Valdrada, the city reflected

Valdrada's inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness.
(...)
At times, the mirror increases a thing's value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point. The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them. 

"Cities and  Eyes," Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

Looking back and pushing onwards

Window, Penang 2012

I'm a little late in posting about 2012. Let me just say it was one of those years where a lot of learning was done, some still ongoing to this day. In contrast to those years where one lives out the questions (Rilke), 2012 seemed to be a year for living out the answers -- where answers don't always lead to heaving sighs of relief or keeping the heart spared from heartbreaks. While those heartbreaks did lead to more questions, they also forced me to look at other options.

So early on in 2012 some dreams were broken, but along the way new ones were created. Clarity came dressed in poetry (Mabi David's You are Here and Chingbee Cruz's Disappear), in creative non-fiction (Katrina Stuart-Santiago's Of Love and Other Lemons), in that Tres Marias (Lolita Carbon, Cookie Chua, Bayang Barrios + Cathy Go) gig, in the trips I was fortunate to have been able to take, and, of course, in the countless conversations with women friends (that band of sisterhood with Turtle, Rach, Joelle, Ina, Lira, Anjie, Checo, & honorary sisterhood member Froi). 

Work-wise, 2012 threw a curve ball too. Suddenly, I couldn't do corporate training full time anymore and no local training job opportunities were opening up. I did more freelancing work, like that part-time "journalist" post (I didn't even know you can do that), the (awesome) trip to Baguio and Banaue for Sidetrip, the Pampanga fieldwork to document the best practices of the communities under Mother Earth (the NGO)'s care, and the online teaching consultancy. 2012 placed me in situations where I wrote more in terms of word count and significance. I also learned, through work, another model of teaching English. All these proved of value to my going to Malaysia. 

Sticking to graduate school and staying here even when I so wanted to go home (newsflash: I fell in love) was a decision which is proving to be right. What I have learned about teaching language and all those other intricacies involved when learners try to acquire a second language were gifts, pure gifts. One of the highlights of the first sem was conducting an actual research on a Japanese English writer and writing a paper on his language use difficulty and coping strategies (will spare you from the very technical terms for now). That my professor was quite happy with how the paper turned out felt like an affirmation. It's nice to be imbued with a purpose, teehee.

Love and integrity were the keywords for 2012. Looking back, love and integrity were indeed poured on me as lessons and as rewards throughout 2012. I have those two in different measures and won't let go just yet. In continuation, 2013 will be about passion and consistency hopefully leading to abundance. 

Stories for girls

"Oh, how the world is changed when a woman begins to wonder!" 

from the blurb of When Woman Became the Sea, a Costa Rican creation story 

A book loot for Praise, Hossannah, Martha, and Maya, nieces, girl inaanak & little gal pal, in the hopes of inspiring wonder in these future wanderers. =)

In memory of Luang Prabang

City of questions and solace. 

Temple window, Luang Prabang,
one year ago

"Cities also believe they are the work of the mind or of chance, but neither one nor the other suffices to hold up their walls. You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.

Or the question it asks you, forcing you to answer, like Thebes through the mouth of the Sphinx."  

                                           - Marco Polo, Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

A tough life needs a tough language

When people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language — and that is what poetry is. 

-- Jeanette Winterson, on a recent interview for Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

What fiction prepared & set you up for

...a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie.  (...)  

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.   

(...) The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. (...) You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. 

From "You Should Date an Illiterate Girl," Thought Catalog

***This article by Charles Wanke was one of the most widely-read and hugely commented Thought Catalog piece. It has been the subject of many debates and an apt response was written by Rosemary Urquico.


I think, though, that more than anything Wanke's piece was really a love letter to the girl who reads.