January 31 - Soul Mate

Thought-Random:

That one thought connection with your soul mate
makes for
the profoundness of being alive each day!

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
~T.S. Eliot

January 30 - On Fire!

Thought-Random:

   

         Fire is like a heartbeat - it is life, rather than destruction!

        While it is true that fire can raze whole communities to the

ground: property, livestock, people .... it is also true that it

can either be that blaze that triggers your resolve into untold

achievement, or simply that gentle flame that keeps the love light

 in your heart burning!

January 29 - Lights on Tanya!

Thought-Random:

        Speak of a particular baby some teen-years ago, cute and sweet and lovely as a doll - that would be Tanya - Eleine, we call her at home. Her smile used to be a sexy pout, could you imagine that?  Well, next imagine looking into her eyes and instead, what will arrest your eyes would be her eyelashes so long they kneel in prayer!

        A sweetheart of many talents, she sings, she dances, she acts on stage, she speaks on stage - she is an award-winning public speaker!  And oh by the way, she still is in college on a full-scholarship wanting to be an engineer and hoping to have her name one day flashed across the movie screens with the credits.  Her academic life isn't only tuition-free, thus, because, too, she works as a resident adviser at her university - already very professional!

        And yet when at home on holidays, like a toddler, she steals some nights to come sleep in my bed sharing some of her love secrets, some of her home problems, some of her life's anxieties. That makes me somebody's favorite, right?  My favorite, though, is when she comes up to me with, 'Let's go watch Skyfall today, then we go Zero Dark Thirty tomorrow and then...., and then.....'! :)  <3, <3, ,3!!!

         

       

January 28 -Everything Happens For a Reason

January 27 - That Virtual Need

Thought-Random:

     
 I need quiet to internalize the thoughts
 projected on virtual paper by
 my online students, true,

 but that touch of thought from a parallel
 dimension does augment my thirst for virtual company

 - very much like mellow background music!

January 26 - Seconds in Starbucks

Thought-Random:

        I'm reading through this account of my student who works with the Military - his account of senseless waste of life in the battlefield.  And as I try to escape the substance of the essay - even if only momentarily - I raise my eyes above my computer and find them instantly locked with another pair of eyes that must have earlier been directed at me. So I stare back in curiosity.  But is he staring at me, this guy? Now, I am undecided if he is.  His eyes don't show the usual intent of uncovering the secrets mine hold - intent that I see in other eyes I've met head on. Bit by bit, I am made to see through the clarity of his light, brown eyes that he simply has laid a gentle gaze on mine and yet, they seemed to be earnestly speaking to me. What are those eyes saying, I ask myself, - those eyes that also are raised above another computer. I try to unravel whatever meaning they carry but I can't.  Well, he isn't yielding, he isn't giving up the gaze and neither do I intend to, but - no, this must end. I drop it and take myself back to my Military student and still trying to evade his account of war, I force myself into the grammatical and stylistic aspects of his essay instead.

January 25 - Mid-winter Episode

Thought-Random:

         Then I come home to someone mowing the lawn.  The smell of freshly cut grass reminds me of twilight in the countryside - the smell of exotic pleasure!  But up the stairs now into the living room, the couch is so inviting  I throw myself on it. The marvelous sensation of my muscles relaxing is at hand - marvelous just after an Aikido class That great feeling of falling asleep next makes me aware of  thoughts floating around my brain - and of the radio music at the background fading into white noise.  Somewhere in the middle of all these, however, a gentle breeze from the open window gives me that refreshing swath of cool over my sweating body.  I could get more of that breeze right now as I get into this  blissful moment of just about entering sleep!  So I turn my eyes to the window as if to reassure myself that it is open enough for my much needed breeze and I am jolted to reality! The windows are closed.  Snow is heavily beating against the window pane, and somebody had thrown a blanket over me for warmth! Was that all a dream?  Or was it wistful thinking!

       

January 24 - Elise, Elise!

Thought-Random:

        She loves her stuffed doll, Tinapay, oh yes she does! She talks to him and tells him she loves him over and over again. Before she drives off to work, she tucks him back to bed,  gives him a resounding kiss, and waves him goodbye.

        But times when things go wrong for her, Tinapay get the brunt of it.  He'd receive a yelling and they won't be in speaking terms for a while. She'd even put him under her pillow in an attempt to smother him... and as if it isn't enough, I'd come across him hanging by the neck in her closet with her lovely clothes.

