2-2-2

golden, beholden.

my engagement weekend happened just last sunday, at the beach with M's family and 3 close friends. i didn't know that it was going to happen that weekend. i had an idea that it wasn't going to be far away since he had asked for my ring size (which i had so willingly given, of course). but it was furthest from my mind that weekend.
it was a beautiful sunday morning, i woke up to his family chatting outside the cabana where we all slept. woke up, got dressed and beach-ready then joined his family for breakfast. M woke up and ate breakfast with our friends while i went to the beach for a walk with my camera.
M joins me for a walk and we make our way in the water while talking about the night before. he was sweet as always and kisses and hugs me to say all these things that of course i've forgotten...but all pertaining to the night before. then he kneels in the water and pops the question. of course i said yes because we had been planning the wedding already. and then i realized that he was getting something out of the pocket of his boardshorts.
that's when i knew that it wasn't the usual will you marry me moment. it was THE will you marry me moment! how clueless of me! he shows me the ring and my heart dropped. it was the perfect one for me. simple, elegant, solid. i loved it! and i told him i would think about it. :)
we turn around to cheers and shouts from the beach and thats the only time i realizes that family and friends witnessed the exchange although they couldn't hear us.
he had planned it all along. we go back to the beach for congratulatory hugs and kisses and to my delight, champagne! sunday champagne on the beach, how perfect!
with sunblock and suntan oil running down my face and body, amid body heat and sticky hugs, my body tingles with the thought that i am beholden. it's amazing.

dusted in gold

glorious, glorious weekend.

the beach was golden, awash with sunlight, the sea was calm and the sunsets were fiery and picture perfect. i couldn't keep my eyes away from the scenery and i wanted to soak it all in. going to the beach is the perfect escape for me. add in people who are near and dear to me and it's the perfect getaway.

nothing beats
lounging on the sand or
playing under the sun and
swimming in the sea to cool
yourself when it gets too hot.

and nothing beats eating good food with your bare hands while your toes are buried in soft sand.

these make me smile.
slice of heaven on earth.
my zen haven.

stories remembered

i was musing to myself a few minutes ago if could probably ask my mom for the oil paintings by our foyer when i am married. there are three paintings in our foyer but there is a particular one that i love. it depicts sort of a city market scene with a kalesa as the focal point. there are people all around and you can feel the busyness and the serenity all at once.

i remember spending time gazing upon that painting and building upon it with my mind. what lies beyond the canvas? what happens beyond the street? where is the kalesa off to? where are the people going? it is amazing how a memory is spurred on by just one item. this reference to my past might be mundane to others but it means a lot to me. just remembering it now warms my heart.

my imagination sure reached out beyond the rectangle of the canvas and beyond the pages of a book. there is one picture book that i remember, it is the story of a parisian girl who lost her pet turtle rosalie. she begins to look for rosalie all over the streets of paris. past the art stalls lining the seine, atop the buildings overlooking the old quarter, along the market in the city, passing couples and young parisian girls much like herself dressed in capelets, dresses and ballet shoes. such was the imagery of the book that i have always thought of paris in this way. gargoyles on the corners of buildings, the cobblestones on the pavement, the lazy river seine, the paintings being sold by painters, the orderliness of the market. the artistry of the drawings must have popped out at me as a child and now i can remember that it was one of my well-loved books. how i pored over it and looked at the drawings intently. at a young age i didn't know that paris was the city of lights, that it was a popular honeymoon destination, that the city was a work of art in itself or any of the things i know about the city now. but i sensed all these things in my childhood, all from one picture book.

i so wish that my future son or daughter could celebrate the power of imagination with such joy and warmth. that their childhood will be punctuated by books, paintings, stories and songs. how i would love for them to have the moment that i'm having now. remembering, remembering lovely memories.

