What is it that you fear losing the most?

Will it be choice or chance?

Sometimes, words fail me.

“No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” — Margaret Sanger

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• What if

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Of friendships and trips. Of love lost and found. Memories of individual lives etched on wood.

Running your fingers over the dented and misshaped surface, you smile. Speculate on what induced these people to carve shapes and letters on an unsuspecting timber. The need to leave a mark quite evident, however subversive and juvenile a deed. There’s a certain romance in the undertaking, the youthful mindset and guileless design.

Damn the callowness and just savour the gaiety of it. Perhaps, one day, I’ll yield to leaving a memory carved on wood.

Then again, maybe not.

“.. there is a poem called ‘Loss’ carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read Loss, only feel it.” — Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Trivia: Photo taken at Caleruega, Nasugbu, Batangas, Philippines; February 2011.

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• The beauty of being empty

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I pick up my pen and I draw blank. I feel the minute coarseness of the paper and the roundness of the long, thin cylinder that holds the ink. I hear endless and mindless chatter in my head. But I still find myself at a loss, both inspiration and cohesion. I’m at the precipice of finding reason for hope and the logic behind the despair.

Having focused on something for so long can bring one to a state of disarray if suddenly uprooted. I’ve come full circle sans tangible output. I am reminded of how fleeting everything is.

I imagine myself standing at the end of an empty jetty staring at the edge where water touches the sky, wondering at the strange contrast of the unsteady surface of the waters and the soothing blue sky. I would end up lowering my eyes to stare at the planks of wood that I’m standing on in an effort to avoid drowning in the unfathomable mystery of the scenery or to mark the humbling sight that invoked powerful emotions and indescribable conundrums, accepting that there are things in this world that I will never understand.

I’ve always wanted to capture the essence of wood. Fascinated with it’s hue and texture and ultimately, how its death contributed to the rest of the universe. Its legacy may be practical in nature or a medium of art or, if handled with passion, both.

And then there’s this perennial influence of lines. In most of my photographs, though not often visible, I shoot with lines in my head. I take linear photos, as some may call it. Lines comfort me as it provides symmetry. They make composing my photos easier and perhaps even safer.

Now, the light. I take photos of light and how it bounces off the subject — creating highlights and shadows. Colour, texture, and lines are defined by the light. With light, I am able to create poetry in my photographs.

“If you knew what I know, would you try before your time has run on you and worn you down?
Would you know what you desire in your heart?
If you knew what I know, would you try?
Is there time to follow just one desire?
Is there time to follow your heart?

Are we as safe as we let ourselves believe?”

Trivia: Quote lifted from The Shade of Poison Trees by Dashboard Confessional; Photo taken in Nuvali, Sta.Rosa, Laguna, Philippines; October 2010.

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• Carved Memories

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I am like a ship on a calm harbour. Assured of its safety, secured in its peacefulness. I am lulled by the gentle waves, as if without care to the rest of the world. My mind was on what I had planned to do in that harbour — everything except the plan of leaving. There were moments when I had wondered of the adventures that I would’ve had if I were to leave that harbour. And there were moments when I was sure that I’d have regretted the rough seas I would’ve faced if I hadn’t chosen to steady myself in there; never really knowing the extent of my strengths and my weaknesses.

Tides turn and the water, which I thought was safe and still, churned at the sight of God’s purpose.

“The waters saw you, O God,
the waters saw you and writhed;
the very depths were convulsed.
The clouds poured down water,
the skies resounded with thunder;
your arrows flashed back and forth.
Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
your lightning lit up the world;
the earth trembled and quaked.
Your path led through the sea,
your way through the mighty waters,
though your footprints were not seen.” (Psalm 77: 16- 19)

That was the moment when I realised that I trusted only the waters on the surface and failed to see the currents underneath. I have failed to put my trust in God and sought out my own definition of security. So when God touched the waters, I was thrown out to the seas, unprepared.

As rough as it was, or how stormy it felt, God had shown the extent of my weaknesses, stretched the reach of my strengths.

I also realised that God touched the waters of that harbour because He loves me. He’s answering my prayers; showing me the true meaning of security, genuine faith, truth about trust and, above all, love.

As hard as it may sound, God’s purpose is for me to go through the waters, the mighty waters. I may sometimes feel so lonely and desolate, thinking that God has forsaken me, but he will never let go. He will keep his promises.

As I hold on to God during this stormy time, one thought comforts me — that I am on the rough seas to gain Christ.

—

Trivia: Written 10 years ago, 05 August 2000 to be exact, with minor adjustments. Twas during my own personal dark ages, so to speak. Photo taken at the Manila Yacht Club, Manila Bay, Philippines, June 2010.

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Cold wind caresses my face; I refuse to turn away. My mind had seen what my eyes had not. I hold on to my heart and let it do what it does best. My hands can only obey.

In swiftness, in haste.
What is there to see?
Quickly, quickly —
Do things make sense?

Emotion champions over reason. I loved and loved deeply. You touch my thoughts in fragments, in bursts. Do I? Should I? Why would I? But I’m left with just this memory of having loved you deeply.

In swiftness, in haste.
What is left to see?
Quickly, quickly —
Will anything ever make sense?

Trivia: Pine trees, clouds and the blue sky. Taken whilst in transit on the winding roads leading to Camp John Hay in Baguio, Philippines; May 2009.

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Memories as rich as the redness of the flower; a flower so sweet and fragile, unique to one’s own eye.

“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passer-by would think that my rose looked just like you — the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”

It is true that it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

My heart faints within me. It grieves. But, in time, it will find the strength. Basking in the knowledge that I am His rose.

Quote lifted from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

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“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”

“In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.”

— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Little Prince

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a burst of colours
spitter spatter spat, spat, spat
reds, pinks, pale blues and yellows
on a fresh white canvas
texture, layer, and patterns
strokes and techniques
brushes, palettes, hands
the eye pulls it together
all from a creative mind
stimulates the senses
translates a multitude of thoughts
solidifies emotion
no longer fleeting
forever read

5 June 2008

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• Anonymity and an open letter
• Carved Memories

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Meanwhile, once in a while,
I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down to think about it.

That was then, which hasn’t ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean’s edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

— Mary Oliver, Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches? | West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems

Thanks, C.

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