Attached to "Attachments"

     Cue Ed Sheeran’s “Lego House.”

     It was one of those books stacked neatly in the corner which wasn’t in the bookstore’s bestseller’s shelf but merited a space in the Features corner.  It had an interesting blurb and featured one technology-conversant character thus sparking my initial interest.  After all, I wasn’t one who frequently bought a lot of romance novels.  Well, save for those stamped with the name Nicholas Sparks.  Now even with those I’ve had a couple of mishits but I figured my basket had one too many thrillers thus the decision to purchase.  And when I felt I needed a break from all the gore and depression which comes with George R.R. Martin killing off a lot of characters, I jumped to Rainbow Rowell’s “Attachments.”  By the end of 300-plus pages, I realized it was indeed one good jump with the guilty pleasure frills on the edges.

     Rowell’s debut novel is set in 1999, right at the cusp of the new millennium.  Lincoln works in the IT department of a local newspaper company in Nebraska.  His job is to screen emails which get flagged in the company’s system for violating a policy against using office email to send personal messages.  Perhaps to make him more dispassionate, Lincoln works during the graveyard shift in a cold office isolated from the rest of the newsroom.  He does send some notices to certain employees but is hooked to a series of email exchanges between Jennifer, a copy editor, and Beth, an entertainment writer, that he never gets down to enforcing the rules when their emails are concerned.  Even if he has never seen or met them, Lincoln eventually grows to know both women through their emails since they bare a lot of personal details in their messages and he begins to form an attachment to the pair, especially to one of them.

     Lincoln and the book’s reader are rightfully engaged by the series of completely hilarious emails exchanged between Jennifer and Beth.  Both write with huge chunks of wit, a healthy dose of tart and an overload of humor that snickers are always a guarantee.  Reading through the pages is akin to a fun kind of voyeurism wherein one can see the deep friendship between two women who share a lot of seemingly shallow stories which may seem both senseless and sensible.  They discuss a myriad of things - family, grammar, stalking, movies, men, whether a fetus has an umbilical cord at six weeks, breakfast vis-a-vis infertile tigers, alter-egos and, of course, Colin Firth.

     As Jennifer and Beth utilize their electronic attachments to lament about personal attachments to their families, parents and to their men, Lincoln also struggles with his own set - a dissatisfaction with how his life and career are turning out despite having multiple degrees, the fact that he still lived with his mother, how his social life was mostly confined to weekly Dungeons and Dragons games with college friends and the struggle with getting over a girl he cannot quite forget.  Jennifer and Beth’s constant banter about what they have to hold on to and what they have to let go provide the perfect backdrop for Lincoln’s evaluation of what he should keep and what he should change.  Christine, a friend of Lincoln, provides the perfect antidote to Lincoln’s dismissal that the new year is just like an odometer turning.  “It’s a chance to wake up new,” she says and that sets the stage for Lincoln as he decides to do something different with his life even as he struggles that the answer probably is not to “move out” but to “ease out.”

     The book doesn’t provoke thoughts as deep as the earth’s core or parade brooding, psychologically stilted characters but it does give the occasional comforting nudge about things any person may have gone through or could be currently facing.  It is the familiarity with the characters and their daily quandaries - all delightfully wrapped in Rowell’s very entertaining prose - which makes “Attachments” very difficult to put down.  Reading especially through Jennifer and Beth’s repartee made me recall similar, equally hilarious verbal tussles with my closest friends.  It doesn’t help that the characters are charmingly endearing or endearingly charming, however way you want to see it.  Lincoln is an easy favorite.  He is so Star Wars/Lord of the Rings geeky I find him completely adorable.  Jennifer is all cynicism and pessimism but she undergoes a huge character transformation without the routine sappiness.  Chris, Beth’s boyfriend, is so sullen, withdrawn and rebellious and yet still quite engaging.  Beth is so easy to love because she is just like high school at any age - seemingly decisive, oftentimes misunderstood and eternally hopeful.  In the book, she talks in terms of films she has seen and favorite MTVs that in the middle of reading, any 80s or 90s kid would most likely blurt out “Oh yeah, I know that!”  What I liked best about her (and laughed most heartily at) was her verbalization of something I had long been puzzled with: why a lot of dresses do not come with sleeves anymore for those who want to cover their arms when, according to her, “the whole point of clothing is to hide your shame” which she supports with a verse from Genesis.

     It has become quite difficult to write about a book I thoroughly enjoyed while censoring myself lest I give away too much.  But I could not help but agree with what one of my favorite writers, Jodi Picoult, said about the book: “If Attachments were an email, I’d be forwarding it to my entire list of contacts.”  Which is exactly why I’ve successfully convinced my best friend to drop by our house tomorrow to pick it up after work so she can give it a try herself.

Of Valentine's Day Lists and Queues

I should have known today was the wrong day to go grocery shopping. But to be rather honest about it, I really thought that all the lovers of the world would be congregating in restaurants or cafes and not in the grocery store. As Master Yoda goes, "So wrong I was."
I was picking up some last minute things for my friend's wedding tomorrow when I was asked to drop by the grocery store to pick up a dozen eggs. The lines in the check-out counter were kilometric and even if there were hearts dangling all over the place, I could say "all the loving'" was the the last thing everybody was feeling.

I lined up at the express counter which allows payment for baskets or carts carrying 15 items only. It was exactly like the rest of the supermarket - bursting with people jostling for space, toddlers crying and kids going through the gondolas near the counter, asking mama to buy a stick of gum or a bag of candy. A guy and his best friend were ahead of me, carrying a basket of chips and some prune juice (or so I think it was prune juice). I cradled the eggs on one hand while I started texting with the other. I was dead-tired since school had started early in the morning and all I wanted to go home, have dinner and then walk the dog before going to sleep. I was suspiciously eyeing a cart half-full with groceries which was parked right beside the express check-out counter, wondering what in the world it was doing there.

The next thing I know, this lady of about 40 elbows her way past us and starts pushing the cart in between the two guys ahead of me and the girl standing in front of them. "Excuse me," she said. "That's my spot," she indicated, pointing at the microscopic space between the girl and the two guys ahead of me.

Bewildered, I glanced at the sign in the counter to check if I was indeed in the right queue. The sign remained the same, still screaming "Express Counter, 15 items or less." My eyes ricocheted to the lady's half-full cart. I am no mathematician but there was no way either beyond or below the stratosphere that the items inside the cart would amount to 15. It was more like 15 sets of 15.

