Rainy days and Mondays

I wake up around the first hour of Monday to the sound of wind and rain against the windows of my flat. The wind is very strong as it sends the heavy, beige curtains moving. I wait for the sound of thunder but doesn’t hear it. Instead I hear the wind whistling as it penetrates the sieve formed by the leaves of the mango tree in front of my apartment building. I feel the room becoming a tad colder. I embrace a pillow, and smell a phantom smell. My verandah would be strewn with dried leaves and broken twigs in the morning, I think. 

With some effort I go back to sleep.

I wake up again five hours later. Rising this time from bed, I look at my watch to check the time, before absent-mindedly stepping out my room. After pissing, I walk into the kitchen. Take the ground coffee from the refrigerator, pour a scoopful into the machine, and add enough water before pouring a cup of corn flakes unto a bowl. A spoon of raisin, followed by two swirls of non-fat milk. I put a teaspoon each of sugar and creamer into a mug then cut myself two slices of papaya. The coffee drips. I rub my eyes and face awake.

Moments later I am sitting on a bamboo chair in my verandah. My breakfast is on a lacquer tray, set on the hexagonal bamboo table. I try to find patterns on the leaves scattered on the floor. The sky is still a dull shade of gray, filled with fat clouds. The pavement on the street below is still moist. Business is at its usual briskness in the restaurant on the ground floor of my apartment building. Cars park along the sidewalk, out of which people and families emerge to have breakfast at this restaurant. Past breakfasts in similar restaurants come to mind momentarily.

I don’t need to water the plants this morning, I tell no one but myself. 

It is half-past ten and the sun has chosen to hide behind the dark clouds that festoon the sky. In the training room expectant faces look up at me. The effect is almost perplexing. I hope they do not sense the small moment when I got choked with the words I’m trying to say. One face in particular catches my eyes. High forehead, cropped hair, smiling eyes. The air is heavy with electricity. I am almost lost in the forest of single and multiple responses.

The computer offers no solace. It does not help me with my disguise. The screen leers at me like a cruel whore. There is an absence in my mail-box. A hollow space that makes the wind whistle as it passes through it on windy, rainy days. Kind of like your heart, a voice inside my head says, chuckling. I want to say no but my colleague might hear my objection and perceive it as weakness on my part. I have few disguises left. I want to hang on to them for as long as humanly possible, if you please.

For lunch I have bitter gourd omelet, with some brown rice. 

In the afternoon the sun makes a brief appearance. Enough to dry the pavement. I can see waves of heat rising from the ground. Or, think I can see these waves. It is easier to imagine this rather than the meaning of his smiles. Of course he will smile at you, the voice inside my head says, slightly irritated. After all, he’s a polite young man! Aren’t they all, I reply with alacrity. The boy turns to me, as if he’d heard the little argument between me and the voice inside my head. His eyes smile tentatively, not unlike the smile that I have tucked under my pillow at night for more than two years.

I decide to turn to more important pursuits.

The rain starts to fall the moment I unlock the door to my flat. Small favors. Cold evening breeze blowing through the open window in my living room. I watch some television before making dinner. Dried fish, fried crisp in little, with brown rice left-over from lunch. I slice a tomato but do not eat it. I make lemon juice and drink it in front of the television. The boy comes to mind. Another memory intrudes, more unwelcome than the latter.

Hours later I am in bed, reading a book while waiting for sleep to close my eyes. The book is about a friendship between a bullied boy and a 200-year-old vampire. Their tender moments touch me. I am almost un-mindful of the impending sense of doom that permeates the book’s sparse text. Have to be blind to ignore the signs that their relationship is doomed. Like you, the voice inside my head interjects. Laughter not unlike birds cackling. I imagine my hands turning into claws that tear the throat that produces this voice to bloody shreds. I imagine it gasping, before becoming quiet.

After reading thirty or so pages I am finally drowsy. I mark my place with a book mark, place the book on the other side of the bed, and I stretch my legs, yawning. As sleep closes in, a momentary flash opens my eyes. Inside this spark images of my life of late rush in: days and nights merging into each other, the automatic performance of tasks that mimic life and living, memories pushed at the back of the mind. Disguises, masks, affectations and the endless posturing. Rainy days, sunny days, intransigent Mondays and indifferent Saturdays. The abyss of my denial. Dark depths, moist with grief.

With some effort I go to sleep before Tuesday rolls in. 

from an untitled longer work

phnom penh, 2008

copyright Michael P. De Guzman

photo: liese, http://www.sxc.hu/ 

Nobody wants to be lonely

Last week, I had lunch at Joy and Lou’s house. After eating, Joy and I sat by the dining table and we talked as she was having her post-prandial cigarette. It was shaping up to be a quiet afternoon, for the two of us at least. The other guests had moved to the bedroom, watching a DVD from the Philippines, brought by someone who’d had just returned from a holiday in Manila.

