Mama’s Love will definitely take us from here and back. There’s really no better way to travel than to place yourself up on top of the jeep, share a few kind words, maybe some laughter and a whole lot of fresh air and bumps along the way.

Now, as I review these photos taken from last year, I’m beside myself again in excitement anticipating the next few weeks and the tons and tons more of photos and memories to make…hopefully the path leads up to these peaks again.

Recently, on the drive back from Baguio, a friend of my parents gave them Yusuf “Cat” Stevens’ album An Other Cup. Since it was just a copy of the original, the car stereo couldn’t handle replaying so we had to play it once then keep hearing the songs over and over as we stopped along the way. Three songs into the disk mom and I had fallen asleep but on the second turn of the disk, I woke up to the sound of my dad singing along to this:

It’s a strange song for this album and it’s a cover too but anyway, dad was singing in his not-so-shy voice…I listened quietly, smiled and went back to bed. Some minutes later we stopped to have a meal and I told my dad that that’s how I remember him as a child…you know? In the car or in the darkroom with loud music playing and him singing along to whoever it was he was listening to. Of course later on I would discover that he was accompanied by The Doors, Cream, Jeff Beck, Gypsy Kings, The Beatles, etc etc.

At first he wasn’t amused and got defensive saying that it was the one track on this Cat Stevens album that he actually knew but mom was quick to say, “Yeah we get it but we like it when you sing along.”

And I really, really do. I also like being alone to listen, dance and occasionally sing along to these songs I grew up with knowing deep inside that even when my parents are long gone, it’ll be easy to think of them and their presence through music.

Then I started thinking really hard about all this. I thought about all sorts of music that I’ve learned to love. There’s a tradition you learn at home that keeps getting fed by more and more influences as you get older and when I finally went to sleep yesterday morning, I was in high spirits, swimming in the enigmatic cello playing of Yo-Yo Ma (whom I vowed to see live one day!) Then throughout the rest of the day I thought about classical music and how I didn’t really like it at first because I thought it would be rigid…so rigid as say the first piano teacher I ever had who kept telling me I got the notes wrong. But then I listened to it…it was everywhere! In Tom and Jerry (whose entire repertoire consists of dialogue-less antics and sublime musical accompaniments), on the radio as an adaptation and jingle, in my mother’s humming of what she didn’t realize was Bach before bedtime. There was so much music around and it became increasingly difficult to suppress it.

In high school they tried once again to rigidly “educate” us. We were forced to record onto little tapes various classical pieces in order to familiarize ourselves with music that I then thought I had already known…since I heard it everywhere. Yet we had to endure the sitting and the memorizing. It was silly of me to think it silly then because now I have an extra silly look when trying desperately to find those silly tapes. After high school, the silliness was replaced with a dogged sense that these things ought to be appreciated because they could disappear from our collective memory altogether. I mean seriously, at the rate we listen to other things (equally catchy and fitting for our generation), we really run the risk of losing this wonderful musical tradition that knows no bounds when communicating all sorts of emotions. I remember watching that award-winning film Okuribito a year ago or so and thinking, “Wow! The cello really adds so much depth to an already deeply moving film.” Then as I kept thinking about all these things it dawned on me that all sorts of music and not just classical music is in danger of being lost to us forever.

There’s another film that helped me realize this. It deserves its own post, really…and perhaps a greater audience other than just myself and a few friends in this country. It’s called Luminawa and it’s about those lovely people I met in that brief sojourn in Kalinga. Manong Sapi, whom I’m tempted to call Manong Mumu (to allude to his being like a spirit), loves to talk about how music can carry traditions and build bridges between peoples. What better way to take this all in that with Tito Mannix playing the guitar and singing? It was all very powerful. So powerful indeed that before he left, he sung one last set and I cried. Who knows why we do such sappy things anyway? I mean seriously, crying? Over a song? But yeah, we cry because something in the music is so compelling.

Maybe apart from dancing I should add a musical instrument or singing to the mix? It won’t make the neighbors angrier than they already are but it will make sense in the greater scheme of things to have some sort of way to engage this wonderful, wonderful world that suddenly becomes a wee bit more alive because of both the music we bring to it and that which is already here sustaining us.

(Quick note: It’s 4:40a.m. and I’ve been up all night listening to NPR’s Tiny Desk, endlessly clicking from one Youtube video to another…here’s a tiny set of what’s moved me so far.)