She kept on jabbing her cart at the eensie-weensie space in front of the two guys. One of them, a guy in a brown shirt with closely cropped hair let out a very polite protest. "Ma'am," he began to say, "this is an express lane. Only fifteen items are allowed per transaction."

I eyed the lady who was now teetering close to an uproar. Her eyes bulged as she started pulling items out of her cart. "I know," she said curtly. "That's why I'm transferring my items to a basket," she declared.

She should not have said basket. She should have said basketS. Yes, that's with an "S" as huge as the Rio Grande.

She and her husband started pulling out one basket after another, filling each basket with, you guessed it, fifteen items and then lining them up in the express counter. The two guys and I watched with eyes aghast as she did this rather mechanically, dropping one item after another into one basket, two baskets, three baskets…four…

I had never been so flabbergasted in my entire life. Well, no, maybe I have been before but what I meant was, I had never been this stumped in the longest time. We all know very well what the point of having an express counter is. The name precisely implies its purpose. But this lady was being smart about the entire set-up and was working around a prohibition, much like a lot of people in this country. In fact, much like a lot of lawyers in this country. Haha. Anyway, if she was tired, so were we. If she hated long lines, so did we. If she wanted to go home, so did we. If she had a long day, she could take a look at mine and realize it was equally as intense. We were in the same boat, pari passu as my Banking teacher would say. It just so happened that the sign technically allowed us to fall in line right there but the same could not be said for her. But, no! She was going to have her way and we either had to take it, leave it or face up to her. And man, did I want to stand up to her, to tell her she can't just push us around like that, not when the sign has clearly chosen our side, no matter which court in the land takes jurisdiction of our potential dispute.

I wound my fingers around the egg crate and did a mental countdown that my mom told me to do whenever I felt my internal fuse box starts to spew fumes of some sort. "Patience," I told myself. When part of the plastic crate went "creak," I stopped with the squeezing lest I crack one of the eggs. I bit my lip so as to diffuse the anger that was now welling up within me.

"1…2…3…" I began to count when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I just burst like a bubble - and started snickering. It wasn't a sarcastic, sinister kind of laugh. It was laugh that was initially born out of audacity and was now nurtured by nothing but sheer amusement. I stifled my gurgles with my handkerchief and turned away from the sight of the lady and the two men before me. True, this lady was mean and unfair but, in a way, she was also outrageously, creatively funny. And besides, it was Valentine's Day and the world needs some love going around.

The two men ahead of me were fuming mad and moved to the express counter beside us which had an even longer queue. I followed suit, still with my handkerchief practically glued to my mouth, still fending off sporadic snickers. The line moved slowly until I finally got to the cashier and paid for my plastic crate of eggs. As the bagger handed me the plastic bag with my purchase, I eyed the the counter where I had originally stood earlier.

The lady still stood there, two people away from the counter, her baskets clumped around her like eggs arranged in a mother bird's nest.

---

Since tomorrow is Valentine's Day, I figured I could at least ride along with the lovey-dovey feel and the deluge of pink and red. Back in college, my friends and I used to have a movie marathon come February 14 (of the weekend closest to that day). We'd rent the sappiest, cheesiest romantic movies, pile up on the chips and chocolate and lug around huge bottles of soda then soak ourselves in a jacuzzi of all the schmaltz possible, non-stop from morning till…er…early the next morning.

Now since I am practically drowning in all the saccharine possible, I'll just pour on more sugar and get as mawkish as possible as I go through my list of favorite romantic books and movies and, of course, sappy love songs.

Though I've never been a huge fan of the romantic genre when it comes to my books, there have been a number of standouts in my bookshelf - and nothing beats the classics. Wuthering Heights is as sweeping as the lush moors which bear witness to Catherine and Heathcliff's turbulent love for each other. Pride and Prejudice is quirky and entertaining in its own right - no matter how quaint it may seem at every page - and I indeed have lost count of the number of times I asked myself, "Will Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy end up with each other?" Nicholas Sparks churns out one charming story after another but my favorites have to be the book-turned-movie A Walk to Remember and The Rescue, a poignant story about a troubled fireman, a single mother and her autistic son. An interesting pick is Train Man, a Japanese novel of sorts which actually looks like an Internet forum, complete with posts from fictional netheads and even graphics. It follows the travails of a quiet, nerdy guy who falls for a girl he meets on a train in Tokyo. Not knowing how to ask her out, he asks for help from an Internet forum where anonymous people all help in, pitching in advice bits here and dating tips there.

In terms of movies, rom-coms are among my favorites but I also like the serious ones. One of my ultimate favorites is the monochromatic classic Casablanca. I love the contrast between the sardonic yet sentimental Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and the sweet but tortured Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). The movie's dark conclusion on the airport runway, along with Rick's trademark swipe at Ilsa ("Here's looking at you, kid."), will always make this movie memorable. Roman Holiday is generally light, fun, predictable and made me pine for my own Vespa. However what makes it a choice pick is the movie's final scene, after Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) ends her press conference and walks out, leaving newsman Joe (Gregory Peck) all alone to traverse an empty hallway. The miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice did not disappoint. Neither did Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle who were both born to play Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, respectively.

A little drama always makes a movie a little bit more endearing. Who could forget a Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) standing outside Diane Court's (Ione Sky) bedroom window, holding up a boombox playing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" in the movie Say Anything? Rain also adds a bit more drama to any film. A perfect example is another favorite, the Korean film The Classic where university student Ji-Hae (Son Ye Jin) manages to run from building to building while staying dry, thanks to her secret crush Sang-Min (Jo In Sung), who holds his now-dripping jacket over her head the entire time. The movie itself was actually a good combination of both light and heartbreaking scenes. By the end, I actually felt rather bipolar in a nice way. In the tradition of quirky rom-coms, Tootsie will always be cute, endearing and everything adorable. But my top pick would have to be the superstar-packed Love, Actually, a movie I love watching over and over again courtesy of Hugh Grant dancing, Andrew Lincoln playing Christmas carols on a radio for Keira Knightley while flipping flashcards, Colin Firth slow typing and mumbling awkward Portuguese when he proposes to Lucia Moniz with the entire community in attendance...the list never ends.

To complete the schmaltz attack and the Valentine fever, music has to enter the picture. Apo Hiking Society's Panalangin is easy on the ears yet bursting with optimism, especially in the new version of the song courtesy of Moonstar88. One of my favorites, Take That's Back for Good, has poetic prose for lyrics while Jon McLaughlin's So Close is, well, enchanting. Side A's Forevermore is one of my ultimate favorite love songs as it is brimming with hope and promise. I keep my fingers crossed that someday, I'd get the chance to sing it for one or two of my best friends on their respective (future) altar dates. That and, maybe, Endless Love (we could borrow Mr. Schuster for a while).

