent Demigods have some stocks somewhere. So sacrifice a few puffs of the magic herb, and buy 7 sets of baby diapers and wrap `em with colorful Christmas crepes at Dollar Tree. Stop commodifying everything! Simple gestures of giving aren't an AC Morgan Chase pitch, it is a human nature of coolness and awesomeness. So be cool and awesome, buy me a gift! 

       MERRY CHRISTMAS! 🎁✝️🎅

Compilation of short MORNING THOUGHTS on Facebook.

Previously posted.

For the whiner, today (Thanksgiving) is the day of wicked tribal blood and a day of poking wounds with family. Life is smothered with hate. Ah. I am old. I keep unhealed pains, too. I may not forgive but I have forgotten. Usually those who have wronged others have more to say to defend themselves due to guilt. I also hurt some but I’d rather forget, hushed. I thank God/dess that I am still breathing. Sports TV, dogs and cats, few friends, and Netflix help. Thank you! 🍎?☮️

Then, those in the fringes, underground, or the idiosyncratic were simply called “different.” Your unique existence has a community, reserved just for you. Goth, punk, gay, Communist etcetera. These days people are pressured to accept the “new correctness.” Refuse, speak up against it, you are shamed and lose your job. I wonder, do some people ride with the politics of New Left mindset to be cool, safe, hot? Do they really believe what they seem to profess? 🤨🗣👥

Popular meme: “Teach your son that cooking and cleaning are basic life skills not gender roles.” Cooking and cleaning… Interesting. I was born into and grew up in a culture where men cook on a daily basis. Primal truth. We learn to cook rice, not aided by “rice cooker,” by the time we reach grade school age. Takes skill to cook rice correctly. Cleaning? Each child has a housework task from sun-up to dusk. Boys and girls. No “gender roles,” whatsoever. Life as is. 🔌⏰🪠

Obviously, hooked I’m on sports. I savor and relish an entertaining game. “Tanking” in sports refers to the practice of intentionally employing weak player combinations to take advantage of league rules that benefit losing teams. In NBA, losing teams get to pick high or first in next year’s draft. Hot talk is 18-year French 7’2” talent Victor Wembanyama. So by mid-season, teams start to “tank.” I don’t dig this. Unprofessional, selfish, and takes so much out of sports enjoyment. 👎🏀👎

I heard news about situations when a patient was operated on by A.I. and it went awry. Machine punctured the wrong spot etc. I had a major surgery, at least once in my life, in 2000. I was given the choice of continued medication or go “under the knife.” Right there, I chose the latter. Yet if that choice meant A.I.? Nope. Not a fan of automation as alternative to what human hands/brains are still capable of accomplishing. Pilotless plane? Don’t even ask. 🩻🤖👎

My favorite time period in movies/TV series is way back in history. Apart from the obvious that my thirst of knowing starts with looking back, I do believe women in the past, body shape in general and especially per fashion, are sexier. These days, I don’t think/feel lots of exposed skin is sexy. Thongs and Victoria’s Secret lace, tight jeans, body huggers. Nope. Leggings are fine but these have been “overworn.” Sexy stimulates the mind. Imagination, mystery. Sensual. 👗🥿👘

I am a TV/movie addict, zealot, freak. Been involved in moviemaking, wrote film reviews, and still, on my old age—glued in front of a TV series or 12! Except when I am critiquing cinema, films are easy entertainment to me. I don’t overthink it. However, I notice there’s been a lot that are shot in insane dimmed background. Lighting is irritatingly dark. Not a night sequence. Dude brushes teeth, family dinner, people on a board meeting, grocery store frames. Dark. WTH?!? 🤨🎥😡

These days the word “traditional” is conveniently connected to/with “conservative.” Which I find ignorant, if not idiotic. When you are “old-school,” you’d be auto-judged as uptight/religious, right-wing populist, and irrelevant. And so on and so forth. If you ask me what’d be a stark difference between “traditional” and “modern,” based on current political mindset per academia? Consumer products. These days, we buy more stuff. And swallow more pills. 👈💊👉

Loss and Love

“CAKE” (2014, Jennifer Aniston film) is an emotionally-charged little indie movie that deals with pain—from physical wound and most especially, pain from the loss of a loved one. Loss of a son. It could also be loss of wife, husband, mother, father, very close friend. This kind of pain, although I may not have experienced the deepest of it, I believe—is a pain that is the worst. It's like you are alive but “dead” inside. I lost my mom in 2005 and still, I am grieving her—yet I couldn't imagine losing a child forever. Especially to a mother from whose body and blood the child came out from.

