There is a story in Philippine folklore about a mango tree and a bamboo tree.

Not being able to agree

as to which was the stronger of the two, they called upon the wind to make the decision.
The wind blew hardest. The mango tree stood fast. It would not yield. It knew it was strong and
sturdy. It would not sway. It was too proud. It was too sure of itself. But finally its root gave way, and it
tumbled down.

The bamboo tree was wiser. It knew it was not as robust as the mango tree. And so every time the
wind blew, it bent its head gracefully. It made loud protestations, but let the wind have its way. When
finally the wind got tired of blowing, the bamboo tree still stood in all its beauty and grace.

The Filipino is like the bamboo tree. He knows that he is not strong enough, to withstand the
onslaught of superior forces. And so he yields. He bends his head gracefully with many loud
protestations.

And he has survived. The Spaniards came and dominated him for more than three hundred years.
And, when the Spaniards left, the Filipinos still stood—only much richer in experience and culture.

The Americans took place of the Spaniards. They used more subtle means of winning over the
Filipinos to their mode of living and thinking. The Filipinos embraced the American way of life more
readily than the Spaniard’s vague promises hereafter.

Then the Japanese came like a storm, like a plague of locusts, like a pestilence—rude, relentless, cruel.
The Filipino learned to bow his head low, to “cooperate” with the Japanese in their “holy mission of
establishing the Co-Prosperity Sphere.” The Filipino had only hate and contempt for the Japanese, but
he learned to smile sweetly at them and to thank them graciously for their “benevolence and
magnanimity”.

And now that the Americans have come back and driven away the Japanese, those Filipinos who
profited most from cooperating with the Japanese have been loudest in their protestations of
innocence. Everything is as if the Japanese had never been in the Philippines.

For the Filipino would welcome any kind of life that the gods would offer him. That is why he is
contented and happy and at peace. The sad plight of other people of the world is not his. To him, as
to that ancient Oriental poet, the past is already a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision; but today,
well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and tomorrow is a vision of hope.
This may give you the idea that the Filipino is a philosopher. Well he is. He has not evolved a body of
philosophical doctrines. Much less has he put them down into a book, like Kant for example, or
Santayana or Confucius. But he does have a philosophical outlook on life.
For the Filipino lives in a country on which the gods lavished their gifts a plenty. He does not have to
worry about the morrow. Tomorrow will be only another day—no winter of discontent. Of he loses his
possessions, there is the land and there is the sea, with all the riches that one can desire. There is
plenty to spar—for friends, for neighbors and for everyone else.

No wonder that the Filipino can afford to laugh. For the Filipino is endowed with saving grace of
humor. This humor is earthly as befits one who has not indulged in deep contemplation. But it has
enabled the Filipino to shrug his shoulders in times of adversity and say to himself “Bahalana”.

The Filipino has often been accused of being indolent and of lacking initiative. And he has answered
back* that no one can help being indolent and lacking in initiative who lives under the torrid sun
which saps the vitality.

This seeming lack of vitality is, however, only one og his means of survival. He does not allow the
world to be too much with him. Like the bamboo tree, he lets the winds of chance and circumstance
blow all about him; and he is unperturbed and serene.

The Filipino, in fact, has a way of escaping from the rigorous problems of life. Most of his art is
escapist in nature. His forefathers wallowed in the *moro-moro, the awit, and the kurido. They loved
to identify themselves as gallant knights battling for the favors of fair ladies or the possession of
hallowed place. And now he himself loves to be lost in the throes and modern romance and
adventure.

His gallantry towards women—especially comely women—is a manifestation of his romantic turn of
mind. Consequently, in no other place in Orient are women so respected, so adulated, and so
pampered. For his women have enabled the Filipinos to look upon the vicissitudes of fortune as the
bamboo tree regards the angry blasts of the blustering wind.