Love songs though do not always have to be sweet and sappy. I also like stirring, emotive songs sung by hauntingly beautiful voices such as You're Still You by Josh Groban, Every Little Thing by Dishwalla and Yuki no Hana (Snowflower) by Japanese singer Mika Nakashima. But in terms of a song being both "haunting" and "beautiful," no other song fits the description to a perfect G-clef other than You by The Carpenters. There is nothing grand about the music or the lyrics. As a matter of fact, it is the song's innate simplicity that makes it absolutely perfect in my scale (pun absolutely intended). After all, lines like "You are one who makes me happy" and "You are one of the few things worth remembering" are certainly quite tough to beat as they are rather plain to see but beautiful when heard.

Fine.

Remembering the Summer of '09

It's June 10, Wednesday. 11:30 in the evening.

I am writing this inside my grandmother's dimly lit hospital room. The nurse has just brought in a bag of blood for her blood transfusion and while I'm typing this, I struggle with my goosebumps as I try not to look at the bag which now looks like a giant squid with only two tentacles. The summer vacation which bluntly ended last week with my disaster class grants and my hasty departure for Manila due to enrollment issues has been given a new lease of exactly a week (no) thanks to a global health issue simply labelled as A(H1N1).

This, I suppose, has given me an additional opportunity to look back and acknowledge how different and, in the words of my Tita Vilma, how diverse, the summer of 2009 has been for me. Who thought that a lot of things could happen in a span of a little over two months and I did not need to fly out of the country, soak myself in some foreign sun and eat something alien to my gastrointestinal tract just to make this summer memorable, unforgettable and, of course, sentimentally significant. I will devote this entry to make the events of recent months as vivid as the rains which kept the days drenched in a bid to work my way around the erstwhile traitor that is memory. After all, the summer of 2009 had a healthy and proportional mix of both fun and serious matters which kept me straddling that thin line between helium balloons and the bricks of inevitability.

1. Summer, sickness and role reversal

There was absolutely one reason why I had to go back to my coastal city home for the summer: to take care of my ailing grandfather. As I had written in my previous blog entries, my grandfather has been paralyzed from the waist down due to total nerve compression. He cannot get up on his own and needs to be turned every 2 hours or so and he frequently experiences excruciating pain along his lower back.
A case of complicated UTI compounds his health problems along with other ailments concerning his lungs, his liver and his heart.

What makes his situation more heartbreaking is the fact that he is still very much alert but his physical body serves to confine him to his bed. In his so-called "good days," he tries to maintain some semblance of normalcy by still going to his office and personally attends to a lot of work-related problems.

The entire summer saw me practically living in the hospital as my grandfather was wheeled in and out of admission with a certain degree of frequency that he eventually earned the monicker "balikbayan" among the nurses and staff. To add a more interesting angle to our hospital stay, my grandmother was also hospitalized within a week after my arrival due to pneumonia. She was allowed to share a room with my grandfather and she often walked around the room while dragging her IV tubes after her like a steel-and-plastic Christmas tree.
As if having two patients was not enough to give me a crash course on practical nursing, my own mother was hospitalized a few weeks after my grandmother got better! She had severe abdominal pain due to obstruction which in turn was attributed to intestinal adhesions. It got so bad to the point that her consulting physicians (a.k.a. my dad and his doctor-friend) were contemplating surgery. Everyday for about a week, I had to traverse ten rooms just to check on my grandfather and walk all the way back to my mother (who was curled like a ball in her bed due to severe abdominal pain) to give her a quick report on how he was doing.
The summer went by like a routine but we did our best to make the days a little cheerier. Who knew that white could be such a drab color? During instances when our patients would be napping, we would catch a couple of Pinoy flicks or other English titles that I missed. Every so often, my sister and I would go for a quick break by going out of the hospital to commit the greatest form of gastronomic sacrilege in the history of fast food - washing down Jollibee french fries with a McDonald's Coke float. Of course, my karma came in the form of a noted increase in the size of my thighs. I also met a deluge of wonderful people who had the gentlest of hearts and the brightest of smiles (such as a wonderful person named Lani from rehab who is my grandfather's therapist and this nurse whose name I forget who paid extra attention to my mother when she was in pain).
However there is ont really good thing about this summer that saw the reign of the antiseptic. I got to be part of a great rigodon of roles in my family. My grandparents and my mother had spent a significant portion of their lives taking care of me and fretting over me when I got sick and now it was time to switch seats. This time, it was our turn to give back after many years of simply receiving. Most days were difficult, especially when you find yourself sitting beside helplessness as you watch a face contort in pain. For my part, I found that there was a profound sense of joy and fulfillment in keeping watch over someone who used to keep an eye out for me and a infusion of courage and wisdom in knowing that despite the presence of pain and difficulty, there is a beautiful rainbow to look forward to.
2. American Idol Upset

This season, I was really, really, really rooting for Danny Gokey with a lunacy beyond that of a normal 25-year old. I was so upset over his failure to make it to the finals that I didn't watch the elimination results show (I had gotten wind of the bad news earlier in the day thanks to a friend) and I made my way through the rest of the day in a daze. The finale night was a bit anti-climactic but Kris gave Adam a good whallop. Kris Allen's victory over the flamboyant Adam Lambert was a shocker but overall, it was the best results show I had ever seen from one of the most talented batches in the show's history. Now I'll just sit pretty and wait patiently for Danny and Allison Iraheta's solo albums.
3. Betty's First Birthday

I was so excited when I found out my best friend Doi's daughter Sariah Beatriz was turning a year old. After all, Betty was the first baby to be born within my circle of closest friends and I had always known that Doi was ecstatic about being a mother. Betty is growing up to be an intelligent, curious and precocious little girl with the best comedic timing for a toddler. I sure cannot wait to see where life will take her - and her proud parents too.
4. Encore for the Ballerina

