Destination Anywhere

I have stumbled upon this documentary from one of the write ups of the opinion section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.  It's opening line is like an uppercut to the diaphragm: Imagine a nation where the #1 career choice is leaving the country. Yes, it is talking about us, the collectively heralded heroes of the present, the overseas Filipino worker. 

The Pen Artist

Funny, I only realized that after my puberty was over, there were only two things that persisted: (1) my acne and (2) the fact that my best days of impassioned writing was over.  Yes, I still do write poems and essays such as this every now and then.  But I know not how I managed to conjure up an obra maestra of letters and verses in one sitting.  Where once I could sit and write a love poem in less than half an hour inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Maningning Miclat, I am now resigned to squeezing my brain to write even a single verse for my wife or to type a blog entry that probably only a couple people will read anyway.

I did not know when I lost the passion for writing.  Its slow but inevitable death probably has started when my mom told me I will not take up Creative Writing at UP Diliman.  She told me poetry and short stories will not feed a family.  You will live and die by the poverty that the pen can only bring.  She told me to pursue my passion for the arts yet remain grounded in the fact that too many artists died starving before a Picasso becomes priceless.  Keep writing she said, but make it a hobby not a career.  Now that I think of it, she made sense but it did bring the near-death of my writing passion.  I don't think I would have been recognized as a great writer anyway, a good one yes, but not good enough to be great.  I don't think I can play with words as well as Patricia Evangelista or Conrado de Quiros.  My essays are pretty much decent, but even I don't think they are special.

Yeah, yeah and you give me the litany of believe-in-yourself-believe-in-your-dreams-keep-dreaming-and-someday-you'll-achieve-it bullcrap.  There are hundreds of thousands of people told to follow their dreams no matter what other people say or no matter the odds.  Almost all of them died with eyes wide open and skin pressed deeply against their ribs.  Those who didn't die chose a day job way different from their first passions.  To think of  it, how many people try and try again and fail to produce a Michael Jordan or a Michael Phelps or a Michael Jackson? There are literally thousands upon thousands of cabaret and bar singers who at one point in their lives really thought they stand out and that they would make it.  The world is hard on artists, that is a fact, and when the truth comes crashing down it dawns on you that you have been strumming that guitar for twenty years now, writing that novel for fifteen years now, or playing in some random rundown theater for ten years now and still the break that you were looking for is far from your grasp.  How long will it be before you realize that nobody listens to your songs anymore, or your graffiti which drew oohs and ahhs from way before remain that?  How long before reality breaks you down and poverty transforms your creativity to despair?  At one point in their lives, artists of pen or brush or song will struggle. 
Struggle and the triumph over it is what defines each artist and will engrave his legacy.

Ah, but how wonderful it was when I was an impassioned writer.  How I miss the magic that my heartbreak brought or my desire to save the world can do.  Pain is what drove me.  Pain of an unrequited love.  Pain of adolescent rebellion.  The passion that rages in your chest and flows in your blood to the ink of your pen.  Life seemed more... vivid then.  And now I just chill.  As I stare into this entry that wasn't supposed to be an entry, I wonder what drives me now.  Now that the pain is gone and the heartbreak has healed a long time time.  Where do I get that fire? Where do I get the itch to pick up a pen and write down a story or a poem so spirited my blood will roll again into my canvass of letters.  The moment is now.  The time is now. But like all has-beens do, I'd say nay and put off the obra maestra till tomorrow or until probably forgotten. 

GRANDMA

My former boss sent me a text last Friday.  She rarely texts me other than news about Grandma.  I smile when I remembered her.  She was my former patient at my old facility.  Her name is Marion Rapalee.  She was born January 20 or 21st (not sure) 1919.  She is ninety-three years old but claims to be two hundred.  It doesn't matter how many times other patients tell her that she can't be two hundred it's impossible.  She strongly believes that she is and that is that.

I never knew anybody who didn't like Grandma.  She was sweet and kind and always looks at other people with empathy.  I remember one day we were in the gym exercising, and another patient rolled in in a wheelchair.  Grandma asked her what happened to her.  She told Grandma that she missed the chair when she sat, slammed her butt on the floor and broke a hip.  Grandma came close and gave her a hug and consoled her: Oh you poor thing.  Later, we found out why she was so compassionate about other patients.  Grandma Rapalee was a nurse her whole life.  She told us (over and over) again that she had been a nurse for sixty-three years (this too cannot be confirmed but we all know she had been one for a long time.) 

Grandma was also a wonderful singer.  She told us she sang in the choir and in church.  Everybody would amusingly hear her singing her heart out along corridors or in her room.  When you don't hear her sing, it means she's sick.  She belts out Somewhere Over the Rainbow again and again.  Or Someday my Prince Will Come.  She also likes Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes, Love Me Tender and Can't Help Falling in Love.  But because of her dementia, she makes up her own lyrics to the songs, admit that she's making them up and we'd all laugh about it.  Something like: Someday, my prince will come; Someday, I'll find my love; And the moment that he comes to me; I will hang him up the old apple tree...

I remember the first few times we met.  We were in the parallel bars and I asked her if she remembered who I was.  She told me no.  I told her: Well, Ms Rapalee. I'm the mayor of this town. Her eyes widened and looking all surprised she asked me: You're not.  I said: I am, really.  She replied: Wow! Then suddenly looking disinterested said: If you say so! Then, we both cracked up.
What I didn't realize is that she truly identified me as the mayor.  And she would talk to the nurses and other residents about meeting the mayor.  In the dining room, she would loudly introduce me to her table-mates as the mayor of the town much to my chagrin.  The name stuck though and some of them started calling me Mayor in jest.  I started calling her Grandma when she told me she will adopt me.  Apparently, she told a lot of people she will adopt them according to her family.  I've seen her daughter and granddaughter visit her several times a week.  Both of them were attractive older women who are about as sweet as Grandma.  One day while she was doing her therapy at the gym, they came to visit her.  Grandma insisted that they take her home immediately without delay.  They told her: But, Grandma, you're too old to go home. Nobody will stay at home with you all day. We work.  You're two hundred years old remember?  To which Grandma replied: Two hundred's not old.  It's not like I'm two-fifty!  I burst out laughing again right then and there.

Three weeks ago, the same former boss texted me to tell me that Grandma is back on caseload.  She had bowel obstruction and they picked her back up after hospital discharge.  Grandma remembered the Mayor and the therapist (my boss) who's seeing her as my step sister.  I told her to tell Grandma that I miss her a lot and she better get well soon.

Last Friday, she sent me a text again.  She told me Grandma was on a decline since last week and they finally sent her out to the hospital in the morning.  She told me, Grandma passed at the hospital.  It broke my heart.  Funny, how that same morning, I heard Somewhere Over the Rainbow being played on the piano by one of the residents.  I thought of Grandma then, just as I am thinking of her now.  It is amazing how God plans our lives.  There are some people who stay in your life for a long time and not leave a mark at all.  And yet there are some who pass for the briefest of moments and leave an indelible print in your being.

I will miss Grandma so very much.  And I thank God for giving me her for even just a short time.  I know who I want to be as a healer.  I know who I want to be when I grow old and gray.  She must be making all the angels laugh up there and making heaven an even happier place than it's ever been.  So I bid her adieu, until we meet again, somewhere over the rainbow.

Click and View please

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL4lzKCYDEw&feature=youtu.be