]]> http://toynbeeconvector.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/some-musical-notes/feed/ 0 toynbeeconvector http://toynbeeconvector.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/auspicious-suspicious/ http://toynbeeconvector.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/auspicious-suspicious/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:46:32 +0000 toynbeeconvector http://toynbeeconvector.wordpress.com/?p=1413 Continue reading →]]> Once in a while, great things happen and its usually when we least expect it. I woke up on 11-11-11 thinking that my friends and I would just eat out or do karaoke in one of Baguio‘s side streets. Instead, we climbed a mountain. As you can see in the image above, all three of us girls with the exception of our male friend here, have relatively little climbing experience. We’re also wearing our usual gear with accompanying bling bling which climbers are advised against. At this point, we don’t know where we’re going and how far the walk is. All we know is that we’re visiting a friend (of our male companion) who’s an elder to say hello and ask him for advise about a ritual conducted weeks ago. This photo was taken at the foot of the mountain. Behind us is a bridge that leads to the tollbooth of Kennon road.

Twenty minutes later, you can view said tollbooth and marvel at how close you are to the sky. I took this after passing a hedge which gave me the illusion that we weren’t so high up anyway. Rule number 1 of climbing is to never look down but of course, I break that rule every time. I’m just glad a patch of sunflowers kept me from seeing past it to the ground below.  Speaking of sunflowers, this is the wonderful narrow foot path that was lined with them:

Narrow is an understatement but as you can see, the line leads up to more inclines which made the entire experience quite memorable. That gray slope was the site of a recent landslide and while I managed to walk a few meters ahead of my troupe, I hesitated to cross because I was sure to fall. Our male companion tried to teach me how to do it but half-way through this slide, I felt the ground beneath me slip, the rubble started rolling down the slope and part of me forgot for a while that I could have slipped as I watched these pebbles roll down. As a result, my friend had to carry all three of us (!!!) through. In an action known to the Ilocanos as uba (pronounced ub-ba) which means to carry on one’s back, we were moved from one footpath to another.

I still can’t fathom how people can manage to walk through such walkways without seeing images of their creator but oh well, different strokes for different folks. We reached the summit some thirty minutes later so all in all our climb lasted less than an hour. The man we were supposed to meet had us over for roughly an hour. We spoke for a bit then later found ourselves enjoying a bowl of clear chicken broth with rice. The chicken was cooked in the typical style of the mountain people which involved some mild beating of the chicken with a stick to promote blood clotting. After slicing an artery on its neck, the blood is then allowed to drip. The chicken is dressed then thrown into an open fire to a semi-roast. After it is half-cooked, it is then placed in a pot with water and turned into soup.

We ate in darkness with only the fire of the make-shift stove to accompany us. It illuminated our faces and in this light, I understood why our friend, the elder, was met with such respect and admiration by our companion. The lines on his face might have betrayed his age but the creases they made when he laughed convinced us of his sage-like nature. If images of God abound in the earth, I was certain I was staring into one of them.

Night came for us and when it was time to leave, we all decided that it was better to take an alternate route going down (as the dangers of passing that tiny landslide were high). The forty minute climb up the mountain turned into a three-hour walk down. By the time we hit the road (as in the actual road), we had already watched the moonrise and could see Baguio at a distance. We had walked all the way to the road leading to Philex mines. This might not seem to mean anything but a quick look at Google maps will show just how crazy that trek was.

Would I do it again? Of course!

But last year, on the last leg of a northern adventure, I found myself in Banaue, Ifugao sampling a variety I could not eat alone. Just look at the size of that monster! I would caution anyone against having too much of this lest your poop turns hard as stone on you.

Perhaps I’m over-sharing. It’s just that I’ve been sick for a while now and mom’s been playing doctor by prescribing bananas left and right…and well, I was hallucinating for a bit because of the meds thinking about a super-banana that could save the day and voila! The Ifugao banana might have done the trick.

And maybe even the great outdoors? I can’t wait to be on the road again.

On day six I’m pretty revved up! The past days have been physically strenuous. I’m slowly recovering from all the 2011 demons that decided to have a field-day: cough, colds, sore throat, sore eyes…where’d they all come from? Mom’s convinced that I partied too hard last year but I said, “well, so what if I did? I don’t really regret all those sleepless nights (though my body is in a state of heightened protest and I won’t blame it.)”

The plan now is to buckle down and finish things beginning with papers (always the papers) followed by applications for career development. I’m being very cautious about plans because I don’t want to jinx them. Let’s just see, job-wise, where the winds of change and capitalism take us, yes? Thomas Merton recently shook my senses awake when I read a portion of his Care of the Soul. He spoke of work and said:

Whether we do it with mindfulness and art, or whether it takes place in unmitigated unconsciousness, work affects the soul profoundly. It is full of imagination and speaks to the soul at many different levels. —- In this sense, all work is a vocation, a calling from a place that is the source of meaning and identity, the roots of which lie beyond human intention and interpretation.

