my first blog in cebu

8:42 PM 12/2/2005

all saints playing in the background.

the past weeks saw me walking along the oldest streets in the country, tracing the steps that were probably taken by my long-lost self.

is this island my home?

i am still searching for answers. but now, i feel right to be here. i feel blessed for making this fateful decision. somehow, i feel i am getting connected to my old self, the self that believed in saints, the self that had faith, the self that was afraid and brave at the same time, the self that had no control yet had all the time in the world to control.

when i looked at a calendar, i was taken aback. i have been here for less than a month, but i was really getting frisky.

considering the short length of time that i've been here, i had expected too much of myself.

something will happen, i know. i believe.

when i celebrated another orbit earlier this year, i considered replanting myself in another part of the country.

the opportunity came. this is the most fateful decision i have ever made. the most fearsome, too, but nevertheless, the most fearless decision too that i have ever made in my entire life.

i will be celebrating my next orbit here, right here in the country's oldest city.

do i need to reinvent myself? no, i don't think so. do i need to renew myself? yes, that one i really need to do.

there is so much to do here. there are no ethnic musicians here (a neo-ethnic band, i say). there are no locally-edited magazines here (aside from the newspapers, and a tourist newsletter that lacks finesse, hehehe).

that's two big goals i have. establish a contemporary gamelan here, and establish a local magazine here. already, i am thinking of putting up an underground zine. though i don't have the resources, the important thing is i have the idea.

the big idea.

i miss my niece, i miss my family back in pasig, i miss my quaint room, with all its maps and its old star trek poster and regine velasquez smiling down from an old wendy's poster on the door of my cabinet.

i do not miss my old self, though.

i cannot describe the self that my old room bred, but i am very dissatisfied with that persona. when i left that room, i knew i was leaving the security i had all these years for the insecurity that went with independence, with freedom.

who is me? who am i? these questions become relevant when one sets out on his/her own. one needs to define one's self in order to be able to assert one's existence.

fortunately, i know me. fortunately, i know who i am.

I am a poet, a writer, a musician. I know where I came from, and I know where I need to go. And I know how to get there.