Liminal

It’s been a quiet October in these parts. I don’t have much to say, except that I have been writing but not publishing. Much of my life consists of work and home, with the roads in between, and it is a life lived because of God’s grace.

During the day, I relish the liminal existence lived inside the car. I like the quiet: it feels like a retreat. I listen to myself or to Ezra Klein or the late Tim Keller, whose words still profoundly affect, instruct, and encourage me. There are moments when I like jazz or any music the Spotify algorithm plays next: classical, opera, worship songs, OPM. Meanwhile I pay attention to the wide, sometimes empty roads, which can be deceiving. The haze from the Indonesia fires makes the sunsets in Allah Valley pop. 

(Yesterday I made a careful turn, a motorcycle interrupted me, and without so much as an apology or an acknowledgement that an error had been done, the driver swooshed away, as if nothing happened. I held my tongue and remembered Tim Keller’s preaching on self-control. I also thought that maybe, maybe, the driver could be rushing to the hospital for an emergency. I used to care for a woman with metastatic neck tumor. Her son was a Food Panda driver. I’ve never looked at motorcycles the same way ever again.) 

Fruits from Tatay's trees

I found a basket full of lanzones (Lansium domesticum) on the coffee table in our front porch.

My mother said, "These are from your Tatay's trees." The ones he had planted in New Antique. 

It felt as if Tatay were still alive on this side of eternity, tending to his farm, and hurrying to come back home to cook our lunch.

Solar

I took a break from rounds and observed, with curious eyes, the delegates to the Ornithology annual convention atop the solar panels of General Santos Doctors Hospital. I took the photo last July. The sky was blue and clear. You could fry an egg using sunshine, but the birds didn't mind.

Scenes from home

Terrible heat today, but it rained in the afternoon. Inside the clinic, I overheard the hard, pouring rain that soaked the streets and refreshed tired souls. When I got out, the rain had stopped. I'd missed out on all the fun.

A maremmano walks to me

I tell friends who visit Copenhagen for the first time: "The Little Mermaid is like the Mona Lisa." Meaning: it's just as underwhelming. And similar to the Mona Lisa in Louvre, the best view is not in the object in question—i.e., the famous Little Mermaid bronze statue by Edvard Eriksen, repeatedly damaged and defaced for various reasons—but the areas that surround it. Near the Mermaid is the Copenhagen Opera House at the shore of the Inner Harbor. You'll find wide pathways for humans and humans with bikes. You'll see smartphone-deprived children who play and laugh. One gets the feeling that this is how it is when the government thinks and works and fights for its citizens. The Danes pay the world's highest taxes, but they don't mind.



The breeze is cool, and my feet are tired. I avoid the long queue of tourists awaiting their turn to have a photo with the Mermaid. I sit beside the couple who have lived in the city. They ask me if it's my first time in Copenhagen. I say, no, I've been here many times. They tell me I should take the water taxi to get a better view of the city.

"It's better than these paid city tours, you know?" the wife said.

The dog—white, smiling, unafraid, almost like Appa in the Avatar—leaves his owners behind and slowly makes his way to me, asking to be recognized. I stroke his head, and he smiles.

"Hej," I say to the creature in Danish. The dog does not judge my pretentiousness and appears to play along.

"He's huge!" I say to the couple. "What breed is he?"

"He's a Maremmano."

"A what?"

"A Ma-rem-ma-no. The Italians are picky about how you pronounce it."

I look it up later: A Maremmano-Abruzzese sheepdog, a guardian to protect the sheep from wolves.

When I get back home home, I will tell Paul, our aspin, "Mas guwapo ka gihapon."

Saturday

Saturday morning. Paul wakes me up with his desperate whining. Half-asleep, I listen to his cry outside the door. He’s either thirsty and wants to drink from his water bowl outdoors, or he’s heard a suspicious rustling that only creatures like him can sense. In my room, the curtains are drawn. I can’t figure out if the sun is emerging. Probably not. The sounds I can hear from the distant road are motorcycles and cars moving with urgency and carelessness—the sounds of the city at midnight. I get out of bed and open the door. Paul stops whining, looks at me, as if to say, “Ah, there he is! Finally!” and leads the way to the main door. I open it. Silence. I experience the serene nocturnal repose of my mother’s small garden. The air is cool, but there is no breeze. I step into the porch. There are nights when Paul gets into a fit and requests to be let out. But not all the time, a fact that relieves my irritation at being woken up earlier than usual. When I get back inside, the clock in the kitchen reads 1 pm. Paul returns to his bed space—beneath the couch in the living room. 