        Speaking of lovely - oh but she does love everything lovely! From playing the piano and her flute so well, from sketching excellent portraits to anything her eyes fall on like the trees, the rainbow, the pattern on a tile or on a curtain, - to wearing clothes and accessories that spell anything but fine and lovely!

        And when she looks at me with those soulful eyes as she breaks from a  Mona Lisa smile into a full-blown one, and then as lightning she comes to me to make me feel that tight hug and that sweeter than honey kiss - it is my world that turns lovely!

January 23 - A Call for Warmth

Thought-Random:

    
  White, heavy precipitation blankets my

 world as a minus twelve chill languidly bites its

 way into the depths of my sensibilities - leaving

me in raw, glacial numbness!

January 22 - Reciprocity?

Thought-Random:

       
         Last Christmas I had the flu.  I said, then,
 I have fever and headache. I feel pain all over. I feel bad! And he said, Lots of rest, lots of fluids! Do get well!  So I did. Now, today, he just said, I don't feel well.  I have fever and headache. I'm going to call in sick. I ask him, you got the flu? So my turn to say, Lots of rest, lots of fluids!  Please get well!

        And I wonder if he did!

        

January 21 - My world upside down

Thought-Random:

        Times when I am overwhelmed with thoughts that carry me to the heights and depths one finds in this world - and into the vagueness and uncertainties one finds in one's mind, only to realize there is no apparent touchstone, no apparent light at the end of the tunnel.....

my ...world ... is... simply ...turned ...upside ...down!

               

                 

                

                           

                                     

                                            

                                                 

                                             

                    

                                                   

January 20 - Ecstatic Joy

Thought-Random:

     
   Mail came in for me today... a letter in a light blue envelope, a letter that seemed to have a slightly uneven enclosure, a letter that seemed to have traveled a distance owing to a couple of creases that apparently came with handling that was more than the usual.

        I  gingerly open the envelope to find a nicely folded blue linen statio.  I guardedly unfold it to find a carefully pressed, dried, purple orchid enclosed. I slowly read three words written across the page.

        And I am overwhelmed with emotion exuberant!

       

January 19 - Looking down from up

Thought-Random:

        Should I look up into the heavens in apparent search for the Unreachable One, my effort would have to traverse the whiteness of clouds to get into the blue of the sky and then from there, lose myself in silent prayer as I'd try to figure out how exactly I would know that I have found who I seek.

        But having positioned myself up there, what if I looked down, on the other hand, and seeing what I see,  would you think I'd find Him here instead,  - somewhere among these  concrete creations?  Or would you think that I would feel like now I was Him?

        

       

January 18 - On the extent of distances

Thought-Random:

          I am looking past my computer to that expanse of snow from out of my window, and my sight goes to touch the tip of a leafless tree branch... on to the floor of pure, beautiful, white snow, kind of inch by inch,.. on to to the snow covered back yard of my neighbor into which our own back yard flows .... on to still the back yard next to my neighbor's... because in our community, we hold no fences. And I feel my sight has traveled quite a bit.

          My reality is now transferred to this list of names in my computer, the essays of whom await my attention and editing and grading.  My mind does travel in a way it did the snow just moments past because I go fast forward to the process  I have to undergo: looking into substance, grammar, style, format - followed by the decision of a grade.....and all these for each of the 40 students in my lists. And just for the week. Some travel!

        But I am ushered yet into another dimension of travel - not physical or work associated but psychological or spiritual, if I may say so.  My mind wanders to the extent of my existence not necessarily in terms of length.  Or should I pinpoint to this as the essence of my being? So it is not a physical travel I feel I need to undertake - to understand that part of my self which is not of this world, is it?

        

       

January 17

Thought in review

                                                                                                                                                      <3  :)

January 16 - Wonder which way now...

Thought-Random:

           Staircases have always intrigued me in one way or the other. I've climbed all kinds of them: stone, wood, iron, bamboo.. but I guess I still have to have a try on a stairway of clouds and a stairway of stars!

        But seriously, not only on one occasion have I stopped short of doing whatever task I had on hand because I wasn't sure of what direction I was to take next.

        In the middle of a staircase, I'd ask myself, would I go down now, or was it that I should go up?