About ten years ago, my sister was deadset on pursuing a career as a professional ballet dancer until she realized it was not the best path for her to take. When she decided to stop dancing, I felt as if I lived in a totally different world. After all, my sister had been dancing ever since she was five and the sudden disappearance of smelly toe shoes, rolls of Leukoplast, gel bottles, Spraynet canisters, holey tights and old Tchaikovsky CDs took some time to get used to.
However, several doors have been reopened for her to enter the world of dance once more. For instance, this summer she had been hoping for a much quieter existence but after an invitation to join her former ballet teacher's summer dance recital was afforded to her, she immediately accepted it. After all, it was a chance for her not just to do something which she has always wanted to do but it was also a new opportunity to renew ties with close friends, a couple of which have gone on to pursue careers as dancers with Ballet Philippines and Ballet Manila.
Watching her do her trademark turns on that stage was like a breath of fresh air. My sister's love for dancing has a raw intensity which is rarely found in a lot of dancers. I know parting from her toe shoes was a major heartbreak as she lived, slept, ate and walked in the world of pirouettes, grand jetaes, arabesques, pas de deuxs and other fancy French words. She had a love-hate relationship with dancing. She revelled in the artistic fulfillment and the applause but struggled with many things - her weight, her so-called "bad feet," numerous injuries and her self-esteem which she had lost many times but she has thankfully regained through time. When she is on that stage, there is a ferocity at the edge of her smile and a happiness that is unmistakeably clear. I am glad that at this point in her life, she has been given a new lease in her chosen craft with a deeper, more profound reason for making those splits in mid-air: her faith.
5. Book dates
I decided that this summer was going to be the time for my dates with my favorite writers. I had originally scheduled reading about two to three books a week, a goal which I never followed because of my hospital duties. During the entire course of the summer, I only managed to read a measly four books, one of which was a repeat. I did get to finish Audrey Niffenegger's "The Time Traveller's Wife" which I thoroughly enjoyed because of its direct but intricate prose. I also read "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown just so I could watch the movie without committing the common mortal sin of book-to-movie projects. I'd say I enjoyed this book far better than "The Da Vinci Code" (which I read in secret during one of my MS classes) because of an interest in the works of Bernini and Galileo (and Milton too!) which figured prominently in the book. I also did my nth revisit of "Pride and Prejudice" which is my favorite Austen work, no matter that my professed fascination for the novel has made my friend Edmund conclude that I, indeed, am a girl. No summer would be complete without a date with Nicholas Sparks which I did through "The Lucky One." The novel was trademark Sparks, nothing fancy or different but still heart-tugging. I did get a kick out of imagining Adrien Brody as Logan and Amy Adams as Beth, the main protagonists, even if the book descriptions did not match any of them with precision.
Right now, I am in the middle of Jodi Picoult's "Change of Heart" which I found to be thoroughly interesting (as always with anything by the author) but the rest of my summer days were filled with other important things as well, so I had to part ways with the sheets of paper just for a while.
6. Getting the perfect summer tan
Of course, being a severe lover of water, summer means hitting the waves and getting pruny while baking my skin to a crisp. Despite the hospital shifts, I did manage to squeeze in a bunch of trips to the beach. During the long Labor Day weekend, I joined Ate Carol, Iting, Ross, Kuya Stan and Mark in Boracay. The rains were torrential and made the 6-hour bus ride to Caticlan dreary. Snorkelling was a challenge since I felt like a cork bobbing helplessly in the water and it did not help that my life jacket's styro packs were getting dislocated, no thanks to the huge waves. When we got out of the water, Kuya Stan even told me he was going to sell his "uber slightly used snorkel." Sitting on the boat when we went island hopping felt like being on board a more subdued thrill ride as our boat crashed into the waves every so often. I tried parasailing for the first time with Ate Carol and it felt wonderfully relaxing as I floated along, sandwiched between the sapphire sea and the blue sky. The bumpy speedboat ride though to get to the parasailing spot stress tested my inner balance (and my derriere's capacity to absorb direct impact) and I found myself on the verge of motion sickness which I rarely experience. In this Boracay visit, I also found a lot of satisfaction when I was not in the water thanks to my early morning walk alone on the beach and another early morning trek to Boracay's highest point with Ate Carol, Iting and Mark.

For a quick beach fix within the confines of the city, another destination was Anhawan Resort in Oton. The sand was nowhere as fine as Boracay or the water as blue but it still was the perfect place to relax and unwind. As a matter of fact, Manang Gracious and I found it to be the perfect spot to take some snaps.

7. Visitors and tour guides
This summer, we welcomed a bunch of visitors into our home. Early on, my sister's friend Maricor had dropped by for a quick visit. I enjoyed having her around since she is as crazy as my sister and has the same adventurous streak too. Even if she technically does not fall under the category of a visitor, I was glad that Manang Apple was also home for a couple of months.
Faye, a friend from GCF in Ortigas, was also in town for a teaching stint. After a number of postponements, we finally did get to meet up and I thoroughly enjoyed being some sort of a tour guide for her. She told me she had not been to a lot of places around the city so I decided to take her some place outside of the city for lunch. We had our meal in my current favorite food joint - Allan's in Oton. It turns out that Faye loves oysters (and seafood!) as much as I do so I ordered two plates of Allan's trademark baked oysters (one for each of us) along with fish and squid. Oh boy, did we wipe our plates clean!
I also discovered that Faye had a flair for architecture and in my part of the world, we had our fair share of old churches, Spanish-era houses and other interesting buildings. I took Faye to St. Anne's Church in Molo, the sinamay dealer's house in Arevalo, Nelly Garden and the other homes owned by the Lopezes along Luna Street and Central Philippine University where we had an interesting picture taken near the University Church by mounting Faye's camera on two monobloc chairs stacked on top of each other. I tried my best to play the part of Faye's tour guide, offering bits and pieces of information which (hopefully) only a local would know. If only we had more time, I would have wanted to bring her to the Jaro Cathedral, San Jose Church, Downtown, Fort San Pedro and the beautiful stone churches in Miag-ao and Tigbauan. That made me realize that there were actually a lot of things which visitors would find interesting about my home city and I thought I should set aside some time to reacquaint myself with a place I may have given inadequate attention to.
By the end of May, my family and I shared our home with someone we had not seen in eight long years - my cousin James from Houston. I've seen him in four different instances in his life: as a three-year old with (in his words) a temper, as a hyperactive ten-year old when I visited Texas, as a lanky fourteen-year old piano whiz and now, a 22-year old college graduate. James has grown so much through the years, both in terms of height and maturity, but he still retains so many traits which make him endearing. His sense of humor has remained intact and he still cracks the craziest (and most sarcastic) of jokes. He is great with conversations (which could stretch until way past 2 A.M.) and is very honest and straightforward. He has yet to prove that he is indeed a "dog whisperer" but he has sure made a convert out of me as far as the TV show "The Office" is concerned. All in all, I sure enjoyed having a "younger brother" around.

