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Showing posts from December, 2014

Dream: Firefighters

I dreamed there were topless hunky firefighters assembled outside our house. I asked someone what they were doing there, and I was told that they were on standby in anticipation of The Brown Army, which was marching down our street.

The Brown Army was an army of people carrying light brown umbrellas, marching through our village to burn the houses of people who didn't show respect for Christmas.

I panicked because I wasn't sure what they looked for as a sign of respect and we hadn't put up any Christmas decor. I also wasn't sure what they meant by respect: Was it respect for general Christmas cheer? Was it respect for Christian tradition?

Soon, The Brown Army was upon us. One of them approached my house and planted a purple flag in front of it. "What does that mean?" I asked one of the topless firefighters.

"It's complicated," he said. "They use other colors for Yes and No."

I sat down and waited to burn or not to burn.

Just around the corner

The taxi driver is on the phone with his wife. I'd tell him to end the call because he's driving, but traffic's crawling, so I'm letting him talk for a while. He calls his wife "baby." He asks if they're going to Ma Mon Luk later, and says he's worried because it's Friday and there might be too many people. Baby, the best time to go, he says, is on Sunday afternoons.

He asks his wife if he counted their money right. It was P1,700 when he counted, he said, not P1,800 as she had said. Maybe she counted wrong, maybe the P100 fell somewhere. Never mind, he says, maybe the person who found it needs it more than we do.

He laughs when his wife says he worked hard for that P100. You're so tight with money, he tells her sweetly. He laughs. I'm so lucky, he says, I'm so lucky with you, baby.

Oh, Christmas. You're finally here.

I don't want

I don't want to hate where I am, people I'm with, things that I do. I don't want to wish I were elsewhere, doing other things, being some other person. I don't want to be dreaming up stories to escape reality, finding little escapes in fruitless activities.

I read somewhere that if you can only think of things you don't want, don't shut these thoughts down. They still serve a purpose. List them down and then list down their opposites. Then you have a list of what you want.

I want ...

Le Petit Prince

For when I'll never be a grown up, October 2015.

Coming home


I've been on two trips -- one to New Zealand and one to Nueva Ecija -- in the last two months, and one day I may write about them, but for now, let me just paste here what I wrote on Facebook when I found myself returning to Philippine airspace after two weeks, mostly wonderful, away from home.

What I didn't write there was that my eyes welled with tears and my heart beamed with pride and I had to get a grip because it wasn't like I'd been away for long.

November 15, 5.58pm
On a Cebu Pacific flight from Sydney

As the captain announced our descent, a lady in my row opened her window and let in a sudden blast of the Philippine sunset bursting across a thick sea of clouds. It hurt my eyes, but my heart leapt for joy. There she is! it said.

From the center aisle, I watched the sun sink beneath the clouds, burning them the color of persistent ember.

This trip was lovely, and the places I've been to were breathtakingly beautiful. Many times I've said, I could live here. But one beam of that familiar sun and I am home.

Dream: Elevator

I dreamed I was shopping at a new SM Mall near Megamall with Sherwil. We wanted to meet up with my sister Kai and her daughter, but we couldn't figure out the weird rides to the top floors. There was an open seat that flipped you over completely at the bottom floor before it went up again -- and you had to twist your head just so to not get decapitated.

There was a pop up elevator that you had to know where to catch. And there was another elevator that sank halfway into an indoor pool filled with butt-naked male Asian tourists who had a penchant for cartwheels.

At some point in my dream, I found myself hanging out with Daniel Radcliffe. He was telling me to take him seriously because he was an adult now.