The Filipino is eminently suited to his romantic role. He is slender and wiry. He is nimble and graceful
in his movements, his voice is soft, and h has the gift of language. In what other place in the world
can you find a people who can carry on a fluent conversation in at least *three languages?

This gift is another means by which the Filipino as managed to survive. There is no insurmountable
barrier between him and any of the people who have come to live with him—Spanish, American, and
Japanese. The foreigners do not have learn his language. He easily manages to master theirs.Verily,
the Filipino is like the bamboo tree. In its grace, in its ability to adjust itself to the peculiar and
inexplicable whims of fate, the bamboo tree is his expressive and symbolic national tree, it will have to
be, not the molave or the narra, but the bamboo.
In the final decades of her rule that was characterized by an intense yearning to preserve
memory, Mon Jiera, Reina of Lusan, Protector of Bisyas, and First Citizen of Danao,
decreed the creation of a precise replica of her three maritime kingdoms.

Those were days of incontestable bounty and quiet peace, when the network of roads
and island-spanning bridges were new and led to uttermost parts of the kingdoms,
when fishermen did not have to go beyond a cigarette’s distance from the deep harbors
to make a day’s wage, when being a policeman was a part-time job due to the
indolence of the dwindling number of criminals, and when the theatrical recitative was
at its creative zenith, inspiring narratives about knowledge and devotion, mostly in the
vulgar tongue for the edification of the masses.

Within the Royal Enclosure of Lusan (that part of the grand manse where royalty of old
celebrated with tuba or witnessed beheadings), Mon Jiera summoned Simon de los
Santos, multi-decorated architect, composer, playwright, perennial beauty pageant
judge and champion stock car driver; at forty-eight years old, already famous for the
intricate pneumatic fountains at the Gate of Idad, the choreopoetic transliteration of Ibn
al Faran’s Gestures Under Rainfall, and for being the five-time off-road record holder of
the Seibu Annual Rally.
“Favorite,” the withered Mon Jiera addressed him. “Would you say that, under our rule,
our lands have come to a remarkable state of prosperity?”

“I would, My Queen,” Simon de los Santos replied, with a graceful bow.

“And would you say that what we have built with our hands and hearts will last forever?”
the queen asked.
“My Great Lady,” Simon said, choosing his words with care. “Only the human spirit is
immortal. That,and the legacy of free will, beauty, and law that we pass to those who
come after us.”
“But will we be remembered?” the queen asked. “Will everything that we have created,
all that we have worked for, will everything be remembered as things are?”

“‘As things are?’“ Simon repeated. “Books will be written, of course, My Queen;
paintings, murals, photographs commissioned. But those cannot possibly cover
everything.”

“We need everything to be remembered,” the queen said, closing her eyes. “Everything.”
“But—” Simon began.
“Favorite,” Mon Jierra interrupted him. She opened her eyes and looked directly at
Simon. “You will undertake a task for us that will make all your previous achievements
pale like virgins about to be taken by brutes.”

“As you will, My Queen.” Simon nodded, smoothing the near-invisible wrinkles on his
white linen suit. “I am your servant.”

“Yes, yes,” the old woman said. “And spare no expense. We will wear our funeral shroud
soon.”
A gasp resounded throughout the Royal Enclosure, flitting from lips to ear to lips, from
courtiers to officers of the court, before escaping down the hallway in the mouths of
secretaries and serving boys, and from them to the scullions, washers, mechanics,
deliverymen, and gardeners on the palace grounds, then off into the polished streets
where beautiful brown-skinned women with dark hair trembled in sadness, and
handsome men with broad noses daubed their eyes with handkerchiefs, and into the
mosques, gas stations, mercados, food courts, amusement parks and massage parlors
where obese men’s hearts were given a double workout, and finally into the broad
countryside and beyond, across the islands to the satellite towns, villages, and crofts,
where the news was met with great sorrow.

