#9: I Pulled a Toenail Before

I used to pride myself in being tough, especially to blood and gore and pain. I freaked out some of my friends because I told them how I had my victory over pain by being able to pull a whole dead toenail. Even when I was still a kid, I didn't ever cry over a wound, even if all that is left of my knee are debris and bleeding flesh. Knives cut through my fingers at least thrice a year. I even accidentally/ stupidly cut myself with a blade because I slid it over my thumb, testing if it was really sharp. Oh yes, you bet it was sharp.

And again in all those times, I didn't cry.

I guess bitterness and pride and a constant exposure to other pains the eye can't see makes the visible ones easier for me. I even suspected that my mild masochism during my confused teen years sprang from a desire to flood my inner pains with the physical so even just for 4 seconds or so, all my mind will register is the throbbing of my nerve endings.

Now don't go thinking I am a sickoEalthough I can't blame you. I just said that because earlier, I realized something changed. I was preparing the ingredients for our Ginisang Mongo dinner. I've chopped up the garlic, onions, tomatoes, ginger when I realized I haven't thawed the pork yet. I took it out of the freezer and obviously, it was rock hard. Thanks to my home-TV-shopping serrated knife, I sawed off the chunks little by little. I was doing my last slice whenEo:p>

KRRRRRRG! Uh-ohEo:p>

I sawed off half my thumb knuckle. Freakazoid! I held my breath for a second, waiting for it to sink in. Usually, I get startled and then while the wound is still numb, I'd go to the sink right away to wash it, steeling myself against any sudden pangs caused by the water and the germicidal soap. But earlier, there was no numbing! It was painful right away, as in s**t!

"Baby, nahiwa ako."

I went to the sink and man! *%&#@! I was trembling by the time I finished washing, if you can call it that since I can't even touch it. I also noticed that I was breathing in gasps. I had to remind myself to breathe well. I was on the verge of tears when I thought to myself "Mighty Anne ain't no wimp! She never ever cries over some sissy cut!" I Inhaled deeply, blinking my tears away. My husband took a really cute pink Sanrio band-aid (the one with this dog and cat taking a nap together). When I held out my thumb to him, that was the only time I saw my thumb bleeding really bad, while sending waves of pain on my whole hand.

"Wipe off the blood first," he says. Weakly, I dab the edge of my violet cotton shirt on it. (Wahahaha! This bit is totally hilarious for meE Then would you believe? I started to black out! My sight got dark and I feel like I'm running out of air! I had to drop on the nearest chair and while I was slumped clumsily, I started letting out sobs, just like a whimpering dog! A part of me was getting red out of embarrassment from myself.

"Sheesh Anne, how pathetic can you get?!?"

"Esob*"

"Oh please, get out of my sight, you are making me sick."

"*Sniff* Why don't YOU get out of my sight? I'm trying to breathe here!"

Obnoxious, masochistic Anne leaves in disgust. Wimpy Anne is left with her concerned husband.

Yeah, come to think of it, I cry a lot lately. Remember the entry "A Moose Made Me Cry"? I also cried there. I wondered why. Then I figured, maybe it's because the Lord has already spanked me often enough to learn that my former tough, strong-hearted, self-sufficient being is not sufficient at all. Only when I become defenseless do I open myself up to be loved and nurtured by others. Why would anyone help you if you think you're not helpless? How can someone wipe your tears if you don't know how to cry? It's only when you accept weakness that someone stronger will be able to stand in for you.

Then in between sobs I said, "I think you made me into a woman." He just smiled while he was wiping my face.

 ... For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor. 12:10b

#8: The Sorry Entry

I Apologize

I was too scared.

Too scared of lack.

Lack of time, lack of money,

Lack of words, lack of energy.

Though I never thought of

Lacking you someday.

I should've chosen to give,

Laugh without worries,

Even just for a night.

Now, you are behind that glass

And in a faraway cradle.

Either way,

I won't be able to

buy you coffee anymore

and see that thrilled smile.

Not ever.

