Alumni Homecoming.

Twenty years. Quite long. But it seems it was only yesterday when I last set foot on this same ground in my high school quadrangle.

Mixed emotions. I felt my tummy filled with butterflies. Bringing nausea to my senses. My heart is beating fast. So fast that it seems I will break into tears.

"Haaahh! Twenty years. Would my classmates still know me? Maybe. I have a couple of friends I still communicate with even right after graduation. But the rest, would they recognize me?"

"What changes have I been to? Just the humungous butt, more fats under my belly, in my arms and legs, and some unwanted wrinkles."

I became more hesitant.

"Argh! I have grown fatter."

I wasn't sexy then. The more that I am not now. I wasn't extra-ordinarily pretty then. The more that I am not now. I wasn't that intelligent then. Just an average girl. What now?

I asked myself, "What are my achievements so far after twenty years?"

"Not much. I mean, none so far I can really be proud of."

I started backing out. Not walking. I am more like running. Then I bumped into someone. I almost fell to the ground with my heavy torso.

"Maria! Maria, is that you?"

"Hhmmm… not bad. Somebody recognized me. But was that an interrogative statement I heard?"

"Myra. Yes, it's me. How do you do?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm in the advertising. I usually come out in commercials for shampoos, bags and garments. Oh well, the undergarments. You?"

There was an emphasis. I looked at her towering beauty. I closed my eyes before I can say a word.

"I'm a preschool teacher."

That's it! I blew it off! I didn't sound impressive. The more that I didn't look impressive with my jeans and plain white shirt. No accessory. Just powder and lip gloss.

"Come on. Let's get inside. The rest are there waiting for us. I heard there's Bless from Canada, Delia from Dubai, Glenda from London, Roa from Denmark and Tina from California (blah-blah-blah!!!). And guess who I saw early this afternoon?"

I didn't want to guess who she was referring to. In my heart, I knew who he is. And in my heart, though I prayed for this moment to come, I wish that I just burst like a bubble and be gone.

Myra noticed my silence. She didn't pursue the topic. Instead she pulled me back to where the crowd was and like in the movies, in slow motion, I was there in the middle of all the classmates I journeyed with in my four years in high school.

"So this is the feeling of going back." I thought to myself.

There were the people Myra mentioned. Some are still dark-skinned. Others fairer than before. One of them said she is a cosmetic endorser. The other giggled off, "I almost stay in the spa. Scrubbing off every dead skin cell in my body. Quite expensive though. But it's fine with my British boyfriend."

I laughed with them. But with jarred pent-up emotion I cannot name. 

Some I noticed have yellow gold all over them. Not just one in both ears. They have several in the neck, in their wrists and in their ankles. For some, they look as plain as I am though more sophisticated.

"Nah!" shoved off by that little voice inside me. "They only look more confident. Try leveling your chin to your shoulders. Sit, not slouch. Smile more often. Look at them in the eye when you talk or when you listen to what they are saying."

I did.

After some time, I became more comfortable. I stopped comparing myself to the rest of the group. My laugh grew more genuine now. I'm starting to enjoy myself.

Our conversations went on. Stories of men in engineering and architecture. Snippets of women's struggles in a men-dominated area. Tessa was one of them. Very inspiring.

Then came cars they own. House and lots in various points in the archipelago and outside it. Investments here and there. Stock market. Economics. Politics. Commerce. Fashion. Toners. Eye-shadows. Bags. Perfumes. Movies. Local and Hollywood stars. Name it, we have discussed them all. An hour. Two. Three.

Dinner was about to be served.

Our tête-á-tête seem not to reach an end. And just when I thought I am almost gaining confidence, I saw those pair of deep-set eyes. Same pair that melt my heart. Same pair that broke my heart into bits and bits of pieces. I wanted to look away. But they have their own lure that makes it difficult for me to do so.

He was looking to. Staring intensely. Seem not aware that he was with someone. His wife.

I looked down my feet. I noticed my fingers fidgeting and felt my toes as cold as ice. I felt ashamed. So awkward.

"Hi!" was his short greeting. Same voice I fell in love with.

Then I was transported twenty-three years ago along that small street to Bless's place.

"I will be coming tomorrow whether you invite me to your birthday or not. I don't care. My brothers already left for Manila. I asked them that I stay because I want to be with you on your special day." 

I felt so happy. But I didn't say a word.

"I'll bring you home."

Inside the tricycle we were so close I can feel his deep breathing and his heart beat… seems heaven to me. But I didn't say a word.

"Hope you liked my gift. It's not as expensive as the stuff toy you received from Eman but hope you appreciate it."

I smiled. I told myself, "I will forever carry it with me." But I didn't say a word.

"Care for another room in your umbrella?" was the chant of almost wet youngsters in the school shed.

