Give me an attic.

Give me an attic and I will fill it into bursting with dreams. All assortment, permutation, swatches and textures of dreams. Childish dreams of cotton candy, marbled balloons and rubbery gums punctuated with maternal agonies of domestic scatter — broken limbs of a tearful sister’s dolls, building blocks, bricks, toy guns, wooden ponies, dog eared storybooks and torn kites — yes, remember those incredibly cheery kites, which can now only drift in pleasant daze in recollection of tangled flights.

Somewhere by the far corner I’ll stack habitual dreams — reveries of sand and water, unbounded trek and exploit, a horseback ride down a slope pillared with pines and peppered by crisp morning air, a teasing hammock under a fertile mango tree on a blistering summer afternoon — while vulnerably drowned in crude trappings of demanding paperclips, insolent keyboards, rebellious shredders, invasive phone shrieks and oppressive fluorescents.

Its walls will be papered with ambitious dreams: delusions and aspirations — grandeur, magnitude and infinity inhabited and claimed only by the most restless of imagination-precious crops only the most determined of passions can defy to harvest. Vision will be varnished on swathed canvasses — brave testament of the lushness of creative impulses that shall transcend the triviality of the bearer.

There will be unlocked chests on the left to store unpleasant dreams: aches, frustrations, disillusionments and the constant ally and shaper of wisdom and understanding — the state of brokenness. The key will not be thrown into rivers, lakes or ponds but best kept at hand, for that throbbing moment of bittersweet nostalgia when you lift the lid and peek inside as if to greet a vaguely-familiar wounded friend.

Neatly piled on the sharp angle where two walls wed, allow me to assemble thirsty dreams and longings — anchored arms orbiting a torso, legs twined around hips, a gentle pull or warm nestle in the unholy hours between sunsets and the first of rooster crows-gentle geometries of tenderness buried for a moment in sheets and pillows, stirred by rhythms of breathing and discreet half-whispers in celebration of a genial sleep.

The windowsills will be book-ended with unwelcome dreams — nightmares and melancholy — goodbyes lumped in throats, pickled emotions as stale as grandmother’s yellowed prescriptions, polite conversations and insufferable silences, a white coffin being lowered in verdant greens, watching misery flicker in the eye of someone who laughs the loudest.

There will be no rugs in the attic, for they hide the quivering hopefulness of the wooden floorboards. Hopefulness is a dream, too, and it would be such rude prejudice to shroud its modest dignity with discounted shoddy linoleum. In this hopefulness I would rather lay motionless, eyes shut, draining the coldness of the wood who kiss the delicate strands at the back of my neck. Or, sometimes, in this intentionally frozen stillness my eyes would flutter open and carry on it’s enduring romance with the ceiling, draining the circus in my head into a delicious infinity of empty bliss and innocence.

Wistfulness, wishful thinking, they will sit languidly in an absent couch like twins forever ensnared in umbilical inheritance, bound by reciprocation and hereditary accidents; for they are compulsory dreams too — for it is in their honor created abundant beauty to be desired, beauty gifted with wings to pursue their special soul mates and muses.

This will be my private attic, a concealed room.

As an imperative I want it hidden for selfish reasons. Once in a while, out of confidence or fondness I’d invite another spirit to lie down in it’s naked floors, to soak up the shivering radiance of its apologetic flaws (and concealed spells, if I may speak in escalating conceit). Yet the probable sweet embrace or impromptu departure of an invited guest is a dreadful ambivalence that inhibits even the most fervent concierge to fling the doors open and welcome the flood of intrusions to leave an awkward trail drenched with loam, mud and woe.

The choice remains as they always were and always will: suspend your dreams in a visible pulpit and hazard an ache; unsympathetically revel in the exquisite margins of a garret smeared of beauty and anonymous tales and forever injure yourself with deficiency and want.

Or in the attic of sadness quietly spread your wings.