       

January 15 - My Share of Time

Thought-Random:

 
       Anika comes through the door, runs up the stairs, walks a little to where I am seated in front of my computer  - as I try to figure out what grade I should give  this essay of my online student.

        So she comes up to me, gives me a tight hug, followed by a kiss on my cheek which seems to encapsulate both her and my "I missed you!"  But now I say to her, "You're home? .. but you just left!"  To which she answers, "I went to school this morning, Grama, but now it's afternoon, so I come home!  What are you talking about?"

        Right!  What am I talking about?  I'm not sure now but maybe, just maybe, I had just given up a bit of my life unknowingly into a fold in time right in front of my computer!

January 14 - What if.......?

Thought-Random:

        In the confines of my thoughts,  I wander into a wish as my eyes try to go through the density of today's fog - I wonder what would give if I had a magic stone clasped in my hand - a stone on which I could wish for anything I could think of.

        So I have this stone.  I feel its intoxicating reality within my grasp. It is ready to receive my first demand and I think of wishing for an Audi A8 Sedan which I would drive not only through the streets of San Francisco, but out past the highways of the internet to real outer space towards a favorite place on the planet Saturn. And momentarily I relive in fascination one lovely Saturn experience but I snap out of it. I change my mind.

        How about later, when I go dig out those over-grown weeds out in my garden, I come across Yamashita's gold! Maybe less the the incense and the myrrh? :) Now, I'm being out of my senses. But no, really, - if I asked someone to come fly over to do the job for me... with whom I would share the diggings 90-10... and I take the 10% for the snacks.. then, wouldn't that be awesome!  No? Well then, change of mind again.

        But now, the fog I am feasting my eyes on is kind of thinning, getting lighter, and funny how the outlines of a letter envelope addressed to me comes into view.  The old familiar handwriting on it brings about a face - and it is that of my beloved. Can I wish for this to be a reality? Is my stone, by chance, powerful enough to annihilate my present world of incongruities and inappropriateness and inconsistencies to bring me and my wishes into a phenomenal world of my own?  Quizas? ..... Well, maybe- but surely, only on my own....!

January 13 - The Ring

Thought-Random

A circular object on   

       the finger of the

       nun and of the

       married woman.....

               an endless thing

               to mirror endless love?

                             A circular object, yes,

                                   to show betrothal:

                                   the nun to God

                                   the woman to man.....

                                                   Which would be valued

                                                   greater-

                                                                the sacrifice? ....

                                                                the sacrament?

January 12 - Mindful Mass Moments

Thought-Random:

        I am on my knees in prayer at one of the front pews of my church.  And my attention travels to  Fr Henry, the officiating priest against an austere wall background of the altar where he says today's mass.  But my attention is rather held by the contrasting resplendent view of the altar itself.  Lace covering over a marble altar table with golden biblical etches, golden candle holder stands positioned at both ends of the table;  the chalice, the paten, the decanter holding the wine, the crucifix... all golden. These vessels and linens are, of course, prepared fit for a king, -the Lord, whose body and blood are transubstantiated from bread and wine during the mass.

        Now he goes to the ambo - a podium used as both lectern and pulpit.  I was just up there myself as the Lector for the First Reading,,,,,, and now, Fr Henry delivers his sermon.  Today, we celebrate Christ's baptism at the River of Jordan so that it follows that he uses the water metaphor in his talk.  I love the way he uses water as a need  to achieve salvation. Immersion in water at baptism to be cleansed of original sin; Moses leading the Israelites across a sea divided to be saved from the Egyptians; Noah surviving a flood with his family and a pair of each beast on earth for a renewed life - these to complement Christ's own water immersion.

        Water, of course, we all know to be liquid that descends from the clouds as rain - forms streams, and lakes and seas, and is a major constituent of all living matter. Over and above that, however, I would allude water to the tears that cleanse my eyes, both in joy and in sadness, if only to remind me of a  wholeness made up of both the blessedness and the misery of being alive.

      

January 11 - Rain

Thought-Random:

       it falls in slants as

     if to give in to the

     whims of wind.

     it falls down straight

     unto the ground to

     meet the kiss of earth.

     it falls hard on the

     roof tops in royal

     proclamation.

     it falls into my life,

     it must, but then who

     wants too much?