8. Love in the month of May

After eleven years of being together, my cousin Nene Loida and her boyfriend Manong George were finally married! Whew, I couldn't believe they had been together that long! Her wedding was originally scheduled around August but because of my grandfather's condition, the ceremony was moved to May. She asked me to be a candle sponsor and I had to go on a crash diet in order to fit into a gown I wore eight years ago. Within less than two weeks, I quit the diet and instead asked a seamstress to transform the gown into a corset so that I could adjust it according to my current size.
The wedding was intimate but there was enough room for spontaneity to become the perfect family affair. The wedding reception ended with the members of the entourage hitting the dance floor with our own version of "Jai Ho" and as I watched my newest cousin-in-law twirl Nene Loida around, I truly felt happy that she had found the person she was to spend the rest of her life with.
Love and all its intricacies is truly a lesson that one learns through time. "I love you" is not an expression to be thrown around casually as the word signifies more than just emotion but a deep-seated passion for the best to be brought out of every person who comes within contact and for complete acceptance to be a natural consequence. Inasmuch as love is a word pregnant with immense sacrifice and responsibility, it is interesting to note that it usually starts with nothing grandiose - a glance here, a smile there, a quiet conversation in the silence of the night - all in the most unexpected of places or situations. Thus getting to know the other person is actually an adventure in itself already. Only time can tell where everything is headed but sometimes, even if the story has yet to reach its ending, the journey itself is beautiful enough to be retold, the memory is special enough to be revisited and the lessons learned are too precious to be forgotten.
This may be my girly side rearing her head again but in the name of pink unicorns, I do hope for a happy ending everytime.
9. Revisiting Mangatarem
James and I went on a road trip with Tita Vilma and Tito Danny to the hometown of our respective parents. It was one thing to go back to a place which holds a significant part of my identity. It is another thing to take that trip back with one person who has never been there before.
I was surprised to know that James had never been to Mangatarem before. For my part, I don't get to visit my father's hometown very often but I had accumulated a significant amount of memories from the place - flying my first kite there at age three, playing with plastic teacups in the front yard, dangling from a tree branch in the front yard, sitting beside my Mamang and watching her unbraid her long hair, attending Simbang Gabi with my entire family for my Papang's 90th birthday and falling asleep half the time because I couldn't understand a shred of Pangasinan. The minute I entered their house in Torres Bugallon with half a Calasiao puto still in my mouth, I could hear Papang singing "Pilipinas Kong Mahal" and my grandmother reciting "O Captain, My Captain." Their scent lingered about the house and even if I didn't spend a huge fraction of my life here, I still felt like this place was home. I took James to the second floor where he saw his mom's graduation picture along with our other aunts and uncles.
Standing before my grandparents' graves, I wondered what they'd tell me and James if they had the chance to talk to us. I'd want to know what they thought of us now that we were no longer children, now that we were trying to find our own respective places in this planet. I would want to know if they would be proud of what we have become because I am truly proud to be called their granddaughter.

10. Faith
Before proceeding to Mangatarem, we first dropped by Manaoag for James to start with his novena. I took in the quietness of the church and started to pray as I sat beside Tita Vilma. When I was done, I looked around and saw people on their knees with prayer booklets, rosaries, candles. Their eyes were closed, their hands were clasped. I can only surmise as to what went through their minds at that moment but there was one thing I was certain of: people cling to their faith in times when the sky is overcast.

Overall, the past couple of months have been a test of faith for me and my family. I practically have dog-eared the page of my Bible which contains Romans 8:28. The Lord works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. In the moments of laughter and the sunniest of days, God has been so good. In the midst of the difficulty, the frustration, the grief and the disappointment, God is still good. It is a truth which I have come to comprehend with greater understanding in the past couple of months. I have faith in God's goodness, in God's promises and in God's nature. He is good all the time and every time, through rainclouds or sunshine, through the days of light and night, through the moments when the snow comes in spring and the rains come in summer.

Perspective Reorganization

I've been home for barely a week.

In a rather strange/funny twist of a consequence, I've also barely spent time at home ever since I got back. The only time I'm with my entire family is either during breakfast or dinner. My dogs probably wonder why I'm gone in the morning and come home late at night. And I keep forgetting to tell my mom that the fresh coat of green paint she had applied on one wall in my room is not as bad as it looks from the earlier pictures she sent me through MMS.

As a lot of people know, my grandfather has been in the hospital for the past two weeks. He has been wheeled in and wheeled out like this for the last three months. Before I came home, the last time I saw him was in January. He was doing very well and could hoist a Monobloc chair by himself, limping gait and all. Now he's confined to a hospital bed 24/7 and I have to get used to the fact that he cannot even scratch his own foot when it feels itchy. To be honest about it, scratching his foot is just one of the less serious things he can no longer do.

In another stranger/funnier twist to our current hospital adventure, my grandmother also got sick with pneumonia last Wednesday! The doctors allowed both my grandparents to be confined in the same room although my grandfather's constant infusion with steroids makes him predisposed to infection thus the need to keep the room's built-in plastic dividers constantly unfolded. It does get pretty hilarious at times, especially when I sit in one corner of the room and I see two beds with two people lying in them and IV tubes snaking about in metal poles right beside them. Sometimes when my grandmother needs to go to the bathroom, she drags her IV along with her and stops about 6 feet away from my grandfather and starts waving. In fact, my sister and I are planning on making them one of those can-and-string contraptions so that they don't have to shout at each other all the time. For the meantime, we make them sing duets and I think it becomes some form of lung exercise. Sometimes I get the feeling that the nurses wonder if we do have an idea of how serious my grandparents' respective medical conditions can get but then, just like Patch Adams, we believe laughter is a really good form of medicine. After all, in occasions such as this, I have learned that it really helps to couple one's faith with a huge dose of humor just so the "ups" rise higher than they normally could and the "downs" are not as low as expected.

Actually other lessons have been learned in the process. I do not think of this as a form of escapism. I'd like to call it something like perspective reorganization, a fancy term for what others may call viewing the glass as half full when it can also be seen as half empty. I do not deny that there are a lot of things going around which can make the heart seem heavier but I refuse to be weighed down by negativity. My cousin Striker took me out to dinner tonight in Maki with his girlfriend right after his hospital shift ended at 9 PM. It was good to finally get out of the hospital and have some fresh tempura and as he drove me home, I exchanged more stories about chewy cookies, sotanghon, baked oysters and fried chicken with his girlfriend who, apparently, was a foodie just like him! That (and a vision of Mrs. Fields cookies on a plate) certainly worked to ease the stress, tiredness and frustration off my shoulders. Next time maybe we can go out for some nai cha after every shift.

