Today

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Today, I walk like a building -- tall, strong, firm.

Today, I talk like a cloud -- soft, mumbling, diffused.

Today, I think like a dragon -- mythic, mysterious, imaginary.

Bayou Babe - 4th of July 2009

Sitting on the Shreveport side of the Red River waiting for the fireworks to start.

Looks like boat races out on the river tonight, thinking of the Bayou babe I met last night.

Rochelle the Caramel Shake.

She hails from Metarie, Lousiana.

I drank in her charms as she danced in my arms before her faery gifts faded away.

Why does a beautiful woman enrapture us so much, daring us to throw caution to the wind and chase that sweet summer gardenia?

What is it about a beautiful woman with that slow southern drawl that hypnotizes?

My roving eye had made its circuit around the room when it snagged across her perfect gluteus maximus. Then she turned, I saw her face, her half-Honduran trace.

Her exotic almond eyes and her perfect caramel skin was a combination I couldn't resist. So I swallowed the lump in my throat and sidled up.

“I have to say, your skin is just the loveliest color, like a caramel shake.”

She was surprised but delighted and replied "Mmm and a caramel shake tastes so good." before she glided away to begin the dance.

The dance was glorious, the repartee quick and loaded. There was a reason she and her friend decided to drive up to Shreveport yesterday.

The reason was my wish upon a star for a bayou babe.

And for a few glorious moments the flirting was divine. Her confidence was a powerful aphrodisiac.

She caught my every throw of innuendo and pitched them back in perfect time. We caught the attention of the room with her head toss and laugh.

I was dashing in my cowboy hat.

When she took it and placed it on her head and smiled? I damn near had a heart attack.

I know I'll never see her again, that is the glory and pain of a casual encounter. But it leaves its own memory refrain.

Good bye Bayou Babe, Caramel Shake. It was wonderful to have you pass my way. Good night, good bye sweet Rochelle.

Midnight Moment

Sometimes I get these gut reactions to which I respond with a knee jerk. You hear people tell you all the time, “…you gotta trust that gut…” “…follow your gut…” etc.

I have excellent instincts that always get overridden by my head.

When I have followed my instincts and stuck with my initial reaction, followed through and believed with all my heart and can talk my mind into going along, I get exactly what I need.

Instead, as the years have passed, I’ve looked back and seen the dead dreams sprinkled in my footsteps, I have stopped running, daring, stopped dreaming. I’ve learnt by sad experience to be cautious, suspicious, insular and isolated.

I’ve second guessed myself so many times. That something as inconsequential as mistaking someone’s identity, can shake me by casting such a spotlight on my decision making, makes me doubt that my life will be anything more than it is; alone.

I cast my smile to the world, I am the comic relief, I bear the brunt of snide remarks, patronizing tolerance and call them friends.

But the heart is a fragile thing, it shatters so easily. It can heal; time always heals, as long as you let it. It’s the careful caresses to the heart that will smooth the sharp cracks that each heart break etches into it. But you must care for the heart and ease its burden.

The first step is forgiveness; forgive the heart for its careless whimsy, its incautious leaps into dark and deep waters, its constant attraction to risk.

I’m tired of hiding in the dark, hording my love, scared of the hurt.

For no one will read this and no one will care.

Lunch

I am one of those eccentric people who likes to keep their food separate. I don't let the gravy touch my corn. If my pasta touches my salad dressing, I'm done. I've eaten in buffet's, it's kind of my middle name. But I always run back and forth with separate plates. Can't have the entree touch my bread. Salad must be separately segregated in its own service.

Having said that, I do enjoy Chipotle. Yes, absolutely, I know it is not truly Mexican food. It is some strange corporate concoction that was marketed well and simply enforces the belief that marketing is actually satan worshipping.

As I say this, I gleefully shovel fork fulls of a barbacoa bowl in my mouth. Usually, Chipotle is a lunch ritual during the work week. We stand in a long line that moves in hyper speed as the "professionals" slop the ingredients of my heart attack plate into my bowl. Rice, no beans, barbacoa beef(spicy), extra pico de gallo, cheese and sour cream. Then I grab my own bottle of green Tabasco sauce to further drown my usual concoction.I am not satisfied if I don't have my green Tabasco, it's all about the condiments. Then we scarf it down quickly to make it back to the office within our allowed hour lunch period.

