TINY STORIES NO. 2: A GIFT WITHIN GIFTS

Overly grainy photo y'all

We both laughed when I read the statement on the paper bag: Please enjoy this extraordinary act of generosity. In our circle of friends, I am not bragging when I say that I am the giver among us all. When February rolled in, they have begun asking me questions like “What gift do you want?”, “Are you sure you don’t want anything specific?”, “This is your last chance, what book do you want to receive?”  I can’t suppress my laughter when a friend told me how they talked about what to get me, or how to make up for what I did for their birthdays. Years ago, maybe I would have asked them to spoil me with material things, but maybe it comes with growing up that we learn to value more of the people around us rather than the gifts they give. But I do appreciate the efforts they went through to reciprocate what I’ve done for their birthdays (a letter with sincere words is more than enough for me).

FOR ALL THE GIRLS WITHIN US

On a page torn from a notebook was the trademark cursive handwriting of my mother, allowing words to flow on each line. Holding the promise of my name: It seems you’re a mixture of both. Sometimes angelic, sometimes a menace. Maybe you can do your own research when you grow up. I may have always love the name, but not as much as I love you. Happy 5th birthday! With love always, Nanay.

It was the oldest letter that I have, my 5-year-old-self wouldn’t have understood the depth of it but now this is one of the closest thing that I hold dearly in my heart. In just a few sentences, Nanay told me what my name meant but more than that – what I mean to her. I guess letters will never lose its charms because they contain stories, the contain the heart of the sender, and they capture that of the receiver. It’s a simple way of saying that you value a person that much to put your thoughts in paper. And if this is the case Isa Garcia must have thought about girls or women in all shapes, status, or stages in life long enough to have written letters bounded by a spine strong enough to hold her hopes, fears, and dreams. With this we know that her book not only contains her words, but also her heart.

SEEING THE SIGNS AND THE WONDERS

These words have been long overdue. They were repeatedly contained in my prayers, written on my journal, typed through posts in social media, and stored through locked notes in my phone. Not being a wordsmith makes it longer for me to piece them together, just like what I always say: bear with me, as I try to connect the stars that formed my constellation (okay, that was too poetic). But these made me sure of three things on the art universe:

1.  A COMPLIMENT CAN GO A LONG WAY AND WARM A PERSON’S HEART IF YOU SAY IT SINCERELY (it’s easy to tell when it’s just lip service). Mine came last January 2015. We were busy doing our vision boards when Ms. Rhiza came to our table and said: You really have an eye for art.

2015 Vision board. Image on the center was an illustration by Cla Gregorio, cut out from Scout Magazine.

TINY STORIES NO. 1: STRANGER THAN FICTION

“You should stop reading fiction books and start reading these titles.” Mother said as she pointed to the stack of books in her workstation, bearing titles like Talent Is Not Enough, The Path to Wealth, and more business like words that doesn’t fascinate me enough to pay 10 seconds of attention.

“It’s different for everybody. My inspiration isn’t rooted in those kind of genres.” I quipped. Cutting the conversation short, just in case it would just turn into another argument or debate that I might be forced to engaged in.

I tend to put my thoughts in a back burner until I’m sure that they’re good enough to be served. The rest of the words here might be what I hold back during that day. 

QUARTER ONE READS

Reactivating my Goodreads account has pushed me to lower the stack of books that has already gathered dust in the bookshelf. To say that my to-be-read pile is out of control seems like an understatement. The nerd in me would express this in a simple equation that the books I read is indirectly proportional to the books I buy. At the start of the year, I had an agreement with a friend that I would only buy a book every three months (and if I end up breaking this rule I need to buy her one too, so far I only failed once). Ah, the extreme measures that I must do just to control my impulse buying and hoarding tendencies. 

The books I pick up to read are based on my “mood”; some sort of gut feel that the story would match my emotions or whatever I’m currently going through in life. Here’s the chosen ones for the first quarter of the year and some of my thoughts about it:

FOR THE GIRL WHO DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO COOK

Photo grabbed from hookedonhouses.net 

 

First, you are not alone. If you think that you're a glitch to the feminine species who seem to be equipped with natural skills in whipping up food that tastes good, I repeat you are not alone. 

Second, there’s actually hope for you. Society seems to align us into a stereotype that cooking should be innate in a woman, but trust me cooking maybe a talent for some. But sometimes, it’s a skill to be learned. 

I know, because I am one of those girls.

