Question and Answer

Last week, our head of office called me for a brief conversation in his office. A 10-minute audience with the Big Boss should sound like a privilege. Somehow, I dreaded it. 

Apparently, our Human Resources Head informed him of my intention to resign. In a straightforward manner, he told me that he did not want to lose a newbie like me.  My colleagues, according to him, have very good things to say about me. My confidence was suddenly up ten notches high. For about 7 minutes, he shared a personal experience when he was based in another country and how he was able to turn one big struggle into a success story. During the first 8 minutes of my privileged encounter with the Big Boss, my motivation was reaching its peak. But towards the last 2 minutes, he dropped the big question. 

“What do you really want to do in life?” He asked.

“Well, I…”

I was dumbstruck and lost for words. When my senses finally told me to say something about being able to make an impact in the lives of people through the work that we do, he saved me just in a nick of time. 

“You don’t have to answer. I just want you to always remind yourself about what it is that you really want to do. Always ask yourself that question.” He said.

Then the 10 minutes was over.

After sleepless nights, I still don’t know how to answer the question. Of course, the answer has always been at the deepest recesses of my heart. But the courage to blurt it out, more so act on it, is something which scares the hell out of me. 

Years from now, will I forgive myself for not daring to answer that one simple question? 

A Sendoff to Mind's Ecstasy

There are self-made promises that I intend to keep.

Several months ago, I finally had the courage to have myself tested for HIV at San Lazaro Hospital in Manila. "Why?", the doctors and social welfare officers asked me in their loud voices, obviously ignorant of the hordes of patients eavesdropping on our conversation. As boldly as I can, I began by narrating the kind of lifestyle I have and ended the story with the AIDS-related death of my ex-partner. I could tell that it left the eavesdroppers' mouth open for quite some time.

Although this ex-partner and I had been separated for more than 7 years now, the 2-week waiting time was not only depressing but painfully unbearable as well. Opening the envelope to see the results was like witnessing my own future crumbling down in front of me. Instead, the results gave me a quick lecture on second chances - clearly, my favorite game of all. It is now time to pay my dues and make true the promises I made. There are exciting bargains in my to do list, and staying sober belongs to the less-exciting ones.

This is not an easy task, to say the least. The 2-week "waiting time", for instance, gave me more reason to increase on my consumption of alcohol and go on a drinking spree every night. I began to question the meaning of life, the seeming fleetingness of happiness and the eventual destruction, pain and death. These issues have always been at the back of my mind whenever I happen to drown myself in alcohol in the past 10 years, with an average of every other night. It is only of late, however, that I have begun to articulate such questions. It has made my nightly indulgence in Jack Kerouac's words more romantic: "As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a Wretch. But I love love."

However, alongside with such indulgence, as it always is with alcoholics (even for self-confessed ones like me), is the desire to articulate one's doubts, fears, and dreams in a sober kind of way. I intend to do just that. I have been intending to, in fact, for the past 10 years and every time I woke up with a really bad hang over. This time, I want to keep myself clean and sober, both from drinking and, its twin vice, smoking.

For the first time, the self-confessed alcoholic will be attending an alcoholics anonymous (AA)* meeting this Sunday in Malate Church. Let's see how this one turns out.

*A listing of AA support groups nationwide can be found at the group's database http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAPhilippines/

Hush, Hush Dawn

The early morning wind gently rustles the moonlit neighborhood as towering coconut trees, in hues of black and gold, sway in unison. The swooshing sound of the wind lulls the mind to sink further into dreamland. However, one rooster decides to break the hush of dawn. As if on cue, others follow until a hundred other crows intrude what remains of the night. 

 

A bit sleepy, my mother makes her way to my room with a kerosene lamp on her hand. She gives me a light shake and says, “Hey, time to wake up. It’s past 4 o’clock.” After making sure that I am up and about, she then goes to the bathroom to pour a kettle-full of hot water into a pail of cold water. I take a quick bath and get dressed in a span of 2 minutes. By 4:20 AM, a 14-year old boy heads out to the dark and windy streets of the town plaza, with the ever dependable morning star as his companion. 

Despite the grogginess, my eyes are wide alert as they dart from left to right. Stories of headless priests and floating nuns keep entering my mind. These ghosts, they say, are those of the early missionaries who arrived in our town almost a century ago. Stories of them lurking in every crook and cranny of the old plaza, inside our historic church and even on the grounds of a Jesuit-run school where I attend classes are enough to make early morning trips like this quite a challenge. 

From the plaza, the sound of ruffling Acacia leaves on the dusky street greets me as I approach our century-old church situated on the top of a hill. With the sudden gush of fresh cold wind, the dry fallen leaves seem to float on mid-air, swirl with each other, and slowly descend on the ground before playfully rolling on the pavement once more. The icy breeze makes me shiver as I bear witness to this spectacle of rustling leaves, while being cautious, at the same time, of the ghostly priests and nuns. With my arms crossed and my back leaning on the immense church façade, and as my black innocent eyes try to pierce through the vast dark square, I feel my senses - sight, smell and hearing - heighten with the eerie grandeur of dawn.

After a while, I proceed at the back of the church which overlooks a gorge, and beyond it, the beautiful expanse of Palawan bay. The sea, smooth and silvery from afar, seems to bask in the moon’s full glory. I am tempted to indulge some more until I notice a flicker of light coming from the church’s back entrance. With my heart pounding, I stealthily walk through the Sacristy and grab a candle in front of an old mirror. What I see on the fuzzy reflection makes me freeze in terror. Behind me is a white robe, or rather a headless priest, floating in mid-air and gliding away before disappearing around a corner. I try to scream but no words come out of my mouth. With my hair rising, I run out of the room as fast as I can until I find myself back on the square. Catching my breath and, by now, holding a flameless candle, I notice Fr. JC’s white pick-up parked just a few yards away. 

