Hackett is my mother’s cat. He is 11 years old. When he was 5, he felt incredibly unhappy inside the house, looking out the windows, meowing until he was brought outside. He loved the outside cat life. He became part of a gang of cats, had a few babies until he was neutered at 6 years old. The neighbors have this joke that he’s the kingpin of all the cats. Recently, he’s been less active and started to want to stay inside. He’d recently taken up residence in my room.
I noticed he had this habit of resting his paw on my knee as he fell asleep. I never took notice until this morning. Here is a photo of the paw of the kingpin of this alley’s gang of cats– resting on the side of my knee. An old cat, finding rest in the bridge formed by a tiny touch.
For my sister’s birthday we met her in an island 5 hours from the city she lives in today. We walked in the forest near the opening of a road and found greens covering the side of the road, it was always summer in the island but underneath the trees, were the greenest greens that were cool to the touch
Today, I felt incredibly lethargic before I took lunch. Perhaps I was hungry, it is 3pm and I had a late breakfast. I found out a month ago that I was not producing enough cortisol. Apparently, cortisol is not just a stress hormone (contrary to what I thought), it also helps you get moving, get on your feet and be energised, it helps you metabolise and aids in your body in regulating stress better. Producing enough, and you feel fine, produce less than enough and you could find yourself crashing, slow, sluggish, not metabolising. My doctor asked me once, “Minsan ba, nararamdaman mo na ubos na ubos ka na?” (Do you sometimes feel that there is nothing left in you?)– Wow “ubos” seemed accurate. I told her, I figured I was lazy but I didn’t think there was anything particularly wrong. But I do not remember when it started– the feeling of running out.
When we started to get to work on getting better, I started to feel energised again. Some days, I felt like I was shining. However, last night, I slept late, went to work and forgot to do the daily regimen. By afternoon I was crashing. The physical feeling is followed by another more invisible feeling of running behind something that is impossible to catch. The doctor told me this condition I have can be a result of prolonged exposure to stress. Which shocked me, “I’m not stressed? I’m sure I’m not.” Anyway, stress can come from anything even the less obvious things. Overdoing anything can lead to stress to the body. But I don’t understand, am I overdoing things?
I told my friend J that I am dreaming of growing a garden. “But feeling ko, lagi akong naghahabol ng I don’t know what”. (But I feel like I’m always chasing after something I don’t know what.) It is a long conversation which began with a recommendation of a book entitled “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.” She wrote many things but this one
I don’t know which one came first, the feeling of chasing after something endlessly, or the feeling of exhaustion. Or maybe it is like a carousel– with no beginning or end. Maybe this is the stress — the quiet one that puts a shade over the things of everyday life.
“This is not it, so we better run faster to where we have to get to so that we can find joy.”
I’ve put off so many things — wait, that’s incorrect, I lived so many things in a hurried manner because I thought
“once we get through this, then we will arrive, to the place where we can enjoy. “
But I’m thinking more and more, that this is it. This is the real thing, the minutes where we are here. I realised I am exhausted because I thought that running will put an end to the waiting. But the destination had always been here, and now. I write it to remember– so that I can recognise that what I had been waiting for is already here.
I spent the last two months of 2019 until January 2020 in Bogota with Anna in the house she grew up in. At that time, I was in the middle of editing “Last Days at Sea”. The edit felt like a never ending mystery, something that I could see in my mind but could not get out in a sequence.
I rushed out of bed to open the window as soon as I read Yoonsoo’s message:
“Omg there’s snow.”
Never mind that I was in a T-shirt fit for filming in Manila’s summer heat.
I did not want To miss a second Of this beautiful snow Knowing that it would evaporate before we knew it
We kept the window open, laughing Never mind that we might get sick Or that our heads might ache from the cold. That fear felt small Compared to joy of touching a gentle snowflake
I rejoiced at it landing on my skin and saw it quickly transform into a drop of water
Slowly, snowflakes started to populate my palm Turning into a puddle of water
And I wondered how gravity told something so tiny, and fragile to trust
To land onto my warm hands– to let go of its apprehensions, to not fear changing.
As if it was running toward my heat, knowing it would be — wanting to be– transformed.
This morning, I forgot the password to my laptop. Just yesterday, all I had to do was graze my hand on the keyboard and my fingers would move by themselves. But this morning, I touched the keyboard and my fingers have forgotten where to go.
I realise I haven’t written anything here lately. My notebook is full of daily notes though. Over time my relationship to this space has changed. But some things I want to re-start again. Just like writing, freely.
Last night, I had a dream. We were living in Lisbon in a sunny apartment. It was the end of the day and we were about to go for dinner at a park. Lately I’ve been thinking about the time I spent in Lisbon.
I remember I used to draw a lot. It didn’t matter where I was standing, if it was raining or if it was freezing, most importantly, what mattered to me was that I drew my best.
Two years ago, I spent my birthday on the other side of the world. Bogota was the farthest city in the world for me. It took a 35 hour journey for me to get there.
That day, we walked in a garden and looked at flowers. When I was 12, I thought that when you turned 30 – a person becomes this “fuller size” of human — someone more actualized, or someone completely complete. But now that I am here, in this time, I realise that “completeness” is not a one time thing or a destination to arrive at. Perhaps we are always, and have always been complete, evolving everyday, into something new.
I take a lot of photographs but it often takes me months before I see them again after the moment of taking. I mostly photograph people around me. I used to think that I would have a life as a photographer but right now, that’s not the life I have. Today I found these photographs of a trip I took in April 2019 with my friends.
In March 2017, Marta, a former teacher of mine arrived in Lisbon. She had been to Colombia and told me that my friend Anna sent a package for me.
When I had met Marta, she handed me a tiny woven box, that fit in my palm. In it was a note and a pair of flower earrings. In the note Anna wrote to me how the earrings, I am inheriting from her, and the box, used to be a storage for her fallen tooth when she was a kid. Now, it travelled all the way to Lisbon for me, carrying the note, the earrings and the scent of flowers from her yard in Bogota.Continue reading “A Tiny Box”
“For the tender flower — I think of you. So far away. Where ever you are.”
Many months ago, the biggest fear I had, were no match for the realities of today. These days, in the time of difficulty, in the face of a New Corona Virus, taking away those we love, and putting us all to the test, I realise more than ever, how we cannot win if we are not together as one. As long as someone in the world is in peril, no one will be safe. So, although we are told to be distant, it does not mean we should be shut off. In a contagion, all must be healed. We must find a way to re-think the systems already in place, and see how we can become more inclusive, and build security for each other. Especially because things like this may happen again.
I think of all of the people I love who are far away, and all the people I will never know.
VENICE DE CASTRO ATIENZA 