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Many stories are being told about climbing a mountain; this one's about faith. |
![Merit Badge in Appreciation
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For your patience during the delay of juding for [Link To Item #1102921] . Thank you!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Appreciation-1985.gif) A question often crosses my mind – how do I want to be remembered? I have so many thoughts on this because, simply, it always crosses my mind. But, you know, I try to treat this as imaginations. I will never know. You will never know – that we are being remembered. Do our heroes know that they're being adored and honored? Rick Warren said, “You were not put here to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.” Nevertheless, the image of my papa always comes across. He was a simple man with nothing – but everything – to give. “Just be happy.” Despite the scarcity of things and opportunity, he was happy. And he was misunderstood - by me, my siblings and mama. When I was nine or ten years old, old enough to remember those memorable days, he brought me to the center of a mining village. The mine was to us a real blessing, to my boyish mind, it was a gift from heaven above. Dusty road and yellow water, and an English speaking (American) manager, the environment is still inside here. I was proud to hear my papa converse with him. We rode in a truck used to transport lumber to our town. It was my first long trip as a child, and I saw the mountain, the rigorous terrain, and the beauty of God’s creation with the backdrop of a yellow water. My eldest brother was one of the laborers. At salary time, he’d present to mama his pay slip, a summary of earnings and deductions. “Well, my son, better luck next time,” she said with a kiss on his forehead as she stared the contents of the slip. Maybe a few pesos to buy a ganta of rice. The innocence of the place could be pictured in my face. “What are we doing here, Papa?” He couldn’t give me a clear answer. He simply muttered things like he was applying for a job because he was suspended as policeman of our town. The American manager was too kind to accept us, not kind enough to give us a job. And so we walked from that place back to the nearest town, some twenty to twenty five kilometers, maybe more. We trailed a vast wooded area, rivers, up and down, long and winding. An exhaustive, long trek for a ten-year old kid like me. When we reached the first house in town, we asked for food and water. I felt how it was like to be a beggar. Mama kept on nagging: study, study, my child, so you can’t inhale the mountain and the color yellow. And now I know why I have to study and strive like what she said. Life is a very difficult subject, more difficult than the trigonometric principles in college. Now I know why the earth moves and revolves like a spinning ball. It’s because life also revolves and spins. Sometimes you are poor, sometimes rich. I was called Amerkano because as a young boy, I had those features, genes I inherited from my grandfather who lived in the island, and later left for his good, native land after espousing one of the natives. He left a part of his gene to become a writer like me who struggles to coin words everyday. Now I know why I speak good English. A brood of five and all boys was mama’s ticket to heaven; she had her purgatory on earth (to be aggravated by my papa’s drinking). Sometimes, she would just scream in the middle of a peaceful morn. The five brothers didn’t really have peace in the kitchen. My vivid memories are focused on the rainy days of my childhood, so full of nature. How happy we would have been if those drops of rain were real manna of the Jews, because the five brothers always longed for them. I feel nostalgic when rainy days are here, or drizzles outside the windows come at times. During those wet days, we used banana leaves as umbrellas. And tin cans protected us from pouring rain that flowed like water falls on the holes of our nipa roofs. The cans were hung on the ceilings to catch the water when the rotten nipa leaves could not anymore protect us from the pouring rain. High school was full of action, hungry stomach and memorizations. A teacher forced us to memorize history notes, word for word, including periods, commas and question marks. No wonder, she too could do it even with colons and semi-colons. I could memorize long sentences and stanzas of American and Filipino literature. We did it under the shades of coconut and guava trees, reciting facets of world history, word for word, facing the woods at the back of the school. The hollow-blocked fence separating the school and the wilderness looked like a long bridge adorned with young, ambitious "memorizers". College? Less thrilling than high school. I copied one whole article from a magazine and had it published in the school organ, with my big by-line. From that time on, I became the writer and future attorney. After college, I joined an army purportedly to serve my country, but which later turned out for goons and gold. I took with me some wealth I wanted for a lifelong adventure, forgot everything that was left behind. Slowly, my foundation deteriorated, eaten by rats and mice I kept in my subconscious. All the enigma, excitement and endless dreams and ambitions suddenly, to my mind, became positive. Now here in this world of my own – I can call my own – away from the land of poverty I started to build my dream world. A real one. A fantastic recreation of my childhood dreams full of adventures and escapades. How did these all happen? It was just like a dream. The earth, seen from above, is a beautiful stone, a mighty rock, thrown by a powerful hand from an ocean of nothingness. It will be there forever. But to be destroyed slowly, and slowly by you and me. Haven't you imagined yourself a spirit? You can regard yourself as a spirit floating over the universe, watching at the earth, slowly and slowly deteriorating, until it collapses into nothingness. Like a mountain with mines. Like a river with chemicals. Like the air that you breath. Slowly they will go back to the mouth of God. WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF GOD SPITS THEM ALL, MAKE ANOTHER BLACK HOLE FULL OF EVIL SPIRITS? CAN YOU IMAGINE? ASK YOURSELF!!! (This is the introduction - somewhat - to a book about me, of course, and it's like a summary, don't you think? Our life is like an island, there are rivers and seas and mountains, and mines. It has a beginning and an end, and the end seems to be the beginning of another. Don't you think?) |
