It's the day before Christmas.
God we are back here so quickly.
For many years, I usually spend the day before Christmas at Rustan's Alabang snapping up last-minute gifts. I used to like it because I get the sales attendants' full attention, who make it a point to wrap each and every one of my purchases, and shower me with freebies like sprigs of Eucalyptus, some tinsel, and others to jazz up my gifts.
This year, I am in no rush, though I will have to spend the afternoon to wrap the gifts for my family.
The tradition of gift-giving is new to me. There has always been an exchange of gifts at Christmas with my family, but I learned it as an art only fairly recently, in the early 90s, from my friend P, who did them in style, always putting great thoughts into every gift she gave away. Now based in Virginia, she sends me customized cards with pictures of her two lovely toddlers S and E in the snow.
Since learning the art from Pia, a lot of other people have come into the picture to help me master the art, such as my art director friend I and my florist friend R, the floral architect of the Philippines, who both taught me what is in the box is even more special when the box is wrapped in a special way. The wrapping is a showcase of your thoughtfulness.
Learning the art was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it always makes me happy and special to have given out something beautiful and a curse because it is such a hassle to find the right gift for each and every single person in my rapidly growing universe.
This year, I resolved to put more attention to the gifts I gave to the people who made my life work, often thanklessly: my valet at the office, the guard who takes care of my mail and packages, the guard who helps me load stuff in my car when it is time to go home, the IT people whom I bother tirelessly for my computer needs, the carpenters who created the modular office I wanted for my staff and repainted my room in the color my feng shui adviser recommended, etc. I wish I could give them more. I wish I could give them enough to make sure they have Noche Buena to remember tonight.
In the next week, when I go back to the office to wrap up work for the year, I'm going to have to give more gifts to more people. I didn't make a list, so now I feel so many more deserve a gift from me.
I have yet to give myself a gift, but I feel I am out of budget already. I've been thinking maybe I deserve a great gift this Christmas, perhaps an IWC. Well, maybe next Christmas.
In meantime, I will shower myself with gratitude: gratitude that I am in a position to put a smile on somebody's face, although I think, like me, we are all in the same position no matter what position we think we are in, if only we assume it.
Happy Christmas!
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Saturday, December 9, 2006
FAREWELL, REY NACUSPAD
Just woke up to a dreary, rainy day.
I spent last night trying to process my feelings toward my quirky editorial assistant and friend and defender R, at whose wake I came to visit.
I still can't believe I will never ever hear his hyaenic laughter and all his sexist, ageist, racist, rich-versus-poor, etc'ist comments about life again. A highly opinionated person, he was wont to introduce a theory into cocktail conversations that never failed to shock, scandalize people and then reduce them to guilty giggles. He knew world history like the back of his hand and, a master of sweeping generalizations, he would use it to make conversation pieces that the politically correct would at best find uncomfortable to digest. But that's what he loved. He loved challenging the self-righteous and the well-mannered, who often always ended up loving him. R is quirk personified and, without a doubt, that was his charm, although I have personally had quite a few battles with it, always hushing him, warning him, scolding him (and at once encouraging, pushing him) about embarrassing me in public.
As a co-worker, he was to me both a blessing and a curse (especially in the beginning). A free spirit, he was pretty much a drifter in the beginning, always late, always absent, always causing trouble, always sowing intrigues, and often sleeping on the job. God knows how many times I had to throw a book down his desk to jolt him out of his daydreams, how many times I had screamed at him, how many times I had to send him home. Once, mad that he was being useless, I made him feel useless for over a week, making sure he spent day after day with nothing to do and snatching away whatever it was was that he tried to do, whether it was to read the proofs or to use the phone.
Oh, but I revel in those memories, in retrospect, because, later on, he proved to be indispensable to my operation.