Give me an attic and I will fill it into bursting with dreams. All assortment, permutation, swatches and textures of dreams. Childish dreams of cotton candy, marbled balloons and rubbery gums punctuated with maternal agonies of domestic scatter — broken limbs of a tearful sister’s dolls, building blocks, bricks, toy guns, wooden ponies, dog eared storybooks and torn kites — yes, remember those incredibly cheery kites, which can now only drift in pleasant daze in recollection of tangled flights.

Somewhere by the far corner I’ll stack habitual dreams — reveries of sand and water, unbounded trek and exploit, a horseback ride down a slope pillared with pines and peppered by crisp morning air, a teasing hammock under a fertile mango tree on a blistering summer afternoon — while vulnerably drowned in crude trappings of demanding paperclips, insolent keyboards, rebellious shredders, invasive phone shrieks and oppressive fluorescents.

Its walls will be papered with ambitious dreams: delusions and aspirations — grandeur, magnitude and infinity inhabited and claimed only by the most restless of imagination-precious crops only the most determined of passions can defy to harvest. Vision will be varnished on swathed canvasses — brave testament of the lushness of creative impulses that shall transcend the triviality of the bearer.

There will be unlocked chests on the left to store unpleasant dreams: aches, frustrations, disillusionments and the constant ally and shaper of wisdom and understanding — the state of brokenness. The key will not be thrown into rivers, lakes or ponds but best kept at hand, for that throbbing moment of bittersweet nostalgia when you lift the lid and peek inside as if to greet a vaguely-familiar wounded friend.

Neatly piled on the sharp angle where two walls wed, allow me to assemble thirsty dreams and longings — anchored arms orbiting a torso, legs twined around hips, a gentle pull or warm nestle in the unholy hours between sunsets and the first of rooster crows-gentle geometries of tenderness buried for a moment in sheets and pillows, stirred by rhythms of breathing and discreet half-whispers in celebration of a genial sleep.

The windowsills will be book-ended with unwelcome dreams — nightmares and melancholy — goodbyes lumped in throats, pickled emotions as stale as grandmother’s yellowed prescriptions, polite conversations and insufferable silences, a white coffin being lowered in verdant greens, watching misery flicker in the eye of someone who laughs the loudest.

There will be no rugs in the attic, for they hide the quivering hopefulness of the wooden floorboards. Hopefulness is a dream, too, and it would be such rude prejudice to shroud its modest dignity with discounted shoddy linoleum. In this hopefulness I would rather lay motionless, eyes shut, draining the coldness of the wood who kiss the delicate strands at the back of my neck. Or, sometimes, in this intentionally frozen stillness my eyes would flutter open and carry on it’s enduring romance with the ceiling, draining the circus in my head into a delicious infinity of empty bliss and innocence.
Wistfulness, wishful thinking, they will sit languidly in an absent couch like twins forever ensnared in umbilical inheritance, bound by reciprocation and hereditary accidents; for they are compulsory dreams too — for it is in their honor created abundant beauty to be desired, beauty gifted with wings to pursue their special soul mates and muses.

This will be my private attic, a concealed room.

As an imperative I want it hidden for selfish reasons. Once in a while, out of confidence or fondness I’d invite another spirit to lie down in it’s naked floors, to soak up the shivering radiance of its apologetic flaws (and concealed spells, if I may speak in escalating conceit). Yet the probable sweet embrace or impromptu departure of an invited guest is a dreadful ambivalence that inhibits even the most fervent concierge to fling the doors open and welcome the flood of intrusions to leave an awkward trail drenched with loam, mud and woe.

The choice remains as they always were and always will: suspend your dreams in a visible pulpit and hazard an ache; unsympathetically revel in the exquisite margins of a garret smeared of beauty and anonymous tales and forever injure yourself with deficiency and want.

Or in the attic of sadness quietly spread your wings.

We all bark at the moon.

Insanity is the only logical explanation. And even that isn’t a justifiable reason why I act like a complete doofus-head in the past few weeks. Deadlines loom left and right, pressing things require undivided attention and at times, I feel like stepping out for lunch, board a one-way flight to the rainforests of Nepal and anonymously file a missing person registry on my behalf so people will be comfortably resolved of the fact that I am rapidly decomposing elsewhere and move on with the neat choreographies of their respective lives. I know it’s an immature, irresponsible way of putting things into perspective but I pledged madness upfront ergo I believe that it is the only validation I would ever need. Or maybe I’d simply argue my point with a fully loaded nuclear head. I don’t think so. Too much mess.