It’s true isn’t it? If there’s one thing I’m really considering this year it’s being able to do soul-forming work that nourishes the spirit however zen and trite that may sound. Few people enjoy their work and even fewer get to do what they like so I shan’t waste my one opportunity to do things right. [Spoken after having been possessed by the spirit of a new year!]

But boy do the days fly! It’s the sixth already! In a quarter of an hour it will be the seventh and hoolah, another day begins! For January the line-up is as follows: Applications galore, deadlines, yoga in the mountains, another trip to the beautiful North! There’s also loads of paperwork, checking and easing of leftover bad vibes from last year…but all in all, I’m full of gratitude and excitement.  Let’s hope the optimism lasts up until the end of the year.

Photo by Boy Yniguez.

And I was definitely happy! Welcome 2012!

You were worth every minute of every day and I’m glad I stayed awake for most of your hours. Thank you for everything.

love, light & trust,

Me.

It was a quick year in that all of a sudden it was nearing a close and jingles were being sung in anticipation of Christmas. Despite the maddening rush and the rate at which things sped up, I must admit that I’m more amazed by the amount of things that got accomplished this year. I’m used to measuring my days in terms of to do lists and I worry a lot–just because time seems to always run out. But if anything, this year has taught me that time is just a medium, it’s the happenings that count for the actual history we remember. That’s the marrow of life.

Naturally, I am grateful. These are the things I’ve learned in the past year:

1. Stay rooted, remember but grow. I began last year with a deep and loyal love for family. Recalling memories and bearing witness to those I’ve come to know have always been recurring themes of my writing. Mostly, it has to do with those close to me and how I was raised by them but I’d like to think that beyond that, it has to do also with this constant need to stay firmly rooted so as to grow. This year, I was spared from attending as many funerals as the years past and while I’m grateful for this, I acknowledge that perhaps the purpose was to use the year to remember and to keep those I lost alive. But I cannot live in the past and truth be told, I always feel like the person I was a year ago is no longer the person I am today. To that I say, great! Move on, get growing.         
2. Money won’t buy you a life and neither will working if the goal is just to earn money. If I could do without money and all it’s stress in my life then I would gladly shift to the old ways of bartering goods in exchange for what I need. But if that were so, it wouldn’t really make a difference, right? Because we’d be worrying still. Money is just a means to put value on things and whether we trade using actual currency or the currency of gestures, we’d still end up placing value on things and worrying about how much we ought to exchange. In that respect money might not be evil but this year, I nearly broke down trying to earn it. It was good in the beginning because work is close to the soul but as the days went by, I accumulated enough jobs to keep me at work longer than the usual 8 hours per day. FOR WHAT?! Sure, i bought a heckload of books and ate what I wanted to eat but for the most part, I gave up the one currency I needed to savor life, enjoy my food and read my books: time. You can’t buy love, I know but if I could I’d rather buy time. Sadly, that ain’t for sale either. So, I’m only working to earn what I need. Greed and the need for speed are no match for the joy of actual quality time with the ones who matter.  
3. The answers can’t all be found in the books but the questions (which matter more) will only surface if you read and read and read. I spent most of the year reading. I’m very proud of this because truth be told, life would not be what it is if I hadn’t read to begin with. How many times does conversation get saved by that story we all read as children or that opinion shared by another which we can both disagree on or agree to disagree on? How much more exciting has it been to visit places carrying ones own eyes along with memories of others who have trod these paths before? It’s all written about and the world gains color through these stories. We just need to read and be present to it all. We also need to process which is why this blog was born in the first place.
4. Mistakes are everything. Be surprised! You don’t really know what qualifies as a mistake until you realize it to be one but hey, whether it’s good or bad, it’s all a surprise, right? So step one ought to be, stop hating surprises! Life’s one giant surprise anyway. Step two would have to be, make mistakes happen by making actual decisions! I’ve put my foot down so many times this year, it’s been quite exhilarating. You just have to do it and if things turn out badly, well, get up and go. It’s worth it to have the scars, blisters and all.
5. Adventure is just another way of saying YES! This is pretty close to my heart. I’ve spent so many years longing to go on adventures just to learn time and time and again that adventure just means saying yes more often. Have that conversation with a stranger, go out with your parents when they ask you,  make time to see friends, be open to having new ones. The benefits you reap are beyond that which you could have imagined. Stay in touch but most importantly, just say yes!
6. Having dreams is a sign of continued trust in the universe. So, dream good! I’ve written about the things I hope for but only in the language of dreams. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? Whose footsteps do I follow in these long and winding roads? But each of these questions lead to answers that have proven that 1) I’m happily alive and naturally curious and 2) I haven’t given up on the world just yet. Holy moly, that really makes a great big difference! When you look forward to life instead of cower in fear of it like I used to before. Sheesh. 
7. No risk, no happiness. Just do it! It’s similar to saying yes but it’s a bit deeper in that for the most part, decisions involve risk which we can easily set aside for easier, less challenging options. Our goals eventually get watered down and we drown in the comfort of the familiar until it hits us that we’re lost at sea with no islands in sight–and I’ve been there, in the middle of the ocean. It’s quite frustrating to swim toward nothing, or to swim at all when what’s left is just the bottom. But risking and choosing to do what we must because of who we are is what will keep us afloat, alive and kicking! It’s also what will take us from our shores onto others and back, not quite the way we were when we had first leaped. Risk is everything so risk everything.
8. You can’t teach/learn abstinence but you can be responsible. Personal, again but true for the most part. Risk doesn’t mean stupidity and abstinence isn’t the answer to all of life’s problems. Just that because…
9. Have mentors and learn to appreciate them for all their greatness (that’s firmly rooted in their humanity). The second part’s the more important part. I’ve had mentors but for the most part, people can let us down. We can also let others down and every year I battle constantly with the reality that i can’t seem to stop getting people to lose faith in me. But that’s part of life. Duality. You can only be great if you can fall every now and then because what is greatness anyway but another day of deciding to be better at things than we were yesterday? But faith in those who teach us well goes a long way and having people inspire us to be better versions of our true selves is worth more than the combined salary of all the shrink’s out there! Be inspired, find a mentor, be grateful, live fully. Repeat.
10. We can’t always get what we want but we always get what we need. Like it or not, I might as well admit that sometimes I get very lonely. I think about all the things I could be doing and all the people I could be. I think about falling in love and why I’m not as adept as others at getting relationships right…all these insecurities and all these wants that are created by them keep haunting me. But when I really think about it, I may not get what I want but I always get what I need. When I could have been a research assistant, I worked at my former high school and learned how to appreciate students and live history instead of just reading it. When I could have been completely focused on my studies, I edited a magazine and tasted true accomplishment that came directly from hands-on experience. When I could have gotten my MA load done, I taught English, quit then went on an amazing two-week adventure living on a backpack and still smelling nice! That’s a real achievement (for me at least). And when I could have settled for lousy love, I opted to say no and wait. We might not be together with the one I want but we’re good friends and who knows if he’s the one? He may or may not be…what is best for him is best for me. The point is: this, where I am, this is what I need.