“Oh, no, My Queen,” Simon de los Santos protested, rising daringly to his feet. “It cannot
be true!”
“Spare us your theatrics, Favorite,” the queen said, gesturing for him to resume his initial
kneeling position. “There is no true palliative against time. Now, we possess no charm to
reduce our kingdoms to the size of a biscuit and keep them in a glass box. We do not
believe that the miracles of science can etch the lives of people on to strangely flavored
particles. And we do not think that people in heaven keep track of who has done what.”

“True,” Simon de los Santos interjected. “That would be quite prideful.”

“Indeed,” the queen said. “And in the absence of magic, science, and religion, what do
we have left to keep the memory of who we were and what we did, what we achieved,
when we yet lived?”
“Art, My Great Lady,” Simon de los Santos replied, with moisture in his eyes. “Free-willed,
beautiful, lawful art.”

“You will create, beginning this very day and without relent, a replica of our three
kingdoms as they stand. You will capture the spirit of our people and all we have built. It
must be exact, faithful, and true. You will perform this task with all your talent and all
your strength.”
“With all my heart, Great Lady,” Simon de los Santos said softly.

“We intend to see some semblance of its wonder before we close our eyes for the last
time, Favorite,” the old woman on the ornate throne told him. “Now go. Begin.”

“At once, My Queen”, Simon de los Santos stood, bowed, and walked away on legs
weakened by the impossible weight of the Queen’s imperative, and when he was alone
in his car, lit a cigarette, tuned the radio to sentimental love songs, and thought about
glassworks, cartography, and the flickering nature of memory. Then he began to drive
home, taking the opportunity offered by every stoplight to make calls on his cell phone
to people he knew and to people who knew people he didn’t know.

Eight months later, Mon Jiera, pale and tired, was informed over breakfast, by one of her
attendants, that Simon de los Santos’ miraculous replica was completed.

“Impossible,” the queen said, staring at the half-eaten soft-boiled egg in front of her. It
took the better part of the day for her royal retinue to convey her, with the barest of
pomp, to a large field on the outskirts of the capital, where a huge tent housed Simon
de los Santos and his labors.

Her traveling throne was set securely on a narra platform in the tent’s dimly lit interior.
As the platform slowly ascended to thrice a man’s height, she steadied herself, squinting
into the shadows that offered tantalizing shapes and forms.

A lone spotlight suddenly illuminated Simon de los Santos, broad shoulders squarely set
inside a crisp, white linen suit, standing on some lesser elevation.
“My Queen,” he addressed her, his amplified voice echoing in the vast interior. “After
months of dreams and labor, I humbly present Your Majesty’s three kingdoms!”

At his signal, hidden voices began to sing, as lights shone in structured sequence,
revealing Simon de los Santos astride the Cordil mountain range, rendered in miniature.
All around him, forests and lakes and plains sprawled outward, gleaming roads racing
toward coastlines. Provinces and their capitals glittered like gemstones, slender bridges
arched across water linking island to island to island. Every single geographic feature of
each of the three kingdoms, every famous river and volcano and plateau, was on display,
eliciting murmurs of delight from the courtiers and officers that stood below the
queen’s platform.
When everything on display was fully lit, when artificial waves lapped against the shores
of the multitudes of islands, and when all the tiny rice fields transformed from paddies
into bountiful harvest, synchronized to the rhythm of a troupe of dancing girls, Simon
de los Santos raised his eyes toward his queen, certain in his heart of his success.

Mon Jiera, unmoving and unmoved by the spectacle, met his gaze. “We cannot see the
cities; they are too small. Do better. It is not as things are.”

And with that pronouncement, the show was over. As the queen’s platform descended,
Simon fought back the sudden nausea that enveloped him, rested a hand against the
nearest mountain peak, obliterating vast tracts of miniscule forests, and thought about
what to do next.

When the queen and her retinue had departed, Simon de los Santos addressed the
dejected crowd of set and lighting designers, miniaturists, geomancers, gardeners,
cartographers, carpenters, engineers, electricians, musicians, historians, documentarians,
reporters, caterers, dancing troupes, and child volunteers.
“Clearly, my friends,” Simon said, stretching his trembling arms to full extension,
“everything needs to be bigger.”