Weeks have passed and I haven’t had the clarity to write about things that are important, that genuinely matter. Procrastination has nothing to do with it. I have had difficulty finding the proper words to articulate the tremendously draining events and discoveries in the past few weeks. In moments like these, words would conveniently take a holiday, leaving me stumped, miserable, voiceless.

My mother didn’t get a cheap greeting card, not even a ten-second call from me on her birthday a couple of days ago. I feel awful. It’s like a culpable barnacle lodging my brains, multiplying rapidly, emitting paroxysms of guilt racking my nerves. I called her last night and a wisdom-laden, beatific voice assured me that it’s all right but I’d like to believe I’ll never inherit those pricey heirloom whatzits preserved by mothballs. Which is fine by me. Expect that I feel terrible. It’s like I just sat through Sister Mary Fatima’s catechism thesis on what will be in store for ill-behaved boys who murder millions of potential lives with a boner and a busy hand.

Two friends are equally miserable. One is anxious and ambivalent, facing a turnpike pegged with tough choices involving affections, finances, deceits, disloyalties. The other breathes a retrospective wistful ache of the same experience while braving an intangible affection that is stuck between stop lights of daily concerns and immediate burdens. Both are amazing people who, like everyone else, are fumbling through life, making use of whatever wisdom, knowledge or insight that will get them through the spaces between dawn and dusk.

Thinking about these things makes me feel the sublime intensity and truthfulness seamlessly captured in dog barking at the moon by Joan Miro. The painting struck me deeply when I first encountered it in Arts class and it still reverberates in my mind like a well erupting into a delirious song from the weight of a penny from a wisher’s hand.

A dog barking at the moon. Come to think of it. Generally, we all are.

Inadequate

Consider this entry a short-lived quasi-resurrection. Woefully nothing much follows.

Discombobulated

Despire what Hallmark card writers extol on the bazillion virtues of being in love, oftentimes, the very same condition gives you an opportunity to become very intimate with concepts of indescribable misery and torturous ordeal. The more defensive ones choose the self-defeating mechanism of aloofness or faux disinterest but like you they are also being gnawed by that undeclared ache of being the parallel contributor and recipient of a certain fondness. “Who can resist the thought that s/he is being loved?”, Buscaglia once wrote. Yet actual love experiences are complex and most often they do not rhyme or painted in adorable pastels. There’s so much struggle for those involved and the games people play make the whole shenanigan all the more less simpler than it should be.

Admirable how a few brave souls are not shy at admitting that they are veterans of many failed attempts at this thing, which merits them the unappetizing title of being bonafide losers. But that doesn’t stop them from finding another mistake. You can argue with reason, you can argue with pain, you can argue with experiences. But you cannot argue with passionate hopefulness.

Other people will find the persistence a stupid pursuit. Who in bleep’s sake cares? Of course you’ll do stupid things but do them with enthusiasm.

AWOL

My truant tendency always hits me at the wrong time. It appears like the insidious Eve brandishing the delectable apple before the unsuspecting Adam in the blissful garden of Eden. Too strong a come-on to rebuff with guilt. Guilt conversely cancels out being present in both sides of the equation. Guilt and erroneous conscience. Where right can be made wrong and wrong, right. There’s not much time left for rational thinking. I’ll deal with guilt and my conscience later. After playing truant, that is.

Untitled

Is there a vending machine for tender pleasures like wasting time in bed on Sunday mornings next to someone you’re very fond of? Let me know. My pocket is filled to bursting with coins.

Self-voyeurism

Have you ever had that disconcerting feeling of being totally detached from your very own life and you’re reduced into powerless self-voyeurism? Like you’re observing your very own proceeding in confusion while your conciousness frantically waves from a distant trying to catch up with your empty shell?

