&

your type-A girlfriend; both siphon & reservoir, woman & calf, window & knife

[thiswordis]

"Like indecision to call you"

Time is wonderful because it's not abundant. I believe that internal and shared clocks expire; this makes the impetus to make meaning more pressing. We could spend 3 hours or 3 years deciding on one thing. There really is no way to perform a what-if experiment on the path not taken, short of sorting out the kinks of causality and other issues in the time-space continuum. The difference then is the potentially wonderful things that happen in the 3 years minus the 3 hours it took to fully decide. You won't ever get those back. You might not even get to a decision, because that specific clock might run out of time before you get there. Doors close when they do. I suppose the lesson here is not to agonize too much about the future because it will happen, however it will. There is no limit to the good you experience in this life, unless you keep putting it off and saying you don't want it--yet.

[thiswordis]

Fluctuations in time

I have entered a life which requires me to get over jetlag at least once every two months. Traveling used to be much easier on my system, as it rarely took me outside of my home region. These days, I have to lose or gain at least 6 hours each trip.

On the phone with A. a few days ago, sleepless for days in a pristine hotel room in Chisinau: This - loss of sleep, this being marooned at strange hours, this distance so felt and intrusive - does something to you. The "something" can only be dispelled by movement. On a practical level, it makes sense to keep tiring your limbs and torso out. Why stay in at 3am, when there are but two channels that are in a language I understand?

I can only imagine what it does to the ones I leave - and have to catch up to once again - in what I consider my "home" timezone. Do you develop a tolerance for this kind of change? Does it get easier, because fluctuations in depth and information don't even matter anymore?

It's a slippery slope, but I feel that we have to examine this dangerous phenomenon.

[thiswordis]

I don't remember why I started running when I did though I do remember why I stopped. Almost every night, I ran the hills of the university where my office was at the time. Most nights 5k, some troubled nights 8k. After some time, my knees (one at a time) started to ache after long runs. I scaled back and took up other physical activities until eventually, I found that running was more of an occasion than a habit.

This week, I took it up again and though the hills of DC are not nearly as steep, I now count distance by the mile. It would take longer for me to reach satisfaction. There are more intersections to stop at and cross, making it harder for my heart and lungs to become stronger. I don't have the regularity of a route; I am literally not running in circles anymore.

I downloaded a running app and it shows me that my trails are in sharp, boxy turns. After only two runs (and a week of yoga that's a little more intense than usual), I see that the muscles on my thighs are once again tougher and more pronounced. I have more energy, which agrees with summer's long days.

I want to remember why I started this time. For that to happen, I have to figure it out. I feel like somehow, my body is my mind's way of telling me to get a move on.

[thiswordis]

On the Obscenity of Happiness. 20 days from now, I turn 26 but it's this weekend that I grew a very large, mature heart. I've been in DC for about 7 months now. Most days, I feel like time is a non-element with respect to how at home I feel in this place. It couldn't have been only 7 months, I think to myself. But this weekend, I realized too that a few months can be a very long time. This is how I know I've built a life here - I have great friends, who are willing to lie to my face to go along with a surprise rooftop party; I have a list of favorite desserts and breakfast choices; I am the proud owner of an American baseball hat for the new-found fan in me; I've seen and been to great postcard-worthy views in my city; and I have a great person in my court, cheering for me and willing to do nice things for me not for any reason other than he thinks I deserve to be treated well (there are notes proving this claim). These are the things and people that I have. Just as important markers are the things that I don't have that tell me about the quality of the life I'm living - a constant anxiety about having to fill my day with activities; a fear of getting lost (I am a tourist no longer); an attachment to how I think my relationships should progress. I told A. over breakfast this morning, "With everything that's going on in the world and in life, it's a little obscene to be this happy." I think for one weekend/month a year, I could be obscene. But first, sincere politeness - thank you.

[thiswordis]

Weekend never ends

I was here once before, only I wasn't. Looking for weekends even on 2pm-Mondays; fresh flowers on the windowsill; tentative but gleeful outing on social media.

