bonsai – Edith Tiempo

All that I love

I fold over once

And once again

And keep in a box

Or a slit in a hollow post

Or in my shoe.

All that I love?

Why, yes, but for the moment —

And for all time, both.

Something that folds and keeps easy,

Son’s note or Dad’s one gaudy tie,

A roto picture of a young queen,

A blue Indian shawl, even

A money bill.

It’s utter sublimation

A feat, this heart’s control

Moment to moment

To scale all love down

To a cupped hand’s size,

Till seashells are broken pieces

From God’s own bright teeth.

And life and love are real

Things you can run and

Breathless hand over

To the merest child.

- Edith L. Tiempo

before sunrise, baguio

 

(19 April 2009)

View from hotel room window.

broken body part, please mend

Soon, i hope.  Then, I’d be back in business, thinking of the stuff that used to preoccupy me; living today thinking of tomorrow instead of last year’s (winternovember).

 

I’ve been greatly inconvenienced already — spent precious peso, in this time of crisis, on beloved books, essential movies, sovereign food.  But, most unforgivable, wonderful sleep is reduced to a measly half of what I used to have.  Work has felt like work since; wanderlust seems about to kick in.

 

broken body part, are you truly? 

do you ever mend, really?

 

take me away.  take me along.  

but, please, to a place happy, body parts healthy.  and i hope, i hope, it would be a bright bright beautiful day.

‘doing the needful’

Yes, breathing in and breathing out.  Starting this post with a positive word.  Filling days  and nights with thoughts of work.  Composing pleadings inside my head.  Attempting to come up with brilliant arguments.  Reading novels again.  Writing for a reader of one.  Surfing the net, as usual.  Trying to plug this continental gap within with thoughts of things I should be grateful for and happy about.

May there be an end (to this), and once again, life!!!

English Genius Test

My rating.  (What?  Only 87% expert?!?!)  :D

“You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 87% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can’t find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don’t. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you’re not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!  For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.”

 

Take the exam: www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-commonly-confused-words-test

care for a stevie nicks?

 

video courtesy of LadyVolsRock posted at youtube.

gracevill at the happiest place on earth

Just before 2008 closed, I was feeling saddest so I went to the happiest place on earth.  (Actually, the trip was planned by good friends way before I felt saddest.  At any rate…)

 

We missed the Golden Mickeys, but we caught the wonderful and surprisingly satisfying PhilharMagic.

For fifteen minutes, one could feel like a kid again.  One (or just the ridiculously sad) could even shed a tear or two as Aladdin sings to Jasmine and promises to show her the world.

The fireworks at the end did not disappoint.  We were unexpectedly moved.  (Or, are we truly getting old?)  Failed to get a photo of that.  But, I do have a not-so-good one of Main St. after the show…

Didn’t like myself too much when I was there.  Didn’t like myself too much for most of our stay in HK.  I was in an (unknown, uncharacteristic state?) and found almost everything annoying.  In fact, when we alighted from the bus at Disney, I was quite nasty when I told my friend about a kababayan family:  ”Look at that father, why is he still sitting there when his sons have been very excited about this trip?  What? Is he waiting for us to give him directions?”  

Later after the show, my friend and I went round and round the parking lot looking for our bus.  For around twenty minutes we were doing the rounds.  Around thirty buses became four.  And just before I totally lost my cool, a man went down from an unfamiliar bus and called us, his words, in our language, like salvation: “Miss, kayo yung kasama namin sa bus kaninang umaga, di ba?  Dito tayo ngayon.”  (Miss, we were together in the bus earlier, right? We take this bus tonight.)

We (or I?) could kiss him, shower him with gifts, drive the bus for him, but since we (I) couldn’t, my friend and I just thanked him and his family as they got off at their hotel. So to our now dear kababayans, who stayed at the Royal Prince HK sometime in early December last year, this girl apologizes.  May the new year bring you more blessings and may you stay in good health.

TY MMVIII

For the following:

January – the chance to live my dream;

February – TRO;

March – community and solidarity;

April –  new people and places; hard work and the unexpected commendation;

May – free and fresh logic board for NY (my iBook baby); fresh apartment (not free, though);

June – WPI;

July – Strength and smarts in the face of someone that swore to slaughter; liberation from a leech;

August – personal and inter-personal growth;

September – validation of who I am  and the opportunity to be reminded of who my true friends are;

October – life; and a winning case;

November ******

December – family and friends; HK to try my new shoes and hat in — ms. nice is momentarily left in the RP; a time to rest.

Thank you, Lord, for one of the best years of my life, and for this one that’s just about to start.

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.)

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.