On Time, Love and Valentine’s Day

(In which I thought of changing and celebrating.)

***

Time has never failed to amaze me. I have always known that it moves like a thief – silent, unknown and surprising. Yet every time there is an uncommon scent or feeling in the wind, I would realize that time has indeed ran past me again. When I was left in solitude and was unproductive, I thought it stopped, only to find out that it has moved faster, and when I knew it, I was still alone and futile. And I will be left wondering. And then I will want to chase it, as if I would be able to catch it, and make it stop.

But I know how useless it is, catching time. So I decided that I will walk with it, or run with it. And do my best so it won’t surprise me anymore. Living a moment at a time and living it well. Living and loving freedom and doing the things that make me and others happy. Perhaps it isn’t Time who’s my nemesis but myself; for time has always been consistent and I have always been ungrateful, slow and unproductive. And then I always blame time for being insufficient.

My sister once asked me about the time after turning off her phone and was impatiently looking at me as I started calculating.

“What?”

“Look, I have adjusted my phone clock twenty minutes ahead of the company clock. Wait.”

“For what? The adjustment, I mean.”

“To avoid being late.”

“Ate, you are so weird. Time has always been constant. You don’t make Time adjust to you. You should adjust yourself to Time.”

***

A while ago, a man asked me how I was. And I replied that I was fine. It seemed that my response has been so commonly safe that it just made him feel that I’m being unreal and asked again.

“How’s your love life?”

The question didn’t come as a shock since the season has given it an absolute right to be talked and asked about. My one-word response using the mathematical symbol for nothingness has yielded an even higher level of curiosity in him. And I knew the inevitable will be next.

“Really? Ever since he – “

He couldn’t finish the question since it was plain and clear to me what it is. The completion of it won’t injure me though. I want to believe I was over that.

“Well, yes. But I was just busy.”

Surprisingly, it ended just like any other conversation. I did not remember him nor feel shredded. I didn’t think of everything that endeared him to me. That’s a good sign. Perhaps I was really over. And that may mean I can take the mechanical pencil and the other useful stuff I was now glad he gave me out of the dusty box.

***

Two days before the restaurants and hotels get filled with couples with or without a bouquet of flowers whose price suddenly soared up perhaps a week ago in anticipation for the season, I found myself browsing the net for some travel tips to Manila. I was planning a trip with a special person who I have neglected for several Valentine’s Days already. I guess it was about time that I give her a short break from motherhood and show her some love.

And in case the trip to Manila doesn’t work, and I mean situations when some unusual reasons suddenly emerged from nowhere, there are always coffee shops and our favorite street food. We have planned in advance to give each other gifts since we aren’t expecting a male hand offering us one as suggested by my actual and her theoretical singleness. I take the chocolates, she takes the flowers. Sounds like a fair deal.

Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Kris Allen

(In which I can somehow find a precious piece.)

***

The first time I knew about this music was when Judah mentioned it when I asked him about his favorite English song. As I expected, he was rather surprised to find out that I didn’t know the song completely, as most students often mistake a teacher for an encyclopedia. He kept on convincing me that I knew it, sometimes singing the lines he knew well and sometimes humming, to which all I can give was an honest “It’s sounds really familiar but I don’t know where I’ve heard it or when.”

Yesterday, he handed me the other end of an earpiece connected to his iPod Touch.

“Listen, Teacher. This is the song I told you about.”

I listened to the introductory duet of the piano and the guitar and paused at the surge of the familiarity of the rhythm; I was almost convinced that I really knew the song and was only careless to forget it. The blending of the female and male voice was softening to the heart. The strong baritone of the singer as well as the wide instrumentation worked together in beautiful harmony. It was simple and clean. I felt my heart as well as the space around me grow wider with every dramatic crescendo. And when everything’s quiet and still and the voice was soft, it seems as though time stood still. I felt my head slowly swaying in common time, four beats in a measure.

“It’s beautiful,” Judah said with a satisfied grin.

“It is.”

Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

I found out that there was a recent version of this song and listened to it too. It was a beautiful rendition for me. Compared to the original, it only has a piano and a guitar, which makes the singer’s voice prominent all throughout. The subtle female voice blended well with his though not as compelling as the original. If the goal is to replace the original song’s classical air with a modern one without taking away its bittersweet rhythm and feel, this version is successful, as far as the humble opinion of this average listener which is totally devoid of the quality of the criticisms of a real critic, is concerned.

Falling Slowly by Kris Allen

I cannot choose one over the other though. They’re both artistically beautiful. I get the same feeling when I listen to them. It’s like being wrapped by a soothing air and all the tensions and barriers slowly slip away and all that was left was comfort.

I suddenly felt as if I was a musician again. How strange it is to feel that you could produce music by listening to it but that’s how I felt nonetheless. As I feel my body slowly swaying to the beat, I felt the good feeling I had when I was one of those people who make good music together and was known for it. I could feel it. Everything. From the exhausting catching up to complicated succession of notes in an overture and the loud and fast heartbeat as the drums were rolled to the sensitive and exclusive soli - and then the triumph of reaching the music end. Maybe it’s one of the reasons why this melody is familiar. It has the power to make me leap through time as if to remind that I have never lost the musician in me.

The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

(In which the lonesome and kind-hearted deserve refuge.)

***

I have been reading this book before Christmas and another season is already approaching yet I haven’t even finished half of it for lack of time. It is about the daughter of a drunkard and a romantically unfortunate (at least for now) Delphine Watzka and the German butcher Fidelis. When Delphine met Eva, Fidelis’ wife, she was overwhelmed with admiration for everything she does and she loved Eva as a dear friend. She stayed with her until she finally died and so her children went under the agonizing supervision of Tante, Fidelis’ sister – a pious Lutheran who despised Eva being a Catholic.
What made Delphine’s “married life” (for she has only made a self proclamation that they were married and even bought a ring to save her from utter shame) miserable began right after she discovered her husband Cyprian’s homosexuality one afternoon on a park bench. The proverb “The truth will set you free” seems appropriate as they came to understand each other more after the truth was out. Delphine realized that Cyprian loved her with a love for a sister. And now she has lost Eva and was somehow bound to take care of everything that she has left which includes her sons and Fidelis. And then she has her own life to fix.

I wonder how it is to be there to take care of people yet no one’s there to look after you. And I was in a state of sheer disbelief when she still took Cyprian in her arms and home right after he came from another man’s lap without any questions asked. And then there’s the doubt if she really loved him and until when she can put up with the nights they spent sexually together which happen very rarely and only out of obligation and not will. And how about the days when he travel? She is no dummy not to know what he does but she still hangs on to every moment she has with Cyprian as if they were true manifestations of the self-same love she has for him.

What I have in my mind right now as I continue to flip the pages was the hope that Delphine marry Fidelis someday and have a normal life. Besides, they were two lonely souls. Well, it’s too early to tell, I know.

Currently Reading:
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich