getting caught up in the details

My mom woke me up and I was reluctant to follow her prodding. I was up all night surfing the net. It was one of those times that I had to say "gmornyt" to my chatmates in yahoo messenger. A 25 degree angle from the shorter arm towards 4 to the longer arm towards 7 reminded me of my need for sleep. With a cyber gesture-- ":-h" that deploys a yellow 2-d face completely armed with eyes, a mouth, and a hand waving-- I found it apt to give one of the most polite ways of saying goodbye in the net. I was able to disconnect and allow myself to dream.

"Aalis na si kuya," my Mom said.

I had to get up. I walked from my bed towards the door- opening it, going through it, and releasing it to let it decide for itself whether it'll close or remain open.

The atmosphere was familiar. It was 8 halfway 9 in the morning and the sun was semi-up. I've just been semi-fired from my writing semi-jobs since it's the semi-scheduled editing period for the research write-ups. All I had were many writing part-time jobs which all added up to full-time writing job that ate up all my time. I had to notice all the details in the world, write about them in the most detailed manner, and expect that the reader got enough of the details. That was all over now. Now, the task was to right the written and all I had to do was wait. Since then, my body clock was downside up. I had to notice that it was actually morning and I was awake. Normally, if it weren't for my brother, it would be otherwise.

My brother was leaving.

It's not like my Father's daily leaving to go play tennis with his pals in his numerous tennis clubs all around the urban vicinity of Metro Manila. Every afternoon, to prevent it from getting lazy, my father dresses up in his athletic wear-- clad with cycling shorts to support the origins of my brothers' and my existence, a semi-dilapidated shirt and 70s type of short shorts to assure the passage of air through his body, and semi-updated rubber shoes to assure the possibility of letting agility or what's left of it come out in game play. It wasn't like that.

My brother's really leaving.

He wouldn't return like my dad for dinner or for TV and sleep which proved to be synonymous for people of semi-age- 50 something, more than halfway 60. Probably, the next time I'll see him is when one of us is already that age.

My mom was hustling and bustling about the house looking for things to do. Anxiously so. Her eyes were welling up, with salty dew that wasn't so subtly drooping.

I remember the time when my brothers were also about to leave.

I came with my parents then to the airport. My elder brother who was much eager to leave to pursue his American dream in Canada was already in the railed zigzags towards the dock while my younger older brother was still officially in the lobby, but about to get lost in the steel. My mom took hold of my brother and held on to more than half of her life. It was emotional, intense to say the least. I did the same. I wasn't one who was known to be sentimental, but I believe it is simply a part of having a soul to be. Mine was only capable of emotional procrastination. I never knew I had those feelings for my brothers. I flared up with them. I was young. I didn't know how to deal with them except through my body. I shook and cried almost the whole time from the arms of my younger older brother from the airport back home. I went well beyond my mom's weeping who was known to weep for the meekest of reasons. I was 15, I had the hormones as an excuse.

I was reminiscing the most salient of details of that part of my adolescence when I remembered that it was making a repeat in the now. Instead of my mom, it was the mommy dog. Instead of me, it was the 3 puppy dogs. Instead of tears, it was cusses of frustration because the dogs couldn't coordinate well with the camera. I don't know why my dad was so intent in achieving for my mom the perfect picture of my brother with the 4 dogs. Somehow I think he wished that he was on that picture. I couldn't blame him.

click!

The picture was taken: my brother, the mommy dog, and the 3 puppy dogs.

"Hindi kita si Mickey!" My mom shouted with her shrill, but forceful voice.

Mickey was the youngest of the dogs and his face wasn't seen in the picture.

My mom maximized her capacity for alertness. She paid attention to everything. She even remembered to give my brother a handkerchief. I don't know why though. My brother is coming from the Philippines and going to Canada. He wouldn't be sweating when he arrives there. My brother took it anyway.

"Ito nalang pala!" My mom interjected while stretching her arms to offer another handkerchief.