       When my son was maybe 5 years old, I “lost” him in a frenzy in the open market back home. I used to bring my kids to the market when they were little so we could choose together what's up for dinner and then rent some videos for the weekend. Suddenly, Duane was gone—as we entered a video store. I was in panic, I was hysterical inside. The next 20 or 30 minutes—I scoured the market, frantically asked vendors, ran to the police station—it was like I was suspended on midair, all oxygen in me was gone but I was moving in all directions. I froze yet my body was on a rush like I was driving 100s on a highway. My heart, my mind were all about Duane. I just didn't know what to feel, what to think—I just wanted him back.

       Then, a jeepney driver told me that Duane rode another jeepney to our house! Amazingly, my son knew what to do, where to go, and which jeepney to ride on to get home. He was already home when I got there. I held my son and just calmly said, “Never get lost again. Never.” 

       And on my 47th birthday in 2007, while here in Asheville, Duane contracted a deadly virus from most likely, eating street food following flooding/typhoon in Manila. The virus was eating him up fast and rendered half of his body paralyzed in few hours. He needed shots or 5 or 7 vials of antibiotics badly, if not, he'd die. In those hours of waiting, on the other side of the (telephone) line across continents, I felt I died. I didn't want another year in my life, no more—just give those years to my son. I can give my life to my son anytime. He was 21 at that time.

       In 1995, I messed up my lungs so badly from overworking, not sleeping rightly, forgetting to eat, exhaustion. I collapsed, brought to ER and ICU. “Dead” for few minutes. In the haze, I cried out loud in that life-death stupor, “If there's a God and you are witnessing this—pull me out of this shit right now. I cannot leave my kids. Let me live for my kids, please!” The nurses and doctors later told me that it was close to a miracle that I survived. There was even a parish priest on my hospital bed. 

       This is drama, I know... But hearing and listening stories of friends who lost their loved ones is no drama. That is life. That is love. That is humanity. That loss will stay in their heart and mind as they live. All my kids, now in their 20s, are healthy and intelligent, and so young and motivated. Any dreams that I built when I was young are dwarfed by the dreams that my kids pursue for themselves. Their joy and success bring more life to me. They are my heartbeat and my spirit. My life. 

       “Cake,” the movie, fortunately ended in a good promising note. The grieving mother only had to accept that she was a good mother, she was—and she deserves life after the loss of her son. That life is a gift, not a bitter pill. Life is love. We will only embrace life after loss (of a loved one)—by accepting that good memories stay after they left. Only good memories. And those memories are the inspiration that makes us see light again. 💖🍰💖

Photo credit: Psychology Today.

All the Love in your heart.

Written years ago.

THIS little rumination is meant to friends who asked for my thoughts in regards the subject of love gained and love lost—as though I am a shrink or Dr Phil. Well, I am not—I just write silly love poems, that's all, LOL!  

       When two people break up, many times we hear one accuses the other of being a loony or crazy or “not well” (schizophrenic, bipolar, passive-aggressive etc etc), and vice versa. Of course. Let it rip, for the time being—that is frustration, disappointment. But when the smoke has cleared—try to understand that there are two people that got entangled in such a bittersweet mess, not just one. So when either starts pointing fingers, we say, oh well... 

       That is the hard part—how to get up from the accusations, harsh condemnations, and still believe that you are still significant, beautiful, and worthy to love and be loved. If you are deeply affected by his/her vitriols just because the relationship didn't work, then you remain a broken person, a failure, a piece of trash... Which you are not, unless you are committed to mental asylum after the fact upon diagnosis. But maybe you are a beautiful human being within, it's just that the perceived chemistry or attempted synergy didn't work. 

       Humans are a bunch of expostulating atoms, unpredictable hormones and hot/cold body fluids—at the same time, we are a set of sensibility and sensitivity that act and react to given situations and circumstances. Relationships are not easy... That active atom, that innate ability to love can always find its fit when it fails—you can still find a parallel wavelength and aligned energy. Don't give up... Situations didn't work out, situations that many ignore or downplay in favor of the blades and missiles hurled as both vainly try to survive a gasping relationship. When you lose this one, move on—don't listen to whatever is hurled by a finished relationship. It's over. 

