getting to know my voice

it hasn't been easy to keep up with writing this memoir because my office work has taken over.  my writing cycle has been inconsistent and i realize that if i just focus on office work and not find a way to balance everything out by continuing to get in touch with my writer's voice, i will lose it.  i am glad that i discovered another resonant voice today in katherine mansfield.  i hope i can discover her more and i hope i'll have enough time to discover more about writing and this journey to find my authentic voice.

speaking of voice, last night i spend almost the whole night in bed trying to drown out the demotivating thoughts of the office place.  verbal scrimmage with a manager has been disheartening.  i cannot engage with her in reason.  so i laid on my bed waiting for my muse to arrive but my mind was too locked up in this place it was hard to pry things open.  what is a good exercise in keeping the creative mind absorbent?  should i scratch some words on my journal everytime i hear about the news of her incessant complaints?  should i etch her name on a post it note and insert it in my prayer book hopefully to symbolize that i am lifting up alms for her troubled soul every minute of the day?

it's troublesome.  it's knock the wind of my chest.  and i need to learn how to counter this at all times because i know i will always face these things.  

anyway, so i was laying in bed and chatting with adrienne.  we had a lively chat about possibilities and visits.  i am almost determined to find my way to europe next year.  i am hungry for experience.  the writer in me feels too locked up.  

i listened to some music and tried to sing along to songs.  almost really making the journey of discovering my voice a real one.  i was literally trying to discover my voice.  on paper.  in sound.  and i sang some songs over and over and never really felt comfortable while i was at it.  i don't know my voice.  it's unfamiliar.  but someday i will.

in touch with the vulnerable

finding my way to the letters of ettie hillesum again.

sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet i have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet.  and the tree outside my window, in the evenings is a greater experience than all those people put together.  i sometimes think so many things happen in my life, so many interesting people, so many books, so much talk, it's a pity i can't write it all down for the years to come. 

life may be brimming over with experiences, but somewhere, deep inside, all of us carry a vast and fruitful loneliness wherever we go.  and sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inward in prayer for five short minutes.

it is one of those afternoons where i long to be surrounded by people who, like ettie, are not afraid to be in touch with this vulnerable part of their souls.

i think it is necessary for my writing that i do not lose touch of these feelings but ironically it is detrimental to my spiritual health.  the balance is prayer and pausing.  i cannot afford to be lost in nonsense.  i need to follow through this journey somehow.

dialogues again

ever since the birth of this journey i have been battling with a lot of things that take up my time.  most of it goes to being part of a youth ministry that takes my week nights and my saturdays.  yesterday, i bravely decided to give up hanging out with them because i'm not able to listen to what is going on inside as i continue to pursue this story.  admittedly i felt sad because it felt like some kind of self-alienation which unearthed a lot of old familiar feelings of abandonment, insecurity, rejection.  i tried to brush it away by focusing my mind on reading.  it was a great struggle to unearth words in the middle of these desolate feelings but i kept on trying.  i did not get anywhere really and my draft of the second chunk for chapter one lies unfinished as i kept wading and sorting out how to deal with these feelings that kept gnawing at me all the way till 10pm at night until i decided to lay down and pick up my holy beads to ask for the grace of light that dispels darkness.  working my way through the Hail Marys got me in a lulled rhythm of sleep.

i sit on my desk again this morning and attempt a conversation.  a dialogue.  and i heard her saying, 

love?  what love?  am i loved?  how do i know?  

how do i know if i'm loved when i'm left all by myself dealing with the ugliness of churning emotions that ache to seep out of my skin.  to break through  millimeter of pores and bleed sweat.  when all around me are happy, dancing, drunken conversations that last till 4am and nobody notices how many pencils i have cracked because i'm trying to get the ugly impulse thats eating me alive every ticking minute.  i feel pathetic having to need compassion.  it's a sick wound i wear.  and its desperate for healing.  

these words have  been familiar to me for the past decade or so of my life.  i've encountered them in every phase of relationship, in every waning of dreams, in every dying of passion.  and for most of it, i've clung hard like a leech because i don't want to deal with it by myself.  well, it's time to stop running and now i've accepted the fact that i need to deal with this myself.  

so here's to the memories and the people that need my forgiveness, i'm working on it.

unearthing a song: leading into prayer

now you're talking.  finally mustered this out of me after waiting 9 hours toiling away on my day job.  the words are coming slow on the memoir these past few days.  work has been preoccupying me.  but i suppose the creative side of my mind refuses to be outdone.

this song is called "leading into a prayer".  i don't know how i came up with it nor can i articulate the process of how this song came about.  i've been writing songs since i was 14.  and like poetry, i never know how it arises.  it's usually like this visitor who knocks on my door and asks if she can stay awhile and rest in my living room.  she tells me stories or asks me questions and i'm there to catch her croon.  i like the word croon when i talk about my singing.  my voice almost always slides out of my throat with an effort like a bow being pulled against a violin string.  it creaks at first and finds its way smoothly through.  i never bothered learning how to sing properly because i was too engrossed with learning the song instead of learning how to sing it.  

so this song comes out of me like an eager guest.  telling me like an observer about how she saw my day and reminding me that in the middle of it all, there's a leading into prayer.  the blessed exhale.

