Gosh so this is what it feels like to get published. It's an interesting mix of "What was I thinking" with ''Ohmigoodness" and some "I don't remember writing that" topped off with an indecipherable series of gurgles and almost-somersaults.
So this is what Jo March must feel. I find myself smiling, thinking some part of me is becoming her.
Youngblood : Girl on the beach
Editor's Note: Published on page A11 of the March 14, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
STANDING at the water's edge, with the afternoon sun beating down her back, she quietly snapped pictures of the shoreline. She had grown up swimming on a beach like this, just a few kilometers north of where she was standing now, where the sand was almost as dark as her hair and the water murky like rain clouds. Yet these never once mattered to her as a child. The water was always enticing, despite its gloomy appearance.
She thought of several Sundays spent on this particular beach with her family, when she was still a child of five or younger. She dug deeper into her thoughts and found it incomprehensible that she could no longer remember the last time she had been here, the last thing she had done here, the people she was with and why they just stopped coming here all of a sudden.
There were smooth stones at the water's edge, the waves lapping at them every time the water came sliding into shore, easing itself into the sand like transparent silk. There were leaves and twigs and a bit of litter. Some remained half buried in the sand, while others drifted with the waves. They'll wake up in a different place tomorrow, she thought, and then let the thought go with a tinge of jealousy.
She looked at her watch. About half an hour more and she would be going down the road again, forced to listen to overplayed rock songs on the radio on the drive home, much like the way her departure was imposed, too. Laughter echoed behind her, but it sounded almost like a mockery of what happiness was. For the world, it was nothing more than a fleeting moment, a balloon reduced to mere rubber when not allowed to fly, a beautiful sunset that disappeared before one could even find the perfect word to describe it. For the world, time and happiness were in a constant chase, one trying to outrun the other but neither really emerging the victor. How she longed for that day when happiness would lose its deadline, when it finally became what it was meant to be: timelessness incarnate.
"For the time being then, am I lonely?" she mused. Her head answered with a silent yet definite no. It was not because she was afraid to admit it but because it was the truth. But then she had always thought there was something romantic about the notion of loneliness, of solitude, even of death and dying. It was not about being manic-depressive or anything that should raise the psychological alarm. Maybe being lonely defined in a different sense: the world, as the years go by, sinking lower and lower in the mire created by itself, slipping farther and farther away from the ideal. She herself was no exception, she admitted, she was nothing short of a disappointment. Everybody was, but she did not think of that as a defense. That was just the way things were, things are and things will be. It's like being in the water with the waves pounding on you and you simply ride along to survive. You ride on and on until you reach your West.
She heaved a sigh of a thousand meanings. The sun was still shining on her face, her cheeks soaking in the warmth she had always savored. It was time to put her hermit-like nature in check. After all, she did not want to look back again and not remember anything about this place, except that the sand was dark, the water murky and that her face shone brown-orange in the sun.
"My life is a battle," she concluded, "but my daily existence is a blessing." Then she turned around and trudged back towards the end of another day and the beginning of a new morning tomorrow.
So this is what Jo March must feel. I find myself smiling, thinking some part of me is becoming her.
Youngblood : Girl on the beach
Editor's Note: Published on page A11 of the March 14, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
STANDING at the water's edge, with the afternoon sun beating down her back, she quietly snapped pictures of the shoreline. She had grown up swimming on a beach like this, just a few kilometers north of where she was standing now, where the sand was almost as dark as her hair and the water murky like rain clouds. Yet these never once mattered to her as a child. The water was always enticing, despite its gloomy appearance.
She thought of several Sundays spent on this particular beach with her family, when she was still a child of five or younger. She dug deeper into her thoughts and found it incomprehensible that she could no longer remember the last time she had been here, the last thing she had done here, the people she was with and why they just stopped coming here all of a sudden.
There were smooth stones at the water's edge, the waves lapping at them every time the water came sliding into shore, easing itself into the sand like transparent silk. There were leaves and twigs and a bit of litter. Some remained half buried in the sand, while others drifted with the waves. They'll wake up in a different place tomorrow, she thought, and then let the thought go with a tinge of jealousy.
She looked at her watch. About half an hour more and she would be going down the road again, forced to listen to overplayed rock songs on the radio on the drive home, much like the way her departure was imposed, too. Laughter echoed behind her, but it sounded almost like a mockery of what happiness was. For the world, it was nothing more than a fleeting moment, a balloon reduced to mere rubber when not allowed to fly, a beautiful sunset that disappeared before one could even find the perfect word to describe it. For the world, time and happiness were in a constant chase, one trying to outrun the other but neither really emerging the victor. How she longed for that day when happiness would lose its deadline, when it finally became what it was meant to be: timelessness incarnate.
"For the time being then, am I lonely?" she mused. Her head answered with a silent yet definite no. It was not because she was afraid to admit it but because it was the truth. But then she had always thought there was something romantic about the notion of loneliness, of solitude, even of death and dying. It was not about being manic-depressive or anything that should raise the psychological alarm. Maybe being lonely defined in a different sense: the world, as the years go by, sinking lower and lower in the mire created by itself, slipping farther and farther away from the ideal. She herself was no exception, she admitted, she was nothing short of a disappointment. Everybody was, but she did not think of that as a defense. That was just the way things were, things are and things will be. It's like being in the water with the waves pounding on you and you simply ride along to survive. You ride on and on until you reach your West.
She heaved a sigh of a thousand meanings. The sun was still shining on her face, her cheeks soaking in the warmth she had always savored. It was time to put her hermit-like nature in check. After all, she did not want to look back again and not remember anything about this place, except that the sand was dark, the water murky and that her face shone brown-orange in the sun.
"My life is a battle," she concluded, "but my daily existence is a blessing." Then she turned around and trudged back towards the end of another day and the beginning of a new morning tomorrow.
