china | badaling great wall

china | badaling great wall, a set on Flickr.

sent away

sun-hazed skies

there underneath

it was told

seeing over

with me sits a coffee cup. 
iced watered coffee dregs - the cup is almost overflowing
with time taking its slow toll for dissolution. 

my life lays and my life lies.
as the last breath is taken away, the falsity of lived moments take their rightful places
claiming
that there is truth in dying. 

he told me more than once.
he dreams of death - a floating kind of empty existence. 
he sees his world in fast motion and he sees himself -
with consciousness is there life?
with consciousness is there death?
is death the unknowing - what is existence?

i fear to leave again
that in leaving i can never return.

there is an overflowing.
there is also - in dreaming -
an over-flowering. 

miles to go

๓๓

it is that time of year again. and this time, work takes over.



the resurrection i had planned for today must be postponed for another day. with that too is a simple celebration of a new life.

and to you too i wish happiness in life.

at 93

the news came as a surprise. it must have been six years since i last visited the college and one thing i have always looked forward to in a possible visit was bumping into her along the shadowed halls and corridors of malcolm hall. it never occurred that one day, at her old frail age but strong will and spirit, she will have to go. i must be one of those who believed that she will outlive us all. reality strikes, and every time i see her photo spread in social sites and electronic groups, i can never find myself resisting and holding back the sadness. 

in her funny wit and sharp tongue during successful and failed recitations, she taught us not only about the civil law and procedure that we can always read in law books, court decisions, and case studies. there was always something about the humor in life found in the cases we studies. there was always the second chances to redeem yourself should you fail to get the first one right. there was always the patience to find creativity to answer and to look for answers, and her years of experience lets her know and lets her bypass the creative fault with a knowing smirk to surprise you with another round. 

you will sorely be missed, but surely immortalized.

the little details

there i was, wanting and expecting the remaining months to just fly by. here i am now, trudging each hour of the remaining months left. plans of moving on are always never simple, especially when there's nothing tangible yet after, when the future holds for you a number of uncertainties. decisions are hardly decisive. options are most of the time floating and vague. still, here i trudge the hours away. here i find time to look back. and after almost 3 years coming back to cebu again for almost a week long meeting, here i find myself absorbing the little details i have surely missed living abroad.

i am not particularly sure what in this place allows me dig for familiar spaces and things. the familiar local language and accents you hear. cinema one in cable. multicabs and taxi rides. christmas light and decors adorning establishments post-christmas month. viva pit senyor. the way couples drag each other on sidewalks and little children and parents populate the malls. my head bleeding after an accidental bump inside a public vehicle. getting lost and getting your way back. the local food and the local taste of international food. local faces.  local decors. then a small fire ignites in me. when i would have thought otherwise, there i find little details.

20 something

i wanted to list down some twenty or more things about last year, but i got preoccupied by some twenty or more things for work. with an urge to find balance, i suddenly embarked on a long weekend journey and found some twenty or more things that can be done in a far town to the north of thailand. it did bring me back to my twenty something years and made me feel i was still within the twenty something age range.