January 10 - Erin, that wisp of a girl

Thought-Random:

        I have Erin on my mind today. It was her birthday last Monday, the 7th,  but  it brings me to that day some twenty years ago when I took my turn from the family to hold her in my arms... a tiny bundle of joy,  quiet with eyes closed, pretty lips showing a semblance of a smile in sleep, and just ready to be enfolded in a hug.

        But even now, she still is a wisp of girl.  She has graduated from Stanford's Investment Banking and even has turned down that Systems Analyst job offered her by J P Morgan - to have a start-up of her own and be CEO of it.   I couldn't believe she did all these... but she did - as a wisp of a girl! And as a wisp of a girl still, she undergoes fitness training... her start-up is on fitness et al...and has no regrets at all turning down the J P Morgan offer.

        Whenever she's home with the family for the holidays, though, she loves being in the kitchen,  - as much as possible, not allowing me to do any of the work.  "Let me!", she'd admonish me.
Like she's telling  me, 'You're queen, act it!'  So she cooks, she cleans, she prepares the coffee with her creation of a sandwich.  And with her Michael, engages the family with chat on fitness, on hacking, on a million other techno  things.

        But that Starbucks invite, that hot soup by my bedside, that affectionate hug encapsulating all the other little things that she empowers my being with!  I love this girl - she takes care of me like a baby!

January 9 - Tree Structure

Thought-Random:

        I am boiling some water for my tea as I wait for a friend to pick me up for our Toastmasters Club meeting today.  And as I wait, I look out of the kitchen window to behold a scene I must've taken for granted in my past life because now I am spellbound by this masterpiece of a painting by nature.

        The trees are lined up to mark the extent of  land properties but I don't see just trees - I see trees with branches stripped off of their leaves to bare their diverse branch structures: some upright as in prayer towards the heavens, some have theirs drooping down in an effort to touch the ground, and some reaching out as in either to give out love and comfort - or to ask for it, while others yet simply and wantonly have theirs in all direction as if in carefree existence.

        I try to decide what to make out of all these.  And I see my connection to my God in prayer. I realize I am bound to earth to make the best of it, in the meantime,  till I hopefully find myself with Him, my God.  The 'best of it' I probably allude to the need of interacting with my fellowmen in comfortable love. But come to think of it, I want to enjoy life, too, in any which way I think and feel like.  Just I be ethical, right? Now to define 'ethical'.

        But uh oh,  comes my friend now.  And we'll be having lunch after the meeting, I remember. That makes my tea for much later then.  Got to go!

January 8 - "You are special!"

Thought-Random

        "A well known speaker started off his seminar holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this."

         He proceeded to crumple up the $20 dollar bill. He then asked, "Who still wants it...?" Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. "Now, who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

         "My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We may feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value."

         "Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who DO LOVE you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE."

         "You are special, don't EVER forget it.""

By: I am a Marine

(Thoughts that I take part of.....) 
 

Thanks for sharing, Frank!

January 7 - On Three Special Gifts

Thought-Random:

     

        Day after the Christmas Season and a lot of the festive decors still remain . Colorful lights still hang,  Merry representations of Frosty and Santa still stand. But most compelling of discernment for me, which I still notice, is the reenactment of the Nativity:  the Baby Jesus laid in a manger, Mary and Joseph in loving watch,  animals in the stable, shepherds in adoration, but most interesting would be the three kings paying homage with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

        Gold, frankincense, and myrrh - these bespeak of the Christ Child to whom these presents were offered. Christianity being replete with symbolism, these three are said to be just a few of such an ocean of  symbols. Gold to proclaim the majestic kingship of Christ, our Lord;  -frankincense to assert his divinity.... to affirm the fact that we adore Him as our God;  -and myrrh, to underscore His humanity... His oneness with us because He dies as a man after exteme suffering if only to save us and bring us back to His kingdom in heaven.

        The Christmas Season starts with the first Sunday of Advent and ends with the first Sunday of January, the feast of the Epiphany - the feast of the Three Kings. So it starts with the anticipation of the coming of the Savior and ends with the visit of these three wise men who bring Him three gifts that project to us who exactly this Savior is that had just come to us!

       

Janauary 6: A Bit of Technology

Though-Random:

     

Walking through Best Buy's display rooms kind of transports me to Ray Kurtweil's Solidarity Theory. As you know, he predicts that in some thirty years, computers will be one with man and the repercussions of this impacts my mind with a lot of counterpoints: one end of it for the benefits to humanity and of course, the other end of it, humanity's end-game which is total annihilation!

