ALMOST THIRTY, NEARLY BALD

John Paul L. Botin

06 March 2010

When I was a kid, people were so fascinated with the kind of memory I have.
Since having tests for certain acumen or gift is a rarity in the provinces,
(Binanuahan, Pilar, Sorsogon to be more specific) being considered special was
already enough. I will try not to be too narrative of what I have been through
for that would be totally unnecessary. What contributed much to this state is
an actual rush of blood.

It was one clear, Sunday morning that forever corrupted some of the files in my
memory and no amount of re-formatting will ever restore everything in place. I
was not fully aware of the impending danger on that fateful day otherwise I
could have averted the ensuing predicament altogether. A portion of a 2” x 2” x
12” lumber is hanging near the roof of that house where a usual Sunday
amazement is in town. Perhaps curiosity took it from there as I squeezed
myself past the grown-ups looking intently at how an elderly man adroitly
handled a constrictor for a snake just to earn a decent living. And in just about
twenty minutes, for the sake of proving gravity, the said piece of wood started
free-falling at a constant rate enough to cause an opening in my brain pricking
the bag of blood within and somehow making the presence of that rusted nail
manifest. Instantaneously, I was drenched in a spring of blood; enduring the
pain and crying in between. Someone must have rushed me to a clinic nearby
only to be attended by a doctor, just as I am, also in a state of panic.

And the good news -- I won’t be taking a bath for about two weeks but will still
attend classes considering pity and ridicule in the process. They shaved the
wounded area in my head without the permission of a barber. Who would have
wanted, at an early age, to be bandaged on the head of all body parts?

Then, on the third year after the incident came headaches of varying degrees
but regular in frequency. I almost feel like a psychic but no one would ever
believe when I tell them that I know what they are going to say next or what
happens in the next minute. Scientists and researchers must have attached
the name “déjà vu” to such a condition. The newfound gift would be eventually
ruled out as “tension headache” by a doctor from Makati Medical Center where
one of my sisters used to work. Still, the situation worsens to a point where I
have to fake the headache just to make the agony more real. This condition
would last until mid-college days.

When headaches visit as frequent as the rain, the mind starts to be pre-
occupied with other things. Frustrations about people and circumstance set in.
Rather than be defeated by these precepts, I started training myself to be
productive in areas where no one, in my limited knowledge of people in our
locale, tried to take the time seriously. And to somehow apply whatever
thoughts or words I have read in the scarcity of books at home, I began writing
non-sense poetry. During those times of inspiration, I always have with me a
pencil and a pad of paper. When inspiration strikes, at any given time or
circumstance, one needs to get hit.

By the time I was nearing 18 with headaches at the sidelines, the start of an
oasis of ideas came after a failed attempt of involving oneself to another person.
A lady rejected my courtship before it could even start. As a result of my
commitment to conceal whatever pain that I have, I made my mind busy about
things and matters of lesser or greater significance. It was then that I
discovered a mental system of the calendar which, after ten (10) years more,
was made into a tangible cylinder-type prototype yet to be applied for patent. A
Rubik’s cube for blindsolving is the other invention I am planning to apply for
ownership this summer. On the date of the antagonistic attacks in the
American soil, I have applied for Philippine patent for a drawing instrument
and successfully granted three (3) years after.

For most of the times that I tried risking, the likelihood of success is
significantly lesser than failure. I have written melodies and lyrics out of
sleepless nights and nightless sleep, invented things at the expense of
necessity and made concrete whatever is not in existence for as long as I
consider its relative value.

But the word most descriptive of this life since then is carpentry. With the gift
of numbers and equality everything follows the rule and that is to always start
from the center and distribute everything else evenly outwards. To each his
own, to do or undo, to make or unmake; this is carpentry in its most pure
element. Things break for a reason and people fix it for a definite purpose. And
some other things are simply to be left broken to remind us of our human
limitations or most probably the inconvenience attached to it which just shows
how our lives evolved to date.

However, even the brightest ideas meet great resistance. The most likely reason
is the evident inability of people to disturb and disrupt what has been and is
perpetually practiced. We cannot simply rock the boat in an open ocean
without causing concentric and eccentric ripples. When this rippling effect
gathers enough momentum, it increases speed, sometimes shifts direction
before it suddenly dissipates. Still, when we firmly believe that justice is at
stake, we take a stand regardless of being outnumbered or isolated.

And in the process of unfolding of all these things, there is one thing I observe.
The hair I have grown in my scalp out of the scars of my past is now trying to
recede as if out of fear for the days ahead. As I count another decade but not
necessarily of decadence, I came to a point of realization. Denial is just costlier
than acceptance. It is much easier, consider it economical as well, to shed
more hair than grow it back. You may even call it bitterness or just a plain
genetic anomaly. Nature has its own manner of simplifying forces or
occurrences. Almost always, it is not entirely about the losses incurred or the
failures yet to be endured that is definitive of what life has become. Rather, it is
the continuing struggle with reality.