SIXTEEN YEARS GONE

Once I was seven years old, my mama told me,

"Go make yourself some friends or you'll be lonely."
Once I was seven years old

It was a big big world, but we thought we were bigger
Pushing each other to the limits, we were learning quicker

You’re a bright young girl who seemed to be born with rose colored glasses. Most of my memories of you had already crumbled with time, but I also have vivid ones that I would never forget. There was the time when you didn’t hesitate to join an acting competition at school; a tear-jerking moment was needed to be shown, as you pretended that the doll was your mother. The crowd scared you but behind stood Nanay, cheering you on. Seeing her standing there was enough to melt the nervousness away. I could no longer remember if you won or maybe another person gets to take home the prize, still you were happy that you didn’t back out.

FOR AS LONG AS WE CAN

 

The weekend is coming to a close, but this one was stretched out to be enough. Not lacking for me to ask an extension. Not slow for me to cut it short. Just enough. For the mountains have called, and once again we headed to its direction.

After more than a year of not being able to climb, I finally had the chance of going back on track (or should I say trek?). It was a walk in the park, they said. But we're not even halfway through and my lungs were already gasping for air. My heart seems to be doing somersaults inside my chest. Pain was also starting to grip my back, enough to make me feel older than how I truly am. To think that it was a level 2 climb! It was supposed to be easier compared to my previous experiences.

AROUND THE WEB | VOL. II

The Big C. It’s quite difficult to grasp the meaning of this word all at once. It ranges from the material things up to the state of our lives. As a new year entered, it became the talk of the town. Though it may be a little step, I started to learn a thing or two about contentment.

Reading Hannah Brencher’s experience on her target obsession made me nod my head in agreement (especially on the part of wanting all those pretty stuff but never getting around to using some of them). Last month, I scanned my room for evidences of excess. I need not look far, with just a tilt of my head the pile of unread books on the shelf presented themselves.

 

Blame it on my poor self-control, lack of good buying habits, or the low-priced second hand books that I can’t let go of. The moment I started earning money was also the day that my book hoarding began. I have read some of them for the past months, but the problem is that I buy faster more than I can read. Slowly, they started piling up and the number didn’t go down to 50 plus. I would always joke that this is the reason why I’m broke.

LET ME SAY A FINAL ADIEU, 2015

  
 
 
 
 
But as for me, my feet had almost 
        slipped;
   I had nearly lost my foothold...

When my heart was grieved
   and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
  I was a brute beast before you.

Yet I am always with you;
  You hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
  and afterward you will take me into 
         glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
   And earth has nothing I desire
      besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
   but God is the strength of my 
           heart
   and my portion forever.
        PSALM 73: 2, 21-26

If there was a way to summarize 2015 in verses and words, this would be it. It was a tough year that I even asked myself if there was any sense in writing about it. Even the photographs above are a far contrast from what happened during in-between moments. But then I just have this habit of closing the year through a blog post or something written. Something to acknowledge the fact that life can be good and bad at times, but God...He just remained constant through it all. Through the heartaches, through the pain. Through the sorrow and through the rejoicing.

I am far from who I was, and who I wanted to be. Some of my plans in life did not go as expected. It has been a scary and exciting ride. A few things weren't one hundred percent clear when the year ended, but I guess that is where He wants me to be...out of my comfort zone and into His arms.

THE HELP

 Yesterday I was able to finish one of the books in my to-be-read pile (which seems to be getting higher each year), it was shelved for two years before I finally got around to reading it. I remember how long it has been because I bought it right after graduation, courtesy of the toga rental fee that mother allowed me to have. I won’t also forget how I squealed with delight when I saw it in the shelf of Booksale; it has been on my list for months and on that day I finally got to take home The Help.

I have a rule that I should read the book first before watching its film adaptation, but this one was an exception. The movie was so good that I just had to buy and read the book. It’s a proof that a movie and a book can co-exist without one being great than the other (because we always tend to say that the one on paper is much better than the one on screen).

THE HISTORY OF ART AND ME

It all began on a mindless summer afternoon. I was a 9-year-old girl who’s starting to die out of boredom. I’ve scanned the bookshelf for the second time around hoping to catch an interesting title to read, but instead, my eyes landed on the strings of a queer looking book with Dragon Ball Z as the cover. I anticipated to find interesting drawings inside, only to be faced with blank pages. It was my first encounter with a sketch book. Though we may have melted crayons or blew watercolor droplets across pages during our elementary days, I can say that the seed of art was planted during the time that I held this sketchbook in my hands and discovered the joy of drawing.

The next minutes were spent copying young Goku from a poster. While the next days were spent convincing my brother and mother that I did not traced it, but copied it (hahaha there’s a huge difference you know). They wouldn’t believe me! They actually thought that I was lying. But when I repeated drawing another comic book character, they finally did. It was the height of afternoon anime, so the rest of the pages were filled with characters that I have grown to love. When you’re a 9 year-old, there’s a certain feeling that anything you draw can be considered as an art. It gave me the confidence I need to start joining poster making contests in school, eventually winning first and second place most of the time. It gave me hope that I have a future in pursuing this thing called art.

