Apulung Banua

Capat a aldo

Ning ica-limang bulan.

Aduang pulung banua,

Sinaguli milabas.

Aduang pulung banua,

Miragdag quing idad.

Aduang pulung banua,

Ing adua, meging lima.

Aduang pulung banua,

Asadsad.

Misadsad caia,

Aduang pulu pang banua?

Miragdagan siguradu ing lima,

Aduang pulu pang banua.

Agiu ning catauan caia,

Aduang pulu pang banua?

Saguli lumabas,

Aduang pulu pang banua.

Quing ica-limang bulan

Ica-apat a aldo.

Sweet November

Lolling on the couch one lazy afternoon with one mobile phone on each hand, my attention was caught by a scene on the television wherein a lady was called upon by the instructor to turn in her paper because of cheating.
Sara failed the test for a driver’s license because of Nelson, a fellow test-taker.  Sara then pestered Nelson to drive her around and be with her for a month with a promise that she will change his life for the better. Nelson is a typical career guy, someone who doesn’t have the time to “stop-and-smell-the-flowers”, while Sara is someone who embraces and savors life and lives for the present. 

Sara: Just let it happen. Please don’t go.

Nelson: Why?

Sara: Because you know you don’t want to go.

I believe this is the first turning point for Nelson - an unconscious admittance of his feelings for Sara.  Thus, paving the way for a Sweet November. So sweet a month it was indeed that passed for both that Nelson did learn to be more appreciative of life’s little pleasures which brought about the resultant marriage proposal to Sara.


It was hinted that Sara had various “months” somehow making light of her time with Nelson. But it was quickly dispelled with Sara’s words that although she has received other marriage proposals in the past, this is the first time she felt tempted to say yes.  Sara turned down Nelson’s proposal and requested him to leave for November is finished. Unspoken but most important, her days are numbered.


Does imminent death really bring out the best in us? Does the knowledge that we’ll soon be departing this earthly life, make things clearer for us inside? Is that the only time we could see the beauty in simplicity? The only time wherein we could fully embrace life without thinking of society-dictated norms? 


Sara’s choice of a gift for Nelson – and for her too - is the good memories. She preferred having memories of the November love they shared be untainted by sickness and sorrow which her last days will surely bring. She chose to spend her remaining days only within the bosom of her family. 


A day in December to recreate and lengthen the sweet November was staged by Nelson. The room was festooned by November calendars. A declaration that November was all he will ever know, ever want to know. A night again spent in each other’s arms – a bubble of November in December. Daylight came with reality as imposed by Sara.  November, really finished and gone. Only good memories for both, thus goodbye.


Was Sara fair in this decision? Did she not rob Nelson of a chance to continue to show his love and care for her? Would memories of her sick and dying days, really taint the love they share? Should loving consist only of the good times?

“Now turn away, ‘Cause am awful just to see

‘Cause all my hair’s abandoned all my body

Oh my agony

Know that I will never marry

Baby, am just soggy from the chemo

But counting down the days to go.

It just ain’t living and I just hope you know

That if you say goodbye today

I’d asked you to be true

‘Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you”

I prefer the way this song, Cancer, of My Chemical Romance went than the movie. At least in the song, the ill partner may continually bid the other to turn away, but they are together. That is what love is for me. That is what commitment is for me. The good and bad. The joy and sorrow.  As long as there is love to share, breath to live, why leave each other just to spare one or the other sorrow and bear death without your other half.

Serendipity

Feeling out of sorts, I perused my son’s video files on the netbook. There is only one movie title I was somehow familiar with. So I settled in to watch.

Serendipity.

Fate.

Destiny.

Soulmates.

Pipe Dream.

Two complete strangers who met by chance and spent a few hours in a single night.

How did they become so attached to each other? How did those few hours mean so much to the both of them? Attraction? Spark? Good conversation? A meeting of minds - of souls?

They had their separate romantic relationships which progressed to marriage proposals. But they still thought of each other. The guy even backed out of his own wedding on the day itself despite of the fact that his last-minute search for the girl proved futile.

Why?

How?

They say life is stranger than fiction. But for me, this is one of those which prove that wrong.  The premise was signs. What if one cannot interpret signs? The precise question should actually be, what if those purported signs are not signs at all?

