to zak

To my little boy Zak,

you are the second born of a second born daughter. we share the same fate. we will always be the spare child. the other one. the funny, crazy one. i know Ate Zoe is going to be a tough act to follow but do not despair. you have the charm to spin us all around.

never let your being the second born make you feel second in anything else. never let your being the younger child, make your other sibling receive more, get first priority, get first pick. you have to settle this yourselves and learn to defend yourselves not with your brawn but your wit.

I hope i'd be able to teach you that you do not have to act strong all the time. that crying is not discouraged just because you are a boy. i hope you will grow up comfortable in articulating your feelings. and that the words i love you will be easy to utter.

I love you.

Nanay

to zoe

Dear Zoe,

you always asked me if i love you the most. i always say yes, because i do. i do love you the most. one day, i may not answer it as swiftly since Zak is already growing up and he might one day ask me the same question, and like a true mother, i will also say that of course, it is him i love the most.

when that time comes, i hope you understand that both answers are not a lie. they are what mothers are supposed to say and supposed to make you feel. i can see that in the near future, you will question my integrity, my choices, my decisions but i hope you know that when it comes to the question of loving you, i will always give you a truthful answer.

you test me now, at four. all the things i have read on how to rear a child sometimes go out to the door since you already know all the buttons to push. i know it is my fault since i gave you those buttons. i hope you know that when i push back, it is not to hurt you. but you should understand that in life there are rules you have to follow. i hope that i can impart to you this rules. and impart to you their value. but i also hope that if you decide to break these rules, you must know that there might be consequences but there could also be a new way of doing things that you might discover.

as you grow up, you will eventually learn that we, your parents are not impeccable. we will sometimes be at the opposite sides of an argument, but let not are arguments make you think that our love for you is in question. i hope that i will learn not to stop you from saying what you feel and what you think and i hope that you will learn not to lose sight of the topic at hand.

one day, you will see us a old fashioned traditionalist and have lost sense of culture and politics, i hope you will have the audacity to show us your politics and teach us your culture. since we will always want to know you.

I love you.

Nanay

visitor

you do not live here

just visiting

so do not forget

there are certain decorum

for visitors

wait to be invited to seat

to be asked if you want coffee

and converse only on surface matters

do not disturb the status quo

please

your act may create chaos after you leave

do not be too comfortable

even if you are told to feel at home

this is not your home.

my mother's story

My mother was born in a time of war. It was the 40's and the Japanese has already occupied manila. all she remembered of the war was how the american soldiers will give them candy when they call them joe and how her mother used to give them the food from her plate. these were also her only memory of her mother. her mother died before the war ended.

Maybe this is what made her become the mother she was. sacrificial but at hard at the same time.

i have never thought her as weak though i knew she had weaknesses. i grew up knowing her as the go-to mother in the neighborhood, one of the main-stayers in the school along with the other moms, organizing alternative PTA's (since we don't really have an official one), and the sane, matter of fact, voice of reason among her friends.

we never really had a perfect relationship. i know she felt i was the test that she had failed most of the time. she, for me was the one holding me back. but deep inside i always knew why we could not get along. we are so much alike. opinionated and colorful. hard and real. we wanted more from each other than what we both could really give.

when i became a mother in 20o7, a year before she passed, i have understood her better but at the same time, had more questions i wished she could have answered.

today is supposed to be her 72nd birthday. we would have brought her a cake. she would have like that. though she might act nonchalantly like she always would since she scarcely want attention.

She may have left us but she is within us, my sister and i, for she made us who we are. may we not forget.

photo credit:Gustav-Klimt: Three ages of Woman, Mother and Child

revisiting

(artwork by Vincent Van Gogh)

revisiting old cafe's

and half forgotten alleyways

of the street of your heart

the scent of it

leaves a wanting

that cannot be satisfied.

how the past can be rekindled

by old smells

old taste

and same dark alleyways

why did you dare go through this road?

isn't the streetlight offering a safe haven

enough.

but a longing heart

forgets

the meaning of the word.

the dimness of the night's stars

adds to the allure of the moon

daring.

the elusive red lipstick

bought a red lipstick at the grocery today and it disappointed me. well i should have known better than to buy lipstick at the grocery but well, i digress. so i was hoping to find the perfect red lipstick. two choices in the 100 pesos lipstick line. taylor red and swift red. no testers. bought taylor red since it appears redder. sadly on my lips it is still uhm red orange. kainis!

a night with the kids

the holiday season has ended officially with hubby having to report for work today. however, yesterday night to cap off the holiday cheer, we went to the park and painted the town well uhm checkered.

to judge the number of families that were on the park, there were a lot of us who had the same idea. the parking lot was full and we had to circle the circle to find a parking spot.

big z and little z had a lot of fun in the playground though i have to reprimand the crazy kids who use the slides as stairs. being mataray serves my purpose in the playground. maybe the kids thought i was the wicked witch that could eat them up because after a couple of reprimands the big z and the little z had the slide all for themselves.

it was harder to find a place to eat since not all stalls decided to sell that day. sayang, there were really a lot of people and those that put up their stalls, are in the vernacular, tiba-tiba.

we decided to go to the permanent stalls since they are the only ones that have tables and chairs available.

big z had a blast with her lugaw. the little z, crazy him, likes the lumpiang ubod. hubby and i well we stick to the classic everyday breakfast staple, tapsilog. suspiciously though, their tapa taste more like skinless longganisa though with a more chewy texture.

for dessert, we had dirty ice cream. well, it turns out that not all dirty ice cream is created equally. we should have bought dirty ice cream from our suki near the playground rather than the one near the fountain. but anyway, it was still cold and the big z is insisting for ice cream and i did promise her we could get one.

the sitting on our banig to rest was a crazy idea i learned. since the idea of the 2 z's is to wrestle on the banig as soon as it was laid and run around anywhere with green. we decided to take pictures here since the little z at last, is camera ready. (he hardly ever is)

to end the night, we head off to the small theme park ( i am not sure exactly what is their theme but it is only slightly better than a perya) and rode some of the zs favorite rides like the carousel and convoy.

after that, little z was already sleepy and wanted milk. so off we go. back home.

new year blog

today is a new year. so what? someone said. then began to say uhm okay new start. but nothing is really new on new year. when the clock struck midnight nothing really changed. except probable the smog outside your house which turns worse from the thousand pesos worth of judas belt your neighbor set fire to to make himself lucky. but then there is something good in the hope that the change of number in the calendar give us.

so happy new year.