Davao

I can now put behind me the nightmare that my pangga and I experienced a couple of weeks ago. Yep, we're both back together again. Yipee! I flew to Davao last week and stayed with her and her family for a few days.

It wasn't totally a negative experience. Something positive also came out of it. For my part, I realized how weak I was. I realized that there are many things I have to improve about myself. We both agreed that it is also important for us to flourish as individuals so that our relationship can also flourish. When two people can get too close to each other, when they become too preoccupied with each other, or too wrapped up in their relationship, they can neglect their individual selves. We understood that we need a balance of things. We have other areas too in our lives which we need to cherish, in addition to our relationship.

But the reason why what happened two weeks ago happened to us was not that we became too caught up in our relationship. It was the other way around. I neglected her, took our relationship for granted. Maybe I became too confident that she would always be there, that she would not go away no matter what happened. Josh Groban's song struck me at the right moment, "Now I've learned that love's not possession, and I've learned that love won't wait. And I've learned that love needs expression, but I've learned too late." Corny, but it's true.

I'm really glad to see Davao again. I missed the place, especially where my pangga used to live, in V. Mapa, and the places we went to whenever I was there. Now they live in a quiet subdivision somewhere in the south, not too far from the NCCC mall. You can catch the aroma of durian in many places in the city. It's peak season for the king of all fruits (hehe); there's an oversupply of it. I used to contest the idea of it being the king of all fruits. My favorite used to be the jackfruit (nangka), but that changed when I became accustomed to the taste of durian. Other fruits are merely sweet, flat. The durian on the other hand has a three-dimensional taste. It expands in your tongue, opens up portals to many dimensions of sweetness.

Tomorrow my family and I are heading off to Negros for the Kalag-kalag. I'll be behind the wheel probably for most of the road trip. I miss going on a road trip. I miss going to far away places, driving along farm lands and seeing mountains and trees and the sea. Thank God I was able to get a duplicate driver's license this afternoon. I lost my original one last week along with my wallet, when it slipped off my pocket inside a jeepney on my way home. Now I can drive legally. Pwede na ko dakpon og CITOM, without getting jailed.

Tomorrow is All Souls Day, and it will be exactly one year since I last saw a ghost in Sanke, my mother's home town. It was late at night and I was on my way to my lola's house. I was taking a leak behind some bamboo fence when all of a sudden I noticed that there was someone outside the house's gate. It was a child, and he or she was just walking. He or she was wearing a white shirt and I couldn't see his/her face. I walked towards him/her because I got curious that a child was still taking a stroll at that very late hour. But I already suspected that something was wrong with the picture. I already felt that it was a ghost, but I went ahead and tried to follow him/her. Sure enough, when I got to the gate, the child was nowhere in sight. Before me lay a vast area of land; the child could not have disappeared that quickly. They said that the child was probably telling me something, that he/she needed to be prayed. From that night on I've always prayed for him/her.

How does one cope with loss?

How does one cope with loss? How does one "move on"? "Moving on..." There's a phrase that's very painful. How does one does it, when the person that one is compelled to move away from is one's everything?

You told me yesterday ga, that I will always have a special place in your heart. So easy to say. I scrutinized the tone of your voice, and in my paranoia I thought, "You said it with so much ease!" I ask ga, how many square meters of space will I occupy in your heart? Will it be a wide lot, or just a small area? Will I just be a portion of your heart from now on? Just a fragment of your memories?

But I told you, ga, that you won't just be a portion or a fragment of my heart. You won't occupy just an area. For you are my heart's and my life's very foundation... When you spoke those words to me many days ago ga, my world crumbled underneath me, and I fell headlong to an abyss, and I am still falling, falling, falling.

You kept on explaining to me, you kept on comforting me, and told me that you still cared for me, because if it were not so, you would have simply disappeared without a trace, without explaining further why you had to leave. Yes, I understood you ga, but I keep on forgetting. What were your reasons again? I remember it was something so complex. Can you perhaps explain it in simpler terms? I've grown tired of thinking, of trying to understand why this is happening. I've become a philosopher because of you. I have partially plumb the depths of my self. (The days are long ahead, and I have plenty of time to go deeper and deeper into my mind and soul, to drown in sorrow, to grieve, to be tormented each moment our memories come creeping back in, to go mad. I'm looking forward to countless sleepless nights, and when I do sleep, countless nightmares.) I haven't yet become a poet, though.

Can't you explain it in simpler terms ga? Perhaps you can say, that it's simply because you don't love me anymore?

Where will I find refuge? In alcohol? In friends? In caffeine? In family? In God? In reading? In writing? In some movies? In some music? In a scene? In a thought? In some sound? In conversations? In silence? In medications? In distractions? In physical exercise? In vanity? In long aimless walks? In stories? In poetry? In essays? In articles? In my studies? In our talks? In devotion to some ideal? In some necessary labor? In television? In the sea? In some strange place? In a voyage? In a crowd of strangers? In humor/comedy? In laughter? In a river of tears? In prayers? Where, ga, where?

The unthinkable has happened

My pangga and I are in a crisis right now. I'm starting another blog because writing about it might help me cope with this extremely difficult time in our lives.

Days Without P