The movie ended with them together celebrating an anniversary. Did they live happily-ever-after? How many years did they actually spend together after that last scene, if they did not have the fairy-tale ending? If they did not stay together forever-and-ever-amen, then what was the point of the whole concept?

A few days ago, I again came across Richard Bach’s quote.

“A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”

I have never fully subscribed to the idea of soulmates. If one does find such, then am ecstatic for them. They are truly lucky and or blessed. But it wouldn’t mean I would believe in the concept. My mind says that this is too perfect to be true. My heart, of course, goes fluttery and yearns for one such perfectly glorious relationship.

A pipe dream.

Aini, Sinulat Na Cu


Bull's eye! Mituran cung tune't tutu. Caiari cung binasa ini: http://siwalangsinukuan.wordpress.com/pamanigaral/ 

Pamuclat pamu, e cu na balung sabian quing Amanung Sisuan. Macananu cu caia macapagcudtang masalese?

Ua naman, paniualan cung ing pamisulat, anti ia mu quing cacatac. Oneng paniualan cu naman a sadiang malagua ing manuru quesa quing daptan o gauan mu ing mismung simbitla mu.

Mamie cu mu sanang comentu quing macapasquil a ian. Oneng acarinaian cung icabit carin ing canacung comentu aniang iquit cu deng aliuang comentu. Baquit amo? O caiabe cu pin pala careng Maquipasari quing bilungan aita e! Caibat aquit da reng talabasa ing metung careng maquipasari e bisang (e biasang) susulat?! Nuco! Siguradung e mu saping o sagap ing tacman cu careng caiabe cu carin - figuratively, of course. I hope. (Lauen iu na, e cu taganang misadsad a e misamut ing Ingles ne? Macananu uari ing "figuratively, of course. I hope," quing Capampangan?)

Nanu na pala ing sinabi na? "E mu na panenaian isable ra ca queng bacud-alambri at palangui ra cang anti’ng daing." Aro! Ayni o, susulat/cacatac na cu! 

Quetang mitagan cung blog a pacasalicut cu at anga man ngeni, ala man apulung catau deng maquibalu, asambitla cu na carin a tatacut cung sumulat pasibaiu. Oneng ngana pin nining saneseng ibat quing bilungan, anti ia mu pin naman quing simpling cacatac ing pamaniulat. Caralas cu pamong cacatac ngeni quing facebook patungcul careng mialiuang issues. Cadalasan mu pin quing amanung Ingles.

Oneng carin, mangacuiad mu deng cacatac cu. Caibat atin maquibat. Caibat maquibat cu naman. Ini, acung dili. Anti cung magsabi-sabi. Mag-monologue. Paquiramdam cu ita uli na ning cacarugan cu ing pamaniulat. Lalus na ngening miabe cu rugu carening matenacan a talasulat at poeta. Pota ing isulat cu matsura ia, lunto la pang macarine deng caiabe cu.

Dirinan cu lang camarinaian. Pota atin macasabi carelang ot ninanu la at meluse-luse la at aisip dang iabe ing anti cacung alang beluan. Ita ing mabaiat cung sangcan quing panaun a iti. Quing panga-abe cu quing bilungan a ita, lalus cu iatang metaloti.

Quing cadaldal cung ini, dacal cu taganang asulat. Lauen iu, mecaba ne ini, e uari? Oneng masalese ne man caia ini? Istu ia caia pangasulat? Ing pangagamit da reng amanu? Ing pangagaua da reng sentences? Ing pangabalangcas? Minie ia caiang tula o sora? Aili o sibactung?

Bala na. E na cu siguru "misable quing bacud-alambri" uling quinatac na cu. Mecad palangian da na cu mung "anti'ng daing" uling macasorang babasan ining quetac cu.

Dead Women Walking
by: Women's Rights

Dead woman walking,
her spirit all but gone;
a long forgotten memory
called happiness
flitting through the
dark recesses
of her mind…

She does her chores
mechanically, like clockwork,
knowing that she only has
a few quiet hours
in which to finish
before they all tumble
in through the door…

Her thoughts are on
auto-pilot, her motions
concise and efficient,
knowing that it all
must be perfect
before he gets home
or they will all
suffer at his hands…

As she passes the mirror,
at first glance all she sees
is the dirt that needs
to be wiped clean,
but then, as her gaze
falls on her own face
she freezes at what
she sees in her
own reflection…

How did she get so old at 45?

