Dear Poj,
When it rains, it pours. With blessings, I mean. Three wonderful things happened in a span of three days that I’m starting to grow superstitious of October. You see, September is a pretty hard time for me. I’m not sure if affirmation has to do with it. Subconsciously, I may be thinking September is always hard so it remained hard this year too. But October is like the sunshine after the storm. It’s so glorious, so bright, so beautiful that I wish it’ll be October the whole year long. Even more so this year because 10.10.10 fell on this month. Superstition or not, I’m happy of the blessings we’re getting.
Answered Prayer 1: You have a Yaya already
Your mom grew up with a Yaya. My Yaya Vicky was with me until I was 17 that I grow teary-eyed every time I think of her. So I wish the same thing for you too. I wish there was someone outside of family, that whether by obligation or choice, will take care of you like a delicate ceramic figurine. I wish I were one of those mothers strong enough to not need any help at taking care of her own daughter, but truth is, I’m not. I need help badly. No matter how hard I compartmentalize, I have so many obligations that they’re starting to come out of my ears. It’s been a great ride this year with just you and me. But you’re growing up, and my, you’re a handful. We need the extra hand, kiddo.
The new help's name is Joanna (very close to my own Johanna), and Dichi’s Yaya is called Janet (very close to your Ama’s Janette). Is this a fluke or what?
Answered Prayer 2: You’ve had sound siestas this week
I used to grow agitated every time deadlines came in because I knew you didn’t sleep so well in the afternoons. It’s too hot in the room and that probably added up to you having very little sleep come siesta time. 1 or 2 hours is usually your average. But lately, because of the cold weather, you’ve had really fitful sleeps.
This equates to your Mom having enough time to do her own thing. It’s like having an unexpected School day off. I can do a little reading, a little eating, a little movie watching, a little writing—-tidbits of things I usually do when you're finally resting at night time and the world is asleep as well.
Answered Prayer 3: Your mom’s been accepted to her first writing workshop
The third one is taken with mixed feelings. First, there’s panic with thoughts of ‘Why the heck did I volunteer myself to such a murderous act?’ and ‘I hope I don’t vomit when they’re reviewing my work.’ on top of the list. And ever since I’ve heard of the news an hour ago, I’ve been pacing back and forth wondering if I should go through with the execution or not. I can hardly grasp any comprehensible thought , let alone a good story. But yes, I’m going through with it. It’s been my dream to write for a living for as long as I can remember. I’m not about to take the coward’s way out.
The sad thing here though is that the three workshop days will be the longest time we'll be away from each other. Three whole days without you, and already I’m soppy about it. I hope you’ll understand someday, kiddo. Sometimes you just have to reach for that dream when it’s this close.
Nailbiting again,
Mom
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
28
Poj,
Let's talk about dirty body parts, shall we? Let's talk about feet. Let other people have their delicate bones, high arches and made-for-ballet insteps. Us, we have survivors' feet. Big and strong, and altogether quite practical to trod through life in.
Sure, once in a while you might find it hard to find a shoe to fit you especially since you inherited the shape of my own little piggies, wide at the front and narrow at the back. But that's what this letter is for.
I've always thought the more expensive the shoe, the better it is for your sole. But ever since you started walking, I've been converted to the shoes your ninangs and titas gave you. Sure, I love those cute ballet flats from Little Red Shoes and your polka-dotted wedges from Gap are cute enough to be edible but for Pinoy feet, I think you have to stick with Pinoy brands, people who really know how to treat your toes like well, they were made for walking.
So,yes, Pitter Pat, is the way to go. No paid promotion here. This blog isn't that famous to garner advertising. But do remember the brand when you have your own kids, will you? Your bronze ones are makes the word 'fray' in a whole new light. These shoes do tremendously well with wide feet especially since they have bands and straps and all kinds of things to keep the feet in place including those efficient grips in the sole when you're out rampaging through the world.
Now we just have to figure out how to keep up with you. It's the shoes' fault. They're too dependable.
Mom
Saturday, October 9, 2010
27
Little Girl,
You broke a water glass today. We watched it shatter into a thousand shards at our feet (actually my feet. I was carrying you.) You will be like that someday. You will be like glass—fallen, broken, at someone’s feet. It doesn’t matter when or where. Someone is bound to break you whether they mean to or not.
The only consolation I can tell you is this: there is beauty in the fallen whether it be glass, petals, stars or people. It is when you fall when you feel most human, and isn’t that just the point of life? To be human and to be real. There is nothing more real than pain, nothing more substantial than battle scars.