I looked up my room. I saw my class adviser by the porch from whom I have promised to strive harder in the academics.

"No boys!" she said early that morning.

"No boys!" I repeated.

Then I walked passed him. Not saying a word.

"I would rather hurt myself, than to ever make you cry. There's nothing left to say, though it's gonna hurt us both. There's no other way, but to say goodbye."… goes their song.

I head on without looking at his direction. Not saying a word.

"Do you love him?" was John's question. "He's waiting for you. He needs you. His mother is not well."

I went on arranging the flowers for the recognition. I didn't say a word.

"He's with someone now." John confirmed.

I just stared. Moved away with tears welling from my eyes. I didn't say a word.

"Maria," Bless's calling my name brought me back to reality. "Miss Si wants to see you."

I excused myself. Thankful a bit. At least I have time to think and decide whether I leave the place or stay and hurt myself even more.

After a light talk with my then adviser-mentor turned colleague, I opted to just go home and call it a night.

I passed through the darker alley at the back gate where I usually pass through every time I escape from scrutinizing gaze way back in high school. My mind went back to its natural flow of recollection.

This was the alley that witnessed my tears when I learned he was with someone. I sat near the plants. I even pulled some. All my frustration, my anger and my depression poured into the innocent plants.

Then I heard footsteps. I turned around. I saw his penetrating eyes overpowering me – the little confidence that I have.

Was that pain? I wasn't sure.

Was that hatred? I'm not certain.

Was that love I see in his eyes?

"You have really mastered the art of escaping."

I just stared back. I wanted to capture that love in his eyes. I wanted to say something.  But at the last minute, I decided to keep my silence. Then I walked away.

If it was impossible then, the more that it is now.

Yesteryears, I should have said something, but I did not. That, I know is my greatest mistake.

But now, if I said what I should have said, I will not just destroy my life but cause so much pain to innocent people I care and love.

I smiled to myself. A bitter smile.

Then tears welled off my eyes.

Tears that ended a love story that never was.

Now this is the picture of a watch I saw from an e-shop that I intend to buy as treat for myself for having kept myself busy yet gave myself much time to do what I really wanted to do -- reading books, studying and of course, bonding with my kids and family and friends. Hope I will be able to buy this before the year ends.

Visit my blogsites more often: www.marjo-lifeinamirror.blogspot.com and www.blogtext.org/CABAnata

Oh hi everyone!

Happy New Year!!!

Was I late for the greeting?

Geeezzzz… it has been three weeks since I last posted an entry. And damn you’re right, I missed blogging. But I am in so far so good state of being me because the times I didn’t blog, I spent with my kids.

You remember I wrote about Gabrielle who was almost hospitalized because of pneumonia? Oh well, she was sick during the holidays. You can just imagine how awful she looked like when she started throwing up all her food intake on Christmas day and the following day had loose anal excretions. She was pale and lost really a lot of weight. We brought her back to her pedia and she suggested we bring her to the hospital. But we begged not to. She gave us another two days. Her vomiting stopped but her bowel is still loose. Her pedia can’t increase the dosage of her medication because she was too young and she can’t give her another prescription because of her G6PD deficiency. Medications for such are very limited because there are certain chemicals that are not recommended due to adverse reactions to her system. So she just extended her medication.

Fortunately, the drug cured her. Now, she’s back to being such an active kid. Thank God.

But I was really so worried during the holidays.

It all started with the pneumonia stuff and when I attended the Christmas Party in my Graduate School. Let me relate the spooky story that triggered the hell out of me…

Since it is a Christmas Party, I thought of dropping by the cake store to buy some goodies for my thesis adviser. While my friend and I are on my way to the venue, we met my adviser and we headed towards the graduate college building. Before reaching the entrance, Dr. Neroza stopped and seemed like looking for something/someone. Then she said, “Now where is that little girl you are with?”, looking at me questioningly.

Ate Weng and I said that we were not with a kid. It was just the two of us who approached her.

But she insisted, “No, you are with a little girl about this tall (gesturing beside my hip) and was in pink spaghetti strap blouse and was walking right beside you. I even looked at her for a moment because she was so cute and she smiled at me.”

Oh, hey… I can’t describe my feeling that time. I had goose bumps all over me and I started to melt like a candle. My knees are quivering and I can feel my body like cold ice. I was pale.

I remembered Gabrielle who is still not feeling well that day but seemed okay. Her diaper leaked when we woke up so I changed her nappies and clothes to a pink spaghetti strapped dress.

My friends prayed over me and bid me to go home. I ran through the bus like I was chased by dozens of demons. And when I reached home and saw my little angel smiling back at me, I exhaled the demons out of me.

