rereading old books

"Hello," I said.
"I've been waiting for you," she said.
I embraced her, rested my head on her shoulder, and began to cry. She stroked my hair, and by the way she touched me I began to understand what I did not want to understand, I began to accept what I did not want to accept.
"I've waited for you in so many ways," she said, when she saw that my tears were abating. "Like a desperate wife who knows that her husband has never understood her life, and that he will never come to her, and so she has no option but to get on a plane and go back, only to leave again after the next crisis, then go back and leave and go back...."
The wind had dropped; the trees were listening to what she was saying.
"I waited as Penelope waited for Ulysses, as Romeo waited for Juliet, as Beatrice waited for Dante. The empty steppes were full of memories of you, of the time we had spent together, of the countries we had visited, of our joys and our battles. Then I looked back at the trail left by my footprints and I couldn't see you.
"I suffered greatly. I realized I had set off on a path of no return and that when one does that, one can only go forward. I went to the nomad I had met before and asked him to teach me to forget my personal history, to open me up to the love that is present everywhere. With him I began to learn about the Tengri tradition. One day, I glanced to one side and saw that same love reflected in someone else’s eyes, in the eyes of a painter called Dos."

I said nothing.
"I was still very bruised. I couldn't believe it was possible to love again. He didn't say much; he taught me to speak Russian and told me that in the steppes they use the word 'blue' to describe the sky even when it's gray, because they know that, above the clouds, the sky is always blue. He took me by the hand and helped me to go through those clouds. He taught me to love myself rather than to love him. He showed me that my heart was at the service of myself and of God, and not at the service of others.
"He said that my past would always go with me, but that the more I freed myself from facts and concentrated on emotions, the more I would come to realize that in the present there is always a space as vast as the steppes waiting to be filled up with more love and with more of life's joy.
"Finally, he explained to me that suffering only occurs when we want other people to love us in the way we imagine we want to be loved, and not in the way that love should manifest itself - free and untrammeled, guiding us with its force and driving us on."
I looked up at her.
"And do you love him?"
"I did."
"Do you still love him?"
"What do you think? If I did love another man and was told that you were about to arrive, do you think I would still be here?"
"No, I don't. I think you've been waiting all morning for the door to open."
"Why ask silly questions, then?"
- The Zahir, Paolo Coelho

hum-de-dum

a few weeks ago, my mom asked us all to gather in their room and pray for my dad. i told a friend back then that it didn't have the effect my mom wanted. i thought we were all just too restricted by shame and awkwardness to pray with sincerity.

tonight, before praying, my dad decided to give us all a speech on how he accepted God into his life. with bad english at that (just to poke a little humor where it shouldn't be, and just to lighten up this post for the people reading, he graduated from lasalle). he told us that he and my mom made a decision that our family will start to live by the code of Christianity. he told us all about doing good and not being selfish and doing everything in His name.

i found that my dad, even having experienced everything that he has, generally has a grade school student's point of view of God. in other words, as long as you do good, He will spare you from all that is not good. even though he gave reasons as to why he got cancer, he never mentioned his smoking. not once. he said he was selfish because all he thought about back then was earning enough money to support his family and that maybe he wasn't a good enough provider so God decided to give him this.

the whole time he was talking, i was only half-listening. my other half just wanted to tell him he got cancer not because he wasn't a good enough provider but because he smoked his way to it. doing good is not the basis for getting sick, taking care of yourself is. there is always a "tangible" explanation for people getting sick. maybe it's all about the genes, the environment they are constantly exposed to, the things they eat/drink, a biological anomaly or whatever. it's always something.

psychologically speaking, i believe my dad just doesn't want to admit that this is all an effect of his smoking.

PS i am thankful that at least, he's turned christian now. i didn't even know what religion he had before.

out of the blue

i hate the situations i get myself into, situations that are always incredibly hard to get out of.

most of the time, i feel like an innocent passerby who just happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time. but it isn't really about the place or the time, is it?

maybe it's the way i react to everything. maybe it's the way i naturally see things. or maybe, if we really push into all that psychological stuff, i'm just a victim of past experiences that have turned me into an unconscious masochist.

or maybe, it's as simple as believing and trusting that the next time would be better.

why i love reading postsecret

pic from postsecret