P[e]NORAMA

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As my way of bidding goodbye to 2009 and welcoming 2010 and its infinite possibilities — with the kind of hope that can never be extinguished by painful circumstances — allow me to post some of my selected Status shoutouts in FaceBook since I became active in April. Let it be my humble way of thanking you for sharing with me your time and friendship. For, despite the challenges that came our way as a nation, the past year had been rife with lessons, opportunities, and blessings. Thank you for the good times, the opportunity to appreciate life with you, the friendship.

 

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I am chasing words. Where have they gone? 

 

I think I’ve become my dad’s pen name: Tawatao (Wanderer)

 

I think I have an avid stalker by the name of Virtuelle Friend. He’s tailing my every move. Oh my, I guess I oughtta behave. Properly. 

 

I am stalking my stalker; my captive who wants to believe he is the captor. haha! 

 

One of the best moments of my life is when I can be my child self, free of all the inhibitions and worries of my adult self. It’s when I know other adults must be laughing at what I’m doing, or for doing what I am doing (at my age), and not caring one bit.

 

By virtue of the power vested in me by my crazy-trippin’ self, I declare today a real V-day! No thinking about work, reading up for class, letting anything/anyone stress me up, nor complaining that FB forces me to shorten my shoutouts. I’ll just concentrate on pestering my Sweetie.

 

“Almost” followed by a positive word is such a sad phrasal construction. Though it suggests “close to being,” it still means “not quite.” (—SEB, June 28, 2009 while traveling to Baler)

 

If men were gadgets, they’d be made in China. 

  

OF HELLOS AND GOODBYES. My latest journey home was poignant, not only because I witnessed an overwhelming event, but also because I also took some personal journeys on the side: I got to talk to my HS teachers who I did not know I missed so much until I saw them again after all these years, and I got to hug my Lola Silling (grandpa’s sister) who I am afraid I will never be able to hug again. My heart shed tears yesterday — tears of joy for the heart-warming hellos, and tears of grief in anticipation of an imminent goodbye. I still wonder how the same heart can contain opposing emotions at the same time.

 

Sometimes, you need to compartmentalize your thoughts and emotions in order to perform. Never mind that a part of you feels so damned. You just do whatever it is that needs to be done, thinking that things have a way of righting themselves without you trying to fix them, hoping that this is one of them. 

 

Thanks her Sweetie for being so understanding, especially when she has to attend to so many things and she unwittingly puts him in the back seat. She feels so sorry for treating him that way sometimes. If he were beside her right now, she’d give him a tender hug and a loving embrace. To her sweetie, she says: “Thanks, Love, for everything. Sorry for my shortcomings. I know I have a lot.” 

 

This week is deadline ruled. And I am caught in between these lines — flat dead! Waaaaaa!

 

The typhoon has left, the sun has come out. For many of us in the Ondoy-hit areas, it’s now restoration time. There’s so much to do, that though I’m worried about my deadline for MT later tonight, it isn’t my priority at the moment. In fact, I find it so funny that the weekly deadline w/c I consider crucial on normal days seem so mundane now in the face of what we just had gone through. I hope you’re all fine, folks! 

    

Opportunities keep coming in, thank God! Must pull out of unproductive endeavors in order to seize them. It means less time for FB, & perhaps slowing down yet again on my studies. At the moment, I see my MA as a hurdle, but I don’t wanna completely give it up. I still plan to shift program by next SY. “Juggle” is the name of the game & I am enjoying it, even though it’s really stressful. 

 

Busy but was able to squeeze in some reading. Two books in two weeks (Hugo’s Les Miserables & Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol). Not bad, I think, considering that I read one in its PDF format and the other, while traveling to and from work assignments. Yes, I’m on to my reading program again. Literary (classics & contemporary). Philosophy. Linguistics. Phiippine culture. 

 

 Life is a continuous process of winnowing, of separating the grains from the chaffs. Only that sometimes, we throw away the grains; not the pebbles, not the chaffs. And then we spend the rest of our lives staring at the empty husks of our choices, wondering where the grains went, chasing after them, and failing to see them amidst the mountains of chaffs with which we have surrounded ourselves.

  

Such is the paradox of the quicksand: The harder you struggle in it, the faster you sink.The least resistance you make, the better chances you have of getting out of it. 

