GRIEF RECOVERY FICTIONS

READING books is helping me a lot to cope with grief. After my wife died, I kept on consuming books obsessively, in an attempt to have anything that would fill in the time where I could possibly think about my loss. Keeping myself busy days after my bereavement was a pain reliever. I was loneliest when I was not reading.

I read mostly fiction, and there was a time during this period that I scoured bookstore shelves and e-books lists for any helpful grief books, hoping that they would give me wisdom to help me better understand my experience, and that they could speak to me on a personal level in the quiet solitude of my darkest days. A kind of a lifeline to carry around.

But I got no success, or perhaps I didn’t search well. I’m not the religious type of a person, and I’m not so much into reading inspirational books, though I have read a few of them.

ON REWRITING

‘I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.’ ~ James Michener

REWRITING makes the difference between good writing and poor writing. James Michener and other great writers had given us some good reminders on the importance of rewriting. So whenever I felt dissatisfied with my writing style or couldn’t finish a story or an article, their advice on rewriting comes to me like fresh air into my humid desk.

Now every time I open my document, I would edit here and there and try to take note of things I want to change. But if there's no progress at all, then I rewrite and, when necessary, change almost everything in the document. As one author says, it is perfectly okay to write garbage, as long as you edit brilliantly.

It’s a big advantage living when easy-to-use computers and word processing software are readily available to every writer, and they have simplified immensely my rewriting task. I couldn’t imagine how much Michener labored with his typewriter and painstakingly writing and rewriting long notes to complete drafts for his manuscripts before releasing the final version to his publisher. According to Michener, he went very slowly and needed constant revision in writing his best-selling historical fiction Hawaii. He had to type about three million words to only trim down to about half a million in the final version for another round of draft writing.

SUMMER CINQUAINS

i crossed 

the valley bridge;

found and lost her again,

and left the summers of my heart

behind.

that was

a bright full day;

saw her, gone forever,

and threw my own sweet monsoon dreams

away.

the next bridge...

some other place,

other space, how and where?

i'll just cross the next one when i--

get there.

THE resort in Gozaga town in Cagayan is aptly called STR or Sirok ti Rangtay (Under the Bridge). You have to pass under the bridge to reach the bank where a picnic area and a newly built hotel-type rooms for overnight visitors are found.  

LIFE IS A GINEBRA GAME-WINNING PLAY

“DAD, can we watch this Ginebra game again in Araneta next week?” my teenage son Nathaniel asked me one night. I was working on my laptop for my article to a local literary magazine. He knew I don’t like to be disturbed when I was doing that in my room but, hey, it’s about basketball. And I love basketball.

Nathaniel is as crazy as some boys of his age about the sports. He loves to play hustle games with his neighbor friends at an uncovered court in our subdivision, trying the best way he can to play like his idol Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics. And he is also a fan of Philippine basketball, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and even the collegiate leagues.

His love for the game heightened when his aunt bought him his own basketball, and I think it was in the same year when I brought him to a PBA rookie draft at Robinson’s Place in Ermita, Manila and he got the chance to meet in person some of his favorite PBA players. I’m sure he enjoyed the experience so much that in the rookie draft the following year, he went by himself (I had a busy schedule at work then) to the same venue and watched how some of his favorite collegiate playmakers, such as Calvin Abueva and Chris Tiu, were drafted to the professional league.

WRITING LETTERS IN A JOURNAL

IT'S true, and it’s a shame, that most people don’t write letters anymore. They would rather express their feelings through text messaging, social media forums, blogs, or Facebook posts. Exchanges or interactions become faceless or impersonal or temporary. And very few, if none at all, had bothered to regard the power and longevity of written words.

Years ago, whenever there’s a chance to talk to their children, people were sometimes disappointed because they didn’t know how to communicate exactly what they wanted to. So they resort to letters. Some hand-written letters were often so beautifully composed and simply inspiring that people love to keep them in their personal files. Love letters, or friendly letters, or letters of a parent to his or her child, always carry sweet reminders of the feelings that had long been gone.

PINSAL FALLS

THIS blog about my trip to Pinsal Falls has long been overdue. My first and only visit to the tallest, if not the most beautiful waterfall in Ilocos, was way back in December 2011. Some of my snapshots of the place, now with a good number of likes and comments, had been in my Facebook’s Timeline photos for quite some time now. But with my recent trip to Cambugahay Falls in Lazi, Siquijor early this month and to Balite Falls in Amadeo, Cavite in April last year, I cannot help but compare these two falls with Pinsal Falls.

It’s an easy verdict for me: Pinsal Falls certainly stands above the two, not only because of its size but also because of its rocky landscape and the challenges it offers, a number of other interesting natural features of the area, and its accessibility (it’s approximately 30 minutes ride from the town proper).

Now, with the advent of summer, you might think of a perfect getaway for your barkada or family, and Pinsal Falls may be a good place to go. Having visited the place myself, I can assure you that a summer break to this place gives you some fun climbing, picnic, swimming, and exploring.

CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK NUT

To-be read books, all second-hand 

MY love affair with books did not start until I was 13. I was a first year student of a private school in the poblacion (Sta. Maria, Ilocos Sur), and it was my first time to see a real library. I was from the barrio and I could just count with my fingers the books that I had read, and suddenly I was in a place surrounded by an impressive collection of books, a wide variety of titles, stacked up neatly in series of shelves and glass cabinets.

I knew right then what I really wanted to do, and that was to read. Soon, I was in the library devouring fantastic stories, children’s fiction, anthologies, encyclopedias, adventures and history, to the point that I had been forgetting to review for exams and submit my school projects.

I become a compulsive reader. I would spend most of my vacant time in the library. There were just too many books to read. That started my most dearly cherished ambition to live in a big house with my own private library. I even had this secret wish to stay in prison surrounded by lots of books to read, just like the young lawyer in Anton Chekhov’s “The Bet,” who spent, because of a crazy bet, 15 years of solitary confinement reading books, from novels with a complicated love plot, sensational stories, to volumes on languages, philosophy, history, and religion, thus educating himself.