Whatever - it's already Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

P.S. You are a very large body of water in my veins. Maybe - like the sea in Bahamas.

[thiswordis]

Exercise your metaphorical heart, even when language is a barrier. Whisper; don't shout. Pinch tender spots softly; don't grope. Grapple with words because they don't seem adequate.

[thiswordis]

You have a PhD? In ballet?

Girl from Syracuse, NY to cute-ish Dr, who teaches dance on the side. Overheard on the Metro.

[itothesea]

In a classic twist of fate, I am no longer the girl people write about. Letters, in lieu of poems and stories. Not sure if and how I like this better.

I wrote to my best friend (outside of this circle, we know there’s only one) the other day, just asking him to check in with me about books he’s...

[itothesea]

Internet purchase arrival. Of course I had to try it on, pretending it’s already Monday…

[thiswordis]

Day 1 of #365selfies.

[thiswordis]

SQ 918, or How many (semi) Buddhists does it take

Somewhere over (something ocean), en route to Manila from Singapore. Current time reads 1851hrs, and Bandar Seri Begawan is my only point of reference. I tried to watch Lone Ranger on the in-flight entertainment system (Channel 1 for English audio) but I am not being very good at it. I have a feeling I am failing to laugh at all the right parts, I'm missing all the witty dialogue and jokes. That says a lot about the current state of affairs; I seem to be devoid of conventionally proper emotions or responses. Just the other week, I was complaining how I am placated by the simplest things; how I get to be so content with forgetting with just a few brief intervals of intimacy. The other morning, right after dawn has broken over our hostel on a hill, my best friend R. was wondering how I felt, how I'd feel, given the "huge leap" I (or two I's) have taken. The day after, he tells me,"lagi ka namang okay (you're always okay)".  This is a bit disconcerting. Any other girl would be gnawing at her fingernails, trying to simultaneously digest and take apart what just transpired between the two people in the other room. But I feel impossibly calm and non-conflicted. There are no major decisions, I feel, that follow. There is only here, now, here-and-now. And wine at 10668 m above sea level, at 924kph. "Pretend that these things are happening to someone else." And remembrances of warmth, and closing distances that aren't there yet. But let me get myself straight: am I worried about the fact that I am not worried? I worry about things changing, sure, but they were bound to anyway. In any case, this is the least hectic but perhaps best trip to Singapore I've been on.

[thiswordis]

Neither brain nor heart

All nerve endings, but no more nerves.

Singapore, this is perhaps how I want to remember you before I leave Asia. This is perhaps how I want to remember you best.

[thiswordis]

My best friend, R., told me to leave before actually leaving

(Transatlanticism - Death Cab for Cutie)

So here we are again, trying to conquer the difficult task of leaving. I feel like so much of what I have written on this blog is already so concerned with track marks, the sound left behind by the train as it speeds away, invisible dents (you must be heard and felt, not seen), aftertastes, the faintness of grass and smoke on clothes from last night/month/year.

I call it difficult not because we are not moved by desire. In fact, it's desire that calls us out to foreign territories. A desire to find how different I can be when I dip my paintbrush in unchartered water. For so long, I have allowed this current to shape the majority of who I am -- what I do, what time I sleep, where I go and don't go, who I love -- and perhaps it's time to let go of my attachment to who I think I am, and how good (or equally bad) I have been at being that person.

My Jivamukti teacher, N., told us last night that we say to everyone we meet, "Love me."* I cannot find a desire, a compulsion as universal as this. With this, however, must be a fine-tuned appreciation for how we are loved, even when reality doesn't match our expectations. With this, I trust that the love I have the fortune of receiving and giving is not tied to geography or proximity; age and other temporal measures; (dis) appearances.

It's difficult only because it's not quick; it's not easy. There is no band-aid that could be ripped off, in the final attempt to dole out mercy. I am relatively great at breakups -- for an extrovert, who is also a bit of an OC mess. Surely, though, it's all right to be bad at this "breakup" when I'm leaving an army of hearts?

And finally, this space deserves a bit of specificity: I'm leaving my beloved Philippines for a while. I will see you in the East Coast.

