too many parties to attend and too much alcohol to drink…

Just when I was about to declare my undying adoration for this city, the Christmas season starts and everything I loathe about Manila comes back - the traffic, the crazy cab drivers, the long queues to everything and everywhere.

It is supposed to be the time to be merry and bright but I do not feel anything close to cheery right now. I want to stage a major tantrum but lucky for me, there’s no willing audience within a mile radius.

Ho sbagliato tante volte ormai che lo so già
che oggi quasi certamente
sto sbagliando su di te ma una volta in più
che cosa può cambiare nella vita mia…
accettare questo strano appuntamento
è stata una pazzia!

Sono triste tra la gente
che mi sta passando accanto
ma la nostalgia di rivedere te
è forte più del pianto:
questo sole accende sul mio volto
un segno di speranza.
Sto aspettando quando ad un tratto
ti vedrò spuntare in lontananza!

Amore, fai presto, io non resisto…
se tu non arrivi non esisto
non esisto, non esisto…

e cambiato il tempo e sta piovendo
ma resto ad aspettare
non m’importa cosa il mondo può pensare
io non me ne voglio andare.
io mi guardo dentro e mi domando
ma non sento niente;
sono solo un resto di speranza
perduta tra la gente.

Amore è già tardi e non resisto…
se tu non arrivi non esisto
non esisto, non esisto…

luci, macchine, vetrine, strade
tutto quanto si confonde nella mente
la mia ombra si è stancata di seguirmi
il giorno muore lentamente.
Non mi resta che tornare a casa mia
alla mia triste vita
questa vita che volevo dare a te
l’ hai sbriciolata tra le dita.

Amore perdono ma non resisto…
adesso per sempre non esisto
non esisto, non esisto…

Once, once I loved
And I gave so much love to this love you were the world to me
Once I cried
At the thought I was foolish and proud and let you say goodbye

And then one day
From my infinite sadness you came and brought me love again
Now I know
That no matter what ever befalls I’ll never let you go
I will hold you close, make you stay
Because love is the saddest thing when it goes away
Love is the saddest thing when it goes away

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I do not know which I love best - Joao Gilberto’s version or Astrud’s. I have also discovered a rather old Italian artist, from the 70’s - Ornelli Vanoni. Although I do not understand the lyrics I can feel the despair and fervent hope in her voice.

from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

************************************

I look at the little people at home and wonder at how much they’ve grown from the little babies to these kids that threaten to ruin every furniture in the house. I sigh inwardly and long for their baby selves. Do not get me wrong. I am glad that those endless nights of feeding and burping and colic are over… it is the blissful unaware existence of a baby’s first months that I miss most. Who doesn’t?

I am guilty of spending hours just looking at my babies in their sleep — catching their sighs and fleeting smiles and absorbing the wonder of creation and half-forgetting the dirty laundry and dishes that nag at me from the corners of our tiny apartment.

Santino is regressing. He thinks we won’t adore him as much when the new baby arrives. He keeps asking me: Baby ko nimo, mama? I always try to reassure him that he will always be my baby. He would be comforted for the briefest time and speak in this sing-songy voice… then morph himself into a boa constrictor and wrap his chubby arms around me, never letting me go. It is both endearing and irritating especially now, that my groin aches from the added weight of my growing belly.

At night, I still watch them in their sleep… all growing limbs and the fuzz of babyhood gone but still looking like my innocent little angels. I make a silent prayer for the divinities to keep them that way — free from life’s harshness, safely cocooned in the magic of dreams and make-believe. I know it won’t be long… soon they will be out in the world and I can only look back and wish that they are still small enough to be carried in my arms.