love (free writing)

I used to imagine the tapestry of my life as a crude patchwork of temporary sources of happiness, each one overlapping another, if only to limit the gaps made by windows of sadness and meaninglessness. I thought there never was a steady source. God was but another temporary pacifier– I never really knew what he was for.

Intellectualizing him some more, I agreed to his being an opiate, as he was best known among glory-seekers. Faith-based community service was another social outlet for the tired soul, much like Zumba, and theater and art classes. But now, anyone who tells me ‘at least you have an outlet’ is terribly, terribly mistaken. Belief — love of God and neighbor — is a way of life.

By grace, I learned that I shouldn’t intellectualize God, I only have to love him back.

Since then, he has transformed my ratty patchwork vision into something as unified and comforting as having only one thing to live and work and die for.

I have never felt so lacking in the world and yet so complete in love. Thank you, Father.

My New Lifestyle Guide

The past weeks, I’ve started to make lifestyle adjustments. I thought it would be a difficult time to do so as I had Belgian friends visiting, but they were very helpful in challenging the prejudices that imprison my Negrense mind.

After the lifestyle inventory. I tried to take stock of what I have:

1. I have enough clothes and do not need to buy for the year.

2. I have enough sturdy shoes that can see me through different occasions.

3. I have enough unread paperbacks and hardbound books and magazines for entertainment.

4. I’ve hoarded more than enough ebooks and TEDtalks on my Kindle.

5. My prayer life is back on track and I’m working on never letting go of it again.

Recognizing this sufficiency, I have started to pen and submit myself to this lifestyle guide, which so far, is working out well — except for number 9!!!

1. For the year, try to keep off the boutiques and malls, unless you need clothes of a certain color, or make, to satisfy a (n discriminating) dress code. In case you get rabid, bring your vanity to a corner and remind the little monster of two faddish mullet dresses you’ve never worn.

2. For every article of clothing, or pair of shoes, or accessories over P500, that you buy, you must give away two articles of clothing or pairs of shoes from your closet. You could just easily let go of any shirt that’s been sitting at the bottom of the shelf since the days of elephant jeans, so what you should give away are those that are still trendy.

3. If you should buy clothes, opt for fewer prints so you can mix and match as often as possible, and so you can wear them over and over again.  Look for fabrics that are wrinkle-free so you don’t have ironing to do.

4. When at the grocery and tempted to grab Ruffles and Lays and Jalapeno Cheetos, always recall that moment when these chips become too salty and stinging on the palate, halfway through the bag.

5. Commute so you can save more, but if the driver is exceptionally good and respectful, let him keep the change. Remember, too, that the jeepney is a  rich source of stories and human observation. When it’s too hot, the umbrella was not invented for nothing.  If your colleagues feel it does not suit the lifestyle that you should fake, well, you know better. You always know better, at least for yourself.

6. Buy generic Atorvastatin, Clopidogrel, Metphormine, etc., and save P10 per tablet on the average!

7. You don’t have to make that pit stop at Booksale after doing the grocery. If you’re itching for a new Crossword Puzzle book, then go ahead, but only if you’ve finished cracking the ones at home. At the bank, newspapers lie around — spare the daily crossword the agony and emptiness of remaining a puzzle!

8. Practice simplicity even in technology. Spend less stalking time on Facebook. Just keep one window open, one program running at a time.

9. Meet friends for coffee, and eat your meals at home.

10. When the urge to spend is pressing, examine where it’s coming from. Maybe you’re just feeling sad and bored and useless — go off the beaten track and look for a resourceful, new route. Grab your Encounter Prayer Book and clear your head.

So far, these are only the habits that I need to form so I can seamlessly, peacefully make my way into Simplicity School. This lifestyle guide is yet to have the projects that I envision for self-sufficiency, for clutter-free, excess-baggage-free, “transient” living.

An illustration of Negrense Prejudice

One day, my two Belgian guests and I were preparing for our friend’s wedding. We had planned to have our hair done at an inexpensive salon after their noon-day swim at the Chalet. Since we were pressed for time, we decided to change into our wedding clothes — just laid back white dresses, thank goodness — at the Chalet. The salon where we had reservations was a good three blocks away from the hotel, so I asked them, “Would you prefer to take a cab or walk to the salon?”

Clotilde, my Belgian friend who knows Bacolod like the palm of her hand, replied, “We walk, we can’t afford to wait.”

“Yes, I prefer to walk, too, because it’s like, only forty steps away, so let’s go,” I said. But my small, shrill Negrense voice, screamed “uhm, hello, Mormon elders in white? Lacson street at noon? Social Faux Pas!”

So I asked again, victim of a sudden shift from simplicity school student, to insecure Bank striver: “You don’t mind walking? I mean, us three, in white…along the main street?”

