Dear A's

Slow Craft

Dear As

I like the way this all kind of looks. Normality is beautiful, and the ground is still beneath my feet everywhere I go, even if it be on the deck of a slow, sweaty boat. Outside, the roads sometimes have muddy potholes. The white sand beaches on Panglao island sometimes have large amounts of seaweeds washed ashore and not yet cleaned up. I can walk around those things. When I see my own shadow intact, and hers beside me, or even just her shadow intact, I have nothing to be sad about. Love is not self-seeking. I am being whipped around the world en route to the winter solstice of this year, from island to island, through dust and rain that only clears to reveal the ground still beneath my feet. I see Holy week approaching like the next island we’ll be sailing to. I don’t care if it will be a slow ride- the scenery passes, and I like the way it all kind of looks. 

PapaA

Owl in Daylight

I looked it up on Google and found that seeing an owl can imply two things: wisdom or death. Weird! They’re kind of the same thing, but life without wisdom is death, so I’m going to pull a your-mom move and say it was the first out of being positive. It is junctions like these where the universe begins to speak to me in Seventh, a language that is filled with auspicious vocabulary and God-jokes. I saw an owl in broad daylight, in the tropical state of Florida: this has never happened to me. The amount of daylight has increased by an hour. Your lolo was born. Wow- that would be really cool if that owl was him. The amount of moonlight has increased more so than in months, just in time for the four-year anniversary of Jupiter and Venus’ winter sky romance. I haven’t seen the planets alight since my days in the desert, before your mom got here and before I believed in Himala, or miraculous happenings. I always marveled at how Jupiter and Venus stood aligned. It was my own personal skyward romance. This junction, right before your mom graduates, marks many important celestial events that God can’t help but laugh at as we experience them. I was dragged out of bed to confession yesterday by your lola, my mom. I haven’t done that in years. I am going to meet your extended family for an extended period of time in a whole new island next week- cross your toes and fingers that they like me! And this may be my last journey to Cebu before your mama and I close this distance like Jupiter and Venus. Everything we’ve been experiencing happens in twos: two years ago, we crashed. Two years before that, we met. Did you know this year is a leap year, and the proposed end of the world? I love celestial happenings! Even the weather speaks of a bountiful era of moments to come: it’s been raining, after months of not. Am I making sense? Your dad is one rambling, wordy guy. I am still trying to make sense of it all, and ready for those moments when all my words fail and tears, or something of greater magnitude, humble me enough to take over.

Love

PapaA

From “The Believer”

Dear As

I really like this song! Its called “The Believer” by Common, whose probably my favorite music artist. Anyway, was listening to this again on the way home and thought of you guys…

—- 

…we’re cultivated to overcome
ever since we came overseas
we’ll seize today
and the way
so you can see that we’re determined
the soul it keeps burning
so we know to keep learning
lessons in our life are like stripes that we’re earning
take God’s advice that Christ is returning
like a thief in the night
write for beacons of light
for those of us in dark alleys and parched valleys
our kids will spark rallies of the conscience
conquerors of a contest
that seems beyond us
and even through the unseen
know that God watches…
…nothing can stop us 

-Common

Nothing Short of Upside Down

Dear As

Expect that when you enter, you may do so upside down, or off-center. I have been through next to nothing compared to what this world can dish out, and I am blessed to feel the ground beneath my feet: I am steady for now. But around me, I see the world spinning people upside down like tops, until they wobble out of control and fall over. My auntie survived cancer without breaking down. My mom survived a near-divorce-experience. My fiance, your mom, survived a near-death-experience, an early orphaning experience, and more. I see them, alive and okay, and am scared to know the world can do that to people, like that fear that comes from waiting in line to ride a roller coaster and hearing the riders scream as they’re flipped upside down. I haven’t seen anything yet: no more than the ground beneath my feet, and if there’s one thing your sheltered future dad can teach you from this stable experience, its to expect nothing short of upside down once the world is pulled out from under you like a rug. Let it take your feet, and there’s nothing to be afraid of. 

