Dear S,
I tend to tune out rainy days in New York. You wouldn’t hear me complain about the wetness licking through my hair, highlighting its jagged ends and the sickly-octopus-like shape it morphed into after I had gotten carried away with a pair of dog-grooming shears almost four months ago. Neither would you hear me sulk over soaking my socks and thin-soled sneakers in the unfeeling East Coast rain (I’ve always- note the unbiased tone- thought that the Philippine rain has more pizzazz, is sultrier with its tropical genes). I have a retrievable vision in my head that depicts rain as a mere prelude to tie-dyed days, to the vast canvass of Central Park matted with rows and rows of golden and pink-cheeked flower kids, their braided hair, their linen shirts, their acid-induced words. Spring is hippy season through and through, but I don’t mind sharing it with free-spirited scribblers who bleed their thoughts onto a blank page, unperturbed by anything, or to talented punks who doodle on their Chuck Taylors and witness the everyday through their thick-rimmed eyeglasses.
I will not, however, rule out summer, regardless of the airless cauldron that it is, or should I say much more like Sylvia Plath’s unventilated bell jar, minus the manic-depressiveness. Summers in New York are worth enduring as long as you do it with good friends (am waiting for you). I remember the summer Karol was here, it was in June 2007. We would wander around midtown and find ourselves lost in the labyrinthine nooks of Central Park. Good thing Karol was infatuated with maps, we never stayed lost for more than 10 minutes, and would resume our trek, discovering every now and then an iconic portion that we had only come across in movies or in Catcher in the Rye—the carousel, the skating rink, the pond with the ducks.
So there we were crisscrossing through, taking photos every five minutes or so, getting dumbfounded by the somewhat homogeneity of a massive park, then enlightening ourselves with the common realization that there’s a reason behind such homogeneity, because parks were designed to be green, to be a chunk of nature within an urban mess, thus the uniformed greenness and brownness, the splattering of ducks and water, the speckles of sensible activity-causing carousels, skating rinks, soccer fields, and bridges. Then we would be back on track in no time, sweaty and shiny, but proud of ourselves that we could still analyze and philosophize amidst the gagging humidity. It was through this same taxing method of hunting down famous spots that we stumbled upon the core, the Mecca of the city’s center (at least for us): Strawberry Fields. You should have seen the look on Karol’s face when her eyes beheld the marbleized Imagine memorabilia, a perfect circle majestically ingrained in the burning ground, cradling roses from tourists who had consummated their pilgrimage to John Lennon’s side of town-- then and forever.
And the joke I’ve always had in my head? The look on Karol’s face that day was that of a sinless soul who has finally met her creator.
July has given me a tight hug and kissed me on the cheek. It has set up its tent right in front of me, despite the non-stop flashing of the “I’m not ready” neon sign on my forehead. But it almost feels like the rains would disappear for a while. It’s also been a year since I received that paralyzing text message from my dad. I’ve realized that my resilience is an inescapable fact. How normal this journey is. Usually people move on. I know I am doing so, but why am frightened that I would forget-- completely?
I once knew a girl who wouldn’t, couldn’t sleep because she was afraid that Death would cheat on her, snatch her soul during a customary slumber, a normal human task. She was 14 when she convinced herself that indeed she would die that night if she closed her eyes and gave in to sleep. She lay still in bed and could hear her heart beating so hard and fast she thought it would rip her chest. She ran to her mother in the next room and told her she was scared, Oh Mama, she was so scared, she would die, she was sure she would die. Her mother held her and told her reassuringly, “No, you won’t. It’s just heart palpitations.” But the girl could tell through the way her mother held her that she was somewhat scared as well.
Her mother decided to take her to a doctor, but she refused. They had been through this before, when her heart raced like a stallion gone berserk after a 10-hour roundtrip drive to Pangasinan with the entire family to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Manaoag. The doctor took her blood pressure and shook her head and smiled a mocking smile mainly because she was the silliest kid she had ever met. “Don’t you have faith?” the doctor asked. She felt like God Himself was judging her. It was as if she didn’t have the right to be afraid of her own unusual heartbeat because she was a kid, because she had just been on a holy journey, and it was downright sacrilegious to think that you would die of an inexplicable heart defect after seeing a miraculous version of the Virgin Mother. The girl vowed never to see this doctor again.