Someday, I will name my firstborn Atlas.

(Science vs. Romance - Rilo Kiley)

*There is this poem by Hafiz:

With That Moon Language

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye

that is always saying,

with that sweet moon language,

what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

[thiswordis]

Knocks

It's Sunday in one of August's middles and I've been home and static for more than a month. Instead of sinking into the marks I'm making on this figurative couch -- in my imagination, mustard yellow with a faint leathery smell -- I feel like I'm the last bite that gets lodged in someone's esophagus. It's also the second almost-Monday in a row that the rain has taken over routines. Hearts in some regions have grown braver when faced with the sound of rain but our roads have not yet learned to be smarter, our underground recesses are not deeper. While we're on the subject of water, here's a memory from last week I've erased, though really, perhaps it never even happened. Or it happened to someone else? It's 4 in the morning and there's the incessant ringing of the phone, followed by a swift knock on the door. An arrogant knock--it knows I'm not about to turn it away. The hours between 4 and 6 are always the longest. So, the rain and what the season does not mean to us is THIS.

[thiswordis]

This month isn't even over

Yet, there are so many things I want to remember. What will be interesting to you?

There's the way Malaysia assaulted my physicality with its heat, my tight hamstrings struggling to keep up with KL's pace, making temperatures rise even more.

There's ever-reliable Singapore for a night, a friend and her lost passport, a friend and Table #35 in Aljunied.

There's that subtle pull of Singapore again a week later, birthday pizzas and listening to ugly conversation with the best people from my youth, struggling to breathe in hatha & hot yoga, Maalox plus tablets and Aljunied, and - of course - the haze and the malady I caused (inside joke - sorry).

And then there's rushing back to Manila and on to Hong Kong to Sydney (oh, I will return, you insane Australia) to Fiji, where I am writing this. There are the waves in Suva singing to me, reminding me I am four hours ahead of everything I know, though I might not love everything in that timezone. With this: the surprise visa to enter Australia, land of my current dreams; photos & hot chocolate at Sydney Harbour with a guy I grew up with but who was never really my friend until now; canceled flights; delayed journeys; being driven around by a cannibal's descendant; having packed so lightly that I can't afford to spill anything on my shirt.

I want to go beyond writing us lists. Tell me again, what comes after?

There are so many things I want to commemorate, but I beg the patience of time.

[thiswordis]

What's the price we pay for hurried nostalgia? About MYR 185, apparently. 😛

[thiswordis]

Take 3

As the biosphere continues to let out a little steam, as the clouds heave angry and loud sighs of relief, I want you to do this for me: 1. Take all the days that aren't these days and ball them up in your palm until you can fit them into a fist. Or better yet, into a mason jar. My resourceful friends will find us the tightest lid and we won't ever have to look at where we came from or where we're headed until that tight mass of forceful energy explodes. 2. Take this messy possibility to heart; it's the best word of caution I can afford. Remember that it WILL happen. But also this: I know my way around a messy house, and I own a broom. 3. Take your time. Bury your head in several pillows and yourself in mournful yet ignorant soliloquies. Ignore my carefully chosen words for as long as you want. But do hurry. Talking with such purpose takes a lot of energy, even when it doesn't take too much time.

[thiswordis]

A little T&S drama for y'all tonight:

When Tegan & Sara said "call it off", they meant it as a discussion or as a (likely) result of a joint decision. They didn't mean "disappear". Otherwise, the song just abruptly ends about halfway through. But: IT. DOES. NOT.

Anyway, the other week I was hanging out with old (ha! we're "old") college friends, who were laughing at my poor taste in men. Whatever, I said. All things considered, I think I can stand every piercing or odd tattoo if a person is reliable. That's about the same thing I expect from friends, really.

Which might be why all my relationships die even before they are ever truly born.

(Another) Anyway, I have this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's KIND OF similar to the strange pangs of acid you get when you're starting to like someone but refuse to talk about it to virtually anyone 'cause you're not sure what will become of it, only... it's exactly like that!