Proposal

Blog7: Proposal

In the background, an upbeat music plays, “Up, up, and away in my beautiful, my beautiful, bal-lo-on!”  A hot air balloon company captures an ecstatic young woman, along with her proud fiancé in flight.  The man holds out a pricey-looking ring to her; one could not mistake that this was a proposal of marriage.  He gets “down” on business and … takes the traditional kneel-on-one-knee posture to the love of his life.   

Which young couple doesn’t dream of an absolutely romantic, once-in-a-lifetime event just like that?  Not I.  I certainly do not have a penchant for dramatic events even though my life has had substantially unexpected and memory-filled ones. 

My best friend and love of life did not bring a ring in a fancy box to me on the day he proposed marriage.  He did not choose a fancy location.  It simply, naturally came out of his well-meaning, honest voice, during a typical end-of-day walk, down a modest refugee camp neighborhood path which we had walked many times.  Consider, for a sec, the gravity of a proposal to commit to a life together.  That’s no fleeting fancy.  What could be out and rightly said?  Nothing quickly thought, for sure.   A proposal doesn’t come with an accompanying straight, flat and spelled-out literature inside a fancy ribbon-tied box and jeweled ring in its bosom.  Something about it becomes a surreal moment enough to mute and to run shivers in one’s spine.   No screams of fantastic feelings for me.  A response required a very slow, thoughtful thinking through.

What entails a marriage proposal and its acceptance?

Imagine two independently-thinking individuals brought together by circumstance.  Each has preferential ways of thinking, doing.  Each comes with a window of belief and faith.  Each is made fragile or strong by personal life experiences, and naturally or vicariously learned world views.  What gifts, life habits, traditions, rituals, and mores does each one propose to bring and nurture a life “together”?  Should a match of any of these come to light, and why?

Marriage: a layered intertwining of kind wrapped by unconditional love

Proposal:  an offering … a stark naked gift; take “as is”

Could you, would you take a proposal of such importance lightly?

Turn

Blog6: Turn

Verbs and nouns are essential to communication.  They are the anchor words of expression in addition to facial expression and gestures.  The latter enrich, and to some extent able to bring about meaningful communication where there are no words, yet to fulfill the role. 

Would you choose “to be” or you’d rather “seem”?   I choose to turn … to be doing something.  Turning molds, changes, refines me until I am what I could be, just as clay is at its potter’s shaping.  

In my native Tagalog, the verb turn, ikot, fulfills its linguistic usefulness even though it takes limited forms: something that has completed a turn is umikot or nakaikot.  When a thing is momentarily turning, it is umiikot.  To make something turn, one says paikutin or ikutin.  We also say pinaikot and inikot to mean something was forced to turn.

You’d agree that needed tense and inflection of the verb turn in my native Tagalog takes much simpler expression and conjugation unlike the twists it undergoes in the English language.  Though beleaguering to speakers of other languages, especially those learning English as preferred language of transaction,  American English speak is by far one most inventive in expressing and crafting phrases to go alongside ordinary verbs.  Journey along and indulge me in looking at the active verb, turn.  

Our lives, our times, our actions are a series of turns.

Soon after three hundred sixty and four or five days after birth, we leave infancy to exponentially grow and turn as exploring, curious toddlers.  Before we could note quickly the shooting speed of our age in years, we turn as children, teens, young, and full adults.   Life’s possibilities and promises unfold and lay at our reach, but always - the potential to turn ourselves into something is endless.

Certainly, there is no reversal, no turning back once we act and take a turn at something.  At rest, and upon waking, mind and body dance inside out and weave their turns:  heart pulses, blood flows, lungs breathe, brain processes continuously.  If we care to richly or poorly affect our mind/body’s function and state, we feed it healthy or unhealthy nourishment.  We turn on water to wake, to calm, or cleanse both.   We turn our thoughts to critical decisions that need be made, turn our backs to lackadaisical, unproductive efforts.  We turn inside out our defenses when feeling vulnerable; we turn upside down our world to look for solutions when confronted by situations beyond control.  We keep going until every stone and every barrier is turned up and around.  Of course, we must neither take the stance of arrogance nor get shy from turning about when we know for a fact that we caused blunders.    Doing somebody a good turn may be old fashioned nowadays, but one good turn always matters and one good turn deserves another.

There are even more ways to create verb phrases with “turn”, but you do get my drift, eh?    Enough said of it then.   Go ahead.  Dismiss all terrible turns and take an intentional turn for the better! Make an act of turning good by someone, or of something.  

Interlude

Blog5: Interlude

The skylight window directly above my head announces Daybreak.
It welcomes the already traveling Sun Ribbons
Now playfully, yet softly piercing my still shut eyes.
“Wake up, gal!” They invite.  “Rise up and claim today!”

I whimper impishly at first, and groan louder next.
Night covers I grab snuggly to block the intruders.
“No. Go away … not yet!”  
I retort grudgingly and whine, but they ignore my rejection.

“Full force now, rays,” their eyes blare. 
“Brighter! 
More power! 
Give Greater intensity!”

