having christmas all to myself

i'm spending this christmas at home, here in baao, camarines sur, philippines.
(if you do not know where it is, google it please).
the agenda includes christmas eve chicken macaroni salad, pj, chiffon cake.
(the red will be downed later on)
and christmas morning hot choco, with my all time favorite longsilog.
and since i’m doing homemade fixins on the eve and the morn,
on the day i am heading for naga city for a candlelit dinner
sans family and boyfriend, i.e.,

A L O N E.



wow! shiny? it depends. . .

now, i'm going to be honest with you, this is my sixth christmas in baao,
and my sixth christmas spent without a boyfriend or family.
i've got friends, good ones,
i’ve got family (brother with family, sister with family),
but i'm not going to be with them. again.


my bamboo sofa can surely, accomodate two, comfortably. . .hehehe

and i do think to myself,
every year,
that maybe next year will be the year i spend christmas with someone i love.
(not that i don't love my friends and family,
but you know what i'm saying.)
i think sometimes too,
maybe someday my life will have really changed,
and i'll spend christmas with a family of my own.
i'll admit that i will welcome that day.
if i was heading out of town with hunky-actor-boyfriend,
i'd be on cloud nine about it.
i'm green-eyed every time i read or hear about someone going home with their noteworthy other,
or bringing them home with them.

but here i am, baao year six, S.I.N.K.ing my way through the holidays and cold season sans fam or boyf

s – single

i – income

n – no

k - kids

and you know what?
it's going to be a blast.
believe it or not!

sometimes i have to stop and remind myself how precious these years are.
the intoxicating freedom of it,
the rural liberation not urban decadence, nor city profligacy.
no pressures, no hassles, no demands
(except from the title i have to live up to)
to do anything but exactly what i want.



i've done the whole outrageous, homemade dinner with friends,
and that's fun,
but this year i thought it would be cool to eat out on the town,
and i am totally looking forward to it –
having christmas all to myself. . .
so while i'm honest enough with myself to know i am hoping for something different someday,
i'm also smart enough to be really grateful for what i have today:

christmas. . .
with a great friend (myself). . .
in a great town (baao). . .

an ordinary day in ordinary time at my not so ordinary farm

today is a seemingly ordinary day in the endless stream of days of my life.
it passes like many others,
in routine tasks,
in haste,
in distracted thoughts,
and broken conversations.



but when i look closely,
listen hard,
i see this day,
an ordinary day in ordinary time at my not so ordinary farm,
as really a day of purpose.











i have to meet my members,
actually, i have been remiss of my duty to them as a leader,




what with all the other meetings i have to attend to,




and today,
i got a jolt with just a single question from one of them:
why are we meeting just now?

then it came to me, quite clearly:
i was given this day for reasons
other than my own.

now. . .

i see that this is no ordinary day at all.
the work set before me today will go unnoticed by most,
but that is not important.
it is my work,
and as i do this work,
his loving hand will touch me.
as i forget myself in loving another,
i will see him as never before,
and feel the power of his love.



and now. . .

that i have been shown the way,
i will wait eagerly
for each new day
as a day to grow in love,
in service,
in communion. . .

around majestic mayon

i went to albay yesterday
took the sabloyon route.
wow!
majestic mayon. . .


it was quite cloudy, i could only see the tip
(seen from Ligao City)


(seen from Tabaco City)


a feature that caught my interest -
the round wrought iron feature at the wall
with colored sampaguita glass


an abstract composition -
roots


a calming sight at Sto. Domingo -
the Albay Gulf

i think i will frequent the route,
after each trip. i always feel refreshed.

making a tree christmas

today was overcast, grey and drizzly. . .
it was windy and cold. . . brrrr.

but that didn't matter
our spirits were soaring
we (sangat foundation, inc. / la huerta employees assoc.)(hehehe) are joining!

turn thrash to treasure
that's what we will do
use farm wastes and turn them
into making a "tree" christmas!

that is the spirit!



it was hard to decorate the top. . .



but we did it!



and it came out just as i imagined it would be -

P E R F E C T!



bamboo rings, corn husk garlands, cut twigs. . .



and a smug me,
before i left my tree. . .

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

on losing sight and purpose

Estudiantinas de la Soledad de Baao


Dolorosa

it was a pleasant surprise, audie was home, after a long absence. he, busy with making ends meet, i, busy with trying to live up to the title. we blurted in unison, “let us (the five of us) meet!" so we tacked 29th on our calendars, as our meeting date. i sent out sms’s to matt, ritz, john, & audie (to make it official). 7pm. another surprise! matt was actually going to attend the meeting. zealousness? nah! maybe. . . coincidence? yeah!


matt, john, bidibidi, ritzie, audie

we dreamed, planned, dreamed again, planned again. . . and out of our dreamy state, a sudden, violent shock! john lost sight and with it the purpose. it was hurtful! shameful! and utterly disappointing. imagine succumbing to the temporary and the basic! we have graduated from the low rungs of the hierarchy of needs! or so i thought!

it took us ten minutes of threatening silence, to absorb the shock. then. . . i have to ask the question: do we push through and pursue our dream?



again in unison, we, now only four, blurted out: "of course! nothing can stop us now!"

so the four, now armed with stronger conviction, determination, is on the way to the fulfillment of a

D R E A M!






job is a welcome member. it will not be the same, but just like always, the four (quorum) is now more focused, more determined, more dreamy?

bye, bye, john! good luck! good cheer! good riddance? (only the future can tell.)

