Bobbet’s World

Sleep talk September 19, 2008

If there’s one thing I have to be thankful for, then it has to be my sane mind. With the many things that preoccupied me the last few days, I’m lucky to have survived it all. And good news is, one by one, work gets to be done. There maybe more out there, but at least I’m moving on and doing more.

Nothing can make things better but to treat myself with special luxuries. Like the spur-of-the-moment scalp massage and facial at Paolo’s this afternoon right after our Poetika meeting. On the side, I have to take a quick pizza snack while waiting for my turn at the barbershop. When was the last time I tried to slow down but still ending rushing up?

Good people abound, too. The support I’m getting for my projects and great jobs never fails to inspire me. Nina and Shawie are still there to assist us think and plan creatively for Poetika this semester. We’re right, this is the power of poetry: nurturing friendships and synergy. Pearl is there for The Collegium.  Again, rushing up, we were able to talk, in between lunch today, of the few merits and more demerits of the articles submitted for our latest issue. I know Pearl will be a good caretaker of  this publication soon.

Unexpected twists are also inspiring. I thought I’ve lost my black cap to Batad. It was wet in rain on our trek up, but I could remember bringing it back to our van. Yet, I couldn’t find it on our way home. Until yesterday, when a Cambodian classmate who had become a buddy during the trip, Socsan, gave it to me; he found it in the van. I forgot to thank him completely then. A good text sent the message better. I just hoped that same thing had happened to the folding umbrella I’ve lost inside one of my classrooms.

And what a way to end the day but to succumb to sleep like there were no deadlines. After dinner, I just let the silent tyrant engulf me, unrestrained. I woke up with a message from my student Mags, again expressing his and Castle’s support to Poetika, triggered by my humble request. Real good people truly abound, are aplenty everywhere, enough to move and prop us up to greater heights, far outweighing the bad ones.

I can sleep better now, maybe continue what I’ve started after dinner, and from there transport me to dreamland where at least one good, inspiring person is alive to teach me the lesson that happiness, so says Rachel Ray, is hibernation (read: is in sleeping).

The Words (The Texts) are Back Again August 1, 2008

Karen Kunawicz, "On the Verge" writer, would always love the rain. We may not agree with her, but she may have a point. Rainy days bring in a certain melancholia but that ironically makes her happy.

On the road to Diliman last Thursday, I was caught by heavy rains and traffic. The mood was sad inside the bus. Most of us were staring out of the window seemingly gloomy or uncertain of our destination and the time we’d get there. It was a lonely travel. I could have been home that time sleeping or reading or simply whiling the time away with the aroma of coffee sending me back to good old memories. I felt so away from home, alone.

This weekend seems to be like that again. I woke up early for my grad class. The drizzle turned into real rain. What would be the mood inside my class this morning? It’s their first long exam. May their minds stay focused on the here-and-now, not on the good or bad old memories that rains evoke. If not, I may have students who are in the classroom but also off the classroom. God forbid.

Meantime, let the rain lull me not into sleep but into a productive, creative pursuit of my interests, things that me make happy but could not probably make me materially rich. Like arts. Or my love for words, or in a postmodern world, texts. Wish me luck. May dreams come true, reach their heights this cool, rainy day, never to get suspended in the clouds of our doubts or fears. That one call  for something else. Focus. Fixation. Faith.

Maybe.

There are things in the house May 26, 2008

There are things in the house that speak to me as if they were alive. Maybe because they send esoteric messages to me. Or, it may be because I love to look for something sacred in the ordinary. They prove to me that it’s true: There is mystery in the mundane.

Like the closet I custom-made for myself after super typhoon Milenyo. It reminds me of CS Lewis’ "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe." Maybe, a newer place dwells inside it, like the dream-world fantasy of Narnia. Who knows, one sleeping moment, it could transport me to a world far so different from where I am now: And from there, it could bring me to an imaginative travel to a place where it would be instantly Christmas in a stroke of a magical wand. What fun it is to be child-like again!

And another: A look into my half-blind window, and yet another look out from there, is one more trip from the mundane to the esoteric. Of what does it remind me? My former UPLB work, in the office with wide windows enough for me to see the gateway to the University. There, every morning during my seven-month project stint, I would see students rushing up to their classes, kids playing around the pond near the Carabao park, and adults simply frolicking, whiling the time away. The calachuchi trees bursting with white blooms didn’t fail to amuse me then, few moments before I would close the windows to signal the end of another dead day. So did the scent of fresh grass cut by an electric mower which sounded off so noisy as if disturbing the silent walls of our room, or driving away the spirits of boredom that consumed every corner of that office. These are the memories of which a half-blind window reminds me.

And there are more things in the house that bring me out of my place and beyond my present state. Like my wind chimes, bamboo blinds, cali bottles turned artsy, etc., etc. Guess what memories they would evoke.