       If you believe you have beauty in your heart, then let it be open—one way or the other one will enter again. Or maybe there's someone out there that you may have ignored because you were so busy exploring what you thought was the real thing... Let love heal, don't let human foible open wounds. Heal with the next shudder in your chest, don't break. Meantime, be happy, while alone. I recommend, cook yourself a nice paella, uncork a chardonnay, and go check out Netflix. Spring is here. ☮️☯️☮️

MY Morning Thoughts. From Past Facebook Posts.

I only frequented one bar in Asheville. Westville Pub. I’d play pool there or sat in far deep corner with my laptop, writing. I knew the founding owners and I organized shows there as well. Then a shooting occurred few months ago. First time! Before that night, I seldom go out anymore though. Honestly, I am more concerned with the spike of crime in the city than the fear of catching Covid-19. But I am still here because any place on earth is as good, and bad, as any. 🎱💻⏰

When Facebook shut down, a quiet panic ensued. A daily ritual suddenly went pfft! Then I thought, what if the entire internet is cut? I couldn’t even watch a Netflix series. In fact, TV also pauses because it’s part of the server plan. Then it was time to read a book, spin some vinyl, and watch DVDs. Check flowers and veggies in the garden. And then what if all we have are old books? Then I will go back in time and stay a recluse in that “haunted” house and read books.☎️💽📺

Pickled Bologna. Given by a friend, native of Kentucky. I haven’t tried it yet. I am an”adventurous” eater although I was an on/off vegetarian for 12 years before I gave up in middle of 1990s. Food is an effective way to interface cultures. And I used food/cooking a lot to introduce myself with new friends and communities. I eat what they offer; and the I present what I can. Some people get “offended” when their food is refused. I understand. 🍴😋🍴

Lest I’d be boxed as a populist conservative, I favor community traditions. Seek a changing society? Go to big cities. That’s what seekers do as they leave their small town. I decided to live here in Asheville after 9/11 though I have been visiting since 1999 from New York City. Cool! I love local culture. I organized events and published a newspaper. Then transplants from mostly big cities moved in and changed Asheville. But the beautiful colors of the mountain stay. 🏕🍁🚧

Arrow’s “pull it!” Her favorite game. Her favorite hobby is draining stuffed toys out of innards (cotton insides) till they are “finished,” then she collects them in a box. Sometimes I wonder, what’d be in dogs and cats’ mind? Do they think about us, humans? For sure, they “feel” because their level of action/reaction adjusts in so many ways with ours. In my case, my reflex and response follow their beat. They trained me pretty good, I guess. 🐕🙂🐈

Halloween candy madness is over. Time to visit the dentist to clean kids’ mouth and teeth. My grandsons Keian and Kaiden, kids of my eldest Daphne and Keith; they live in Ohio. Children’s world isn’t adult’s world. Let them frolic, have fun. No need to intellectualize every little thingy in life. What matters is attention and love. Governments, schools, church, media etcetera assist but it is parenthood that matters the most in a child’s life. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦💓👨‍👩‍👦‍👦

Beyond the fancy glare of electronic baubles. We see a universe of expostulating earthlings. And we realize we don’t really want to see most, or all, of us. One-click "knowing" is not good. Let the mysteries be for the seeking. The quest is what makes life a majickal adventure. “Life” in the backyard: Angel child beside the greenery. Strange “cactus?” sticking out of a tree stump. These offer calm and peace more than the whiny drama of 7 billion insatiable humanity. 🦋🍁🐓

Made in India. India is the U.S.’ manufacturing fallback in case China doesn’t break. China, India, and Mexico are Top 3 in providing us consumer products. Ease of tariff over more Chinese purchase of U.S. products was agreed in the Jan 2020 U.S./China trade pact, as cure to the 2000 deal. But this side of 1 Percent don’t concur. So India is it. Yet gut issue is: Made in China, India, Mexico, or the U.S. You buy or you don’t. The rest is just political caterwaul. 👜💸👟

Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Valentine’s. Etc etcetera. Tradition. Culture. Fun. Life. We don’t have to overthink, intellectualize, or politicize all these—just to magnify that you are more aware than those who don’t belong with your moral plane or correctness trip. Consumerism? Everyday, it’s consumer time. So that’d be primal common sense. So chill. If you don’t want to abide, don’t. Close your door tonight when trick `n treaters come knockin’. The cat will entertain them and give away Reese’s. 👹👺🤡

Even before Covid-19 hit last year, I already decided to push my reclusiveness deeper. So that’d mean, I am mostly with two dogs and a cat. We in the house usually mind our own business, so to say, and chat only when needed. We don’t waste time on stuff like political banter. So I talk more with Arrow, Riley, and Cyd. They do get my English despite the accent. And I do hear them. And we don’t talk about politics either. 🐕🗣🐈

Life Evolves.