Getting back to sleep is harder than falling asleep. I twist and turn. My head creates lists of things to do, or patients to see. Can’t I be like everyone else and enjoy a lazy Saturday morning all to myself, in bed, ignorant and uncaring of errands and tasks? I can’t figure out if I should drink water, or read a book—and if I should, is it a Kindle on dark mode, or an actual printed book on paper, which requires me to turn on the lights? Finally, I fall asleep. After 30 minutes, perhaps, but I can’t really say.

Nanay’s surgery is at 10 am. Cataract. She can’t see and read properly now. She reprimanded me for the small fonts of the commentary on 2 Samuel she asks me to print a chapter for her Bible study group. “It’s too small! Who can read this?” The font was 14 pt! I knew the cataract was getting serious.

The doctor’s office required that we report to the hospital at 8:30 am to settle her paperwork and other fees. Last night I told my mother we should leave at 7:30 am.

I drive to the hospital to check on patients at 5:30 am. At 6 am, I find the gym empty except for the janitor. “Maayong aga,” I say. I can’t get the treadmill to turn on. I do upper body exercises from memory, listening to a Tim Keller preaching. I like the solitude. I heard a younger doctor-colleague say he goes to pickle ball so he can meet other people. I have the opposite tendencies. I’d much rather stay at home and curl up in bed with a book than meet new people. 

I shower and change and drive to Gensan. In the car, I pray that God bless Dr. Red’s hands, that He heal Nanay’s eyes. I tell my mother, “We’re making good with time.” I do a stopover at a gas station to urinate. I drank too much water at the gym.

The hospital ER is quiet. Nanay’s surgery proceeds without fanfare. We drive home. I rush to change into a barong Tagalog. I’m 30 minutes late for an annual gathering of the local internal medicine society. I leave the gathering to join the music ministry practice with every intention to return. We’re singing “His Mercy Is More” for the first time in church this Sunday. Nanay reminds me that I’m in charge of giving her eye drops when Neneng, our trusted housekeeper, leaves for the evening. I want to go back to the society meeting, but I fall asleep listening to Ezra Klein interview Bret Setser about the China Shock 2.0.

New gym

In the new gym I enrolled in, the coach, a petite lady in her late twenties or early thirties, wearing close-fitting gym clothes, asked me what I wanted. Her statement felt like a scripted goal-setting question she often asked clients who walked in to enroll. I said, “Strength training. I want to build muscles for health.” I did not, at that point, discuss with her the importance of maintaining sufficient muscle mass, and the association between sarcopenia and longevity and quality of life. I also didn’t tell her I didn’t want to be inconsistent. I couldn’t tell my patients to exercise when I myself didn’t. I would reserve my confessions for later. It was 7 am, the start of the week, and the people were still having breakfast at home, getting ready for work.

She looked at me closely and said, amid the blaring 90’s upbeat music, “Oh, toning.”

“Yes, yes, that.”

“And maybe . . .  this?” She pointed at my soft flabs, my father's genetic legacy, and she made a circular motion in the air. “Charis.”

She smiled and put me to work.

I liked her instantly.

The porch

I woke up at 4 am, brewed coffee, and went out to my new favorite place to read: the front porch. I turned on the lights and read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. After a few pages—the father and son were at the beach now, and the son forgot the gun, and the father said it was okay, and they found the gun just where the son had left it—I heard the rhythmic chanting from the nearby mosque. The call to prayer. When the singing ended, the bird calls followed, getting louder by the minute. The birds must have been praying as they waited for the slow, steady sunrise. Our neighbor took his car out; he would go jogging at the City Hall. Nanay was still asleep in her room but would soon join me for coffee. 

The patio chairs were installed a month ago. My mother put in throw pillows last week. The porch is now an ante-room of sorts, a liminal space to entertain guests who drop by for a few minutes and who wouldn’t stay for a meal. I spend my early mornings there. The cool of the early morning refreshes me. On rare afternoons when I’m home, I stay there. The shade of the trees make the experience tolerable. During evenings, I enjoy the  breeze wafting through. The mosquitoes pick on me, but I repel them with citronella lotion I put on my limbs. 

