acrostic/fear

My fear

When suddenly the flow of words stops and
Runs dry not the inkwell but the ideas;
It lurks around
This unwelcome friend who
Empties your mind and
Renders your vision
Stagnant.

Be glad when you can
Lick and
Overcome this menace by just
Continuing to write and
Kick its butt once and for all.

motivation

motivation

my motivation:
accomplish something worthwhile
like writing a book

---

type all the letters
let the words in your mind flow
fight this writer's block

the year that was

In January, in an attempt to re-capture my writing muse, I started to follow this blog. Although I had modest success in that I started to write something meaningful, I almost abandoned writing. This was because in the spring, a very good friend, also a writer, told me my stories had no "kick" in them, no real conflicts in them, which made for uninteresting read. I felt so disappointed so I decided to not write anymore or strive to get published. That's how much I respect this friend and her opinions.

During the summer, we had a family crisis, in that my son's marriage fell apart and he came to live with me while he tried to fix his life. He has two boys and they stayed with him at my house four days every week. The care of these children fell on me and I used this as an excuse not to do any writing.

But I still found myself writing snippets almost everyday, especialy after spending time with the boys, listening to them, doing things with them. There was one day when the eldest during one of our conversations said "they killed my dreams". The sadness that gripped me was unexplainable listening to that being said by an eight-year old child. That's the inspiration for my take on the prompt "the interview" . Paragraphs 12 to 22 were a variation of our conversation one beautiful Saturday afternoon as we sat at the park.

There are some people who like my writing and have been following my blog and had wondered why I seldom posted. Then I remembered what my boss in my first job told me one day when I told her my teacher in high school once told me I can never be a writer because "my essays were flat". Antonia, my boss, who was educated as a journalist and came from a family of writers and scholars in the Philippines, said, "Just because one person say you're no good, doesn't mean you are. Everyone has an opinion. So I say now, you're good, and if you keep at it, you will become very good. That's my opinion. Will you take heed?"

So I kept on writing, posting on my blog every now and then. And when my other friend, Writer's Block, came and visit, I'd dash over to Daily-Writing Practice and take on the prompts. And I even started writing poems again, and learned to write 'haiku'. Of course, I have met you, guys, albeit online (for now).

My goal for 2011? For now, I strive to write at least 1,000 words everyday. And before the holidays, I looked at my old files, more specifically, the novel I had been working on and damnit I want to get at it and finish it. And maybe NaNoWriMo in November?

the storage room

mem'ries, old and sad
locked away perhaps for good
and not to be missed.

---

old knick-knacks galore
and the rest of my whole life
in a cold, dark room.

DWP - home: prompt

home

"Yo, honey I'm home!"
he shouts loud and with gusto.
Her note says, "Good-bye".

---

the weary mind finds
while its soul searches the world
home is in the heart.

DWP - traditions: prompt

traditions

The one Christmas tradition I like best is the Noche Buena, the midnight "supper" on Christmas eve. In our household, when my five siblings and I were young, our mother would wake us up at midnight to have our Noche Buena. Because we were really poor, she and my father would cook a special meal for us: a whole egg for each child, cooked sunny side up, with a piece of hotdog, fried, and my father's specialty, spaghetti with corned beef sauce. Instead of the cheap margarine, we had on the table half a pack of real butter, and instead of the daily morning rolls, we had a loaf of bread, the one in white plastic bag with colourful circles. The meal was repeated in the morning for breakfast, after we had opened our gifts.

Intead of stockings, we used old socks that each child hung on the Christmas tree (which was a large branch of a tree with lots of twigs in it, leaves pulled out and the branch painted with white, and instead of the shiny Christmas balls, we hung our little toys, then Mother finished it off by tying the multi-coloured lights around it). I can still remember those socks stretched and bulged to the max with the little toys our parents painstakingly wrapped and put inside the socks. In any case, the gifts were little toys, and back then, we never asked what we wanted for toys. Our mother seemed to know which ones we liked.

After breakfast on Christmas Day, Mother dressed us in our new clothes - the only new ones we would have all year - and hauled us all to the church to hear Mass. Then we either walked or took jeepney rides to our relatives' homes, where they have all kinds of special food on their table. Our aunts or uncles would give us money. Of course, there are favourite aunts and uncles, and there are favourite homes where the food was really abundant.

Christmas in Manila was not complete without the carollers. They could be anyone, from a man playing a guitar or a group of young people with really good voices, to an annoying drunkard who just wanted to have more money to buy booze. The unforgettable ones are the group of little children in the neighbourhood, each one clutching an improvised "musical instrument": a makeshift tambourine made of flattened bottle caps (cork underneath removed) and stringed into a wire; a discarded Dole pineapple can for a drum beaten with a little branch from the neighbour's tree; and best one is a comb covered with cellophane from cigarette packs.

