OM
On Love and Separation
Our marriage hasn't been on a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee on their first sex basis. It's more like the silence during New Year after all the fireworks had been fired. It's a phase. But this is not about that. This is about separation. Not divorce, but love in separation. That is my problem. I am the biggest crier over spilt milk. No, we are not breaking up; both of us still has a lot of ammo to spare. It's just the sadness...maybe it was the weather the day she went away...or just my plain old deppy. But it's the shock of suddenly being pincered out of the routine you're kinda fed up with before. And this is not the first time I had felt this. She wasn't the only one.
I felt my first intense sadness when I was about four or five, and it was not for a girl (although after that, it will all be about that specie) but for my brother. When my mother was still working abroad as a nurse, me and my brother were brought to the separate care of our grandparents from both sides of the family. And we only get to see each other on weekends. This day meant a lot to me as I was mostly alone in a big, gray, and rough house filled with abaca fibers and piles of sacked palay, and grown ups and rice insecticides. I even remembered a skull, a real human skull in that house. So when my brother visits, its a good day for me. Sometimes he would sleep over and we'd play all day, and I'd make him cry and we'd draw or ride in tandem in my trike, and do brotherly stuff like wrestling and farting on each other's face. Then it would be time for him to go back to my other lola, and me and my father would take him there, and we would hide or give him Coke so that we can leave--those tricks to leave very young children. I don't know, if he'd cry or not after he finds out that we're gone--i will never know perhaps. I could ask him now, but that would be awkward. But what I will always know is the feeling I'd get when I return to the big house, and see our toys and the stuff we had drawn together, the creased bed where we had wrestled, even the cement floor which is impossible to mark bears a triad of brown tracks made by our weight on the tricycle. And yes, like what Annette Benin's character did in American Beauty after finding Kevin Spacy on a table with his cranial blood, I embraced my brother's blanket, his pillow, his soiled sweaty shirt, and maybe a little moisture in the eyes.
I can't explain it. But that morning I practiced. I stared at our bed, which I will not be sleeping on for a few days (I plan to stay in my parents house with Radha), and the same feeling came. The same childhood sadness without a tinge of weakness. And it went on until the day of her trip. We said our goodbyes, and I tried to appear strong, or else she will not go. The weather was the killer, it was a Velvet Underground "Perfect Day" day. We made Radha sleep, and then she headed for the terminal. I wrote her this poem a few minutes after she left:
Kan Pagpa-Manila Mo, Agom.
Kan naghali ka, naghagad su mga bagay na sinda maanan ki maray.
Nakaduko sinda gabos, arog an nangangadying may pighahalat.
Ngonian sana itinuga kan isip na dai taka kayang wara,
na haloy, na dai ka mag-uli diyan-diyan na banggi.
Ata an sakuyang katanosan muya nang sumusog saimo,
ta ining lawas na nagpupugol saiya dai nang padumanan.
Kun pwede sanang dai na umabot an banggi— pero mas ngana
ining hapon, na ruminokrukon sa lumlom
garo mag-gadanon, nakasuklob ki itom.
Dulo pa akong dai pahangoson kan dampog
na nagsasarabod-sabod.
Pero, maabot an banggi, buda mahibi an mga burak ki hamot na makayugtuon.
Garo su ulok mo kan enot kitang nagmidbidan.
Pag-iyan ngani umagi sa sakuyang pangiturugan, diyan-diyan
baka dagos nang mautsan.
Hulyo 27, 2008. Karangahan.
Salin:
Nuong Nag-Manila Ka, Mahal
Nung umalis ka, hiningi ng mga bagay na masdan silang mabuti.
Nakayuko lahat, tulad ang nananalanging may inaantay.
Ngayon lang inamin ng isipan na hindi kita kayang wala,
na matagal, na hindi ka uuwi mamayang gabi.
Ay, ang aking katinuan, nais nang humabol saiyo,
pagkat itong katawan na pumipigil sa kanya'y wala nang papupuntahan.
Kung pwede lang na di na dumating ang gabi--ngunit higit
tong hapon, na nauupos sa lilim
wari'y agaw-buhay, nakatalukbong ng itim.
Muntik akong di pahingahin ng ulap
na nagkabuhol-buhol.
Ngunit, darating ang gabi, at iiyak ang mga bulaklak ng bango na
makabagbag damdamin.
Parang yung ngiti mo nung una tayong magkakilala.
Kung yan pa ang dadaan sa aking panaginip, mamaya
baka tuluyan nang malagutan ng hininga.
Do I love her so I need her or do I need her that's why I am loving her? Frankly I can't tell. People at this stage, speak in things, little unpoetic things. I don't want to waste my days with her with this love-need stuff. Needing is bad because it's selfish and settling, but sometimes, to accept that we need someone is the first step to selflessness. For example, surrender to God is to accept that we need Him, and only Him. It's hard to say when you are using or loving someone--but the best way to tell is, forgive the cliche, when they're gone.
Appendix. Love in Separation
In the Vedas, it is said that the highest form of love for God is Love in Separation. This was expressed by the Gopis (cow herd women) in Vrindavan when they fell in love with Krishna. While yogis meditate and do rigorous sacrifices and difficult yoga poses to see Vishnu, the Gopis, together with the people of Vrindavan, are very fortunate to be able to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna and live, play, eat, and even dance with Him. The Gopis are always anxious to see and be with God, in this way their whole life is spent by dreaming of the Lord, and in so doing become perfectly God-conscious. They left their household chores and husbands to be with Him, because they always feel that they would die without seeing His beautiful face. Sometimes, Krishna or God make us feel that He is not with us, for us to yearn for Him more. To teach us to grow more in love with Him. In fact, the very reason we are here in this material world full of suffering, death, diseases, old age, heart breaks, doubt and misery and even the drowning feeling of birth is because we do not love God...but rather we love ourselves. We are free here to love ourselves to be the enjoyer of things that we don't own, and this world is made just for that--this world is paradise for our bodies...but God gives us the chance that somehow with our intelligence we will realize how lonely this place is, that after all the pleasure we get out of sex, drugs, food, and leisure, we will look for a greater purpose. That we will begin to compare ourselves with dogs, and say I am not like that. While it is only with the human body will we be able to return home, back to Godhead, it would be tragic if we live like animals...for God is like a wish tree, He can grant everything our heart desires. And so our bodies are the consequence of those desires.
