When the songbird sings

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question “Whither?”

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

— Robert Frost

Wear Red Shoes
by Marie Patterson.

UPDATE:

I had always wanted to get a pair of red shoes. So after mulling about whether it was worth my time, money or what was left of my already tiny shoe drawer space, a 350-peso (from P700) pair at B Club which I chanced upon while wasting time at Glorietta offered a great excuse to give in to the red force.

Today’s Chinese Horoscope for the Fire Snake:

“You’ll be assured of success in everything that you undertake if you’re careful about your uncontrolled imagination. Give priority to your love affairs: the joy of being two, important encounter or, on the contrary, separation will be in the program; the events will be to your advantage. You’ll be exposed to an emotional stress, which is likely to disturb your stability. You’ll have a better opinion of yourself, and you’ll have a better estimation of your financial possibilities; learn how to make the right choices that’ll lead you to success.”

Something good’s gotta come from this.

Does the image below rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise? It actually goes either way, depending on which side of your brain you are using.

Click here for what it means.

New York by R.13

I’m packing my stuff for my flight back to Manila tomorrow at 9AM. I have to be at JFK by 6, so I have to be on the road by 5. I can’t believe I had accumulated an extra luggage-full of clothes, mostly pasalubong for my mom and sisters, plus the two winter coats and the winter boots that I bought, courtesy of the mothership’s winter allowance for its staff who travel to certain destinations where temperatures drop below 17 degrees Celsius. I arrived with a one large luggage and a small bag last month. But thanks to the bulky purchases, I had to buy an extra huge maleta yesterday in Chinatown. It was also my fault, because I brought loooot of clothes from Manila, afraid that I would run out of things to wear. I could have left about half of what I had packed.

As if this was a reverse of last month’s events, Keng would bring me to JFK. I remember joking with Keng a few years ago that I’d be knocking on his door for a surprise visit. We were sharing a bottle of wine and cigarettes at Greenbelt gardens, looking at the stars, dreaming of what life could offer. That was in 2003 and I was well on my way to a full-on quarter-life crisis.

I wished then that it was that easy to get to NYC. In the years between then and now, all I could do was dream, have my heart broken, slog through my days, figure out what I really wanted to do with my life.

Four years later, I got a taste of the dream. A month later, I’m going back to Manila. I miss NYC already.

But for now, I miss my life in Makati–the friends, the pizza-and-wine dinners at my apartment, my sister, badminton, the ideal December weather, the colorful clothes, my cable channels, laptop, my room, my extra gigs, the walk to and from the office, the wind on my face as I walk back to the apartment while listening to my favorite tunes on my mp3 player and dreaming of what could be.