"Napunasan ko na ng uhog 'yan." Uttering such a coy remark with the apparent need to mention something about mucus in one of the final face-to-face conversations we'll probably have with him for the next years of our lives. My mother had a very odd way of distracting herself. I didn't see it, but I'm sure my mom brought her own handkerchief. She was probably sort of expecting to procrastinate her feelings again. I picture her again releasing her emotion in the same infantile manner we did before.

As for me, all I had left was a conversation.

"Aalis ka ba?" he asked.

"Mga 3 pa." I answered again in my well-measured manner.

He nodded.

He left so early then and yes, he will leave again. Again, it was too early. I didn't understand how I felt. All I can do was ponder why ask if I was leaving too. Somehow I believe he wanted me to come with him. My answer proved to be indicative of how little I saw into my future. I was one who typically knows exactly what he wanted. I didn't know if I wanted to follow him. What I was sure of is that for the meantime, from 8 halfway 9 until 3, I'll be at home. If this day was a microcosmic metaphor to my life, I didn't know when 3 will actually be.

He said goodbye to me: "Goodbye Timmy!" and I said likewise: "Byebye!"

The mommy dog went under the piano and put her chin on her soft and fluffy feet. My mom was about the house distracting herself with so many details while my dad was already out. I didn't even notice him leaving, but I'm sure he did. Somehow the men in our home simply let themselves out so easily.

My brother went out the door, turned around, and looked through the glass. On my right of the door and his left, he scratched the glass with his index finger muttering "Byebye" to the puppies.

He turned towards the open concrete swaggering away with his bag on his back walking slowly towards his future. To his wife in Canada. Back to the world he wishes to discover most of his life in.

My mom patted my back as she caught up to my brother.

As for me, I stayed home to sort things out.

:-h Kuya!

abnormal force: a senior's syndrome

The concrete bench was subtly making its presence felt via its hard tactility. Buttocks placed above, the whole mass of my body impinges its weight on the sturdy, steady, stiff, strong, stony...

The dense substance of the concrete bench keeps me connected to the whole system of normal forces, support upon support upon support upon support. Gravity is such a wonder- giving one a notion of ground that one begins to construct what is up and down, high and low, above and beneath- the whole perceptual plethora of the vertical.

I wish that this is the discourse that exists in my mind.

I'm supposed to be filled with awe for structuralist linguistics! A sublime cognitive architecture should occupy my mind now! Rationality of the highest order should organize my thoughts as the schema that the greatest thinkers carefully and scientifically crafted try to penetrate my mind in this vain exercise of reading.

This heavy "book" of borrowed knowledge, skillfully photocopied by acolytes of intellectual piracy, like the concrete bench make its presence upon the skin of my cold lap. Much as well like the subtle heat of the sun which warms my whole body that just came out of a refrigerated space of a conference room makes its presence on me via the realm of temperature. The wind does not make itself less known as it blows my hair and subsequently and antagonistically counters the discourse of heat in my body with a counter-discourse of cool.

Where is the gravity?

That moment!

It's as if my mind is prevented to reach this "high thinking." I just can't seem to understand why!

It's that moment!

Coming from a 3 hour class that discussed the same thing that I am reading in the present, the seeming "physics of thought" that is linguistics, why is it that my mind just refuses to put "gravity" to these ideas? In word, it's tangible presence is undeniable! As I continue...

"My definition of language pre..."

It was dark.

"supposes the exclusi..."

I was with 3 of my friends.

"-on of everything tha..."

I saw him across the pathway.

"-t is outside its"

My vision focused on his facia-

"organism or syste..."

-l expression, it was one of...

"-m-- in a word, o..."

joy and laughter. I was...

"-f everything"

gladdened by empath...

"known a..."

-ic transfer. He noticed my gaze a...

"-s exte..."

-nd smiled at me. I was already smili...

"-rnal li..."

ng so to acknowledge his acknowledgement of my...

"-nguis..."

presence, I touched his shoulders and felt the flesh on its blades...