He gave me the loyalty I thought I did not require and he helped cement many of the relationships I forged with people with whom I needed to collaborate in my editorial efforts. Though he loved challenging me, we were a team, through thick and thin, and he loved me, as boss, as co-worker, as friend and understood me completely. With his penchant for exaggeration, he was the type who would make it appear that I was more important than I was, harrassing security guards, for instance, to save a slot for me because "Mr. P is arriving and Mr. P will not tolerate waiting," whoever Mr. P was, but somehow he could convey the message that Mr. P was one they should not mess with! How many times had I scolded him for making such a fuss (especially because he was doing it not so much for me but for his own perverse way of having fun), but inside I just had to hand it to him for orchestrating many a "grand entrance" for me!
Too young to die!
Too much of a life to succumb to death so quickly, so easily!
The past year has not been easy for R, when his health began to degenerate. Oh he suffered many things, including many a heartbreak, resulting from the dramatic turn of events at the workplace. I'd like to think he has recovered from the trauma, but the toll these heartbreaks took on his health!
Still and all, when I look back, R's last great mission was to put Humpty Dumpty together again. He paved the way for me to get back to what I now enjoy and to put my team together again. I know I did not fail to recognize what he had done for me, but I feel sorry that he cannot be here anymore to enjoy what the seeds he helped sow will bear as the future unfolds.
R passed away at ten in the evening of December 8 at the Philippine General Hospital, where he was confined for what proved to be negative for meningitis. I believe his heart failed him this time.
Goodbye, R! Farewell!
I would warn you not to scandalize the angels too much and not to risk the wrath of God with your hyaenic laugther that is sure to shatter the serenity of heaven, but I don't want to deprive them of the infinite pleasures I and the rest of our friends had drawn from your presence here on earth!
A
I spent last night trying to process my feelings toward my quirky editorial assistant and friend and defender R, at whose wake I came to visit.
I still can't believe I will never ever hear his hyaenic laughter and all his sexist, ageist, racist, rich-versus-poor, etc'ist comments about life again. A highly opinionated person, he was wont to introduce a theory into cocktail conversations that never failed to shock, scandalize people and then reduce them to guilty giggles. He knew world history like the back of his hand and, a master of sweeping generalizations, he would use it to make conversation pieces that the politically correct would at best find uncomfortable to digest. But that's what he loved. He loved challenging the self-righteous and the well-mannered, who often always ended up loving him. R is quirk personified and, without a doubt, that was his charm, although I have personally had quite a few battles with it, always hushing him, warning him, scolding him (and at once encouraging, pushing him) about embarrassing me in public.
As a co-worker, he was to me both a blessing and a curse (especially in the beginning). A free spirit, he was pretty much a drifter in the beginning, always late, always absent, always causing trouble, always sowing intrigues, and often sleeping on the job. God knows how many times I had to throw a book down his desk to jolt him out of his daydreams, how many times I had screamed at him, how many times I had to send him home. Once, mad that he was being useless, I made him feel useless for over a week, making sure he spent day after day with nothing to do and snatching away whatever it was was that he tried to do, whether it was to read the proofs or to use the phone.
Oh, but I revel in those memories, in retrospect, because, later on, he proved to be indispensable to my operation.
He gave me the loyalty I thought I did not require and he helped cement many of the relationships I forged with people with whom I needed to collaborate in my editorial efforts. Though he loved challenging me, we were a team, through thick and thin, and he loved me, as boss, as co-worker, as friend and understood me completely. With his penchant for exaggeration, he was the type who would make it appear that I was more important than I was, harrassing security guards, for instance, to save a slot for me because "Mr. P is arriving and Mr. P will not tolerate waiting," whoever Mr. P was, but somehow he could convey the message that Mr. P was one they should not mess with! How many times had I scolded him for making such a fuss (especially because he was doing it not so much for me but for his own perverse way of having fun), but inside I just had to hand it to him for orchestrating many a "grand entrance" for me!
Too young to die!
Too much of a life to succumb to death so quickly, so easily!
The past year has not been easy for R, when his health began to degenerate. Oh he suffered many things, including many a heartbreak, resulting from the dramatic turn of events at the workplace. I'd like to think he has recovered from the trauma, but the toll these heartbreaks took on his health!