Gaetane, Clotilde’s mother, a woman of noble, colonial roots, wondered, “Why, is there a problem with that?”

******

A day after this promenade to the salon, I got a call from another friend: “Why were you walking down Lacson in your white uniforms? You looked funny! I was honking at you. You should have asked me to drive you to where you were going!”

I would have wanted to do the Gaetane on her –why, what’s the problem — but, ahhh, there goes my Negrense friend. 🙂

For every whiff of Chanel, a poke from a smelly scavenger

*written on January 11, 2011, while waiting for a meeting at Nestle, Rockwell Center

 

(free writing, purging, recess)

 

Exposure defines your response. From your priorities and responsibilities to your fashion preference; from your taste in men to your idea of success, exposure is the culprit.

 

Walking past Kenneth Cole, Michael Kors, and Escada at Greenbelt 5 everyday after work, you look down at your Rusty Lopez and cluck your tongue in pity. When you were in Candoni and there was only Shoe Earth and Unitop to pass by, your Alberto was aspirational. Exposure! Exposure lassoes you by the neck, drags you to anything flashy, pricey and wearable so that the next time your boss becomes the boss that he is, you can just look at the intertwining Ls and Vs of your bag and feel better.

 

And then when you traipse down Ayala Avenue again, your Ls and Vs need not become words on drab leather strong enough to elicit stares and glares from other women. To them you become a storied stranger — fake ba iyan o may Papang Hapon? Baka nilandi yung boss para ma promote.

 

Ahahaha, you muffle a chuckle and enjoy the attention.

Still, all of you are the same, lugging office politics and bursting BDJ planners in your Longchamps, Coaches, and Birkins;

descending underpasses, underestimation, undermining capacities

you look for life and subtly look for love behind your dark Fendi glasses.

 

Careful, amiga, you might trip and rip your basic black skirt, it’s a Zara. a Zara is a Zara here; elsewhere it’s a Bobson. Come fast now. As boldly as your sway, tap your Cole Haans and drown out all the nonprofit chatter of some girl asking you to save polar bears.

 

Exposure! when you used to retrace the steps of heroes on your way to work in Intramuros, everyday you saw pedicab drivers and their spread feet, scavengers and their children, and roofs so loosely covering houses. Everyday these were your motivation, and no matter how absurd or impossible your poverty reduction targets seemed, you saw the faces that would someday reap them.

 

Exposure! Back at the Makati CBD, how compelling would your social responsibility be when there is only the charmed life, or at least the promise of it> there are not a lot of hungry urchins and definitely no helpless polar bears to squeeze your heart.

 

And so dear self, i pray that you get every bit of exposure in every bit of reality. For every whiff of Chanel, a poke from a smelly scavenger. For every filling meal, the uncomfortable stirring of your soul against excess. for every reward, a stranger to share it with. For every heartache, a new opportunity.

 

This exposure comes best with a challenge — to shake up the insular, and to awaken the dream among those in the fringes of life.

 

My Current Lifestyle Inventory

“Carpe diem” has not helped me much at the mall. My carpe diem has stalled my simplifying for years. There’s always that latent desire for the simple and less complicated, but everywhere, temptations abound. Like any girl, I fancy clothes, eclectic styles, and looking good in general (my childhood dream was to be a fashion designer) that at the mall, my shoppingera self speaks the loudest, with her erroneous brand of conviction and haggling with my more sensible self. Just this one dress, that’s it. Its the last pair and I find it hard to look for my size. What do you mean ignore these leather pants– it’s a good bargain!

 

Wrong timing!

And like a big prank, The District at the Ayala North Point has just opened. And it has a Dumond store! What simple living hullabaloo am i getting myself into?

 

That is exactly the mentality that i want to let go of, otherwise i wont make any progress. If I die tomorrow and I still haven’t allowed this seed of simplicity to bear fruit, I lose the chance of a lifetime.

 

So that I can be more specific and “measurable” in my simplifying project, and to identify that which needs the most adjustment, it would help to take stock of what I currently have and what I tend to do. An inventory of my lifestyle.

 

The Inventory

 

1. Clothes

I have more corporate clothes than weekend wear, and most of my clothes are dresses (cooler, keeping the crotch free, haha). Even then as I came home to Bacolod, I’ve promised not to buy clothes anymore, except those whose discounts one couldn’t just ignore. What I have in my closet then are the stuff I bought in Manila in the four years that I stayed there, with the Manila corporate landscape / Makati Garden Club in mind. When I came home, some  items — large collars, bulky scarves and shawls, tight and uptight pencil skirts, bold prints — are too ridiculous to wear in a relaxed setting. I’m not an extremely hungry shopper, so even then, I just limited my shopping to three months – January and July for the end-of-season sale, and November for the pre-holiday sale. But, especially when shopping with friends and colleagues, I would tend to gravitate to Zara, Topshop, Promod, Terranova, and try my luck at Rustan’s, and that’s where the problem lies. Looking back, I can’t believe I fell for those brands. Put them all in a box, and bring to the market with a “bag-o bukad” label, and they’ll seamlessly blend in.