"-tic..."

beneath his shirt, shaked it to the point that I felt the tenderness of his abdomen...

"-s..."

and let go remembering how those 3 salient seconds forced itself unto my consciousness forever

"."

foundations of a lesbian didactic

“Vagina...”

I spoke into the open of this over-familiar room. Though the bumpy sound of the word died on all four corners, it seemed as if my mind had a different acoustical structure; the word almost endlessly, tirelessly asserted itself into my consciousness. Echoing, as if trying to make me it a mantra- repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating. How can a hole literally fill my mind?

Ironic.

And I continued...

“And the parts of the vagina ARE...” My voice suddenly got all enthusiastic: “the clitoris, it’s prepuce, the labia minora, the urethral opening, the vestibule, the hymen” and on a hush, I whispered “untorn” and went back to the same lecture-type tone as if pointing at a diagram which was my actual body part through the looking glass of my compact: “and the labia majora and the posterior pourchet.” I took a pause grinning shy of the remotest possibility that anyone heard the outrage I was doing. Nonetheless in a self-defiant way, I powerfully uttered: “AND! Don’t forget the mons pubis!” I laughed both in a tense and a relaxed manner which opposing feelings depended on the way I looked at the situation.

It’s funny how amused I got in this naming exercise, it made me feel that I really understood what it is that I was referring to. And with this thought, another layer of doubt both diverted and deepened my thought process to mentally “verbalize” the classic question of “does a mirror really reflect reality?” which whose inquiry were readily answered with arguments by my active mind. “No, because the mirror inverts an image into its horizontal visual counterpart”- again in a manner as if teaching in front of a supposed now physics then biology or sex education class. The previous argument was semi-countered by- “though the imagination can always invert the image to its supposed ‘real’ form” and again countered- “though again, it’d been a ‘constructed’ thought and hence worthy of an accusation of its ‘untruth’” which was finally demolished by the statement: “did it even matter to see the real thing?”

I wondered and pondered a lot about this and my mind was as if a room full of jury members debating and rebating about the value of the thoughts I were thinking. This and that, due to this and because of that, despite of these and including those, with this in mind or without considering that, my thoughts were just plain messy. Already doubting my sanity due to hunches about this possible schizophrenic episode that has just occurred inside my head, the different sides all simultaneously argued making each others’ statements obsolete because they rendered incomprehensible everything they said to the dominant ego-perspective which served as my representative in the situation. Not that all the other members weren’t me.

Maybe it did matter. Maybe it did not. I don’t know. Again, it depends on the way I’d look at it.

Going back to the vagina, all I see is the outside- the “external vagina” as they’d say. I don’t personally know but they also say that there’s an “internal vagina” wherein or better said as literally in where wonders happen. I fondly call it “the origin of man”- fascinating really.

This seeming little cave that lies between my lower limbs just in front of my anus is where humanity emerged, of course, not without a hearty brew within. It also looks like a little spark of a flame with smoke emerging in contact with its definitions against the air with the flame stemming from high above a wick stemming from the perineum to the end with the lack of a candle in the anus. It can also look like an elongated seashell from where molluscs normally take residence in and keep their vulnerable flesh from probable predation. No matter how I’d look at it at the outside, it’s still the same vagina- the one that has a hole that was evolutionarily supposed to take in a penis and bear children.

From this thought, it seemed fitting to be back at the biology class to again list off.

“From the vagina, we enter into the vulva and the vaginal fornix which connects us to the cervix which narrow opening leads to the uterus, commonly called the womb.”

Now I realize that it was useless to use the compact to view the vagina now because my mind is seemingly looking at the insides of it unless...

“UGH!”

Now, I’m torn...

And it couldn’t be more painful. I couldn’t stress it enough that it was PAINFUL. When the mirror side of the compact slit me apart, I now knew what they meant about gushers. I felt like a surgeon that just performed a great irreversible surgery to the once semi-permeable membrane that was now fully-permeable to anything and everything that would desire to come in and out of it. Though as if that would happen anytime with the knowledge of my current lifestyle of non-permissiveness to penetration; not that I hate men; it’s just that I love women.