Still and all, when I look back, R's last great mission was to put Humpty Dumpty together again. He paved the way for me to get back to what I now enjoy and to put my team together again. I know I did not fail to recognize what he had done for me, but I feel sorry that he cannot be here anymore to enjoy what the seeds he helped sow will bear as the future unfolds.
R passed away at ten in the evening of December 8 at the Philippine General Hospital, where he was confined for what proved to be negative for meningitis. I believe his heart failed him this time.
Goodbye, R! Farewell!
I would warn you not to scandalize the angels too much and not to risk the wrath of God with your hyaenic laugther that is sure to shatter the serenity of heaven, but I don't want to deprive them of the infinite pleasures I and the rest of our friends had drawn from your presence here on earth!
A
Friday, December 1, 2006
INFINITY TRAPPED IN A SICK BODY
I never like it when I'm sick.
And I'm thankful that I am never ever sick. Once a year when I was younger and now maybe three times a year. But when I'm sick, I'm a baby and I'm overemotional and afraid and, looking out the window at people riding bikes and jogging and running and playing, feeling as though I would never ever have the chance to play again.
The other night, I tried to meditate with a head cold. I pretended that Jesus was on a lotus position six inches on top of me. Around his head is a white halo. Around his throat is a halo the color of rubies. Around his chest is a blue light. Inhale. Exhale. And then I imagine the white light moving from his head to mine, as I breathe out and chant Ohhmm. Next, inhaling, I imagine the ruby-red light mving from his throat to mine, as I breathe out and chant Ahhhh. Next, as I breathe in, I imagine the blue light moving from his chest to mine, as, breathing out, I chant, huuuuung. After all that, I imagine the rest of Jesus coming down to become a part of me, his whole image disappearing into me.
I learned this from my Saturday meditation classes and I believe it is either a Tibetan practice, opposed to the Hindu practice where the chakra colors are different or is it the other way around? Whatever. Of course, the image of Jesus is my choice. The image could be any god or deity or goddess or entity or saint you truly believe in (my guru says it doesn't matter because they are all one and the same). At any rate, it used to make me happy, but this time it felt like a waste of time, as I couldn't really concentrate, with a sneeze always threatening to shatter my serenity and my clogged nose obstructing the flow of energy.
My meditation guru says, without actually imposing it on me, that god is energy, that basic vibration that makes up the universe if you go into the very basic unit, past the molecules and atoms and neurons and all. In the end, solid, liquid, or gas, tangible or intangible, reality or imagination, it's just energy. That's what we have in common with the kitchen table, the Apple notebook I am typing away on, the clouds in the sky, the gases on Jupiter, the stars in another galaxy.
That is how we are big, because we are part of everything else, manifesting only, through minor differences in vibration levels, as either you, me, the Pacific Ocean, the North American continent, or God as we envision Him or Her or It to be.
When I meditate, on few occassions of pure enlightenment, I feel myself bigger than my body and sometimes I have this feeling that I do have the power to have everything I want because I am part of everything. Sometimes, I imagine light passing through my body to remove all the darkness, the hurts, the pain, the viruses festering in my lungs on days I have to battle it out with the flu or the common cold or the allergic rhinitis, such as now.
It has worked many times.
In 1997, during meditation, I felt my soul getting bigger and bigger that it reached New York, with which I was obsessed at that time. It was such a wonderful feeling that I came out of the meditation feeling as free as a bird. I let it on and kept wanting to have the same experience, except it was never quite as powerful as the first time I had it. Still, I welcomed the New Year in 1998 at Times Square in New York, shivering at 15 below zero weather with my dearest friends.
This is only one of the many ways tuning in on my inner resources has given me the power to be or to have whatever I want.
But it's not that simple. Sometimes, the secret is there, in your grasp, but you cannot seem to just keep it under lock and key. It's fluid. It's moving all the time, like the atoms in our body, the current in the ocean, the weather systems over the earth.