Before I could pull more shields, light explodes!
The young sky and wind side with Sun Ribbons.
Together, they part the clouds, and before I could rend more complaints
They intensify, and break the peace in my cove.

“OK, you win!  I am up!  What now?”

They all first break in giggly chuckles, then they scatter out …
The tweeting birds outside my cove’s side window pick up the campaign:
“It’s about time.  Tweety, Tweety morning, sleepy head!”

I pull down the snuggly covers, and soon enough, I let go. 

“Many thanks, Night!  I gratefully whisper. 
“Indeed, you were a gracious comforter.”
“Hello Daybreak!  Hi, there, Sunny Ribbons!”

My eyes open wide.
They savor a delightful, dreamy interlude:
Night bids, “So long!”
Daybreak exclaims, “Seize it!”

Destination

Blog4: Destination

No longer do I worry that I would get lost on the way to a destination as I did in past “goings and comings”.  I refuse to entertain jitters that I would somehow be late en route to an important appointment. Driving myself from point A to point B can be stressful especially when I don’t plan ahead and allow enough or extra time for circumstances on the road that are bound to happen.  Thanks to the inventor’s ingenuity of the tech tool, GPS (Global Positioning System). Approximating distance, time and speed requires nothing more than punching an address, a destination, into a built-in GPS keyboard.  That’s definitely progress, and “I’m lovin’ it!”

The place you and I head for or the place something goes follows natural patterns.  Any wheel for instance, influenced by force, goes up and down.  The same is true with an object thrown upwards.  Gravity pulls it back down.  Day becomes night, season changes, with feeding from the sun and water - a planted seed sprouts-grows-blossoms-and-dies, water runs its cycle of evaporation-condensation-precipitation, like a working clock, that goes round and round.  All fulfill their destination of movement … transformation.

Yesterday, the 30^th Summer Olympics opened in London, England with much pomp.  Naturally it could not have “just” taken place.  No Harry Potter’s magic wand, unfortunately.  What you and I saw on screen (for those of us who didn’t get to physically be there …), took imagination, planning, energy, resource, and much preparation.  To get to that one phenomenal show of talent … concept, and achieve a “WOW” effect, the London’s Olympiad Venture Team started germinating an idea somewhere, sometime.   What of the athletes competing? Their presence there began long- with a dream, a vision, passion, strategies, nurture, and preparation – physically, psychologically.  Many sacrifices are shared by athletes, and the people who help them get there.  No doubt ---accomplishing a purpose, achieving a glorious end or getting a coveted prize all require endurance, patience, stamina, devotion.

My minimal and rapid thoughts about goings and comings make me think momentarily of human life’s destination.  Advancing age in physical years could not hide my mind from bringing it to light, and speculating.  Where to from here … really?   John Calvin’s religious thoughts, based on ideas that God controls everything on Earth, weaken my spirit.  If that were true, why act on something or anything?  If our very existence and destination are pre-arranged, what’s the use of visioning, dreaming, working toward realizing goals?

On life and its destination: I choose, and keep breathing… singing… living a life enveloped by a will, and say “I believe”...

Doors

Doors

Blog3

BAM! Neither Mickey nor I could rescue poor little Dinky from an accident waiting to happen.  After surviving cold water dousing from the garden hose this noon, he runs to a familiar way in (or out!), but his face collides with the hard plastic cubby entrance and exit door locked from inside the house.  He didn’t expect that!  Fierce barking … confrontation of sort follows.   Embarrassed, he runs the opposite way and recovers from the collision, but still, he could not escape Cinn’s playful aggravation.  There was no exit, at least for a moment.

The cubby door got me curious.  First, I was reminded of the AT&T service man of recent past, who commented after working on telecommunication systems around, say, “I have not seen a house with as many doors.”   I never thought of it, though it made me check out that to be a fact.  Off I went from room to room around the house counting exit and entrance doors.  There are five at our house: front and back of the house and three found on the sides.  A traditional house has only two – front and back.  Hmmnn …

“Just how many doors in total are there inside the house?” I asked myself in silence.  I walked around and counted entrances and exits to the laundry, to the pantry, to the study, to the master bedroom, and the walk-in closet.  That makes five already.  I was not done.  The bathroom ways alone had three, one to the upstairs deck, two toward the guest bedrooms upstairs, one to the full bath, and a half door to the attic.  Thirteen in all!  My curiosity escalates.  How about doors to cabinets and drawers?  Enough counting!

Doors don’t only open or close exits and entrances.  They, like many things, have transformed through the years and have been fashioned to accommodate utility, ingenuity, whim, and creativity.  Observe them.  Doors could slide side to side, hang up from above, fold like an accordion or balloon in and out.  

Connotations and synonyms have been attached to doors.  People are never content with one name ever, so off they go to inventing words to mean door - path, passage, breezeway, gate, way, threshold, opening.   For inventive specificity and expression likewise, we hear from time to time of a door slammed or shut on one’s face, knock on/at door, get the door.  When giving directions, we say go door-to-door, go next door, a person lives three or two doors down, see somebody to the door, get out-of-doors.  When wanting secrecy, we comment, “Do something behind closed doors!”

