Torn and Her Thoughts

Fyodor Dostoevsky: can never tire of rereading his works.  Want to learn Russian, if ony to be able to read it in its native tongue and original version.  The Brothers Karamazov, and Crime and Punishment.

Kipling: Amazing imagination: The jungle book

Melville:I can almost taste the sea. Moby Dick.

Frank McCourt:  Wept and laughed. Angela’s Ashes. ‘Tis

Dan Brown: can’t put it down.  The Da Vinci Code, Deception Point, Angels and Demons

Arthur Goden: intircate. Memoirs of a Geisha

Coelho. inspirational. The Alchemist, By the River Piedra I sat down and wept.

Laura Esquivel: passion, passion, passion and tears. Like Water for Chocolate, Swift as Desire

Isabel Allende. unexpected ending. Daughter of Fortune

Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra. Really, really funny, but I cried in the end. Don Quixote

Bronte. Dark, brooding, passion. loved it. Wuthering heights.

Edith Wharton. Very interesting. Age of Innocence.

George Elliot. Goodness reigns. Silas Marner.

Hemingway: brief but concise. The Old Man and the Sea.

Yann Martel: useful guide, very entertaining. The life of Pi

Roald Dahl: Genius. Matilda, CATCF, The glass elevator.

JRR Tolkien: the best there is. LOTR, The Hobbit

JK Rowling. modern genius. Harry Potter Series

Jude Devereaux:my fantasy. Knight in Shining Armour. Legend

Austen: English literature at its best. Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice. Northanger Abbey

Neil Gaiman. truly, literature’s rock star. Smokes and Mirrors.

Salinger. ultimate psycho. Catcher in the Rye.

Catherine Cookson. my first real, interesting read. The Whip.

Nick Bantock. goosebumps due to endless possibilities. Griffin and Sabin

Margaret Mitchell. Epic proportions, one of the greates love stories of all times. Gone withthe wind.

Alexandra Ripley: continuation of Mitchell’s magic. Scarlett

Victor Hugo. very successful writing. Les MIserables

Nathaniel Hawthorne. wry, surreal, and real. The Scarlett letter.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Detective genius.  Sherlock Holmes stories.

Edgar Allan Poe. My man. Tell-tale hearts and other short stories.

Forgot the writer.endearing.  Flowers for Algernon.

mitch albom. moving, but i can write better. tuedays with morrie.

Ayn Rand. modern pohilosopher. The fountainhead.

Nicholas Sparks: mushy stories. The Notebook. A walk to remember.

Michael Oondatje. Beautiful concept, but one of the rare moments when the movie was better than the book. The English Patient.

I really miss Ate Weng and her funny ways that hid the lovely, lovely person inside.  I hope this birthday has been a good one.

One of the kindest, most hardworking nurses around.  My cath-lab promise still stands.

Wait around for me.  I’m due in 9 years’ time.

For now, know that you’re in my thoughts and prayers.  Beautiful soul that you have.

Updates: it was really, really fun but left me sort of wanting more.  The rowing thing was the highlight of the day.  The oars were heavy, and it was a good thing my partner was good.  We rowed out, and it rained! What can be more perfect than a Saturday morning spent out on a serene lake with an awesome view with a gentle drizzle pouring down while you try your best to row scientifically  and effectively?  Never thought the Philippines had such beautiful lakes.  For all the probinsiyana in me, this is the first time I got to see an actual lake!  We have tons of beach fronts, rivers and streams in Bicol, even hot springs with a geothermal plant, mind you, but a lake? Wow, it was awesome.  I’m totally smitten.

The swimming thing was briefer than I expected and less challenging.  No muscle aches after for me this time.  But it was a midday Saturday well spent.  The sun wasn’t scorching, the water’s temperature felt almost homely, and the instructors weren’t diabolical.   