You may never piece yourself together again but you can be made into something else. A piece of polished jewelry maybe. Or maybe a makeshift knife. You can inspire or you can hurt when you’re broken. The great thing is you get to choose which one.
Scarred,
Me
You broke a water glass today. We watched it shatter into a thousand shards at our feet (actually my feet. I was carrying you.) You will be like that someday. You will be like glass—fallen, broken, at someone’s feet. It doesn’t matter when or where. Someone is bound to break you whether they mean to or not.
The only consolation I can tell you is this: there is beauty in the fallen whether it be glass, petals, stars or people. It is when you fall when you feel most human, and isn’t that just the point of life? To be human and to be real. There is nothing more real than pain, nothing more substantial than battle scars.
You may never piece yourself together again but you can be made into something else. A piece of polished jewelry maybe. Or maybe a makeshift knife. You can inspire or you can hurt when you’re broken. The great thing is you get to choose which one.
Scarred,
Me
Friday, October 8, 2010
26
Portia Bear,
Have you ever heard of the term old soul? Or felt like you were born for a different era? I do. I think I'm a reincarnation of the carefree and conflicted 60s. In my playlist, you will never find Pop Songs although I appreciate them truly, but they're not me. On my playlist, you will find a lot of Beatles, Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix and reincarnated souls like myself such as Sarah McLachlan, Priscilla Ahn, Emiliana Torrini, Norah Jones, Ingrid Michaelson and the like.
The same can be said for my fashion sense. Your Ama once complained I dressed too old for my age. I've always been playing around with your great grandmother's apparel ever since I was old enough to hoard her closet gracefully. Her necklaces are one of the most sentimental things I shall ever have of her. But you see, it's not really the material value I hold on to the most. It's the beautiful feeling that somewhere from beyond, they left a part of themselves behind.
Why am I saying this to you now? It's to lead to an apology really. I'll say my sorry's now for situations in the future when I may consciously or subconsciously try to let you appreciate the wonders of Jimi Hendrix instead of the latest tart, talk you into buying that charming vintage dress instead of that miniskirt or pass on to you a growing obsession for celebrities like Hepburn, Kennedy and Luther King.
It's not to change you, really. It's just that it's the only way I know of leaving a piece of myself behind.
Love,
Old Soul
Postscript: Coincidentally, this entry fell on the day of John Lennon's Birthday. Must be the vibes in the air. Happy Birthday, favorite Beatle!
Have you ever heard of the term old soul? Or felt like you were born for a different era? I do. I think I'm a reincarnation of the carefree and conflicted 60s. In my playlist, you will never find Pop Songs although I appreciate them truly, but they're not me. On my playlist, you will find a lot of Beatles, Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix and reincarnated souls like myself such as Sarah McLachlan, Priscilla Ahn, Emiliana Torrini, Norah Jones, Ingrid Michaelson and the like.
The same can be said for my fashion sense. Your Ama once complained I dressed too old for my age. I've always been playing around with your great grandmother's apparel ever since I was old enough to hoard her closet gracefully. Her necklaces are one of the most sentimental things I shall ever have of her. But you see, it's not really the material value I hold on to the most. It's the beautiful feeling that somewhere from beyond, they left a part of themselves behind.
Why am I saying this to you now? It's to lead to an apology really. I'll say my sorry's now for situations in the future when I may consciously or subconsciously try to let you appreciate the wonders of Jimi Hendrix instead of the latest tart, talk you into buying that charming vintage dress instead of that miniskirt or pass on to you a growing obsession for celebrities like Hepburn, Kennedy and Luther King.
It's not to change you, really. It's just that it's the only way I know of leaving a piece of myself behind.
Love,
Old Soul
Postscript: Coincidentally, this entry fell on the day of John Lennon's Birthday. Must be the vibes in the air. Happy Birthday, favorite Beatle!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
25
Kiddo,
Here's where I was when I wasn't with you for a night--at Cebu to attend Tatay's new pocket play and to meet these wonderful crazies I happen to call friends. They say in your lifetime, you're bound to have five people willing to die for you, ten who would strongly consider it and a strong twenty who'd be half and half. I don't know which category these people belong in but I'm sure they'll at least attend my funeral for free coffee and bis-kwits. :)
Seriously though, I don't know what process goes into choosing friends- how we choose them the way we choose them when we do- and I'm sure your process will be different from mine. But rationality aside, I love these people. I love them because with them, I have witnesses to my life. This seems like a pretty selfish reason, but isn't that just what we're looking for? Someone who reminds us that our everyday comings and goings aren't just a petty mix of plans, activities and bygones?
