On Mother's and Breakfast Preparations

I just got to work. I left pretty early this morning because I woke up early too. I woke up early because I had to prepare my lunch since our house help has gone on vacation.  I went down to the kitchen and found my Mom cooking.  It was a pleasant sight to see.  I never saw her do that all the time when we were young.  But it's a beautiful transformation that even now as I grow older, I am able to appreciate how my Mom is being such a mother to me.  

After she prepared our food, she started sewing the new pairs of slacks I bought over the weekend.  I wanted to cut some length because they were too long.  I appreciated this a lot because I know that her routine every morning was to go to the mass and the Adoration chapel. I've always found myself being thrown off my center whenever a routine of mine is broken.  But my Mom willingly received the short-term transition.  

As a reaction, I dutifully cleaned a bit of my room and made sure I didn't leave it messy for the day.  I missed a little bit of prayer time but I was glad that the morning drive wasn't so heavy that I got to work early enough to have a bit of silence in the prayer room.

I was also happy that I still ran into Adi when I got to work.  It's always a pleasant exchange in the morning.  Another thing that made my morning pleasant was reading through Marie's blog about Tolkien.  She says she's started to finally read Lord of the Rings.  I've had great respect for the author and even have the complete series myself.  Unfortunately, it's one of those things I haven't done yet.  Perhaps, like her, it takes time to be ready to get into certain things.  

Having experienced that little moment with my Mom this morning, I want to cite an excerpt from Marie's blog here because it honors such motherly acts.

Just before the New Year, I was reading Archbishop Chaput's Render Unto Caesar, and in one of the chapters he relates this story:

It's also why asking Catholics to keep their faith out of public affairs amounts to telling them to be barren; to behave as if they were neutered. Nothing could be more alien to the meaning of baptism. The Christian idea of witness, which comes from the Greek word martyr, isn't limited to a bloody death in the arena for the faith. All Christians have the command to be a martyr in he public arena --to live a life of conscious witness where God places them, no matter how insignificant it seems and whether or not they ever see the results.

Years ago I read a story about an Englishwoman named Mabel. She had two sons. It's not clear what first drew her to the Gospel, but she became a Christian shortly after her husband died in the 1890s. She was devoted to her new faith. Every Sunday she would make the long walk with her sons to an Anglican church. Then one Sunday they tried a different place of worship: a Catholic church in a poor area in Birmingham. Mabel already had an interest in things Catholic. She asked for instruction. She then entered the Catholic Church.

Mabel's Catholic conversion angered her family. Her father was outraged. Her brother-in-law ended the little financial help he had been giving her since she became a widow. Her dead husband's family rejected her. She and her sons slipped into poverty. Mabel's health collapsed. Despite this, she remained zealously committed to her Catholic faith and taught it to both her sons. Several years later, she fell into a diabetes-induced coma and died. She entrusted her boys to the guardianship of a friend, a local Catholic priest, who deepened their faith throughout their upbringing.

Very few people remember Mabel and her story. But a great many people remember at least one of her sons: J.R.R. Tolkien. In a letter to a Jesuit friend many years later, Tolkien wrote: "All my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded" on Mary, the mother of Jesus, and that "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." He added, "[My Catholic faith has] nourished me and taught me all the little that I know; and that I owe to my mother, who clung to her conversion and died young, largely through the hardships of poverty resulting from it."

I'd sit here all day and muse about Tolkien's journey but I have quite a bit to catch up for work. Finally having a learning outline to work with, I feel a little bit more focused in gaining some speed for the new job to hopefully bear a little bit of fruit.

The Cubao X Discovery

The very much awaited trip to Cubao X finally happened last Saturday. I left Alabang around 9am to be sure that I will not tangle myself with a lot of road stress along EDSA. I didn't really know if the area would be open that early but I also took it as an opportunity to explore Cubao again after not having been there in the longest time.

Cubao has a lot of childhood memories for me. Malls like Robinsons Galleria or SM MegaMall weren't open yet when I lived in Pasig. My parents would take me and my sister to Ali Mall during weekends and our favorite fastfood was McDonald's. I remember being so eager to get the newest Happy Meal Toy from pencil cases to lunch boxes and anything that had Ronald McDonald on it.

