Category Archives: Places

New Year’s Resolutions (Or, how to keep my sanity in 2015!)

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From elementary school through high school, we were always made to write a composition called “My New Year’s Resolution” before Christmas break. That was always the last formal theme writing topic.

Believe it or not, every year I still write down my resolutions on my journal. Reading my journals from previous years, I find I managed to keep some for a year or longer; but mostly I failed.

For 2015 and the coming years, I resolve to be kind not only to others, but to myself most of all. I am too old to be making the same mistakes and hurting myself the same way I did when I was 20!

So here are my new year’s resolutions. What’s yours?

1. Don’t be too proud, be humble.

2. Don’t be vindictive, be forgiving.

3. Don’t expect too much from people you care about, be patient with them.

4. Don’t care too much about the lives of the people you care about, live your own life.

5. Don’t forget you’ve made these resolutions before, be mindful of them.

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A beautiful day in Jimei

On Growing Old

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“I grow old… I grow old…                                                                                                                                                             I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”

-T.S. Eliot

I have a lot on my plate lately, and don’t have the time to be quiet nor to have a good conversation with people I can really talk with, so yesterday as I sat down to rest for a few minutes I thought about how many strands of white hair could be growing out of my head. I decided to just laugh about life instead of worrying about it. I’m not ready to dye my hair.

Beautiful winter afternoon sun in Jimei

Winter afternoon sun in Jimei

With every misfortune,
And every disappointment,
And angry and hurtful words,

With every neglect
And every apathy
And unwelcome silence,

I can feel white hair
Growing out of my scalp.
I swear I can hear each strand
As it wriggles its way out.

And I look at myself in the mirror
And I look for those strands of white
There’s one close to the right ear
And another one by the hairline,

And then there’s none.

Perhaps those two came out
Because I worried
That because I worried,
I would grow old.

The Yellow Flower

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gladiolus

Rain falls on the yellow gladiolus.
Like gentle kisses on its petals,
Glistening in the light,
Droplets of rain
Draw its beauty out.

Alone among the reeds,
It blooms and opens
And looks up to the sky
And welcomes the rain
That gives it beauty, life.

Somewhere else
There’s a white gladiolus
But for now, alone among the reeds,
The yellow gladiolus is happy to be yellow
And to be kissed by the rain.

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It was drizzling when I walked to work today. I stopped by the wooden bridge to have a closer look at this yellow gladiolus that stood alone among the reeds by the lake. Beautiful. I thought it looked even more beautiful with the raindrops on its petals.

And then…

The Egret on Campus

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Egret on holiday

Our campus has a sanctuary for egrets. In the summer, one can see the beautiful white egrets perched on the trees by the lake –beautifully white on a green background.

The campus has provided the egrets with a safe haven where they can freely get food and not fear being hunted. True, a lot of of people — students and tourists alike — take pictures of them, but there is no threat.

As winter is approaching, most egrets migrate to the south where it is warmer, like my country.

Walking to work the other day, I saw this lone egret on the wooden bridge. I looked around for other egrets, and there were none. I strained my ear for the kraaa-aaa sound, but there was none.

I’m always guilty of overthinking things and over-empathizing. I imagined what it is like for the egret if it has really been left behind by the other egrets.

Let’s call the egret Trista. Is Trista happy that she can have all the food she wants as she has the lake all to her self, after all it really is not winter yet? If she has parents and siblings, is she happy that she can finally do what she wants to do without them watching every move she makes and criticizing her for not doing things well?

Did she choose to stay, or had she no choice but to stay?

Perhaps when evening comes and it is time to sleep, Trista will begin to feel the pang of loneliness. As it gets darker and she sails through the sky alone, and she looks down and sees human families relaxing at the well-lit park and lovers sitting close to each other on the wooden bridge on the lake, maybe she will feel so alone. And lonely.

When she goes back to her home where her mother’s constant nagging used to annoy her, and her siblings never-ending chatter used to drive her crazy, does she wish they had not left, or that she had left with them?

I watched its movements and thought it was really enjoying its time. Or maybe it's just my imagination.

