Another Week

Willing Exile: First Thursday

Going back to my post of more than four years ago - some rash sentimentality about falling in love and sleepless nights.   Somebody must have heard me and posted a decent copy of this song:



This song just inspires me to hug somebody.  A heart that is tried and tested several times may cease to believe in the miracle that is love.  On the other hand, maybe that kind of heart has just had its unhealthy share of romance novels and Hugh Grant movies.

Some are steadfast in longing for the right kind of love, only to realize that they have waited too long or have chosen the wrong kind of places to find their love.

Some have just thrown love into the winds like a will o' the wisp, and live life without expecting a true love to return.  So they either settle for someone with whom they can live, or they just put themselves in the path of the wind, like scarecrows.

The first impulse of anyone who feels love for someone is validation that the other person loves them back.  That indeed, seals the bond between them.  Others believe otherwise, believing that asking back for love makes the love less pure.  A love without agenda, without conditions, without boundaries.  It is fragile and precious because it can be so easily disregarded; yet it is the kind of love that endures all kind of adversity.

The other night I was jolted awake by a sudden memory and I thought I was back in the Philippines.  I had dreamed of someone I was thinking about so intensely I thought I was actually with her.  I would have lived in this fantasy most gladly - it was so real I could have sworn that our hands touched, and there was this instant electricity.

However, disbelief cannot be suspended for so long.  My mind resisted against this, asking what will happen to one of my current projects, now that I am back home.  Would I miss my flight?  Or have I missed my flight back?  I haven't had this anxiety since the first few weeks back here in Saudi Arabia, and before then, only during my first few months after my arrival in 2004.

In a way, I am glad because I am recharging my intensity that is essential to my continued success here.  But why did it have to interrupt such a beautiful dream?

And so I got up, and like it was choreographed, I saw the tail-lights of an airplane zoom past my window, signalling that I had returned.  It was cold,  but I felt a different kind of coldness - that of desolation.  No amount of warm blankets could fight that.

I can only give what she accepts, and if she accepts nothing from me, then I am null.  


The scene was so cinematic I wanted to shoot a sequel to that scene I thought of years ago.  Cue in the music, let the clouds move and flicker against the light of the false dawn.


I promised that I will never ask more from anyone than what they are willing to give.  As for her - how many more weeks can I last without knowing what she thinks, what she feels?


The squeal of tires is heard in the distance.  The song ends, quite abruptly, as if the radio were changing stations, and eyes open.  Fade out.