Things didn't change that much. It was still quite traffic in P. Tuazon street. The presence of Gateway Mall and Shopwise were new and I sort of missed the old Fiesta Carnival that stood in the middle of the shopping arena.

I finally found Cubao X and was happy that there was a parking lot almost right next to it. The old ruins of the Marikina Shoe Expo were very much still standing. Suddenly, I recognized the place from a distant memory. I remember buying old school shoes there because they were cheaper than those sold in the mall.

The day was cloudy and the breeze was a little cold. It was perfect for walking around the city. As expected, Cubao X was empty except for a few shops that were open early. I didn't get the names of all of the shops but I was especially drawn to the antique shop that was located at the center of the corner. Filled with luscious green plants from the terrace, I was immediately lured inside to peek at the wonderful treasures that other people left behind. I was quite thrilled to see a lot of books and old trinkets. I was looking forward to see Remy's Thrift Shop but unfortunately it wasn't open yet when I got there. So I walked around Cubao for the meantime and found myself sitting down on the sidewalk outside the Ali Mall entrance to just take everything in.

I went back after lunch and was happy to see most of the shops open. I was able to purchase great finds. A bag of clothes purchased in the "ukay-kay" place: 5 pieces of clothing (2 dressy tank tops, a bolero, a blouse and a long gypsy skirt) all for 500 pesos. A bag of second hand books: Flights of Love by Bernard Schlink, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and The Waves by Virginia Woolf all for 450 pesos. And lastly, my most interesting find for the day: a porcelain doll that was packaged in a vintage travel box (if there was a vintage version of kaboodles that would by my closest description) for 480 pesos.

There's one simple thing I realized in this short trip. Discoveries happen because you make an active choice to seek and not just wait stagnantly for an opportune time. I realized how much of my living in Manila has been so unexplored and have silently made a resolution to change my mindset about willingly exploring places that resonate with my own inner journey of authenticity.  In so doing, I am awakened to the truth of who I am.  A Filipino Woman. Rediscovering the joy of finding out what it means to realize how good it is to find home. Revived with renewed passion for the Filipino Nation.

The Fifth Mountain: Will God Disappear From Words?

"Will God disappear from words?" the woman asked.

"He will continue in them" Elijah replied. "But each person will be responsible before Him for whatever he writes."

She took fromt he sleeve of her garment a clay tablet with something written on it.

"What does this mean?" Elijah asked.
"It's the word love."

Elijah took the tablet in his hands, not daring to ask why she had given it to him. On that piece of clay, a few scratches summed up why the stars continued in the heavens and why men walked the earth.

He tried to return it to her, but she refused.

"I wrote it for you. I know your responsibility, I know that one day you will have to leave, and that you will become enemy of my country because you wish to do away with Jezebel. On that day, it may come to pass that I shall be at your side, supporting you in your task. Or it may come to pass that I fight against you, for Jezebel's blood is the blood of my country; this word that you hold in your hands is filled with mystery. No one can know what it awakens in a woman's heart, not even prophets who speak with God."

"I know the word that you have written," said Elijah, storing the tablet in a fold of his cape. "I have struggled day and night against it, for, although I do not know what it awakens in a woman's heart, I know what it can do to a man. I have the courage to face the king of Israel, the princess of Sidon, the Council of Akbar, but that one word--love--inspires deep terror in me. Before you drew it on the tablet, your eyes had already seen it written in my heart.

They fell silent. Despite the Assyrian's death, the climate of tension in the city, the call from the Lord that could occur at any moment--none of this was as powerful as the word she had written.

Elijah held out his hand, and she took it. They remained thus until the sun hid itself behind the Fifth Mountain.

"Thank you," she said as they returned. "For a long time I had desired to spend the hours of sunset with you."

- Paulo Coelho, the Fifth Mountain
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I love this part because it's such poignant moment. The struggle of love to manifest in such a conflicted situation is the most courageous struggle of two people who wish to walk free in it. I suppose that when the real kind of love graces you with it's presence, there is no other way to go except to be propelled forward into a deep, profound and mysterious journey.