These things, you know, the actual experience of them, really make comrades out of total strangers.  For the past week, I haven’t talked to my classmates except for 2, the ones sitting on my right and left.  And after the experience, there I was, chatting to most of them like they were long-lost friends. Marine trainings, by the very nature of their level of difficulty, are very effective means of fostering kinship and camaraderie among the crew, no matter how varied their backgrounds may be, nor how different their stations and positions are. There was a steward, a chief engineer, an OS, a waiter.  Conversation went on smoothly, the shift in topics barely noticeable.  I guess it has something to do with the experience of it.  Sea men go through a lot of difficulties, and when these things are dealt with together, they create a bond that you can’t really fully explain. You just know it’s there, and that it overstays the bond formed between you and other friends in other rather depth-challenged alliances. (Think: high school, hehe). That’s how I feel after finishing each and every one of my rigorous trainings.  These men, intimidating for the first few days you get to know them, turn into nothing more than comrade in arms.  Someone just like me, entering the world of marine transportation, full of uncertainties and loneliness, and difficulties, with all its dangers, in my pursuit of making the evil-tempered sea my mistress.  They are just family men, who are leaving loved ones behind to make life better for them.  For all my bravado, I am just, after all, a woman, out for her greatest adventure yet. 

No matter how you try to tell me you are, you’re not.  Here, right here, I can feel it.  You try hard because you are kind.  Currently anesthetized, I don’t feel pain, but I feel everything else. The coolness of your touch.  The flitting looks.  The unaffected way your voice rises, never quite a scream, but it rises.  I know it’s me.  My ways, to be more precise.  The saving has to be done, because what we have is worth saving.  The end is nowhere near, I still feel hope.  With all my shit about having it all, I’ll be losing my last shred of somethingness when you’re gone. I really was nothing, without you.  All that is vital, all that really matters, all that is crucial, I saw, had and felt, because of you. 

This is a silent scream.  For you not to let go.  You’ll never read this, I know, but I hope it comes across.  Transcends boundaries and comes across.  Gets inside your dreams, and comes across.  You really are worth fighting for. 

PSCRB: Tomorrow’s the big day.  Rowing in a lagoon with a dormant volcano underneath, and of course the usual BSC stuff: jumping just below 20 feet and swimming to and fro, with and without life jacket on.  Wonder if after all the rigorous training, I can even come close to doing a Pi Patel?

To prepare for the big day, Mae and I took our sweet time pool hunting in the Metro and finally settling for Pan Pacific. Did some laps, just under fifty.  It was a good thing the pool had a heater.  But we never noticed the jacuzzi (not that I’m a jacuzzi person.)  The nose clip worked wonders. But I should have bought the anti-fog spray.  The life guard, the bellboy and some other people were definitely ogling us: in the glass elevators, in the balcony, and on the 6th floor. How’d I know?  We were the only ones in the pool! And then it hit me, just as we were leaving: we actually spent quite some time in front of the pool’s underlighting.  Directly in front of it. Good thing I was in my "lapping suit" meaning: sporty black swim suit meant for doing laps, and not the 2-piece kind that turns the "oglings" to "rude starings."  But then again,  I’m back to 95 lbs after DF, and Mae is just as curvy.  I  missed the water so much, and night swimming really is my thing.  And as I have gym intolerance, I guess Pan Pacific will be my sanctuary for quite some months to come.

The thing is, even after practicing, I don’t really know what will happen tomorrow. Am not much of a day swimmer, hate the sun.  Nor am I any good under pressure. That’s the reason why I quit varsity training back in high school, never thought I can stand up to the pressure.  So tomorrow still remains a surprise.  Assembly time at 6 AM.  Rowing comes first, then the pool thing with the swimming and the liferaft.  I honestly doubt I can board from water with much success, nor can I properly right it, but I’ll try.  As the guy behind me in line during enrollment told me, he got muscle aches all over after the life raft thing. 

The lagoon, as Captain Bragais thoughtfully told us, is like a trench, you know.  It has really shallow shores but a wickedly deep center.  No unnecessary movements for me then.  Goodness, can I really handle the oars???

It’s fascinating to learn about pitching, rolling, broaching and yawing, but I sure the heck hope none of the above happens to our boat tomorrow.  The thing with the oars I have not fully understood yet.  Might have to read up on that one before I go to sleep tonight.  Regarding the righting thing, I hope I get a chance to step on the CO2 cylinders. I’m scared shitless but I want to do it anyway.  To feel the thrill of the adventure, to know how to save my ass when the time comes and to take my mind off certain sad things.  There. 3 reasons why I want the perilous task of righting the life raft.  It’s a pity I can’t act as a winchman during davit launching.  Would have loved that one as well.

I’ll have to tuck in at 11:30 tonight to give me the much needed leverage that is sleep so I can be an effective PSCRB trainee tomorrow.  My favorite line:

     " No one can be called a survivor, until they have been saved."