The nearby province of Lagun was selected as the site for the next replica. When those
who dwelled there were informed that their entire province—every road and field and
house and mango grove—was needed, the general response was to give way to the
queen’s will and to begin the task of uprooting themselves. With the provincial
boundaries determining the edges of the site, Simon de los Santos and his growing
population of workers and specialists and their families and hangers-on settled in and
began to work. Over the next decade, doctors of forestry and mathematics, their famous
university transplanted to another province, teamed up with landscape designers to
render the archipelago in perfect scale, while oceanographers, animatronics experts, and
animal rights advocates worked with officers of the Queen’s Navy to ensure the veracity
of every beach, cove, and estuary, as well the appropriate distribution of each locality’s
maritime wildlife. Massive tractors and excavators, powered by liquefied petroleum gas,
flattened hills and shattered rocks. A network of polyvinyl chloride pipes stretched from
Lagun Bay and created a new coastline, submerging all the small towns in a line from
San Padro to Alamin, from Luisan to Silong. With an escalating portion of the kingdoms’
budget allocated to the immense project, materials arrived on the site via helicopters,
ten-wheelers, and barges. Work never stopped, except out of respect for Ramadan.

In the midst of all this, Simon de los Santos kept everyone and everything on schedule,
his furious concentration undermined only by rumors of the old queen’s failing health:
that she had suffered multiple strokes that had left the majority of her body paralyzed;
that her fatigued heart had been replaced with a mechanical marvel that permitted her
no dreams due to its incessant whirring; that her mind had fallen prey to the disease of
forgetfulness.

Over the course of years, he fought back the temptation to stop, to say that it was
enough, to rush to his queen’s side, to simply be there for her as she faded. But a
challenge was a challenge, and Simon de los Santos was never one to accept failure, no
matter how well-cloaked by extenuating circumstances. It was only when he was
satisfied, after a period of intense personal review and scrutiny, that he declared the
marvelous replica completed and sent a brief formal telegram to the queen’s Office of
Communications.
It took the queen, on an intricately-designed wheeled conveyance encased in a delicate
glass bubble, with Simon de los Santos mounted on a champion racehorse,
accompanied by her retinue and palace security in various vehicles, thirty days to tour
the province-sized scale model of her three kingdoms. Through it all, she kept her
opinions to herself, permitting her guide every bit of space his narrative required, as he
gestured to this mosque or that tree-lined hot spring. On his part, Simon de los Santos
left no detail unmentioned, drawing her attention to the transition from dry season into
wet with an elegant flourish of his hands, a signal for the aerial team of meteorologists
and hydraulic engineers suspended above in a balloon to make rain. But he also could
not help but look at the old woman behind the glass, her shrunken frame covered in
Bengut blankets, despite her bubble’s climate controls. As he wondered how well she
remembered him, he noted that it was her silence that affected him the most. Even as he
mouthed his practiced words, he could not help but sense the fleeting nature of her
attention. The old queen’s movements were so economical that Simon de los Santos
often thought she had stopped breathing, and was utterly relieved when the tour was
done.

She gestured to him from within the bubble.

He slowly knelt in front of her, ignoring the arthritic pains he had developed due to his
own advancing years.
Her lips moved, and he strained to listen but could hear no more than a soft whirring
from inside the bubble. He turned his face to one of the officers of the court for help.

“Her Majesty remembers you and commends you on your good work,” the official said.
Simon de los Santos permitted himself a sigh.

“But Her Majesty says that everything is still too small,” the official continued.
“Everything is too small to remember; that memory must be writ large; and that the
streets stand sadly empty. It is Her Majesty’s will that the scale be larger.”
Simon de los Santos stared unseeing at the ground, beset by sudden phantom aches.
“You are to start again.”