I watched its movements and thought it was really enjoying its time. Or maybe it’s just my imagination.

Serenity in Solitude

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The other day I read about a father who sang a song and played the guitar for his dying baby.

I couldn’t stop crying, and just wanted to hold my sleeping Eli as tightly as I could.

There is so much pain and suffering in this world, but since I was 19, I have always believed and seen pain and suffering coming to an end, joy taking their place, and making people stronger, until the next round of pain and suffering comes.

A friend once called me masochistic because I said I liked feeling sad and experiencing pain because the experience made me think and introspect, thereby making me know myself better. And thinking and introspecting always give me peace and the energy to go on living in such an absurd world.

When I am down or just want to vanish from this world, I am blessed enough to remember the only time I had a one-week retreat in a Carmelite Monastery by the sea. It was so long ago, almost twenty years ago when I was at the height of searching for answers to questions that my mother worried were driving me crazy. (She always complained that it took me forever to finish doing the dishes because I was always lost in thought!)

For one week I was mostly alone in a 4-story building that was the retreat house. My retreat guide came to visit me twice and did not stay longer than two hours each time. I had a room on the top floor which was close to the big balcony that faced the sea, where every half an hour, a ferry from the west port would cross to the south port. I stayed out in the balcony in late afternoons and waited for the sky to turn from orange to gray and then black； and then the lights from the ports came on, and I could see the lights from the ferry moving in the darkness. In the morning I went to a wooden gazebo on stilts right in the water connected to the retreat house by footbridge made of bamboo. I would listen to the sound of the small waves as they hit the bamboo stilts underneath, smell the briny scent of seawater, and hear the occasional squawk of a bird overhead. These images, sensations come back to me as clearly as the time I was there.

My theosophist friend with whom I used to spend a lot of time talking TO (she just listened most of the time, bless her) once told me that one reason we miss somebody or something too much when they/its gone, is that when they were there, we did not give our whole self to them. Our mind perhaps wandered to somewhere else, and so our experience of them was incomplete. So that time when I was on a retreat, I made sure I was completely there. I watched,listened and felt my surroundings. I will say I miss being there, but I can also “go back” to that place whenever I need to. I can have a few minutes of peace and serenity just by remembering my time in that retreat house.

I do not mean to offend people who suffer because I, too, have suffered, but I find beauty in suffering and pain. I get energy from knowing that this suffering would come to an end, and when it does, I will experience joy, and it will be very sweet just as sweet food tastes even sweeter after eating bitter food.

But to find beauty in suffering, one needs to get away from everything. One needs to be quiet and look within to be able see better what is outside. This is nothing new, and I’m not trying to sound like an expert on this subject, but I speak (write) from experience.

These days it is extremely difficult to have some real quiet. People cannot get away from their cellphones. For everything that happens in their life, no matter how trivial, they feel somebody else has to know. Or they feel they have to know what other people are up to. People are so concerned with what they look like on the outside that they have forgotten to look within and know themselves, who they really are and of what they are capable. There is more self-absorption than self-awareness    , and it does not help anyone.

I hope we can all find time, especially when we are down, to get away from it all and go to a place –physical and/or spiritual — where we can recharge and be better equipped to face life’s absurdities.

Have a pleasant week!

Rain must fall…

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It rained the other day, and I unhappily walked to work. The sky was gray, the roads were wet, and it was a little chilly. Then I saw the plants and how green they seemed in the rain, and I stopped to look at one tiny plant with droplets of rain on its leaves. It was beautiful. I took a picture of it, and later showed it to a friend who reminded me that without water there’d be no life or growth.

rain

Though I agree with it, I still find walking in the rain in the morning depressing. Somehow it’s different from walking in the rain at night when you don’t really see anything but just hear the sound of the rain on your umbrella, and the smell of dry earth as the rain touches it. And that’s nice.

Looking at the picture of that tiny plant I saw yesterday, these lines came to mind:

“Into each life some rain must fall,/ Some days must be dark and dreary.”

Must. 

Who wants sadness? “Normal” people will say nobody. But some people actually like sadness as it brings them closer to themselves, makes them see the world and its people from a different perspective, and consequently helps them gain confidence in themselves.

