Today

Today I am happy. And there's no saying how long this will last. You know how fate is, so I'm revelling in it, sucking it for all its worth.

The rain came to test my determination. As today is company holiday, I planned early on to wake up and jog/walk and kill that fitness procrastinator that's been eating me up. But I woke up to dark skies and a steady splattering rain.

So for most of the day I stayed in and worked at the business, cleaned up my kitchen, had an hour-long chitchat with the family in Pinas, and read a chapter of The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

At five PM, just when I was on the verge of sleepiness, my resolve came and I went out to jog. The streets were still wet but it was warm enough to get by with just my track pants and a parka. I walked my way into the next subway station, taking in the silence, the peace of being alone and in a land not my own. Thirty minutes of walking and I arrive at HomePlus, a grocery chain affiliated with UK's Tesco malls.

People who don't know that pesky businesswoman in me might take me for being a bit of a shopaholic. But it's the thrill of seeing a great bargain or discovering a promising product to try out and blab to the clients that gives me a bit of a rush. It's a finder's game. And today, what do you know, my favorite shower bath was on sale at 40% off. Could it be serendipity that I just made a review of it at the online shop a few weeks ago? And of course I bought a few for myself and a couple to be offered to clients. And that alone made me smile.

It is the potential to please, to surprise people with unexpected finds that I myself have tried which makes the online shop more than just a storefront. I want a business with soul, a place where customers are not mere names but living people with needs that are more than material, whose longing goes beyond beauty or superficiality. And what do you know? I just found out today that in Japan, this business philosophy is known as Sei-Katsu-Sha. It's the insight to look at consumers as living beings. I don't know if it's a knack, but it's something I've always had. This fascination for other people. To look at people and wonder, what it is that you need to be happy? What is it that has formed your life? I am a seeker of tales, stories, so maybe this is why I run my ventures this way. Inspite of my work, and my own needs as a social being, I try to spend a few hours to cultivate that sense of connection, to make people feel (even the unbelieving ones) that these ventures are my own little seeds of Sei-Katsu-Sha.

So if you ask me this minute. I'll say, I'm happy now. And because I'm happy I had to do stuffs to sustain it. Which is exactly what I did. Immersing myself into little everyday things that help my spirit soar.

After the walk, I plunked a pot with water, dropped half of the remaining Cacao Tableas made from beans harvested from our little cacao farm in Davao. And in a test for flavor, I dropped a ball of mint leaves and concocted my own mint-chocolate drink. Because truly, chocolate does make one a bit happier. But more so if you make it yourself, knowing that what you're having is something from home.

Chocolate and a fiery poet. Zing! This beautiful day, a cup of mint chocolata and the words of Sandra Cisneros. And all I could hope for is for this hopeful joy to be something of a promise for what is yet to come.


Waiting for a Lover

And what if you don't arrive?
And what if you do?
I'm so afraid
I cross my fingers,
make a wish
spit.

You're new.
You can't hurt me yet.
I light the candles.
Say my prayers.
Scent myself with mangoes.

I like the possibility of anything,
the little fear I feel
when you enter a room.
I haven't a clue of the who of you.

And what if you do like me?
And what if you do?
I can't think.
Dress myself in slinky black,
my 14-carat hoops and my velvet spikes.
Smoke two cigars.
I'm doing loopity loops.

Listen --- cars roar by. All night.
I'm waiting for the one that stops.
All my life. Listen ---
Hear that?
Yikes.


Loose Woman

They say I'm a beast.
And feast on it. When all along
I thought that's what a woman was.

They say I'm a bitch.
Or witch. I've claimed
the same and never winced.

They say I'm a macha, hell on wheels,
viva-la-vulva, fire and brimstone,
man-hating, devastating,
boogey-woman lesbian.
Not necessarily
but I like the compliment.

the mob arrives with stones and sticks
to maim and lame and do me in.
All the same, when I open my mouth,
they wobble like gin.

Diamonds and pearls
tumble from my tongue.
Or toads and serpents.
Depending on the mood I'm in.

I like the itch I provoke.
The rustle of rumor
like crinoline.

I am the woman of myth and bullshit.
(True. I authored some of it.)
I built my little house of ill repute.
Brick by bick. Labored,
loved and masoned it.

I live like so.
Heart as sail, ballast, rudder, bow.
Rowdy. Indulgent to excess.
My sin and success ---
I think of me to gluttony.

By all accounts I am
a danger to society.
I'm Pancha Villa.