Vestigial Notes

“What is it?” Jane said after a while.

“Nothing really. Just a little problem ‘bout the family.”

“Family. And what am I to you?”

Jake flinched. “I have to go.”

Jane dropped her jewelries on her bedside table. “I don’t want you to go.” She shouted, disagreeing angrily. “You said you’ll be with me tonight.”

“But I am always with you. And they need me this time.” Jake sat beside her. Seeing her mad, he took her hand and said gently. “I promise I’ll be back after I settled everything with them.”

She tossed his hand away, stood up, and stared blankly in front of the window. “You never love me.”

Despite himself, it hurt him.

Jessie shook his head and went to the door. “I wish you could understand me, Jane.” He whispered. “I love you.”

Image from: http://andrahilde.deviantart.com/

It is sunset.

The clouds are going red and purple,

Encircling the sun,

Nesting the birds.

In the glimmer, he sees her,

Smiling at the the beautiful scenery,

With feet gently caressed by the little waves on the shore.

She bit her cherry colored lips.

He moves towards her silently from the water.

Like the moon, he let his face and body shine.

Her green ocean eyes notice him, and she laughs,

As she throws her arms wide open, and reveals her smooth skin and frailty.

Soon he runs like the wind that’s stroking her silky black hair.

The waves become in rage just like their emotions.

He grabs her, and they embrace, wet.

He feels her warmth despite the coldness.

She kisses him tenderly, with closed eyes.

He feels her breasts. And run his gentle hands all over her body.

She is naked. He is naked.

The sun reaches the horizon, and the moon glitters.

And that is how they make love.

Image from: http://apricotmuffins.deviantart.com

Last night in my dreaming, I visited the former crab nebulae in the far side of the universe, because I can see its dust still flowing and filling the sky with inumerable fireflies. In the past, I wanted to belong to that family of stars. I remember how those orange colored worlds revolve on a giant blue star. And I remember the faces of the angels who used to live there, and their voices that still travel the cosmos.

When the blue star exploded into a giant supernova revealing thousand specs of light a long time ago, and when they all turned to dust, I wonder what happened to my friends. I wonder what happened to their echo, and to their life. That is why inspite of the uncertainty and the long hour of journeying, I let my soul fly and answer its questions.

When I arrived, as I expected, there was no one to greet me but darkness. There is no sign that a beautifully crafted crab made out of golden blue lights had once lived there. Nothing, but a single patch of dim light in the corner of its previous eye. I swiftly swish a song, and as it glowed brighter and responded to the sound, I embraced the light in the heart of my spirit.

“What are you still doing here, my friend?” I asked softly.

As I comfort it in my arms, the light exploded and blinded my sight for a moment. It was transforming into its spirited form as well. It was tinier than what I thought it would be as a little crab in my hand began to materialize.

“This is Kahliel, brother.” It spoked.

As I heard his word a certain emotion bursted out of me and I got excited and cried.

“What lovely chances do I have, to see you again?” What divine love can set me traveling again towards this side of the universe!?” I exclaimed in overwhelming emotions.

“We can never understand such thing, but we can always hope that the Heart of it all has His reasons.” Kahliel answered.

I smile at the thought.

“You never changed.” I assured him.

But he argued, “Brother, I have changed.”

I might not understand fully the reason why he’s said that so I didn’t ask why. I wished that he told me his own story.

He said, “I should have travel with our breathren’s dust and flow back to the Father.” I can a spot a tear forming in his minuscule eyes. “But I didn’t. I should have moved on, and let go of the broken nebulae and start again. I should have, but all I have now are regrets because I cannot accept the truth. I have lurked away that I let my self be consumed by the darkness, because I can never give up on a love for something that was gone a very long time ago. Fallen, if I truly deserved the word.”

In the coming moments, I accepted his notions as if I can do nothing about him. I let go of my hand from his hands and I let him transformed into the once dim light that is nearly failing. I hug him and said goodbye.