In a shaded sidewalk, a woman sits crying, looking far at the trail of people in black. A gentleman passes byE/FONT>

Man: Ma'am, can I be of help? Are you ok?

Woman: No.

Man: I'm sorry for your lossEas that your parent?

Woman: No.

Man: Your friend?

Woman: No.

Man: Was that your husband?

Woman: No.

Man: Who is that person in your life then?

Woman: No one.

 Man: Then why are you crying?

Woman: Because now I will never know who that person can be for me.

Then the man looked at the disappearing trail of black people, sat with her, and silently cried.

#7: Sgt. Pepper is Lonely…

...because few understand what peppers are for.

Salt and pepper are soulmates. They are meant to be together in almost every savory dish. Although we know what salt is for, why do you think there is pepper?

This is my attempt to put together my knowledge, logic, assumptions and articulations to put meaning in these taken-for-granted granules.

Let me start by explaining how the art/science of tasting occurs. When we eat, we don't just enjoy the taste of the food through our tongue. Our tongue is limited to only four sensations: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. What gives any food its dimensions, the roundness, or richness is its aroma or what we call in tagalog, langhap. Take the sentence namnamin mo ang pagkain. It's a call to enjoy your food by really immersing your self in its taste. The word namnam is actually an onomatopoeia of the movement of the mouth which helps get the aroma of the food to our nose, thus maximizing the taste of what were eating. We'll get the langhap if we make namnam the food. (BWAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Try mo. Namnamnamnamnamnamnam. Hehe.

The aroma of the food we are chewing travels from the mouth to the nasal cavity. It's kind of smelling the food from inside our mouth. That is why anything tastes bland if we're down with a bad cold. Our sense of smell is not working, hence, we don't experience the aroma of our food. Eat caldereta with a cold and it will just be boringly salty and sour. But once our olfactory sense work, we start noticing the hint of liver, the juice of the beef, the toasted garlic and sautéed onions, the slightly earthy sweet smell of peanut butter, even the crisp whiff of green bell peppers. In the same manner, (this is gonna be a distasteful turn) we say, "Lasang ipis yung kanin" even if we fully know that we don't eat ipis to know how they actually taste. We just know how they smell. Yet we still say lasang ipis, because the nasal cavity registers the cockroach smell.

Now the concept of mint. (I thought this entry is gonna be easy but I'm starting to have a hard time now…) We all know that the pepper is sort of minty, even hot, in large proportions. The minty sensation, as we experience in toothpastes and chilies, is not a taste. I'm being redundant here but it is actually a sensation, a feeling that sticks to our skin, and in the case of our nose and mouth, our mucous membranes. That's why when we eat something hot, we can't easily wash it down with water because it is an irritation of our mucous membranes. After brushing our teeth, the mint, stays in our mouth, in our nasal cavity, even after we rinse our mouth.

What I think the pepper does is, it gives the dish that subtle minty element. Whether it's the sharp sweet bouquet of the langka, or the rich barky (? - here barky, barky!) milky flavor of gata, the pepper pushes the aromas to stick to our nasal cavity a little longer so the taste experience will be more lingering. However few the specks of pepper in your soup, it pushes the flavor from fleeting to lasting. Without pepper, any savory dish would've been …flat. The great thing about this is, even if you don't see all the pepper-specks, you know they're there, making your experience richer than it is supposed to be.

Whew. For the few like-minded people I know. My pepper-speck friends.

#25: An Unusual Love Letter

Surprise! You're pregnant!
I am? How can that be? I am not supposed to be.
Why not?
Because I was supposed to be "safe". Because Himig is barely 1 and a half years old. Worst of all, because If I'm six weeks pregnant now, it only means I was 3 weeks pregnant when I got chicken pox. I can't be pregnant.


But I was. There was no denying it. I told it to my usually bubbly OB-Gyne and as expected, just like me, she wasn't able to rejoice. I had chicken pox. Chicken pox and pregnancy should not even belong in the same sentence. It took me a while to get my head around that reality. I allowed myself some time to mourn and accept that things may not go as perfectly s it went with my firstborn, Himig. I even prayed that I'd rather have the Lord just take my second baby right away than give birth to her with parts of her body or mind deformed from the effects of the chicken pox.