When the queen and her retinue were long gone, Simon de los Santos rode to the lone
radio station that once served to broadcast his regular instructions to everyone involved
in the project. He stared at the microphone for a moment, before taking out several
sheets of paper. Then he began to read from the papers in his trembling hands, quietly
thanking every project team leader. At a certain point he stopped, set down the
congratulatory list he held, and spoke into the microphone.

“My friends and colleagues, on behalf of the queen, I thank you for all your time and
effort. I personally thank you for your commitment to seeing the project through. You
are released from your duties as this part of the project is complete. Go back to your
true homes, with pride in your part in this tremendous achievement. Goodnight and
goodbye.”

During the next three years leading to Mon Jiera’s demise, these are the things Simon
de los Santos did not do: make new plans for a larger replica, entertain questions about
the mysterious next phase of the project, encash any of the monies allocated for the
continuance of the project, judge any beauty pageants, nor watch the races.
Instead, he did two things: he waited, and he kept himself abreast of all the minutiae of
the dying queen’s medical conditions.

When he was informed at four o’clock one morning by his sources that the queen’s final
day had at last arrived, Simon de los Santos dressed himself in his customary white linen
suit and made his way in the predawn darkness to the suites on the top floor of the
hospital, where the queen waited for death. Upon seeing the queen’s favorite, the
officers and ornaments of the court respectfully accorded him privacy, the guards
stationed at the door being the only other people in the room.

“My Queen,” Simon de los Santos softly said, brazenly taking her small leathery hand in
his.

Mon Jiera, barely recognizable, opened her still-bright eyes.

“My Queen,” he said. “Do you remember me?”

She nodded once, and with great effort.

“Do you remember what you asked me to do for you?”

No, she offered, looking at him uncertainly.

“You tasked me to create a replica, so people could remember things as they are.”
Her eyes widened with understand.
“The first one I built was too small, and the second was still not big enough to
encompass memory.”
Her brow furrowed slightly.

“For the third and final replica, I realized three things. Firstly, it was as much for you,
your memory, as it will be for those who come after all of us. Secondly, there is an
insurmountable problem of scale. And thirdly, I cannot build you what you asked for—
but I can give it to you.”
She looked at him.

“Will you let me show you, My Queen?”

She nodded.

With great tenderness, he carried her in his arms, the vanished strength of his youth
belied by the quiver in his hands, to the nearby armchair next to a window.

And, her hand in his, they waited.

When dawn came, its radiance spilled first over the distant mountains, turning shadows
into vibrant greens and browns. Then the roads sprang gently into the light, grey and
black and white, stretching and winding and intersecting in the city, as the first motorists
and bus drivers drove their vehicles of red and yellow and blue and silver. People began
to appear: joggers, newspaper vendors, delivery men, schoolchildren in their khakis, in
ones or twos at first, then as the sun rose, in clusters and crowds, as the city roared into
life.
When the sun was higher in the sky, when every tree and monument and lake and
building was enveloped in sunshine, Mon Jiera sighed her thanks, leaned her head
against her favorite, and took one last look at Simon’s replica.
 Someone knocked on the door this morning, and I opened it, still brushing my teeth, automatic as a robot. I
forgot to look through the peephole to see who it was. That’s what I do when there are too many kids singing
several off-key lines caroling two weeks before Christmas and banging on the door as though my house were
burning. Or when people on my doorstep badger me into buying the most amazingly useless household
contraptions, or wave IDs and certificates probably crafted along Recto, asking for money. I’m not proud of it,
but sometimes I plunge the room in darkness and wait by the door for the insistent knocking to stop, a fugitive
in my own apartment.

So today, a gray Tuesday, I was rendered mute with my mouth full of minty foam. A long-haired girl stood
there. Big-boned, generic black blouse, faded slim-fit jeans, open-toed sandals, the heels of her shoes an inch
high. She could have been my little sister. I watched her hands began tracing the air, her face coming alive, no
longer that of a stranger’s. She was speaking in gestures. A deaf-mute.