The mother instead seated the girl at her study table and gave her a Bible. “Open it to the Psalms,” she said. “Read on, it will lighten your heart.” It was like a scene from a movie, the girl thought. But she had to admit that the luscious words of the Psalms made her feel better, like God was sitting right beside her.
Later that night her grandmother came and looked at her in a way one could call sympathetic. Still she thought it was the gentlest look she had gotten from anyone. The girl wanted to ask her grandmother if she too was scared of dying. But she never found the courage to open her mouth.
The heart palpitations would go on for years to come, mostly in the middle of the night, but later on even during the day when she’s at work. She would have a name for them-- panic attacks-- but would learn never to dwell on them as their circular nature leaves one helpless and immobile. Too many people dying and in pain. She’s not ready to be selfish. Not yet.
Her grandmother would die one scorching day in July while she was thousands of miles away. She would light a tiny red candle in her room that night and would sob and throw up, sickeningly drunk on her grief. Though that same night she would not think of death highly, she would not be scared if it did snatch her soul-- sound asleep or wide awake. She would not dare question a god or anything she could not see. She would not give a damn.
She couldn’t care less if her heart was beating like a raving drum set bent on tearing her chest to shreds.
Yours,
J
Dear J,
There was a once a girl who was lost in a whirlwind of dreams she has long stopped believing in. She wore the dulling greys of her woes and danced under the amber moonbeams of long gone nights. She, like innumerable souls, yearned for a pulsating body to warm her rigid repose lying in a cold bed with the soothing rhythm of constant breathing. 
A man loved her, and she loved him deeply. He pursued her with the sweetest cajolery that reminded her how delicious it felt to be wanted. But he could only promise her moments for he already had a life before she even claimed hers. She sold what was left of her soul to purloin those moments.
A boy was in love with her, and maybe she could be in love with him. He followed her into the dark streets when she wandered off alone and offered to take her back to shelter. He longed to save her from the melancholia that seeped through her every pore. He sold his soul without flinching to be with her.
The girl and the man were engulfed with a consuming passion that brought them to dizzying heights of joy. She proclaimed her dreams to him, whispered her fears and what she saw before her were not clueless eyes and disbelieving ears. But affinity could not conceal the chasm of history that separated their lives. They inevitably lost each other to the years once more. She simply came too late.
The girl and the boy slid down the abyss of uncertainty unknowingly, unhurriedly. But it could not disguise the thievery of time only in which taking comfort in each other’s company could exist. He stumbled into a space she warped with a look to make raining fire pebbles metamorphose into tawny and vermillion blooms. He simply arrived too late.
The man held her with passion. He pulled her against him, wordlessly seeking indulgence for unintended neglect, soundlessly expressing he missed her more than she could know. He knew her every curve and traced them with hungry kisses. She vanished between his stars and waves.
The boy touched her with tenderness. His eyes pleaded permission to come breathlessly near, vowing to brave her presence though transfixed by her mocking smile, enraptured by her gaze that stripped him one thin layer at a time. His fingers hesitated, leaving lingering trails on her skin. He fell into the universe in her eyes.
The girl did not have to choose between the man and the boy. There was no choice to begin with. She had stopped wanting, what she has, what she has not. She felt no more than an experiment of their confusion, a secret stashed in an unseen crevice within their imagined desires. She no longer possessed hope to be anything more.
She has had too many dreams rise into a rainbow that exploded into a hundred million hues then burn into black soot that fell on her like a hushed drizzle – quietly, chillingly, unendingly.
Always,
S
Dear S,
As the wind howls outside, as it blows sadly, determinedly towards the coated, beat-up bodies of New Yorkers, I find myself thinking about love. Has it ever found me in all these years of staggering search? Or has it always been just lurking nearby, whistling at me, urging me to turn around and be still so it could seep in, drench my soul in its rare beauty, light up the parts within me that have been dead and gray a long time?
