A message for Princess Peach

My little sweet daughter, hope you won’t grow so fast though I secretly wish sometimes you were the age when I can …

Bring you to a beauty salon with me where we can both pass time in idle chat while getting our toenails painted in bright purple though I’m quite sure you’ll prefer yours in green. I will always remember when I first brought you to such fancy place for your first haircut, I found you too cute for the haircutting chair. Sitting side by site together, you were too scared to let go of my hand while the hairdresser cut your hair short like mine. I just felt so content holding your hand that I froze that picture in my mind and wish again for you not to grow up fast.

Tag you in the mall and shop till we both drop from exhaustion literally. I admit that shopping for clothes is a waterloo (though I can score at shoe-shopping) and I’d love someone who would give sensible fashion advice. I wish you’d forgive your Mom for lacking these skills as I grew up with brothers in a mostly boys populated neighborhood. I did not get the chance to play dress-up nor had the privilege of a fashion magazine subscription. Just like the boys, I rode and fell from biking races under the 2 o'clock summer sun which makes me wonder why I tend to be upset when I come home from work and see your knee or leg get scraped a bit. I would even reprimand your Yaya for not being able to prevent it and be adamant about you wearing pjs in the afternoon to prevent insect bites and scratches from rough play.

Spend plenty of time with you in one of my favorite places in the country--- where else but Fully Booked -- we could let hours go by while browsing and having a hard time choosing, prioritizing which books to buy, authors to love, like, drop and love again. I hope you’d share my love for Gibran’s prose, Allende’s magic realism and Grisham’s legal thrillers while I look forward to hear about your favorites and choices. And also share my liking for paperproducts, those dainty notebooks and journals and bother to care for things like “Does its pages have the right level of smoothness to give the proper gliding effect when you write?” See your Mom is just as quirky as you are when I observed that you preferred writing using my colored gel pens over you jumbo pencil, no matter if it requires your tiny hand double effort to steady your grip.

Dear baby daughter though I wish for these things, my prayer remains the same that you won't grow too fast. Please let me enjoy it a little bit more.

Photo source: Nitendo

Memoirs of a Bookworm Part 1

The first one was a brief read, yet it left me hanging on the air. At 10 years old, I wrestled over the analogy presented through the isolation and redemption of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. My father lend this book to me, the very day I took courage to finally ask him that I wanted to read the green book with Greek Doric column designs on the cover entitled “ Ideologue & Utopia.” Exerting an effort not to douse my curiosity and hurt my feelings, he gave me a blue book with a seagull printed on its cover instead. Not to be deterred, I further inquired why I was given the blue book when I wanted the green one with Greek designs on it. He just muttered something less than audible like…”You’ll appreciate why I gave you the blue one someday.”

As I leafed through the pages of the blue book, I realized that it was not a lesser alternative, the first page bore my father’s scribbling, a dedication line for my mother. I felt honored to be the first one among their children to read something that has played a part in their courtship period. For me, the book has transformed into a sacred document and so is the powerful story about a seagull’s life that has settled in my being.

During that period, my reading fare was quite limited to Youth magazine and children’s books from the school library. The Youth was a free subscription availed by Papa for me which I got through mail every month from the US staring 1985 to 1990. By my 1st year in high-school, the free subscription to this very informative magazine ended. I also got a book from its sister-subscription, which targeted a more mature audience, entitled “I am the Devil’s Egg.” It may sound daunting from the title alone but this book contributed a lot to my reading addiction. Its content included the author’s struggle over alcohol and drug abuse but it was the first readable book that I was able to digest in such a young age since the writing style was firm, straight and conversational.

However I do not have the absolute access to all the books in my parent’s house. I dare not touch my mother’s collection of Harold Robbins nor my father’s philosophical and ideological books. Being raised in a traditional household, my parents always practiced quality control on our reading materials. I got an hour of scolding from my mother when she caught me with a stack of english love story paperbacks compliments of our neighbor. Much as I want to discredit these books, I could not, for you need to be exposed to various types of reading to earn that distinct skill and taste that performs reasonable discrimination of a good read and a bad read. Of course with my young aggressive reasoning I lose that argument to my adamant mother.

My father is a great influence in my life when it comes to my love for reading. He bought me a Caroll Lewis book (Alice Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass) at 5th grade. He also granted me access to his parapsychology books that included “The Third Eye” and “Behind the Iron Curtain.” My dose of parapsychology was beginning to take shape as I kept a pyramid in my room to make pyramid water and to observe the growth of plants placed inside it.

After my paranormal phase, I diverted my energies into something more sophisticated. My father introduced me to Ayn Rand in high-school. I was swept by her writing and philosophical system called objectivism. I was so into her that I wanted to be an architect like Howard Roark, the protagonist with an enduring individualism in her novel, “The Fountainhead.”
A significant book that I would credit my mother for would be “Flowers for Algernon” which I read and re-read in 6th grade. I guess in every re-reading that I made I only wanted to change the fate of Charlie and whenever it comes to the same ending, I only have tears and swelling eyes to offer. I found solace in this book when I got struck with a nerve disease in 1991 that forced me out of high school for a year. I felt like I have become Charlie. This episode in my life where everything seem to have stopped brought me closer to reading and so I became like all the women in the stories of Isabel Allende. These courageous women who fought for their love of country and self and others became my inspiration. This was also the year I met Khalil Gibran, the greatest poet that this world has ever produced.


Every now and then, I buy a book for my children in an attempt to foster their love for books. I wish my children to have this gift. When they are done with their purple dinosaur and talking trains, I would love to introduce them to Mark Twain, JK Rowling and CS Lewis for starters. I want them to appreciate the intricate art of weaving words and nothing more.

Acknowledgements for Photo Sources:

AvonBooks Publisher of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

HarcourtPublisher of Flowers for Algernon

Kidzworld.com for Alice in Wonderland