She tried handling me what seemed to be a white envelope. Empty, I suspected. I stepped back, still brushing
my teeth, the slightest whine escaping my lips. She caught me. Forgetting to look through the peephole, I
couldn’t act like nobody was home to give money.

It didn’t look like she was going away. She raised her eyebrows and nodded, waving the envelope at me. A
sound issued from her throat, almost as if to say. You know this is good for you. She seemed taller, almost
imperious. As though she were my mother bidding me to come closer because my hair was asked and my shirt
wasn’t properly tucked.

So I took her envelope and shut the door. Beneath the dining light’s glare I saw that it wasn’t an envelope but a
letter. I scanned it, my gaze carelessly wheeling down the page and catching words: handog, deaf-mute
foundation. Grumbling around my toothbrush, I went to my bathroom to fetch a crumpled ten-peso bill.

She was still waiting when I opened the door again. Looking away, her mind someplace else, I stood there for a
moment, waving the letter and my worn bill, feeling silly. I didn’t tap her on the shoulder. I was still a stranger. I
wondered what she was thinking.

That was when I saw a slight cloak of raindrops on her shoulders, giving the slightest shimmer to her black
blouse when she moved. I realized she didn’t even have an umbrella. She turned seeing me at last. Mutely, I
handed her the money, almost ashamed for not giving more.

Now that I think about it, she could have been a fake. Maybe she can talk and hear as well as I can. But it
doesn’t matter. Because at that moment before I shut my door, I realized we were the same. We said goodbye
in her language of gestures. With her open palms, she touched her chest, as though her fingers wished to find
something within her heart to share with me. I forgot that my toothbrush was dangling from my mouth as my
smile mirrored hers. From her heart, she offered something airy and unseen in her hands and I tumbled to do
the same.
Kelly hated driving home alone in the wee hours. Her paranoia worked overtime whenever she
was behind the wheel past midnight- pedestrians became robbers, men on motorbikes
became hired killers, and vans with tinted windows carried kidnap-for-ransom groups. Of
course there were also the more relevant concerns like junked-up bus drivers, drunken
teenagers and irate motorists with a gun in the glove compartment. These were the kind of
encounters where you almost always expect someone to end up dead.

The hazards of driving alone after dark doubles for a woman. Biologically, women are easier
prey for those with evil intentions. While Kelly was contemplating the myriad of evil intentions
she could fall victim to on a deserted road, she noticed a car with no headlights drive up
behind her. She was suspicious at first but, when the car passed her, she just figured it was
some idiot who didn’t realize his headlights were off. When she watched the car zoom past,
she got to think she was better off driving with one other car on the road… even if the driver
was an idiot. Kelly sped up to keep pace with the car. As she was driving alongside it, the car
with no headlights suddenly slowed down and trailed behind. Kelly decided to maintain her
speed at 90kph. Pretty soon, the car was out of her view. Kelly’s vehicle was the sole car on
the road again.

As she was cruising, a cat suddenly crossed the street. Kelly stopped on the brakes and
swerved to avoid the cat but she hit something else. Her car jolted toward. Shaken, Kelly
reoriented herself and assessed the situation. Behind her was the car with no headlights. A
man got out of the car. He went towards Kelly with furrowed brows and crooked lips. Kelly’s
heart was beating fast as the man approached her. He was mouthing off expletives and
flailing his arms. Kelly stayed inside her car but the man banged on her hood, ordering her to
come out. She needed to defend herself from this enraged man. She reached down her seat
slowly till the tips of her fingers felt the baseball bat she kept handy at her side. The man
banged on her hood again. Kelly opened her door, and as the man came towards her, swung
her bat hitting him in the stomach. The guy bent over and she hit him at the back of his legs.
He fell down on his knees, still cursing. She heaved once more and hit him on the head. He fell
to the ground, prostrate, unconscious, blood trickling from his ear. Kelly just stared. This was
one of the encounters where you almost always expect someone to end up dead.
Floods continue to wreak havoc in Thailand yesterday, with the capital Bangkok facing a serious threat of
inundation. For many Thais, it is the worst flooding they have seen in their lifetime. The flooding is threating to
devastate tourism in the capital, one of the biggest sources of revenue for Bangkok.