I teared up as I read the last few pages of The Road. I hated myself for it—I’ve never been a crybaby—but the crying was therapeutic. I was glad nobody saw me, not even Paul, dreaming under the living room sofa. The Road opened me up and left me undone. I remembered my father, how his body felt to the touch when life was draining out of him, while my mother quietly and tearfully sang hymns near his ear, and we, his sons, said our goodbyes, as his soul ascended to glory.

He slept close to his father that night and held him but when he woke in the morning his father was cold and stiff. He sat there a long time weeping and then he got up and walked out through the woods to the road. When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again.

Ah, Uncle Cormac—how your words come alive and your stories continue.

Father's Day

I know it’s Father’s Day today because Auntie Morena had called me up yesterday to ask if the church could use my electric vehicle’s battery as power source for the congregation’s sound system. Some parts of Marbel will experience a scheduled brownout this Sunday. I got the call as I was buying breakfast at Cafe Leticia at the General Santos City International Airport, while waiting for Auntie Netnet to pick me up on a fine, earthquake-free morning.
 

This day inevitably turns my recollection to my own father. Tatay passed away eight years ago. He remains alive in our memories. My faith tells me he is alive with the saints and angels, singing and laughing and worshiping the God he had lived for. We talk about him still. I encounter random people who have fond memories of him. He could be serious and silly, irritating but charming, and, despite his imperfections, he enjoyed being a father. He enjoyed our company, and we enjoyed his.
 

Because he had been around our lives so much, it is impossible to detach himself from our childhood and adulthood memories—and why should we do that? Tatay lived to see Manong, Sean and me graduate and become full grown adults. He would say, "You're getting taller than me!" He was deeply proud of us. He talked about us with his friends, who knew the landmarks in our careers and personal lives.

A deep regret I have is that I wasn’t able to lavish him with gifts and travels—things he would have loved. I was barely starting my career, was still in subspecialty training, and didn’t have much extra money. But he couldn't care less: what mattered to him was that we were around, safe and well.  

 

My brothers and I acknowledge that Tatay was the more fun parent. I remember dining with him in a Vietnamese restaurant where he ordered items in the menu he couldn’t pronounce. Nanay, on the other hand, is a kill joy; she knows that, especially when we make her try new food or experiences, which she refuses. She would say, “If your Tatay were alive, he would love this.” This—pertaining to food, trips, family occasions, and every day surprises and novelties that God lavishes upon our imperfect but blessed lives on earth. We live with a subterranean acceptance that we have lost him on this earthly coil but with the expectation that we will meet again soon.

It was hard to make me cry before 2018. But something moved the switch in my lacrimal glands after my experience with loss. For instance, an episode of Everwood, an American drama series in Netflix, can easily bring tears to my eyes these days. In that series, a world-famous neurosurgeon from New York leaves the city after his wife dies from a car crash, and brings his son and daughter to start a new life in Everwood, Colorado. I turn Everwood if I need a good cry. When I rewatch Kramer versus Kramer, the last film I saw with my father, I turn into a puddle.

But Father’s day inevitably turns my eyes to the ultimate father—God Himself. Tatay was but an imperfect version. God is infinitely good, merciful, and loving, and He dwells in and among us. I'm grateful for those precious years with my father.  

I need to stop writing because Paul is waiting for me to walk him around the neighborhood. Tatay would have loved Paul, as he once loved his dogs Jill and Rocky and Eve and Rocky II. He would have enjoyed being with us. But he is in a far more happier place with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I can imagine him saying to us, as in the moments when he had wanted us to try something new, “Dali na kamo diri.”  

 If you're a father and if you have a father, Happy Father's Day! 

Magnitude 7.8

I overheard over DZBB the news about the earthquake in GenSan. I was personal assistant to my mother, who periodically goes to Manila for medical reasons. I dismissed the news as just another earthquake. Intensity fives are common occurrences in Mindanao; they happen so frequently and quickly that people carry on with daily life indoors, the moving ground treated as a brief digression. When the ground movement stops, we’d say, “Kusog ang linog.” The comment on its strength may occasionally be replaced with a note about its duration. But this earthquake, which family and friends described as the worst in their lifetime, would be different.

