Friday night was a night of music and bright lights. The ad congress was in full swing and everywhere you turn you’ll see people with big i.d.’s dangling from their necks. the noise (or must i say music) was ear splitting. I played the old grouch and stayed at Bo’s sipping iced cappuccino, watching the people twist their bodies at odd angles trying to catch a semblance of grace while swinging to the beat (or should i have said they danced the night away?).

Dancing is one of the forms of self-expressions that I never let myself learn. For me, it’s just like some of those sports, which is better to watch from the sidelines than play in the field. Or of course, maybe I’m just not an expressive person. I’ve always associated music and dancing with festivities. And perhaps there has not been much festivity that I have witnessed in my life that’s why I never learned how to dance. or then again maybe there’s just too much stoicism in me

But music, music is another thing. I pick up my keyboard and find notes for my favorite songs, and surprisingly I get them. But I can never read musical pieces. I had piano lessons when I was a kid but the teacher gave up on me. Maybe because I played a pop song on his class instead of the piano exercises he wanted me to practice. =)

Last night, I composed a tune to a song I made, but since I’m not good at reading and writing notes, the song turned out to be a poem instead. (“,) But I memorized the tune in my head, and I can play it with my eyes closed. Good thing I couldn’t write it down, then nobody would know if I made a mistake while playing, hehehe.

My world is filled with fragments that cannot be written down, for I have neither words nor talent to engrave it with letters nor transform it into something tangible and make it last forever. But I have a good memory, a memory that most of the times tortures me. nonetheless it will be enough to store all those moments that I could not put into writing, those songs that I can never learn to sing, those tunes that I will never be able to play. And in sleep, my memory will be the ruler of my world. and it will bring back all my dreams. one after the other.

I’ve been away for a while collecting experiences like beach-stones, a weekend at Dalaguet, walking on the beach with friends, sleeping on a bamboo bed with the nipa ceiling almost falling to pieces and the stairs wobbly with every step, my cell phone useless with no network coverage, the waves on the background rushing to meet the shore, and my foot stuck on the sand as I watched the horizon slowly light up with the sun’s rays. This is the entry I was supposed to write two weeks ago, back when my mind was not cluttered with exams I have to review for and programs I need to do.

Last night, the moon was so bright that it shone right through me. There was so much life and so many colors that I couldn’t see. Sometimes I wish I could just lie down on the roof and watch the sky expand and be filled with stars, my troubles and worries all cast aside. I miss the old house with the terrace, I miss standing there and looking out for falling stars, tying my shirt in a knot and wishing, with all the might my naive heart could muster, that the moment would not pass me by. But time can play tricks the way a jester on a circus might.. and here I am left with the memories of all the moments that has passed me by. I hold them tightly, but like sand they slip through my fingers, and all I can do is watch and smile that somehow I had a chance to hold them close to me.

I am broken. And my words stop in mid sentence. My fingers half pressing and half releasing a key, unsure of what to say, what to write, what to think. There is a space between me and my thoughts, my feelings, my words. I have to extend my hand to grasp them fully.. but when I do reach out, I find them no longer there, playing a trick on me, making me pause, making me wonder.. how I could be this lost.

It was, I think, after my second large french fries at mcdonalds when maian came holding out this ticket. A musical concert, hmmm. this would be a nice break from the monotony of office life, I said to myself, and so I gave in =).

The Sports Club was a pleasant sight. The bar on the cond floor, just outside the sinulog ballroom looked very inviting, but then I remembered that we were there for the show and not the drinks. The concert was filled with older people and foreigners which made me wonder if my generation never really appreciate these kinds of events. Maian reminded me however that this was some sort of by-invitation-only-concert. So desu ka.

Napoleon Abueva, the national artist for sculpture was there with his family. It was a pleasant experience to watch world renowned Filipino artists perform right before their countrymen for free. (Well, at least for me it was free, I don’t know if the Arts Council of Cebu paid them..)

Going home, hums of unfamiliar melodies filled my ears. I’m glad I went there instead of going back to the office and working on my pc. The hundreds of mp3’s on my hard disk is nothing compared to what I would have missed.

Someone sent me a text message a few nights ago, asking me if I missed school and the people and stuff associated with it.. It took me a while to answer but I knew all the time that I would have said yes.

Who wouldn’t miss the part where you can choose which classes to take and what time you get in? True, there are dorks in every campus and idiots lurking everywhere, not to mention the “others”, well.. but then I love school, and most of the people and stuff associated with it. I love the cook outs, intramurals, lantern parades, college days, and I must admit, enrolment day is pretty exciting, especially when you are an irregular student and you can’t find a teacher who would let you in their class. Now that’s fun! (that was said in a quasi-sarcastic way, in case you’re pouting).