Some of these people I've known since I was eighteen.Eighteen! When my naivete was annoying and my idealism was cloistering. Somewhere in that mix, we started out as employees, then students, then friends. As your Tita Danica once said, it's a comforting thought to be with the same people for years.
Back when I thought relationships were a numbers game, I had high expectations but low demands. I don't want to go through having to maintain that kind of lot again. That's why I choose my friends very strictly. It seems though that my situation with having to raise you and such needs just that type of mindset again--high expectations in friendship but low demands. I've been lucky enough to have found people (aside from your ninangs, of course) with a similar mindset.
Some of them you've already met. And I can't wait for you to grow up and meet the rest. Join the madhouse, little girl. There's never enough schizoids to go around.
Crazy as always,
Mom
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
24
Kiddo,
A great Cebuano poet once said that moments have to be short for moments to be moments. And that's what today was exactly. A series of beautiful moments. Not like a collage but subtler. More like a watercolor painting, beautiful in transition, quiet in movement that sometimes you have no idea when it ended or began in the first place.
I figured I'd start the day by pretending you'd be going to school. Seems like a mighty strange way to start the day but there's logic here somewhere, I swear.There we were drinking our Milos, dressing up and eating our pre-breakfast snack (Yes. We can afford that luxury in gentle Negros). You were carrying your Spongebob backpack and talking to rocks, forgetting that I was beside you. And that's exactly what this exercise is all about. A form of practice really of me letting you go someday. Yes, it's a bit too early for school. After all, you're still a year old. But I'm a slow learner when it comes to disattaching the attached. This will be like shrink time. It'll take years but progress we shall have. I figured that when you turn 4, I can at least let you go for a few hours without biting my nails down to its beds.
Anyway, that's what I did today, let you go to your heart's delight. You walked all over the garden and I was looking at your back when a fleet of butterflies surrounded you like falling petals. I wish I'd captured it, but it was beautiful precisely because it was so flitting.
Then, we headed off to Cinco's today on an obscure road that led to his farm full of ducks, goats, turkeys, dogs and who knows what else lurked in the bushes. We checked out which goat to buy because for some reason, your Ama is obsessed with buying you goats that have a more foreign breed. I don't really understand what criteria foreign actually tips to but they looked pretty to me.
I told your Papa once before, I think, that I do not want to live in a farm. I feel like I've been living in one my whole life and have lost all romantic notions about it. Goat poop isn't romantic, nor is the humongous maintenance needed to run the whole shebang. Think about tractor gas, fencing animals, premature sugarcane, stolen chickens and you'll get the picture. But- and this is a hesitant but-I wouldn't mind having a summer house like Cinco's to go home to with its beautiful fishponds, rainbow-colored flowers, vegetable gardens, roaming animals, trees you can laze around in, the cool air and the endless greenery as far as your eyes can see.
These are moments, snapshots of life we can probably never get again. But am I glad I have you now to witness it with.
P.S. See that goat that's looking straight into the camera like he was born for it? That's yours and Dichi's. Play nice. He's not edible.
Lost,
Mom
A great Cebuano poet once said that moments have to be short for moments to be moments. And that's what today was exactly. A series of beautiful moments. Not like a collage but subtler. More like a watercolor painting, beautiful in transition, quiet in movement that sometimes you have no idea when it ended or began in the first place.
I figured I'd start the day by pretending you'd be going to school. Seems like a mighty strange way to start the day but there's logic here somewhere, I swear.There we were drinking our Milos, dressing up and eating our pre-breakfast snack (Yes. We can afford that luxury in gentle Negros). You were carrying your Spongebob backpack and talking to rocks, forgetting that I was beside you. And that's exactly what this exercise is all about. A form of practice really of me letting you go someday. Yes, it's a bit too early for school. After all, you're still a year old. But I'm a slow learner when it comes to disattaching the attached. This will be like shrink time. It'll take years but progress we shall have. I figured that when you turn 4, I can at least let you go for a few hours without biting my nails down to its beds.
Anyway, that's what I did today, let you go to your heart's delight. You walked all over the garden and I was looking at your back when a fleet of butterflies surrounded you like falling petals. I wish I'd captured it, but it was beautiful precisely because it was so flitting.
