CRI DE COEUR

Sometimes I'm afraid of the things I have the words for. I will write until I cease to be.

[nadinehendrikka]

My memory isn't working as well as it should. Recalling things has started to become a chore, requiring me to physically pause and wrack my brains for a memory or a thing, the way you try to find something at the tip of your tongue, or a trivia question you know that you know the answer to. Apart from the everyday slip-ups of not knowing where my lip balm is five minutes after putting it away, I've had many moments of drawing a blank as to where I've placed crucial things, only to find them after I've panicked about it for a good few minutes and finally sat down to think. Things I did a day or two prior to recollection are fuzzy, and traveling is a huge blur without the help of photos. I tend to forget recent exchanges or decisions arrived at in work-related tasks, and just this afternoon my parents and I shared a laugh (a nervous one, for me) about something I'd forgotten I'd asked them for. Other than the pressure to reflect on the past year, one of the motivations for writing this down was that when Mitya asked me, just one week after we'd returned from Baguio, if my arm felt better, I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about. This alarmed me more than any of my many blunders, hence this attempt to recollect these events before I get too distracted with life in the next year to sit down, and end up forgetting this until the next time something jolts me enough into remembering. It doesn't help at all that I don't have pictures to use as references, at least for that part of the day, so I'll have to work with surrounding photos— and think hard. We had dedicated that third day in Baguio to searching for used book stores I'd read about online. Both places of interest were located along Session Road, and both no longer existed. We would later find out from a local artist that there was one near Harrison Road, which we eventually went to, but because we were so disappointed that day we decided to walk to the mall at the upper end of Session Road and scoured a Booksale instead. Afterwards we had nothing else to do, so we walked to Burnham Park, where we saw people riding bikes with frilly canopies, sidecars, tandem bikes and other similar vehicles— one kid was super chill on a unicycle— rented from various tents along a blocked two-lane stretch of the park. Core memory: When I was a little girl I watched one of my brothers teach himself how to ride a bike, and every afternoon saw his every fall and his every climb back up the sloped driveway of what used to be our garage, and watched him wheel down and fall again. I was told scars on the legs would make me ugly, and seeing my brother scrape his knees every time he fell, I balked at the prospect of learning for myself because I didn't want to add to the scars I'd gotten from bug bites and other scratches from playing. Later in life, apart from the incredulous looks I used to get from people when I told them I don't know how when it comes up in casual conversation, it never bothered me that I didn't ever learn how to ride a bike. My younger, nimbler self relied on standing on the sides of the rear wheels when my brothers rode their bikes to our grandmother's house or around the neighborhood, and as far as I was concerned, I didn't care if I needed to walk while they biked; they would have to wait for me, anyway. "It won't take thirty minutes," Mitya assured me when we walked toward the first tent that offered rentals. There were children, groups of friends, and families having their fun, and I decided to learn right there— it seemed as good a time as any. We rented one bike, good for an hour, and after hearing I was newbie, the attendant lowered the seat on the bike he'd chosen for me: it had washed out pink handles with stars in them, and the seat was too small for me, but I felt safe knowing I could reach the ground if I lost balance (I would later get sore in the nether regions because of this lack of oversight). The attendant assured me I would learn in no time. "Don't look at your hands. Look ahead," he said, and I heard the same advice from another attendant at a different tent when we had made a bit of progress down the road. I was far too self-conscious to remember this was a moment that needed documentation, and convinced myself it was too late in the afternoon to get steady shots, anyway. My returning fears of getting my legs scratched up were allayed by my choice to wear a stretchable pair of jeans for the trip, and soft, closed shoes so I don't break any toes. Half the time I was whining about how difficult it was for