The Sun Also Rises*

As in almost all things, I was quite late in discovering the ladies…

 

Schoolday mornings were lolo’s AM radio (which I didn’t mind; the DECS Sec. announcing suspension of classes was always welcome); weekends were the neighbors’ ‘islands in the stream’ or the cousin’s chicago – scarring somebody I know for life.  At any rate…

…One blessed summer’s day, while going from room to room of the grandparents’ house, with nothing better to do and nothing in mind, I heard the first three wonderful notes of the song that would, at some of the most godawful times, make me feel like…

… I would conquer Civil Procedure;

… the little thing I was doing mattered in this universe; or,

… there would be an end to all things evil and sad in this big bad world.

There was also one silly time when I convinced myself that my pain was real, and had a specific prayer courtesy of the ladies.  And, other sillier times to the tune of track no. 5.

But on real and true days when the world gets a little too crazy, this afore-cited one still manages to make somebody I know, get up and rise with the sun.

 

(* Apologies to the excellent Mr. H.)

r+r=not

A male friend mentioned a female friend’s name oh-so-casually, and i sensed… he’s into her.  All evening I was plotting how to get them together.  I liked the idea that I could set them up.  This plotting did not mean that I have tried it, or that I was successful with past attempts.  My average is 0-1 (a former officemate, male lawyer, is into football and his favorite is Henry; a good friend, female lawyer, is Fangirl and her favorite is Henry.  I saw “wedded bliss” etched across the sky!… Obviously, this did not work as two months after I saw “wedded bliss” etched across the sky, he got married to his girlfriend of 8 years.  Anyway… )

I just thought, why not?  He’s interested; she’s game.  My female friend could need a boy to pick her up, accompany her to movies, carry her grocery bags, order food for her, drive her to work, pay her bills (literally), and just do her general bidding.  Male friend has a car and business of his own, so i figured, he could move his schedule around hers.  (I sound terrible, I know;  I’m just trying to be funny.  Anyway…) 

I was excited and all set to schedule a date when…

…one random evening, during dessert of heavenlysinful strawberry shortcake, male friend, to the horror of the four ladies around the table, takes his fork, cuts the slice of cake in half thereby taking the best, most sinfulheavenly part, and plops it to his saucer just like that!

All my plans for male friend and female friend went kaput at the sight of the…er… distasteful behavior.  Unsolicited tip to the other half of the population: dessert is serious business for (most) ladies. 

Buti na lang ‘di ko pa sila na-set up.  Pa’no na lang kung kasal na sila?

p.s.

Bliss basis #1: football?  Bliss basis #2: command and obedience?  Matchmaker and relationship guru I am not.

* photo courtesy of darensberries.com

girl, like the title to a pedro almodovar movie

What was it? The distress call that required legal action asap? Questions and messages pouring in at five-second intervals? On top of technical issues, the expectation to catalogue, audit, keep an inventory? That the good soldier grins and bears things? That the good and wise swallow things that needed to be swallowed because the condition could not be otherwise? That after all these years, denial is still the name of the game, or at best, hope? Or, the decision, that she would not do anything to alter what is; and then to bear things and grin.

rimbaud for my day

It’s my birthday today and I got a beautiful poem.  A line reminded me of somebody; one i shall very soon forget, or at the very least, remember only with fondness.

Scholars say the poem is about an imaginary being.  In my universe, how apt…  Perhaps, it can be about the Creator, too?  This thought makes me happy.

Thanks to Roxy for…

Génie

 

He is affection and the present because he has made the house which is open to the frothy winter and to the murmur of summer, he who has purified drink and food, he who is the charm of fugitive places and the superhuman delight of halts. He is the affection and the future, the strength and the love which we, standing in rage and boredom, see passing in the stormy sky among banners of ectasy.

He is love, the measure perfect and reinvented, marvellous and unexpected reason, and eternity: beloved machine of the fatal powers. We have all known the terror of his yielding and of our own: O delight in our health, impetus of our faculties, selfish affection and passion for him, him who loves us for his eternal life…

And we call him back to us and he travels on… And if Adoration goes away, ring, his promise rings: “Away with these superstitions, these old bodies, these couples and these ages. It is this epoch that has sunk!”

He will not go away, he will not descend from any heaven again, he will not achieve the redemption of women’s anger and men’s gaieties and all that sin: because it is done, because he exists and is loved.

O his breaths, his heads, his runnings; the terrible swiftness of the perfection of forms and of action.

O fruitfulness of the mind and immensity of the universe.

His body! The dreamed-of redemption, the shattering of grace meeting with new violence!

The sight of him, the sight of him! all the old kneelings and pains lifted at his passing.

His light! the abolition of all audible and moving suffering in more intense music.

His step! migrations more enormous than the old invasions.

O He and We! pride more benign than wasted charities.

O world! and the clear song of new misfortunes!

He has known us all and has loved us all. May we know, this winter night, from promontory to promontory, from the tumultuous pole to the country house, from the multitude to the beach, from looks to looks, strength and feelings wearied, how to hail him and see him, and to send him away, and beneath the tides and at the top of the deserts of snow, to follow his vision, his breath, his body, his light.

- As translated by Oliver Bernard: Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962)