| Conversations With My Inner Child |
[Mar. 5th, 2008|09:50 am] |
This morning
under cirrus clouds, I watched
A dragonfly perch
on the tip
of a leafless branch as thin
as itself.
It would fly away, in ever increasing
arcs, but would always return
to its branch, its
anchor.
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Kaninang umaga
sa lilim ng tagpi-tagping langit
aking pinagmasdan ang tutubing
nakakapit
sa dulo ng hubad na sangang
singnipis nito.
Lilipad ito, paalis, palayo
ngunit babalik at babalik din
sa kanyang sanga, sa kanyang
tuntungan.
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I find it ironic how I’m supposed to be good in English but my personal bests are written in Filipino. This is my opinion of course, that maybe English is best left to the academic work. As far as poetry is concerned, Filipino is the language of my soul.
Yesterday I met the little girl inside of me. Well, bumped into, more like, since it was accidental and totally unexpected. She was pretty distraught, ranting about how her world was crumbling, and why-the-hell-can’t-everything-be-the-same-DAMMIT (yes, she swears like that), and hell, I couldn’t calm her down ‘cause I was getting freaked out myself. I was thinking, oh god, she’s got a point, since I could feel my own idealism slipping away too. But then the little girl, in her fear, was ready to throw up, so we took deep breaths together until we had relaxed enough to jointly assess the grievances of our soul (because those are the cuts that hurt the most).
So then we were like, goddammit I’m too young for this and goddammit I’m so old, and still nothing is changing about the situation. That’s when I say, look, we need a paradigm shift and she says, that’s gonna be a miiiighty big shift! Bigger than the cosmos! And I reply, god, you’re exaggerating. All we need to do is break our barriers, open up, be flexible; to which she retorts, you can’t even dance a JIG, and you’re talking FLEXIBLE? I say, shut up, I mean it internally, and she says, oh, SWELL. The internals are NEVER the easiest problems to solve.
After that I’m left speechless, because what do you say to something like THAT? Well, she adds, I like what you did for that puppy today. That was really, really nice. And I say, uh thanks. She’s looking pretty smug and by then she’s ready to leave, having had her say, so we take a few deep breaths, and then we part ways. While walking away, she yells that she would still be holding on, stubborn kid, and that I should call her if ever I wanted another heart-to-heart quarrel. Oh, real mature. But OK, I yell back. Take care.
That little girl, she had it so good. Had. Has. but she’s losing her naivety and it’s breaking her heart, which in turn breaks mine. But they say that’s how life is. That’s how the world works. That’s how your eyes open. That’s how you learn.
But she’s right, she’d still be holding on, and I’ll be right there with her. What I don’t want to lose now is our shared sense of wonder, our belief in the goodness of people, and the way we hold certain things sacred. I saw her once, carefully cupping her hands around her convictions and lifting them up to her face, where they illuminated her features, most of all her eyes. At that moment, I felt that nothing else could be so sacred. She taught me that.
I wish I could return to her the way she returns to me now, that little girl with her own world, unaware yet unafraid, armed with a host of books, drawings, stuffed toys, cheap watercolor (it didn’t matter then how anything looked or how much it cost), and a collection of stationery that couldn’t be beat. |
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