To somebody I just met

31/12/08

As the title suggests, I know you might think writing you this letter may seem all too strange and out of place for you. As I may have presented myself so far as someone who seems to have less problems to deal with, and have better goals ahead of him. Maybe so, maybe not. I hope not to alienate you with this letter. Please.

Well to begin with, I don't know what. 

Or in French, je ne sais pas quoi.

This has been, I guess, the fundamental existentialist dictum.

I should be working, as I have been trying to the whole day. I leave tomorrow, after lunch of the 1st. Things should start better next year huh? 2009. Yeah, it's that illusion everyone needs to believe in order to keep their sanity. But I don't know what. I've climbed the mountain, basked in solitude, pampered family time, basic disconnection from the very chaos that I live and breathe in, Manila and all those responsibilities when I get back. I should be getting to work now, but I'm taking a break. I wish I could take a break from everything to be honest. This suit I wear for people to see: the artist's egotistical loneliness, the search for whatever, fame, pushing boundaries, being cool and wise, desirable and miserable at the same time, the pervasive perversion, etc, etc, and etc. 

Honestly I feel I want to go back home, but at the same time I don't feel ready for 2009 and all it's responsibilities just yet. But only to do what? Of course the only remaining thing that keeps me on. This thing I have invested my time and passion on. I can't quit now, no no, of course not. People need me, as you said once to me before. Maybe that is true. Maybe to some I have been a guru of some sort, to others maybe some role-model of god knows what... I think being optimistic, looking ahead of things, etc. I just enjoy helping people I guess in whatever way they want, they can take whatever from me. As I type this, I know I have been wasting time I could have spent on (wanna know?): writing the press release, sending all the info to the designers of the poster and the postcards for the event, calling up the musicians and organizing the January gig shit, answering this interview questionnaire for Business world (god knows why they would want to feature me there), emailing a lot of people from around the world before the year ends, writing articles/essays for this independent zine about urban culture and art, ordering a new camera, lens adapters and filters online, research Processing coding, finish uploading all the pictures and videos for this year, rewriting my installation proposal into 1 page (easily readable), then reading and writing my papers for this school shit, and a whole lot of preliminary preparations for projects, events, shit to do for the whole 2009 calendar. 

I don't know, sometimes I am overwhelmed too much with my life. 

Why tell you all this anyway? As if you would have any interest in the shit I would be saying since it's all about me (again), but hey I assume you're kinda bored there sometimes and you enjoy reading letters from other people, so I guess you won't complain with this huh? Please.

There has been one fundamental existential problem I have been bothered about for quite some time. Wanna know? 

It's "finding my lost youth". 

It took me some time to realize I have been missing it, me, moving around too much, playing too many games, getting myself too much into many things, dealing cards and placing bets. On January 1, I'll come home and spend the new year with this 50+ year old American big honcho establishment electronic music composer -- the guy I'm collaborating with. And he'd soon realize he was dealing cards with a _ _ year old all this time. But then again, everyone I met has never really believed I was _ _ to begin with. Plus I look old. Must be the stress and all this business of sleeping late. Or maybe thinking too much like an adult.

Why am I writing this? I don't know. Maybe I just need to share something with someone. I think most people do. There's no real particular reason behind this sharing of mine you know... I'm not writing this to get something from you or to lead you to something. No, no. I guess my intentions are simply, deadpan. Ding an sich. Unexciting end-in-itself thing. 

I've always hated emotions while growing up. I knew they would always get the upper hand of my being. People are emotional creatures. I guess, it took me years and years before I finally submitted to it. It's still a difficult at the same time wonderful thing. 

I guess, let's say I am feeling a bit down right now. I know right? Why? My life is way ahead of myself already. I only need to tighten my shoelaces and I'm on my way... as I've said before: as the movie plays, it's as good as it gets.

The new year is careening towards us, I am not really sure if I would want to proceed with certain things I established this year. Certain things I have invested on, little timely things that mattered most. How are you thinking about yourself in this scenario?

So there, I am not sure of my decisions in that course of action. Should things in 2008 be buried in that year? Start 2009 with nothing on your plate? Of course you shall attempt to give me your wise advice, which the bottom line of it would be "be happy" as I should be right? It's just that the year is ending and there are still so many things left undone. Books left unburned.

I find it hard and time is moving so fast. I, in constant battle against time. I don't know, maybe it's a mindset everyone seems to place upon themselves. That new year spells: "fresh start". Of course this is nothing but an act of terrible self-deception. But are all instances of self-deception wrong? Everybody knows that there are no fresh beginnings. No tabula rasa or all that shit. But I do want to believe so. For pragmatic purposes I guess.

I see you online now more often, I don't know what to say to you really. Preferring email exchanges (even if it's much much slower) than "instant" chat messages. The former being more memorable. And safer. 