 

2. Shoes

It’s quite difficult to get myself a pair of shoes. I don’t have a size at Celine or CMG or Charles and Keith or Rusty Lopez. Not even at Crazy Feet, Meryl and Shoe Earth. So I would go to Payless or Hush Puppies or Debenhams where I’m sure I won’t go home empty handed. But come July and November, I come to Nine West, or Dumond and rabidly look for a reward, a pacifier of sorts for my size 10.  My style principle (when it mattered so much to me) was that you can tell by the fabric (especially of a gown) and the shoes (especially the material, the shade if it’s a silver or a gold pair, and the heel) if one has good taste or not. I would then head home trying to convince myself some more of my “good” purchase, and make up for the possibility of it being a bad decision by not eating. If I remember correctly, this is the theory of cognitive dissonance (or is it? GMG!). Months after, the pair would also lose its magic, looking very ordinary and uneventful in my eyes. That’s when I would start to realize the lost opportunity of putting money elsewhere that will make it grow, and where it will not disintegrate its heel over time.

 

3. Food and Entertainment

I love to eat out and try new places with friends. I drink, too, for loosening up, and though I can hold my liquor, I always get surprised by the tab — did a party of three just consume provisions enough for the Wedding at Cana? Also, many times, after a stressful day, or as a reward for lunch, I would go to a restaurant and eat alone, when I could have just looked for a clean carinderia, or gone home.

Now, what other forms of entertainment do I haplessly spend on? I have to think through, because they’re so varied. From countless dvds, to unplanned dinners and jaunts with friends. Keyword: unplanned.

 

3. Food at home / Groceries

 

Though I have tried to ease out on junk food and cancer-causing treats and most canned food, some still manage to get its way to the cart. It does help to refrain from doing the groceries when you’re hungry or else even the canned garbanzos would not be spared. What I also find quite taxing is buying vegetables, especially those that rot easily. You can’t get a bunch of greens in one go and keep it fresh for a week. You have to restock every three days.

 

4.  Favorite Purchases

I love browsing through Booksale looking for back issues of magazines, crossword puzzle books, and other rare finds. Magazines always catch my attention as I love scrutinizing the layout, the ad placements, the photos, the editor’s note as much as the rest of the writing. Great if I find special interest back issues that cost less than P50, but my hands always have the itch for the costly ones that, if you think about it, just rehash and rewrite articles and have nothing new to say (Cleanse, tone, moisturize; Tips for a new you, etc.).

 

Speaking of cleanse, tone, moisturize, makeup takes much of my spending, too. The youtube tutorials are to blame (haha) for the many brushes my finger and one basic tool can replace, for the primer, and the bb cream, and all that shizz.

 

I have yet to come to terms with how I spend on books. I could spend over a thousand on one and not feel bad about it, until I find the book just lying around unread. Okay, yet to be read.

 

Fountain pens may also take much of my spending as a I take on a new hobby. But actually, I’ve always loved doodling and stylized lettering and untrained calligraphy even before I’ve come to know about the tools of the art.

 

Adjustments

So far, that’s what I could think of, and I need to make huge adjustments to suit my new lifestyle of going out less and buying less especially if unplanned, of commuting and walking more, and of prioritizing free entertainment.

 

Next Post: My Lifestyle Adjustments 

Simplicity School: My Reasons for Enrollment

Even before my declaration, I have been consciously favoring the simple, the inexpensive, and those choices that give me peace of mind. But many of these decisions are a constant battle with interest, pride, the pressure to belong and keep up. Okay, Kimee, too proud huh?! You could have easily just written “peer pressure!’ This is so telling of your denial that you have not completely overcome such a teenage issue.  Many times, I win over myself and my insecurities, but at other times, especially when I assume the restless yuppie self, I give in. In other words, makisama, until I find it hard to get out: I overspend, overeat, get mildly poisoned nightly, come home late, forget to pray, feel jaded prematurely and lose touch of myself.

A Lifestyle Overhaul to stop feeling useless

Time and again, I have proven that whenever I feel useless and lonely, I tend to spend; the more I spend, the more I feel useless and lonely. What’s worse, I spend on unplanned clutter that become unwanted in the long run. But I have never had the will to stop. I have long been toying with the idea of a lifestyle overhaul, but it is only this time that I am most compelled because of circumstances:

My mother’s sickness.

Since she got diagnosed with cancer and suffered a stroke, there has been a spike in our spending. She is held together by expensive maintenance medicines, healed by vegetables and unnecessarily expensive organic food finds, strengthened by physical therapy. Thankfully, she is positive and unyielding, and I believe she gets comforted by our presence.