writing between the cracks

i write between the cracks of my life, the narrow spaces i have left between my crafts, my friends, my nephews and nieces, my farm, my teaching classes, my liaison with the department of agriculture, my occasional treasure hunting, my meetings with the mayor, with my farmers, the members of my orgs. WOW! that’s a lot of tiny cracks! no wonder, my writings are limited to the few lines of my reflections – a poem maybe, or just ramblings of this romantic me. by the looks of it, i will never be able to write a novel. . .

because i am a farmer, living on my farm’s income and the meager income of a teacher who teaches not in the classroom –- which means i live month to month, riding on a wave of near-debt experiences that always threatens to strike for the kill -– i only have time to write also when i am not balancing the books. and i have become good at it, too.

so i write during my lull time like now, sometimes after bedtime, when suddenly i am awakened by the silence of the night. but these cracks in the walls of my life, though hair-line, are long and deep. within them, writing is the seam that holds everything together.

because i have so little time of my own (well, it actually depends on who looks at the “time” i have in my hands, “working women” will see i got lots of it, as if i do not work ) and certainly a little space in this corner of my room, with a vintage desk at the corner –- old, wooden, sturdy, much of my writing exists in my mind. shadowy characters appear as i sort my buttons after midnight, that even the sound of my “pet” lizard is a welcome intermission, thoughts come alive like movies in my brain. it's the space and silence, away from the tedium of household distractions, which allows my brain freedom to roam.

as i arrange my buttons according to the color wheel in my mind, ideas emerge from the shadows and morph into bright beings with struggles and traumas, longings but never regrets. and all the while a story world uncoils within my mind; a realm that only i can see or hear, but that seems as real to me as the wind, now feeling so christmassy, blowing into my room, causing my sheer curtains to dance, teasing my face, wiping off some tears that sometimes have gone astray. . .

trees at villa esperanza

TREES
Joyce Kilmer 1886-1918

i think that i shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.
a tree whose hungry mouth is prest
against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
a tree that looks at god all day,
and lifts her leafy arms to pray;
a tree that may in summer wear
a nest of robins in her hair;
upon whose bosom snow has lain;
who intimately lives with rain.
poems are made by fools like me,
but only god can make a tree.

i find this poem emotional, spiritual and thought-evoking. when i see trees, i recite it in my mind.

i took the bus this morning, on my way to the department of agriculture to attend a seminar on corn crafts. and the bus was so fast, the line of trees was a blur. but when i chance upon a turtle-slow bus, i never get bored, as i look at every tree i pass by and "see" it.


i have already made my point with the casureco axe-men:
DO NOT DARE TOUCH MY TREES!











i know that they have to clear the electric lines, of branches and trees, but how they do it is criminal! every time they do their "clearing", it's reminiscent of super typhoon reming! and to make matters worse, they just leave the "debris" as is, where is!


H E L P!
can anybody teach them how to treat a tree?

treat trees right!
don't rob them of their majesty and splendor!

of living alone and not caring much about it

i am alone, but never lonely. i do not need to live with loneliness, there are so many ways to keep myself from being lonely. the things that i like best is sitting on the verandah in the morning, with my mug of coffee and my sudoku puzzle book. no loneliness there! I am fortunate enough to be a good reader, so i lose myself in books. during christmas time it is a little harder, but this is the time that i write more. i do blogs about several different things. make friends on-line, they are not all bad, after all i am there.

family is very important to me, but i realized that not everyone has a family. if one has no family, one can still be alone, but not lonely. donate time, go to some day care center and teach kids art, go to a home for the aged, cheer up the folks there that have no family. visit a children's hospital, be a clown, i kid not, when i put on that clown face, suddenly, i am in a different world. i look funny, feel funny, but most importantly, it releases all my inhibitions so that i can be funny.

i love different cultures also, and it is so much fun to relate with people of different cultures and see just how unique we all are.

when i first started having online friends of varying cultures, what fun i had! and how educational! it is amazing how much you can find out about people just by asking. now, i believe i know a lot of cultures: german, swiss, scottish, indian, italian, australian, syrian, canadian, american.

another thing that can fend away loneliness is immersing myself in my collections, my crafts, my hobbies. . . my stamps, my buttons. there is always something to sort. . . especially my thoughts! how liberating!

just don't sit around and feel sorry for yourself. get up! get busy! get a fresh new outlook on life!

L I V E!

(again, and always,
my thanks to Ernst,
for making me "beautiful". . .
and letting me believe
and feel it. . .)

artful recycling

i do a conscious act – i glorify the old, the used and the vintage.
when i have some new “old stuff” that is when I am happiest.

i have recently received the most wonderful gift there is (for no occasion at all) – a vintage buttons lot of not less than 25 kilos. imagine the joy this has given me. (well, of course not all can imagine this).

i spend eons sorting them, and in the process, my thoughts are sorted out.


buttons have recently been my art material of choice.


our culture glorifies the new: trendy garments with built-in obsolescence, quickly lose appeal when they appear on the “what’s not” side of the “what’s hot” fashion column. so they’re relegated to the back of the closet….stuffed into a bottom drawer… and, if they’re not dumped into the trash, they eventually find their way to thrift and consignment stores where they languish under the humiliation of multiple markdowns and overpopulated racks.


a treasure often hides between purple power suits and polyester broomstick skirts. and the thrill of finding a mustard dupioni silk blouse or a fine gauge british wool dress makes the sometimes exhaustive searches worthwhile.
mixed patterns...salvaged silk...souvenir scarves...exposed seams...collected buttons. . .stashed crocheted doilies. . .

recycling need not be so alien.
re-purposing is the need of our time.
whether you agree with me or not, doesn’t really matter, what matters is that when i re-purpose things, i am leading and living the example.
so, what keeps me buried in the pile of otherwise considered thrash?

my love for my art and my environment.