PapaA

100% Real

We’re at certain mercies when we fight. Your mom and I, we can hurt each other to a pulp- to numbness. To a the point where I’m not even sure how we’re taking it all. I always resort to the belief that if what we have is real- if we’re made of the real stuff- we’ll survive. Love endures and survives. I guess, we’re at the mercy of what we’re made of underneath. It’s like jumping off a staircase with the faith that you’re bones won’t break, or running a marathon with the faith that your lungs are strong enough not to collapse. I’m wearily waiting for her to wake up, knowing this past week has weakened her to nothing. Her energy is gone. She has no more energy to deal with me, and fight with me. All I can do is prevent myself from feeling sorry to the point of self-hate. We’re at the mercy of what’s underneath. I have no other choice but to believe its real, and that she’ll be closer to okay when she wakes. We can go from there. We’ll see you soon.

Love

PapaA

remembering better days to get through the rough ones…

And There We Were

The way she looked at me when I opened my eyes and saw her standing before me with that smile was that of everything falling into place. Every moment lead up to this one, like a sudden release of tension and worry, or a giant inhalation of air after being underwater. I had no idea what to expect, or accept: all I knew was there she was, and there we were. All of a sudden, it was us: like some kind of checkpoint, or beginning. She was wearing yellow, and I felt like it was sunlight yellow or morning yellow. I had closed my eyes before she got there to meet me to try and swallow any nervousness I had. I had closed my eyes to wake up to seeing hers. The first thing she did was tap my pen out of my ear: yup, no words necessary from here on. All my poems scrapping lonely pages for signs of love were no longer needed. I was complete in this now, of seeing her in person for the first time in two years, with the weight of my whole being into that anticipated encounter. All my crushes of the past did not matter. All my worries were wiped away. All I knew was this is us, and we are here. We didn’t need to say much, or anything. I continued to inquire about her coffee or something socially awkward of that nature as I always do, but I knew she silently looked past it and just wanted to be there. I was waiting for her there. And she arrived. We never looked back. 

After Reading Murakami’s 1Q84

Dear As

I’m not an adult- I’m a kid lost in a forest, holding the hand of your mom as we find a way out. She’s a kid too. We are sky kids: drawn together like lines connecting dots to a constellation. I read a one thousand page novel today and finished it, about a world of lunacy with two moons in the sky. The lovers in this world were in something of a fantastically long distance relationship, with anything from supernatural lightning to little spirits emerging from the mouths of dead people keeping them apart. The novel ended in an epic illustration of how two lovers can meet in a world gone mad. The only way to fall in love is through lunacy, and crossing whatever boundaries you need to cross. I have found the one I want to spend my life with, and never let go the hand of. Me and your mom will find each other in one place, like Tengo and Aomame on top of the slide in the deserted park on that cold winter night. And whatever madness the world will throw at us, we will be okay. We won’t let go, and we will live to see you. We’ll all be together soon. Even if a crazy one thousand page novel about a world with two moons stands in the way. 

After Reading Murakami’s 1Q84

Dear As

I’m not an adult- I’m a kid lost in a forest, holding the hand of your mom as we find a way out. She’s a kid too. We are sky kids: drawn together like lines connecting dots to a constellation. I read a one thousand page novel today and finished it, about a world of lunacy with two moons in the sky. The lovers in this world were in something of a fantastically long distance relationship, with anything from supernatural lightning to little spirits emerging from the mouths of dead people keeping them apart. The novel ended in an epic illustration of how two lovers can meet in a world gone mad. The only way to fall in love is through lunacy, and crossing whatever boundaries you need to cross. I have found the one I want to spend my life with, and never let go the hand of. Me and your mom will find each other in one place, like Tengo and Aomame on top of the slide in the deserted park on that cold winter night. And whatever madness the world will throw at us, we will be okay. We won’t let go, and we will live to see you. We’ll all be together soon. Even if a crazy one thousand page novel about a world with two moons stands in the way. 

On Samurai and Lightning Bolts

Dear As

I’m learning these lessons while you wait to get here, so that your mama and I might pass them on when the time comes. Speak less, and do more: actions are movement, while words are as weightless as the air. Serve whatever is greater than yourself first, and make things on the scale of heaven your master: samurai up! Do what you love with passion, for it will love you back and serve you well. Open your ears more than your mouth. Have more prayerful thoughts than normal ones: think of God. And when you pray, praise! Praying is not so much asking as it is giving thanks and expressing love. Be content with what you don’t know, because the things unseen and unheard are the basis of what is to be believed. Blindly believe in love, and love the people who love you back with all the energy of a blazing sun: never stop burning even when the world turns it back to you. See the light in you even when you are at your worst, or in your darkest place, and find your way out. Find God in you and in others. Keep your feet moving. Don’t waste a breath: you’re alive for more reasons than you can begin to understand. Live with a capital L. Move with the conviction of lightning, spanning great distances and glowing the whole winding way. Give yourself up: you’ll get so much back. 

