Psyche-

At the tipping of the calendar is the last day of the twelfth month of the Roman calendar. In the evening of this is breaking of the new phase of year. This boy, still smaller than me, would say, “Many people are celebrating for this birthday.” He was so sweetly naïve and all the family had that smile to him. Now, he’s grown passed my height and still has that statement. And more nostalgia breaks off my memory bank and this shedding of tears. You are so-more-than-words loved by us. You will always be the family’s baby. We are with you in every prayer. In whatever ways that we have fallen short of, may you find the grace to get back to what is right and make us all calm. Happy birthday, chinito baby love!

SMS 13Nov2014 Hayahay ang buhay. Here @ Jollibee all alone by myself for lunch and later wld be going to fix my PhilHealth (Affix here a smiley.) But then only to find out na offline ang office na pupuntahan ko. Recommended about Beauty in a Bottle by a friend, I bought one ticket. Sobrang tawa ko sa panonood.  Wahahahahaha-- Then I started to have my vision blurring. Then streams of tears running my face. Nakareleyt ako ng bongga sa movie. Chooosss... SMS 22Dec2014 Noringai's Buti pa ang Roma, May Bagong Papa struck my laughing-gas episodes a hundred times cover to cover. I did not mind the other commuters elbowing themselves in and out of the jitney or the honking vehicles running or stacked at the highway. All that mattered that moment was Ms Noreen Capili was talking to me. For half a minute I felt my eyes welled up, and the other half of it, I was smirking. I gripped to the truth, I am like her at least in tumbling crazy about a crush and having that craziness for ...

Christ's birthday. Time of giving, exchange gifts, family reunions and festivity. No, it is not a season, as some people have thought, made for children. The most missed part is the days before this date--the Advent. My faith says Advent is the prelude of repentance and enervating our inner core for the coming of Christ. Then my Dad would say it is not true that Jesus Christ was born on December. And so what has been said as truth was or is not... Christmas is Christmas!!! May the spellbound month in its substantial meaning be not forgotten. And it is for this reason that...

I was born a woman but ended up acting the opposite. Clumsiness and its cousins in the thesaurus is what I am. Finesse goes unsaid and unheard in my world. I preferred oversized tees over fitting blouses. I refused figure-flaterring dresses for loose pants. I would choose a paintless face even being merged with a bin of all-made-up pretties. But I knew I am a woman inside. So are the secret feelings that have silently died. It was only me who knows everything of what-really-is. It was hard shifting to finer moves. Oh graceful me in sweat! I hate being with someone who I cannot see myself. Because to me, gaudiness is parallel to fun. Not long after, I’ve been to stores of pallets. So the smudged me emerged. Little by little, I’ve added garments I thought I can never wear. These changes of seeing ourselves that can improve us.   

The souls... She had three names and I wondered how was she being hard up in writing her complete name her kindergarten days. She grew up in Taguig because of her Papa's work in Metro Manila. With the rest of the family, except for their Papa, she came to spend the rest of her life in the rural. We were sophomores then when we met.  She spoke the dialect though in twisted tongue. I oftentimes ate not only lunch and enjoyed off-class hours in their place. As much as we had fun days, we also shared different times until the high school batch fragmented to pursue college. We found catching up elusive and for the last time I heard about her was she was so sick-- so incurably sick until she demised. I tried to contact her family to attend her funeral but I was not able to go. To her soul, may she rest as with the seas of souls she is with...

Thursday morning. I woke up with a mental list of to-do’s. $*|?**$ visit to deliver IV fluids. Get back to do the laundry. With my second to the last PUJ jibe, the open doors of the church invited me in so the last two hours were spent hearing the mass. At the middle of the Eucharistic celebration, the heavy downpour added darkness to the dusk creeping in. Having waited for ten minutes more, I decided to wade waters to get to the last jitney back to the doctor’s quarter. (So this is Manila and its famous flood.) My feet getting cold with the pooling of rainwater inside my shoes reminded me of laundry powder so I dropped by in a mart for some. Finally with the nighttime shower done, I hanged the last piece of the three-day soiled uniforms for air drying by the washroom. After hungry tummy pacified… Oh zzz’s, come to thee… 

She. She is the pronoun that is everything before I met my mesdammes in my primary, elementary, secondary and tertiary school. I got probably my first spank from her and the last of inaudible praise for good and very good marks in school. She was the firm voice who keeps telling me to study hard more on the arithmetic opposite my favorite subjects. She whose hands brought to me the book of Henny Penny. She who was thrown to far-flung school because of her chosen profession. She who walked on rough and muddy trailways. She who untirelessly innovated means of transpiring knowledge to the youth.   She is the teacher of generations ahead and before me. She is just like your every teacher. Let’s say a prayer for the likes of her. Hail to all teachers!