However, a wise mentor of ours reminded us that this is a blessing and nothing is impossible with our God. He allowed it to happen and it should be beautiful. After digesting that, I was finally given the grace to let go and have peace that God, in the end, is in control of everything. Normal or otherwise, He has the final say and ultimate plan.


A lot of trusted friends prayed with us until on my 5th month, I received a love letter from our Maker. It is addressed to me and worded in a very unusual way but it is one of the sweetest letter I ever received. He titled it Congenital Anomaly Scan Result. Here it goes:


Esteban, Anne


Pelvic Ultrasound:
Single, intra-uterine fetus in cephalic presentation with:
Good cardiac and somatic activity
No uterine mass seen.
Placenta - posterior, grade 1, high-lying
Amniotic fluid: maximum vertical pocket = 4.5cm


CAS: Intact cranium, normal head shape, normal intra-cranial structures. No neck mass. Nuchal fold not thickened. Intact lips and normal facial features. Normal intra-thoracic structures. Normal 4-chamber view of the heart. Intact diapragm. Normal kidneys and partially filled urinary bladder [haha! may wee-wee na siya!]. Intact spine. Complete and well-aligned extremeties. 3-vessel cord. Intact cord insertion.


MOST PROBABLY A BABY GIRL
NO GROSS CONGENITAL ANOMALY SEEN IN PRESENT SCAN
ESTIMATED DAY OF DELIVERY: DEC. 22, 2010


*end of letter*


I was not able to do anything to stop my tears from welling up when I read this. It was a very bright light during a dark and tumultous time in our lives. An eye-rolling-ly refreshing drink of cool water in a mall after a full, El Niño summer day stuck inside your air-conditioning-deprived car in the traffic of Recto.


So pray. Learn to pray. Ask your friends to pray with and for you. 


Know that you are not in control, that when you surrender that "illusion of control" to the One who is indeed the God of this Universe, things will turn out just fine. He may even send you your own love letter just so He'll be sure you got the point.

#6: A Fact and a Question

FACT: We are human. God is God.

Fellowship

People sitting around, not trying to flash their polite smiles, the smile which forces the eyes to smile a little more sweetly. Instead, they sit poker-faced, or sometimes half-smilingly, or sometimes concentrating in scrutiny, listening, speaking. People laughing with all the wideness of their mouth, not fearing to let others see the amalgam in their teeth or the half-masticated meat still rolling around their mouth. People side by side, staring at a TV screen. People staying in eagerness, putting time and rest and silence second priority. People cross-legged, slumped, legs happily sprawled in your presence. They lie on their backs, on their belly, on their side. People eating as much as they can, feeding as much ay they can, giving as much as they can. People not scared of touching the trembling back of a sobbing body. People not scared of having their tears seen by people who they trust are equally human.

Holy Spirit

Is not an "It" but a "He". Is not an object but a Person, a Person who sees, feels, grieves, celebrates. God the Father is Jesus is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God's Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. The same God who placed each nebula, each pulsar, each sunrise and sunset in clockwork precision. The same God who conceives every rainbow-colored movement on the surface of a bubble. The same God who parted a whole sea. The same God who designed all animals, insects, each genom and species. The same God who lovingly placed each vein, artery, neuron, liver, ligament and air sac in our body. The Holy Spirit is God IN YOU. IN ME. IN EACH OF HIS CHILDREN. The power of God in us. The essence of God in us. How can we be separate from Someone in us? We have nowhere to go but to His heaven, because His Spirit, belongs to heaven.