My words of goodbye are series of lament. “In this universe we are very different because we know that all are interconnected. And because we can clearly see and understand the dust that flows. When the galaxy of Milky Way was formed in the early years of creation, I asked the Heart of it all why there is a room for another entity. I asked, despite the fact that I shouldn’t, if angels are not enough.” I cried back then. “But the Heart of it all didn’t answer. He just told me that the answer is hidden somewhere in my heart and I just have to dig deeper until I find what I’ve been looking for, because every creation is perfect and had all answers hidden in its heart. For a moment I became like you and darkness suggested that maybe, the Heart of it all created the Earth because He’s also crying for someone that was gone a very long time ago. So I decided to live on Earth. And I proved myself that I was wrong. It is not the regrets and the failure that stops one from letting go. You stay because you have hopes. You still believe because you still have faith. Because you still love.”

“…And because of that you haven’t really fallen.”

When dawn breaks, I wake up with tears in my eyes. Thinking about it, I wish that the dim patch of light has seen things differently, because on that way, I believe that God would let the crab nebulae live again, by the power of such unconditional love.

Last night I dreamt about us,

being together, and flying in the sky…

weaving the colors of the stars,

and stitching the once broken smiles.

Look in your eyes,

in the deepness of them,

I knit my heart passionately,

in cavalierly, yet slow moving ties.

Then I wish that we would be together forever.

Look at your hands,

In the smoothness,

And trailing of the lines that flow in them,

I entwine mine, and hold them without an end.

Then I wish that we would take a step forward.

Look through your heart,

In its frailty and melancholy,

I run my fingers; embrace it in my arms,

Promising to keep you safe, and to keep you warm.

Then I wish that we would kiss tenderly, cuddle ourselves, gently and tight.

Now look through my eyes,

Through my heart, and through my soul.

Behind the darkness,

Between the shadows that carress our bodies and the night.

Do you know that I love you?

I wish that we would make love tonight, and so you’ll do.

If this is going to be a part of my whole life story, I wanted this biography to start at the end –where I wanted to go and what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to be a man of knowledge like the great philosophers. Perhaps like the elemental avatars one can mostly find in storybooks, I wanted myself to bend not the four elements but the truth. I wanted to be strong and I wanted to fully understand my emotions. But before anything else, let us not forget my name. My name is Christian Felix Robles. Though names are the ones usually remembered, kindly remember the man and not the name. Because it is the man, and not the name, that did the great of things.

On October 22, 1989 the wisdom of creation opened itself to me.
In my mind I was dancing and excited on what the world look like. I wanted to see the colors people kept talking about, but all I can see is darkness. I spotted a dim light blurring my eyes but that was all I can deduce. I realised that creation takes time, and that you can’t be completed by just having the world. I sensed that I lack something. And I sensed that sooner it would reveal itself to me. I feel there’s someone that’s enveloping me but still I can’t remember. It was a stronger force than that of my mother. And I wander the darkness to find the sky. But there was none. Life inside mom is comforting; life outside her was blunt and stranger.

On December the very same year the wisdom of salvation opened itself to me.
I was baptised and I felt the stronger force inside me. I understand at the back of my mind and my heart that God exist and I am loved. I understand that the fire in my father’s candle was my light and my guide. I felt my parents love and God’s love. And I proclaim in my cry that Jesus is the Lord, and the source of my life.

On October 22, 1992 the wisdom of love opened itself to me.
I saw it in the shining small and starlit serene dark eyes of my mom, and in the warm gentle fingers of my father together with their unbreakening smiles. They showed me that dinosaurs are bed friends and moons aren’t only the sattelites but also their eyes, as they watch over me in my peaceful sleep.

On October 22, 1995, the wisdom of selflessness opened itself to me.
I learned that things break if you let them be played by your friends. I learned that not all moments are euphoric like the spinning carousel at the park. Onetime in our lives, we would have to cry over the shattered honour and beaten colors.

On October 22, 1996, the wisdom of trust opened itself to me.
I became a river flowing in rage of my own life. I became ephemeral, disoriented and zigzag. I wanted to explore all the mountains in the universe and I forgot to dream about my purpose. I was lured into nothingness. And that the only way to go back, is to trust God and His will.