| I have come back from the grave, turned back the hands of time. What do we really feel when we die? With this portion of my blog, I would like to relate something. There are times that I feel I want to die. No, not suicide. I only tend to ask myself or the spirit who may have listened to me, or the Spirit of God - for sure He is listening - of what would I feel if I were dead. This feeling of wanting to be dead occurs to me once in a while. It's like this: I'm hovering over, like a spirit, or a ghost, and I'm watching over the people I love, the people I know, the environment that I used to be. What would I have done? It's a tingling feeling inside. I feel like to go there and see what would I really do if I were dead and I was watching us, you? Do you feel it too? This feeling, this idea that I'm writing, also came to mind when I scanned my unopened emails here in WDC. Halloween is just around the corner. What if I'm dead and I'm visiting you? You who're reading this, watch out. Remember Drakula. Hahaha!!! |
| Yes, this could be the reason. This must be the reason. I've been thinking it in vain, foolishly, trying to figure it out. And now I know. She doesn't love anymore. The reason is... That is an intro to one of my stories I have thought about - My wife doesn't love me anymore. No hints, she's fantastic. She's given me everything - a house, a family, a bank account. Wait a minute. That's my story. Watch for it. Actually, I've thinking of her. She's worked hard for the children, our children, our family, to make it stable, and I haven't done anything to even praise her. And now, this is what I've thought of - I'm going to dedicate my next story to her. God, I've not even made a short poem for her. Wait, wait, darling! |
| Got at a hard time coping up with man's activities - vanities. The Bible says "Vanity, all is vanity." We toil hard, all for nothing, or may result for nothing. How can this be? And why should we work on something we feel may result on nothing? These questions we fail to connect in our daily lives. Unless - yes, unless - we really dig into the philosophical aspect of those things. Delve on the philosophical side of life, not just the material one. Can I do this? |
| In a place deprived of the comforts in life, we count the days before Christmas. The BER months are here again, everyone is ecstatic about the celebrations, the hams and the pork and the fried chickens of the holidays. In the Philippines, we look up to the United States, for the comfort in life. We long for the stateside. White Christmas is a dream for us. I think everyone is longing or dreaming to in America because of the material things. Recently, I received an email saying that we should be thankful of the things in life. We long for the comfort and the good things. As we say, the grass is always greener. But we really don't know what is going on "at the other side of the fence". People don't have anything to eat; people are dying, don't have clothes, or slippers. We don't have to count out blessings because of the little comfort that we have. God knows how to take care for each and every one of us. We just don't know how to thank Him. |
| I was going somewhere, along the avenues of time, looking for answers, places, sites, faces; I didn't know my home site has a new face. Sorry for that! I thought I could improve and be famous and whatelse. I didn't know I just have to feel at home here at WDC. Please forgive me. The worldwide web is so enticing, like a woman or nymph tempting me to go and dance with her in her own world, and to be lost there, so I won't come back anymore. I was wrong. This is my place, and thought someday, sometime, I may wander again, it's just because I'm human, enticed by the virtual world of dreams and fantasies. Please forgive me! And though you may not forgive me, please help me with my upgrade. Dear, thanks. |
| I haven't updated this for some time, but to say hello is to say life is just normal. But there's something we're preparing about, and that is the wedding of my eldest daughter, Mary Ann Luisa. The wedding will be this Oct. 7, 2006, and we're all excited about it, since this is the first wedding from among my four children. Just hope this will be successfull, with no hassles, with God's blessings. And I hope too, they'll have a happy marriage. She's got a good groom who has no vices, and who adores him. |
| Put your upper and lower teeth together, as if you're biting something, but not too close, then blow some air as if you're producing a sound like as if commanding a child to silence, you create an sssttt sound. This is what we do when we call somebody, someone who is an acquaintance. My mother would call us five brothers with this sound even if we were about two/three hundred meters away. She could create that sound. Imagine. That's because her time was so engrossed in calling us, like a hen calling her chicks. But you don't do it to somebody whom you do not know, or to a lady. That is respectful. Sssttt. That sound is only Filipino. If you are in the other side of the planet and you hear that sound, please know that it is a Filipino producing that sound. Sssttt, it is different from keeping you quite. Sssttt. Be alert! Mama's calling. |
| Manabanski, Dostoevsky, Spassky - well they sound familiar for me. They're actually names of people who're my favorite and, to some extent, have influenced me and my writing. Dostoevsky's philosophy and writings are a real read; Spassky is a former chess champ; and Manabanski, well, that's me. They're great, and in some way, I want to be great. Everybody wants to be great. This gives me the question - can greatness be a career? Or, can greatness be aspired? I think the answer is yes and no. If you do something great or good for your fellowman, then do it. Greatness is acquired because you have done something good for humankind. And you have to aspire for it. Many great people had aspired for their greatness. But many people go to the extent of harming others in their quest to be great. Am I aspiring to be great? Maybe. But just for my family. I want to be great in the eyes of my children. Now, I think that's something great. |
| So this is what they call BLOCK (writer's block, muse aslept, I don't know). I just know that I know nothing about writing, about scribbling anything. As I was writing this, I closed my eyes and just typed anything (I use the so-called 'touch system' in typing). Well, what I did was just how to treat that so-called thing, and here I am able to write something. Cute, ha? See you then! |
| Here's a transcription of a voice tape that I had this morning: August 1, 2006. There's flood water along the road going to the highway. It's okay, it's God's will. With natural calamity, you realize that there's a God, and you also realize that God has given you many things. Here in our place, you can say that this is a naturalist's haven, with tall grass, and trees where birds of different species thrive. This is a good community because life is very ordinary - there's a chapel, a school, a basketball court, a water tank supplying us with enough water, and the people are very ordinary folks. Some go to the office at day, some have good job, some do not have, they just stay idle at home. In the afternoon, or early evening, you can relax, enjoy the fresh air coming from a man-made fishpond. |
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At least, I hope you have the time.
I'm sorry, but I really would've! That was hilarious.