Or have I merely been indifferent to everything that’s beautiful and alive, for my soul has constantly been fed on isolating sadness, on a deeply rooted allegiance to loneliness?
And while I am here confined within the four walls of this poorly lit room in Brooklyn, I realize I know nothing about love. Not a bit about its complicacies, its multi-layered nature of lies and truths, of heartaches and passionate kisses, of sleeping in with someone whose skin feels good and right on yours, of blushing faces and twinkling eyes, of tears that will go on long after the giggles, the snatched minutes of bliss, the sweet murmurs of two strangers who, after a moment of lust, start sharing their dreams and secret hopes.
I know nothing-- if you ask me what I think it is, what it looks like, if it truly shrivels at the slightest touch of surrender. I can only say what it can resemble, illustrate it through those days on which I became invincible, through the people that have dropped in and surveyed my lonely life, through those that my heart still holds dear but have passed on without so much as a word or a smile.
If I did find it, I will never know, I can only hope that I did, because it sure is more reassuring to discover that I bumped into it for a second or two of my poor life, but that it simply was not destined to survive in my somber world.
I have often asked myself if I found it in the faces of two old schoolmates who decided to hook up one long weekend marking Valentine’s Day. Separated by two states, but connected by a childhood that was not purely easy and idyllic, they sought out each other in D.C. Holed up in his room for three days-- laughing and teasing, kissing and sleeping, snuggling and staring at the ceiling—they both achieved their goal: share a bed with another warm body, receive wet kisses, and see sparks just for the occasion. Just once in this cold, cold country.
Three days later, the girl boarded a bus bound for New York; coldness reigned the boy’s heart just as soon. They never spoke to each other again.
Did I find it in the muted sobs on the phone of a boy that some restless girl left home three years ago? A boy who would have married her without hesitation, had she given herself the chance to love him back with the same fervor?
Did I find it in the calculated moves of an easy-going hipster that some lost girl met in a bar in the East Village? I overheard him asking her to crash at his apartment just because it was winter and they were both solitary souls, hoping for a drastic change in the dry weather: he was wishing for more snow, the mighty kind that could cover every crevice of the city with gleaming white; she was wishing for any hint of spring.
Or did I find it eleven years ago in the eyes of a 15-year-old boy who told me that he would love me forever, even if we were oceans, continents, planets away from each other?
I remember texting a friend during one of my bouts with the blues: “Someday I am going to write about this anomalous crap called love and reintroduce my guts to tequila.” How can I refer to something as crap when I don’t even know what it is? But can you blame me, S? For someone who has hoped and hoped, tried and tried, the least this world can do is let her call love crap. It’s not too much to ask for.
Though I can never define love exactly-- not for anyone, not in this lifetime, maybe, just maybe, I have it in me. I have love to hand out to somebody who will not dare ask why, who will open his hand gratefully and happily because it is my hand that’s casting a shadow on his, and not anybody else’s.
Yet with all my cluelessness about love, New York has taught me a good deal about living and bleeding. About carrying on even if everything that crosses your path seems to be at risk of slipping off your hands. Even if the future seems to be harsh on girls that know nothing but dream and get hurt.
Tonight as the polar wind peers through my window, as glacial drafts that I have learned to live with sneak in smoothly like thieves on familiar territory, I remember my first night at Motti’s when he brought up that topic about love, the familial kind that we all tend to, not really take for granted, but more of not notice. He said something about love being the ultimate reason to fight for your dreams. That as long as you are surrounded by love, you will get on with life, you will be okay.
Now I realize how much of it is true. Looking back on it now, love was probably the reason why I ended up staying for a month in that 140-year-old brownstone house owned by a funky, adorably weird Israeli family. That place exuded all the love any exhausted soul needs. That’s why I never felt sorry for myself even if I had nothing but the clothes on my back.