2011 being the year that it was remains one of the most memorable and rich years of my life. It was a good way to cap off the decade that just passed and it was a great invitation to jump-start a new one. So, yes! Here’s to this brave new year! And to all you dragons out there, let’s make these days count!   

It’s quite possibly my favorite holiday but I shan’t admit it because I’m always emotional during this time of year. I try to be spiritual about it and couple my faith with my feelings but instead of reflecting on a child being born on a manger, I mostly end up thinking about family and how much joy this season brings us. I don’t always look forward to it because we aren’t always the best people but year after year the realization is the same: where would we be without the people who love us unconditionally?

This in essence is really what Christmas means to me. It’s a lovefest that isn’t cheesy or dull but real and full of opportunities to be better lovers. –Incidentally, I’ve been thinking about children recently and marriage (which is odd)…I will be pushing thirty in a few more years and for some strange reason it occurred to me that I don’t want to be too old when I raise my children. I want to have time to know them and be with them and strangely, the biggest revelation this year is that I really really really want some kids. Shucks. I also want to be married, to have a family of my own and a husband to sleep with and wake up to everyday of the rest of my life. Someone I can tell stories to and listen to after tucking the kids in bed…I don’t know why I resist these feelings. Part of me thinks it’s a matter of being responsible and living life without regrets. I want to see the world before being “tied down” and I want to achieve certain things before raising a family but boy, sometimes I see myself baking cookies and reading to fictional children and I can’t explain how happy that makes me feel. I’m also extra thrilled at the possibility of having a child be born through me. It must be such a wonderful thing.

I only wish I could be half as good as my parents are at raising children. And I also sincerely hope and pray for the kind of love my grandparents had. That’s the only thing I’m willing to settle for. Everything else is pretense and will most likely account for nothing. But anyway, love and light this Christmas. That’s all we’re about, yes?

Sleep has been so tempting recently. The cool breeze plus the lulling sound of trees dancing outside my window have added hours to an already extravagant 8 hours of sleep. In effect, I’m partly a zombie but my mind’s surprisingly awake.

I disappeared into a bookstore in Cubao two days ago and came home with a bit too many books for the shelves to handle. One of the tomes that came home with me is Thomas Moore’s Care for the Soul. I was just reading about family two hours ago then I saw this photo posted on my tito’s FB wall. Now I have to run off again on errands. life’s a lot of errands lately but only because it’s Christmas.

Hold that thought, I’ll be right back.