Meanwhile, on the shore of the living

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."
--Matthew 7:6

"Pearls don’t lie on the seashore. If you want one, you must dive for it."
--Chinese proverb

Some things keep me awake longer than usual at night. Among them is the origin of expressions. One is "Do not feed your pearls to swine."

And on the matter of pearls, why do we use the phrase "pearls of wisdom?"

It may sound silly, I know, these nocturnal activities of mine. In the morning, the brooding has fled after six to eight hours of quality sleep.

Meanwhile, I've stored this image of a piglet in red boots in my hard drive for several months now, waiting for that moment when I can trot it out like taking a pet for a walk.

A woman from Corfu, Greece, Anna Papadopoulou, who I follow in Twitter, shared this. She likes to post her gathered treasures of photos and videos around the time I'm about to take dinner or should be turning in for the night. When I thank her with a photo I've taken, she responds in the same manner. While I'm already calling it a day, she is just getting warm after breakfast. We've had this relationship for months now.

It's a nice feeling--to know that I'm not alone in learning to dive deeper and deeper into myself, to rise up, then share my own little pearls here and there (for want of a better word, I use "pearls"). And Ms. P, I suppose, is also doing the same.

Here's to you, Ms. Papadopoulou, wherever you are. Mabuhay and good morning from where I am.

On the road with counting babe

A brief entry before the holiday fever depletes what's left of our strength this long, almost harrowing year:

My grandchild has long learned her numerals and has counted with one to one correspondence. She has gone past 20 and to amuse herself while we were aboard a bus to Baguio, normally a six-hour trip that turned into eight hours because of heavy traffic in some parts of EDSA, Nothern Luzon Expressway (NLEX),MacArthur Highway and Gen. Palispis (formerly Marcos) Highway, she started counting aloud from "one" all the way to "ten", then proceeded to "eleven" while I alternated with the next numbers. When we reached "twenty," she said she'd count by herself. So from "twenty one" she counted all the way to "twenty nine." She paused for few seconds, then confidently declared in a voice loud enough for the next rows of passengers to hear: "Twenty ten!"

Precious moments!

While Kai/Butones was also in one of her pauses, a.k.a. siesta time, in Pasig a few days ago, the elders (my mom, Nene Lolarga but Mama Mermaid to family members below 11 years old, me and Mamay Kimi) took the chance to finally have another four-generation but non-traditional photo op.



During the restive trip to the North, the bus would pause, too, sometimes for 30 minutes, engine running, as we waited for the traffic to ease a bit so we could resume moving. I sometimes gazed out the window to sights like these:


Somewhere in Pangasinan where the plumes of talahib are gone and the river's water level is low


Somewhere in Pangasinan again, sparrows have the time of their lives sliding down the rusting roof of a sari-sari store, only to get up, flutter their wings a bit, then go for another slide. A reminder from Matthew 10:29-31 to the anxious, the anguished, the fretful, the worry warts, even the exhausted, that we are worth more than sparrows: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."
Photos by Babeth Lolarga