These children would sing, mostly desafinado, mostly yelling to make sure they are heard, as there would be other carolers nearby or other loud sounds from other houses, and of course the barking of the dogs. If they didn't get the houseowner to come out to give them "alms", they kept singing in front of the house, until they got money or they got shooed away (some people would throw water at them if they're really bad). After they sang, and they got money, if they didn't have someone in charge of getting all their collections, you'd hear them bickering.

"We should divide it," one says.

"No, the lady gave it to me!"

"Yes, we agreed that we take turns in taking the money."

"It's not fair, you got twenty-five cents and I only got ten!"

"I sing the loudest, I should get more."

"You suck!"

Sometimes a fist fight would settle the matter, and yet, on to the next house they go carolling afterwards.

-o0o-
Other readings on the Christmas theme:

Silent Night

Christmas past 1

Christmas past 2

Christmas past 3

Christmas past 4

DWP - the flood: prompt

the flood

Manila, May 1960
The day started with beautiful sunshine, vivid blue skies and just a touch of breeze. But my mother, having lived in the farm, thought there was something odd in the air. She was supposed to have washed the sheets, but she changed her mind and she said she would do it tomorrow.

We went about our chores around the house and, as usual, at noon, we sat down to eat lunch. Simple stewed fish and boiled rice. Mother kept saying all morning that there was something odd in the air. The skies couldn't decide if they were blue or gray or a mixture of both colours. Then we noticed that water was flowing inside the house. Outside, the streets suddenly became flooded.

Mother said, "The river is rising in the middle of the day." High tide at noon wasn't normal in our place. Also, my mother commented, there is a strange noise with the rising water which by now is ankle deep for her. I was seven and small for my age so my feet were above ground when sitting. Still, we continued to eat.

But within two minutes, the water rose to her knee and almost to the bench we were sitting on. She ordered us to carry our plates up the stairs to the second floor of the house. By the time we finished eating, just at the top of the stairs, the water inside our house was almost near my mother's waist, her skirt billowing in the water as she carried some foodstuff from the kitchen.

By this time, the strange noise that came with the steadily rising water was replaced by the noise of panicking neighbours. The old lady in the house behind us wailed and asked God for forgiveness and to save her soul. She yelled at her grandchildren: "You little pests, come up here and pray with me. It's the end of the world, you sons of a bitch and all you can think of is swim in that stupid flood!"

Another neighbour turned on their radio and tuned in to the news. Apparently, hours earlier, there was an earthquake in Chile and what we were experiencing was a tidal wave, the tail-end of the much larger scale tsunami that formed across the Pacific Ocean.

DWP - the time traveler: prompt

Hortense peered at the old woman’s face and said, “I know you; I’ve seen you before. But I can’t remember when. Or where.”

“Yes, we have met before, quite a few times, in fact,” the woman answered.

Hortense examined her face, the droopy eyelids and the little lines around her eyes, the unmistakably high cheek bones and the full lips that now curved downward. Then, as if spark occurred in her brain, she recalled that day when she was five, at the cemetery, her grandmaman’s burial.

It had just rained and the funeral procession started from the little chapel to the family musoleum situated a few meters towards the back of the cemetery. Somehow, little Hortense lost her grip on her mother’s hand and the rush of people walking towards the musoleum pushed her aside. She stood atop one of the old stone tombs, the one with the large metal cross that now gleamed in the light of the setting sun. She watched as the last person in the procession disappeared at the corner. She noticed a double rainbow in the sky, its colours so vivid it made her smile and made her sing.

“Nice song, good voice.” The voice startled her and she gave a little shriek as she put both her tiny hands over her mouth. She was surprised to see an older woman sitting on the little tomb next to her.

“They went over there for Grandmaman’s interment,” Hortense said, pointing to the corner where the procession had turned several minutes ago.

The woman just stood there, smiling at her. Hortense eyed her with curiosity little children always had with people they don’t know. She liked the way this woman smiled at her, like she found Hortense amusing. Hortense was used to being ignored. In her family, the attention is always on her sickly older brother, or her cute little baby sister.

“Look at the rainbow,” Hortense pointed at the rainbow. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Have you seen a rainbow like that before?” She jumps down the ground, her feet splashing on the little puddle of water between the two tombs. “Is it really true that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?”

The woman smiled at her, but replied, “I don’t know, I’m not sure.”

“What is your name?” little Hortense asked.

“My name is Hortencia.”

“Oooh, we have the same name!” there is giddiness in Hortense’s voice.