Thailand, however, was not the first in the region to experience record catastrophic floods. Two years ago,
stunned Filipinos watched as floodwaters spawned by typhoon “Ondoy” rose in a matter of hours throughout
Metro Manila and the Laguna de Bay floodplain, sweeping away not just the usual shanties straddling
waterways but even vehicles in the streets and houses made of sturdy materials. Elsewhere in Luzon, the
flooding was aggravated by the release of water from swollen dams, with evacuation turning into another
disaster because of poor coordination among concerned agencies. Recently, another freak flood hit western
Metro Manila as a storm surge combined with a high tide in Manila Bay brought the bay front under several
feet of water.

Most countries now realize that the planet will be seeing more unprecedented weather phenomena. The
question is how each country is preparing to cope with such natural calamities. In the Philippines, efforts have
been undertaken since Ondoy struck to improve disaster mitigation response and weather forecasting
capability, but the response to the storm surge and the recent cataclysmic flooding in Central Luzon shows that
much more must be done.

In Singapore where an expo on clean energy has just been held, an environment expert based in Thailand said
long-term water management measures could include building channels that divert water away from
residential and industrial enclaves to areas that can use the water, such as certain agricultural lands. The expert
said protocols for releasing water from dams can also be reviewed so that releases can be done in smaller
increments even if more frequently to reduce the risk of flooding.

The suggestions can be taken into consideration by the “water czar” appointed recently by President Aquino,
Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson. With freak weather being seen in many parts of the world, he must
come up soon with his proposals. Other countries are rushing to boost their
defense against natural disasters, and the Philippines must do the same.
No, that isn’t a typo in today’s title. I have a point. It has to do with (1) my back and, (2) the art of
“braking.” I suppose this type of blog post is what they call a “brain f**t” but I can’t bring myself to call
it that. So let’s just call it another “study” in the art of making things blissful. OK? Ok.

I pulled my back the other week, see. It all began when I had a meeting at a cafe nearby, and had
to bring Krista with me. I was alone, and waited for my husband to pick me up after my meeting was
through. And so I carried Krista around in my sling, maybe for a good 40 minutes. I didn’t notice it of
course until we got home and my shoulders ached. So I scheduled the home service masseuse to
come and work on me that night, to relax me a bit.

Well, turns out I will never ever hire that masseuse again, because while she was massaging me she
manipulated a nerve in my lower back, causing a small tearing of the muscles. I only felt it keenly,
however, when I reached down the next day to pick up Krista from her high chair during Sunday
brunch. Immediately, I felt this piercing pain course through me. It was awful, enough to keep me
hunched over. I hated it!
For the next few days (well, whole of last week, actually!), I was mostly hunched over and wincing in
pain. I couldn’t do anything around the house, and I felt so utterly useless. Thank God I had no
important matters to attend to outside the house, but even doing the daily chores was torture. Here’s
a glimpse into the mess in the kitchen, sigh!
What’s worse is that I couldn’t take care of both kids a hundred percent of the time, with my usual
faculties. I was instructed by my physical therapist to not lift anything, especially the baby (who now
weighs a hefty 18.7 pounds at 6 months old). You can imagine how hard this was for me and her,
being attached at the hip almost every day. (She is a high-need baby.) When it came to nursing, the
only way to safely do so was to lie down on my side and nurse the baby that way, but everytime I’d go
on my side, my back would twitch in pain. I seriously had no comfort, whether I sat down or lay down.
It was awful!
I received an email from my friend Maricel during the middle of the week, which gave me much
comfort. She related the same kind of back problems that she used to have, and her empathy made
me feel a lot better. Part of her email mentioned taking a rest, catching up on reading and just really
slowing down and waiting for the healing to happen naturally, in time.

