Category Archives: literature

Dark soul

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Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

This one will take me longer than I expected because this is completely dark…like my soul right now. This is just rough sketch, no textures and dimension yet, no proper human figure, since I need to study the shadows and light first. Once I figure out the proper chiaroscuro, I can translate this to watercolor–maybe.

This scene reminds of Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe combined.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

I gravitate now towards the imagery painted by Edgar Allan Poe. Dark. Wicked. My heart is full of anger and hatred. Especially that the woman I got cheated on with has a name and face (although she looks like a transvestite, my friends and my daughters said; all boobs but no substance). What angers me is the fact that everything was a lie. I was led on. From the very beginning. All the memories I cherished now have no meaning. Can’t help but feel like I was that Bloomberg reporter who was used by Martin Shkreli a.k.a. Pharma Bro. The difference is that she’s still under this illusion that he really cared for her when he already dropped the bomb like it was just all on her side, “Mr. Shkreli wishes Ms. Smythe the best of luck in her future endeavors.”

Arts and humanities have saved my life/sanity (somehow…I’m still working on that sanity part with my shrink). As my high school Literature teacher said: Science can tell you how your eyes produce tears and its composition. Literature (or humanities in general), on the other hand, tells you why there are tears…

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray …

Christina Rosetti (1830-94)

This was my favorite poem when I was in high school. I remember I did a watercolor painting with these words written on the painting. I remember the watercolor painting had a cliff against an orange-pink sky. Similar to this photo below:

Laguna Lake, Angono, Rizal. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m channeling all my negative energy/feelings to whatever my hands can do, with the help of the arts I learned throughout my years in school. I may not be good but at least I can do something. My mom said she is envious of me that I have outlets like writing, music, and drawing to express grief. She didn’t have any that’s why the Catholic church was her only solace. She said without the church, she would have gone insane because of my father.

Yep, getting badly treated by men runs in my family. That’s why I am open to my children about this so they won’t commit the same mistake. My mom’s mistake was she defended my father and hid everything. She normalized a man’s bad treatment of his partner and that “you just have to understand where he’s coming from.” That was a fatal mistake.

My girls said, “No Mommy, we will not get married. We won’t date.” Twin I was most hurt because she admired Tito J. She said she even picked up tea drinking because of him. She always tried finishing her vegetables because that was Tito J expected of her. Now she has sworn off men–I feel bad for her having her heart broken like this. She looked up to him. She said he was only scolding them for the bad habits because he wanted them to be better. Twin A said Tito J was right about the iPads and school. The only thing that they didn’t like about him was he squeezed their cheeks too much that it hurt.

It was another thing that bugs me. I let him hurt them…I knew he didn’t like them so he resorted to hurting them. That was so wrong on my part. That’s why I blamed myself for putting him first before them.

I want my girls to be closer to my brother, physically and emotionally, so at least they would have a better role model. I want them to be closer to my brother’s sons. I don’t want them to have unhealthy relationships with men when they become adults. Proper training and open discussion can hopefully guide them when it comes to friendships and romantic relationships. I didn’t have those. Good thing I had good male friends in high school and college–even now with fellow journalists. I was lucky I had good platonic relationships with them. However, when it comes to romantic relationships, I just picked up whatever I grew up with, which was not healthy. And these are things I learned growing up: try to keep it to yourself; give all your unconditional love because love conquers all; be a doormat; make excuses for him and understand where he is coming from; it’s ok if he hurts you because you can win back his love…ALL BULLSHIT. All I learned from my mom.

I don’t have the heart to tell her all of these because…what’s the point? She will just feel bad forever. She already felt bad when she saw how my marriage crumbled. She told me she saw herself in me.

Fuck it. I walked away from it and sashayed into a more evil story. Now mom, you still see yourself in me???

Long have I longed, till I am tired
Of longing and desire;
Farewell my points in vain desired,
My dying fire;
Farewell all things that die and fail and tire.