Written Years Ago.

LIFE does evolve. It is not about us oldies anymore. It's about the future of the young. Remember the days? A 17-year old hotshot smartass slugging out my dad's admonitions or grandma's reprimands: “I've been there and back! Listen to me, young man!” Well, I probably “listened” but off the “annoying” words exiting off my left ear soon after I stepped out of the house. Now, my own kids have grown and one is now a parent (so I am a grandpa). 

       Now I talk like my dad. To my artist/filmmaker son: “I know art shouldn't be sold like a material bauble, but you gotta earn to pay bills, son.” To Law student daughter: “Rest up sometime, please. You can't  solve all problems posed afront you. Relax.” To my middle daughter, a parent: “Yes, you have two kids at 23 but life isn't over yet. Dreams don't die. But kids are blessings.” 

       I heard those words over and over and over again in the past—from mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, aunt, uncle, mentors, and elderly who cared and loved me deeply although I always defined their generosity with the tone of their exasperated voice or pummeling ebb of their sentiment whenever they said those reminders. Perhaps, I allowed my youthful impatience to cloud the beauty of their heart. I listened alright but did I feel—beyond the harsh words and frustrated tears? I can only shake and bow my head in apology... 

       Ah, the “cool” ones that I preferred to hang out with, soft voices and nice lessons, those who seldom disagreed, they were so “cool.” Yet they left when the tempest started shakin' and breakin'. And those that are left to bear with my flaws and faults, indiscretions and imperfections—are those whose words I now channel through my own “admonitions” and “reprimands” to my children. ☮️❤️‍🩹☮️

“Love Gained, Love Lost, Loving and Leaving.”

Written, years ago.

IN the past few weeks, I've been kind of talking or helping out three longtime friends who've been painstakingly laboring over their respective relationships/marriages. Two are married, one is single (or supposedly “engaged”). Sadly, in almost stunning coincidence—all of them finally broke up this week. I didn't know if my words did matter but I tried to objectify situations and stuff. Yet I know whatever I said were simply buffers or respites from the turmoil. They decided because they had to.

   

       A relationship, despite the glowing promises of the courtship/honeymoon phase, is not a picnic by a serene beach. Mostly (due to physical realities beyond the “I love you”) it is a raft jaunt amidst a turbulent sea or a rollercoaster ride that refuses to stop. Yet that magical glue called love keeps two together and consign all the challenges and hardships to the backburner. Love will find a way. There could be nine staggering “dealbreakers” in a relationship—more than enough reasons to end it, yet that one item, LOVE, negates everything.

       That's the case with my friends. Or in my case, as well—not just faults and wrongdoings by my ex but also mine. Yet some are able to soldier on and survive the darkness, no matter how overwhelming they were, and celebrate their 20th or 30th, 50th wedding anniversaries. Some don't. 

       So when people finally broke up and ended it, that is the time—after few days of reflections and ruminations—that they'd say and realize that they couldn't stand her/his ways and lifestyle, mode of thinking and general attitude anyway. And love wasn't strong enough to find a way. Reason and smart-sense set in. Time to regroup and replan... And move on.

       Moving on is only possible in humility and surrender though. The ability to accept that a failed relationship was a two-person accountability. There is no sense pointing fingers that it's all her/his fault why it didn't work out.    

       People's reflex and response, I believe, is ushered by the situation and circumstances in and around. And that situation/circumstance is the relationship. A partner could either make a person a better individual or the worst that he/she could be. If it failed, it's because the relationship failed—not the person per se. It's a two-person teamwork. 

       So we move on with the hope that the other person enters a new world where she/he can improve on things that needed it, realize potentials, pursue delayed plans, achieve dreams—and maybe find another partner that could really add real meaning to the word, synergy or compromise/negotiation. We move on with the hope as well that we realize the same positive, pro-active and output oriented life, and love. Worse that could happen is—for one or both to self-destruct after the breakup.

       Bottomline, life doesn't end after a breakup or divorce. It is just a shake up leading to a new beginning. ☮️💖☯️