When our Uber brought us back to the hotel, the family chat group was full of unread messages, mostly inquiries about everyone’s well being. Uncle Boboy’s fish were dizzy. Auntie Net’s bookshelves were toppled over. Auntie Bebet and Bicbic, who worked in Maasim, were looking for higher ground; a tsunami threat had been issued in Maasim, where they were based. Auntie Cecil called me to ask if I had news about Auntie Nene, my mother’s cousin staying in our house while we were away. She wasn’t picking her phone, Auntie Cecil said. She was worried that Auntie Nene could have tripped and fallen. I shared that minutes before, Neneng, who was also staying at home to accompany Auntie Nene at night, shared that some pots in the porch were broken, that one bookshelf fell, but that they were okay. And what about Paul? Our dog was so shaken he wouldn’t want to go for a walk. The thread of messages brought out a proverbial silver lining: at least, everyone in our immediate and extended family was safe.

One of my patients was scheduled to have her surgery that morning in GenSan. My patient was sent home, her surgery deferred. At least the earthquake happened before my patient was cut open. I learned that patients were evacuated out of the building. Tents were put up. The parking lot became temporary hospital wards. 

My Viber was awash with similar messages from hospital- and professional affiliations, asking me and my Region 12-based colleagues if we were safe and well. Pictures of damaged buildings and roads were shared. What struck me most was the actual video of Jollibee collapsing, the person taking the video  shaken as she held on to her phone, crying to God for help. The moving images gripped me: was someone inside when the building collapsed? Soon, the chat groups—our version of town hall meetings, really—would mobilize medical missions and financial aid. It amazes me, as I write this, that many quiet people's first impulse is to ask what they can do to help. Mister Rogers once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” They were “helpers.”

News reports would later show the devastation of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Socsksargen Region. A number of people are missing as I write this. I read a news report about a mother waiting for the authorities to recover her son’s body at SaveMore. The MSU College of Medicine building was badly hit; it might take a while for us to be able to use it. I wonder where we will hold classes now, or if we will shift to virtual lectures, as in the COVID era. Some coastal towns, like Glan, where we often vacation, struggle with water and electricity. The roads are impassable.

I rebooked our return flights to Davao. The GenSan airport was still closed yesterday. We didn’t bother asking Uncle Glen to pick us up from the Davao airport. Nanay and I took the Yellow Bus. We slept through the entire three-hour trip. We reached Lagao at 11:30 in the morning. We got our bags. Uncle Glen had an umbrella for us; it was raining. We dropped by their house in GenSan. Uncle showed me the plates and cups that survived the earthquake. A newly built wall in the neighborhood crashed. When I drove downtown, I could see the damage to infrastructure in the city, but life is returning to normal. In the background, the song, “This Is My Father’s World,” played in the car, a sobering and comforting reminder.

 

After an hour, we reached home—Marbel—and as soon as the gate was opened, Paul ran to welcome us. 

What I do with pictures

I’m not so sure what to do with most photos I’ve taken from a trip, but I store them in a private folder in Flickr. I forward the link privately to friends who might be interested in them. Otherwise, they stay in the safe Flickr cloud, that marvelous repository of photographs that I subscribe to yearly. I remember, more often than not, the general circumstances of when they’d been created.

Photographs therefore function as timestamps for me. If you asked me when I’d last been to, say, Boracay, I won’t be able to answer you right away. But I have memories of the white sand, and how warm the water was, and how, at the mere sight of clear waters at the pier, I had wanted to jump and swim already, despite my bags being hauled to the small boat that would take me to the resort. My photographs, timestamped and geotagged, provide me the details of the trip. I could give you an answer after I’d scrolled through my album.

There are days when I want to head to the shop to get them printed and framed. But those intentions are ephemeral, overtaken by more pressing needs of the day—work, errands, and, sometimes, rest.

But why take pictures anyway? Behind each photo is a creative act, I suppose. For me, photography is a way to remember, to enjoy the present, and to capture that enjoyment for future reminiscence, in the same vein as writing about an experience or a trip. I’m certain that taking pictures can sometimes distract me from the actual moment. The distraction largely comes from my personal impulse to perform—in other words, to show off, when the intention should be to show. I take measures to keep myself from that, but I’m a work in progress. Such measures include distancing myself from social media—a great step towards a healthy mental and spiritual state—and using a single-function device. I love my Olympus OM-D Mark IV and the two lenses of my choice—the pancake 14-42 mm and the 45 mm. It’s a small and powerful mirrorless camera I bring with me when I travel.