Reluctantly, I head back to the sacristy door and loudly call for Fr. JC, our school director and parish priest. Instead of a headless priest, Fr. JC appears in his white robe and greets me in his usual jolly manner. He asks if I came in a little earlier as he heard someone entering the room a few minutes ago. Feeling foolish, I wonder to myself if it is he whom I mistook for the ghost. This thought calms me down enough for me to put on my altar boy’s robe, light all the candles and make sure that the thurible to be used for incense burning is ready. Fr. JC reminds me that we have 15 minutes before the 5 o'clock mass beings - meaning, as the only sacristan present, it is time for me to ring the church bell. 

Inside the bell tower, I pull the rope repeatedly to swing the giant bell and hope that such act will prevent the ghosts from appearing, at least temporarily. The sound it creates reverberates across the plaza and into every other direction, pulling everyone from a state of deep slumber into a sense of heightened awakening – physical and otherwise.

Like the cries of a hundred roosters, or the sound of rustling leaves, or even the thought of a headless priest, I, too, break the stillness of the dawn.

Moonlit Escapades* (1)

After a scorching but fun-filled day, highlighted mostly by roller coaster rides via speedboat to far-flung islands in Tawi-tawi, we headed back to the capital town of Bongao. At the Beachside Inn, a refreshing shower and an ice-cold beer was what we exactly needed. We had the hotel's  beachfront restaurant all by ourselves and would have gladly called it a night if not for a dinner invitation courtesy of the town mayor.

While waiting for our ride, we noticed a commotion from afar. “The monster is eating the moon!”, shouted a hotel staff with his eyes fixed on the dark night sky. Other hotel crew started running to the beach for a better view as gun fires, sounds of clanging metals and other sorts of indistinguishable noise interrupted what could have been the start of a relaxing night.

With all these commotion going on, I easily dismantled my fear having been used to the peaceful environment of Tawi-Tawi. Looking up at the endless dome of the night sky, we were bewildered to realize what was going on. The moon was being gradually covered by a black, circular object until there was only total darkness left. It was a lunar eclipse. The moon, indeed, had just been eaten by a monster!

Under the dark, starless sky, I bathed in that blissful moment. Intense cries from nearby houses further magnified the massive, uneasy feeling brought about by the coinciding event of the Nispu celebration, a Muslim thanksgiving for the souls. Infected by the locals' demeanor, we held our breath for an eternity until a wax-like light appeared on the dark sky. It was crescent, until it became full once again. With their faces beaming in gold, the locals cheered endlessly. They believed that the noises had distracted the monster, called Bakunawa in Tausug, from eating the moon.

Keeping my gaze on the moon, I wondered if, on other parts of the archipelago, people also saw a delicious fruitcake and a starving monster when they looked up the sky.

*Reposted from sometime in 2006

Moonlit Escapades* (2)

At the Mayor’s resort, dinner was waiting for us on the tip of a bridge located miles away from the shore. Our gracious host shared funny stories of his political survival as we devoured the elaborately prepared Tausug dish amid the wistful breeze of the Tawi-Tawi sea. 

After sipping the native coffee, the younger ones slipped from the group. I headed towards a spot which faces the mystical Bongao Peak. I had climbed BudBongao, as the mountain is alternately called, for several times since my arrival last year. Locals claim some mystical powers to it. On top lies the grave of a legendary Muslim prophet (so the locals say) which I had seen myself. At the top, the view overlooks the bay and the surrounding island municipalities which, as part of my immersion, I had been to as well.

Tonight, I was ecstatic to find contrasting views. This time, it was the other way around (I was now looking up at the Bongao Peak from the ocean, rather than vice versa). In addition, I was also looking from the night’s point of view. From my spot, the moon shone brightly as it hovered around Bongao Peak, almost kissing it but not quite. 

Breathless with such a view, I called out to a colleague and borrowed his Canon digital SLR. We took turns in playing around with the lenses while taking numerous attempts at the full moon. We were literally breathless so as not to affect the quality of the shots. 

Looking through the lenses while hearing a familiar song being sung by the locals made me delirious. On the shore, they were singing a Tausug song entitled Tawi-Tawi Beach. The song narrates the sad story of an American soldier and a Tausug lady who fell in love along Tawi-Tawi Beach only to be separated forever. Every night, he would wait for his lady along that strip knowing she would never be there. Then, it occurred to me how the moon and the mountain looked like unrequited lovers. For a moment, they were an inch apart to each other, but could never possibly touch.

As the song neared the sad ending, I peeked through the lenses and saw the moon inching away from Bongao Peak. They seemed to be having a quarrel only to meet once again in the millions of nights to come. The night was perfect and I had been through one of the most nostalgic experiences ever. Indeed, Tawi-Tawi never fails to amaze me. I thought that I had seen it all but I was always in for spectacular surprises. 

Tonight, my Tawi-Tawi experience told me stories that lie beneath the moon, only if we take a longer peek, be dazed at its crude death, and witness its golden rebirth, when once again, it hovers on some mystical peak to pass on its ageless story of survival, as a hundred other stories are being sung along the moonlit lovers’ shore.

*Reposted from sometime in 2006