Present picture-perfect*

If my life were a collage, many boxes will show pictures of people I call my friends. Oh, how colorful my collage might be! But then I’d have to keep my thoughts on friendship to myself for the meantime because the reason why I’m writing now is because I want to keep a “picture-perfect” promise.  Here’s a collage composed of perfect pictures a friend took (There’s more from where this came from!).

He is a photography enthusiast who will jump at almost any chance of immortalizing people, events and places through his lenses. He’s not a fulltime photographer but he’s been literally going places just to build muscles on his camera-clicking finger.

[ Check out his daily photoblog here. If you want him to take your pics, go ahead and ask! ]

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*Now you know where my blog header pic came from! This post was written as a fulfillment of my promise to him that (1) I will update my blog, and (2) I will mention his photo site here. Let this be also my way of thanking him for letting me use his pic at no charge.

When words are hard to come by…

. . . post a picture instead.

Bad, Beng

I’ve been bad.

And I am reaping the consequences of my bad behavior. But I have willingly submitted myself to the penalty of my wrongdoing by coming up to my two officemates with my sacrificial tin can holding my most treasured treats.

“Sa inyo na lang ito. Ubusin nyo na.” (You can have this. Eat everything.) I say this to them while feeling my throat, trying  to determine if my tonsils are swollen already. (Upon closer inspection—thanks to a mirror—I confirm that the twins are.)

The recipients of my forced generosity laugh at me. Both know me too well. And even if I am acting as their boss for a time (in the absence of our department’s real top boss), that did not stop them from ribbing me: “Kung di pa sumakit yang lalamunan mo, di mo kami maiisip bigyan ano?” (If your throat didn’t hurt, you wouldn’t think of giving us some, right?)

How could they accuse me of such?  How could they? Don’t they know about the verse in the Bible that says we should not judge? (*wipe tear*) But I don’t blame them because I am . . .

Guilty as charged.

Two nights ago, I bought a bar of chocolate to add to my birthday gift to a friend. And while I was surrounded in SM by chocolates of every brand (our own lowly Chocnut was even represented there), I decided to buy for myself too:  A 200-gram tin can of Van Houten’s Assortment (VH was established in Switzerland in 1828 and was classified as the best Chocolate in the world). I tried to convince myself that I was buying it for the can. Wow, imagine the knickknacks that I can keep here. How useful!

And so I wasted no time in consuming its contents to use the can(!). Been gobbling chocolates for three days already. This afternoon, with the can’s contents down to half, I experience a slight discomfort in swallowing.

Deja-vu. This has happened before.  I ate too much chocolates, too fast, again.

What should I do? Give away the source of my pain (after it has become a source of my joy) and let myself heal. Done! Now I’m considering putting on a sackcloth, shaving my head, scraping a broken piece of pottery in my skin ala Job of the Old Testament while reciting this mantra three times a day, morning, noon and night:

“Don’t eat too much chocolates. Don’t eat too much chocolates. Don’t eat too much chocolates.”

Bad, Beng. Bad. Yet I don’t have to be defined by my weaknesses (for chocolates, in particular). Just wait and see. For a week, I won’t eat any chocolates. And my abstinence won’t have to make me feel weak. Someone infinitely greater than me can help me. Lord, save me from myself. I love You more than chocolates.

The woman with no left hand

She was standing two feet away from me. As the escalator was going up, I turned my head to the right and noticed. The lady, around 50-ish, does not have a left hand. All she had was a smooth stump that ended her wrist. I tried hard not to look. But my curiosity got the better of me. So I saw that on her handless forearm slung a plastic package, plus her handbag. She was laughing, with two of her companions providing the punchline to a joke.

We went our separate ways when we reached the second floor level. But my thoughts stayed with woman with no left hand. How did she lose it? When? When she was sixteen, or when she was thirty-two? Did she figure in an accident, or was it from an obscure flesh-eating disease?

If I had the nerve and no risk of being mistaken for a crazed woman, I’d stop her. And ask her who she is, where she’s from, what she does. And then, if I’d have earned her trust, I’d ask her if we can continue the conversation. And then one day, maybe she’d feel safe enough in my company to tell me the story behind her missing hand.

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There are as many stories waiting to be read as there are human beings on planet Earth. Because every person, without exception, is a story waiting to be told. Indulge me for a moment and imagine people walking around as if they were books.  Wouldn’t that be exciting? What books would catch your fancy and what books will get enveloped in dust? Can you forgo sleep just to read through, nay, spend time with, one book that you just cannot put down?

For five minutes tonight, I wanted to read only one book: hers. And discover the story of the woman with no left hand. For all I know, hers might be the story of a mother, a wife, and a daughter whose body might be broken but whose soul is whole.