My meditation guru says the universe is at my service, only ready to say, "My wish is my command" every time a thought pops into my mind. Like the genie to Alladin, the universe is at my beck and call, but I cannot order it around like I would a slave because its language is not spoken, but felt and has to come from deep inside me.
I'd like to tell the universe to banish all sickness in the world but first, from very deep inside me, I must believe it is possible to go through this life without getting sick. Only then will the my Genie, my Universe, My God understand exactly what I'm asking for.
And I'm thankful that I am never ever sick. Once a year when I was younger and now maybe three times a year. But when I'm sick, I'm a baby and I'm overemotional and afraid and, looking out the window at people riding bikes and jogging and running and playing, feeling as though I would never ever have the chance to play again.
The other night, I tried to meditate with a head cold. I pretended that Jesus was on a lotus position six inches on top of me. Around his head is a white halo. Around his throat is a halo the color of rubies. Around his chest is a blue light. Inhale. Exhale. And then I imagine the white light moving from his head to mine, as I breathe out and chant Ohhmm. Next, inhaling, I imagine the ruby-red light mving from his throat to mine, as I breathe out and chant Ahhhh. Next, as I breathe in, I imagine the blue light moving from his chest to mine, as, breathing out, I chant, huuuuung. After all that, I imagine the rest of Jesus coming down to become a part of me, his whole image disappearing into me.
I learned this from my Saturday meditation classes and I believe it is either a Tibetan practice, opposed to the Hindu practice where the chakra colors are different or is it the other way around? Whatever. Of course, the image of Jesus is my choice. The image could be any god or deity or goddess or entity or saint you truly believe in (my guru says it doesn't matter because they are all one and the same). At any rate, it used to make me happy, but this time it felt like a waste of time, as I couldn't really concentrate, with a sneeze always threatening to shatter my serenity and my clogged nose obstructing the flow of energy.
My meditation guru says, without actually imposing it on me, that god is energy, that basic vibration that makes up the universe if you go into the very basic unit, past the molecules and atoms and neurons and all. In the end, solid, liquid, or gas, tangible or intangible, reality or imagination, it's just energy. That's what we have in common with the kitchen table, the Apple notebook I am typing away on, the clouds in the sky, the gases on Jupiter, the stars in another galaxy.
That is how we are big, because we are part of everything else, manifesting only, through minor differences in vibration levels, as either you, me, the Pacific Ocean, the North American continent, or God as we envision Him or Her or It to be.
When I meditate, on few occassions of pure enlightenment, I feel myself bigger than my body and sometimes I have this feeling that I do have the power to have everything I want because I am part of everything. Sometimes, I imagine light passing through my body to remove all the darkness, the hurts, the pain, the viruses festering in my lungs on days I have to battle it out with the flu or the common cold or the allergic rhinitis, such as now.
It has worked many times.
In 1997, during meditation, I felt my soul getting bigger and bigger that it reached New York, with which I was obsessed at that time. It was such a wonderful feeling that I came out of the meditation feeling as free as a bird. I let it on and kept wanting to have the same experience, except it was never quite as powerful as the first time I had it. Still, I welcomed the New Year in 1998 at Times Square in New York, shivering at 15 below zero weather with my dearest friends.
This is only one of the many ways tuning in on my inner resources has given me the power to be or to have whatever I want.
But it's not that simple. Sometimes, the secret is there, in your grasp, but you cannot seem to just keep it under lock and key. It's fluid. It's moving all the time, like the atoms in our body, the current in the ocean, the weather systems over the earth.
My meditation guru says the universe is at my service, only ready to say, "My wish is my command" every time a thought pops into my mind. Like the genie to Alladin, the universe is at my beck and call, but I cannot order it around like I would a slave because its language is not spoken, but felt and has to come from deep inside me.
I'd like to tell the universe to banish all sickness in the world but first, from very deep inside me, I must believe it is possible to go through this life without getting sick. Only then will the my Genie, my Universe, My God understand exactly what I'm asking for.
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