Consider these time-tested suggestions: get a Flickr subscription, and get an actual camera that's not in a phone. 

Nanay's kamuning

My mother's tiny garden is awash with fragrance. When I opened the windows at 5:30 am, I was treated to a sweet-smelling aroma coming from the garage. The source: her two kamuning trees (Murraya paniculata), offering their flowers this month of May, traditionally their blooming period. Their flowers are short-lived, which makes their existence even more special. As soon as the bees hop on them, or when rain drops fall from the sky, the flowers detach, falling to the ground like snow.

I wake my mother up from sleep. I pour her a cup of coffee and tell her to enjoy the lavish treat from the kamuning.

She tells me that she once overheard a Tagalog-speaking lady who walked by the street asking around, "Saan ang mabangong hardin?" It's a story Nanay keeps repeating.

"This is my Father's world," I sing in my soul...

And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas--
His hand the wonders wrought."

Whimpering

Paul wakes me up in the middle on the night, howling in front of my bedroom door. At 12 midnight, I am half-awake, half-asleep, trying my best to drown out the noise of his whimpering. He is thirsty, I can tell. Out of irritation, I get up and open the door. My dreams fade away from memory as I reenter reality. My glasses are elsewhere, but I know where to go. The dim light in the living room guides me to the front door, where Paul eagerly awaits me. 

That episode reminds me of prayer. If I can be moved by the ceaseless noise of a dog to get out of my comfort zone, how much more will God, whose love is infinite, unconditional, and unfathomable, hear my prayers, listen to my longings, and do what’s best? 

Reflective journaling

I'm speaking on reflective journaling — diary-keeping, really — at the midyear convention of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists of the Philippines that will happen sometime this week in Gensan. I simply couldn’t say no to Dr. Myra Maduramente, one of the chief organizers of the event.

To get invited, one should at least possess the credentials, the formal training, and the certifications; but I have none of those. What I have is some history: I have been keeping a journal — both offline and online — since college, not as constantly as I would have wanted but consistent enough to make journaling a part of the way I live. When I write I’m able make sense of things. Putting words onto paper, or in a screen, helps me metabolize my experiences, realize my lessons, and organize my prayers.

I have 30 minutes to squeeze in a brief talk and a workshop of sorts. I might start with data on why keeping a journal works: how it focuses an otherwise chaotic day into a less chaotic narrative. Stories are powerful: we tell ourselves stories all the time. Then I might launch into guided reflective journaling — trigger, meaning-making, and forward integration. I might also discuss some barriers against this exercise — lack of time or work overload — and conclude with a guided workshop. I might even add practical ways of doing it — finding the right notebook or pens, or even the background music. The outline is brewing in my head. 

The time isn’t sufficient, of course, but hardly anybody complains of brief talks. Let’s see how things play out on Thursday afternoon.  

Writing about my preparations for my talk on reflective journaling is my preparation. How meta is that! 

When the dog escapes

There’s this entry in Thoreau’s journals where he writes about him chasing his father’s pig. The pig escapes and runs around the neighborhood. He spends the day trapping the animal, which is eventually caught with neighbor’s help. The pig, which he wrote about when he was 38 (my age today), is reminiscent of our Paul. Our dog, who is unleashed 99% of the time, except when he needs to be washed, flees the house as soon as he finds an opening—usually when the gates are opened for the car to enter/exit, or when Nanay goes out. Instinctively, Paul knows my mother moves slowly, and he proceeds to insert himself in the little window of opportunity. Chasing after him only emboldens him: he thinks you are playing with him. He does not go far (although sometimes he does), but looks back after running a few meters away. When you run in the same direction, he runs a few meters more, then looks back, as if saying, “Come on!”

Paul does find his way back after a foray into the neighbors’ gardens, panting hard, and looking for his tub of water, which he drinks hungrily. But his outdoor adventures can last for as long as an hour. The danger of leaving him outdoors is that he sometimes gets distracted by the smells. Our neighbors reported to us that they saw Paul cross the highway. They added that he seemed to know how to do that safely.  

