Tita Shirley, Don't!

I was watching a romantic comedy this morning with the five-year-old daughter of my Lucky Star. Welp, she basically kept trying to distract me from watching with, “Tita, look at what I drew.” “Tita, what’s inside your bag?” “Tita, stay until the evening.” “Tita, make my cocoa.”… and such things.

Not to mention that she was trying, in the usual ways of children, to quote the movie I was watching (which she apparently has seen a lot of times already.)

The thing that really made me smile though was when the scene where the lovers kiss was being shown and she said, “Tita, don’t look. It’s ewwww…”

_Kids.:D

The "But-Or-Oh-He-or-She-Is-Dead" Man.

'tis a well-known fact in our group how our dad can always tell the most animated story of his childhood escapades, times in the seminary and growing-up blues. And of the colorful lives that crossed with his.

Once, when our dad saved up to see the Vienna Boys' Choir perform in our country, he said, "It was simply wonderful! I had a few friends with me. One of them even got to train with the Vienna Boys' Choir before, oh he's dead already, and he brought a big photo of him with the choir in front of the Palace. And he showed the photo to everyone he saw that night."

Another time he said, "We were very poor and my mom couldn't afford to send us to school so I went to the nun who ran our school, oh she's dead already, to tell her that I couldn't continue with my schooling. And she said no and got me a benefactor. I'm very thankful."

This beloved man, who has the widest heart in the world, tells us the most fascinating stories of the many good-hearted individuals who helped him along the way, oh but most of them are dead already, and speaks so "casually" of their passing.

I guess the point here is that it wasn't that their passing from this life was for naught but that they lived their lives passing good things to other people. That they somehow left this world a better place than when they first found it.:)

To Think That....

... everything I thought I feared was, is, in actuality...

... everything I found repulsive.

Reclamation.

Comes in innocent pieces of black cloth.

Soaked in saltwater.

Misinterpreted egos and pride.

I smile at my release...

Blessed blessed release.



[I am rolling on the floor in unrestrained laughter... with teeth bared by a hiss... gahd.]

14th Reawakened.

I want you to tower over me- if only to signify that I am woman and you are man.

That you be fair- if only for the world to see that which I see inside of you.

That your voice be gentle- if only for them to hear that which comforts me.

That your hands be long and gentle- if only for them to see what you are capable of creating.

That your chest be a wide plain- if only for them to see what forms of life take root inside of you.

That these may seem like mere fragments of that which I constantly dream of- if only for me to steadfastly await that waking hour when these fragments come together to form the culmination of your reality....

... Of you finding me...

... and I, You.



_{I'm a sap... so sue me! Haha.}

Sometimes...

Visions of the old cemetery come back to me...and the memory of the heat of my childhood is their afternoon companion.

I came from that dust and heat that [still] permeate the air of my barrio.

I was that kid that used to stare at those old graves- of both the Old and Young and Too-young.

I will always have that part of me sitting under that old tree.

Strange[r] Man.

Your voice came from somewhere warm.From valleys wreathed with gnarled trees and singing brooks.

Like the blanket of an afternoon's heat, you surround my limbs.