“Hortense!” It was her mother.

“Maman!” and Hortense ran to her mother.

“Who is that?” asked her mother, eyeing the older lady suspiciously. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk to strangers?” She pulled Hortense as she walked away, looking back at the woman only once.

Hortencia waved at them. When Hortense looked back, Hortencia was gone.

A switch had been turned on in Hortense’s head. Hortense…Hortencia.

“It was I!” she exclaimed, touching her face and staring at herself in the mirror. “I visited myself when I was five!” Her reflection in the mirror smiled.

DWP - the library: prompt

The Library

Old Mr. Hillman had a room full of books. All four sides of the room had shelves that reached the ceiling. Even behind the door, there was a four-tiered shelf filled with children’s books and store-bought comics. The bottom of the wall shelves had doors with fancy “gold” knobs that the maids polished every morning. Behind those doors with the fancy gold knobs were glossy magazines, imported from the States, Britain and Germany.

In the middle of the room sat a large leather sofa, two armchairs on either side and two upholstered chairs on the opposite side, surrounding a large coffee table with very thick glass top. An intricately carved ivory chess set sat on top of the coffee table as well as two large crystal ashtrays. My mother used to call the Hillman library as the “bragging” library, for it had expensive volumes of books but none of the ten Hillman children had any desire to read books.

The room had a large bay window with a cushioned sill. Whenever we visited the Hillman’s big house, one of the Hillman children would bring me up to the library and would sit me on the cushioned sill that overlooks the cemetery on the south side. Between the cemetery and the property, there was an ancient mango tree, its branches abutting the large bay window.

The Hillman children had a pet monkey that lived in the small tree house on the mango tree. Often, Moe, the monkey, would tap the glass window of the library and screamed as loud as it could and wouldn’t stop until Mr. Hillman himself opened the window and smacked the monkey.

By the time I was six, I had gotten used to going up to the second floor library whenever we visited, and one day that was just what I did. I had been reading the “G” volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica when a thick book fell on the floor. I picked it up despite its weight and placed it on the floor by the window. Another book fell and I did the same until there were three piles of books as tall as I was. Suddenly, more books were falling off the shelves and I could no longer cope. I ran out of the room and down the stairs but I slipped, scraping my back against the steps as I reached the landing.

“It’s raining books in the library!” I screamed.

My mother, thinking I did something bad, pulled me aside, despite my bleeding back, and spanked me.

Just then, Moe the monkey started to scream while jumping up and down the steps. The younger Hillman children who were being fed their lunch ahead of the adults, scrambled to their feet, laughing and screaming in delight, as one of the maids and Mr. Hillman tried to catch Moe. It was pandemonium inside the house, knick knacks falling and breaking as Moe tried to elude capture. After Moe managed to bite one of the maids' hand and knocked down a couple of light fixtures, he rested on the shoulders of the oldest Hillman son, Harvey who was then seventeen, but not after Moe had already grabbed and broke Harvey’s glasses. Harvey had a soft spot for animals and begged his father, Mr. Hillman, to leave Moe alone, as it was, after all just being silly.

Mr. Hillman, however, got so mad after seeing the books scattered around in the library upstairs, and the thick glass top of the coffee table broken in half. He took the monkey outside, walked to the cemetery which was several yards away and we heard the sound of a gunshot. At this time, my father arrived to collect my mother and me. When Mr. Hillman saw him, he ordered my father to dig a grave by the fence so Moe could be buried. Later on, Horace, one of the younger Hillman boys admitted to having opened the library window to pet Moe, but had forgotten to close it properly.

DWP - the thief: prompt

the thief

the wrinkled skin, once soft and smooth
the dull, waning eyes, once sparkled with youth
the crooked smile, once vibrant with laughter
the now bent body, once an agile dancer.

you look in the mirror, wonder where you’ve gone
all these years but you’re left with the wisdom
that youth is fleeting, old age is full of grief
blame Time, the perfect, uncatchable thief.

DWP - science fiction story

Esyllt stood face to face with the woman. She towered above her and yet the woman showed no fear of her. Esyllt noticed her beautiful hands lightly caressing her son’s shoulders.

“My name is Heledd. I’m Tegid’s mother,” Heledd said extending one hand to Esyllt. Esyllt felt a genuine enthusiasm in her voice, but she kept her hands crossed over her chest. Esyllt always had ambivalent feelings about the friendly humans.

“I’m Esyllt. I’m the Vice-Commander for the province,” she finally said in a plain voice. Then, motioning her head slightly towards the winged albino boy, she said in a friendlier tone, “This one’s switched at birth?”

