Underwater

 

I vow to survive this month because I know that

my reward is to finally get myself some of these

lovely healthy food

March, here you are again. The glorious, high waters of March coming right back at my door.

When March arrives, I always think of Aguas de Marco

The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone
The beat of the road, a slingshot's stone
A fish, a flash, a silvery glow
A fight, a bet, the flange of a bow
The bed of the well, the end of the line
The dismay in the face, it's a loss, it's a find

~

March is the time of the year when I have to hold my breath, not unlike swimming. It is being under. Deep deep under, but not the sort of contained water, it is being in the swirly, dizzy, ever-morphing layers of water. Yes, water has layers. Observe when we swim, there are different pressures, different water temperatures, different gradations of water, have you ever noticed that?

Somehow, these waters of March are mesmerizing. They entice and they lead you to follow them. But to explore  them thoroughly and to catalog them, that's an impossible task. Water refuses to be analyzed and named and rationalized, they don't even want to be contained, it is rude for them. That's one part of their nature. But why do I keep on trying to do it? Why oh why? I tried to understand myself and I tried to explain to myself, but to no avail.

The funny thing is, when I finally decide to leave the waters alone, after a while and after they realized it, they keep on coming to me. They get back to me like a deluge or, like an angry storm, or sometimes both at the same time. So, my poor self is always drenched. Both sides, above and below, heaven and earth. What a poor, poor soul I have.

I have tried running away. I have tried avoiding them. I have tried floating away, but then they will come around and find me and I have no choice but to engage with them. No use running away, they will find me anyway.

What to do? What to do?

I have to build a system where I can co-exist with them harmoniously. 

Am I making sense?

I am not, and I don't care.

I will just keep on listening to Aguas de Marco.

Interchange #32

Makin Whoopee | Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman

😍

Interchange #31

You Make Me Feel Brand New | Performed by Simply Red

You're someone whom I can depend

To walk a path that sometimes bends

Without you

Life has no meaning or rhyme

Like notes to a song out of time

Interchange #30

If you don't know me by now | Simply Red  

We've all got
Our own funny moods
I've got mine
I bet you woman you've got yours too

~

Another day has come and gone.

Another day has passed and my work piled up a little higher than yesterday

Another day of reading, researching and taking mental notes

Another day for students to expand their vocabulary bank

Another day to re-create my cave, because I will stay there for an entire moon cycle

Another day to talk to parents of my students, informing them that I need a short break from it all

Another day to conduct initial interview, and to find out how the middle child is usually the reserved quiet and wise one.

Another day to polish my game plan for finishing my report

Another day to finish house chores and duties for a smooth sailing day

Another day to contemplate profound life questions: like why did I give you my most important planets: moon and Venus. Did I make a pact with you in any of my past lives? And what could be that pact? Where will it lead?

Another day to cultivate 

Another day to rest

Interchange #29

Ghost in You | Performed by Robyn Hitchcock

A race is on I'm on your side
And hearing you my engines die
I'm in a mood for you

Return of Lost Things (or friends and anything in between)

Of course, my dear readers, what do I love most in life is to make a list. Today is another one of them.

The title of this list is really simple, the return of lost things. As simple as it means, I have been seeing a trend of objects, people, ideas and circumstances coming back to life and they have been making themselves felt. I thought I have lost them for good, but no, they have a way of coming back. They sometimes even force their way into coming back to my life, but my energy is just enough for my daily routine and even now my energy is barely enough to hold my routine in the house in this pandemic era.

So, here we go

(A) Guadi is back! This one is a very happy news for me. If you may recall, Guadi died last August, but this weekend, my mom forced me to resurrect it by going to laptop repair shop. Yay, it worked. Guadi, my beloved overworked laptop is now given a second life. Welcome back to the living side of the world Guadi. I actually believed that you deserve the 6-month rest because you have been enduring impossible working schedules in the most grueling places and circumstances for the last 3 years. I am of course very guilty for making you work so hard, but you have endured it with me. And you know how lost I was when you temporarily died. But here, you are back in my arms again. It's so lovely to be working day and night with you again Guadi. Please stay longer with me this time, okay? I promise I will take good care of you, but I cannot promise that you will work lesser hours, sorry. But I know you know what it means to be my laptop right? 

So welcome back to the living part of the world Guadi ^^

(B) Doing my online classes in my bedroom instead of living room.

Mom and I had a bitter fight last week. She was tired of me banishing them to different parts of the house because I demanded a lot of space and quiet time when I am doing my online classes. Of course, I have known my mom my whole life, she is the kind who will only endure within her set limits, eventually when you overstep the boundary, she will retaliate with a bomb. I guessed I have been walking the fine line of her boundary until one day I overstepped, so she exploded and I was sent away from the living room before I could muster a proper look of surprise. I wasn't given a time to digest what happened at all, she just bullishly attacked me verbally and so I lost. That's really her style. It is still scary until now for me. My adult self is still scared of my mom, tbh.

(C) Friends starting to keep in touch

Oh yeah, I am sorry about this. No energy to answer and even I am at a lost on how to even start a catch up script in my mind. Like, hi how are you? Have you been well? How was your Christmas, New Year? blah blah. No, I couldn't imagine myself going through the stale script. I just wanted to be quiet. I am not a snob, it is just my energy doesn't support extra social communication right now. I am stretched in my online classes, housework duties and other writing projects daily, I can't seem to muster anymore energy to cover socmed conversation. Maybe eventually. But definitely not now.

(D) My old papers in my graduate studies

These ones, I actively dug them up from my vault. Interesting how we really change perspectives as years passed. I had been reading many old papers that I have written four, or three years back. Some of them I still hold true for myself but some of them, I need to trim or edit to sound genuine and true to my current state of mind.

So far, that's it.

 

Belated happy valentines my dear readers, I hope you had a wonderful time yesterday ^^

A Completely Un-thought of Rant because I am way past a lot of my deadlines and my mind can't seem to think and focus

It's one of those days when you know you had a lot to do but the mind just wanders off somewhere. Been having a hard time concentrating lately, must be information overload or maybe it is just burn out eating away at my flesh of goals, flaming again and again, consuming the little energy left in me, without even a slight sign that it is even going to go away or leaving anytime soon.

I ask again and again, what is missing? Why can't I feel completely merged with my goals? Why can't I concentrate, there is something missing? What is lacking in the recipe? I need the spark. I need to look at the bigger picture to see clearly and to do that I need to step back and let life play out in front of me. I must have gotten so involved, too close for comfort, that's why I lost the details.

So, I need to detach, step back and observe. 

Probably, I will find it.

Well, I hope I find it sooner.