Welcome to the Tango House

In my quest to further the breadth of my writing, I am getting my hands on new material which I believe would be engaging but not to the point of becoming syrupy in contrast to the sober pinch of Purple Scribbling. I have started my another dot in the blogosphere "Tales from the Tango House" which aims to capture the happy, exciting, challenging, intriguing and occasional drama of family life, motherhood and everything in between.

Tango House chronicles the lives of DB, GM, Sharkboy and Baby Diva, pay them a visit here!

Life like a Glass House

This is my birthday entry , I am turning 32 this Sept. I don’t know what to label this post though it sort of resembles an assessment report. Whatever it’s worth…I exercise the liberty of posting it. Cheers!

I am a Freethinker who works in a glass office, in one of the most surprising nook and well kept secrets of Makati. Our building though not a skyscraper, is one with sophistication and artistic innovation that friends and visitors used to comment, “Hey your office looks like an Art Museum”. I don’t mind since I love it the way it is. More than just an office, this edifice quite reminds me a lot about life.

I consider my circumstances growing up in the province, was quite a sheltered existence. Thanks to father’s random lectures, despite my cloister, it has been impressed in my mind that there is a big world outside my home and my school. The realities of life, both beauty and harshness, I further gleaned through the pages of the books and magazines I’ve read.

I have been educated through the public school system from grade school to college, except for a brief stint in Chinese kinder school and a private school in the 4th grade. When I turned 10, I’ve given up the outdoor play since there were only 2 girls in the neighborhood where I grew up; Heart, who is busy with her stamp collection and shitsu puppies, and me, who found seclusion a wonderful place, I did have a stamp collection too though not as extensive as Heart’s.

I breeze through high school while undergoing the perfect summation of identity crisis. Like any other teen, I wanted to fit in. I’ve tried taking school seriously which turned out to my advantage. I got excellent grades and great friends, all went well until I succumbed to a nerve disease that almost claimed my life in the summer before junior year. I became a vegetable at the mercy of my neurologist which gave my parents the ultimate fright of their lives. I called this episode in my life – the falling into the dark pit- until I found brilliance and comfort in W.E. Henley’s ”Invictus.”

The recovery period from such a nearly-fatal blow was an arduous process. Not only did I sought refuge in my seclusion castle, which is like a glass house where the only thing that protects it from intrusion is a deadbolt, I also buried myself into reading until further solace came in the form of writing. Once again I retrieved my pen and restarted a journal. Writing is therapeutic. It paved the way for me to find the missing portion of myself after the ordeal.

Through the years, I realized that I have become my own person. As a child, I always wanted to be like my father, a very strong force to contend with. My mother on the other hand is the sensitive soul and that, I can never be a gentle creature like her. Though not a lot like my parents, I carried their values, their strong faith in being a “family” as well as their belief on taking on social responsibility. And for these, I thank them.

Memoirs of a Bookworm Part 2

Being Belisa...

If I were to live a life out of a character from a book…I would be Belisa Crepusculario. I would make a living out of words and spinning stories. I would wander from one place to another, trudging the edge of the earth until I find a worthy place, and like her I would set up a tent, with no advertisement or promotion of whatsoever, only wits, a formidable spirit and a gift to make optimum and artistic use of words.

My patrons shall arrive in droves and patiently wait for me to attend to their requirements. I would write love letters for my love struck patients and weave believable stories to take away the sorrows of distraught families caught in war and cases of hopelessness. I would also look forward to writing high and mighty speeches fit for the top official of the land. Like Belisa whose prominent name and talent travels as fast as the wind, my words shall be sought after by both noble and peasant, honest and crook, sick and healthy etc.

Going back to reality, I cannot imagine myself traveling from one place to another like a nomad peddling my wares to strangers. Well maybe in a lifetime I shall have a share of solid clients composed of family and friends. In this age where internet technology spells the big difference in the way people communicate, I feel that Belisa Crepusculario may not be able to compete and will be forced to close shop.

Currently almost everybody exchanges information in a speed of lightning through the internet. We sent letters both personal and professional through email. We are provided with a luxury to share a bit of ourselves, both real and imagined, through blogs, public emails and forums. The postal service is nearly becoming obsolete as majority are getting in the loop and are convinced that the internet is indeed the best and fastest way to get the message across. Now traffic is not only a condition in our roads, it has also become a phenomenon in cyberspace.

Some people say that we have come far in developing our means of communication but we have left out a major component which is the interpersonal. We no longer have the patience to wait for our mails to arrive nor take time to scribble our sentiments on paper. Given the above scenario, I would still want to be like Belisa Crepusculario and writing is just one way of becoming her. Heck! I just want to write so give me a break.