Christina Rosetti

3:57 am. I need sleep. This anxiety is really killing me. Being angry and sad at the same time is never good for me. I really wish I could do an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and just erase everything. Be blissfully ignorant of this kind of pain. K asked me, I thought you’ve already accepted that he was not a good person? I said, “I know, but somehow I naively believed that in the beginning it was real, so I kept the memories because those were the only redeeming things left of him. Now I realized I was completely wrong. Now it hurts me even more that even those memories I held of him were wrong. It’s like you loved your parents so much, unconditionally, and then they betrayed you. That all the things you thought all your life were the truth were really lies. That they fed you lies. And now you are trying to live your truth but their lies continue to follow you to haunt you. Now how do you think I can heal?! I was getting successful at it and then he throws this curve ball. You know how hard I worked at it, K. You are the one who was there from the beginning. I tried so hard, K. You know that.”

Time check: 4:14 am.

I guess I won’t sleep tonight, huh?

Rut

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woman in white shirt showing frustration
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I’m in a writer’s rut. I can’t bring myself to write this week and I have one analysis piece that I need to publish before the month ends (like tomorrow!!!) and another feature that is awaited by my interviewees. Productivity is half although my editing is still sharp; it’s just that I can’t write.

I need to get out tomorrow or else I will suffer from writer’s block. I will just sleep this off again. I need to be in a coffee shop for a change of scenery. Bo’s Coffee near my house probably and then I can transfer to Starbucks on the other side of the village much later.

I was like this in 2014 then after my gall bladder surgery, I resigned and signed on with my current company.

I can’t seem to put my finger in it why I’m having these productivity meltdowns more often. The seven-year-itch probably? Or lockdown burnout? I don’t know but I gotta cure this fast.

Vegetarian. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I don’t think I’ve had pork for more than a week now. I’ve been going vegetarian most days and like this one, I’ve had string beans in coconut milk and a fancy egg drop soup with leeks for dinner. I need to have more calorie-deficit days to make up for the food I consumed in my mom’s house when she ordered a lot of stuff to celebrate my birthday last Sunday.

Meanwhile, a few minutes ago my househelp asked me about Dekada ’70 (The ’70s), a novel by Lualhati Bautista. I told her it’s a fictional story of the Bartolome family set against a real historical backdrop–during Martial Law. I told her do not watch the movie, it’s better to read the book because the movie was watered down. She said she tried looking for it at National Bookstore because it’s an assigned reading for her Philippine Literature class. Right there and then, I bought the book off Shopee and within minutes I told her the vendor should be sending the pocketbook by Saturday.

I was delighted that her teacher is progressive enough to make her students read this.

I read this in high school and I think I wrote a paper about it for my Filipino class. It was one of the biggest eye-openers for me and since then I started researching about what really happened in those times. I read more books about it since it was a dark time for Philippine journalism as well. Of course, Martial Law was pivotal for my family too because this has shaped the politics of my parents. My mom was a member of Kabataang Makabayan (a student activist organization) whose members were imprisoned, tortured, and killed during that time. My father’s activism came in later but until his dying day, he was still affiliated with the reformist leftist groups (the breakaway from the the Maoist group of Jose Maria Sison).

We also did the Martial Law project for my former TV network and I was supposed to interview then Bangko Sentral Deputy Governor Diwa Gunigundo for this project but some personal matters took over and the interview did not push through. I hope I can do it soon for a special project. Anyway, Gov Diwa was imprisoned during Martial law when he was the editor-in-chief of The Philippine Collegian–the student paper of the University of the Philippines Diliman that openly criticized Ferdinand Marcos when nobody in mainstream media dared. My mom said even non-UP people were grabbing copies of Kule (Philippine Collegian’s nickname) when Diwa was EIC because “it was the only one publishing the truth at that time; everything published by others was propaganda and lies.” When Diwa and I once chatted, I told him he probably knew my uncle, my father’s cousin, Nick Atienza, who was also imprisoned at that same time at Fort Bonifacio (which is ironically the posh BGC now) and was the secretary-general of Kabataang Makabayan at that time. Diwa was shocked. He shook his head. “Nick was just three cells from me. I could hear them (military) torturing him every night, bashing his head like a troso (lumber) against his cell wall. It’s a miracle that he lived through that. Nick suffered the most horrible torture ever known among the Martial Law detainees who had lived,” Diwa said.

Nick Atienza had trouble walking for the rest of his life because of the shrapnel still embedded in his legs. My parents recommended to him my father’s orthopedic surgeon to help him with his problems. When my dad’s doctor learned who Nick was and how he obtained his injuries, he waived his professional fees. Since Nick was also a faculty member at UP, he probably had other fees discounted as well because he was treated at UP-PGH.