I have discovered that the best way to bring him home is to dangle food and shout, “Hmmm, sarap-sarap.”

When I do that, Paul looks at my direction. Seeing that I am enjoying a gastronomical feast, he runs back home, expecting his share. I proceed to lock the door and trap him. 

Monday date with my mother

Nanay asked me if she could go to GenSan with me. She needed to do her yearly pilgrimage to a government agency to show proof of life so she could continue to collect her pension. Her appearance could be done online, with a neat app that's been downloaded in her iPhone, but her log in details and her birthday did not match--a fact that took me at least 30 minutes to confirm. "Are you sure this is the number, Mom?" A question I must have blurted out at least four times, each meriting an fiercer response than the previous. 

 "Of course, I'm sure! I wrote the number carefully." 

I told her there was nothing else we could do but show up in the actual physical office. Today, we did that. I located the building through Google Maps, which led us to a narrow street where a funeral parade slowed the traffic significantly. It turned out that the building we were looking for was a few blocks away from my GenSan clinic. On a good, cloudy day, one can simply walk in the direction of Starbucks then take a quick left.

The office was accommodating, the parking spacious, and the staff courteous. We finished in less than an hour, a rarity in government offices. We logged on her app. I helped her take a selfie. The confirmation message read, "See you next year po." 

Driving my mother around is really how I show my love for her. She doesn't like what I cook, in general. But driving: that's what I do best, but only if I'm in the mood.  

Why does Paul keep showing up in our dreams?

The scene is clear in my head: a crow—a large bird, which could have been an eagle—swoops down on Paul and kills him. Paul looks at me helplessly in the kitchen, where it happens. I shoo the bird away, but I'm too late. Paul's blood coats the floor. I awoke in cold sweat until I realized it was all a dream.

A similar incident happened in Manong's dreams. Paul is captured and taken to the dog pound. Manong rushes to save him from execution. 

Manong, now in Scandinavia, but who was Paul's primary dog walker, also told me a happy dream about Paul playing in the snow. 

Why does Paul keep showing up in our dreams? 

When I made coffee this morning, Paul was lying on the living room carpet, perfectly safe from birds that might try to kill him. 

A few months ago, Paul charmed Mich, who visited from Manila/Japan, into giving him a belly rub. 

He befriends birds and frogs that visit our home and only really despises Victor, the dog who lives two streets away. Otherwise, friends and family seem to like him. The neighborhood kids rush to him to stroke his head. I overheard a girl telling another scared girl, "He doesn't bite! Just call his name." 

Cars

Half-awake, I lingered on my bed with bits of my dream still intact: Sean showing me a dirty steering wheel, me driving the car out of what looked like a covered parking garage, me pouring a tub of soapy water onto the Honda Civic to clean the car as Sean watches me. I can't explain my dream exactly, but there it is: my car and my brother. Two concepts I intimately connect in my subconscious, apparently. 

I turn to Sean when I have questions about cars: he, like my father, likes machines. We talk about cars when we speak over the phone. He sounds more and more like my father, even the way he punctuates our conversations with, "Love you, Manong." 

Busy week

This space has gone quiet for many days. Today, while it's still dark, I'm compelled to key in word after word to make coherent sentences. Blogging gets easier the more one does it. I find it a useful, enjoyable exercise for my writing muscles. 

The reason for the silence is generic: I simply had more important matters to attend to. Work, both clinical and academic; some family errands; and my hobbies. 

Last week, I was the overall chair of Kaalam 2025, a research forum in med school. As the college's research coordinator, the event made me proud. My students surprised me. They worked hard on their proposals. Their posters of completed studies were interesting. What gave me the most pleasure was seeing them get excited with research -- which can feel like a burden, a bureaucratic hurdle to overcome. Many of them approached me and asked where they could get their manuscripts published. It was a good day to be a teacher. 