In the past few weeks, that kind of blah-ness is quite a pervasive condition on me and no matter how I struggle for clarity or directional shift, I can’t help but get this perpetual twilight zone smog. Names, faces, events and emotions are reduced into one incoherent blur and many times over I get the absurd disposition that my life is one protracted stretch of horrific and surreal scenes strung together.

Despite the abundance of daily stories to write about, that creative spark seems to have taken a holiday. Missing. Out of reach. Elsuive. I should console myself of the thought that life, although not that spectacular in excessive ways, have been quite permitting. There’s nothing much to whine about and for that I’m thankful.

Omnipresent as ever is that pang of sadness. It didn’t help me that I have a few striking episodes of total astonishment over complete strangers who remind me of that one absolute deficit that’s somewhat within grasp but remains perversely unreachable, dodging me, rolling with teasing laughter. Being swaggering and self-absorbed.

I woke up in the middle of the night and lethargy descended like a malicious cloud threatening a predictable downpour. I remain very still, lying in bed, wide-eyed, bated-breathed, naked, waiting for something to hit me.

Cataclysm

Maybe the cosmos is sending cryptic signals. And I, being appallingly irresponsible, ignore the encrypted messages and choose to take the statements as they are: basically amusing pseudophilosophies slash individualistic mantras that spark amusement, and on certain neurotic cases, deep thought. I’m not talking about earth-shaking utopian suppositions. I’m talking about T-shirt inscriptions that I see being worn by people while wandering aimlessly in the mall. “Real Men Don’t Need Viagra”, “Porn Star On Training”, “I Wish These Were Brains!” worn by a big-bosomed woman, “You Say I’m A Bitch Like It’s A Bad Thing”, “The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own”, I saw this shirt worn by a Vegas stripper in protest of President Bush’s policies. And the cringe-a-holic, perverse in a mad hilarious way shirt I saw: “I (Heart) Mahal!”

Again, I ask

Five questions still dangle in my head like infuriating specks of cheerful-beyond-belief clouds that just won’t give me a break.

1. What’s the point of all this?
2. Why struggle?
3. Why can’t I be a bonafide asshole and just let it be that way?
4. Why can’t I bear the thought of being directly involved in inflicting hurt?
5. Why am I so bad at being too close for comfort?

As a human capable of this thing called thought process, the more I try to rationalize with shallow pseudophilosophies or recycled self-empowering tepid attempt at self-consolations, the more I flaggelate myself by mentally kicking my own shins.

It’s possible that I am hitching the rational train in full throttle. Am I a human train wreck?

If everything is so close, almost within my grasp, then how do I explain the little slivers of restraint and self-doubt that prevent me from being so happy? Maybe this is one of those moments where I am actually feeling depressed but too engrossed with petty distractions called academics and living to actually take heed and do something about it. Maybe after all the avoidance, I just want to slump on the couch next to a fond breathing thing which will prove my delusions wrong.

Or maybe a quick fix of Oreo McFlurry will dispel this supposed decline. Maybe I am feeling this to remind myself that I am very much capable of hurt despite the mounting jadedness. Maybe it’s just me. Which, with great possibility, is definitely all there is.

Pencil full of lead

You must be a very sad man, the message goes. It shows in your writings.

I am very well acquainted with how it is being sad, I reply. But writing dons its own wings and charts its own flights. I have nothing to do with its cheerless expression. All I remember is I was looking at words assembling themselves into something I am quite familiar with. Eventually they make sense. I know of joy as I know its reverse. They are constant visitors who seldom arrive simultaneously. They choreograph their stopovers with mutual respect: the other won’t knock while the other is in the middle of an enraptured conversation with the owner of the house. They both know it is rude to barge in, to disrupt. While the other dwells in the room, the other is patiently waiting in the outskirts of the fields, counting heartbeats until his time is due.

When it’s proper, appears in full glory, brimming with a smile. That’s how it is, I conclude, don’t let the words confuse or mislead you. Don’t assume too much. Nor attempt to understand anything too soon. Like you, I await the coming and going, alternating the anticipation, as steady as the rhythm of night and day.

No wonder we are sad.