Then, we headed off to Cinco's today on an obscure road that led to his farm full of ducks, goats, turkeys, dogs and who knows what else lurked in the bushes. We checked out which goat to buy because for some reason, your Ama is obsessed with buying you goats that have a more foreign breed. I don't really understand what criteria foreign actually tips to but they looked pretty to me.
I told your Papa once before, I think, that I do not want to live in a farm. I feel like I've been living in one my whole life and have lost all romantic notions about it. Goat poop isn't romantic, nor is the humongous maintenance needed to run the whole shebang. Think about tractor gas, fencing animals, premature sugarcane, stolen chickens and you'll get the picture. But- and this is a hesitant but-I wouldn't mind having a summer house like Cinco's to go home to with its beautiful fishponds, rainbow-colored flowers, vegetable gardens, roaming animals, trees you can laze around in, the cool air and the endless greenery as far as your eyes can see.
These are moments, snapshots of life we can probably never get again. But am I glad I have you now to witness it with.
P.S. See that goat that's looking straight into the camera like he was born for it? That's yours and Dichi's. Play nice. He's not edible.
Lost,
Mom
Sunday, October 3, 2010
23
Little Girl,
Your ninangs and I had a quick coffee date while I was in Cebu the other day (not complete though because your Tita Z was busy playing devoted town daughter in Argao and your Ninang Pikz was hiding behind the DJ booth, attracting stalkers with her bedroom voice). And it continuously amazes me that after all these years being together, "narcissistically" albeit subtly talking about ourselves, our worlds which couldn't be more different from each other and our bruises, that we can now include you in the picture!
If you don't get how surreal the moment is, imagine this. Imagine being with someone from when they were still in 3rd grade. From when you saw her play with Sailor Moon cards or bite her nails as if it were a separate food group (that's me, by the way) up to the time she actually talks about more adult endeavors like migration, marriage, career moves and yes, kids. Imagine a child having a child. It's comforting and out-of-body at the same time.
Talking about ninangs, I do not think it's a proper notion to choose one solely on the purpose of making them spare tires to you because realistically speaking, no one could really be you. No one will ever have the same values as you no matter how tied or alike you are. It's an even bigger misnomer to say 'Well, at least I have someone to take care of my kid when I die'. And if you unfortunately don't, then what? Are their roles then sidetracked to giving Aguinaldos every Christmas or pinching your cheek everytime you see them accidentally at the mall every few years or so?
I think it's important to choose ninangs your kids can grow with,go crazy with, have fun with, argue with and even run away to when their mother is being her psychotic self again and is unnecessarily frazzling the household's delicate balance. I'm lucky and assured that I found that in your ninangs.
They're so unlike me from the superficial aspects down to the core. And that's the best thing about them. Because as your Celine Dion lullaby goes (part of your nighttime playlist but I shall refuse it if anybody asks) "If I could, I would teach you all the things I never learned" but I can't, so I ask your ninangs to do it for me: to teach you things I cannot.
Here's a rundown of the things you should learn from your ninangs. Bat an eyeleash. Badger it from them if you must:
From your Ninang Danica:
1. How to cook a mean pasta and all other alcohol-laced meals
2. How to organize anything and everything from a private party to an all-week feathered event
3. How to speak proper English. Get your 'they're' from your 'their' straight, kiddo.Your ninang is a stickler for grammar. She isn't Head trainer for nothing.
4. How to speak in front of hundreds without fainting or choking like your Mom does
5. How to be sane. She's the most centered person I know.
From your Ninang Michelle
1. How to transform anything you can find into wearable art
2. How to keep memories without hoarding them
3. How to cajole your parents (Note: use this on your Papa, not on me)into seeing things your way
4. How to quietly go for your goals without trampling on anyone
5. How to uncomplicate and be content with life as we know it. She's a wonderful kind of crazy, this girl.
From your Ninang Aizza
1. How to apply makeup like you know what you're doing
2. How to carry any outfit. Doesn't matter if she's wearing a sack or a gown. She can rock it, this ninang of yours.
3. How to use the 'fake it 'til you make it' confidence rule with only lipstick in tow
4. How to assertively demand for proper service with a flick of the eyebrow
5. How to go astray but always come home to the people who love you
From your Ninang Pikay (who is MIA everytime I'm in Cebu)
1. how to roll with life's punches and come up beautiful in the end
2. how to rock any hairdo or no hairdo at all
3. how to travel anywhere and feel like you've gone everywhere. Great traveling companion, this ninang. Doesn't matter if you're pregnant or injured too.
4. how to exude confidence in any body, in any form, in any time
5. how to have fun using only the simplest tools in life. Great food. Great conversation. Great people. What else can you ask for, right Piks?