the dialogues begin

last night she was telling me

quit running after those who won't budge.  bother yourself with things that move.  it's time you skipped over these puddles that make you stumble at night.  you've always been one who caved in on her own anxieties. don't you think sometimes it's almost self-willed that you find yourself picking and scratching it like a scabbed wound never rejuvenating back into fresh skin?  

i've watched you fall like a victim and rise like a hero.  let go of those knitting needles you keep holding in the dark.

i watch her walk around my room while i restlessly lay in bed waiting for the distraught that blocked the flow from last night's pen and she holds up this mirror at me and talks to me like myself. 

i fix things.  that's what i do.  i mend them whole.  i fill them like a dentist fills up a tooth's cavity.  but there is something about always having to feel like something needs fixing.  it always feels like you have to run a bit faster than the length of your feet because you have to be two steps ahead everybody else.  and your hands without catcher's gloves reaches out to catch breaking glass everytime.  

sometimes i ask myself, what if i just let everything fall apart like a deck of cards in a game of "build a lean tower"?  if i'd run that by my mother she'd hold me in contempt and think i've gone mad.  but really, what if i just let everything fall apart?  

doesn't grace exist in places wherein i let go of control?  i don't always have to "seize peace by force" as ettie would say.  it is still not clear to me so i flipped through the pages of letters she left for me to read and found, 

there are moments in which it is suddenly brought home to me why creative artists take to drink, become dissipated, lose their way, etc.  the artist really needs a very strong character if he is not to go to pieces morally, not to lose his bearings.  after each creative act one has to be sustained by one's strength of character, by a moral sense, by i don't know what, lest one tumble, God knows how far.  and pushed by what dark impulse?  i sense it inside me; even in my most fruitful and most creative inner moments, there are raging demons and self-destructive forces.  still, i feel that i am learning to control myself, even in those moments.  that is when i suddenly have the urge to kneel down in some quiet corner, to rein myself in and make sure that my energies are not wildly dissipated. 

she's always had it figured out but how?  i let myself drown in the truth of her words and it got me to stop struggling against having to hold the reins of others.  there is something about learning how to hold my own reins first.  

she stops and faces me with this knowing look and i fell asleep.

distraught with 317

i was only able to write 317 words tonight.  i'm feeling a little bit disappointed.  but i suppose such are the rhythms of the writing craft.  and i need to get used to it.  

i realized that when i'm emotionally distraught i find it hard to tap into the creative flow.  tonight i'm emotionally distraught because of running after deadlines and people committed to work on them.  i'm distraught because commitments aren't followed through and work becomes so taxing having to run after people to do their job.  a job they committed to do.   yes, not everybody works like me.  but seriously, if you commit to a job, shouldn't you think about actually doing it and not slacking off?  why would you slack off for something you're paid to do?  

i'm venting.  it's been a while since i did that in public spaces such as this.  but i realized part of the reason why i experienced a long writer's block is not being able to admit my feelings freely without fearing judgment.  

someday soon i hope to learn how to navigate through these emotions and learn how to fuel them into creativity.  

the writer's life

many people in walks of life which do not involve creation are completely unaware of the necessity for discipline.  it is not only that few serious artists who live lives of debauchery produce a large body of work, but that few serious artists are able to live lives which are without interruption.  we do not shed all obligations when the children leave home.  i am working on this section of the manuscript while teaching an intensive four and a half hour credit course, and neither may be skimped.  many writers work in the evenings after a nine-to-five job.  and there are letters to be answered, the phone which constantly calls us.  i travel a lot in order to give lectures, teach at writers' conference.  to write consistently, i must seize opportunities.  i write in airports.  i write on planes.  i find airports and planes and hotel rooms excellent places in which to write, because while i am in them i am not responsible for anything except my work.  once i have my seat assignment i can write until the flight is called; when i am on the plane, the pilot is responsible for the flight; i am not; and so i can work on my manuscript.  in a hotel room i do not have to think about the vacuum cleaner; domestic chores are not my responsibility; i am free to write. 

- madeleine l'engle

i needed to devour something like this tonight because i'm in the middle of load of work that just never seems to stop.  as much as i hope to think that this process will be a peaceful one, i suppose it will never truly be creativity without it's tensions or the so called birth pangs.  so like l'engle i must commit to write something about writing this memoir every single day to keep my mind open for the voice of soleil.  

it's frustrating when it gets shut and i'm hoping that she will surface even in the middle of all these things. say something, i kept telling her today.  but she remains watchful for a time when i can pay attention to only her.  i think i need to tell her that if she waits for that time, i might never get around to it.  

pausing.  listening.  looking at the corner of my eye and watching the lamp blur the light infront of me.  feeling the impatience and the anxiety.  waiting.  while waiting more concerns pop up.  a project that i committed my mom to finish on thursday.  a meeting to be set on saturday morning to arrange for freelance design opportunities.  another meeting in the afternoon.  ton's of books by my side hungering to be read.  

fill my mind, it cries.  and then she comes out.  finally.  looking at me and staring at this messy plate of unkempt thought.  

so what should i write about tonight?