Elevators are a source of amusement to me. It’s the very definition of proximity and distance being tossed in a warped blender. You are crammed to the point of your privates being scrunched to someone else’s body parts and yet you carry on like those body parts do not exist. Maybe Leo Buscaglia is right. It would be fun to freak people out when getting in the lift and brightly announce, “Hello! My name is Ken and I want to know you!” They’d be so agitated and scramble out of the doggone box screaming, “There’s a psycho in there and he wants to know me!” The thought of someone knowing us well threatens us. We yearn for closeness and opt for detachment. To reword another brilliant writer: it’s like giving a handshake while wishing our arms are way longer. No wonder we are sad.

A sense of reality

Something in me stirred.

After a short-lived but intense burst of astonishment, I become all-too-aware like all the switches in the world flicked on, unfastening bolts of currents, and, swiftly, everything is illuminated. Like all the lanterns of the universe burned in precisely choreographed combustion. It was exhilarating. Saddening, too.

I was watching a DVD of Closer, a movie which, for the longest time, I have postponed seeing. It is so many things to different people. Cynics and jaded people (AMEN!) would hail it a piracy of their private lives. Romantics would view it as one complex but fascinating puzzle. Realists would declare it an honest mirror. Absurdists will proclaim it as a study of stark reality. Every acclamation about this multifaceted composite of modern relationships is well-earned. The movie never loses its rhythmical series: brisk, sly, funny, bleak, cruel, honest, blunt, unapologetic and above all, mystifying. This is the kind of rabid writing that makes people like me insecure. It never revels on profundity but you feel the looming sadness, the yearnings, the melancholy and the imminent gloom hovering above the characters’ heads. You root for them, you want them to be happy, but like you, they are as confused, fumbling around, making the most of what they know. They are no longer confined in celluloid fiction. They inhale the same air, their breathing, rising and falling to the slow rhythms of your pulse. You are one with them in confusion and desperation.

One brief scene flashed that floored me: Anna hugging herself in the partially lighted attic. I gaped. Mike Nichols has just plagiarized my life.

The scene wasn’t protracted but the sensation it enthused in me disengaged a twinge of recognition, making the fleeting moment seem too personal. It hit me like a a sudden downpour of anvils plummeting towards my head. In that attic I see myself balled up. Staring vacuously, consumed by meaningless thoughts, kissed by possessive silence.

It is in this attic where I can similarly breathe freely, where I am free of any form of judgment except my own. It is where I go to avoid, to think, to reflect, to wallow, to be lost. It is where I can be the real me, stripped to the core, with nothing to apologize or make amends for. It is where I deteriorate into a beast, or get reacquainted with vulnerability. It is where everything liquefies, with nothing to hinder my thoughts but the sound of my own well-paced shallow breathing. It is where I am emancipated from weariness of choices or grope for meaning. Or, at times, it is where all notions of significance are rendered unnecessary.

Everyone has a perfect private spot. Some people have secluded hills, beaten old paths, hollow trees, consoling meadows, beachfront cottages, an unblinking gaze, or the warmth of an embrace to get lost into. I have an attic in my head. To other souls it’s dank and inhospitable. It’s reeking of depression, guilt and indelible melancholy. It’s not the most flawless space in the world.

It’s not a home — a home is what you temporarily occupy. It is a room of sadness that you inhabit all the time. You may be sidetracked and laugh for a moment, but you’ll know when it’s time to flee unto the room of discontent, look at yourself, and see incandescent sadness smiling back.

You return the courtesy with absolute comprehension. You wistfully smile back knowing you’re truly home.

Plight

Talks about moral issues can be unsettling for many. Religion, politics, sexuality and gender bending are some of the topics that are best tackled with a ten-foot pole. They are also listed among the no-nos for social conversations. Try brushing them up and you’re damned for the rest of your waking hours. The said subjects are relatively touchy that by mere remark of any of them one gets both cheers and jeers, flak and encouragement, praise and censure with no one came out unscathed.

And veer from them, I shall. But not altogether and not so fast.