  

We Filipinos do not need a politician. What we need is a LEADER! 

 

 

 

A line in the novel “Whirlwind” by James Clavell reads: “You’re not dead until you’re dead.”

 

In my life, there have been moments when I had thought things were lost that I was already bracing myself for an imminent failure and planning on how to get back up. And then someone would come along — often in the nick of time — who would unceremoniously save me from my predicament. Immediately afterwards, things would return to normal as if the crisis I’d just been through was simply imagined.

 

What’s so amazing is that, in many instances, my saviors were complete strangers — people whose existence I was unaware of until that very moment when I badly needed them. They would come unannounced to snatch me from sure failure. Or even death. It’s as if they materialized out of nowhere just to fulfill one singular, fate-defying (or is it fate-defining?) act in my life: and that is to save me, or to ensure that I would not fail. Imagine those moments when some hand suddenly pulls you to safety before you get hit by a speeding vehicle; or those instances when you’d have drowned had someone didn’t see you and came to rescue you in time. Think of all those whom you barely know who just happened to be at the right place at the right time when you desperately needed someone — anyone — to help you. That they were there when you needed them to be there is amazing; that they would actually extend you a helping hand is nothing short of astounding. That they would do it without question… now, that’s incredible.

 

Indeed, simple acts of kindness — spontaneous, unplanned display of the goodness of our hearts — do go a long way, it’s so amazing.

 

Sad, too. Because while knowing all this, we still often choose to do the opposite. We still choose to hurl that hurtful word, do that dreadful deed that could cut our brethren into pieces. Simple and easy things are all that we need to do to make things better for others, yet we choose to go out of our way just to make others feel bad.

 

Human nature. Sometimes, there’s no way of fathoming it. It can be so good, it’s so great; but it can also be so bad it’s so sad. But then perhaps that’s just how it is — so that when we see and experience goodness, our hearts would melt with gratefulness, like I am feeling now as I think of all those instances when someone was so good to me.

 

To all those who have extended their helping hand, perhaps not really knowing how much their seemingly simple acts of kindness had helped me; those whose faces I may no longer remember because so brief had been the encounter or exchange with them after helping me tremendously; and those who have stood by me all these years, offering me their friendship and love — to all of you, I say thank you. I am truly humbled and blessed to have received such gifts from you.

 

As I marvel at the miracle of all of this, I can’t help but wonder if, in my small way, I’ve managed to be some kind of a gift to others as well. Like everyone else, my heart is sinful, too, and there have been moments I may have unwittingly succumbed to human weakness. But I hope, I wish… I’ve done enough good deeds to wash away its filth.

 

 

//Sherma E. Benosa; 19 December 2009 11:54pm;

//Photo by SEB. Taken at Nueva Vizcaya-Benguet road. January 2, 2010

On September 26, 2009, Metro Manila witnessed something that never happened before: a big portion of the metropolis was submerged in floodwaters, highways have turned into rivers, hundreds of thousands got stranded, and hundreds died. We (my Dad and my nephew who were on vacation) were among those who were affected by the catastrophe. We waded through neck-deep floodwater. It was traumatic. Looking back now, I still shudder at the thought of what we went through, but I am also thankful we did not suffer more. Thousands of my countrymen lost a lot — properties and loved ones. Words are not enough to describe what transpired that day and the weeks that followed. Here is a simple reflection of that particular event in my life. It isn’t much, and it isn’t all that I learned and realized from that experience. But for me, this is one of the greatest lessons there are.

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One of the biggest realizations I had at the height of Typhoon Ondoy was this: in the end, very few of our material things really matter.

This came to me as I packed our things when we decided to get out of the house which was already submerged in neck-deep water to seek a higher place. Packing things in an emergency requires a clear mind. We must know what to prioritize vis-à-vis our situation. Our major priority, of course, was to get out safe, especially since my three-year-old nephew, Pau, was vacationing with us. Our second priority was for Pau to be comfortable when we do get out. So I packed his clothes, his baon (we always prepare his baon, so that was easy), and some blankets to keep us warm. And of course, some cash, my atm cards, some clothes, our cell phones, some flashlights, and a bottle of drinking water.

In less than ten minutes, we were ready with the things we must have with us.

