Indulgence

Reminders

Bertold Brecht
Because things are the way they are, things will not remain the way they are.

I found myself with an extremely busy Sunday. I had so many invites to these events and had to choose amongst them which ones were important to me. I had to decide what I could miss and what I could not miss. So I decided to travel all the way to Fairview (called FARview by many) to visit a good friend on her babyshower. It was a very strange event for me. I really felt my age that day. Imagine, me, the former party-boy, with two friends pregnant, ready to give birth to their beautiful baby girls (I'm sure they will be beautiful). All of a sudden, the party is over and real life kicks in. Well, as I've been saying in my previous entries, real life has been kicking me in the gut for a while now, but this really helped me feel my age. Soon enough, we won't be meeting at bars or clubs like we used to. No more meeting up at the late hours to watch DVDs until the sun comes up. It will be Saturday afternoon lunches while their kids play in the garden. We'd be eating appetizers and drinking iced tea while smoking teasing how bad influences we'll be. It's so grown up. All the single people will probably head on out to have dinner out and watch a movie and probably go out to do other things. I'll probably go home and read a book or go to sleep before 1am. I'd text everyone telling them how splendid the day was spending time with them and I might receive a text telling me that one of my nieces or nephews really likes the book or shirt or whatever I got them. Aww... how sweet. It's just so grown up. And it is just proper for this age, I suppose.

After the shower, I went all the way to the other side of the metro, towards Pasay to attend the exhibit of an artist/photographer friend of mine. Ava Lugtu released her latest set of photographs that are absolutely marvelous. I was surrounded by an art crowd, totally different from the usual crowd of people that I hang out and it was great to be in such different environs for a change. My friend and I looked at the work and was astounded. Ava had spent so much time to ensure that her prints would come out the way she saw it in reality. There was no digital imaging whatsoever and the blurred shapes that we saw was exactly how it appeared in reality when she shot it. I was so amazed at the concept. If I were to learn photography, I could probably find some interesting visuals to shoot and then shoot it. I could find a beautiful story from some still image. All of a sudden, I'm amazed at the word Still Life, it has so many different meanings. There's a story there... Anyway, I'm digressing. But I am not a photographer by soul. I'm not like Ava who can imagine what images could look like when you manipulate light to a certain degree. And she has the artist's patience to work on one image for a whole day, as in 18 hours or so, just to get that right shot. I was just floored with the amazing work she had exhibited.

And to go to an exhibit again, what joy to be reminded that I do have artistic tendencies; that my world is not all work and movies and parties... That I am a creative person and I do enjoy the creative output of others. Sometimes we just need that sort of reminder because it is so easy to lose out on ourselves.

And then lastly, I went to a hotel to visit an old friend who was celebrating her birthday. And there, I met up with a lot of old friends that I was genuinely very happy to see. We started talking, not going back to the "old times" which would have made me really pissed. Instead, we talked about new things. Things that happened to the two of us since last we had seen each other, caught up on new things. We talked about how we've changed and what we now plan to do with our lives. It was great. It was really seeing old friends again and not just some pathetic excuse to relive "better days" which could not have really been that great. I stayed much longer than I had expected to, completely destroying my already fixed body clock, but that's okay. It was worth it. It is always good to re-connect with old friends. In that way, you are sure you are not denying some old part of you. It is one way to remain whole. It is a way to remind yourself of who you were and who you are now and where you could go.

This whole day, Sunday, after waking up at 5pm (since I slept at 6am that morning) I commuted to my brother's house to work on a full-length script that needs much working and that will get me somewhere if it ever gets produced and I have just been here, writing and writing and I felt so relieved to know that I can come back to this old work and still have the patience and the creative energy to work on it after all the original passions have long gone. I'm not that jaded yet, apparently. The problem with young artist, sometimes, is that they quickly get discouraged with previously rejected work that they just want to move on to the next project and not go back to the old one. But here I am, almost 8 hours into the revisions of this full-length. I won't be able to finish it on this one sitting, though. Half-way through, my Dad comes in and we have our usual long talks and I find that there were more revisions he wanted; more scenes he wanted included and so I might have to restructure the whole thing. Ugh! But I will find the time in-between this busy schedule. I have to. This is the work of a freelance writer, after all. If I want to be great, I must do what greater men have done before me. And I know this is but merely the tip of the iceberg of the things great men have accomplished.

It's just great, talking to my Dad and throwing ideas at each other and getting somewhere. Knowing that I do have something to contribute. It is a reminder that I am getting closer and closer to that which I want to achieve.

I keep moving along. I will get there. I will not yield.

posted by wanggo @ 4:04 AM