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Dormire

WELL hung over from a previous night’s binge on gin chased with sips of soup… still cranky from a mere three hours dreamless sleep, I was pried off bed with a crowbar then sent off at dawn on a Manila-bound bus to gather wits for a 10 o’clock meet.

Steeped through traffic, the full brunt of what it means to get forty winks sinks into the brain… the sanctimonious sermonizing by a highly paid broadcaster-news reader gets into your nerves, why can’t they bring back a Harry Gasser, anyone whose tenor soothes and mesmerizes… ah, here’s a flat razor slash at your carotid, femoral and brachial arteries, you diabetic donkey.

Still simmering in traffic an hour before the meet, word gets to you the meeting is cancelled… Swedish researchers found out that people who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time… aah, accurate timing plus competence in reasoning and problem solving go hand in glove…

So here’s to a more considerate, thoughtful sense of timing. There’s sanity, sense and humanity there.

Amore, mangare, dormire— love, eat, sleep… so needful in investing day-to-day living with purpose while divesting it of distractions and deviltries.


Sleep is a treat, not a retreat into the realm of the nagual para los brujos y curanderas or dreamworld that allows the body to mend itself, the human soul to be in touch with the divine, to slough off dead skin or chrysalis that fetters the emerging awareness out of past deals and ordeals.

Sa Liongoren Art Gallery (111 New York, Cubao, Quezon City) ipinadpad ng mga hakbang… itinuro ng kawaksi doon, si Koro—na agad kumuha ng bentilador—ang sulok na mapaglalagakan ng katawang pagal.

“Sinta Ko”
(mi amore!) ang ipinamagat sa nakatanghal na paintings ni Neil Manalo… kinaliskisan bawat kuwadro matapos makaidlip… pulos nakaliyad pati leeg na panliligaw o talampakang pagliligaw ang nakalarawan, ‘yung paglulubid ng buhangin… paniningalang pugad.

Or here’s looking at a maiden’s tender downy under.

Gano’n ang talagang katuturan ng pagtingala sa pugad na pinagnanasaang limliman ng alagang uwak o bayawak. The Tagalog idiom is so revealing, blatantly risqué.

Kulang sa anghang ang mga paglalarawan… kulang sa libog.

Ni hindi nga humapyaw man lang ang alinmang larawan para ipakita ang mata ng nagpapahayag ng pagsinta. Sa balintataw kasi lilitaw ang katotohanan… o kung pinaglalakuan
— from “lako,” peddle off, or sell out-- lang ang sinisinta.

Teka, ang pagsinta’y hindi lang sa tao… katumbas din ito ng pagtindig ng aso sa kanyang dalawang hulihang paa, magpapakitang-gilas sa amo… kapag umigkas na ang katawan, damba na ang tawag… sasalakay, sasagpang. Magkatulad ang anyo ng pagsamba’t pagdamba ng aso.

Sana uso pa rin kahit pag-asinta.

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