me, wobbling and either falling against Mitya, who was holding onto me on one side, or hitting the gutters on the other. The other half I was trying to save face and learn, while trying not to crash into unsuspecting people behind me and not to give up at the sight of small children cruising happily on their own, or teenagers giving me funny looks. Whenever he told me I was getting it right, that he didn't need to hold me anymore, I got nervous he would let go of me and messed up. Core memory: My three siblings taught me how to float by staying on both sides of me in a swimming pool, their arms outstretched and me laying on them. They let me kick my legs and flap my arms to keep my face above water while they took their hands away one by one, and I cried and told them not to let go or I might drown. They told me not to be a ninny, and that I wouldn't. They all let go. I learned. I was gripping too hard on the handlebars, and it showed. My wrists were hurting. Mitya told me I needed to relax my grip and control my direction without putting all my weight forward, or I'd keep falling. I now realize that advice would look great on a list of new year's resolutions, or inside a fortune cookie. By the miracle of newly built muscle memory, I found my balance and managed to bike a few hundred meters alone while Mitya jogged beside me, cackling in victory as I wobble-paddled. He said that was it, we would do it again the next day, and this time he would get a bike for himself because he didn't need to spot me anymore. It was dark by the time our hour was up. I was getting sluggish and bumped into a few wheels, (thankfully no injured people) and on the final turn around the strip, because I was so tired, I lost balance and ended up falling on the small island that served as the boundary between lanes. I broke the fall with my hand with the splint, but without hurting my arm too bad. When we returned the bike the attendant, who most likely saw me fall, politely asked if I'd gotten it, and Mitya beamed and said yes. I managed what I hoped was a smile, and not just an open-mouthed pant. It was peak dinnertime when we got out of the park, and across from it we found a deserted eatery and had dinner. We later learned the reason so few people went there was because their food was heinously overpriced. We walked along Session Road again and decided we deserved to get one of those foot spas where droves of tiny fish bit at your feet. Afterwards a nightcap of pizza and beer. The next morning I woke with ridiculous soreness everywhere, bruises and scratches on my ankles and feet. During our walks in the city I noticed my left bicep was tenser than the other. I got a cramp mid-conversation with a local and tried to play it cool by stretching it as if by habit. When we'd gotten back to our B&B my arm seized up again while I was bathing, and again in the middle of the night, waking me. Now that I am in the process of remembering things in detail, I recall how bad the cramp was, how it hurt ten times more because it was cold. That episode of cramping while I was in the bathroom (frigid water, mid-shampoo, embarrassment) was such a horrific time, yet my brain went ahead and clean forgot it a week later. It might have thought it was doing me a favor. Because I'm just about as active as a pile of slush, physically straining myself has gotten me cramps in the weirdest places (the last big one I had was both my thighs, together), and it doesn't help that my wrists are weak. My splint now has scratches in it too, so I guess that's a story I can tell the next occupational therapist I interact with. I'd love to hear what inner workings of the hand I'd stressed out because of my stubborness. Twenty-four seems like a pretty decent age to tell people I learned to ride a bike, though, so I guess I'll take it. While I have internet-searched a storm out of finding out what could be wrong with me, I'm far too young to have anything to worry about that I can't change over time— like better sleep, a better diet, or just learning to stop myself from doing what I do when I remember things I'd really rather not. We never got to rent out bikes again because I was in no state to ride, but the morning before we left I insisted we go back to Burnham Park to take photos of the biking road, because I knew that I'd be hard-pressed to remember things in detail without them. I would always look on in envy when I saw someone biking around campus in UP, and now I can't wait 'til the next time I can get my hands on a bike— hopefully with less people I might crash into. They say your body never forgets how to ride a bike once you learn, and boy, am I counting on that.