So there, kiddo. Learn hard. And learn well. They won't be easy on you. But that's only because they love you. In the end, that's all that you and I can really hope for.
♥,
Mom
22
Dear Kiddo,
Here’s why I do not let you watch television. Having started in a profession that makes money out of current insight, I know how overwhelming the sense of NOW can be. That’s how people relate to the world. We always have something we need to react to, lash about, feel strongly for. Trends were made under this premise. It’s a way for people to connect to a common theme.
Not to say that I do not want you to learn but there’s a proper pace for such things. Information is vital, yes, but information that’s consumed too soon and too fast breeds a generation of stressed-out people. That is not what I want you to be. You are already living in a stressed-out world to begin with where clutter tells you to always be updated, always be in.
So, do me a favor, will you? When you grow up, go on a technology fast a few hours a day. Turn your cellphone off or whatever it is techies will come up with 15 years from now. Tune out to the latest issue. Go on a self-imposed Web off. You will be surprised at how much of information can actually wait or can be discarded altogether.
For now, my apologies too because you will probably never have as much TV time as you’d like. You will never talk with your friends what happened on the show last night. Reruns and streaming will be your best friends. And purple dinosaurs and 1920s safe Disney films will be your daily companions. At least until you figure out that in real life, Tom cannot actually regenerate himself after Gerry blows, hammers and minces him to pieces.
Technophobically, speaking,
Mom
Here’s why I do not let you watch television. Having started in a profession that makes money out of current insight, I know how overwhelming the sense of NOW can be. That’s how people relate to the world. We always have something we need to react to, lash about, feel strongly for. Trends were made under this premise. It’s a way for people to connect to a common theme.
Not to say that I do not want you to learn but there’s a proper pace for such things. Information is vital, yes, but information that’s consumed too soon and too fast breeds a generation of stressed-out people. That is not what I want you to be. You are already living in a stressed-out world to begin with where clutter tells you to always be updated, always be in.
So, do me a favor, will you? When you grow up, go on a technology fast a few hours a day. Turn your cellphone off or whatever it is techies will come up with 15 years from now. Tune out to the latest issue. Go on a self-imposed Web off. You will be surprised at how much of information can actually wait or can be discarded altogether.
For now, my apologies too because you will probably never have as much TV time as you’d like. You will never talk with your friends what happened on the show last night. Reruns and streaming will be your best friends. And purple dinosaurs and 1920s safe Disney films will be your daily companions. At least until you figure out that in real life, Tom cannot actually regenerate himself after Gerry blows, hammers and minces him to pieces.
Technophobically, speaking,
Mom
Friday, October 1, 2010
21
Dear Kiddo,
I'm writing this on a bus which, mile by mile, is taking me far away from you. Excuse the overdramatics.That's the separation anxiety talking. In my mind, I'm already picturing out the monstrous tantrums you're gona' pull out- the hairs you're going to be pulling, the faces you're going to slap, the food you're going to toss. In truth, you're probably going to have a milder fit than what I pictured out you having. You will whine at the fact that you will not have a breast ready at your convenience. And will be even more aware of that fact at bedtime when you've already realized I'm gone. Other times, your world will go on revolving.
Mine will not.
You see, mothers like to think they're needed. That's why there will always be that niggling guilt chewing at their consciences everytime they leave, even for just a day. We are afraid that when we're gone you might need us for some reason, and we won't be there. Or worse, that in our absence you discover you didn't need us that much in the first place after all.
When you reach pre-school, sit near the windows, will you? No doubt I shall be one of those nail-biting slobs on the panes, crying a river, lost like a lovelorn puppy. Don't be embarrassed.
I like writing with movement, I discover. I wish for my thoughts to mirror its pace- fast and flowing- and it surprisingly does.
I sit cramped between a rickety old man who doses off on the window ledge and a mother carrying her child. I miss you already.
-----
Kiddo,
The bus conductor is making it his private commitment to make me as comfortable as possible. I do not want comfort. That's not the point of riding public transportation with its rickety wooden slats and a plastic bag covering its holes. Too many times we privatize our world so we can keep others out. We have individual cars or taxis or drive-thrus. Are we really that afraid of interacting with people? That isn't what I want, so I take the bus whenever I can.
What I find more surprising though is why people look at me and instantly assume I can't take any form of discomfort. Is it because I look awkward sitting here notebook and jacket in hand? Is it because I stick like a sore thumb? And not in the cute, quirky kind of way but more in the 'Help! The World is a scary place. I don't want to handle it.' department.
