ruminating

I AM BACK!

2012-09-30T11:25:00.001+04:00

I thought I lost my blog forever, lucky for me, I found a notebook containing my passwords so here I am, hopefully I get to blog more!

Hello blog world!

18Aug2005 REMINISCENCE

2009-11-16T14:08:00.000+04:00

i miss

the smell of mud no matter how dirty
the scent of kids running in the heat of the sun the whole day
bagoong cooked with freshly harvested vegetables, evn kangkong cooked with firefood
soaking myself with rain.....hiding my tears or just being childish

I definitely miss
My childhood and all its simplicities
the smell of freshly milled rice - heavenly
huge toads croaking in the garden after the rain
crickets in the evening, huge locusts flying around

I can still see these things and I would definitely go out of my way to have them again
life in all its simplicities
happiness in its crudest form
my nephews and nieces at the foot of my bed anticipating my waking up

to kiss me and hug me or just to jump on my bed
my sister making my coffee and breakfast og garlic fried rice and tinapa
with ginisang talbos ng sitaw
the scent of a young mango leaf

or a freshly baked pandesal
or Papa Darmo making my bulalo and slicing it for me
I can experience thes again and I will spend more time with them ^
I will enjoy my siblings' kids and in return I will relive my past

Gone are the mountains and the green meadows
gone is my bleak future and gone is my nightmare
i don't know if i'm making sense but i write at will
and i will continue to do so.......

Igado

2009-11-12T16:42:00.000+04:00

I was reading an article on Inquirer Lifestyle about ways to cook Igado. Igado is one of my favourite Ilocano dishes and it reminds me of town fiestas and birthdays and celebrations. It is usually prepared for special ocassions thus I associate it with the sound of a marching band passing by my Lola's old house in San Nicolas, Pangasinan. I remember having asked one of my friends (who I think has gone on to become my ex wife) to cook for me and she brought this huge kaldero of yummy Igado. I crave for Igado when I am in Pangasinan. I should try cooking tonight...

Igado is a pork liver and meat dish in thick liver sauce with green peas, potato strips, julienne bell pepper, bay leaves and whole black peppercorns. It is sweet, salty and sour, sometimes drenched in oil - yummy. I should try cooking that tonight! I can eat it with brown bread and not feel guilty.

TEDDY BOY LOCSIN’S EULOGY for President CORAZON AQUINO

2009-11-12T11:58:00.000+04:00

I just love reading this over and over again.... especially the word "ennobled".... This should be entitled "I Never Noticed"

Throughout thirteen years of martial law, until I laid eyes on her again, I never thought that I would ever see the end of it. Least of all that my father would survive it. I am not much given to prayer or pious reflection but when I could set aside my anger, I prayed my father would see democracy again.

Late one afternoon, in San Francisco, I got a call. It was from Cory Aquino, for whom I had written one speech after her husband’s assassination. She said she had accepted Marcos’s challenge in a Snap Presidential Election. I put down the phone, and packed my bags, and reported to her at the Cojuangco Building.

I knew then she was the answer to my prayers. What I did not notice was that the closer we came to victory, which is to say the farther the prospect receded that the Marcos regime would survive, the less I felt the anger inside me. As each day passed, bringing me closer to the day I could get even, the less I felt the need for it as I spent more time with the woman who alone could make it possible.

I did not notice, but I was no longer looking back in anger, or looking forward even, to victory and vindication. Only now do I see. I had lived with my anger so long, only for the day to come when it no longer mattered to me. The only thing that counted was that I was living every day to the fullest, bringing out the best in me—for someone else. A dream I hadn’t had since I was a boy, feeding on stories of chivalry, had been achieved. I was serving a woman who was every inch a sovereign, all the more for scorning the slightest pretension to the role.

I did not realize it, even when I was already in the Palace, by the side of the President—among all her advisers, I like to think, the one who loved her most.

It never again occurred to me that I had scores to settle. And not until today, that I had passed up every chance to get even.

From the moment I came in from the airport and reported for duty, and she gave me in return the same smile she gave me on her deathbed, I never noticed… Not when I was with her in the campaign when she corrected me for not looking at the people I was waving at… Nor when I was with her in the presidential limousine looking intently, for her benefit, at the crowds at whom I waved… I never noticed anything. Except that I was with the only person that I would ever want to be with.

I certainly never noticed that I had left my anger behind. I don’t know how it happened. Except that Cory Aquino ennobled everyone who came near her. I have tried to say it publicly but never could finish. If you saw me as I felt myself to be, anyone would fall in love with me. I saw myself in that hospital room, a knight at the bedside of his dying sovereign, on the eve of a new Crusade, oblivious to the weight of the armor on his shoulders for the weight of the grief in his heart.

And because she always doubted my ability to be good for very long… Indeed, when my wife told Ballsy that I prayed the rosary at Lourdes for her mother’s recovery, Cory said, “Teddy Boy prayed the rosary? A miracle! I feel better already.” Because she doubted my capacity for self-reformation, she made it effortless for me by being herself. I did not notice that I was doing right by serving a woman who never did wrong. I am not sure how to take this moral self-discovery. It is so unlike myself. But if it will bring me before her again, I am happy.

a poem written for me on my 41st birthday

2009-11-12T11:54:00.002+04:00

The Half-A-Century Tree

A Poem for Galo

By Oliver Ramos

Old as the big acacia tree watching over me through the window

Housing little birds that cannot fly, nursing them until they grow

With branches giving shed to those scourged by the raging sun

Dancing with the sun and smiling at the skies till the lights are gone

Rain or shine, the tree remains to stand calm and tougher

And some birds have flown as their wings have grown stronger

Swaying and kissing the skies, wishing them all the best

While welcoming others who are in need of an empty nest

Almost half a century has passed and the tree remains standing

With its branches’ breadth that is always welcoming

With its balding stems waving with pride and gratefulness

Talking to the sun and asking nothing but others’ happiness

Oh old tree I wish I remain that bird, small and naive

So that I can return to the nest you helped me weave

Only from the window I could hear your comforting song

With the melody and lyrics I will always sing along...