SLOW DOWN THE TIME

Two weeks has already passed since I ended my longest hiatus (40 days) from social media. Now that I’m back on the regular rounds of status, 3 x 3 grid, and more or less 140 characters to express my thoughts, I found myself thinking back to the time when I shut it off.

During the first week of my absence, people and fried were wondering, Why did you disconnect? Are you deactivated? Why the need? Well, because I was fed up. I was overwhelmed with all these things that a screen can present for hours without an end. The internet became a labyrinth that I didn’t know how to get out off. It was eating me up, and I was already beginning to feel lost. On the deeper side of things, I found myself questioning my own posts; do the things I post online still reflect a real version of me? Is there still authenticity? I might just be a bad case of being an over thinker, but still it bothered me.

THE LONGEST RIDE

The last time I read a Nicholas Sparks novel was during my freshman year in college. The university’s library has always been refuge for me, but when I discovered that it also housed a variety of fiction books it became a little bit of heaven. I borrowed books every week and most of it were Sparks’ novels.

It was a two-week marathon of love stories with heartbreaking tragedies; eventually this plot grew familiar that I can already guess who would die or be involved in an accident. The love scenes got too descriptive for me, so after a month I stopped reading his novels. It turned around last week because of much-needed break from all the deep and serious stuff that I’ve been reading. When a colleague/friend offered me to lend her copy of The Longest Ride, I accepted with the thought that giddy or kilig novels can be a good break.

AROUND THE WEB | VOL. 1

It's a millenial's battle - to keep on doing what you need or to leave it all behind and to pursue the things that you love. One of my high school friends once said that pursuing your passion is an entitlement -- something that only the privileged ones can do (those who have unlimited funds to supply their dreams or those people who don't need to worry about grinding a 9-5 job). There are moments of frustration when I am thisclose to believing that his statement is true, but there's a huge part in me that won't give in to this idea. It seems that saying yes to the fact dream jobs are achieved only by the privileged is like killing my own dreams. So, at this season of my life I beg to disagree.

Day Job vs. Dream Job, is one better than the other? The Great Discontent's newsletter came right on time in my inbox as I was pondering these thoughts. I could babble on this for so long, but I know that I belong to the category of people who hustles in order to figure out the right balance of things. Read instead the round up of the online content shared by TGD on their weekend newsletter and other related podcast and blog posts found along the way:

COFFEE HOUSE

It's one of life's comfort; there are times when I find myself sitting there, looking around, and feeling that sometimes this is a better refuge than our own home.

My last year in high school taught me how to drink coffee, but it was four years spent in college that made me love this drink. It became a need for a sleepy head like me to the point that I can now classify 3-in-1 coffees based on its caffeine effect. It might be such a nerdy claim but my body was able to memorize the kind of coffee it needs to pull out an all-nighter, or last until my twelve noon classes, or even survive for another 24 hours.  It even became a substitute for water during the last stretch of our thesis (yes, coffee dependent at its best). It became a constant companion until now that I am working.

With the rise of third wave coffee, there's just a lot of places to drink, to visit, and to hang out in every corner. Back then we had to wait to be seated on a jam packed place. Can I just say that student nowadays have more choices when it comes to coffee shops? It's everywhere in the metro and my list of must-go places keeps on getting longer. For a coffee lover, this is such a treat.

I try to tick one coffee shop each month, whether it be with friends or for some quiet time alone. Sometimes I come for the coffee, sometimes I come in because of the place. No matter, the warmth it offers me never changes. It's a place to be -- somewhere you'll need not an excuse to be alone.

IN MY OWN WORDS

Words.

I can't pinpoint when I started to become drawn to them, but I know that these things we call nouns, verbs, adjectives and more -- I've truly learn to love them. Maybe it's because of my exposure to poems, or reading posts from newly discovered bloggers, or the simple act of practicing the old art of calligraphy and lettering has made them more special.

I've been on a reading spree lately; from blogs, newspapers, magazine, and books. I must say that if we are what we eat, we also become what we read. So I devoured each page, as if eating every word can make me good in letting the ink rush through paper. I can't help but admire people whose words seamlessly form into something wonderful. The gift of expressing myself through the written language can be quite evasive.

I stalled writing this entry because facing the blank page has become a bit more difficult for me. I am overcome with this thinking that everything will come sounding like a news report or a research paper. But I still want to improve. To break free from my mold. Not out of insecurity, but out of the desire to write something worth reading. And with that thought sprout another desire -- to find my own voice. To not be a mere echo of someone else. To have my own words instead of borrowed ones.