Auntie Eva and Uncle Lars joined us for dinner at home. Manong and I spent Christmas with them in Hässleholm, a place I have to Google just to make sure I get the dieresis correctly. With them were Auntie Ailene and Uncle Rod, relatives I was meeting for the first time. Auntie Elsie, Tatay's second cousin, also joined us. She only lives next block, but the last time she had visited our house was a decade ago. The dinner was wonderful. We asked Auntie Nanic to prepare tinola with native chicken ("free range chicken," I told Uncle Lars, in case we sounded racist). I promised Auntie Eva we'd prepare it for her. It was Nanay's first time meeting my father's distant relatives. Just a month ago, we hosted Ate Nina and Jacob, visitors from Copenhagen. In both instances, Paul loved the international crowd. He literally got a Swedish massage: he kept asking Uncle Lars for a belly rub. 

Today is a Sunday, our church's anniversary. There's a special worship service in the morning, followed by lunch. I'm playing keyboards. Last night, Saturday, I was with Jason, Noynoy, Lance, and the music ministry, figuring out the proper chord progression on an otherwise familiar song: "Only By Grace." I'm excited for Auntie Morena's response song, "I See Grace," which we'll be playing. I went home a little past 8 in the evening, but I enjoyed the extended time of bonding with the church family. Many were busy arranging the stage and setting the place up.  

What else is there to write about? 

I'm still on Thoreau's journals, a quintessential read for bloggers. I've been reading Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro, my favorite Canadians. I enjoyed Anuk Arudpragasam's The Visit, a short story in my copy of The Paris Review. I look forward to my physical copies of magazines -- which also include The New Yorker and the London Review of Books -- which PhilPost delivers in bulk, every three or four months or so. In an ideal world, I should be receiving my New Yorker magazine weekly. But I have access to the online version; it doesn't feel unfair. Reading an old edition, say, from December last year, is like getting a missive from the recent past. Many articles in the magazine are timeless. 

I rediscovered Bones in Netflix. I watched the series in Star Movies, over cable TV, in high school. Now I treat myself to an episode once in a while; I can pause and repeat as I wish, without the ads; and I'm sure that each episode ends on a happy, if not hopeful, note. I miss the ads, though. In general, I miss cable TV. (We still have Cignal cable, bundled with our internet subscription -- but it's never the same.) Dr. Temperance Bones and Special Agent Seeley Booth are an interesting pair. I'm on Season 1, Episode 16: their friendship is blossoming.  The series makes me wonder: shouldn't the forensic analysis be done by pathologists? 

Welcoming 2026

I'm celebrating the arrival of 2026 in the peaceful quiet space of Manong's bedroom—now my second bedroom and study—where I write this. The fireworks don't explode as loudly as they used to in my childhood, but our aspin Paul, whose ears are four times more sensitive than a human's, shivers in panic, hiding underneath my late father's rattan reclining chair, refusing to eat anything. 

The massive disinterest in fireworks is a good thing overall because that means more fingers will be spared from amputation. People resort to clanging their palanggana and timba, an inferior way of making sound, but much, much safer. My neighbors play OPMs for the entire street to hear. Minutes ago, I overheard, "Nandito ako, umiibig sa iyo ..." Not the best music for New Year's Eve, but if that song makes the listeners happy, I'm up for it either. 

My brothers Ralph and Sean joined me in a video call early this afternoon. We live in different timezones. Afternoons are the best time to call. Sean and wife Hannah had just returned from a tour of the Great Barrier Reef. Sean told me some scenes in the Pirates of the Caribbean were shot in the white beaches of that part of Australia. They boarded a small plane. Ten minutes into the descent, Hannah vomited due to biyahilo, a fact explained by the turbulence largely caused by the terrain on the ground. Soon Manong will join our newfound aunties and uncles—distant relatives from the Catedral side, but relatives nonetheless—for New Year's Eve. I left Manong behind in Sweden and told him, after two weeks of a relaxing but eventful trip around Europe, that I'd squeeze our mother for him. I'm back in Philippine shores, with its warmth, noise, and celebrations—things I intended to leave behind, if only for a few days. 

When I drove Auntie Nene Jasmin home to Banga (she was my mother's companion during the long break, while I was away), there was a fresh excitement all over town. I saw boys laughing and walking by the street, children running around.  Childhood should involve spontaneous games in the tangible outdoors, away from the smartphones that are the main reasons why many of their generation act like zombies. Cars lined the highway. The adults were buying round fruits—oranges, kiat-kiat, grapes—and fireworks.

A rainbow greeted me as I drove home: a steady reminder of the beauty of life and the possibilities of the year ahead.