Fellowship with the Holy Spirit

The Father eating sinigang with you. Jesus writing a poem with you. The Spirit watching a crappy movie with you. The Father, laughing with you in all wideness of your mouth, amalgam, half-masticated meat and all. Jesus, waiting with you for the computer to boot, for the dial-up internet to connect, for the jeep to finally arrive. The Spirit, sitting with you, alone in your room, crying every tear that slides from your eyes. The Father chuckling with you at the stubbornly sticking snot that just won't be flicked by your finger. Jesus with you as you pound your fist in rage against your poverty, your traitor, your father, your superior, yourself. The Spirit, embracing you, as you embrace yourself when no one wants to.

"When I consider the heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? …You have made him a little lower than the angels and have crowned him with glory and honor." Psalms 8:3,4a,5

How do you turn away from a God who is this much in love with you?

#5: A Moose Made Me Cry

I am still female. I take pleasure in window-shopping. I still ponder upon my outfit for the day. I still bask in the compliments of my husband. I cannot stand war movies. I still look forward to having a night out with girls of like mind the Lord has graciously peppered my life with.

However, I have a playful theory in my head: I was really meant to become a boy. I was in my mom's womb, about to grow my caboodle when the Lord probably realized, "Wait, I remember, I need to give Junn a wife! Kawawa naman, eh."

KABLAMMM!!!

I became a girl. I was supposed to be just the best friend but now I am also his wife. But a little too much testosterone had been injected in my body already. Perhaps that explains my flat chest, big ribs, narrow hips, my keen sense of direction and my aggressive (ask my husband), direct-to-the point outlook. Maybe that is why I get along with men better, even in the casual level; I appreciate the directness. I have a hard time weaving and unraveling guesswork in my conversations. Where other girls will be offended, I'll be ok. I enjoy being alone. In fact, I'd prefer to eat a quiet lunch alone in some carinderia, than be forced to lunch in some fast food with a bunch of sweet-smelling girls where I'll be forced to make small giggly talk.

I can't stand the:

 "Sige I'll have water lang. I'm dieting e."

 "Ay shucks, umuulan, mababasa sandals ko."

"Malayo ba lalakarin? Kayo na lang…"

"Samahan mo naman ako sa CR, please?"

"Is it ok if we sit first, I'm tired na e."

"Wag na muna tayong umalis, ang taas ng araw."

Spare me the pain.

Buti na lang, in God's sovereignty and wisdom, He deemed it fit for me to become a girl. Had I been male, I could have been one major jerk.

A moose made me cry last Wednesday.

Or maybe I am just particularly weak when it comes to torture. I'm fine with seeing someone shot in the head dead. Right away. But torture, the slow infliction of pain, that I can't stand.

In my distaste for the evil of torture, or violence on the whole, I am moved to write about this hideous website my pepper-speck friends showed me. It's a site with about 50 flash-based short animations about candy-colored animals in a candy-colored world experiencing extreme physical torment. Seeing the characters and artworks will make you think that the makers are cousins with Hello Kitty. But I was bowled over by the violence in it.

The episode I saw was about this moose who cut a tree. The tree fell on his direction and unfortunately, he just didn't die right away. A branch stood in the way between the tree and the moose. However, the branch also got his leg pinned in the ground. He can't get away so he decided to cut off his leg with the axe he was holding. But when he aimed, the head of the axe flew off. Ducking his hand in his pocket, he found a spoon. That is what he used to cut his leg. He stabbed on his leg the whole day, the whole night, trying to cut off the leg. Each stab is accentuated by his pained screams. In the end, after enduring torture, he discovers he cut off the wrong leg.

My immediate response was I laughed, because of the ridiculous stupidity. But I noticed that at the same time, I was also crying. It was only later that I was able to process it and discovered why I was crying. Because I was so freaking disturbed.

Why? Because I know that a lot of people find them cute. A lot of people find them horrifyingly gross. A lot of people find them funny. And altogether think IT IS OK. It pains me to know that KIDS can be lured by these cute creatures into thinking that slow infliction of pain, dismemberment and mangled bodies are actually fine. In fact they can be alternative entertainment if you got bored with MTV Jackass (please note the sarcasm). It is like screaming "HEY! FREE SNUFF FOR KIDS!" It made me cry until I got home.

Evil can come to you in so many different faces.