On October 22, 2002, the wisdom of independence opened itself to me.
In the chaos that lay behind the bars of the towering flags and pillars, I saw the gates of a cruel life in the arms of being alone in highschool. I remember the crayons I keep to color my life. I remember the times I used to color the book myself and I cry because I missed doing it. Somehow, when all thoughts lead to loneliness you have no choice but to fall in love.

On October 22, 2005, the wisdom of humility opened itself to me.
Life is not something that we should play like our old toys, and love is not a simple thing. I have to be more careful juggling the balls of truth in my hand and I have to be more truthful about myself. Crying becomes natural, and being a man doesn’t seem to be any special, than being different and aloof. To break the stones is to break yourself.

On October 22, 2008, the wisdom of courage opened itself to me.
Courage is essential to those who want to succeed, mature and break the stones that guard the oceans. I need to let go of a broken love and be free. The emotions we keep are emotions that could make somone care for us. But sometimes, those are also the same emotions that would make love go away. There would be no mercy for true love: only pain and grief, if we never learn to move on.

On October 22, 2009, the wisdom of happiness opened itself to me.
Booze and cigarettes brought me opium at its best. The little practice went a long way and I was led into the darkest place in the universe. It was fun to be there, knowing that if the way towards there is easy, so was the way to go back. But I was wrong. Life is one of the mysteries this universe has. And being happy is more than the orgasm that one feels when having sex. Like light itself, it has no boundaries and can’t be confined in extraordinary moments. It is scattered, flowing with millions of particles making it up. Its real meaning lies beyond the numbers of stars and sands in the ocean combined. Being truly happy is not as easy as I’ve thought it is.

On October 22, 2010, it was different.
Because all those wisdoms pressed themselves upon me and smashed themselves together.
I became suddenly anxious of the future and feared its coming. I fear death like the unholiest men. Somehow, I felt that all the wisdom I tried to keep for myself escaped my soul and ran away. And when they all turn to dust and left me broken, there is nothing left in my life. I thought I cannot anymore move on and take a step forward. I thought that my life is over and it is time for me to enter either the door of madness, or the door of death. Indeed, I was terrified. But like light itself, like the only shining star in the deepness and blackness of the cloudful night, God found me. And it is only a matter of time, that I believed and realized, that even if a man wandered so much and got lost in the vast and cruel universe, even if there’s no hope anymore, the Man on the Cross would still unconditionally love him, and would still die for him.

“Thus, in the coated night-drifting melody of the sunset, I openned my eyes and saw the waves of the ocean rant against the ancient stones. I told myself I wanted to be strong as those mechanical juices of the earth that holds the truth about the universes. I told myself that like those streams of water that flow endlessly, unexhausted and steaming gently in the heat of the sun and enduring the coldness of the beckoning twilight, I would let my emotions flow and touch the hardest hearts. I would break free the undeserving spirits of this cruel world, and I would discover the wisdom not all men had come to know.” –Robles, CF in ‘The Beckoning’

It was my first girlfriend in college who taught me what I needed to know about growing up, or rather, what I thought I needed to learn. She taught me how to dance, how to fly an airplane, how to paint a beautiful scene, and how to kiss tenderly. She taught me my Mathematics and my English. She taught me how to do origami, how to play the piano, how to write a simple essay, and how to swim. She taught me a lot about life and love, I guess. But just when I thought about it, everything started to crumble in front of me. Then there I was, as far as I remembered, quite alone in my room in front of the mirror, crying my very heart out because she had left me.

It was then because of her that I realize I was still a kid and had much to learn. Probably because when I grasped the truth in my hand, I cannot stand to be alone. There is something about the people, who taught us things ‘we thought to be everything’ that keeps us always drawn towards them –either a disguise of love or a form of gratitude –I didn’t know yet really. And when they’re gone, we are left in bitterness. How miserable things seem to be. And how vague and clouded, the future seems to be.