Apart from that, here is a rundown of the other good things about practically living in the hospital:

* New version of family reunions
- My entire family usually gets together on birthdays, weddings or holidays or other occasions which call for a celebration. This time around, my family came up with a shift schedule wherein we each take 4-hour shifts to keep an eye out for our two senior patients. This is just to make sure that at least one person is on hand to be with the both of them. But that does not mean you can't drop by during another person's shift. For instance, last week and yesterday, I got to spend some time with Manang Apple since I've really missed hanging out with her. I also get a kick out of playing matchmaker when it comes to Manang Gracious and a certain other person. Sometimes, M.B., one of my cousins, joins us vicariously when she entertains my grandfather's request to play old love songs in her morning radio show. The best day of the week comes when a family member brings food like pancit and arroz caldo...although there is no greater hit than Aiyi's truly amazing taco pizza which, I believe, is making me pudgy! Yum!

* Catching up on reading
- During my shift, when my two wards are in lullaby land, I do two things: catch up on my reading and the movies I've missed. I've been on an Audrey Niffenegger hiatus since January and I am soooo happy to be finally reunited with Clare and Henry. When I'm done, I'll be seeing some Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, Mary Higgins Clark and Nicholas Sparks. Yehey for the bookworm!

* DVD marathons
- My grandmother loves to watch movies, especially anything which stars KC Concepcion. So I've seen "For the First Time" one too many times for comfort. I also have some musical selections for her like "Hairspray" and "Mamma Mia," both of which she really enjoyed. Tomorrow we'll probably be watching another Tagalog flick and it will surely be interesting because my grandmother does not speak Tagalog. Neither does she understand the language. Yipee for the team of translators!

* American Idol with guest judges
- Last week it was different to watch American Idol with my grandparents. My grandmother was ranting about how she didn't get my taste in music or TV shows. For instance, she looked baffled when my sister and I did a standing O for Adam Lambert. She thought he was from Ghostbusters or something like that. My grandfather, on the other hand, was more critical than Simon Cowell as he made thumbs down gestures at the end of every number. He fell asleep halfway through the show, though. Yahoo!

* Bonding with our Creator
- It's great to bond with my grandparents over a meal or a good conversation. But nothing beats praying together. I've never really prayed with my grandparents on a one-on-one basis before. Throughout the week, I sat on my grandfather's bedside and I read to him from my Bible. If I was up to it, I'd ask him questions. Sometimes he'd answer me, sometimes he'd tell me to read on. Sometimes he'd finish the passage for me, just like what he did in the morning of Good Friday when I was reading a passage about the two thieves crucified with Jesus in Calvary. The word "paradise" all together had a brand new meaning for the two us. Yes indeed!

* A 58-year old love team
- Come June 11, my grandparents will officially hit the the 58-year mark of being married to each other. Their marriage hasn't been perfect, that's for sure. What amazes - or surprises me - is that after 58 years of being together, they can still wake up in the morning with new realizations about each other. Yihee!

* Giving back
- Call this a case of role reversal. My grandparents have given their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren so much. It's time for us flip the coin or put the car on reverse. At the point of our lives when we needed them, they were always there for us. Taking care of them is, for me, not an obligation. It is as natural as a river taking its proper course - in the same way that in a person's life, everything has to run through the same route.

From Book to Movie: Twilight

"I'd never given much thought to how I would die — though I'd had reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something."

Amidst mist, mountains and Bella's somber narration, "Twilight" became the movie which used to be a mere visualization confined to the corners of my imagination. Perhaps becuase of my previously doomed love affairs with books-turned-movies (like The Lost World, For One More Day, A Walk to Remember and The Da Vinci Code, just to name a few), I have learned not to raise my expectations to levels as high as Emmett Cullen's leaps and bounds through a dimly lit forest. That mindset, together with a generally good cast and an ear-worthy soundtrack, made the movie version of the popular Stephenie Meyer novel good enough for my ratings scale.

What I noted about reviewers who deadpanned "Twilight" into butcher fodder was the aversion for the new, unfamiliar portrayal of vampires as pale creatures with a conscience, an alternative diet, Sweet Valley sappiness and a passion for supersonic baseball. These are elements of the plot which are not to be taken against the movie because, after all, they were all merely channelled from the book...and the book was a hit. What the movie sorely lacked though was the book's subtle hints at depth, such as the underlying theme of an endlesss search for redemption, which were overlooked all in the name of Bella and Edward's love story about a vampire who has sworn off human blood but falls for a human whose scent was, in his words, just his "brand of heroin."

The reel Edward (Robert Pattinson) is not as dreamy as Bella's description of him in the book but then again, Bella is all of seventeen and, just like any other teenager, very prone to exaggeration. He is not as horrid as some fans have initially described but he has just the right combination of "good," "lethal" and "dangerous" to his looks. Add that with pretty impressive acting chops and brooding eyes, it becomes a no-brainer as to why Pattinson is teenage world's newest poster boy. He perfectly captures Edward's dual personality of being both Debussy-sensitive and racecar driver-edgy. He does channel images of James Dean and River Phoenix in some angles, especially in the scene where he stepped out of his now-famous Volvo with Bella in his side and sunglasses over his eyes. Sighing then does become inevitable.

In the book, Bella was not whiny or frilly. Neither was she grungy nor rebellious. She always seemed grounded and balanced, characteristics which Kristen Stewart puts forward rather well in the movie. Emily Browning (The Spiderwick Chronicles), one of the early favorites for the role of Bella, was not an odd choice but she certainly looked a bit too exotic for the Bella I imagined who seemed to be straddling that gray area between plain and pretty. Stewart is far from plain but neither is she movie star gorgeous so she did fit the role pretty well. Her deep voice gives Bella strength, character and maturity which set her apart from her peers in the book. This was perfectly illustrated in one scene where Bella had to pretend to be sick with living with her father in Forks so that she could escape from the nomadic vampire James who was hunting her down. She was pulling clothes off her closet and stuffing them into her suitcase without the usual drama and high-pitched yelling just like Bella in the book - a young girl forced into maturity a little too early.