I back-read on some of the blogs I’d written in the past, like those about slow living and being less-
hurried. Of course, the posts spoke keenly to be because it was like the injury pulled the brakes on my
life, forcing me to just stop and be injured. What a weird thing to say, but it’s true: It’s like who I was in
that moment was saying to just “be” in this state of helplessness and dependence on my loved ones
and caregivers.
So that’s why I say it’s been a “back-braking” week.

As of this paragraph, I’m much better. It’s been almost two weeks since the stupid strained muscle
and nerve-pinching, and I am doing well. There is still a bit of back strain whenever I forget to stand
up for a time, which explains the short spurts that I’ve been writing this blog post! I also have to go
back to doing my back stretches to avoid sciatica, stretches that I’ve been lax about, hence, the injury.
(OK, ok, so the masseuse isn’t to blame for my out-of-shape #mombod. I have no excuse for it!)

Being injured and unable to do my usual tasks is always humbling. It was like a force beckoning me
“halt!” and step on my brakes abruptly. It wasn’t just about schedules being screwed up and
conveniently ordering take out. It was really a wake up call for several things, like slowing down
(again, forever!) and getting back in shape (mea culpa!). I’ve actually been tapering down on work and
on-location meetings in the city (too stressful to go through the traffic in Manila), but I realize that
balance with the working athome also needs some “braking,” some thoughtful “stops” to our
current methods. With every change that happens for the kids — Vito needing more attention in his
homeschooling (despite how intentionally relaxed we are about it), Krista needing more attention now
that she is on solids and starting to crawl —, changes also need to happen for Ton and me and the
way we work and run the household.

Braking, when it’s in a moving vehicle, prevents, safeguards, protects. I’m seeing the parallel in
our home and family and work life, too. My forced brake because of the back injury was protecting
things like our family dynamics, the quality of rest that I needed. Now that I’m out of that hellish pain,
I can look back at things with some kind of gratitude.

OK, now that I’m recovered, it’s time to get down to the real deal of strengthening my core again,
working on my exercises again, and adjusting to the pace of life right now. I’ve had time to think and
take stock. Now it’s time to live my next stage of normal.
Has an injury or illness ever forced you to “brake,” too? What insights did you have? Let’s talk about it in
the comments, maybe?
*Excerpt from pp. 37-38, Dialogue between Teri and her gay best friend Moose

“I remember genuinely disliking him that night at Sukiyaki Babe then I’d see him
sa corridor and he’d always look so intense and shy, and before I knew it I was nervous
around him, I liked seeing him in the hallway, ewan! Maybe I’m ready to move on and
maybe something inside me is –“

“–subconsciously looking for a papa, and Gito is very papa-ble.”

Good old Moose, Teri thought. Always there to make sense of thing that left her
confused and bewildered.

*Excerpt from pp. 70-71. On Broken Hearts

What happens when someone breaks your heart?

When someone breaks your heart, first you are shocked. Someone will say you
are heartbroken and you examine the words break and heart and brokenhearted and
you immediately decide that it’s inaccurate. You feel pain in the region of your heart and
you think it’s your heart breaking but one’s heart doesn’t really break, something else
does –faith. You stop believing.

No, not in the big things which are most of the time irrelevant. You still believe in
God or Buddha or some Supreme Being, you still believe child prostitution is bad. You
just stop believing in the small things that you do, the small things that give meaning to
your daily life, and begin to think everything is pointless. Why get up? Why dress up?
Why breathe in and out? What for? What for?

<…> When someone breaks your heart, you turn into a small ball of self-pity. You
lie in bed, in a ball. You hug your knees, keeping them close to your chest, like a fetus.
Freud said it’s humans instinct to go back to the womb where we can feel safe.

But that’s what happens when someone breaks your heart –they steal the very
thing that makes you feel safe, while, intact.