Babytalk (Part 3)

By Emmanuelle

LUCKY are those whose every triumph in life are well-preserved in a library of precious memories - baby’s first album, pictures or slides calendared and captioned; honor ribbons, medals, sashes and diplomas framed or laminated and displayed on walls; plaques and trophies dust-free and shiny on shelves; tapes or discs labeled and stacked on racks. Some proud parents would even go as far as have their children’s names, and their college degrees, blown-up in size and exhibited prominently at the facade of the house! Aligned and in order!
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Babytalk (Part 2)

By Emmanuelle

First thing first. FEELINGS would like to express its appreciation for the calls, emails, and SMS from the regular readers of the hard copy and the webpage - Pangasinenses migrating to the nation’s thousands of islands, overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East and other places as strange, Filipino immigrants with Pangasinan in their hearts. And these would include the surfers here and abroad, the chance reader, and the namumulot o nang-aagaw lamang ng diaryo who send, nevertheless, their comments or opinions just as feelingly as the regulars.
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Babytalk

By Emmanuelle

PUCKER the lips for the tsup tsup then stretch them wide for the mwah mwah. Smack a yummy yum yum for a mouth-watering fingerdip; spit out a yackity yuck for that nasty icky taste. Duh for the dumb act, ahhh if it dazzled and wawawi if you are staggered. Please meme the bebe to sleep. Momo, say hello to the mamaw. And stamp the foot nonononono to counter stamp the foot likelikelikelikelike!   

If you think you are past beyond baby talk, you’ve got another think coming.
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Lost in translation

By Emmanuelle

You do not have to be a Filipino in Japan or in China, black-orbs among quaint slit-eyes, to be lost in translation. 

You can be just as lost, if you were one or more centuries older than the present batch of spiked-haired pre-adults; dyed green, orange or any of the colors outlandish.

When I say spiked, I do not only refer to hair stiffly frightfully standing up; it goes throats deeper than that. And dyed is what happens when one enters a salon a native, then emerges shockingly an alien.
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Time

By Emmanuelle

EACH time we crossover from December 31 to January 1, it is like seeing Alice of Wonderland fame opening a door from the present to future time. 

Try to imagine this scene.

One day, Alice finds a door on which is carved the two faces of the Roman god, Janus.  According to myth, this god used one face to look back to the past and the other face to look ahead to the future.
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A Talk with God

By Emmanuelle

(Part 2)

They say: it could not be. She surely could not have had a talk with God.

She says: why could this not be? First, see that it could be, before you say it could surely not be.  One must breathe in first, before one must breathe out. Or is it the other way around?

Anyway, after she talked or dreamed of a talk with God, she did not know why but she had this urgent need to tell this old, forgotten tale of a child who saw three kings with their gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense for another Child.
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A Talk with God

By Emmanuelle

 Ten days before the birth of His Son, she writes of a talk with Him who sent down His Son. Too, she is back to the count of one. Like: Oh, gosh. Oh, God. Oh, hush.

There are times, you see, when it seems one is left with no choice but to turn one’s back to the sun. From what is sane, to what is not. Or from what is not sane, to what is. Take a pick.
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Not yet a hero!

By Emmanuelle

THEY do not march off the gods from their thrones just like that. Na-ah. Senators, writers or sometime-soldiers can not have it so easy.  

They have to be real heroes first. And real heroes, more often  than not, are shot with their  brothers at some dark huts. Or as they turn around at the end of their march from the fort to Bagumbayan. Or right at the tarmac even before they  set  foot on the land to die for.
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Nun to None

By Emmanuelle

ONE is such a lonely word. One beat each for a smudge of black here, a dash of white there, a hint of a smile on your face or a blink of a tear on mine. Hook one beat to one, you will have les deux, the two of them, beating as one. Stand back, round O your mouth, listen and watch:

When Chara was born, maybe she wore a crown of fine blossoms on her brow. She also must have held a soft tendril of a stem for a wand.
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Punch on Wounds

By Emmanuelle

SCENE I: Can you see this scene?

Let us call this third person Em, she who speaks for those with wounds that do not heal:

This whole week she steps and hums to the thud and the thump of a drum. The calls, the mails, the texts had come. From near and far, high five, they say. She smacks, she slaps those palms not seen.     

One day she comes home. Where she drops her count that starts at one and ends at one, stumped as she was by shrills of. . .
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