Walden. The return to the womb of Nature

When I was in an emotional slump in the last two years, I deactivated my Facebook account, heavily tweeted micropoetry, and found comfort and allies in depressive books. One of those was Henry David Thoreau’s On The Duty of Civil Disobedience which I thankfully didn’t finish because I discovered “Walden.” In this book, Thoreau recounts his two years of a simpler, more self-sufficient life in Walden Pond where he built his cottage himself, and took odd jobs.

With Thoreau’s realizations on employment, stature, clothing, luxury, nature, self-worth, Walden is a gem in my (virtual) bookshelf. Admittedly upon reading, many parts in thick 19th century English just floated beyond my comprehension, but I hope I got Mr. Thoreau right. After all, as a reference book of sorts, it deserves constant rereading.

Pope Francis, New Lifestyle Icon

He has become a new lifestyle icon, an inspiration to deflate my ego and long for things and truths that matter.

Ignacio Larranaga

My quarter life crisis seems to take too long to resolve, and an existential crisis seems to set in yearly. I find Ignacio Larranaga, a Franciscan, very helpful in my daily, restless quest for meaning. In his book, Sensing Your Hidden Presence, he opposes people’s fears that as the world becomes increasingly secular, God and faith will be forgotten. Instead, he believes that:

               Secularization could be compared to the dark night of the senses.    

               It is the most radical purification of the image of God. As a result,  

              the believer of the secularized age will finally be able to live pure

              and unadorned faith, without its false supports…refuge for the

              confused and the weak.

The Art of Living, Humanities at Stanford

I have been following these free lectures, the battle cry of which is, to have something you are willing to live and die for. I have not found that something yet, and perhaps, a major whittling, of living close to the bone, would help me find that.

And so I am putting myself through Simplicity School, where I hope I will be a student for a lifetime.

Next Post: An Inventory of My Current Lifestyle

Planning the Great Corporate Farewell

In 2014, my job contract will end and I don’t have plans to stay on. A few years back, I promised myself that by the age of 30, I will be kicking my heels off, relax the stiff, starched collar, and instead, go barefoot and frolic in weekend wear everyday. Yes, I will be declaring my freedom from the 9 to 5 of the corporate world, and honor my creative, heartfelt pursuits.

Naturally, I am not without fear as I declare my corporate escape. Looming over this bravado are the “adult necessities” like bills, my mother’s maintenance medicines, and money to move around. But I fling my arms to Divine Providence that so far has never failed me. By grace, I am willing to take a leap of faith in 2014.

I spent the past weeks discerning what I plan to do after the corporate escape. I notice that most of those I had written down would definitely not match the pay that I am slaving for now, nor would they make me earn steadily. To many, taking the leap would be very irresponsible and far-fetched, but in my heart, I know it feels right and warm. The rough and tumble in my list needs a lot of fixing, time-plotting, fine-tuning and grounding (many are too dreamy) but what I had written so far:

1. Take care of my Mother full time.

2. Calligraphy. I want to write more by hand and reclaim this quaint art that’s quickly getting lost to typography — do you still actually know and recognize your friends’ handwriting in the midst of communicating by SMS, email and chat? I wish to develop my own flourished script, and fonts, with design patterns and curlicues. In my initial exercises, I love to feature some of my best penmanship teachers’ peculiar letters, and my Mother’s letter J.

3. Start a social enterprise in a community, the aim of which is not only to provide alternative livelihood for mothers, but also make their handiwork a source of pride and continuous learning. I will never forget an anecdote told by the character portrayed by Rosamund Pike in the movie, Barney’s Version. Paul Giamatti’s character smokes a cigar called the Montecristo. Rosamund shares that the cigars are called such because as community women gather and roll the cigars, the classic, The Count of Montecristo is read to them. I count on my like-minded friends here and abroad to join me.

4. Teach social graces and etiquette to graduating public school students. This is to bring down to the community level the otherwise elitist art of being considerate.

5. Gather a think-tank that will pitch ideas to local businesses on how they can be more socially responsible and culturally involved. It’s time that these valuable efforts do not only become the province of schools.  This, I foresee, will be very difficult, but what we’re after is sowing seeds of good.

6. Work part-time in an NGO, specifically helping in their communications plans and materials.

7. Move heaven and earth for the Prayer and Life Workshops to happen here and snowball into varied groups.

8. Write, read, sketch, act, sing, dance. ;-)))

9. Most importantly, maintain this blog about my experiences in living simply and slowly, and pursuing my most coveted farm-to-fork lifestyle.

By this time, I should be talking to a lot of people who have braved a similar path, and people who are planning to as well. Truth be told, I am very unsure about this, but I owe myself a life of meaning with very few worldly detours as much as possible. Let’s see how courageous I will be.

Amen, amen, amen!