                                  Proficiency in Survival Craft and Rescue Boat Class,                                   September 2006, PSTC

he was what eldest children normally are: responsible, compassionate to his parents’ plight, a loving borther to his sibs. so when the bomb came, he bore it all alone.  he has always been close to his mom. yes, he loved his dad, but even that pales in comparison to what he and his mom has.  no wonder the girlfriend is mighty jealous of her.

it was a quiet afternoon when he found his mother crying. she was hunched, body racked with sobbing. she told him everything.  he knew her lover from way, way back. his bestfriend’s father.  he couldn’t blame her.  he knew what his parents had since his first thoughts began to form.  he couldn’t blame his father either. he knew his father was crazy for her.

after all the comforting and the pain, when the tears have finally stopped flowing just for this time, he sent her to sleep. the mother who have nurtured them all to incomparable proportions.  he went on his way, to his room. it’s good his brother wasn’t around.  he wouldn’t understand at this time. him with the devil-may-care ways.  he had to bear it all. ALONE.

what just happened was just a confirmation. he knew about it all along. you cannot love somebody that much and not know what their little actuations actually mean.  the feverish way his mother talked to a nameless person on the phone. her blushes and dreamy smiles when she thought she was all alone.  her mysterious wanderings and frequent out-of-town trips with "friends." emanating from it all, never forgotten, never changed was how she treated them all just the way she used to: she loved her children with her life, and much more.  that’s how hate never came. in its place, the deepest sorrow. the two people he loved most in his life, coming to this.

neither was he oblivious to his father’s secrets.  he was just a man after all.  he knew all along. 

he didn’t cry. the tears came years and years before. he bore it all alone, just like what he is doing now.

he goes to sleep. he is too realistic to think this was all just a bad dream.  he had years as proof to think so otherwise.  he is a good person too, you know.

he never knew what hit him. he never meant to do it, but he did.  he was truly in love with his wife, but he had an affair anyway.  It was one of those things you know: the inexplicable and all its baggage.  he cared nothing for the girl. and again, yes, he really loved his wife.

the girl wasn’t even a young nubile thing.  she was nearing middle age too, and was a far cry from his wife.  still he went ahead.  not once, not twice, but innumerable times. there was excitement, and drama, and a mysterious sense of well being in that garishly-lit room. he found relief, his lust was sated, and he felt good.

what was it then? at his core, the basic truth:  he’ll never love somebody as much as he loved his wife.  he owed him that: she tried, she did. but what had gnawed on him form day one was there. she never loved him.  that was what was inexplicable.  it drove him crazy no end. and finally this. he had to resort to this.  she was his everything, and he was nothing to her.

and so the not-so-young thing, with the far from perfect body, who gave him relief, time and again. but most of all, who let him cry silently, afterwards.

she knew she was trapped in a loveless marriage the moment she was betrothed to marry him. him, with the devious ways and the cunning mind.  but oh, he was crazy for her. he couldn’t live without her, and that’s the sad but honest truth. they had kids, four of them, two grown-ups and two little ones, awkwardly spaced, belying the awkward way they were made.  the kids grew up to be fine young people, she made sure of that.  for 2 decades she was the ideal mother.  heck, she was the best mother.  she tried to be the best wife. 

she had always been a looker, and you bet she was looked at more than she wanted.  but she shunned them all.  she just went about quietly on her way.  it was hard for her.  her with the beautiful smile, and the beautiful face, and the sensual body, to stay this pure for so long.  but she intended it to be that way.  if only for her kids’ sake.

then, one quiet night, her true love came.  her true love who has loved her for quite some years now. but whom she has shunned away with the rest of them.  but love is funny…love is strong-headed and such a devious bully, for, unaware as she was, it crept up on her , just when she least expected it to.  their silver wedding anniversary was just around the corner when it suddenly hit her.

what a mad thing it is to fall in love when you have never known love.  transformed to a giggling school girl she was.  day dreaming, always smiling.  you know, the crazy things love can do for you.

her husband sensed it right away. it was too late then, love was in full bloom….  still she stayed. just a hollow shell of a human being shen she was at home.  but when she wasn’t, oh what a sight she was.

of course it could not have ended right away.  the conflict of thoughts and interests, and the battle between right and wrong came, of course.  still, with this war raging all the time inside her, she stayed.  that’s right, for the kids, of course.

and her one true love?  he was, after all, true.  devoutly he holds on to her. and she, to him too. they are good peple in that way, you know.