“Noooh!” Heledd said as she stooped down and put both arms around the boy, then kissed him on his forehead. “He’s mine.”

“But...” Esyllt hesitated. “I see nobody else in this household with wings or feathers.”

“No. No one in both my and Ynyr’s families have bird DNA, as far as we know.” Heledd messed the Tegid’s hair and told him, “Tegid, dear, go get our visitor something to drink.”

Tegid quietly obeyed his mother but before entering the house, he looked back at Esyllt and smiled. Esyllt smiled back.

“Please sit down, Esyllt,” Heledd said as she motioned Esyllt to one of the wrought iron chairs. She sat herself on one opposite Esyllt. Esyllt only nodded, curiously trying to understand Tegid’s situation. Heledd’s face became serious. “I was violated by two Dromorants and I became pregnant,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Fortunately for me, my husband Ynyr loves me enough to accept everything that’s part of me. And Tegid is part of me.”

How romantic! Esyllt thought, but instead she said, “I’m sorry, Heledd. I mean, about the Dormorants. But how come you didn’t auction him off, or...” She stopped when she saw Tegid coming out of the house.

Tegid handed her a bottle of carbonated water. “Thanks, Tegid,” she said. She patted the boy's head and felt the delicate softness of his snow-white hair.

“Do you know how to fly? Can you teach me how to use my wings?” Tegid asked.

“Tegid, Esyllt is our visitor,” his mother said.

“No, Tegid, I can’t fly. We ptesauronts are too heavy to fly and our brains are not fit for aerodynamics unlike real birds.”

“Oh," Tegid said, disappointment obvious in his voice and face. "What do we do with our wings then?”

Esyllt stretch her mouth in an attempt to smile. “I guess, be beautiful.”

Her heart ached. It felt like disappointing her own son.

DWP - cold: pompt

Cold

So now I know why she had been cold and distant the last several days. I thought she was just battling writer's block, that dreaded, awful writer's block that had always caused me grief whenever she was writing something important. Not this time.

"James, I'm moving out" is all she wrote in her note.

DWP - pizza prompt

She opens the menu, an old vinyl album cover of The Doors and the half image of Jim Morrison wearing skin-tight shiny leather pants surprises her while its other half hides behind the glued-on printed menu of deliciously described appetizers and salads. She turns over the page to look at the entrees and thinks the 'Sexy Vegetable' sounds ridiculously funny with its erotic description attributed to eggplants, zucchini and squash, giggling as she reads them. The steak sounds sinfully delicious with the crumbled feta cheese on top, the gorgonzola veal seemingly shouts 3,500 calories while her favourite risotto beckons her with fist-sized scallops and giant tiger shrimps in a creamy veloute that makes her stomach grumble. The waiter arrives with a glass of red wine and she casually hands back the menu: "Illicit Pizza, please."

Lest We Forget

The temperature dipped to minus 10 with a windchill of minus 25 the first time I stood at Victoria Park bridge above Highway 401, the Highway of Heroes, that Sunday afternoon in February. It had snowed the last two days and there was a fair bit that fell earlier in the day so the roadsides were white with snow. It was the first Sunday that a soldier's repatriation from the CFRB station was taking place. I had been wanting to pay tribute to the soldiers and watch a procession and that day was the first opportunity for me. Earlier in the day the body of a young soldier arrived at the station, and after a brief ceremony, the body would be transported to Toronto for final autopsy.


A number of people had already lined the whole length of the bridge when I arrived, but I found a space easily right in the middle. There were two police cars and an ambulance and cars parked where they normally would not have been allowed to. People brought their flags with them, large ones, and all I could manage was a teeny-weeny one that I got from the office a few years back. I thought I should get a larger one for the next "occasion" but on second thought I did not wish for a next one to occur. Cars travelling along the highway below honked their cars as they pass by, to acknowledge us at the bridge for waiting for the procession. Some of them would even wave at us. In return we waved our flags at them.

I had been standing on the snow on the bridge for more than an hour. Sometimes I tried to do a small dance routine just to keep my feet from freezing, even though I made it a point to wear double socks, the top one made of thick wool. As it got darker, the wind blew stronger and I started to shiver. People were nice to each other, an elderly man went to the neary Tim Horton's to get coffee. He offered me the second cup he had and I politely thanked him and explained I don't drink coffee.

We started talking and I found out his friend's son had been one of the casualties in Afghanistan in 2009 and these repatriations had started to have a special place in his life. He would make it a point to leave work and come here to pay tribute. Some people from as far away as Lake Erie came because they had friends or relatives and even sadder, family who had perished in the war, either in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

At some point, the traffic on the westbound lanes below thinned out. That was the sign that the procession was getting closer to where we are on its way to Toronto. It meant all ramps going in to the highway were blocked off to give free and fast access to the procession; for everyone's safety, cars were not allowed to stop on the side of the highway.