Joy and I are both in a transitory stage of our lives. She is about to leave Cambodia in 2 weeks; by June she will be in Mongolia. I am also about to leave my current place of abode, but my move is much closer: I am simply moving to another flat, which is about 3 blocks away from my current residence. This state of mind perhaps steered our conversation to the topic of saying good-bye.

In particular, Joy pointed out one post in this blog, called The Power of Goodbye. She said that she couldn’t help but notice the lack of emotions in the tone of the whole article, especially on the part that described the (yet another) ending of my relationship with Kimrun. I told her that it was my exact intention: exposition devoid of emotion. I tried to recall past lessons on news writing while I was writing this post. Joy said that yes, reading it felt like reading a newspaper. So atypical of you, she concluded, to write that way.

I admitted that I had earlier written a post about my break-up but I did not publish it because it seemed fraught with emotions that I did not really feel. I mean, I am sad that the relationship did not work out (again) but this break-up is so different from our first breakup, especially in terms of my reaction. I am sad, like I said, but my heart was not crushed. Not like the first time.

When I decided to get back together with Kimrun in 2006, after a year of not speaking to each other, I had prepared myself for the inevitability that the relationship will end. I based this on the way I knew Kimrun–his character and behavior. I was actually pleased and surprised that we lasted this long, knowing the way he is and the way I am. To be fair, he was an affectionate, caring, and steadfast lover and partner. Perhaps our relationship had just run its course. Perhaps he had given me all that he is able to give and cannot give anything anymore. I did not expect it to end under almost the same circumstances but this was the card that was dealt to me. Maybe I will never know for sure. And not knowing does not upset me very much.

Kimrun was, is, a significant part of my life, but my life never revolved around him, even when we were a couple. I made sure of this when I made the decision of getting back together with him.

That proved to be a wise and useful decision. One that was validated earlier this evening when I heard the sermon during mass. Father Bob spoke of how loneliness is a universal feeling and state of mind. He also elaborated on the inherent limitations of human relationships: between parents and children, between friends, between spouses, lovers, and partners. When he said that the notion of somebody being everything to someone is something that works only on moonlit nights and not during the light of day, I smiled a little. Even priests feel the need to speak on the death of romance. Seriously speaking, I smiled because it was true. Even during my happiest and most content moments with Kimrun, I still felt lonely from time to time.

Of course, I did not completely agree to the last part of the sermon that said that the presence of God in one’s life is the answer to loneliness. Because to me the presence of God in one’s life is very difficult to prove and measure, at least in human terms. I am more inclined to think that the perception, rather than the reality, of God’s presence in one’s life relieves some, not all, of the loneliness that we humans feel. Sometimes, this perception is also called faith. But let me stop here, because to continue on this train of thought is to veer from my main point.

We all tread our own paths to happiness. This is what I believe. Some of us will get there, some will not. But in the end, what matters more is the journey itself, and how our experiences have enriched or fortified our human-ness, regardless if we end up happy or not. 

Shame

The medical team involved in the rectal surgery scandal has been named by the secretary of the Philippine Department of Health.

Dr. Philips Leo Arias

Dr. Angelo Aliwanagan

Dr. Max Joseph Montecillo

Nurse Carmina Sapio

Nursing Attendant Rosemarie Villareal

Remember these names. These people have brought shame to the medical and nursing profession by violating the rights to privacy and dignity of a patient by videotaping a sensitive surgery without the patient’s consent and circulating this video.

They should be stripped of their professional licenses and made to answer in a court of law. 

You oughta know

I was shocked when I came across this news on another blog and I decided I could not postpone writing about this unfortunate incident. I remember last year a ruckus was created by the remarks of the character played by Teri Hatcher in ‘Desparate Housewives’ about doctors from the Philippines. Well, who would’ve thought that it would be prophetic. This incident is a sad manifestation of unprofessionalism and lack of ethics of some members of the medical profession.

Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center is the HIV/AIDS treatment center in the Visayas and its staff are supposed to be gender-sensitive already. Well, clearly some skipped the training or chose to ignore its tenets. The staff involved in this reprehensible incident should have their professional licences revoked. The hospital administration should also be made accountable by making sure all staff are sensitized. Because, really, the issue here is beyond gender sensitivity; it is about respect for other people–plain and simple. 

I have attached in this post the official statement of Ang Ladlad, the LGBT party. 

Ang Ladlad slams discrimination of rectal surgery victim 

Media Statement
released 1:00 P.M.
April 18, 2008

Ang Ladlad, the national organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Filipinos, has slammed the doctors and nurses involved in the rectal operation of a gay patient that was later uploaded in YouTube.