[nadinehendrikka]

Despite growing up in a city that hugs a coastline, I have never been around water as often as I am now. Back home I woke up to the sound of birds or familiar footsteps, and the beach was a treat for family gatherings and random nighttime stops. Today I am kept awake by sirens of varying melodies and neighbors that don't share keys. All this noise has become a fact of life, especially in this district, but our view of the Manila Bay sunset— near enough to see the water glisten, but far enough from the plastic-strewn shoreline— has given us many a pleasant surprise. Sometimes I can almost smell the sea, its freshness trapped beneath the warm swirl of exhaust and other unnamable gases. When, after a seven-hour drive, friends and I finally got to a beach in Pangasinan I didn't even think about smelling the sea— it was right in front of me, glorious and raging, and rocky, the sand was light and the water was blue and I was in it, and it was in me. Living so close to water you can't jump into messes with your sanity a little. This patch of sea belonged to the Pacific Ocean— by extension, so did the Bay— and the waves were neither surf nor swim-friendly when you went too far from the shore. When we'd just started unpacking our things, a crowd was forming a short distance away from where the tables and cottages were. When we were in Baler, a similar emergency occured, only response was quicker because that beach had been more accessible. This one was below sea level, the ground we walked on used to be part of the ocean— there were huge coral-like boulders with houses nestled on top— and it was difficult to get an ambulance in the area. We were sure someone had drowned, because the crowd around the body was tight. I will never understand why it is our instinct to home in when all someone needs is air. Rescue personnel arrived. People where we were, by cottages and tables, were going about our ways. Some were whispering. "If that's a dead body that would be the first time ever in this beach," one woman said to her colleagues. I would later see her managing the beach's sari-sari store. The man who owns and manages the place, named after him and his wife, came back from the crowd and walked toward the conversing ladies shaking his head. The crowd was dissipating. Two men carried the stiff body, one by the arms and the other by the legs, away from the shore and into the shade of a tree. The boy's skin was the color of the damp sand. He was a teenager, and the talk came fast: he was drunk and was playing games, pretending to drown, and then he eventually did; he was already dead, no one knew him, he just got washed ashore; no one was in hysterics over his dead body. But the next day there was a newsbit about him and another man's drowning within the same province, and that was all the world could offer him. Mere minutes after the body was taken away, people were back in the beach. More people were coming in, and they'd already heard of what happened. We set up camp, we had a meal. With some guilt, we too went into the water. In spite of ourselves, a line of warm bodies wanting to get buffeted by the waves, we forgot that death had been so closeby. The waves slapped us down on the sand however much we resisted and we screamed in delight, but we kept safely to the shore. New people set up their tents. We struggled with the open grill and the artesian wells. We ate and slept and the next day no one spoke of it but everyone knew the simplest of truths: no one is responsible for you in the open sea. It is your job to not get sucked in.

[nadinehendrikka]

These are what lay before me: green grass occupied by backs and behinds, trees made golden in the sunlight, and the haze of the indiscernible future.

I’ve always wanted to, but have never been brave enough, to lay fully on the grass (partly because of a childhood experience that involved me, a mattress lain to dry in our backyard, and an anthill) but I am more tempted than ever now that I have a scarf with me and the sun has finally yielded to the clouds. So many people are lying down directly on it now, and I don’t see anyone scratching their bare arms and legs or screaming in pain while running away to find a washroom. Others are taking naps on the grass, using their bags as pillows, and a guy with dreadlocks just arrived with a backpack and a duvet. A woman sulks on a nearby lawn chair while the man coaxes her to join him. She sits and lights a cigarette while he lays spread-eagled, also with a smoke. A pack of Korean kids are playing with a football. A fat squirrel jumps out from the bushes behind me, not at all fazed by my presence or anyone else’s, not even for the sparrows and pigeons that twitter about. Even their animals behave differently here; they’re much freer to roam than many other humans we know. The squirrel scuttles dangerously close to the smoking couple and I gaze at it anxiously, afraid it might cause an uproar by running across their bright blue-and-green duvet. The creature scampers off in another direction. Keeping watch of the squirrel kept my sights on the smoking couple, too, and the woman has aquiesced and they are now laying together in embrace. I look away because the moment is theirs, and to conceal my envy.

The squirrel is back now; I’m not sure if it notices me or if I am simply trespassing in its favorite haunt. I recognize it because it’s a particularly fat squirrel. It was sniffing and digging around earlier, and now it has something in its mouth. The squirrel notices me and stares me down, and I stare back. It shows me its tail, as if to say I’ll mind my business if you mind yours.

