Meeting Venus

Flutist Christopher Oracion and soprano Camille Lopez Molina

There are many things I'm grateful for in my life, "In My Life" a la Beatles. One is having decided to consciously immerse myself in generic cultural work--helping in whatever capacity, mainly setting aside riches of time and health for something I love to see with my eyes, listen to with my ears while there's still some clarity in those senses. Somewhere along the way, the heart and the mind, invisible to the world, except through an ECG or a brain scan, combine to make the experience whole. Art and music have a way of making one's life whole and not a hole (ha! poor pun there!).

Two, I've met up close and personal the people who the group ABBA once had a ready song for: "Thank You for the Music."

Three, despite my schedule, the decision continues to enrich my soul, the kind of enrichment that can take me all the way to death's threshold. And I won't be afraid, no, sir, I won't.

The experience of art is always like meeting Venus to crib the title of a movie, kinda based on the Wagner opera Tannhauser and which I thoroughly enjoyed (saw it twice on the wide screen) in the '90s.

When I think of Venus, I think of soprano Camille Lopez Molina, the founding mama of Viva Voce, the group of classically trained singers. The members and more outside it make up the core of a Philippine operatic scene that is slowly being coveted by some parts of Asia that don't have the inborn musicality of Pinoys and Pinays.

I've watched Viva Voce as an ensemble or as soloists, tandems or trios, and I've always left the event venue sometimes in tears but renewed, revived, restored. Better yet, resurrected.

Ma'am Cams, as she's called by her students, once shared something she wrote, and Cams, I wish to claim it as my Tosca "Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore" credo for the rest of my mortal days:

"The reward? The reward is the work itself. In the end, all the accolades, the rejections, the praise, the criticisms - all are just part of the road. Sometimes they make the journey easier, sometimes they make it more difficult. You find a way to navigate through them and you move on.

"Then you come to a crossroads and you have to choose which direction to take. What do you really want to do? Where do you really want to go? Only you can decide, because only you know.

"And you end up with people who are going in the same direction. A different journey, but the same direction, and you welcome each one as you get to know them, or you leave them, or they leave you.

"And life goes on. And work goes on. Thank God!"

Thank God, indeed!

P.S. This morning's reflection is made possible through a Joni Mitchell full album, particularly the song "Come In from the Cold."

The kids are all right and so are the adults

Now whenever I look at clouds, I associate them with Joni Mitchell strumming her guitar, long hair flowing. "Both Sides Now," yep. But even the character Tom Hanks played in You've Got Mail found the lyrics a trifle dense.

Of Joni's many songs (yes, I'm on first name basis with her as with Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver, pianist Maria João Pires and all these women and men who have spoken to my soul and cut me to the quick), "Amelia," "Help Me," "Blue Motel Room," "Circle Game" and, yes, "Hejira" throw me back decades of Thursdays to my youth. So news of her being taken ill and the unclear pronouncements about her recovery have kept her in my mind, even as I go through my day alone or with people.

Yesterday the kids (Kimi's Kai and Sinag's Dakila) played for much of the morning, their mothers and one grandmother trailing behind them. Sinag is godmother to Kai.

Oh Joni, you always know what to say.

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like when you're older must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Dakila and The Wee One hit it off very well, indeed, after a night's sleep.

With their respective mothers, Sinag and Kimi

Oh yeah, swings have an eternal appeal to any kid. Photos by Booboo Babeth

Throwback Thursday tune