Snippets

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” ― William Faulkner, Light In August

My day is moving on the currency of snippets.

Which is why I shall never be poor.

I had a dream about an event that never happened, and in it, a person with whom "kindness" has never been associated (by me). And yet, in spite of the Dream Me looking at him askance (for I only knew too well that this person was hurtful and, at times, violent), I knew that the Dream Him was kind.

I remembered long, solitary, late night walks to my car after grad class, the paths covered in snow, the world silent. As my tiny feet made footsteps on the cobbled path, hundreds of other footsteps re-emerged; covered by new snow, but unforgotten by the ground. I would wonder who made those steps and why, and no matter how hard I tried, my strides would always fall short of them, my feet would always be too small. Back there, I was always small compared to most, (okay, more so than here), and I felt infantile, futile, and a bit traitorous for being so far away from where I was born. And yet now, when I think "Home", I think "There."

It was a blisteringly hot summer when I returned to Manila, and I was mostly in bed with a bad case of jetlag. I'd wake up with the blinding light prying my eyelids open, a thin film of sweat enveloping me. I'd drift back to sleep, wake up in the dark, and the sheets would be wet. I felt the stickiness of being foreign in my own land, the cling of another world choosing to remain unwashed from me. My clothes still smelled of America, but the rest of the world didn't.

When my baby brother was about 5 he had a bad dream. His room was in the second floor, but I heard him call out in the darkness. "Ate?" said his silent yell. I rushed up the stairs and asked him what was wrong. He said he had a bad dream. I think I sang to him to soothe him, and then when I was about to leave, he asked if we could pray first. His prayer: "God, thank you for waking me up from my dream. And please give Ate some Jollibee, because she was a good Ate tonight. Amen."

My friends and I, on the balcony of some small hotel in Antipolo, looking up at the stars. I don't even remember why we were there as, clearly, the rooftop restaurant was closed. From the lobby down below, Beauty and Madness played and we joked who among us was Beauty, who was Madness. We were young and free and stifled by the constrictions of our youth. And we were Mad. And we were Beautiful. And now we live continents apart. Still Mad. Still Beautiful. (Them more than I.)

Tasting chocolate truffles for the first time.

Late night conversations when the silence of sleep was drowned by the throbbing heartbeats ringing inside my ears. Saying and keeping secrets, not for the first time, yet feeling like it was; like going down from the arc made by the swing, the sensation of falling quickly replaced by the anticipation of going back up again. The pendulum of childhood.

Crying into my pillow so that Lucia wouldn't wake up, but she wakes anyway, and half asleep, she crawls onto my chest, and my subsiding heaving rocks her back to sleep.

Laughing, and really meaning it, for the first time since I crawled into my hole of sadness. Finally seeing the first rays of light.

The pain of 36 hours of labor, the look of concern as the doctor realized that something had gone wrong, the horror in realizing that I had to get a C-section, the disgust at waking up for a split second, seeing my blood everywhere, waking up in muted pain...and then smiling. Because I knew that at last, at last, at last, Lucia had come.

Tasting San Miguel Beer again, after bottles and bottles and bottles of Miller Light. Nothing compares, I tell you. Not a thing.

Venturing out to the sea on my own. The fear and victory of it.

And so on and so forth. For it is only 3:15 pm, folks. More snippets to come.

The day is moving on the current of snippets, behold the things that wash to the shore.