Yet, the required separation, for one moment, is suspended. I don't mix my food up, it is eaten exactly as it was served. Sometimes it resembles a pie, as I have preserved the integrity of the layers.

So on this glorious sunny Saturday, I enjoy eating my bowl. Today I deviated from my usual by adding corn. I'm so adventurous.

Blogging as I am, while eating, is actually conducive to my healthy digestion,I'm forced to breathe between mouthfuls. It isn't my normal shovel while inhaling method. I have the afternoon free and intend to enjoy myself.

Chips and salsa anyone? Chips and guacamole?

Lakawon Island

A few years ago, I had the chance to spend some time in the Philippines. When I say time, I mean time measured in weeks that turned into months. It was a moment that defied explanation. It was the year that I drifted from one lonely dream to another and took a chance to stop and look back. I wanted to go home and be a child, without responsibilities, deadlines or a salary for that matter. It was unimaginable that a sales job can give you such a great bonus. Maybe because sales job gives such a horrid hit to your ego when you are rejected over and over again, they compensate you with a comfortable salary, expansive expense account and a large bonus. But I would not put a price on my pride; it has never been for sale. Since I have so little of it, I horde it.

I had an outside sales job. I walked into a place and was told “Get out. Don’t take it personally, but your company sucks. Please leave.”

I still remember it, I smile at the guy, hands in the air, backing away as you would back away from a rabid dog. I leave quietly, much like the way I came it. I went to my car, imagined myself an Academy Award winner trying to muster a smile and confidence to get me to my next stop. It lasts for all of 10seconds before the lie implodes. I am not an Academy winner, I don’t have that confidence nor that ego. I whimper, drive home and type out my resignation letter. Then I left, hoping to recharge my batteries, find some clarity and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I recharged my batteries, clarity was “I need money”. I have yet to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I’m still hoping I grow up, but as each day passes, my doubt grows on that accomplishment. I may be a 12yr old for the rest of my life.

But I had the chance to spend a day in paradise and this is what it was like.

Lakawon Island is an hour drive north from Bacolod City, Philippines. You exit the main highway in the apex of a sharp right turn, make sure you take that sharp left or you’ve missed it. The incongruity of the country is demonstrated at that moment you make your left turn looking for on coming traffic blindly speeding round the right turn curve. You finish the turn with a quick exhalation of relief.

The road is paved simply with cement so the path is smooth. Solid white cement scoring the countryside of green tall stalks of sugar canes and soft nebulous squares of muddy rice fields. You feel like an invader, your 20^th century diesel engine pouring smoke through the 18^th century field.

You pass farmers bent over in the hot sun, placing the young rice shoots deftly into ankle high muddy water. Their faces obscured by the large grass native hats. They gamble a quick glimpse as you fly by them in your loud machine. Then finding you inconsequential to their task, they return to the seedlings in their hands.

You wonder if you could ever be that strong, to labor from sunup to sundown, feeding people worlds away. People who will never know the pride you take in a fresh harvest or a straight row, the ache in your body when the sun drops low. Then you realize the fence upon which you lean. Gazing longingly at the simplicity of their green grass, they peek back and see the greener grass upon your side of the fence. The grass you don’t notice everyday.

You drive down this narrow two-lane road at a brisk pace, you yearn for the little town that waits at the edge of the water. Then amidst the sharp turns and stomach churning dips, you break hard. You’re slammed forward and the road ends abruptly. You maneuver over the sharp sudden drop from cement to dirt road. You can only drive in first gear, the engine groaning in the pits and dips over the random, resolute rock that refuses to move.

Suddenly behind another sharp turn, the road is transformed by a grove of coconut trees that line the road on both sides like tapestry. You can’t see past the trunks, the leaves sing gently in the breeze, you are hypnotized.

Then you are rudely pulled from your reverie to the paradoxical sight of a single strip of white cement and you push your vehicle over that rut and cautiously move. The disappearance and reappearance of a recognizable road goes on for another mile, which seems to stretch into ten for all the caution and care.