So I had a teacher for my Social Science 2 (Great Political Theories) in college who proclaimed that it’s not true that Ferdinand Marcos committed the crimes that people had thrown at him and there were no human rights violations during that time. I barked at my teacher and told her, “So what can you say about an uncle of mine who was tortured at Fort Bonifacio?” I always had heated debates with this teacher who always cited The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, justifying Marcos’ actions during his 21-year rule (“the end justifies the means”). She failed me because she was just too annoyed that I challenged her lies. When she did that to me, I went straight to the department chairman and complained. Instead of taking the removal exams, because I didn’t want to deal with her anymore, I took again that class under a different teacher. That cost me my cum laude. I was running for honors then.

I was expecting my parents to berate me for failing. But my father said: It’s better to fail than to accept lies being fed to you. It’s better to stand up for what you believe what is right.

And this has been my guiding principle ever since.

Headed for disaster

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Our new COVID-19 daily case has hit an all-time high of almost 22,500 today and yet the government will be loosening the lockdown. Even in my hometown all hospitals are already at capacity and can no longer accept patients.

We are really headed for disaster. The overpriced purchase of face shields could have been diverted to buying more remdesivir and tocilizumab for hospitals in dire need of it. The government goons decided that we are better off with granular lockdowns without proper contact tracing (Duque even admitted to Senate that the govt contact tracing app is useless) and mass testing. COVID swab tests are so expensive, even for the middle class.

Malaysia and the Philippines are in a contest now for who got it worse.

As for my girls, their fevers had gone down today and they were able to attend their online class. I had them take paracetamol when they had headaches tonight but their temperatures didn’t go beyond sinat so I wasn’t that worried. I need more data to gather before I schedule a tele-consult with a pediatrician tomorrow. I was kind of panicking at 2 am this morning when I woke up to check one of my girls and thought about having us all tested for COVID.

To cheer us up today, our books I bought from Big Bad Wolf in June finally arrived.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

They’re enjoying Horrible Histories. I am reading that now, too. Fascinating horrible stuff.

I’m slowly recovering and was able to co-write a time-sensitive story today about Philippine Airlines’ bankruptcy. Last week was a struggle for me because I couldn’t write. Or even transcribe an interview. Meds made me lethargic and I kept on sleeping during odd hours. At least I started the week right today, despite the lack of proper sleep because I was watching over my sick girls.

Over the weekend, a high school friend invited me to join them on their Youtube talk show, which started off like a podcast about nothing in particular that ended up as an interview platform about anything under the sun. They added me because all of them are guys–most of whom were my friends from way back high school or post-college when we played in a band. They needed a female co-host to sort of balance the show. And I think they chose me because of my interviewing skills. They were drinking buddies at some point 10-20 years ago.

So my plan to do a podcast with friends has sort of come into fruition. However, instead of a just a podcast, this is a live Youtube video show that requires me to face the camera and be presentable. Anyway, a podcast or a video talk show is one of my personal goals, including keeping this blog alive (albeit private), so I have other things aside from work that I could pay attention to.

I think I will be on air by November.

Balang araw, makakalimutan din kita.

I am no man!

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Eowyn and the Witch-King of Angmar. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I have revisited Lord of the Rings recently and got enamoured again by Eowyn, the unlikely hero of the Battle of the Pelenor Fields. She has a small role in the entire lore, even just in the Third Age, but she left a lasting impression on me.

A sword rang as it was drawn. ‘Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.’

‘Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!’

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed…. ‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.’

She went into the battlefield incognito and only Merry knew who she was (in the movie; but in the book Merry didn’t know who she was until she revealed herself to the Witch-King). Eowyn went to her doom to protect the people that she loved. And Merry went with her, thinking that she shouldn’t die alone.

I’ve been feeling down lately, maybe because of the weather. I needed some pick-me-up, like a good book or movie so I went to read and watch LOTR since it is both a good book and movie/s. I want to tap into that inner Eowyn in me and be badass when the sky seemed so dark. Funny thing was, for 20 years, I used Lúthien Tinúviel as my pen name instead of Eowyn, the White Lady of Rohan. Now I don’t know why I wanted to fashion myself into a half-royal, half-divine entity when Eoywn is more kickass. I’m not even attracted to the Tale of Lúthien and Beren; they just figured in my subconscious mind because Tolkien associated himself and his wife Edith with Beren and Lúthien. It’s even written on their tombstones.