But since we still had enough time, I also managed to secure my laptop and my brother’s in plastic bags and put them where I knew they would be safe. I was also able to show dad the things my brother and I have agreed to bring out first thing in case of emergency if we feel we still have ample time. All the rest, we could just leave behind.

The moment I made the decision about which to bring with us and which to leave behind, the lesson I have learned long ago and have even written about in several occasions — (but which I sometimes forget) — started coming back to me: that we don’t really need so many things in this life. That compared with our properties, our safety and that of our loved ones ranks first; that in the end, we carry only those that we truly need.

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Suggesting is not the same as criticizing. To suggest is not necessarily to say that one’s way is wrong (or right); it’s to say that there are other ways by which something can be done or dealt with. It’s not the same as saying you walked through the wrong door; it’s saying there are other doors through which you could walk.

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(Reply to a friend who had said that when you suggest, you are in effect criticizing).

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Many fear failure. But failure is a necessary part of life. Without the risk of failing, we will never learn to be prudent and there will never be a need for careful planning, for foresight. And without failure, we will never know how it is to succeed, because success is only meaningful when placed alongside and contrasted with the experience of failing, of falling short.

 

As Franklin D. Roosevelt had said, “The thing to fear is fear itself”. Fear paralyzes. It shackles. It hinders one from realizing his potentials, from achieving his dreams.

 

Fear kills. It snuffs out hope and it kills dreams. Like a bullet piercing the heart, fear stops dreams from beating, from feeding the soul, from inspiring you to aim higher, to aspire for more.

 

No, the thing to fear is not failing… it is becoming stagnant — that state when you no longer elect to move for fear of failing, and thus stop from becoming.

 

Life is a continuous process of becoming. You remove that process, and you cease to live. You allow yourself to be paralyzed by your fear, and you’d dare not move until you eventually become stagnant. You become stagnant and you begin to die — not physically, but spiritually. And that would be worse than death of the flesh.

 

 

 

(To Jenn and Nina — a summary of some of the things I told you last night at the Metro Gallery. Hope they make sense. Thanks for the conversation, girls. It was great.)

 

 

//Sherma E. Benosa

21 November 2001; 10:42 pm

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Your feet are forever on a race against each other

Trying to outdo the other, thus bringing you farther and farther.

But… where?

 

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The enormous desert spreads itself before you

Offering you her company, filling you with all that she has.

You can’t help feeling sorry.

For all her vastness, she’s so empty.

 

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You thought that only in leaving would you find

Not realizing that which you seek

Lies snuggly in the backyard of your mind.

 

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Such is the paradox of the quicksand

The harder you struggle in it, the faster you sink.

The least resistance you make, the better chances you have of getting out of it.

 

 

The bells have been ringing for quite sometime now, beckoning him and I to heed their calls, telling us to take each other’s hand and make our vows once and for all.

 

We hear the bells, of course. We also hear our friends’ voices, telling us: “Hey, it’s long overdue.” But if there is a sound we hear the loudest, it is that of our own wishes. The bells do not ring on their own volition; they ring because we made the move about ringing them. And our friends are not pushing their wants; they are simply echoing our own desires — his and mine.

 

If we had it our way, we would have had walked down the aisle long time ago. But fate intervened, forcing us to wait a little longer. Though we are still waiting, we think the end of our agony is almost near.

 

But as the once overcast sky begins to clear, as the barriers that have scattered themselves down the road we are trudging together start withdrawing, I am beginning to recognize more the big C that goes with saying ‘I do’ — besides the word Commitment, that is. I am talking about Change.

 

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There are moments in our lives when it seems so much easier to just give up than continue with our struggles; when we feel so tired we think there’s no way we could still go on. There are times when we fall so hard, we don’t think we could ever get back up again. But life requires us to keep trying, until we’re back on our feet again. 

 

If you are in that kind of moment now, I pray you’d find strength in the video I’ve embedded here. It has helped me a lot in pulling myself together whenever I felt like succumbing to defeat. I hope it will do the same way to you.

 

Are You Going to Finish Strong?

 

Note: When I started this blog, I decided to put only original materials here. But I found along the way that there are situations when someone else could articulate a thousand times better what I struggle to put into words. And this post — and a couple of others in the past — is one of those times. My apologies for not writing my own thoughts instead.

 

Thanks to my Sweetie for sending this file to me. You’re a treasure!