Perchance to just read

Full moon over Wack Wack, Mandaluyong City, and Ortigas Center, Dec. 6, 2014. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

"... I don’t write every day. I can’t write every day. Sometimes I take a whole week off from writing to sleep and read and cook and clean and watch a dozen episodes of Justified, which is probably a necessary vaccine against burnout but makes me feel like I’m slacking.

"I don’t want to complain too much because, let’s be honest, this is a craziness I’ve chosen for myself, and a privilege. I’m not scrubbing toilets 12 hours a day, six days a week just to put food on the table, and I’ve got a partner who makes it possible for me to pursue my dream without completely losing my mind. But I still wonder how other writers manage it." - Liz Entman Harper, "Like Pushing an Elephant Into a Volkswagen", www.themorningnews.org

I like to fool myself into thinking that when I'm thinking, I'm also writing. Or when I'm taking pictures, I'm also composing in some way.

Aw schucks! I must admit that there are days when the high point is watching reruns of TV sitcoms like "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Frasier." And then I got hooked on "House of Cards." I have a lot of catching up with "Game of Thrones." I lucked out when I caught three-fourths of the movie Julia with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave (and Meryl Streep in a bit role).

When I grew tired of watching, I noticed that my Home Improvements-oriented brother had brought some method to the madness that is my bookshelf (thanks, Dennis!). I found myself reading best-sellers like Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and Sophie Kinsella's Mini Shopaholic (not my choices, they're the stash of the other book readers in the family so we have quite an eclectic selection).

Didn't put down Pablo Neruda's Memoirs until sleepiness took over. He likes to use what to my limited vocabulary are unfamiliar words: mephitic, meretricious, calcined, volutes, hieratic, arborescent. The reader previous to me had the thoughtfulness to highlight these words so I can return to them and finally discover their meanings. Good thing Señor Neruda never had reason to use them in his poetry that speaks to all humankind.

Who said, "I could be social, but I could read (I'd rather read)". And that, dear and few followers of this blog, is what I've been up to these past days. Thus my public book of days that is this blog hasn't been updated.

I'm about to make up big time with a series of entries. I'm keeping everything short after I've been told that the ideal blog text should be 350 words long or less.

'Staycation' is the way to go

Her list of summer activities outshines mine (I can timidly claim reading a couple of books, getting hooked on the TV series Sherlock Holmes and Game of Thrones, occasional handwritten letters, increasingly rare walks, flower appreciation, snacking at odd hours).

Kai has learned to cut and prefers to do it alone, plays catch ball with her elders, swims with abandon in a small sea of balls, gives her water toys a full bath and squeeze until sneezing point from exposure to the cold, snaps "dragons" in the garden, indulges in pretend play with her stuffed toys, joins the doggy walk morning and afternoon, sings "Letting Go" from Frozen full throttle, watches four Hoopla Kids videos on YouTube (strictly rationed, same for TV hours unlike her Booboo). Daily summer phonics class is now part of her routine.

I can add to my list the photo documentation of her summer. I still dream of going to the beach, of feeling sand under my feet or even swimming in a warm pool before monsoon season arrives. My travel is limited to Pinterest sites of dream getaways and the TLC channel.

Meanwhile, our "staycation" is going splendidly, and we feel blessed each time the sun is out. I've grown to accept that this is as good as it gets.

Enjoying each moment Photos by Babeth Lolarga

In the garden

"When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground." -Jamaica Kincaid

Ms. Kincaid is among the authors scholar Del Tolentino introduced me to along with Carolyn Heilbrun (a.k.a. Amanda Cross) and Anne Fadiman whose familiar essays in At Large and At Small I return to every so often for a quick pick me up.

The garden is in my mind every day. It's where I go for a bit of sun and to watch my husband Rolly putter around and make improvements. It's where he sips his second cup of coffee after we have eaten breakfast indoors. It's where Kai and I have our conversations about butterflies, the color of the sky and of the new flowers coming out of their tight buds. It's where I just breathe and try to empty my mind. It's where I think sometimes if I should return to writing for a living or extend my vacation from deadlines - the pull of the latter is stronger when you have the three earlier seasons of Game of Thrones locked somewhere in the TV.

We used to call this open space Kai's secret garden, but since Rolly spends and expends more time and effort on it, it has become his.

Top views of the garden Photo by Babeth Lolarga