Helter Swelter

The sweltering heat of the afternoon inspired nothing but boredom from me. It was a summer afternoon not unlike many that have gone past. It was hot. It was humid. Heat was radiating from everything that the sun caressed in the last 8 hours.

I settled on reading books I had long abandoned. Like a ritual, I took each one and wiped the dust off the covers. I flipped to marked pages. I tried to recall where I left off. I realized I had left my books too long that I could no longer recall. I had bits and pieces of the stories in them, nothing more. I settled on one of them, Connecting Flights. I resolved to read it cover-to-cover. As I went along, I discovered missing pieces of what I could not remember fully. I discover new  stories I had originally skipped. I consumed it within an hour.

I picked up another. Pete Lacaba's Edad Medya. I read a couple of poems. The mood was too somber, I could not go on. I might've triggered depression if I did. Most of my old friends would tell you that I suffer from these episodic bouts of depression, which confused many of them, so much so that I've only managed to keep a handful of them. I picked up The Kite of Stars. Memories began to flood my mind. I knew this book well. It imprinted on me so much that the mere suggestion of it's blue cover with gold lettering triggered memories of the stories the lay within it. I will read it again, when I lacked inspiration. There is no better epitome of so great a love than the kite of stars.

I picked up Dream Noises : A Generation Writes next. I read the first three stories and felt a sadness settle in me. I stopped reading and decided I really had to do something else. I have a writer's heart. My skills are not at par with many of the published kind. But I have the heart of one. I read and I understand. No, I feel the stories. They stir in me the emotions these authors felt when they created these works.

I guess this was one of the reasons I stopped blogging, or even writing in general. I did my best work in the most emotionally destitute times of my life. I wasn't the kind that could write the cheery side of everything. I was the kind that fed off my darker side. The sadder I was, the better the prose. I subconsciously begged myself to stop. And stop I did. But you cannot really deny what you are. I need to write again. If only for myself. If only for me to release my demons.

As I started typing this, it started to rain. A light drizzle that belied the true strength of an approaching typhoon. I guess we all need some rain in our life. Otherwise we would not wish for more sunshine, however hot it was..

My Worn Books and Reflections on Reflecting...

Recently an office-mate was rushed to the hospital. I showed up the next day in his hospital room, bringing with me the health insurance forms from the office, 3 books and a wall charger. He was quite amused with what I did. The books were, as I told him, to get his mind off his illness. The other two items were much more pragmatic, since the forms were a standard requirement for hospitals and the wall wart was for his (and the spouse') phones.

Anyway, the books I brought for him were Edad medya: mga tula sa katanghaliang gulang by Pete Lacaba, The Kite of stars and other stories by Dean Francis Alfar and Connecting Flights by Ruel S. De Vera. All three of these are what I would term are 'reflective' books. The stories can relate to anyone Filipino. Most of us will be able to see something of ourselves in them. Most the stories in these three books either fill us with remorse to rue for our past mistakes, make us want to fall in love again or fill us with empathy for things that happen to complete strangers that we share something in common with.

Sadly, days after, the books were returned to me unread. Well, I try. That's the important bit. Right now, though, I am revisiting Connecting Flights. What's the point of books that have pristine spines, flawless covers and smooth pages if they've never been read? So I always say, read a book. Lend it to someone. Share the joy of reading. Human experience isn't just about what you yourself have had the opportunity to have. It's also about pondering on what other people have experienced or thought of or have made theories about. So for now you could say I am 're-connecting' with Connecting Flights as my main medium.The venue isn't as important as the thoughts that go through my mind as I experience the mental missives of Filipinos missing home as they write from other places.