There was a long lull in traffic, then one police car passed, followed by another one, then more police cars. Then the hearse. The hearse itself is bound on all sides by the provincial police cars, as well as the limousines carrying the family of the dead soldier.

It is specially heart-rending when the dead soldier happens to be a young man, still a boy mostly, and is an only child, or one who has just a few more days to go through his or her tour of duty. Instead of his family and friends preparing for a big celebration for his return, they are making preparations for his funeral. On one occasion, a soldier was just a few days away and would get married. I specially get very emotional when the dead is a young soldier, in his or her prime, when he or she should be enjoying life. You kind of ask where is the justice in this world. But I feel proud for the soldiers.

I have a young cousin who is right now in Kabul on a tour of duty for the US Army; a nephew, barely in his twenties who is on his way to battle, is with the US Navy; a niece, and another nephew, both of whom I have not yet met and hope to someday, are also in the military service. I have two older cousins and an uncle who are now considered retired veterans. I say a prayer for them every time. I thank God for sparing them every time I hear about a soldier dying in the wars. I know that one of these days, I would have to do something, perhaps join in petitioning the government to treat our soldiers and veterans more decently, with better benefits for them and their families.

I have never experienced war, except what I read in the newspapers. I consider myself lucky and hope that in the future none of us would experience it. But we can only hope. We can only, in the words of John Lennon, imagine.

DWP - the last princess: four-line poem

the last princess

the young king's weary looking at all the princesses
in his search to find his beautiful queen.
"all these are boring, any one at all interesting?"
then comes the last one wearing a large nose ring.

DWP - the knight: prompt

The Knight

The beautiful Queen stands in front of the gentleman kneeling before her. She gracefully taps his shoulders with the sword, first the left, then the right. But when she lifts the sword, she starts to say something, looks around at her audience, mouths gaping, eyes unbelieving.

She giggles, softly at first which she tries to suppress it but the trembling of her shoulders could not be controlled. She bursts into a loud laughter.

The gentleman gets up from his kneeling position, swears the "f" word, and lifts his arms in total exasperation.

"Cut!" the director says. "What's going on here? This is take thirty-five, for God's sakes!"

She continues to laugh until tears flow from her eyes. The make-up artist rushes to her and tries to wipe the eye shadows that have smudged her cheeks. When after a few minutes she recovers, she faces the gentleman, his annoyance at her evident in his eyes, and she makes the sign of the cross in the air.

"You are now a knight in tights!" She starts to laugh even harder, then, putting two fingers in her mouth, she makes a loud whistle at the actor playing knight who now walks away from the set.

DWP - only one remains: four-line poem prompt

his final days are wrought with pain
but matilde stays patiently and tends to him;
it is ironic that of six siblings he helped and loved,
all five have turned their backs and only one remains.

(based on a true story i heard from so many years ago)

DWP - the white-haired woman: four-line prose prompt

On the pew in front of him, Kalan notices that the white-haired woman has been sitting still throughout the service.

At the end of the service, he is about to tap her shoulder to find out if she is alright when the white-haired woman stands up, walks across the aisle onto the altar proper, proceeds to the vestry and disappears inside.

Kalan thinks this as quite odd, and light on his feet, he sprints towards the vestry, curious to see what the woman looks like, but as he approaches he hears the muffled sound of a gun and a loud thud, the sound of a body falling on the floor, sounds all too familiar to a professional assassin that he is. He pulls his gun from the holster inside his suit, slams his body against the door which opens easily, and finds Father Richard on the floor, a bullet between his eyes, and the old white-haired woman standing a few feet away holding a revolver now aimed at him.

DWP - transformation: prompt

the old man sits on the bench under the tree, clutching the collars of his coat. the wind blows every now and then and the leaves of the old sycamore behind him flutter to the ground, kissing the grass before the wind carries them farther.

it never fails to amaze him, this tree. in the spring it has been the keys that fell from it, and in the summer it has been its shelter that he has sought every time the sun shone too long up in the heavens. then as autumn approaches, he stares in wonderment at its changing colours. when winter comes, he knows, the view would still surprise him with its snowy covering, as it has done all these eighty years.

it is a cycle he never gets tired of. and he knows, the tree would still be there while his own body has been ravaged by nature.

DWP - fading: four-line poem

fading

i plant a kiss on your lips and you smile
your sparkling eyes full of starry thoughts
but i know it's all a lie and a farce
my love is fading, and it's fading fast.