The Thinking Jar

light my way 

in the storms and deceiving calms,

beam of white or illuminated gray.

cast shadows,

instead of darkness.

i ask not to be taken from the path

i merely ask for a guide

hold me

watch me

wait for me.

i wish to meet you,

in my own time.

may the heavens

let your time

be mine.

MINDBLIND

They say the name of my problem is just another "ism"
Social rules are the bars of my prison
Of 67 words, I caught your first two

Hey I’m a little bewildered
I’m a might perplexed
I’m not even certain
What I’m gonna do next

So take it slowly
Say one more time I’ll be with you

Chorus:

So what the hell
I bite my hand
How can I be strange
In a strange man’s land?
I just don’t get your jokes

Mindblind

Sometimes the colours can hurt
And I’m really not certain why
I flap the light
But it’s me you’re with tonight

Mindblind

It’s a broken road
No miracle cure
You stumble if you’re rich
And you stumble if you’re poor

They say there’s treatment
But I’m really not sure
About that

Oh you can change my coffee
You can change my tea
For god’s sake warn me
If you’re gonna change me

I appreciate consistency most days

Chorus

You know where you are
On the dinosaur track
Cars and trains
They don’t answer back

I know every bus and
My ticket collection
Has grown

Hey it’s a 53B and a 4X4
A Flying Scotsman and
A Plesiosaur
If this is the real world
I’d rather be a bore
And hide

Chorus X2

http://www.mindblind.co.uk/

http://www.followthatcamel.com/

Out of post post.

Mabilisan ito…. (This is going to be fast)

This Thursday afternoon…

“Ma’m, baka po nananaginip siya…”

   (Ma’am , maybe he is dreaming…)

“Nananaginip ba ang mga bulag?”

    (Do the blind dream?)

“Siguro naman po… pero hindi ko rin po alam.”

    (Probably… but I’m not sure.)

And from there I tried to explain what could be the reason behind the child’s unprecedented bursts of crying, bolting up fully awake from sleep, some time before dawn.

I throw the question back to my co-faculty members and try to encourage companionable jeering, masked under the theatric tone of existential musings. I was stumped. The mother of a child with multiple handicaps asked me that. The son was around 9 years of age, with total blindness and suspected to be devoid of any hearing, as well. He had been attending the therapy program carried out by the clinical students we were supervising.

One of my co-faculty said “Oo, naman. Pero di nila nakikita.”

    (Yes, of course. But they don’t see it.)

Another added, “Nabasa ko yun. They do.”

    (I read that. They do.)

To myself, I add audibly, “but how? And when they do, paano nila malalaman na gising na sila?”

(… how will they know that they are awake already.)

One of them stops, he looks at me and says “Dana, kakaiba ka talaga.”

(Dana, you are unique.)

“Sige, i-research mo yan. Alamin mo ang brainwaves and stuff.”

(Yes, resesarch on that. Find out about brainwaves and stuff. )

“Ay. Sorry po. Speech lang ako.”

(Oh, sorry. I am just a speechpathologist)

But, truly… how do they? And if you were, how could you?

Quadruple ones. Four wonders.

A sign, by chance?

A pittance? Feign ignorance.

Or

Five lines cut in halves.

A mirror image of short lines.

Beside the water. Facing a mirror.

Vertically challenged lives-

Or brief loves?

A  trickery of sights, a myriad of sighs.

A word play, A fore play.

A lesson.

11:11

An equal ratio.

A premature

midnight

talk show.

A very late brunch?

11: 11

Glowing on the dashboard.

11:11

One, One.

One.

One.

I found an old entry, at the back of one of my notebooks, the red one to be precise.

I think I wrote in September or July… I am not sure really…

—

Oddly enough

I am reluctant to remember

Oddly enough

It aches to forget

In my gut

An ice tells me of yearning

I want

I seek

But what?

There is unease

In my seeming silence

In my stillness

My insides whirl

There is searching

For an unknown state,

an anonymous solution

In my unspoken

Inexplicable disquiet

I see balance

I bask in my theoretical balance

Yet still I wept

—–

(hardly edited, the title to follow)

i have had two messages saying they miss me, and believe me it was said in a non-romantic way. they are mothers, friends, very straight, haha. thank you. you are missed, too. and i do hope you have been well. 

—-

it’s nearly november, several hours.

Lenin’s birthday.

3 days away from my house, 3 days away from my alleged center-s, my cores,

nearer to shore, nearer to water,

let waves take me. let me not waver.

from the eye of the storm, its calm, its whisper… to the nose, to the ear,

one said- the groin of the storm,even… to its legs, to its toes, to the edges of its sole,

to talk of spirits, a quaint timely halloween banter, to shrieks and howls, snores and stories.

arm hairs, standing, dancing, quivering.. vibrating- no, that’s the bed.

my bad. not sad.

we laugh.

to eyes interlocking, sentiments a-sharing, love triangles albeit more sides, some deeper, some rougher, they meant to shout at the sea, they meant to throw their baggage into the sea. but the storm kept them at bay, in the JC cottage.

tuna sandwiches. sardines with basil and olives. saucy fishies.

hukot. kana. new filipino words. i know i miss one but o well

cobbled streets. "turista lang po, nakikiraan." no love in pagudpod. "bye love" in pagudpod.

a roadtrip to meet the storm that decided to take a rain check on us.

ang malapot na arozcaldo, ang itlog sa mami. ang mga aswang sa dingding.

maruruming banyo. "may flush naman o" "nagmamadali siguro"

no fals (fff-ulse) tagasimot. he snores!

ang tunog ng dalampasigan. tama nga ba ang salitang iyan?

ay! ey-wan.

di bale, sa susunod, muli nating subukan. 

i was too tired to argue with my lola. so i went to mass with her. i wore black, surprisingly she didn’t comment on it. I ended up reading from the Book of Wisdom (First reading today) and it was about condemning the one, I read it once before Mass started just to get a feel of the mood. It was a rather somber piece but I can’t really tell, it has yet to sink in and I doubt it would sink in unless I get to read a third time. The priest talked about Jung’s theory- about the superior/senior and the eternal child. I could relate, in one of these few instances where I feel like I connect to something "catholic", I felt my insides (take note, not my innards which have been cooking these past few… ) glow. he advised that we be child-like, we have become "senior" - success oriented. He recommended humor. He also talked about a "Lord anecdote" about the explanation of life, or perhaps lifespan… there was a dog, a cow and a monkey then man… nice choices for a life lesson story, eh?

anyway, it was nice. I can learn to like Sunday’s. Now, if only I could do that to the rest of the week…

.

Story- telling

And I would not have changed yesterday

And I still would have taken this life.

And I’d take the same steps with you

Knowing that thing won’t turn out right

Even Rapunzel lost her hair

And Prince Charming, his sight

Sleeping Beauty slept more than an hour or two

Snow White choked on an apple

In the Magic Mirror’s plain view

I believe in the power of stories

I even like fairy tales

In knowing we were doomed

I penned it already

But still we had to play out the tale

I believe in the pain of stories

And I hope like a fairy tale

Fingers crossed,

I pass this journey

Life lessons learned,

Still fail

Still hope

Still hope that we prevail

I know we were not meant to be

I already figured it out

But still hoped in this story

I just tried to find out

And here we are,

Looking at it,

Another “in retrospect”

I wince, amazed,

I didn’t saw it

Yet still no trace of regret

I had to live out the story

I had to find out

I knew yet still I went on,

I’m sorry

There was no backing out

You were so beautiful,

I marveled

With a mere handful of pain and regret

But still this road has to be traveled

Promise me you’d be well…

(a work in progress so don’t get too attached … )