And as she peers into the
question that haunts her,
revealed within her
quizzical expression,
she gently lays down
the cleaning cloth,
smooths back her hair,
walks through the front door…

......and never looks back.


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=287358874685854&set=a.235888893166186.59323.126612230760520&type=1

A Voracious Reader

As a voracious reader, I devoured pages. When I start a book, I almost always do not stop until I have finished it. I bring the book everywhere with me – on the dining table, in bed, in the bathroom, on the road, in meetings. I do not skip paragraphs nor do I take a peek at the last page or the last chapter. Absolutely cover to cover.

My biggest book-buying spree was for Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I got books one to eleven and the prequel in two successive days. My favourite bookstore had a sale and some of these titles came with a 60% discount sticker. How could anyone resist? Since then, the next two books have been released and I gave read them. Waiting for the last two is agony. When the last instalment is released, in paperback version, I would again start with the prequel and go through the entire sixteen books with no other books in between. I want to relish the story from start to end.

Novels, tests, do-it-yourself, school textbooks, and magazines are what populate my shelves. I often shy away from religious, self-help, history, philosophy, and psychology books because I prefer reading these in small amounts. Biographies do not interest me that much too. I bought The Art of War, The Purpose Driven Life, and Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul in the hopes of drumming enough interest in reading these. It didn’t.

A gift of Leo Buscaglia’s Living, Loving and Learning interested me enough to buy the rest of his titles. Those I have read several times with the occasional peeks for those times I felt the need to see his words again.

Alvin Toffler is another author I would like to see on my shelves. I have read his three titles and I would like to reread them but I haven’t caught them with a sale sticker yet.

With the proliferation of free ebooks on the net, I have downloaded so many titles but I haven’t had the chance to read them all. I felt I turned into a hoarder at one point – download and save. One of these days, I really have to find the time to sort them all out, file accordingly, and read.
But a real book is what does it for me. Ebooks do not give me the entire sensorial experience I get from real books. I like turning pages. I like seeing the battered cover and pages. I love the smell of both new and old books. That is probably why I haven’t really read the ebooks I have on file.

Kapampangan poetry books, a Kapampangan linguistic book, Carlos Castaneda. These are what I have on my bedside table along with The Real Frank Zappa, Brains and Realities, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, and two English poetry collections on ebooks on my android.

The linguistic book is what taught me how not to read from cover to cover. It defeated my reading style. So I give it a read nowadays a page at a time whenever I feel the urge for learning something more on Kapampangan words.

So I moved on to the Kapampangan poetry books. I love poetry but I usually read a poem at a time. But I felt that since I have lately become used to reading several of these in one go on my facebook groups, I thought I could do my cover-to-cover thing. Again, it didn’t work. In the trying, my belief firmed that a poem has to be fully savoured and not hurried through.

To Castaneda I went. (Actually, I should finish it as soon as possible because my copies are only on loan. The owner surely would want to have it back.) Although it is classified under philosophy, psychology, and psychiatry, it is presented in a story-like fashion – my kind of book. But then again, I found myself stopping after a few pages or a chapter. Reading a part makes me want to stop reading further until such time I have recorded my reactions, questions, and reflections on that particular part. I tried bookmarking certain paragraphs and pages wherein I felt the need to say my piece and go back to those when I have the time. The book is now much thicker with Stickons and I do not have the luxury of time for writing down my reflections.

During the times I do not have any of these books with me; I read the ebooks on my android. But I haven’t finished anything yet. I like the biography but I do not enjoy reading a book on this gadget.

With all these starts and stops, I feel like I do not know how to read a book anymore. I felt that it would do me a world of good if I would replace, just for a time, these books with my usual books. So I took down Anne Rice’s Vampire Armand and I did not let it leave my hands for several days. It failed to catch my interest as before. I replaced it with John Grisham’s A Painted House. Then, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six. Then, Richard North Patterson’s In the Eyes of a Child. Then, Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta. Then, Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis. Then, Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight. Then, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Nothing caught and held my attention as before. My mind wanders back to those books I haven’t finished.

Puzzling out the whys and hows of this impasse is something I do not want to delve into further at this point. I would just give the time it would require for this into reading the books themselves. Maybe then the answer to this conundrum would present itself clearly and easily after I manage to finish one or two of those books.