He Reads On

The Reader just ended and I was very moved by the film -- about the same depth of emotion that I felt after finishing the novel. The Reader is the story of a young German boy who has an affair one summer with an older German woman. That the woman had obviously no friends, relatives or other attachments did not seem odd to the boy nor was the fact that she liked being read to. That summer revolved around their summer love affair where they were accompanied by Chekov and Homer. The summer where he loved him but was not sure if she loved him back the same way. The story takes a turn when the girl, Hanna left one day without a word or notice leaving the boy, Michael, confused and alone. They years fly by and it documents Michael's life through law school where, due to a course that he has enrolled in brought him to the trial of 19 SS guards. As a part of this course, he was required to sit thru the trials and it was there that he saw Hanna again as she was one of the guards being tried for the murder of thousands of Jewish women.

There are many emotions and sub-plots running in this seemingly simple storyline. Hanna's shame in being illiterate. Her lack of understanding for what she was being tried for as in her eyes, she was just doing her job as a guard in a concentration camp. Michael's guilt and regret for not going forward with the information about Hanna's illiteracy and his morality about saving a woman who was responsible for many deaths. Is she excused because of her failure to understand the gravity of what she had done? Is he vindicated by not stepping forward?

And what of his personal attachment to Hanna? The creeping realization that what transpired that fateful summer was not just an affair but a love gained and lost that will haunt him and color all his future relationships with women for the rest of his life. There seems to be no saving grace in this gray plot and yet the characters let their reservations go slowly although never fully.

We see Hanna transform into someone with the power to read and hold a pen to write simple letters. We witness Michael's capacity to become a better father. Their humanness touches us and gives meaning to the horrid past they both had to witness. These emotions, questions and ramifications are what makes The Reader so relevant even today, decades and generations after the Second World War. We can only move forward. The dead remain dead.

Yessir!

finished the book yes man by danny wallace and i have to say, what a brilliantly simple concept! this is a book about bringin it! the power of yes! the sorrow of regret.

told with a wicked wit and humorous style, Danny recounts his six months of saying YES to everything that comes his way. and everything is everything. new credit cards, beer after beer after beer, trips he couldn't afford, people he didn't know. at often times funny with a reality check that will bite the reader in the ass because it would simply make you think of how dreary your life is compared to all the fun that Danny Wallace has been having since he said YES. of course there are sad bits, unhappy moments where you cringe at the things he had to do because he had committed to being a YESman which includes buying a car he didn't need, playing third wheel to his ex-girlfriend and her new guy on their first date...ouch!

but my main take on this whole book comes in the final chapters where he touches on the big R word -- REGRET. regret is the one thing i could live without. how many nights have i lain away regretting all that time i didn't spend with my grandmother when she was alive and with us still. regret not taking in all the moments when my family was still together. regret the bad fights with M just because i was too proud to say sorry. regret that i wanted to grow up all too soon.

regret is that big lump in the pit of your stomach that never quite goes away.

it is the question that doesn't have an answer. what if?... you'll never know. it is the one that always stays. maybe it will leave you one day. if you're lucky.

so i thumb my nose at regret because i don't want any part of it. i will, as much as i sanely can, open myself up to newer possibilities and limitless opportunities just by saying YES more. one day at a time. cheers danny and yessir!

Even the Ordinary Can Be Magical

Read and re-read these words as I came upon them last night and it stuck to me like flypaper all night and until this morning.

It got me thinking about all the ordinary things that I used to love doing but now just take for granted. Like drinking coffee in the morning, walking aimlessly, reading... I put it in the "normal" cubbyhole and don't try to see anymore what is new and wonderful about these "normal" experiences. My days are all about getting the job done, doing it well, making sure I don't step on any toes and drive safely home to chill only to repeat the same process all over again.

There is indeed something magical in the ordinary and i felt it this morning waking up with my cats bundled up around me, feeling their soft fuzz against my skin and watching them wake up slowly and stretch out their limbs. I know I've experienced this before but I don't know if I ever took note of it as a golden moment. This morning was indeed magical. More so, because it ended too soon.