A dear friend told me that maybe, Gaby had an astral journey. She wanted me beside her so she traveled along with me so she is with me everywhere I went. So right after school was over for the holidays, I promised myself to stop and focus all my attention to my kids.

Hey, I wasn’t a believer of such premonitions and astral journeys, but I guess the experience taught me one great lesson. And now, I am starting to enjoy reading books on the topic, too. Coincidentally, Coelho’s book which I am currently reading entitled Veronika Decides to Die, Zedka, one of the characters, experienced astral journey. Her soul leaves her body for a while and travels else where – where she wants to go. She had learned too the techniques of separating her soul from her body and have astral travel.

Oh well, I would relate the story in another entry. But for the meantime, I want to say: The Blogger is in!

I brought Gabrielle Yumi, my one year old daughter to her pedia today. She had flu since Wednesday so I gave her Dimetapp. I thought it will work like it always did. But last Saturday, she woke me up with a cough. I gave her Loviscol. Again, I hoped it would perform the same magic as it did the previous times she had cough and flu. Last Sunday, she had fever. On and off. We gave her Tempra. It worked a little because yesterday the whole day and last night, she had no fever. She was able to eat. Played a little, too. But this morning, my husband texted me while I was on field for the school's promotion dissemination. Gaby had fever. Doesn't like to eat and drink her milk. She seemed so tired. She cried a lot. So we decided to bring her to Dr. Gwendolyn Ang.

Her temperature reached 38.6. She listened to her breathing. Her facial expression changed. She made a good full view of her throat. Then sighed. Gaby has an infection in her throat and her lungs seemed to be covered by phlegm. "Dangerous sign," she said. She wrote some antibiotics on a sheet of paper and recommended Advil. Then she added, "If her fever will continue until Saturday, including her constricted breathing, call me and confine her directly to the hospital. This may result to pneumonia."

I was frantic. Pneumonia. One of the causes of death among children. The more I worried when I browsed the net and here is what I have read in http://www.medicinenet.com/g6pd_deficiency/article.htm :

Infections, such as pneumonia, can also precipitate the hemolytic anemia in persons who are G6PD deficient.

Yes, Gaby was diagnosed to be G6PD deficient. Just an information taken from the same site:

What is G6PD deficiency?
Glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is an enzyme deficiency of the red blood cells. G6PD deficiency leads to an abnormal rupture (breakage) of the red blood cells called hemolytic anemia (abnormally low red blood cell count).

I have started some haiku stuff. Not sure though if I am doing the right thing. If in case you know something about what a real haiku is, feel free to comment on my posts.

Kindly visit my new site too. It is located at http://marjo-lifeinamirror.blogspot.com and http://marjo-lifeinstanzas.blogspot.com

Hope to see you all there.

To the women out there, visit my new site and be one with us in our journey through the miracle, wonder and grace of being a Woman.

Hugs and Kisses from me!!!

One day a man saw an old lady, stranded on the side of the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. His Pontiac was still sputtering when he approached her.

A missionary on furlough told this true story while visiting his home church in Michigan.

While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This was a journey of two days and required camping overnight at the halfway point. On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, purchase medicine and supplies, and then begin my two-day journey back to the field hospital.

Upon arrival in the city, I observed two men fighting, one of whom had been seriously injured. I treated him for his injuries and at the same time witnessed to him of the Lord Jesus Christ. I then traveled two days, camping overnight, and arrived home without incident.

Two weeks later, I repeated my journey. Upon arriving in the city, I was approached by the young man I have treated. He told me that he had known I carried money and medicines. He said, "Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to move into your camp, we saw that you were surrounded by twenty-six armed guards."

At this, I laughed and said that I was certainly all alone out in that jungle campsite. The young man pressed the point, however, and said, "No Sir, I was not the only person to see the guards. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted them. It was because of those guards that we were afraid and left you alone."

At this point in the sermon, one of the men in the congregation jumped to his feet and interrupted the missionary and ask if he could tell him the exact day that this happened.

The missionary told the congregation the date and the man who interrupted told him this story:

"On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here and I was preparing to go and play golf. I was about to putt when I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, the urging of the Lord was so strong I called men in this church to meet with me here in the sanctuary to pray for you. Would all of those men who met me on that day stand up?"

The men who had met together that day stood up. The missionary wasn't concerned with who they were – he was too busy counting how many men he saw. There were twenty-six.

After reading the story from a compilation of cut-outs courtesy of Ma'am Alma, I literally had goosebumps and my head seemed to be so heavy with hair.

Ah! Angels! As a child, I have always believed in them. Not because my mother used to tell me a lot of stories about them but because I had several encounters with them, too. Usually in my dreams. Dejavu! Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing is for sure, I believe in angels and all other miracles, great and small in this bivouac men call life.