All I saw was darkness through a rich frame of crimson.

I need to mention that the compact was initially green and the view or the lack of it made me regret the suffering I went through for the sake of curiosity. As they say, “curiosity killed the pussy,” forgive the wordplay, but mine just got ripped bare.

I remember from something that I have read that bowls, spoons, even plates, or anything that is hollow and can contain substance is associated with the vagina. They call these hollow container things as belonging to the archetype of “yonic” symbols. They say that men fantasize about these hollow objects and wish to fill them up with their “phallus” which in turn are identified from an archetype of elongated or piercing objects that more often than not, can penetrate or supposedly “perfectly” fill “yonic” emptiness. Regardless and I say with power; REGARDLESS of these fantasies, truth be told; just like a bowl is for soup, the vagina is as they say for children. Needless they say; the vagina is a vagina because it is meant to contain something.

This made me connect in my mind why the only part of the female genitalia or all genitalia for that matter that has an acceptable presence in children’s literature is the “womb.” I theorize that it is probably because it is perceived as something beautiful and non-invasive of the special ever-protected faculty of the young- their innocence. Which based on very recent experience is actually really fragile and breaks with the necessity of a seeming rite of passage mainly comprising of agony. Perhaps, it’s the only beautiful thing about genitalia and perhaps about sex- its seeming by-product: babies.

I am reminded of the question that is often asked in beauty pageants: “What is the essence of a woman?” I restrain myself from thinking of the philosophical foundations of the concept of “essence,” but really, is there? I honestly want to know. Some answer beauty, some nurturing, some parental example though one of the most famous answers powerfully posits that pregnancy or bearing children is the “essence of a woman.”

The ability to directly nurture another human being and be literally connected to it through a cord called the umbilical cord. They say that it is the most noble and most beautiful thing whose event most closely fully realizes womanhood. And the ability to bring it out into the world- DIVINE! How beautiful is it to cause someone’s existence into this world? Not that I have total faith in life that it will always be a beautiful thing, but procuring an immense source of potential for this world and be able to be the one that suffers lovingly for its first real breath- what better privilege is there?

All this though ENRAGES me.

How do THEY suppose I fully realize myself?

Does my womanhood depend on my ovaries creating egg cells that are fertilized by sperm whose moment of encounter produce a zygote that connects and attaches itself to my womb to be incubated for 9 months to produce a fetus that in turn turns into a child?

I notice that my heart is beating faster, my skin is producing beads of cold sweat, my right hand without me knowing have made a fist out of itself, and the other hand on the compact- it seemed as if it wanted to crush what I was seeing and what it was vicariously touching through the compact.

I wanted to crush my vagina and rid myself of the burden of my womanhood which the world defines as my ability to bear children. They say that it is a privilege to be a woman and be able to bring someone into this world in a special way, but it didn’t seem like a privilege. It seemed as if that if I declined it, I would be doing the world a sin. I thought it didn’t matter if we didn’t take our privileges, but it did! It seems as if that bearing children is a requirement which my being does want to experience in all its sincerity, but seemingly, it was “unfortunate” that my being is giving me a hard time. Apparently, my soul does not want to be a “woman” if it means having to betray myself and decline my identity.

I am lesbian.

Just saying that seems dirty and the world deems it unbecoming of having a vagina if am one.

I needed to calm down.

I took deep breaths.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The air couldn’t be thicker when I inhaled and my exhales are even thicker than what I took in.

And I suddenly felt tears trickling down my cheeks.

I dropped the compact. The blood spread across the floor. I wiped my tears though realized too late that I have just smeared it with more liquid- my blood. I felt like a dirty woman, inside and out, bloodied up by my own thoughts though somehow I knew it wasn’t my fault.

It was THEM.

*ps... I'm a guy... :D