The Chinese often wish their friends “happy everyday”. I would like to be happy everyday, but I am all too aware that it is impossible; so, my awareness of its impossibility makes me savor every second of that moment of happiness when it comes.  Its ephemerality is what actually makes it worth experiencing.

Imagine if you were happy everyday: you do whatever you like, and nobody makes you feel guilty for doing so;  no one that you dislike bothers you; no one upsets you (especially your boss or spouse  or boss/spouse); everyday you have only happiness. I’m almost certain you will get bored with happiness, and you will say to yourself, “There must be more to this life than just being happy.”

We appreciate the sunshine more after the rain. And we appreciate the rain after the drought.

When I look back at my life, I find that all those times I suffered, wept, and felt like it was better to put an end to my life were the times I came to know myself better and to love myself a little more, and it gave me the confidence that I could survive whatever came my way.

Without water there would be no growth. Without rain in our lives, without sad and dreary days, we would never grow stronger, never learn to cherish the little happiness we experience every now and then.

Thank God for the rain (but not for the typhoon!)

Remembering Papa

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I  don’t remember ever celebrating Halloween as a child. We observed All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day by going to church and the cemetery to clean the graves and light candles for our departed loved ones. When my grandparents passed on, my mother would “offer” some of their favorite delicacies and tobacco leaves for my grandfather, (he rolled his own cigar) on our small altar which had small statues of Jesus and several saints. As children we eagerly waited for our parents to finish praying (for the souls’ “eternal repose”), so we could eat what had been “offered.” That was fun.

When my father passed on 12 years ago, I started my own tradition of drinking and smoking a cigarette twice a year — on All Saints’ or All Souls’ Day and on his birthday/death anniversary. I’m alcohol intolerant so one glass of rum (okay, rum and cola) is enough. He never liked beer.  I’m not into smoking, so one or two is all. I used to like watching him blow smoke rings, so now when I do smoke I try doing the same.

So Halloween is here again. I cannot really get into the spirit of this festival. Tonight when people party celebrating life, I’ll be lighting a candle and smoking a cigarette and drinking rum (and cola) while listening to Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole, remembering one of the most important people in my life.

 For Papa

(This was written 8 years ago. I know it’s sentimental, but I think we are all entitled to be sentimental once in a while. So bear with me.) 

Is it true?
You see your entire life
Flash in front of your eyes
The second before you die?

And if it is,
What did you see?

Did you see yourself
Smiling and waving
To people who called out your name
When you won that basketball game?

Did you feel proud
Being in that moment again when
Your opponent shook your hand
After you beat him at tennis?

And what was it like,
When you relived that moment
At the altar, with that young woman
With whom you exchanged “I do’s”?

Was it as amazing as the first time
In May, when you first saw
And then held your first child,
So tiny and fragile in your arms?

Was that October day vivid still,
Or did tears make the flashback hazy,
As to the altar, you led your second daughter,
To where her groom was waiting?

Did it make you laugh hearing
Your third daughter’s ringing laughter,
The one you always tried to copy
And made her laugh all the more?

And did it pain you again,
When your youngest daughter came home
That night you would pass away, when she barely looked at you
As she hurried to her room to work on her thesis?

Did you feel that love
That we sometimes were too greedy
To give you, yet, you know we had inside.
Did you feel it as we surrounded you

On your death bed?

Did you hear my mother and my sisters crying out your name?
And did you hear me whisper, “Don’t go, Pa. Please fight.”
Was that why there were tears in your eyes
That few seconds before you died?

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Musing on mornings

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Jimei has a beautiful campus. I walk to work around 7 in the morning four times a week, and each time, I walk slowly so I can enjoy the scenery.

I am a morning person. I get up at 4:30 in the morning most days and do my ritual of making coffee, reading the news, mopping the floor, doing a 20-minute workout, grabbing a bite, then taking a shower. If I miss one of those in the list, I get a little disoriented.