Couple of days after she left, I was in my room arranging the broken memories, tending the wounds and overcoming the pain, trying to be a man. I scanned the lines of pictures we had at the top of my desk and moved them all to the side drawer. Somehow, when I touched our collection of paintings –most includes our naked paintings and poses for each other –a slit of scorching pain and cold fist was piercing my heart. Then I realized that these things could greatly hinder me from letting go. I should fix myself and my life once again. Though thinking, maybe there wasn’t anything left to be called ‘self’’ anymore. All that I am is hers. And this is where the suffering comes from; when all who we are depends on all things that we love.

How can I accept this truth or end this suffering? How can I move on and live again? These questions left me reflecting for two days and a half, which made me forget the world. I thought, these questions needed some answers in order for my life to get a fix. Like a focal point; a starting point.

Wandering aroung the corners of my dimlit room, I took the remaining cloth we used to make our own canvass, placed it wide at the floor, and lay there, naked for a long moment. Then as I flinched, I felt a feeble chilling at my head and my body. A drumroll in my heart.

I wrapped myself on the material and caught a glance at all the remaining pints of colorful paints, she had kept hidden underneath my bed. I grabbed them one by one and poured them on my body. It flowed through my now soaked self, and dampened the stuff in strong abstract art. I openned my arms and played with the condensed paint, outbursting all my emotions, like a baby in his first time at the bath. The windows are filled with shots of blue, red, and purple colors, and the room is tinted with an ethereal clasping of anger and sorrow swimming on an ever flowing river of multicolored insignia.

You might think that this is a beautiful riot, a type of an extensive art, or a manifestation of insanity. Either way I didn’t care, lest you do, as beauty for me has no formal clarity or sharpness in this life. Let’s try to look beyond beauty then for now, and let’s think about the truth, past away the starry window, the painted glass, and the mastered canvass.

In the silence of a tired heart and dirtied body are tears formed out of thirst, and out of longing for a meaningful, but not necessarily, a beautiful life.

Image from: http://guszti132.deviantart.com/

I am The Artist.

I know the wonder of the universe,
and the mysteries it keeps.
I think deep.
And I see clear.

By my hands I crafted the highest mountains,
and the deepest of all the trenches.

What I've longed for,
if only I chose to,
will come in my calling.

I am the Great Wall of the ocean
that shapes the history of mankind.

I am what opens and closes,
at the edge of both life,
and death.

I shatter the spectrum of light
until it bleeds its hidden colors.

And I can create or destroy all things,
at a flicker of my pen,
if only I wished for that moment.

I live in the soul of anyone who writes,
and even in the hearts of those who are dead.

The spirits of words and dust are in my command.

I shift truths,
bend elements,
and save lives.

I brew in your own bed the whiteness of your blood,
and the grayness of your ink.

When,
at a time you might never realize.

I have already chosen to come
and to possess your world,
your hands -your life.

Take me as passion.

And perfect me.

How does one say that he’s living a meaningful and happy life? When he has no problems and has achieved all his dreams? And when he has all the money he want and material things? When he’s in comfort and don’t mind any problems? Well, if you think that that kind of life is meaningful and successful, then you are looking at the wrong side of life. Living a life is living a purposeful life. And realizing the essentials!

HUMANS ARE SO UNIQUE AND SPECIAL IN THIS WORLD BECAUSE OUR LIFE IS CRAFTED DIFFERENTLY FROM ALL OTHER CREATIONS.

IF ONE LIVED LIKE AN ANIMAL, THEN HE IS AN ANIMAL AND IS NOT DIFFERENT FROM THEM. BUT IF ONE LIVED HUMANELY, THEN HE IS DIFFERENT FROM EVERYTHING.

“Everyone knows they’re going to die…but nobody believes it… If we did, we would do things differently.” –Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom).

Last August 2010, I was going to bed when suddenly I had heart palpitations. In an instant, I felt my hands getting cold with chills running from my head down to my toes. I didn’t know what I was experiencing as it was out of the blue. I took deep breaths but the sensation didn’t stop so I thought I was having a heart attack. I was taken to the emergency room, got my blood pressure checked, and blood checked by the doctor and was released the next day.