Allow me then to ‘temper’ one moral subject by dissecting nationalism with outmost objectivity (I can feel the rush of my neurons shooting out conflicting views each one wanting to be heard… talk about objectivity and chaotic views at once.)

We are again at the threshold of changing the course of our history. With the national elections at hand, it has never been timely to talk about nationalism than now. Not the stuff we have heard on political rallies, seen on talk shows, and read in the editorials. But the nationalism which translates into sense and cents, to bread and butter or simply lack of them.

Personally, I submit that the best barometer for the economy is the queue of calls at the US embassy, snaking warm bodies at the Foreign Affairs and folder-tucked hopefuls at the overseas placement agencies.  The leftists, rightists and centrists have all the labels for those joining the exodus. Some label them as ‘cowards’ for turning their backs on armed struggle for change; ‘opportunists’ who know where to butter their bread and butter them good; ‘leeches’ who leave their prey dry or after they have their fill; ‘traitors’ for feeding whatever remains to the vultures in the political arena. But if there’s anything balmy and ironic at the same time about name calling, it’s how the government calling them the ‘present day heroes’ if only for sustaining economy yet subject them to indignities, if you know what I mean.

Nationalism today has indeed gone a long way — down the pits. Commercialism has invaded his sacred turf, dressed him up with Versace, sprayed with Chanel, shoed him with Valentino and put up for sale to the highest bidder. Nationalism has long been prostituted, mangled and disfigured right in our very homeland by our very own people long before Human Rights advocates put up their placards on the streets quetching for justice. Nationalism has become chic that even the authorities are having a hard time recognizing him.

In the face of clear and present danger when the boat is sinking and life is on the line, wouldn’t flight be more prudent than fight?

Bottom line: expediency. Expediency in the light of survival. In this regard, nationalism together with its moral ramification takes a back seat hoping it will not get lost in translation.

More strings of invidia

First, a lie: it is quite incongruent of me to occupy a certain fondness. I am neither invincible nor reckless. I have chosen to remain in that comfortable point between blue and grey, suspended in contentment and forestalling, equally impartial to bliss and ache. Acknowledging a lie — its intangible presence, molding it into reckless declarative — doesn’t necessarily make it sincere either. Yet I am diffidently celebrating it — in spite of myself, in spite of my many misgivings, in spite of my inability to properly honor its subtlety, its nobility. It is imprudent to argue with enduring patience and admirable diligence.

I fear I am depleted of genuine excuses.

The more I rationalize the less logical I become. Nonetheless there is one thing I hold true: it never was, and definitely not, an intrusion; it calmly revels in dignified liberty, tolerant, steadfast and downright respectable in its self-defeating magnetism. The manifestations sprout from overlooked corners, edging progressively, like a sprout in search of much-needed  illumination. All at once everything dissolves into cliche bouillabaisse. Even the most maudlin lyrics of schmaltzy songs make unqualified sense: seamless, translucent, blinding in its probabilities. Also incredibly threatening the very spirit of self-preservation.

From a subjective vantage point I can sum up the significant options: heed its  beckoning or bolt the floodgates of consent.

Either choice seals a complete decline and fall. Icarus, in a sudden burst of recognition, realized its cruel wisdom whereupon plummeted in complete rapture. While I sit by the turnpike, a spectator to the great plunge, consumed with amazement, dread, compassion, shame.

And envy.

Chug, chug, chug!

I am a raving maniac, I know. Which kind of conceals the fact that I have really nothing to say or account for the past few days except another series of drunkenness that I deserve a permanent stamp on the forehead that screams: Alcoholic Synonymous! Let us survey the assorted poison I’ve been gargling: weng-weng, check. The ever staple beer, check. Jägermeister, check. Now that’s premature fogeyness for you. And that’s how I spent much of the past few days. This week, I’d hit the pool, swim the toxins off until my lungs burst, go into a perverse vegan diet, jog around the flat. No wait, let me check that: wedge the iPod into my ears, yank the volume all the way up, hold the iPod arm length and dance like a hormonally crazed rhino charging around randomly in nothing but white briefs. Someone kick me in the face. Or in my shins.