These days the morning air is so cool that when I open the kitchen window and hear the rustling of the leaves and the merry chirping of the birds, and feel the cool touch of the breeze on my face, I am reminded of two poems: one by Wordsworth and the other by Hopkins. (I’m serious. If you have ever been taught Poetry by a professor as poetic and romantic as Dr. Anthony L. Tan, and lived in a convent — trying to become a nun– for a few months, then you’ll understand my way of thinking.)

 

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Composed Upon Westminster Bridge 

By William Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

 

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God’s Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 

Even though I am no longer so certain about the existence of God, the beauty of the morning somehow brings back my sense of gratitude to the creator of such beauty, and since in my simple brain, there are no other candidates for that position, then let it be God for now.

Early morning, I find, is much more beautiful than night time. (Or is it just that I am getting old and can no longer appreciate the beauty of darkness where sweet words are whispered and gentle touches are felt?)

When I take an early morning walk, and see the dew on the leaves and feel the damp earth, and hear the birds sing, and smell the grass, I am always filled with that kind of bliss that makes one want to love the world and to desire to be a better person deserving of such wonder. For someone who has been waiting for death since she was 20, this is one of the very rare moments when I am actually happy about life, one of my Sisyphus-reaching-the-top-of-the-hill moments.

The awareness of the ephemerality of these moments is probably what makes people, like me,  appreciate them more.

Like everything else in this world, they come to an end, sometimes too soon, when I start hearing the honking of vehicles and seeing people push and shove each other to get on the bus to get to work.

But this is life. I am just grateful to know that there is time, when I need it, for nature to refresh me and make me ponder on how good it is to be alive.
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Aging and Memories

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Iligan City, Philippines

 

I like being in my 40’s. Of course people will say it’s because I have no choice, but it’s more than that. I have embraced being 40 something, and am loving myself more and becoming more confident than I have ever been about myself. It’s great not to worry about what others think about what I’m wearing. I think that’s the biggest and silliest thing I ever worried about before. I still worry about whether people think I’m stupid. I know I can be stupid sometimes, I just don’t like it when other people say it. I’ve never really worried about what people think about what I do for as long as I enjoy what I’m doing. Especially now that I’ve been living in another country for the past 11 years, I’m not really bothered by what people back home or even in the country I’m in, think about my actions. Being a foreigner has given me the freedom to be what I want to be without hurting the sensibilities of those I care about back home. (Look, mom, I’m 42, happily married to a good man and have a cute little son! I can take care of myself.)

With age people tend to become forgetful. Sometimes I find myself forgetting what I did just a few minutes ago. I have to pause and think (usually aloud!) “What was I doing earlier?” I find that scary. But with age, too, some memories become even more vivid.

A few days ago I had early morning coffee with a friend. It was a beautiful, clear and breezy Monday morning, and the coolness of the air brought back memories of a certain bittersweet feeling that was so strong back then when I was feeling it, and seemed just as strong as I was recalling it. For a few seconds I was back in that spot where I stood 15 years ago, hearing the rustling of the leaves of the tall, thin trees as they swayed toward each other, the crackling of dried leaves as they were stepped on, and the tiny voice inside of me that was saying, “This is all so beautiful, I don’t want it to end”;and then the voice that ended it all when it said — “You know why this is so beautiful? It’s because we know it’s not gonna last.”

There are memories that we wish we could just forget, memories we wish we would remember forever, and memories that just appear when we least expect them. As we live each day we are creating new memories. We have no way of knowing whether they’ll be forgettable or unforgettable ones, but we can try to make good ones as we create them. October 16

Two Cities: Iligan and Xiamen

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Xiamen is not what most Chinese would call a big city, but perhaps to a lot of people from my city in the Philippines, Iligan, it would be pretty big. Xiamen has an area of 1,699.39 km2, while Iligan has an area of 813.37 km2; Xiamen had an estimated population of 3, 531, 347 at the 2010 census, while Iligan had 322, 821 in the same year.  (Source: Wikipedia.)

Even though Wikipedia describes Iligan as a “highly urbanized city”, by Chinese standards, it is perhaps just a village. But size is not everything, and Iligan also has some things to offer that would not be easy to find in richer Xiamen.

Iligan is known as the City of Majestic Waterfalls, boasting of 23 waterfalls, the most famous of which is the Maria Cristina Falls, the primary source of electric power for the city’s industries. It has one mall (hopefully another one in a couple of years), a couple of parks, spring pools and beaches. I know it doesn’t sound like Iligan has a lot to offer, but as it is where I grew up, I still find it more convenient to live there. First, I know a lot more people there – former classmates, former students and colleagues– and have more relatives there (and that counts a lot especially if these people work in banks and government offices or company with whom you have to do business. Wink.) Second, shopping for food is way easier. I can easily buy butter, cheese, pasta, spaghetti sauce, etc. even in corner stores, and they are cheaper too! (In China I have to take a bus to go to a German-owned store that sells imported products! Hopefully that will change.) In Iligan I can go to the church whenever I want – especially when I want to be alone and have some quiet time. (I once took a 45-minute bus ride to a church in Xiamen only to find out it was closed on weekdays. Sigh.)

To be honest I do not know exactly what Xiamen should be famous for, although whenever  asked what is there to see in Xiamen, I, and most people living here would say “Gulangyu.” Gulang Islet is known for its old buildings, most of which were used as consulates or embassies. But there is so much more residents can do for entertainment in Xiamen – there’s the beach and swimming pools or spas, numerous parks for people to go to, countless malls and shopping streets and KTV’s and bars and clubs. But these are not the things that make me like living in Xiamen. I like living in Xiamen because I feel so much safer here. I can go out without worrying about bomb explosions or people firing guns. I can sleep on rainy nights without fear of our home getting flooded. (God forbid there’ll be an earthquake as I live in a 6-story building!)

Seeing Xiamen develop so fast in the eleven years that I have been here, I wish the same could happen to my beloved Iligan. Sadly, my beloved hometown has not changed much for the past eleven years. (Except perhaps for Gaisano Mall, and the unusual color that the RVM Sisters chose to paint St. Michael’s College to match that of the St. Michael’s Cathedral’s, there’s really nothing new.)

When I go around Xiamen and notice what the city has to offer, I truly wish I could become the mayor of Iligan one day (IMPOSSIBLE!) and make my “yuta’ng natawhan” just as peaceful, modern and beautiful as my second home. (If not me, then somebody else who really cares about Iligan and help it develop as a city.)

 

Happy Easter to all!

 

 

Xiamen University

Xiamen University

Xiamen beach

Xiamen beach

 

Maria Cristina Falls

Maria Cristina Falls

 

Xiamen at night

Xiamen at night

Timoga Spring Pools (panoramio.com)

Timoga Spring Pools (panoramio.com)

Cheradel Suites, Iligan (panoramio.com)

Cheradel Suites, Iligan (panoramio.com)

Home Away from Home

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I left Iligan eleven years ago, and have been living in a district called Jimei in Xiamen, China. Although I still love the place where I was born and grew up in, I have also learned to love Jimei where I have spent almost one-third of my life.

In eleven years I have seen Jimei grow from being a quiet university town –with no department stores, no cinemas, no MacDonald’s or KFC, and that became like a ghost town during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) —  into a bustling district that has a huge mall with a Starbucks, Haagen Dazs, and IMAX theaters in it, more MacDonald’s and KFC’s than one would like to see, more cars that make traffic so awful even during Spring Festival. These days there is hardly a quiet day in Jimei.

But still there is something to love about this place, or I would not even call it my home away from home – my second home.

Whenever I go out for a walk, I always think about what I would like to write about this place, so today I am starting. I will try to introduce Jimei as I see it, and I hope my readers will see its beauty and its charm.

Jimei U Art Center hosts exhibits of works by local and international artists

Jimei U Art Center hosts exhibits of works by local and international artists

 

Longing

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Jimei sky

Longing

My mind is blank.
No verses are formed.
No words…
The muse has left me
And in its stead
Just chemicals
Concocting a different brew
To make me feel
This deep and endless longing
That seethes in the abyss
Of my being
And creeps out
From my  eyes
And my arms
As they reach out
For something…or someone
That’s not there.