I thought that everything would be okay after, but I experienced it again the following days. In and out of the hospital I paid almost everyday to have the doctors check me up. In my head, I didn’t know what was happening to me until the doctor told me that all I am experiencing are panic attacks and I might have an anxiety disorder because all tests done were okay. I was refferred to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed for anxiety disorder and depression few days after.

I wondered a lot after then whether that was true. I thought about the things that could possibly make me depressed, and the reasons how did I come in such condition.

In someway it went hard for me to root the cause because I honestly thought that I was happy. I have my family and my friends. And I do what normal people do.

Wondering about the things I lack, I went into the church and ask God a few questions. Like why did I have this thing? Or what is happening to me? And do I fear death?

Well, before I have anxiety and depression, I usually say that everyone will die and why should I fear it. I usually joked about it, and laughed at the thought. Before I experience that my life was threatened and I was about to die, I didn’t know that in my heart I was afraid of death. “I started to believe in death.”

I saw its scythe pressing on my head in my dreams and I was awoken everyday with dreadful insights. I am indeed depressed. But what was it to be depressed about? And why do I fear death?

And then the answer came swiftly on me after numerous nights of ceaselessly praying for grace and wisdom. Then getting into my knees, God told me the right answer for my question.

THE ANSWER IS:

I AM NOT SATISFIED WITH WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN MY LIFE. AND I NEED A PURPOSE.

All my life I am so focused on things that I thought what matters most: Family, career, friends, money, and having fun and leisure –well, I realized that though they matter, these are just things that just keep us from going on with this life. These priorities aren’t giving us the reason to evaluate ourselves and ask ourselves whether this is all we wanted.

Some of the things that had happened to me after I told myself that I want a purpose and ask myself what I really wanted in life are as follows.

Before,

I have a great family.

I have six circles of friends.

I have a career waiting for me.

I have enough money,

I am happy with all the material things I have

And I have enough time to have fun and indulge myself in food and stuffs.

I have reasons to celebrate and drink alcohol.

And I have reasons to make myself look beautiful

…Life should go the way I want it, but still, I had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression.

Right now,

I realized that my family isn’t great yet, and we have a lot of problems to overcome.

I am not seeing any of the six circles of friends I am talking about.

The career thing is blurred and I feel sad sometimes.

I don’t have money.

I don’t think and care about material things anymore,

And I don’t have reasons to celebrate and drink alcohol.

I don’t have reasons to make myself look beautiful.

But…

I have a sense of direction.

I am doing everything I can for the family by minimizing my expenses and spending more time with them.

I am being friendly with strangers and everyone, and don’t confine myself with just a group.

I am searching for new skills and training myself on areas that I feel I lack and I quickly recover from sadness.

Not having a lot of money on my pocket doesn’t anymore frustrate me. I could live a life having enough.

I don’t drink too much and too often anymore (once in three months is enough).

I am not dependent on my phone, my ipod, and my laptop anymore. I could live a week without touching them!

And even if I don’t have reasons to make myself look beautiful, what is amazing is that everyone who meets me tells me I’m beautiful and have a different aura (which is weird).

Lastly, I am positive now that I am not depressed, or any way anxious.

When I started to realize that death is just there always waiting everyday to catch us unguarded and take our life away, I began to realize what men really need to do to live this life we have.

Somehow I feel light and free without having any attachments. Somehow loving and giving without clinging or expecting things in return is way happier than receiving and/or winning. Touching the lives of others, and stripping ourselves from all the unnecessary things this world is offering us, takes a lot of courage, but too beneficial, if only we realized. So I take the initiative to go to church, to join Youth for Christ, to be more involved in our community and to reconnect to old friends and meeting new people. AND TO ALWAYS ALWAYS, EVERYNIGHT, EVALUATE MYSELF.

You can do it too, my friend! Start asking and evaluating yourself now. Is everything that is happening in your life right now is all that you wanted? And if this is the day, are you ready for it?