Achieving Happiness

I am very careful not to step on any snails or slugs in Lamma.

These days when the weather is schizophrenic and will not make up its mind whether to be fair or foul, the gastropods are out in full force. On a normal morning when I’m rushing to the pier (mad hair, barely awake features, shoelaces still undone), I am slowed down  considerably by the snails, slugs and other slimy, crawly creatures that use the path as their own superhighway.  I step gingerly around them, avoiding to mutilate and crush them. They make their slow but dignified journey from one end of the greenery to the other.

Hundreds of other snails aren’t so lucky. Their shattered and crushed remains litter the pavement; some smashed to a gooey pulp under the wheels of bicycles, or the baby strollers, and more under the heavy feet of hurrying people.

Is it really too much to ask that people be careful and watch out for these spineless critters? Gad. Often I find myself actually stopping, stooping and picking them up, carrying them off the path and depositing them on the damp grass safely out of the way of unmindful feet and relentlessly moving metal. 

"Do you guys have a collective death wish or something?!’ I hissed as I went to and fro picking up the snails by their  shells. Honestly, can’t you stay in the grassy areas where people can’t step on yiu? Why do you have to cross the freaking path and risk certain gooey pulpification and gross messification?!"

Little did I know that there was a man,Chinese, in a business suit, behind me. It was too late when I realized he was there and when I turned to him, he looked startled and hurried past.

–

Raul Gonzales, murderer!

May 28, 3:30 pm,KennedyTown, in the rain.

—-

I saw a dolphin this morning. It was at the pier.

At first I thought it was a mere trick of the the light, or an illusion caused by the turbulent movement of the waves.

Then, I saw a dorsal fin cut cleanly through the water, then the rubbery gray head, and finally, the bottle-nose. Dolphin! It was feeding on the small fish and krill that gathered under the dock and in turn fed on the algae that grew and covered the wooden posts.

—

It is absolutely possible to write cheerful and innocuous entries. All I have to do is to not write about PEOPLE. Aaaaargh!

The earthquake in Indonesia has claimed, at last count, 6,500 lives but the figure is still climbing. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and are in very real real danger of falling seriously ill from illnesses directly the result of being exposed to the elements, lack of food, water and adequate sleep.

My friend Eni Lestari chairs the Indonesian organization of domestic workers here in Hong Kong and she’s also the spokesperson of the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB). They’re busy trying to gather relief funds for the survivors of the earthquake.

According to her, the government’s relief operations is a hairbreadth away from being totally chaotic. The system is disorganized and bureaucratic. Aid is not arriving quickly enough to the people who need it most; and when it does arrive, the relief workers demand too many requirements from the survivors: proof that their house was destroyed; IDs, etc.

It’s understandable that the government of Indonesia wants to make sure that the aid gets to the right people, but too much caution on their part is denying these same people much-needed, urgent help.

—-

My husband is off attending the graduation rites of an elementary school in an urban poor community in Quezon City. His organization AGHAM has been helping the children in the said community, giving them lessons and such.

There are moments when I think of my husband and I’m simply overwhelmed at the knowledge that I’m so lucky to have him. He doesn’t have a halo, but he’s such a sincerely good person, period. Things are often black and white to him when it comes to being an activist and practicing what we learn as such.

Here’s the essay I wrote  about us that came out in the Inquirer last year (and it’s also the essay that’s in our wedding invitation):

Opposites attract

First posted 05:04am (Mla time) May 04, 2005
By Ina Alleco R. Silverio
Inquirer News Service
Editor’s Note: Published on page E3 of the May 4, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

I FIRST became aware of Kim through his posts in an e-group of media writers and liaison staff. The topics discussed were often heavy-politics, the economy and other issues affecting the country.

Kim, as far as I knew, was a physics teacher in UP Diliman and a member of Agham, an organization of patriotic scientists. He seldom posted anything personal. Mostly he’d forward essays on Einstein or reports on new discoveries in physics, or how the power industry in the country should be nationalized.

Sometimes, however, the members would veer a little off-course and post lighter entries. One time, I posted a story about the toys I had when I was growing up, and how I lost most of them when my dad gave them away to the kids in the squatter community near where we lived when I was in high school.

I came home one afternoon to find my bed empty. Little Anne was gone, Big Anne was gone, Mango the yellow mouse was gone, the rest of my dolls and stuffed toys had disappeared. I’ve had them since I was three, so imagine my devastation.

At the time I wrote the story, however, I said I had more or less gotten over the trauma of losing my first and oldest friends, and that all I wanted now was a stuffed toy chicken. "Matabang maputing manok na may matambok na pulang palong," was how I described it, if I remember correctly.

I really didn’t expect anyone to react to my post. But the next time I checked my e-mail, there was Kim’s response: "Nagtatahi si Mama ng stuffed toys…"

I suppose that’s where it all started. With an e-mail about a chicken. And the rest is, well, not history, but comedy. With a lot of love, activism, and teabags thrown in.

Reasons to marry

Three years ago, I wrote this in my journal after watching "Bridget Jones’s Diary" for the 11th time:

If I were to get married, it would be for the following reasons in no particular order, but am writing them as they occur to me just now: (1) I want someone to massage my feet every night; (2) I don’t know how to cook so it would be great to have someone cook for me on a regular basis; (3) Sometimes I fall asleep during movies and I need someone to tell me about the parts I missed; (4) I need someone to help me bathe my dog, Poofy; (5) It would be great to have someone who is almost always completely on my side, or at least who would love me even when I’m being a rotten brat; (6) I want a comfortable lap or sturdy shoulder to lay my head against while watching TV or looking for a falling star; (7) When I eat, I get full easily and often leave a portion of the plate uneaten, so I need someone to finish my food for me; (8) Waking up in the morning for work is often an ordeal, so I need someone who’s more compelling than three alarm clocks sounding off at the same time; (9) My mom doesn’t have a son, and it would be nice for her to have one; and (10) I’ve already met the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.

Differences

Yes, I’ve already met the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.

There are, of course, differences between us. He believes in simplicity, in starkness. He doesn’t need-much less want-material clutter in his life. He has 20 pieces of clothes, two pairs of shoes, a beat-up bag. Even his clothes are simple, ordinary, threadbare and faded.

He doesn’t require much to make him happy, as he finds happiness in ideas, in conversations with others about their views of the world, science and nature, history and art, politics and economics. He can trace the roots of socialism in history and the square roots of numerals with, say, 16 digits. He has the patience of a nanny and the maturity of a genuine diplomat.

Me? I like seeing my closet full (everything is ukay-ukay-bought, for sure, but clothes all the same). I like my books, my toys, my Magic 8-Ball, the fun but essentially useless and unimportant things that gather dust in my room. Things that only become important because I attach importance to them.

As for politics, it gives me a headache, makes me angry enough to want to smash windows. Discussions on the economy move me to despair and drive me to tears of anger and outrage against the exploiters and the thieves in government and the private sector.I am impatient, hotheaded and a brat.

We’re a lot different, but we’re also a lot alike. Inside, at least. Whenever we argue, it is never a competition as to who is right or wrong, but rather a process to arrive at an agreement or a compromise.

He is my best friend, and I am blown away by his humanity.

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