Even when it sits still, the squirrel is shaking, twitching, as if so many things are going on in its body that its fur can barely keep up. Someone once told me it was startling that I was so alive, that there was so much life in me that it shone right out. I wonder if squirrels get tired of being alive, too. Do they ever feel like jumping off a tree or overdosing on acorns? Fat squirrel is back, and it seems to be looking for a place to hide its new treasure. It probably has miles of soil to choose from, so I imagine it to be a tedious task as I watch it move along. Another, now skinnier squirrel arrives and it looks as if it’s in a panic. Its whole body twitches as it sniffs around, digging up all the hiding places fat squirrel did earlier, rearing its head and turning around every which way and then running off. Looks like someone lost its nuts.

I never know what I’m writing about until I finish. When I sat down on this lawn chair I told myself I was going to write about how my aimless walking led me to another bookstore and it nearly brought me to tears, and how I planned on buying makeup but ended up buying books instead, or how I wish I came here with less clothes so I could have bought more books, or how I wish I wasn’t so afraid of life anymore. Instead I’m writing about nuts and squirrels, but even that has to come to an end: a European couple has just arrived with their toddler son, who has taken a special interest in my friend the fat squirrel, and proceeds to chase it away.

Now the European couple are taking photos of each other, and now the American couple in the duvet are arguing, and now a new couple arrives with scarves and books and I only came here to rest my feet, so now I think it’s time for me to stretch my legs.

[nadinehendrikka]

I was a different person last I was here, I want to tell you.

The streets look the same, though this time a lot of buildings and sidewalks are exoskeletoned for rain and sun and renovation, and the streets smell worse that they did before. I don’t remember seeing garbage bags line the sidewalks and I don’t remember seeing it rain two years ago, either. It rains every week now, and when it isn’t raining the sun beats down on the people who are strolling or scampering, depending on their reasons for being here.

The weather here is just like the weather there it’s like I never left, I want to tell you.

I am sitting on a window ledge of a bookstore, watching the rain and traffic. People are sitting on the rug, on books or on their phones, like I am now. In my defense, I’ve always written better on my phone, I know you know why.

The next time I come here I want it to be with you, I want to tell you.

That’s what you’re going to say to the next guy, I’m sure you’d say.

In the subway I imagine you holding on to the railings in front of me while I’m seated exchanging smirks with you. At Central Park I imagine you grinning at my panting face while we attempt to circumnavigate it, or us laying on the grass maybe reading books or laughing at the clouds. I imagine us getting sandwiches and eating them at a bench and getting hungry again and looking for rice. I imagine us walking through the rain in a small umbrella, and I imagine us arguing over some silly thing because we’re both tired from spending and walking and spending and getting rained on, because that’s all there is to do here. I imagine waking up next to you and telling you every city I have been to has looked so much better with you in it, and you will smile because perhaps someone has told you that before.

I’ve said this to other people but this time I mean it: I’ve never felt this way about anyone, I want to tell you.

I believe you, I wish you’d say.

[nadinehendrikka]

You were born in a place I'd only read about in history books and speak a language I only studied in the classroom, while I come from a place you've been to once or twice, and speak a language you say you wish to learn, because you want to make sense of every utterance, every quip that I have to explain and every cuss word that I'd never want to stop using as you try your best to decipher what I really mean even when I sputter, at best, with your everyday language. Sometimes we argue like our languages are oceans and not just islands away, but we make up in ways that need no translation and track records be damned, do you know how much I love you for not trying to change a thing about me and wanting every bit of who I was, am, and will be? [I want you to do to me what you do to keep you from shivering, to wait, wait, wait for me until you take me where I want to be because don't you know you make me confused, so very confused?] Why do I get the feeling that fate took pity on me, so it finally conceded and led me to you? Nainip na ba ang tadhana sa kakapanood sa'ting pagpapaligoy-ligoy, kaya't tayo'y pinagtagpo sa wakas? Naghulata baya ko nimo, hangala ka, pero bantog diay nadugay ka; layo-layo man sad diay atong mga panimalay.

[nadinehendrikka]

It is delicious to feel, if only for a night, that I'm someone nobody knows, someone from whom nobody expects a single thing; to be just like every other sweating, mildly inebriated body in this cramped pit, bobbing my head along to music and lyrics I've given up trying to decipher, exchanging utterances with strangers squeezing their way to the bar and taking leisurely gulps out of my second beer. To blend in, so to speak; to disappear into this place, this city, this island group, and be nameless, stateless, careless, senseless, if only for a night, bound by a few hours alone at a crowded music joint.