Central to the movie's plot was Pattinson and Stewart's chemistry which bubbled, frothed and simmered like a fairytale witch's cauldron. I admit to holding my breath more than just a couple of times in the entire duration of the movie, like in scenes where Bella and Edward danced to Iron & Wine in the prom gazebo, furtively swapped microscope slides in lab or talked to each while standing on tree branches way above ground level. However, some scenes were a disappointment, like the famous meadow scene which seemed a bit dated and wanting. Another scene which almost got me wrenching my armrests off the chair was the part where Edward said one of Twilight's most quoted lines: "So the lion fell inlove with the lamb." It was bordering on cheesy and corny that I found myself cringing with embarrassment. Conspicuously absent was Bella and Edward's verbal banter as they picked each other's brains, something I looked forward to as I turned every page of the book. True, Bella was always ranting about how "beautiful" Edward was physically, but I think what brought them together was not really the oggling but the verbal exchange.

Other letdowns included Edward's "sparkle scene," when he stepped out into the sunlight to show Bella what vampire skin would look like uncovered. I did hope for a bit more sparkle, the kind which does not let the audience go looking for it and then end with an "Oh there it is!" The sparkle effect was too subtle for comfort. I also had a problem with some actor choices for the roles. For instance, Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed) was described as the most beautiful person in the world and honestly, she just did not measure up to it physically. As a matter of fact, I found Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene) a lot prettier than her (I don't think I am biased just because I do love Alice in the book). The movie also started a tad bit too slow for me for the first 1/3 but after that, the pacing did pick up rather well. The speed effects also seemed dated and were reminiscent of a slightly improved version of "Charmed." They also have to work on the makeup blending. The faces of the actors are too white compared to their necks and I vividly remember the very first scene where Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli) appears in the hospital right after Edward saves Bella from being flattened by Tyler's van. The minute he pushed the doors open and walked into the ER, I almost regurgitated my dinner as his face looked as white as the hospital walls. Snorts and snickers then resounded all over the theater. I mean, if a doctor who treated me looked as white as that, I'd have no doubts that he were indeed undead!

Surprises came in the form of Taylor Lautner (the Quileuete Jacob Black) and Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale). Jasper had a hidden charm which surfaced as he kicked around a baseball bat in my favorite baseball scene and Lautner proved that he was more than just a pesky kid. I was actually concerned about having Lautner play Jacob since he was a central character in "New Moon" and his relationship with Bella was a prime mover in the second book's plot. Apparently he and Stewart also have a certain charm together which could be good enough for the next movie installment and I could see a lot of Jacob's dry humor in him.

With all that in place and a definitely bigger budget to boost production, 2010's New Moon definitely has to be a movie that the saga's fans can really sink their teeth into. For the meantime, I'll be busying myself with overtaking all the Volvos I meet on the road just to check out if the driver looks a little too pale for comfort.

God's Roses

This afternoon, Lola asked to write a speech she is supposed to deliver on Sunday during her oldest sister's funeral service. While tip-tapping, I tried to channel my Lola's feelings and the like, which isn't easy. But it was only when I ended the message that I realized that this would be the last time my Lola would be in the state of losing a sister. She had gone through two similar losses in the past three years and each one left her sad yet hopeful. And so, through me, my Lola writes:
A booklover will tell you that to have a glimpse at what makes a person tick beneath his skin, try checking out the books he reads. Some people know this technique all too well that they would display rather profound works on their shelf so as to give an impression that they too gravitate towards reading material that make your head swirl. Perhaps they have yet to realize that sometimes, the best written words which overflow with wisdom amidst unmatched simplicity dwell in the pages of a children's book.

One such book is The Little Prince, the classic favorite by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. It is a rather thin volume, consumable in about an hour or less. The Little Prince, the central character in the book, actually hails from a small planet which has three volcanoes and a rose. The Little Prince takes care of his planet by removing the trees which grow there as these have the capability of turning his planet to dust. However, he pays special attention to the rose because he thinks it is the only one of its kind in the entire universe.

In the course of the story, he visits planet Earth and there he encounters an entire row of rosebushes. Upon seeing the rosebushes, he is immensely saddened because his little fantasy of his rose being the only one of its kind in the universe has just been sucked into nothingness. However, this situation gives birth to the most memorable lines in the book and in the literary world:

"But my rose is more important than the hundreds of you other roses. Because it is she I have watered, it is she that I have put under a glass globe, because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen, it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars, because it is she that I have listened to when she grumbled, or boasted or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."

In the course of my story, it should have been clear to you that I have seven roses. My seven roses may be a rosebush to other people but I certainly do not care. These seven roses are mine, these are my roses and each of these seven roses is unique to me. They are not like each other, each one is personal, each one has a unique bond attached to me, each one is my rose. If the Little Prince had his rose, I had my sisters. They may be Ramona, Pening, Ester or Nanay to others but to me, they were my sisters because they were the ones I grew up with, they were the ones I tried to shelter, they were the ones I tried to look out for in our old age, they were the ones who I listened to when they grumbled, or boasted or even sometimes when they said nothing. Because they were my sisters.

No one could have been more ready to go home and face her Creator than any of my three older sisters. They had each lived a long life and each step of the way, God had been with each of them. God had promised in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: "Even when you are old, I will be the same. Even when your hair has turned gray, I will take care of you. I made you and I will take care of you. I will carry you and save you." He fulfilled that promise to them until they breathed their last, all because in the eyes of their Creator, they were His. They were His creation, they were His own. Nene Moning, Inday Pening and Inday Ester were God's roses.
- In loving memory of Moning, Pening and Ester

Flashback

It's 1:30 AM and I really should be in bed at this time of day. I tried to correct that really bad habit of sleeping in the wee hours of the morning (like 3 AM) and waking up at around 9 AM. I acquired that habit during the summer and it did not serve me well, especially since in my hometown, people are up and about at 5 AM.

But thanks to our morning, oh-so-much-fun Christmas party with our PINC buds (this phrase is sort of pun-nish), my sister and I had to attend the vesper church service. Almost instinctively, we decided we should stick around afterwards to see the cantata which featured a singing Christmas tree.

Actually, the tree consisted of members of the church choir standing on tiers shaped like a Christmas tree. The entire idea was rather ingenious and I know I'll never look at Christmas trees the same way again.

They sang familiar Christmas songs and hymns but the piece I like best would have to be Gloria by, I believe, Vivaldi. It was a killer in itself. I tried to imagine the choir singing with a full orchestra and I almost immediately got goosebumps.

Getting home late meant sleeping late too but I did not mind. As of this writing I am uploading digests and reading a week-old, rather urgent email from Jepoy's mom. To keep me awake, I turned on the TV and lo and behold, a program was on ANC, discussing (what else?) the current constitutional mayhem in the Philippines, no thanks to that entity my first semester Crim prof has labelled "the house of De Venecia."