“This is a violation of the patient-doctor confidentiality that is part of the Code of Ethics of a medical practitioner,” said Danton Remoto, chairman of Ang Ladlad and Associate Professor of English at Ateneo de Manila University. “What rubs salt on the patient’s dignity was the fact that the doctors and nurses were shown saying anti-gay statements while making fun of the sedated patient. In this case, it is not the patient but the doctors who are sick.”

The came stemmed from the rectal operation of “Jan-Jan,” a 39-year-old gay man who had sex in Cebu City on New Year’s Eve. He claimed he was drunk and his partner inserted a perfume canister in his rectum, which necessitated an operation on January 3. The operation was done at the government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center. He said that “I trusted them. And yet they ridiculed me. . . Was that something a professional would do? I can’t even walk on the streets without being laughed at by my neighbors. I want my ordeal to end. I hope it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“We laud the investigation being done by the hospital. However, we would like to stress that the victim was made to sign a piece of paper he did not read nor was it explained to him. There seems to be a pattern of deception here. They wanted to turn him and his case into an object of fun, not of scientific or medical study. Therefore, we are batting for the revocation of licenses of the medical people involved. They have just violated the confidentiality clause between doctor and patient, and also the patient’s right to privacy. How would they feel if they were the ones whose images are spreading around in the limitless world of cyberspace?”

Ang Ladlad will offer psychological counseling to the victim, as well as help his lawyer, Guiller Ceniza, pursue the case in court. “Doctors are sometimes considered like gods who have power over our lives. In this case, they did not only defame and discriminate against another person, but they also stained the very dignity of their profession. We will pursue this case all the way to the Professional Regulations Commission and the Civil Service Commission. These callous people deserve to be taught a lesson they will never forget,” Remoto concluded.

So far away

After a suspenseful period of finding ways to purchase a plane ticket and a nerve-wracking wait for our South African visa, we finally went to Johannesburg, South Africa on the evening of Sunday, April 6 to attend a workshop under the auspices of the World Bank Institute and the Technical Support Facility (TSF) of UNAIDS. Ted and I arived in Singapore’s Changi airport at half-past 9PM. We spent the next five hours accessing the free Wi-Fi service that the airport offered. I checked my emails, logged on a short entry in my multiply blog, and browsed. But I got tired of surfing so I decided to leave Ted in the internet lounge and wandered around the terminal, since it was my first time in Singapore.

Changi airport was a very modern terminal, but it was eerily quiet for a supposedly busy hub. It made me think of the airport in Stephen King’s novella The Langoliers, a space literally caught between time, between the now and the next moment. An hour before we boarded Ted and I ate some noodles. This 2AM trip to South Africa was my first time to fly outside Asia. This is also the longest flight I had taken so I was a bit apprehensive about sleeping (because I snored). I, however, realized that there were others who snored loudly than I did and nobody seemed to care because almost everyone was asleep also. Nevertheless I spent most of the trip watching the inflight movies.

We arrived in Johannesburg at around 7AM. We were also a day early for the official arrival of the workshop participants so we immediately went to the tourist information counter at the airport and asked for affordable lodgings. We were referred to a guest house located in Kempton Park, which was supposed to be close to our hotel for the workshop. After resting in the morning, we were taken to a ‘nearby’ mall to have lunch and do a bit of strolling. Another guest was with us, a guy named Pierre who lost his luggage and passport so he couldn’t leave as scheduled.

We were overwhelmed by the size of the servings at the fast food joint we went to. We bought some provisions: bottled water, bread and fruit for dinner, and a local SIM card. Back at the guest house Ted and I worked on some work that we brought with us, to meet some deadlines. One thing that I didn’t anticipate was the coldness. Our travel advisory said that temperatures in Johannesburg was about 22C, which I felt I could take. What it didn’t mention was at night, this temperature plunged to about 10C. Ted came with a jacket and sweat shirt while I only had my scarves. Fortunately I could tolerate the cold quite well, but still…

The next morning, after a huge breakfast of eggs, sausage, toasted bread, an unknown dish made of minced meat and bell peppers, and fruit, we were driven to Birchwood Hotel, the workshop venue. We met up with Ms Ruthy, my mentor/friend and the other delegate from the Philippines, called Dune, and Soe, our guy from the TSF. We were still a day away from the workshop so once we have settled into our own rooms, we met for lunch and decided to take a half-day tour of downtown Johannesburg.

Johannesburg is really a huge place. I just couldn’t imagine going around it because there is no clear public transportation system. And then there is the high crime rate. Our travel advisory was very explicit on the lack of safety and security in the streets. This was, of course, downplayed by our tour guide. Our group went to different places of interest in downtown Joburg-as it is called by many (decided largely by the tour guide, of course): the business district, the national museum, the former house of Nelson Mandela and the supposedly tallest building in the city, which provided a magnificent 360 degree view of the city in its viewing deck. On the way back to the hotel we noticed that the streets were empty. And it was just after 7PM. We realized the truth in what was written in our travel advisory.

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