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Noel put this together. Be at peace where you are, Pab. Might be a while before I add new stuff here. Loads to do now, and I need to take care of my health.

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Hairdo / swagger / stride.

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I’ve found a way to undo a lot of stressors lately. One way is to just ‘kill’ Tagalog in my head and replace it with Spanish. The way of the polyglot. But this one is a beautiful funeral dirge. ‘Mira me, por favor…’

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In 2010, when I stopped swimming at Club Siena and was nowhere to be found at yoga class or the gym, it was because I moved to South London. I had no idea you were in Hong Kong.

I just wanted to be a proper academic again. I loved living in Balham. You would've loved the location of my first flat in Roehampton. It was full of crows, and I had a view of the menil deer at Richmond Park.

You would have loved the brit pop post-punk vibe and London Life.

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But if the Light of God’s Peace hasn’t washed over you yet, Pab (+), look to the heavens, and gaze up into all the stars in the sky…

“But soon it will be night.

I climbed towards Paradise with no thought of looking back.

I passed through a small opening

And finally saw Heaven and the supreme light.

And beheld once again the stars.”

- from the final verses of Canto 34, from Dante’s Inferno

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I would like the rest of this Life left in my hands to be an instrument of Peace. God’s Peace.

And I hope that it has finally found you, and won’t ever leave you again, wherever you are, Pab (+).

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‘The Dark Night of the Soul’, or the Prayer of Saint John of the Cross, I may have been busy at work, but I haven’t stopped sparing you a thought… or saving you a prayer, so to speak.

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I don’t know if you ever liked ABC or even Radiohead, but I like this remake of an otherwise embittered, ‘creepy’ ( pun intended) song. I drove down Shaw Blvd en route to Pasig from Mendiola…I have a vague recollection of how to get to and from San Beda to Quezon City as everything happened at night, and rather late, the night of your college dance. It was called ‘Bedista Tayong Lahat’. Everything was hazy until I spied, while on Shaw, The Palladium.

And then it came to me: you said that this was where you wanted us to live someday….and instead of hearing the full weight of this message and understanding what it meant, all I could think about was where we were going to get the money to pay for it all.

Anyone responsible with fairly unreliable parents and really aging grandparents would worry about her place in the world, about being abandoned, and quite right, being left high and dry.

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“What a peculiar state we’re in.”

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Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine cum sanctis tuis in aeternum: quia pius es. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum quia pius es.

May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord, with Thy saints forever, for Thou art Kind. Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

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I picked a flower from the garden 🪴 and left this under the lamppost where we would say goodbye, after you collected me from work at the time my household didn’t have a driver to take me home. Be at peace… and I hope you find a final resting place someday soon. Lux Aeterna luceat tibi.

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“Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves.” - Charles Dickens

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If I'm honest, this song illustrates my general mood on our best days. They were absolutely delightful, and our lives--together or apart--were full of promise. Who knew where our roads would lead us?

I spotted a Staedtler set where I bought my latest canvases today. I'm painting faces now. Still deciding how to draw you: as you were before you left this world, or as I remember you in your youth?

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I found this poem in an anthology on a dusty shelf at the school library after I broke up with you late 1988. Our teachers couldn't figure out how I'd suddenly become so miserable. Discovering Plath, Sexton and St Vincent- Millay allowed me to find some catharsis. Somewhere in between my reading of this triumvirate of modern American women's poetry, I learned to belt out high notes. Hence, that performance of (cheesy much) 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'.

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From Dance Magazine: Ali Brodsky's piece is described as “one woman’s journey through grief as she investigates how to love, to lose, to grieve, and to pick up the pieces.” She searches for the lost one in all the elements, and finds herself invariably more alone.

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'He Swept into Her Space' (2022). I don't know if you were the kind gentleman who sheltered me with an umbrella while I walked from dela Rosa to Legazpi on Paseo de Roxas one rainy Monday evening, circa mid-2021. It was all rather unexpected, and it all happened so fast because he --you?--walked fast. The thing is, most men in Makati wouldn't care, and if they did they'd let me say 'thank you'. But this kind fellow disappeared into the darkness without a trace. He didn't want me to see his face.

P.S. I quite like this piece in its fledgling form as well. Just the orange cloche, and everything else in a ghostly blur.

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The link explains all. Parallel stories of love and grief. Consuelo para mujeres en duelo.