Nevergirl’s

Dear Head,

Before anything else, I want you to know I appreciate you. I appreciate you better than weight loss pills, I think, because those aren’t always reliable — and I even suspect some contain nothing but chalk!

I appreciate you because no matter what the weather, you sit faithfully on top of these frail shoulders, keeping my gray matter in place, holding up my eyewear, growing hair… and all other important things heads are supposed to do.

I know I made things difficult for you, what with the concussions, broken noses, odd nasal ailments, bad haircuts and even worse dye jobs I’ve sustained. I ran you into car doors, cupboard corners, bedroom windows, tree branches, walls, and tables more times than any appendage is reasonably expected to endure. I tormented you 24/7 with sinuses so frayed they make my pambahay shirts look absolutely new! Those sinuses would be a torment to anyone – dripping when they should be dry, making odd clickety noises as the weather changes. I’m sure you remember those three times doctors stuck a camera up my sinuses, just to see why they’re trying to take over the archipelago.

Yes, I appreciate you — but I don’t appreciate my sinuses. They’re always whimpering and whining and post-nasaling and making me look like a female Cyrano Bergerac. Can you have a chat with my sinuses, please, and tell them to stop throwing such horrific tantrums? It’s not helping the two of us any.

Thank you.

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… who visits this page constantly, hoping that I have written something new.

I know we have rough patches here and there, in every possible size and shape imaginable, and it doesn’t help that you’re married to me — the last woman on earth who can be that little wife on the prairie. But, I want you to know that aside from constantly thinking about getting you new clothes, new shoes, a new haircut, and social security disability, I’m also constantly thinking that true love is crazier and harder than most things in life, except perhaps, for cracking open coconuts. And, I’m glad we have that.

The past three weeks must have been one of the craziest in couple-kind, what with the kids and the help getting sick, and Alex and I taking turns at the nebulizer. I bet you’ve lost count of the times we went to the doctor these past three weeks alone. We must have gone, what? A total of eight times?

BUT, you held on, and even found the strength to watch the complete first season of Desperate Housewives with me. I hope you don’t change, and I hope we don’t drive you mad. Being the only male in a house with 6 females must be maddening, especially because

• nanny no. 1 never runs out of conspiracy theories
• nanny no. 2 either doesn’t hear what you say or pretends not to hear it so she doesn’t have to do it
• sister no. 1 goes running to you for answers over every little thing (from what to wear to which brand of napkin works best)
• daughter no. 2 hates eating
• daughter no. 1 would rather not stop eating
• and your wife thinks the two of you should watch Oprah together, to improve your EQ as a couple.

But, just so you know, we all think you’re super, and that there’s nothing you can fix, and that the house will always be the safest place on earth with you in it. The journey ahead may be anything but graceful and quiet BUT I do know it will be interesting.

Crayola in the laundry, meals flying onto walls, stints with the nebulizers at 2am, bubblegum in pencil boxes, children who eat anything, children who eat anything but vegetables, burnt meals when you’re most hungry, little girls with uneven bangs, waking to laughter and a toddler who decides to make a bongo of your face—what say you to a couple years more of these?

Posted in Family, Letters | 7 Comments »

You know why I like looking at stars? It’s their odd mixture of constancy and inconstancy. I can see them no matter where I am – in a tiny bedroom in Bohol, from my boardinghouse window overlooking USC Main, from a spacious terrace only paces away from the Indonesian Consulate in Davao, and even now, from the narrow MIT balcony looming over a street that never seems to sleep. It doesn’t matter where I am. I see stars; and the gaseous masses that they are, they burn and glow so hard I can see them wherever I go, millions of light years away from where they are.

Stars don’t stay rooted to the spot. They move. Each time the earth turns around, we see a different star. There is one star, however, that stays rooted to the spot. They call it the north star, and for hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of years, people have used it to find their way home.

My grade school teachers did not teach me this idea of celestial movement, however. You did. You taught celestial navigation to Nautical students; and long before I fully understood the birth and death of stars, you already taught me how to estimate a ship’s position using the angles between objects in the sky. Do you remember that, pa? Do you remember how I used to help you check plotting sheets – my then eleven-year-old hand looking tiny and lost amidst those huge sheafs of papers? Latitude is measured either upon the sighting of noon or the north star. So is longitude. Now, this north star, they call it Polaris. In books and movies, men who take frightfully long journeys tell their beloved: I will always find my way home because you are my true north.

You know, I used to think that about you. You are my north star; and it doesn’t matter how years, people, things, and the topography of Bohol change. For as long as I have you to look for, I will never lose my way.

It’s a hell of a time to be thinking about physics, I know. I was never much good at the sciences. Then, too, you’re an ocean away, and we have never really talked – at least not of things that matter.

But think about this for a moment: these stars whose constancy I’ve always admired? They are so far away by the time their light reaches the earth, some of them are dead. They go nova, petering into a red giant until they eventually collapse into a black hole. In fact, some of the stars I’m gazing at right now may be dead and gone, and all I could be looking at are lights with nothing beyond them – fire without actual heat, beauty without substance.

So, I’m thinking:

What if the north star were like that? For years, people have trusted it to lead them home, to help them get their bearings; but what if, like many of the stars dotting the sky, it also died? What if it isn’t real anymore, and while we see light, there really isn’t anything there but a hole in the sky? How will we find our way home, then?

Again, it’s a hell of a time to mull over physics. But dearest papa, I am just like you. I am all things changeable, starry-eyed, impassioned, and impatient. I need an anchor to keep me moored. That is why I have always admired the stars. There is a certainty to their dance, a blueprint to their movement across space. Governments could topple, tuna could be served grilled or sizzling; but the stars would all still be up there – castor and pollux, the big dipper, andromeda, alpha and beta centauri.

You are that for me – a star. You are my north star; and even though it’s difficult to think of one place as home, wherever you are is where I shall head back to, no matter how far I wander or how long I stay away.

I know it’s faulty science to even consider this. But what if the north star were no different from all the other stars? What then, pa? What then?

Constancy and stars, physics and love, light years and melancholy – at 12:02 in the early morning, they all come together and converge where it hurts.

Above me, the sky remains immense and unbroken. The stars remain beautiful, unyielding, and certain.

Posted in Big Sad, Family, Heartstrings, Letters, Quietly beautiful things | Comments Off