Why?
In all respects of self-examination which isn't that effective to begin with, I ask this.People say I'm a woman child. But really more of child. How baffling to say that especially since I've had you. Doesn't that make me grown up?
It does not.
-----
Dear Portia,
The sea is making me think in verses, in cut lines, in symbolisms and ampersands.
Here's one for you:
Slice through her skin
and it remains untethered
Dive through her vessels
and she treats you like mere cell
Pierce through her coral bones
and it refuses you nourishment
The only way to kill her
is to go for the heart
and that is where she lives immortal
because no one will ever know
where the heart of the sea is
You are the sea, little girl. You are stronger than you imagine. And I did not leave you behind. I brought you with me.
-----
Dear Portia,
It's amazing how strong our power of adaption is. Just barely 3 hours in the city, I find myself painting my nails red, shaving my legs and plucking my eyebrows. Who says these things should be? Did the city give us memorandum that says Stop! No unshaved, unplucked, ungroomed probinsyanas allowed? No. But adaption did.
-----
Kiddo,
It's 1:00 AM here. And I'm back at the house listening to Stephen Speaks and The Weepies crooning about how 'there are so many people searching for what we found'.
I've lived here all my life and yet today it doesn't feel like a coming home. Maybe because home is where you are. It probably always will be.
♥,
Mom
I'm writing this on a bus which, mile by mile, is taking me far away from you. Excuse the overdramatics.That's the separation anxiety talking. In my mind, I'm already picturing out the monstrous tantrums you're gona' pull out- the hairs you're going to be pulling, the faces you're going to slap, the food you're going to toss. In truth, you're probably going to have a milder fit than what I pictured out you having. You will whine at the fact that you will not have a breast ready at your convenience. And will be even more aware of that fact at bedtime when you've already realized I'm gone. Other times, your world will go on revolving.
Mine will not.
You see, mothers like to think they're needed. That's why there will always be that niggling guilt chewing at their consciences everytime they leave, even for just a day. We are afraid that when we're gone you might need us for some reason, and we won't be there. Or worse, that in our absence you discover you didn't need us that much in the first place after all.
When you reach pre-school, sit near the windows, will you? No doubt I shall be one of those nail-biting slobs on the panes, crying a river, lost like a lovelorn puppy. Don't be embarrassed.
I like writing with movement, I discover. I wish for my thoughts to mirror its pace- fast and flowing- and it surprisingly does.
I sit cramped between a rickety old man who doses off on the window ledge and a mother carrying her child. I miss you already.
Kiddo,
The bus conductor is making it his private commitment to make me as comfortable as possible. I do not want comfort. That's not the point of riding public transportation with its rickety wooden slats and a plastic bag covering its holes. Too many times we privatize our world so we can keep others out. We have individual cars or taxis or drive-thrus. Are we really that afraid of interacting with people? That isn't what I want, so I take the bus whenever I can.
What I find more surprising though is why people look at me and instantly assume I can't take any form of discomfort. Is it because I look awkward sitting here notebook and jacket in hand? Is it because I stick like a sore thumb? And not in the cute, quirky kind of way but more in the 'Help! The World is a scary place. I don't want to handle it.' department.
Why?
In all respects of self-examination which isn't that effective to begin with, I ask this.People say I'm a woman child. But really more of child. How baffling to say that especially since I've had you. Doesn't that make me grown up?
It does not.
Dear Portia,
The sea is making me think in verses, in cut lines, in symbolisms and ampersands.
Here's one for you:
Slice through her skin
and it remains untethered
Dive through her vessels
and she treats you like mere cell
Pierce through her coral bones
and it refuses you nourishment
The only way to kill her
is to go for the heart
and that is where she lives immortal
because no one will ever know
where the heart of the sea is
You are the sea, little girl. You are stronger than you imagine. And I did not leave you behind. I brought you with me.
Dear Portia,
It's amazing how strong our power of adaption is. Just barely 3 hours in the city, I find myself painting my nails red, shaving my legs and plucking my eyebrows. Who says these things should be? Did the city give us memorandum that says Stop! No unshaved, unplucked, ungroomed probinsyanas allowed? No. But adaption did.
Kiddo,
It's 1:00 AM here. And I'm back at the house listening to Stephen Speaks and The Weepies crooning about how 'there are so many people searching for what we found'.
I've lived here all my life and yet today it doesn't feel like a coming home. Maybe because home is where you are. It probably always will be.
♥,
Mom
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