You notice small grass thatched shacks amidst the fields, leaning against a small grove of trees. Sometimes it’s a few coconut trees, sometimes it’s banana trees, but often it’s shady. They stand against the sparseness of a rice field.

You know you’re closing in on the place they call Barangay Lakawon-neighborhood Lakawon, loosely translated. It sits on the edge of the water. It is there for 50 pisos you park your car, pay 600 pisos for an oversized outrigger motor boat that will take you across the water to the little slip of hazy blue that stretches on the horizon called Lakawon Island, walk around island.

The boat is bracketed by bamboo pontoons that keep the boat from capsizing but does nothing to minimalize the swells of the surf. You pick your way across the shell-strewn black sand and gingerly step aboard via a small two-by-four wooden. ramp. You reach for the boat to steady your stance and find a friendly but firm hand to guide you aboard.

Then you settle in, it’s narrow and an inch of water marks its territory at the bottom of the boat. It’s a waste of effort to bail for a few ounces that will return with each spray of a stubborn wave.

The boat rocks as it breaks against the swells of the rising tide. The motor shouts across the bay, the water flies by, a murky dark green. You watch as that strip of blue grows into a ribbon of white trim against a row of green, painted against the big bright blue sky.

Interloper puffs of clouds linger like tourists visiting for the day. Your boat chugs along, the crew languid against the closed mast. Should the motor fail, patched sails can continue your ride.

As you cross the 5 miles of open sea, Lakawon Island grows in your vision, until you see the trim of white transformed into a sandy beach. Then the green rows are more coconut trees and you begin to see the small grass shacks that dot the beach in neat rows.

It’s been 15 minutes since you boarded when the motor burps into silence. You rock in the swells of the passing waves. The crew jumps into the crystal blue waters and drag the boat to shore. The wooden ramp is pulled for your convenience, but the white sand glitters beneath the clear water, winking an invitation to jump. So you jump, gleefully into the surf of Lakawon Island.

It’s a city block long and half a block wide. It is simple, no loud lounge band, no 5 ft tall speakers with dance party fever music. No bevy of babes in two-piece bikinis, no muscle bound studs with tattoos, just you and a quiet beach on a midweek day.

There is the white sand, the grass hut without walls and a picnic table in the shade. You have your pick of a shed house as the natives call them. You pick the house with the rope hammock hanging limply between two of the four bamboo poles that hold the hand-thatched roof up.

The sand is even marked with bright buoys and ropes to demarcate your stretch of rented beach.

You walk to the “comfort room” that contains a shower and porcelain bowl. It’s a manual flush. There’s a large 50 gallon bucket beneath a water spigot and a large 1qt plastic cup that you will use to ladle the water into the porcelain basin to flush your detritus. There is a shower curtain to hide behind as you change into your swimsuit.

This is the price you pay to be on this island, on this day, with no one else but you, with the only strangers being the staff who stand away in the shade patiently waiting for a sign from you to attend your needs.

You swim first, to cleanse away the tension of the ride. You wear a mask and snorkel because you don’t want to miss the translucent fish that dart around your ankles. You won’t see the common brown jellyfish that inhabit the waters of the mainland. Lakawon’s jellyfishes are translucent bubbles trimmed with faint purple markings.

Lakawon’s beach is protected from the larger swells for it faces the mainland and the island curves like a kidney bean. Its shape affords its beach calm water like a giant saltwater pool.

You snorkel with your face in the water, watching the fish scamper about the sea grass, watch a crab crawl, pick up a starfish and watch it curl protectively inward and run the risk of enchantment. Turning onto your back, the salt water catches you and you float. You become jetsam, a small piece of a larger, grander universe and the heavy load of duty is forgotten. Replaced with a peace and wonder so profound, you’re glad for the scarcity of others for you treasure the moment for yourself.

Before you fall gently asleep and float away, you take yourself back to the shed house for refreshments, dry yourself off and lie on the hammock.

There in the shade, you watch the sun bleach the sand and blaze away to noon. That beautiful white, hot glare of a tropical day with the surf as your music and your laughter its song. You rock yourself into a nap in the middle of the day with the salty breeze tickling your sand encrusted hair and breathe deep. For that moment hanging in time, just as you drift away to sleep, you know paradise.