God, I so miss them. I so miss the inviting smell of coffee that Motti makes every morning; the way Michal daintily eats her avocado sandwich as if it's the most delectable piece of meal on earth.
Maybe I found love at their dinner table where we would have endless discussions on various cultures, on the psychotically tangled mess called Philippine politics, on the on-going Palestine-Israel conflict, on Obama, on thought-provoking films and poignant novels, on my romantic affiliations (or my lack of them), on their colorful love story, on their Jewishness and un-Jewishness, on their son’s genius.
Maybe I found love just watching Motti eagerly prepare dinner for his family. How in those moments I realized that he could as well have been my father. Only we don’t share the same DNA, we don’t have the same hair and skin color. To be taken in by a complete stranger, to be welcomed into his home and be taken care of as if you were kin, to be taught and patted as if you were his young daughter—and to finally believe that you are worth all these and much more is definitely not something falling short of love. Whenever I see him now I never cease to feel thankful and honored that I’ve been alive to meet and talk to one of the kindest human beings that have ever lived. Perhaps, this is even proof that people directed by kindness will always thrive on love.
Maybe I tasted love for a full month and did not completely realize it until I moved out of that wondrous brownstone and tried to live on my own again. I have gotten back on my feet, but my heart aches for another day with a real family. I may take pride in moving out of my parents’ house when I was 17 and being quite independent since, but now I am opening my eyes to that bit of truth that 26-year-old girls/women (whichever you are) are still inclined to take refuge in the arms of a family, seek the warm embrace of a mother and a father.
It’s 1 AM and the wind’s high-strung cries have subsided, but the chilly limbs of the night have yet to collapse. What do I feel now, you might ask. I only feel at peace with the fact that I am still alive. That I am living, even if the horizon still has vestiges of the dark I have left behind.
Love. It is here, isn’t it? It caught up with me as soon as I set foot in this wonderland of bright lights and shooting, somersaulting dreams conceived in various parts of the world, of thousands of hearts beating, pumping-- on and on. Never stopping. Never getting tired.
Or giving up.
Yours,
J
Dear J,
I saw a girl who reminded me of myself. In a long flowered skirt and a deep green tank top with her hair held back loosely sitting by the towering fountain, she appeared to be at the cusp of spring. Huge dark shades concealed traces of winter’s loneliness in her eyes.
She was looking out to the distance as you would in anticipation of a familiar shadow. Her face brightened and I followed the direction of her gaze. A man was making his way toward her through the crowd. He kissed her tenderly and apologized for making her wait. She smiled to reassure him that everything was fine.
He was holding something in his hand which she couldn’t resist stealing a glance at. Her eyes wandered subtly while he told her how lovely she looked sitting by the fountain looking as crisp as spring.
Aware perhaps of her controlled eagerness, he handed her a small box that resembled an important present. She looked into his eyes as he placed it on her hand. Her heart skipped a beat.
“What is…” she trailed, appearing unable to pose the question or bear the answer. But the moment’s vacillation seemed a trick of light, gone in a flicker of a smile. It beamed on him.
“I wish it were an engagement ring,” he said with a solemn smile. Her laugh rang high and clear.
He continued, “I’m sure you wish that too.” Her laughter sounded like peals of bells crying at twilight. When the last of the chimes faded, she looked at him with a bright smile and heartbroken eyes that said, “Yes, I do.”
How long a bond is supposed to last, I’m not certain. But I believe I saw them vow soundlessly by the sunlit fountain to make it last for as long as they can. When you don’t have the luxury to make promises of forever, you indulge in snatches of today.
I know how it is. I live on the periphery of his life, in the shadows, rarely in the light. We have an hour here and there, in out-of-way cafes and rented rooms. He sneaks out for five minutes then comes back for another five. For when you believe it to be doomed you don’t waste any moment. You give your all to every moment.
Their lips touched so softly, reminding me of a delicate breeze caressing sleeping blooms to wakefulness. Then, they held hands and walked away.
I wondered where they were going, where they came from before they brought in spring. I wondered if they will remember the day I saw them make a promise.
Love,
S
