Jandrea...so far

On my way home from my 9th chemo session at the hospital, I remember that the sun shone brightly in the midst of grey clouds! It looked like it was going to rain, but did not! Just like the hiccups and wrinkles we experience every time a chemo session is scheduled, at the end of the day everything goes well!  I am on my way home and the gold of the sun manages to outshine the grays of the clouds!   

 Balak ko noon ay abutin Rurok ng langit Kalalim-laliman ng dagat Magkabilang dulo ng daigdig Ngunit ang laan pala sa akin  Yakapin  ang liwanag ng buwan Sisirin ang kaalaman ng mundo At tahakin ang landas patungo sa iyo! 

 They say that what you say or do reflects your inner world! Two days ago, I spent many minutes staring into a blank piece of paper trying to conjure an image from the depths of me that I could translate into art! It was after midnight, dark and quiet, and I was hoping to create something sinister because of the atmosphere! Instead, the first strokes of the paintbrush yielded regular, everyday flowers! How boring, I thought! With strong intent to veer away from ordinariness, the next floral images emerged from my imagination! In the blank space left after sleep crept into me, I would paint a tree the next morning. The task was completed yielding something both unexpected and expected! I started with the objective of culling something from the darkness of me and yet what came out was a work that was light and color-filled!  My realization: “Kahit pala may ikinukubli sa  dilim, mahirap palang pigilan ang pagdungaw ng liwanag!”

 

 

 I realized not too long ago that when you’re a retired senior and no longer answerable to people or an organization, you are free to open a gate which allows you to release your pent-up frustrations and you no longer mince words to express them! Colorful language, while shocking to others, especially if they’re coming from normally prim and proper you, is only an exercise in coming up with puns and hilarious and witty comebacks for those who make you suffer!  On the other hand, your creativity and imagination is also allowed to run free because you are no longer afraid of criticism and consequences! Even if people will probably not heap praises on a creative work, you do it anyway because it makes you happy! That’s all that should matter! Clumsy works can always be excused on account of your advanced age and inexperience with something new, you reason! So like the child that you were 6 decades ago, you go ahead and paint a mythical land where blue trees grow flowers of very hue and dr

  If a disgrace from the past is buried with fragrant flowers, will it be forgiven?  Will their overpowering scent erase the stench of a hundred transgressions?  Never to eat away at the fibers of your conscience.  Never anymore to remind you that you once gravely sinned.  And never to rouse the ghost of memories that haunts even your waking hours!  Oh, I beg on my knees that a thousand blooms would rain on me now!