[nadinehendrikka]

You’d wish they would happen in more cinematic settings, like gazing at the brush strokes of a painting or examining the contours of a sculpture, or perhaps as you walk into a deserted gallery and stand quietly contemplating the works before you. But these sudden realizations hit you at the strangest moments— like jolting awake in the train on your birthday, about to feel embarrassed that you slept with your mouth hanging open but knowing you only sleep like that when extra tired so you go back to sleep because you’re still five stations away.

They happen as you endlessly contemplate bookshelves, take long leisurely walks, survive a stormy commute, or wake up before your alarm goes off. It’s actually quite funny how it washes over you without warning— it wants to be a pleasant surprise to you everytime.

Do you feel it?

That life pulsing through you, do you feel it? Do you feel how it has never stopped?

Not for the pain, the shame or the rage that sometimes blinds you. Not even for the nights you wish would never turn to mornings or the days you wish did not have to end. Not for the people who just won’t quit you, or the people who already have. Time will show you that it’s not all that bad— there are people who care and people who are crazy enough to put up with you; there are people who understand, who will listen, who will cheer you on, despite distance and dysfunctional Internet. And then there is you: still existing, still fighting, still dreaming— still writing.

Hemingway says to write hard and clear about what hurts, but please write about the pain not to perpetuate it, but to heal from it. Write until the words no longer sting and the keys no longer feel like concrete. Write until you finally, finally understand and feel nothing else but pride for what you have let yourself overcome. Write until you finally learn that despite the fact that the word can be horrible, it is undeniably, incandescently beautiful. And so are you.

Do you feel it?

Do you feel how you’ve never stopped? Good. Now keep going.

[nadinehendrikka]

Musings on My Surprisingly Profound Failed Commutes, Book 1

When the van I was riding breezed past my stop, I knew it wasn’t making any new ones any time soon. Deadly twelve-lane highways have overpasses evenly distributed along it and the next one was some distance away (an estimate of distance and counterproductivity would be as if I was going to Bulua from Patag on a van that was going directly to Laguindingan— yes, mura ko'g buang haha), and I was thinking of going all the way to the end of the van’s route and just get a ride back from there. The end point was a mall, anyway.

I’d taken this route before and had the same problem (except that time a stranger had helped me tell the driver where my stop was, but I ended up getting off quite far from it and walking to my original stop anyway), but I was dumb enough to take it again even when I knew I would yield the same results (I was also too lazy to look/wait for another van/jeep— there is a lesson in this somewhere). I am also incredibly awkward-shy so I couldn’t just tell the driver to stop anywhere because I wouldn’t know how to respond should he rebuke my lack of street-smarts in Tagalog.

It would have been a waste of time to take the whole route though, so my good sense (bless my directionally-challenged brain) told me to just get off anywhere the next passenger might. Two overpasses later, someone called “Para!” and I finally went out of the van and into an unfamiliar and busy part of the highway. From there I made my way safely back to homebase.

Now I could be wrong, but especially with places that have wider sidewalks and/or are major stops, the landings of overpasses seem to be cradles of livelihood for the highway-dwelling locals. Heck, even the overpasses themselves are still considered sidewalks, with people selling potential emergency necessities like hair ties and umbrellas (but mostly astonishingly random things like shoes, fabric conditioner, bags, toy cockroaches, and powerbanks) some twenty feet above ground. Squeezing past rushing commuters, you are greeted by more vendors at the foot of the stairs and along the sidewalk: junk food, corn, face towels, AlDub pins, fruits, and the ubiquitous tusok-tusok. Walk further towards the road and if you’re lucky enough not to get side-swept (by vehicles or impatient individuals), carefully look at the names of places painted on the sides of jeepneys and the placards on their dashboards. Keep your bag close and don’t even think about taking out your phone. Don’t take it personally when someone rushing bumps into you or someone hisses at you for no apparent reason. Things will be so busy and loud you can barely hear yourself think, but get on the first safe-looking jeepney/bus/van and be on your merry way. This city is a jungle and literally no one else will care enough to look after you amid the exhaust and counterflow, but like you, everyone is just comforting themselves in the safety of their thoughts, trying to get to where they need to be.

Despite screwing up for the nth time, I’ve gotta give myself a pat on the back for my significantly improved commuting skills, in fair Verona.*

____________________ *First use of shameless literary pun attributed to one RM Topacio-Aplaon, 2015.

[nadinehendrikka]

I can’t help but notice how sadness has become a trend these days. Somehow it even seems more “fashionable” to be unlucky in love than to be in a happy relationship (or is it just my crowd? Hmm.) The hashtags and clichés say it all: #WalangForever. #Hugot. #UnsentLetters.

Love can hurt.

Every piece of art and literature and reality has made that glaringly clear.

It is ember and ashes; cause and cure; weapon and medicine.

Some days you will feel it was meant to happen: this sad, beautiful story of you and them, the tinge of guilt or sadness or fear that comes with knowing this may not be the way things go (“well maybe you’ve been watching too many films and reading too many books,” they’d say), but who wants ideal, anyway? Who needs labels? You are in love. They look at you with a sparkle in their eye and you are at home in their arms. That’s all that should matter.

And then things will go wrong and the hurt will start to outweigh the affection. And you find yourself falling, falling, falling and slamming into solid ground and back to where you started, only now with shattered pieces that once resembled your heart.

Then all that’s left is the pain.

And you mourn. You drink. You cry. You consume copious amounts of ice cream. You drunk call. You get hung up on. You curse the universe and its propensity for ruining just every good thing that you thought you had.

They will ignore you. They will tell you they don’t want you anymore. They will find someone new. They will tell you to go away. They will tell you it’s over.

And you will keep wishing they’d change their mind.

It will hurt. For weeks, months, and maybe years on end, it will hurt.

You will feel empty— so empty you will find people and things to unsuccessfully fill the void that is so undeniably shaped like them. You will cry yourself to sleep at night, biting into your pillows and blankets and using them to muffle the screams that creep out of your chest and into the linen that will forget all of this in the morning. You will hide your swollen eyes from your parents and say you’ve caught a cold, hence the random runny nose attacks at the slightest mention or memory of them. You will want your life to end because you weren’t good enough for the one you felt you were ready to live for.

But here’s the secret, boys and girls: one day, the pain will stop.

You will stop stalking them on social media and hearing their name won’t make you tear up. You will wake up one morning and your chest will feel lighter because you will start crying less. You will start thinking about better things, and you will soon find yourself laughing at how crazy you used to be about them. The sting will disappear.

And you will find that the hole they left has been filled with newly regained parts of you.

Love can hurt. But that doesn’t mean that it should.

Sad can be beautiful— any artist will tell you that melancholy drives pens and brushes like no other.

But please, stop glamourizing the pain. Stop showing younger people that it’s normal to be hurt. That it’s normal to go through an unhealthy relationship. That it’s normal to be sad for years and to not get over someone.

I’m getting really tired of seeing so many people in pain because someone got away or someone scarred them so deeply. I’m tired of these girls referring to themselves as sad or scarred girls who will keep sharing painful things about love because they were hurt so deeply before. Girls in unhealthy relationships they still choose to stay in. Girls feeling lonely with themselves. Girls thinking they’ll never be enough.

SAY THIS WITH ME: LOVE CAN HURT. BUT. YOU. WILL. GET. BETTER.

ALL TOGETHER NOW:

YOU. DESERVE. TO. BE. LOVED.

YOU WERE MADE FOR SO MUCH MORE THAN CRYING OVER A BOY OR A GIRL WHO DID NOT KNOW HOW TO LOVE SOMEONE LIKE YOU.

YOU WERE MADE FOR SO MUCH MORE THAN HATING YOURSELF FOR ALL THE WRONG THAT HAPPENED IN YOUR LIFE.

YOU WERE MADE FOR SO MUCH MORE THAN STILL REELING FROM THE SCARS SOMEONE LEFT ON YOU YEARS AGO.