I’ve been known in our house as the Tolkien geek. My brother even gave me an illustrated notebook of LOTR as a birthday gift more than a decade ago, which I still keep. It’s where I wrote the character sketches for my novel that I worked on but burned and deleted 10 years ago.

I read all the Tolkien books (including Silmarillion and all the appendices) every year during Christmas breaks before I had children. (Once you become a mother, you don’t have time for other things, such as reading epics). I tried keeping tabs on the genealogy because lineage matters in these books. And oh, Tolkien’s being a Catholic is all over the Middle Earth lore, maybe that’s why it brings comfort at times.

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

There are criticisms that Tolkien doesn’t flesh out his characters well and he is more into the events and lore. Perhaps it is true. His weakness in drawing characters is compensated by his larger vision, the narrative, and his ability to transport me into another world—his world—with his words. His stories are about the journey and not the destination.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Sushi destroyed my leads table. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

My cats. My obnoxious and destructive cats. This is my version of “Teacher, my cat ate my homework!”

She just loves being on top of whatever I’m working on. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Look at that. And she stayed there all morning. Shameless cat. 🐈

Tsundoku part 2

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Each book doesn’t cost more than PhP 165 at Booksale. These are for my girls but I could borrow the Cornelia Funke book and The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The sky was so dark this afternoon and my body is not cooperative because I have my period. I would have wanted to just stay in bed but I needed to drag my girls away from the computer so we went to Booksale in Cubao.

Lots of cheap books! Heaven for a bibliophile like me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

We took our time as there are really good books there if you’re not against rummaging through the stacks. I didn’t buy any for myself because I have 20+ books on my shelf that I have to finish. I keep buying books. I must stop until I finished all of them. I still have books I loaned to my mom that I must get back.

I skipped the paperbacks. I have tons at home that I still need to finish. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I recommended to my daughter to get the Cornelia Funke book because I already owned two of her books (Inkheart series). I really, really need to get my hands on Nancy Drew books for my girls. The book sellers in UP used to have them but of course they’re no longer there since the pandemic started. I miss the book sellers 💔 I miss Bookay-ukay 💔💔💔

I used to have a lot of science fiction and fantasy books but they’re mostly in my mom’s house. I hope she hasn’t given them away… She gave away a lot of my books before because she said they took up so much space 😭 I think I have completed all the Diana Wynne Jones books. For the life of me, I cannot stand the Robert Jordan books. I don’t know why.

I am now scouring Carousell for Nancy Drew books. Instead of buying, I ended up uploading a big leather bag that I barely use to sell. Proceeds would go to buying a smaller leather bag. Hehehe. Talk about capital recycling.

Tsundoku

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Tsundoku is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them

Wikipedia

For the second straight year, I haven’t been to Big Bad Wolf book sale, which is basically a huge warehouse of books marked down to 60%-70% of their normal prices. This time, though, they managed to have an online book sale until 7 July and during the first hour I was able to snag some books for my girls–boxed sets–but overall there are only a few good titles and most of the books for me got sold out in a few hours. I only managed to get one, which is a memoir by Salman Rushdie during the time he went into hiding after the fatwa on him was issued following the publication of his Satanic Verses.

I still have tons of books on my shelves that I have yet to finish. Always on the “to read” pile. Tsundoku.

My mom just messaged me on Viber that there is a growth of something where her malignant mole had been. She had surgery years ago to have that removed but now it seems like there’s an outgrowth. She went to two doctors today and she will have new sets of doctors to see on Monday.

Lord, please don’t let it be full-blown cancer. 😞 It’s a difficult disease and she’s past 70.

I need to go home soon. 🥺

So many drastic changes this past 30 days. One of my househelpers is pregnant (I’m not surprised) so she will be going home to her province on 15 Aug. Another person gone from my household. J had been urging me to send her home earlier because there’s an excess labor here at home and they’re not being maximized and I’m just wasting money. But I said I’ll just wait for her to resign on her own since it was just a matter of time that either she will get pregnant or get engaged, whichever comes first. I was right.

One of the people I had been helping for years has turned his/her back against me. For a petty reason. I guess I was not a friend at all, despite all the help I’ve been extending to this person.

Another reporter is resigning. Now I’m at my wits’ and how to bridge the gap.

Lord, give me and my mom the strength to deal with all of these.