It might seem like a blabber for now, but I am hoping that in time these words of mine will solidify itself on these blank pages.

THE 100 DAY PROJECT: DEVO X TYPO

“A hundred days! I can recall the questions that raced through my mind before I decided to jump in: can I handle it? Will I push through when my schedule is jammed? Will I show up everyday, even when it hurts? – especially when it hurts?” -Elle Luna

 

These exact thoughts were running in my mind as I joined the challenge. It was a last minute decision mixed with excitement, fear, doubt, and a whole lot of mixed emotions. Knowing myself, I am aware that I tend to lose my sense of excitement in doing creative things or maybe anything in particular that requires my attention everyday. It makes me think if it will make me a slacker artist in the future. But this weakness was actually the reason why I jumped into the challenge – to develop discipline in handling my creativity. Art takes time and practice and patience. Excitement may die but I hope that my desire to improve in this craft won’t.

STORIES, FOR THE TIME BEING

I finally got around the task of cleaning my first Tumblr blog and was successfully able to move in another address. It was an exhausting thing to do, even if there were only 500+ posts, hiding them one by one took its toll in my eyes. I was thisclose to deleting them all just so I can make the process quicker, but of course some of them are precious memories of my college life that I can't bear to part with. Blame it on my sentimentality, but I just had to keep them even if they are now for my eyes only.

Looking back, I realized how much I struggled back then. It was only a personal blog filled with day to day events of a normal college girl, but at the back of my mind I wanted so much more. Most of the people I followed were cool "It" girls (if you've been in Tumblr for so long you know what I mean, and you know who they are), and some dashing dudes who seem to have it all; Name it: followers, sponsors, free passes to events, and free travel! Wow, who wouldn't want that? Because I must admit that I really did.  So I tried to achieve this same kind of status that they have and made sure that every post is well thought-of, a quote that every one can relate to, artistically curated photoset, and everything else in between. I wanted traffic, I wanted followers, I wanted to be recognized for whatever I put out there.

Only now did I realize that I wanted my blog to click so much, for that little space in the world wide web to matter, without knowing that I wasn't creating the sound that I want, but I have become a mere noise. Seriously, I didn't know that I was so frustrated for that kind of blogging career. It was like that moment when Ariel exchanged her voice for a pair of feet. Apologies for going on sappy Disney mode here, but there's no denying that I wanted to be a part of that "cool" blogging world. But three paragraphs after, and more than four years of staying in Tumblr that didn't happen.

So what's the point? Haha! I guess being inactive from that platform for almost a year did me good. I was truly reminded this time of why I started to blog, why I want to put my thoughts out there, why I want to post pictures or create typography, why I want to improve my writing skills -- and that is to share stories. To not desire too much superficial things but to actually connect with people, to read their blogs, to find a common ground, and eventually make one less stranger out of them. For years I've been trying so hard without knowing that the only thing I need is to share my story, to go down deeper in my heart and have the guts to actually put it out for other people to see.

After testing the waters for so long, this is the first time that I've felt excited that I have little space for my thoughts once again. I finally understood what take it slowly and be yourself truly means. I don't know how long I will continue blogging or how long I can keep this active; new questions will present itself as the days progress, but for now all we have are stories for the time being.

LIFE ON LISTS: 15 THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

Tree months running and most of my blog posts seem to be stacked in the drafts corner. Going back to the groove of blogging after a long time of not being able to write can be quite a challenge. I'm measuring up the capacity of my schedule, the tone and the voice of this little space. For now, let me share to you the 15 things that can lighten up my mood (thanks for tagging me Arli!). After all, lists can never go wrong.

1. Reading books, blogs, and magazines (nowadays, I prefer the not so glossy ones though).
2. Drinking coffee - a great companion from college days until the daily hustle at work.
3. Doing artsy fartsy stuff; drawing, sketching, calligraphy, and D.I.Y. decors are my favorite.
4. Watching movies.
5. Spending quality time with family and friends.
6. Discovering hole-in-the-wall cafes and restaurants.
7. Eating breakfast food.
8. Watching the sunrise (which is actually quite ironic because I'm not a morning person).
9. Receiving and sending snail mail or handwritten letters.
10. Taking long walks when I'm stressed out.
11. Flowers -- especially the sunny kind.
12. Poetry (but then sometimes it can be heartbreaking too). #somuchfeels
13. Being able to put my thoughts in paper.
14. Traveling and adventures in different places.
15. Encouraging and connecting with other people.