When or how you will heal cannot be guaranteed, but if you start now, it will be soon.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not rushing you; I’m telling you to take all the time you need, but surround yourself with only what will help you.

And to the weapons, the embers, the causes of the pain:

You and I know that being hurt, like energy, is a phenomenon not created; it is only passed on in another form— another body. Another person. Another time.

I get you. I completely get you.

But it’s time you stop blaming yourself and the person who hurt you for the way you’ve been treating the ones you love.

Forgive them. And forgive yourself. And start asking forgiveness from the ones you passed on the hurt to. It’s time to stop the cycle of pain.

You were hurt. You hurt. But you deserve to start over, too.

SAY THIS WITH ME ERRBODY:

I AM BEAUTIFUL. I AM INTELLIGENT. I AM PASSIONATE. I AM ENOUGH— I AM MORE.

Let’s start looking out for each other, shall we? Let’s ask each other how we are when we see things aren’t going so well. Let’s help each other find the good in each other that not everyone can see. Let’s encourage self-love and not label it as overconfidence or narcissism. Let’s accept compliments and give them, too. Let’s stop making sadness look good.

Let’s make happiness look good.

Let’s make real love look possible—

starting with ourselves.

[nadinehendrikka]

Here’s to the gems woefully relegated to bargain bins and secondhand booksales; the authors and titles that never became, but had every right to be, “household names” or “must-reads"— at least in mainstream media standards; the treasures slashed to up to only a tenth of their original buying price years, even decades after they were published; to the stories that tore you apart so exquisitely that you wonder how something so devastating could exist so quietly.

Here’s to the books that caught your eye in the sea of so many, oftentimes excavated from the depths of bookshelves and unearthed in the bowels of display boxes; the books you bought on a whim and blew you away so ferociously that you know the force that brought you them could be nothing else but fate.

Here’s to the books that showed you a world of stories and helped write your own— and here’s to many, many more of those beautiful discoveries.

[nadinehendrikka]

Dear future self:

Remember this day as the morning you, despite having slept your minimum five hours, woke up on January first feeling as bright as the sun that shone lazily through your window and as calm as the early breeze that lovingly woke you from your slumber.

Remember how eager you were to write about the past year as you sat up and grabbed your phone, eager to type your life away in those tiny keys.

Remember how your mind went blank and you could hardly will yourself to re-enumerate and summarize everything like you usually do.

You of all people know so well that there must be some degree of cohesion, some sort of angle to what you are about to write for it to make sense, and thinking of the past year in all its shades of madness, you could not, for the life of you, put that haunting montage into words that could string the whole experience together; you, who always had the words for everything, could not define it.

What is it called when you know the words for something, but you aren’t sure if they’re the right ones, so you don’t use them altogether?

Remember how puzzled you were at your lack of words.

Did your mind do you a favor and wipe itself clean with the start of the year, or did you unconsciously will yourself to forget because you no longer knew what and how to feel?

There’s something definitely wrong with this. With you.

But remember, remember how your Mum woke you up from your sad little nap, those little slices of death you’ve grown to love and avoid, to tell you that you were all going to the beach. Now. Remember how you got angry because you hate being woken up urgently and you hated the thought of public places in general. But family always comes before your self-loathing, so you threw on some clothes and got in the car.

Remember how glad you were that you didn’t angry-whine and go back to sleep and wait for them to leave you behind.

Apparently your parents’ thoughts of going to the beach weren’t entirely original; there were tons of people in the beach and the pool, but you had fun taking photos and found a cozy little nook to be alone with your thoughts, the weighty sea breeze ever so slightly tousling your hair and cooling your head.

As you were walking along the shoreline and watching the sky transition from a slight pink to a deep blue, remember how the words came back to you. Remember that they were actually always there, waiting for you to cup them into your hands; constantly drawing back and kissing your fingers, coaxing you to write them down despite your wariness of them being used against you; despite your fear of feeling the wrong things.

Remember how the words showed themselves to you.

Remember how you forgave yourself for not having the words earlier and thanking yourself for finding them again.

Remember that moment of clarity.

Remember that on the bad days.