I can't wait until Sunday to blog my blessings. I just woke up this morning with a downpour of thoughts of things I should be thankful for. Well, if you've been reading through my blogs, there's a side of me that's slowly dying, of which I don't know what! So I was just so happy that upon opening my eyes, my real eyes can now see through an array of what are worth thanking for. Let me enumerate:

1. For the alarm that disturbed my dreamless night. It means that I'm still alive. That this dying thing within me is not who I really am. Whatever that means! Whichever it is… there is still hope. And I am not backing out from the fight.

Find out the other four in my new site http://marjo-lifeinamirror.blogspot.com

Hope to see you all there. I have also started a new topic for my e-book entitled Woman: Salt of the Earth and Light of the World. Join me in my quest as I invigorate my good and empower woman who seem to have lost their sense of being.

God bless everyone!

From an article by Thomas J. Stevens

Strange statement isn't it? But listen carefully because it can make a difference of success and failure in your business and private life.

Let me explain:

You may know that in India elephants are used for manual labor. But what to do with them when they are not working? How to restrain them?

Their handlers came up with the idea to "program" them while they are still very young by setting self-imposed limits into their thinking.

How does it work?

When the elephants are still small, weighing around 150 pounds they get tied up with a very heavy rope. All day long, the elephants try to get rid of it, whine, tug at it and some of them even try to chew it. But they can't break free.

Finally, the elephant gives up and the fight is over. From this moment on, they strongly believe that there is absolutely no chance to get rid of the rope.

They accept the "fact" that the rope limits them. And with this imprinted belief in place, their handlers are able to tie them with extremely small ropes, even as adults weighing 8,000 pounds and more, they never attempt to break free, because they "know" they have no chance at all!

As you can see, the elephants limit are not real but exist only in their mind.

We also have built-in boundaries. They are also not real but exist only in our minds. But it doesn't have to stay this way. Our negative belief systems don't have to limit us for good.

If you truly want to become successful and are not kidding yourself, you can change your inner belief system, your attitude, and break your inner boundaries.

You always have the inner strength, the personal power to change everything in your life for the better.

And never act like an elephant.

Again, this is but just a simple reminder that we should not be content of what we are, we should strive to find the meaning of our existence. Soon, we will be amazed by how powerful the God in us is, for we can achieve beyond what we imagine possible.

Note:

This is taken from one of the sharings Miriam, a CLE teacher in our school,  gave during our pre-service last May. Hope we can share the same insight as we had during the event.

The Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis tells how, as a child, he found a cocoon attached to a tree and saw that the butterfly inside the cocoon was just preparing to emerge. He waited for some time, but because the process seemed so long drawn out, he decided to speed things up. He began to warm the cocoon with his breath. However, when the butterfly did finally emerge, its wings were still stuck together, and it died a short time afterwards.
 
‘What it required was patient ripening by the sun, and I could not wait,’ says Kazantzakis. ‘Even now, that small corpse is one of the greatest weights I have on my conscience. But it taught me what is truly a mortal sin: to force the great laws of the universe. We must be patient and wait for the right moment and gladly follow the rhythm God has chosen for our life.’

by Paulo Coelho (http://paulocoelhoblog.com)

Life is a rhythm. Everything in life is rhythmically designed. Everything in you and me.

The beat of our heart. The breathing in and out of our lungs. The palpitation of our pulse. The workings of our organs to achieve homeostasis. The sweating off from glands. The grumbling of our stomach when it is hungry. The movement of our body as it strides to its destination. The opening and closing of our eyes. The strands of hair on our scalp. The bones connected by hinges within us. The fibers of every muscle that cling to our bones. The nails artistically situated in every finger and toe. The sexual harmony shared by man and woman. The sound of voice. Laughter. Steps. Claps. Chants. Songs. Speech. The occurence of meiosis and mitosis, dividing simple cells to a splendid life with body and soul. You. Me.

Life is a rhythm. Everything in life is rhythmically designed. Everything in nature.

The swaying of the grass. The opening of a bud. The falling of dried leaves from its branches and the shooting of a new one off the same location. The germination of a seed. The rustling of the same dried leaves all piled up together blown by the wind. The wind whispers its own rhythm. The clit-clattering of raindrops on the ground. The splash of play. The dance of fire. The soundless clamor of the soil. The pebbles rolling down a cliff or as carried by the river. The ripples it creates when thrown to the sea by a lonely soul. The sound of animals. The chatting of the insects and all that crawl upon the earth. The chirping of the birds and all that travails the sky. The twinkling of the stars. The movement of planets. The revolution of each. The appearance of the moon. The heat of the sun. The occurence of eclipse.

Everything. If I forgot to mention some things, please remind me.

But all the beauty of this rhythm depends upon man's virtue -- PATIENCE!