25Sep05

2009-10-27T15:29:00.000+04:00

25 Sep 2005

First Date

Does anybody remember his first date? I do.. vividly... it just happened three nights ago.

Allow me. See, I'm 37 and I feel like I just experienced my first date. I mean it was not a real date date but an acquaintance - the getting to know you type. Forgive me for my delusion but then again, let me wallow in my dream.

If it does not qualify as a first date, then shoot me, I know it does have the trappings of a first date - and I hope it would progress to a second, and third - ooh fourth would be kind of frightening - that's for the other party, not me.

I should shroud his identity in secrecy in respect to his privacy. See, I am talking like a sixteen year old sex kitten here, but i'll identify the give away signs.

I just came from a really short vacation, where else but home, and of course brought some goodies with me and therefore arranged a rendezvous to hand over the much anticipated pasalubongs. So here I was, not expecting much but of course putting my better foot forward. I even opened my fourth bottle of Bulgari perfume. He picks me up and we wonder where we could go for some coffee but at twelve midnight, only Starbucks at Jumeirah, I thought, would still be open by then, and so we decide to just find some place quiet where we can talk. We go to a bar and realize that it was nothing but quiet so we move outside and I rattle and prattle about my recently failed romance. He asks and the blabbermouth that I am just spilled my guts out. I ask, he answers - and it went on till it was just the two of us. Or like I said, I could just be delusional and over romanticizing it a bit, but heck, I need to find a reason to smile and just thinking about it makes me smile and look up to heaven and say, thank You for simple pleasures.

I call it my first date ever because for once in my fucking existence, I did not pay. Chivalry is alive, yahoooo.... (or did I just conveniently ignore to share with the tab?). I get picked up, no flowers, ha ha. We spoke for hours till it was time to go, sleep actually, since I had to work the next day. I have never met someone who kept me talking - good listener he is, his eyes stared right through me when he had something to say or when he was just listening. My eyes usually get droopy when talking to another especially late nights , but that was an exception. Where else can one find a man who's not distracted, who's so not into himself? If I did not ask, he would not have talked about himself. Admit it, but most men are just selfish sons of bitches and all they do is talk about themselves. Here is one man who was so interested with my story as if he was writing me a bio. I have never been so mentally stimulated in my life, although what we talked about were just same old stories about life, loves and learnings, but then again I could be misreading the signs.

Like I said, this was unplanned and thus I just thought about these in retrospect. First date or no first date, I am still in cloud seven. Knock me off if you must, but nothing can take this away from me. So, SHOOT ME.

PS...Looking forward to the next one. If I had to go back home again to buy another set of pasalubongs, I would.

18Sep05

2009-10-27T15:23:00.000+04:00

Reminiscence

I miss
the smell of mud no matter how dirty
the scent of kids running in the heat of the sun the whole day
bagoong cooked with freshly harvested vegetables, even kangkong cooked on firefood
soaking myself in the rain.....hiding my tears or just being childish

I definitely miss
my childhood and all its simplicities
the smell of freshly milled rice - heavenly
huge toads croaking in the garden after the rain
crickets in the evening, huge locusts flying around

I can still see these things and I would definitely go out of my way to have them again
life in all its simplicities
happiness in its crudest form
my nephews and nieces at the foot of my bed anticipating my waking up
to kiss me and hug me or just to jump on my bed
my sister making my coffee and breakfast of garlic fried rice and tinapa
with ginisang talbos ng sitaw
the scent of a young mango leaf
or a freshly baked pandesal
or Papa Darmo making me bulalo and slicing it for me

I can experience thes again and I will spend more time with them ^
I will enjoy my siblings' kids and in return I will relive my past
Gone are the mountains and the green meadows
gone is my bleak future and gone is my nightmare

i don't know if i'm making sense but i write at will
and i will continue to do so.......

18Aug05

2009-10-27T15:21:00.000+04:00

Just so

I dreamed a dream
and I thought I could reach it
or at least approximate it
yet here I am
in the middle of that dream
and I am falling
into the abyss.
I followed my dream
blindly going through it
hoping for a change
waiting for a chance
wishing, longing
having sleepless nights
asking questions.
I wonder if I will ever wake up
I ask if I could be wrong
I suffer the consequences
I try to rationalize
but it still haunts me
and it kills my well being.
I’ve never loved this way
and i know i’ll never do again
am i spreading myself too thin?
is it bad to expect?
am i being used?
is it always this hurtful?
I know I have my shortcomings
I know I am not perfect
this i know for sure
i’ll keep holding on
until my heart breaks
until my lung collapses
until i can’t take it anymore.
my love is real
so are my intentions
I get lies and deception
you charm your way through
and always get away with it
have i had enough
have i still to give?

the past

2009-10-27T15:18:00.000+04:00

24 Jul 2005

Is all well in my heart?

I received this affirmation from one of my friends from UPAA, our Zen master or Master Yoda as we call her and I try to recite it every now and then... somehow it works, yet the pain still remains. I think its my stubbornness and optimism(?) that somehow things will be alright and that they will come into their places or I'm just a bloody totally hopeless romantic.. My heart is a wreck but I manage to get by.

Lest I forget it, my memory sometimes fades away, I'll just keep it here....

I lovingly release the past
I am free and they are free
All is well in my heart now...

or is it? I know it will be well, and as I keep saying, this too shall pass..... after a year, I will be up and about again... ready to take another chance.....