Doors of opportunity are most significant, I think.  They allow us to foreshadow possibilities.  “When a door shuts, another one opens.”  This adage or saying invites us to adopt endless optimism.  It beckons us to look and keep an eye onward.  It is in this mindset I want to find and wrap myself as I intentionally close a door to the very thing that has defined me. 

What doors are waiting out there for you and me to enter? 

Clutter ... No Excuses!

Clutter … No Excuses

Blog2

Two laundry loads started my day after a bacon and tomato sandwich from Mickey’s Kitchen this morning.  Laundering soiled clothing item and everything else made from fabric of sorts was due, so time went there, part of my day … that is.  I don’t remember how this task came to stick in my department, but it has been part of my daily living routine from week to week.  So have clean-up of pots ’n’ pans day in, and day out, and the weekly bedding stripping and making.  Today, I took the fridge overhaul and tidying task too.  The clutter inside it took a hefty chunck of my time, of course!  I wanted to be able to check it off from my long list of ridding clutter this summer – a therapeutic ritual.  

I choose to be summer-free from robotic life so I could re-connect fully with the ‘normal rituals of life’ put aside during my work year.  I delightfully reclaim the rich blessings of meaningful existence … of being truly alive.  Summer days free of routine and structured schedules seem an appropriate time to get necessary chores done, true, but that’s not all.  Summer days are for listening to songs and rhythms of one’s surroundings.  They too are for savoring the smells of a flower garden after a generous rain or breathing in the sometimes oppressive air left lingering in the mixed surviving green and yellowed grass out in the front yard.   Even more important though is reversing the state of “displaced things” everywhere caused by rigorous days spent juggling … balancing living and working.  It is a time I make intentional choices on why I want to do something, when, and how I want them done. 

Summer days give me powerful freedom to rid of clutter in my mind and body as well.  Mental, emotional and physical energies expended since my awakening age of seven until now, in my late fifties, have made impressionable marks – both bad and good.  Play – I did not have the pleasure of kissing and embracing, but work – there was always plenty of it in my life that weighed heavily on my being.  I have made indelible choices between play, leisure and work for so long, that I have forgotten how it either opposed or intertwined with directions I took.  Whether I rationalize or accept any of them now, the effects are ingrained.  They permanently have taken toll, summed up the person I have become, and influenced my views of the world.  No use griping and whining about it now, however.   Past is inerasable history.  Possibilities ahead matters most.  That’s what I want to focus.  And through the gifts of life I yet have to live and the hurdles I must still jump, continuous uncluttering, prioritizing, organizing and choosing wisely the actions and decisions I embark from hereon must take front seat.  Getting defeated when the going gets rough will not work.  Moving forward, no matter what the challenges, will take me closer to realizing dreams that yet, are to take shape. 

No excuses for clutter.

Change: A Constant

Blog1. 

On any given day, Mickey usually takes out both Cinh and Dink for a quick walk out in the front yard while I dress.  Today isn’t one of those.  It’s still vacation away from the academia; it is also one mild temp day of summer, and I was upbeat for a morning stroll. 

I took out Cinn (short for Cinnamon), not only for her routine morning walk, but also for company.  Unlike DINKY (from acronym: double income, no kids yet), Cinn is a non-complainer … perfect for any challenges one puts in her way.  We went down the path towards our neighbor Ginger’s house.  Nothing special about that path other than it’s almost always traffic-free.  The path is a mix of downtrodden dirt, gravel, old asphalt.  The sandy-grindy path must be uncomfortable to Cinn’s bare paws, but on each side, lie an unattended vegetation of sorts and interesting enough for her active, curious smelling machine.  She sniffs at every nook and cranny of the path, and aggressively checks out every bunch of living wild bush and grass along the way.  I, on the other hand, acquiesced to her every jerk and pull coming through the leash gently wound up around my wrist.   I walked along simply breathing in the quiet morning environ, and allowing the soft, cool breeze to wake up my cranium. 

Once done with exploration, and her night water passing on select spot, we head back to the house.  Instead of the usual walk up the gravel-filled driveway, Cinn takes us back to the house through a grassy, mulchy path.  There, I spot quite a young fallen squirrel.  I could tell it just met its end.  It has that look of one snapped out untimely of its life.  How and when did its life get extinguished?  Did it accidentally fall from a playful climb up the oak tree where it now rests under, or was it pushed out and down tragically? “Never mind the how and the why”, I mutter. 

The sight and reality of a life put to a HALT startles and adds a chill to my brain.  It begins its flips, tumbles and turns, like a gymnast on a floor exercise. No doubt about it … life and death takes a front seat.  It is an end to a beginning. A familiar tune softly hums in my head - “to everything, turn … turn; there’s a season …” 

I switch on to a reflective moment.  The sight of that fallen squirrel foreshadows and catches. It is forcing me to get a glimpse of my own life cycle snapshot.  An exhilarating, yet uncertain ending crystalizes.  In a few weeks, I will call quits a 7 to 9 waking, working day.    Soon there will be a halt … an end.

What’s next?