So this letter, like all letters (or push it further and say: like all of life) are unfinished enterprises. Letters are transactions of some sort in a way. Like oral literature. Incomplete, unoriginal, ever-evolving river of data.

You once joked that I count them in years: 2007, 2008, etc. Maybe this also applies to everything, not just with certain people. Like expiration dates from selected rotting food. Like some sick joke that's constantly uncovering itself during every turning. 

Either way, I'll count them, onesies, twosies, threesies....

2009.

to the boy i loved

2/12/2007

Today you did again as you always do, throwing me off my composure. Was I not clear when I asked you to leave me be? It's too painful, I have to move on and moving on means erasing you from my life. I know the deepest of your core and my access to it is closest than anyone could ever be. My connection to your inner landscape extends far beyond what we both know. Careless abandon let me in, I only ask to forget. For no love nor affection can save us from our own selfish selves. 

Please know I am a forgotten past and let it be, my dearest. I will never be as carefree and hopeful like you. I envy your passion and how each day brings faith to you. Mine is only measured by the comfortable compromises I have swallow to be sane and safe. I should have never mistook your passionate kisses for love. I should have shut my ears each time you professed your love like a romantic fool. What is this evil manifesto but a comforting buffer from the cruelty of maturity and time. I have witnessed myself and everyone else around me fall into this trap only to end up in a reluctant resolve–mediocre happiness. Nothing is as gratifying as self-worth in the end all you want is to be recognized, heard and placed on the pedestal. I am gone and never existed at all. 

Goodbye please, I ask you to just let it be. Thrown away, tucked away, obscure and forgotten. That is what life has become. Find your love and your peace even in pretense.

An open letter to a lover I once knew

17/09/2007

We lost electricity for 25 minutes. It was a break from work and I lay down on the bed downstairs in complete darkness.

Listening to the torrid rain outside, I imagined how beautiful and lovely a thought of having you lie next to me, cuddling up your head on my shoulder (armpit, I know that's what you prefer). And for a strong 25 minutes I had imagined as if it were true. Lying there in complete darkness with you next to me in that very big bed, caught up with no electricity and no words needed to be uttered. The only sound was the torrid rain from the storm outside, echoing against our silence - that of between two lovers and enemies. I found great comfort in that thought and how I imagined caressing your skin with a slight touch, slow movements, and I'd imagine hearing you breathing slowly against my skin.

The wait is taking so long. I took a break from my work thinking of you, only of you and how great a person you are; and how much you've changed in me and will change. The descriptions are beyond words. Beyond adjectives, superlatives, expressions. Those 25 minutes if it were reality would be the best 25 minutes in my life.

No words needed to be exchanged between two lovers madly in love, lying in bed with no movement except heavy breathing and a silent caress. My comfort is always with you whenever I go to bed, I sleep with you -- imagining you lying next to me and it drives me mad thinking that it's only 11 more days before that becomes a reality.

Remember when I told you before that I loved the idea of being caught up in a storm? Two people isolated, stranded, having no choice but to spend the night out together until the storm breaks. I want to be stranded with you. Only with you. Through choice. No other person comes to mind when I think of that thought and I consider that moment of solitude, really sacred. And I would spend it with you and nobody else. 

Lying in bed, in complete darkness, wishing nothing more and nothing less, that silence shared between two lovers, in that intimate moment of congruency, where time does not seem to exist, responsibilities/desires/wishes do not exist, finding the most sacred comfort and peace with each other, while outside the ravaging storm, envious of our unity, strangely keep us stranded together.

to this scientist i know

13/10/2006

Did you get home safe? Last night, clicking beer bottles was the only time I have felt most comfortable and less self-conscious around your strong masculine aura. I think I have been somewhat intimidated by you, you were of course once my professor how could I forget that? Maybe I have outgrown the anxiety of that little girl, at a point now that I can admit to myself and you how much I have loved you all those years of being apart, of avoidance, of saving face, denial and helpless wanting to sleep by your side. It must be all that traveling and misadventures that have brought me to be like this now or I could have just gone tired of feeling bad and lonely right after having you? For once I want to be 'happy' with you and enjoy your affection and attention, because for all those years my fascination has not wavered despite my constant prayers to be rid of it. Because all throughout those eight years along with many failed relationships and dissatisfied loves all I could really ever think about was you. Looking up the sky, completing each other's sentences, exchanging breaths, deeply-drawn sighs, silences and passionate stares... tempting indeed. But we both know that our love defies domesticity, it can never settle in one place, it is unbounded by time and this is why with deepest pain I accept the impossibility of being with each other if only to keep on to the promise of the love that we share.

You say its been long since we've both been naked yet last night of all the other nights we were most naked...

See you again in two years my star-gazer.