 But I love my computer!

January 5 - La Guardia

Thought-Random

        Driving through snow swept highways at dusk on to the Whitestone Bridge of New York past the Hudson river amidst a panorama of Christmas lights till the La Guardia airport, we were to pick up Elise and Kushal who were flying in from Minnesota.

        And yes, the hustle and bustle of this vast airport takes my mind to a standstill. This is just one of several I've passed through as I came and went places that transported me not only physically but psychologically, culturally, and spiritually as well.

        Such personal enrichment covered not only nuances in sights like the Petronas, the Eiffel, the Rhine, .... not only the Red Hills of Colorado nor the Rice Terraces of Banawe nor the Alps of  Salzburg, ...but also sights like the  Neuschwanstein Castle, the Louvre, the Dubai Burj, Singapore's Fountain of Wealth - oh God, just a tip off the iceberg!

         Not to miss out on the Wat Phra Singh, (not the biggest  in Thailand yet) nor Hong Kong's Po Lin... much less  the Great Cologne Cathedral -  if only to touch a bit on religious diversity.  Or Malaysia's reverence for multi-ethnicity in language, among other things. I would also think of flight as portals to renewed relationships: friendship and family ties, as well as introductions to new ones - friendships and family ties!

       Airports do start off thought ramblings like these in me. Myism, in fact, quips of relative jet lag to the max in a straight flight from CA to MN to NY to London to Amsterdam to Dubai to Bahrain! Wow! I had two ways of responding to this: I couldn't have survived this! - and I want to try it! :) But seriously, whenever I am in an airport just to pick up friends or family, I complain to myself, why am I not the one traveling?

       

January 4: Vicarious Experience

Thought-Random:

        To be under the weather is tough enough in weather like we're having now...tough with snow and ice and rain and some wind notwithstanding the sun! But the world wouldn't be  the world I know now were it not for beautiful people and beautiful things around me.

         So I am barely out of the traces of the cough from that flu which had me few weeks earlier.  Feeling much better now with the therapeutic touch of friends and loved ones, I look around my study corner for some aspect of interest and I lay my eyes on this orchid. No, not the real thing... just a nice photo of it from dear Bong in Malaysia...and it lights up memories of when I'd receive one pressed dry and enclosed in a love letter .... and of when one time, another one was handed to me personally, gently put in my hand, guided by another one, to clasp in all its freshness and fragrance.

        But this picture does well for the enjoyment. With my eyes, I slowly trace the outline of each petal as I take in the varying purple shades of the flower. Very much like tracing the outline of a beloved's face, my fingers outlining his ears, his eyes, now fingers tracing the bridge of his nose and immediately putting my index perpendicularly pressed to his lips - in an effort to stifle his instinctive response to the sudden playful twitch I made at the tip of his nose! Ooops!

        Back to the beautiful picture of the orchid! But there is such a thing as vicarious experience, isn't there?

January 3; Ice and snow

Thought-Random:

       Ice underneath snow is a multi-faceted show of transformation. I step on a seemingly soft patch of snow as I go down this little stairway towards my car and in a snatch of time, I do a bumpy slide down that stair to find myself in a not-so-nice position beside the car in much less time than the usual! That God-forsaken slab of ice! And I thought that pretty piece of snow was ready to receive my confident step  as I hurried across it - only to be thrown off guard!

       But I should stop complaining. Makes me now reflect on a kindred thought: like the possibility of change. That sweet, ripe, red, strawberry turning to its dark-colored version with the sour spoiled taste. That affectionate warm heart turning into a cold, hard, metal state. And a lot more!

      On second thought, rather than think of that ice under the snow... of the negativity underneath the positivity, I guess, it should be more heartwarming to delve on the snow over the ice... on that sunrise that comes after the dark of night.. on that affectionate love that warms up to the gentle touch of a lovely thought! <3.

January 2: Genesis

Thought-Random:

    Over and across this vast whiteness of snow through my window,  golden sunshine permeates my world.  I am seeing that distinction from the sight at dusk... both kind of exotic and both kind of anticipatory... but for now, I am thinking beginnings, rather than endings, start to impact my resolve!

January 1: Soul Mate

Thought-Random:

That one thought connection with your soul mate
makes for
the profoundness of being alive each day!

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
~T.S. Eliot