As I waited for all the files to finish uploading, I began to go through the files in my flash disk and I found this essay I wrote back in college when I was nineteen years old. I don't know but reading this essay again, taken in the light of the current crisis which gets my blood pressure rising, made it timely:

Sounds of dripping water seem to be the only constant sound heard amidst the shuffling of feet and the writhing of broken bodies. In a corner, a faint scuttle can be heard due perhaps to the scurrying feet of rats or mice. Buzzing mosquitoes are silenced and their midnight trysts to feed are interrupted by grimy hands slapping a mass of what appears to be legs and arms covered with welts, bumps, bruises and other painful scratches that the dark and damp prison cell has effectively concealed.

Whispers and murmurs reverberate among the shadows, mimicking the hum of a sullen harp in the symphony of death. Probing through layers of human agony, a still voice cuts through the throng of pain and anguish. Like a cool, calm flute granted its solo, it fills the darkness with its sweet melody of hope, endurance and faith in the courage that burns within every man's heart.

In the gloom of his cell in Buru Island, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was the flute that lifted the spirits of his fellow prisoners. He had the power of the pen but in Buru, he was forbidden to write. Unfazed by this and the brutality he received from the guards, he decided to narrate his stories to his fellow inmates every night. From Pramoedya's words, a story of freedom was born within the very walls of repression and confinement. This marked the beginning of This Earth of Mankind.

About forty years later, the tale uttered by Pramoedya in his cell in Buru has not lost its magic. In fact it claimed another victim, ensnaring the heart and the undivided attention of a nineteen-year old college junior. In my numerous trips to the library, I had never even noticed the thick volume nestled among the other books comprising the Buru Quartet. It was only when the book was given to my class as required reading that I realized that it was more than a beautiful piece of literature. Through Minke, his Javanese mother-in-law Nyai Ontosoroh and the other characters I met within the pages of This Earth of Mankind, Pramoedya gave me the answers to questions which had toyed with my mind for so long.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer is one of Indonesia's best and most popular writers. He regards himself as a freedom fighter and as what his life shows, he has never allowed any form of chains to keep him shackled. He was imprisoned by the Dutch when Indonesia was struggling to be free of foreign control. After Indonesia was granted independence, Pramoedya began writing about the social ills that were taking control of his country, such as poverty and corruption in government. During the latter part of Sukarno's tenure as president, tensions began to grow between the Indonesian army and the legal Communist party of Indonesia. Pramoedya became associated with Partai Komunis Indonesia's cultural institute and he even wrote for the literary section of the communist paper. When the coup of 1965 led to Suharto's rise in power, numerous left-wing supporters were killed. Pramoedya was instead arrested by the army and detained. Eventually he was transferred to Buru Island, a penitentiary for political prisoners. The detainees in Buru were made to engage in heavy labor and Pramoedya was not allowed to write. The attempts to silence him were futile since he would recite to his fellow prisoners what would eventually become This Earth of Mankind, a tale about Minke, a young Javanese who struggles to be recognized in a colonial society where social class defines a person's identity.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once presented this dilemma in The Social Contract. He said that "Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains." Indeed man is held down by a lot of factors, some of which are stronger than links of metal and bars of steel. As I inch my way through life, I believe I may have discovered one which hangs like a pall over every person – fear. Fear immobilizes man. It freezes his muscles, knocks his brain unconscious and paralyzes his will. Of all the types of fear that man could undergo, I believe the most common of all is fear of failure.

Man has always been afraid of failure. In the first place, no one would want to end up flat on the ground with a tear-streaked face and a broken spirit. Everybody dreams of soaking up the klieg lights instead of getting trampled upon like overgrown weeds. Like everybody else, I would not want that. But then I look around me and I see a lot of things that need to be changed. I see a country in a state of disrepair, trying its best to scale the walls of globalization but plummets downward with every step. I see a government who functions through huge billboards broadcasting some new road being built rather than through passing and effecting legislations. Finally I see a people who are getting poorer by the hour, hungrier by the minute and more hopeless by the second. Though I realize that what I see is anything but eye candy, I stand here doing nothing, caged by bars of fear and apathy. I am moved by the urge to do something, to at least make an effort to effect change in society. But I am paralyzed by the thought of failing in my attempt, that instead of lifting up the spirits of others I might end up losing my own.
Society's ills all seem to be interconnected, each one sprouting after another like a never-ending chemical reaction. The task seems too overwhelming that any effort I might exert would not even make a dent on the problem, like a puny Swiss knife hacking at the bark of a huge sequoia. I find myself saying, "This could never be enough. Nothing could."

Through Minke, Pramoedya spoke to me and poked at the muddle in my head. Always the freedom-fighter, he slowly removed the iron clasps which had bound my hands and legs for so long. Pramoedya knew what it was like to fail and his novel was practically swimming in it. His early attempts to awaken Indonesian national identity were not successful. He was placed under town arrest after his 14-year imprisonment and his novels were banned from bookshelves all over the country. Yet he was never disheartened. In fact the flames were fanned even more.

Pramoedya is a testament to the true nature of failure. It is not something to be shunned. On the other hand, failure is a mark of courage and persistence. Failure always comes with trying and only those who try are those who are brave enough to face everyday of their lives with their noses thrust upon the ground. For almost his entire life, this was what Pramoedya encountered yet he never flinched.

Pramoedya regards writing as both a "personal and national task." Writing became his avenue in expressing his disgust with corruption and injustice in society. He used his pen to point out the freedom that every man possesses and the dignity that is innately his. He never fretted about not being able to do enough. He simply did what he could for his fellow prisoners in Buru. Later on these actions worked to inspire every person all over the entire Indonesian archipelago. Pramoedya's life serves as proof to everyone that no action would go about unnoticed. As the laws of physics dictate, any action, no matter how small it would seem, would always yield a reaction. Pramoedya's works started as small sparks which eventually ignited Indonesian national awareness.

This Earth of Mankind ends with Minke losing his young wife Annelies to her Dutch relatives according to the dictates of the Dutch law. As he watches Annelies disappear into the distance, he tearfully tells Nyai that they have lost the fight. Pramoedya could have chosen to close with Minke's words yet he did not. The novel concludes with Nyai who answers that they fought back "as well and honorably as possible." The battle was far from over both for Minke and for Pramoedya as he told this story to his fellow prisoners in Buru. In fact, it had just begun. And I believe, so has mine.