College was just like a game, you win some, you lose some. Professors keep saying that this is your preparation for life to infinity and beyond blah blah b.s. And activists keep saying “Do not confine your learning to the four walls of the classroom” therefore let’s cut class and attend the rally (I’m not anti rallies by the way, I actually figured in some non violent marches). And there I was, in the middle of figuring out what major to take and which topping was best for my pizza, trapped between volumes of books and cd’s to check out…

Now here I am, and this is life? No one can ever be prepared for it, if I had known it was like this, then I would have opted to flunk my subjects or take an LOA for one year then fly off to our province and planted camote in the fields. I’ve always wanted to go to school when I was a kid, I thought it was some fairy tale playground.. It wasn’t all that fun though, especially when people put too much value on those numbers given out at the end of the term, too much that even trust is broken and friendship is lost..

I want to go back though.. I want to be in school forever. It was easy there, they give you high grades if you do well, they flunk you if you don’t (easy to say!).. you can cut class and watch a movie, and you can talk your way out of any responsibility and they’ll excuse you and say you’re juvenile. (or mark your Form 5 with three big letters in red ink “PDQ”)

But now, who gives the grades? Who says which is commendable and which is not? You have to kiss their a’s in this world in order to be noticed… Am I officially a grown up now? I have to wake up early, go to work, earn my keep, bow my head to the “superiors”, do the task assigned then it starts all over again.. just like a nightmare that never ends.. Is this what I was prepared for?

Yes I miss school, and mostly everything that has come to pass.. but then each man much travel his own way and leave the places he has passed, take the learning in his heart and walk on…

All Life is a school, and so I walk on…

It is the exhilarating ride to the office that brightens me up on early mornings. I have just recently re-discovered the joy of riding a jeepney to work (see taxi article). Well, it’s not really that I’ve given up on the taxi drivers that I’ve come across with, It’s just that I miss the feel of the wind against my face on cold mornings. It makes me feel like there is something good to look forward to for the rest of the day..

but of course that is just a hope. The office is the wildest of all circuses, a lion would look tame in there, what with the two faced people the split tongued SV’s blah blah etc. etc. A snake would be kinder you know, at least you know they are snakes and that they are potentially dangerous, but what of people wearing masks? Ah, I rest my case, there is politics everywhere. And it really doesn’t matter until you become muddled in the middle of it.. Got to keep a look out, you’ll never know who the real people are, Sounds a lot like anti trust.

Oh well, at least I can look forward to mornings, and to that ride, with the wind blowing away my worries, whispering to my ears that there better things to come… maybe not yet now.. but later..

“Soft wind,
whisper gently to my ears
Soothe my aching heart
Ease my confused mind
Calm my troubled soul
I want to rest…”

Today is my mom’s birthday. We will have dinner tonight together with some close friends and my two brothers. It’s been a while since we’ve had dinner together. Work has been taking longer hours from my days that I rarely go home early, much more eat dinner. This night would be a welcome change from the dull routine of overtime work or overstaying at the office to catch up on some readings about new technologies.

The typhoon that has been hovering around the city for days has finally left town.. I hope tonight will be a night full of stars.. that would be the best gift for my mom,

Tiredness crawls through my body like there was nothing else in this world but pain. I should sleep early tonight, I tell myself. I got home at 3 a.m. this morning and part of me just wonders why I do..

Last night there were no stars. only a cloudy haze of darkness wanting to choke me. I am like shattered glass, broken in many places, I doubt if I will ever be whole once more. I’m tired. and it creeps through my system like some virus wanting to take control and invade my being.

Sometimes i wonder what went wrong.. where did the laughter go.. days pass like an infinite stream of thoughts unsaid, and emotions locked up like acid in a bottle. I look at the mirror and all i see is a pair of lusterless windows to my soul. There is something more to life than climbing pillars.. but what is it? and why does it seem so hard to stop myself from struggling when it’s so much easier to let go?

I will go out this afternoon, I will take a half day off from work and just lie down at home. my stomach cramps are getting worse..

Rainy days are here again.. I cannot see anything from the 11th floor of this building, the fog has wiped out the streets below, and the tall buildings nearby are barely visible.. reminds me of a surreal story by Stephen King, where some prehistoric dinosaurs invaded a city while covered by a huge gray fog.. creepy!!

I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, it was pouring, and it was much comfortable to just lie down and hide behind the covers.. but then I had to go to work, so I dragged myself out of bed, dreaming of a steaming arroz caldo waiting for me. But of course there was no arroz caldo when I arrived at the office, only smug faced people, who were probably wishing that they too didn’t get out of bed..

I’m wearing a sweater, and on top of it, a jacket, hoping to keep myself warm. It’s so cold here that even the hot water that I got from the dispenser only 5 minutes ago is now frosting.. I keep noticing things.. little things that I never seemed to notice before..

Yesterday I was reading Old Ghosts by A.J. McKenna, a story of a man on his 76th birthday remembering his first love. I liked the last line:

“The clock in the parlour ticks and tocks and finally stops. Forever.”

The story was a failed love, but then, isn’t it always the sad things that people most usually write about? I hope I will find my words soon, then I can be the sculptor of stories, both imagined and experienced, of sad songs and sad poems, and everything in between. Today, my emotions are as cold as the weather, neither rejoicing nor suffering, I am floating like that leaf, drowning like the rain, forever being blown by the wind.. gently, gently.. against the softness of the clouds.