Love

PapaA

Scared

“I am scared. Because I know I won’t be this lucky forever.I know that things will not be as smooth and as carefree. I know that nothing is permanent. I know that anything can happen. But I also know that I’m happy and that I’m not gonna waste what I have right now. I also know that whatever is given to me, I should appreciate and treasure it while it lasts.I KNOW for sure that he’s worth the wait. I also know that I’m digging my own grave for exposing myself into something like this. But im willing to play my cards because he’s been that one person I’ve been waiting for.”

-your mama on 9/19/09 

^^I’m going to marry this girl! Your papa is the luckiest guy in the world…

Found

Dear As

I’m sorry again. I really don’t like how I’m full of apologies these past few entries. If there’s one thing I can teach you, it is okay to have too many sorrys if there is someone loving you out of them; despite them. On a heavenly scale, call it Grace. We are forgiven more than we can mess up. 

I lost my mind last night and concluded that your mom and I would not work out; that she’d be better off without me. That I could end it just like that, or even entertain the thought of ending it. I discovered I can’t even be away from her in mind for more than 12 hours. I was beginning to loose it, to go mad with self-hate for whatever it is I found myself thinking and doing. I was uncontrollably disappearing from myself, like particles of moondust spinning out into space with no gravity to hold them together. 

Your mom, is the only place in the universe where I can figure out how to be whole again. Though I was running, she was scrambling behind me, picking me up more times than I can make a mess. I said “I hate you” to her. She stayed. I said “I want to end it”. She said “I love you and I’ll stay with you”. She said more things than I can say, and loved me out of my self-hate. I said I was not good enough for her; that I was not ready to sustain a life with her and bring you into the world because of my imperfections. She didn’t care: she said I was the only one she wanted to be with. I had no more arguements. I fell back into her arms despite being half a world away, and found my center again. I slowly regrouped and saw us again. I woke up the next day as if from a nightmare, and she immediately was by my side on teh computer on Skype with an “I love you” and an “I’m here.” I wiped the sleep from my eyes and knew this was what I wake up to: the fact that we’re real and still here. We survived the dark night. It’s realer than a dream in a world of uncertainties and fakeness. I believe in what we have, and that we’ll definitely see you one day, despite how many times I can loose my mind and spin off uncontrollably from my center into space. As long as your mom exists, I’ll never disappear or be lost. To have someone who can find you when you yourself can’t, is as rare as a spot in heaven. I can’t let this go, because I know I won’t be let go of. I have my world together with this new gravity, and can’t be held this tightly and closely by anyone else. I’ve never been in love. I’m never going out of it: with her, you, God, or the like. I love your mom! I love you. Happy new year

PapaA

Lost

It might go as far as this, my dear souls in waiting. I’m just gonna come out with it: if there’s one thing I can tell you pending souls and teach you, its to be real, not fake. Stop pretending. The society and world about which you will enter is fake enough.

Me and your mom, we fight way too often. And about the most insiginficant of things. I don’t know if its going to work =[ I feel like a monster half the time I’m with her, because the truth is, we average as many fight days as there are non-fight days. It’s so draining. Something in me snapped today. It broke. I felt liek I could handle it on my own, and avoid contaminating your mom with more of my positive vibes, but I ran and fell indefinitely. I don’t know if I;m coming back from this one.

There are too many things wrong with us. Too many dynamics that don’t click. Too many misunderstandings that prevent forward movement. Or smooth movement. I don;t know if we;ll make it as far as to see you, As, but you have my word I will try. But I warn you were we are now is precarious. I’m starting to feel like the best solution is to just walk away and let her live. Let her be positive. She’s so positive. I would die an angry ghost knowing I spent my life bringing her down. 

Am I calling it quits? I’m just being realistic. We’re down 20 points and theres a minute to go in the game. How is winning possible? 

Whatever. Maybe, I’m just loosing my mind. And its just one of those days. Your father to be is a borderline crazy person. I’m loosing my mind. I’m loosing her in the process. Forgive me

PapaA