The Large World

… is what happens when things move too fast in my life.

Though I guess it’s to be expected, my life right now is completely, totally, and utterly different from what it was just 4 months ago. And it’s been awesome. I can’t even believe it :)

I’ve been lucky enough to get jobs I love that give me my own time, although lately there hasn’t really been much of that going around. Relatively, I know there are probably better jobs out there and people doing much better than me but, who fucking cares? I’m happy :) I’ve been traveling a lot this past month and will be traveling even more in the near future, and it’s all just so… new. Overwhelming might be a better word. And thus, this blog. New life, new blog, fresh start. There’s just too much that has to be written down.

I don’t know if I plan for this blog to be for any specific audience, or for any audience come to think of it, but knowing me and how I’m a nerd, it’s probably gonna be about just a few things really: travel, music, movies, books, and occasionally, me whining. I’m gonna try to cut down on that last one though, seeing as I’m too old for that shit.

Let’s see if I’m cut out for actual blogging. I’m excited. :)

I'm lucky enough to be able to say that waking up to the sounds of the city is a relatively novel thing for me right now :) For the past 6 days or so, I've been surrounded by mountains, rice terraces, Ifugaos, giant wild boars named Pumba, all kinds of rice wine, and just about the best crew ever. I predicted I'd have a hangover from this whole 6-day shoot/hiking extravaganza and I was right, the whole insane beauty of Ifugao still overwhelms me, and I can't even see it anymore.

I didn't take a lot of photos to prove my point, and the photos I do have don't really do justice to how breathtaking Ifugao was (a.k.a they were shitty photos :D). There was always just this feeling caught in my throat that made me stop and stare, try to absorb this whole, perfect, living and breathing image I was faced with. I couldn't do anything else. And of course I couldn't do it, not completely, but I guess the trying was enough if the feeling it gave is anything to go by. It was like taking a deep, deep, deep breath of fresh air. I miss it already.

I miss everyone already. I'm kind of a loser like that. Separation anxiety always, always gets to me.





I miss Ifugao:
- because of the crazily challenging hikes. Who knew that my first ever experience with rock climbing would be with real rocks, in a hugging-the-stone-wall, hoping-not-to-die kind of way? Give me a sec to be proud of myself for not falling on my face the entire time.

- and the ridiculous locations we would set up at. The edges of cliffs, a narrow walkway facing a fucking steep drop, the tops of moving jeeps, etc, etc. :)

- because I have never been so creeped out in my LIFE. And I liked it. See, we were shooting at this flat rock face with two houses on it, and we wanted to shoot the one house, just to have footage of native Ifugao houses, y'know? The guy from the other house goes and says, oh my dad lives there, he's really sick and he doesn't go out, but I'll go in and talk to him anyway. He gets a flashlight, faces the house and talks to his dad inside. For the sake of politeness, we ask if it's okay too, just so he can hear it from us. It would've been fine except... NO ONE WAS IN THE FUCKING HOUSE. NO ONE. A taste of Ifugao spirituality for you, right there.

- cause I learned so, so much. Everyday was a new lesson in Ifugao culture, either through interviews, or the sight of it firsthand, or the experience of it first hand. Seeing pigs ritually killed two times in one week might be my limit, but it was fucking fascinating all the same. We kept on worrying we didn't have enough coverage, cause their culture was so vast.

- and the people I was with. The OnMedia crew (despite them treating me like a bunso and all the teasing that entails) and all the people we met: definitely people I'd wanna work with again in the future and be friends with forever and ever. HAHA. The perfect people to have chill inumans with :)




God, I'm lucky. Feeling gratefulness to the tips of my toes and the ends of my fingers :D

"Here is the world, and you live in it, and are grateful. You try to be grateful."


"It seems he is always making a wish, every moment, and that his wishes, like his father's, have mainly to do with continuance. Like his father, what he wants most ardently is more of what he's already got (though, of course, if asked about the nature of his wishes, he would immediately rattle off a long list of toys, both actual and imaginary)."


"Venture too far for love, she tells herself, and you renounce citizenship in the country you've made for yourself. You end up just sailing from port to port."


"'But there are still the hours, aren't there. One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another."


"There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more."

( More, more, more. )

April 24, 2011
7:31 AM

The past four days seem to be the kind of days that will remain indestructible in memory. They’ve been ridiculously good days.

Fresh, clean air that, in the mornings, are as cold and sharp as Spring weather. The bed of rocks that you’re forced to maneuver in, unless you want to swim in the wide open sea or a pool full of moss. Swimming in the wide open sea anyway, with slight fear tagging along the whole way, arms burning, breath heaving, the relief of having somewhere to stop. The laughter of my parents, the way there seems to have been no arguments here, no whining complaints and no one forcing anything on anyone. My sister’s awkward drunkenness at 4pm in the afternoon, and then again at 11pm at night; she’s falling all over herself, being noisy and just, generally, a caricature of herself. How sun block is really just a placebo for me, how solidly dark I’ve become. Having the choice to sleep after lunch, giving in to good food’s way of making you drowsy, and not feeling guilty about either the food or the indulgence of a nap. Rowing a kayak a few miles each day. Reading The Hours, watching Avatar.

They’ve been ridiculously good days.


---
My cousin is here with us, and I think his presence is changing me a little, but, I don’t know if it’s a good thing.

He’s the kind of person who is indefatigable in his optimism in other people, or if I’m getting it wrong, indefatigable in his optimism in the people he loves. And he loves freely, sort of like catching a child in adoration of someone, unembarrassed and unheeding of the amount of himself he’s giving away, even at 26 years old.

He believes in me, in all the ways a person can believe in someone else. And I don’t even have to ask if it’s true. I know in the way you just know, the way you just know your parents will love you and that other people will be critical.

But, y'know, that’s just it. The whole indefatigable optimism thing, the entirety of his belief, it’s lifting me up, puffing up my chest, infecting me with some sort of hope in the general future. But who’s to say the optimism, the belief, isn’t for some picture of you he has in his mind? How do you know if he sees the big picture? How do you know if this isn’t some false hope?

It says something about me that I’m suspicious of his absolute, simpple faith in me but I’m young and new and it can’t be helped.



---
It’s been a ridiculously good four days and I’m suspicious of the general direction that my good fortune seems to be leading me in.

I’ve got a job, it pays decently, if a little inconsistently, it’s easy, I’ve got crazy amounts of free time that I can possibly fill with other jobs, and there’s a very imminent future of repeated traveling in it for me. Plus, for some reason, the bosses really like me already.

I’ve only just started and have yet to find out if it’s actually as good as it sounds. Let’s hope it is because, after the weeks I’ve had and the stress I’ve put myself through, I think I need a lesson in not aiming too high. Not aiming too high this time around.

Let’s say I’m harboring suspicious optimism.

And also, that I'm happy.