Indulgence

how long does it take for things to change?

Paula Cole from Dear Gertrude
Tell me how the story will unfold
I know you see everything
Tell me all about the torch and scroll
I know you know everything...

Yesterday found me waking up at 4pm. I can feel it now, the lethargy that comes when you aren't happy with work. I wanted to be in by 1 or 2pm. I ended up sleeping at 4 in the morning and if I woke up at 11 like I had planned, it wouldn't have been a problem. I woke up at 11, turned off my alarm clock and just went back to bed. I woke up, thinking it was 12 or 1 and started my stretching. I did some crunches and my push-ups and thought if I could get some swimming in before leaving for work. To my utter surprise, it was 5 already and was no longer in the mood to go to work.

My best friend Jaypee wanted to meet up and it was a good enough excuse to not go to work. I've clocked in so many hours anyway and I haven't spent as much time as I wanted with him these past 2 weeks. Our worlds have been forcing us to gravitate away from each other so it seems I must exert the extra effort if I am to enjoy his company again. We were there having dinner (well, I was having dinner, they were drinking) with a friend of ours, Gerard. We were just talking and catching up. So much has happened in a week and a half or 2. So many people's lives can change. It can happen in a matter of seconds. It can take 3 years. But it happens. Things change.

I've been changed by an incident that occurred in the early morning of Tuesday -- the reason why I ended up sleeping at 4 rather than 1 like I had earlier planned. A single moment that lasted not more than an hour and a half had changed me so much. A week and a half (or 2 weeks) had changed my relationship with Jaypee so much. From the closest of friends, who did a lot of things together to two close friends who spend their moments catching up. I was talking to a friend over the weekend and she was telling me how she had read a beautiful poem, so moving, that it changed her. She was different after reading that piece. That change took a matter of seconds.

Today, I interviewed an actor for a piece I'm doing for one of the more popular dailies. A newspaper article! I was in it more for the opportunity to be read by more people than the once popular actor, now gone from public eye and is trying to make a come-back. It's an interesting piece but been done before. And this actor has been in the center of the spotlight and just disappeared. The new generation probably don't even know him much less remember.

He was gone for 5 years. 5 years and the territory is new, foreign and alien to him. I should know. I've never really been part of the industry until now that I've begun working in television but I've always been at the periphery. My father is a part of that industry. It hung around the house at all times. I knew the stories and I know a lot of stories about the industry; the ones you don't usually hear.

And interviewing this actor was amazing. He left on his own accord. He wasn't some used and abused star who was spat out because he had out-lived his usefulness to the people who made him. Leaving center stage was his choice. He wanted to finish school. He was at the peak, higher than most ever get to achieve in their whole lives and he was young. He told me that his reality (or his perception of it) was skewed. He wanted to get down from the horse he had been riding and get his feet on solid ground. He wanted to know what it was like to walk like ordinary men.

And he has and he has learned and he has a family now, a view of the world the way it really is. He has become one of the people who used to admire him. The common man, so to speak. And now he feels ready to return. The love, the passion for acting, for being in the spotlight has returned. He is wiser now and wants to make the come-back few dare to try. And he's having a hard time. Everything has changed. The industry is far from what it used to be before. The competition is stiff and the industry can make stars from nobody now. They can even turn it into an event, a television show and make money out of it.

5 years. He was gone for just 5 years. He was so easily recognizable. He was everywhere and now he struggles to get back on the saddle again. He walked too long amongst men.

It will be an interesting article to write. There was no bitterness. There was no anger; not even regret. There was wisdom, acceptance and desire; not exactly longing but desire. As much as I found the actor humble, I myself was humbled.

It's been 2 years since I had written a poem. 2 years since I had written anything that resembled a good draft, a piece I could work on. I had moved to writing songs and melodies. Today, I had written one. The idea had been brewing in my mind for the past 2 days and I just let it sit there and I let it cook in the brain for a while (I never used to do that, I used to write it the moment it came) and then churned it out just a while ago. It sounds different from my other stuff, I think.

So much has changed and I don't know when to start counting. There are little bits of me that has transformed, developed and progressed in little moments and giant things that have morphed, twisted and set differently that took years. And if things keeps changing, when do you really start to count?

Tell me how the story will unfold, I know you see everything...

posted by wanggo @ 4:32 PM