no friend of mine

"Tattler". photo by Gina Matchinsky, Iowa City

J

January 23, 2014 question is "Do you need a break? From what?"

It took me a while to think what it is about my life that I need to take a break from. As it is, I am already in some kind of a hiatus already as I wait for my papers to get processed so I can start work and I am not burdened with an 8 to 5 job. Since I still don't have my children with me, I am also not saddled with the everyday routine of taking care of their daily needs and that definitely needs taking a break from from time to time. I just got married, so it is definitely not taking a break from my husband who is so easy to get along with and not at all demanding even when he is sick.

So what is it that I need to get a break from?

In my earlier post entitled, "Some things never change" http://loveandfreetobe.blogspot.com/2014/01/some-things-never-change.html, it tells of me being one of the boys when I was young. Back then I preferred playing with boys more than with girls. Probably it has got something to do with whom I got the most interaction with.

I grew up on a street surrounded by relatives with more male sons my age I got for cousins and I used to tag along and play with them. On that same street, there happened to be even more boys my age than girls, too. Being a daddy's girl also who used to tag along with dad whenever he attended auctions and conventions, I had the privilege to get introduced to his friends, and of course, they were male friends. So I even got to play board games with them several times when they visit us at home. So early in life I learned how to deal with them, felt more comfortable and get along well with them better than with girls my age or even older.

With boys or men, it was more straight-forward and predictable. No groupies, cliques or intrigues. They were more understanding or a lot more patient in explaining things. And when I compete or play games with them, victory was a lot sweeter after being most of the time underestimated. The best thing about it, I never got to hear myself talked about between them or anyone in a negative way. When good things happen to me, they were genuinely happy, too and there was no feeling of jealousy over my good fortune nor were there catty remarks to put me or pull me down.

Quite the opposite of what I experienced being in the company of a lot of female peers. Having studied in an exclusive for girls school in high school or even just the female classmates I had or female office mates or friends, I had some pretty unhappy experiences.

I remember a time when I had an argument with one female classmate and the next thing I knew, a lot of other female classmates were not talking to me anymore and I had nobody to eat lunch or go to the restroom with. How can that much people get influenced by just one person when they only heard just one side of the story? There were instances when if I did good in something, got praised or did well in class, all of a sudden I got a surprise treatment from a female friend being sarcastic and insulting when I had known her to be sympathetic when I was not doing well and having problems.

A lot of times I got really surprised by how unpredictable some could become. Like just the last time we talked we were joking and laughing out loud, and the next time we met she would not even talk to me and I was being ignored.

Just recently, I felt betrayed by a female friend who I thought was a well meaning one. The way she told other people her opinionated version of an issue is not the way friends are supposed to be treated. She used to be supportive and helpful when I was down but when things were good she acted differently.

And then there were female friends, too, who just made friends for what they thought they will get. Probably, some men, too, may have an ulterior motive when they make friends. I learned that when I got a little older but it is a lot easier for me to see through them to quickly dodge. But with female "friends", you sometimes just don't until you got betrayed. Probably I am just having a hard time to decipher and more vulnerable to girl friends because of the need to have a good one while guys I have not much effort at all to be friends with.

I just realized that when people talk behind your back, when you got treated negatively for no apparent reason, when you got condemned without them getting your side of your story, when people just hurt you and destroy your image and they were not supposed to be enemies but friends -- it  is probably the workings of envy or jealousy or their own feelings of insecurities. Not that there is much to be envied about my circumstance but sometimes people are just not satisfied with what they got. So I got hurt by it, I survived, I moved on but the most important thing is that I learned from it and now I know the people I can't trust.

So what do I need a good break from? It is probably, people who hid behind the veneer of friendship but who are not so well meaning after all. How I intend to deal with it? In the words of Booker Washington, "I shall not permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him." or her for that matter.

taking the plunge

"Taking the Plunge". photo by Gina Matchinsky, Freemont Street, Las Vegas, Nevada

January 22, 2013 question is "Are you seeking security or adventure?

There was a time when I used to be one of those kinds of people, Rainer Maria Rilke in his Letter to a Young Poet  describe as one who "knew only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, and one narrow strip on which they keep going back and forth."

When I was a child, I had a very protective father who would not let me sleep over on relative houses or join campings or attend field trips without an older and more responsible companion. When I was in my teens, I was not even allowed to attend parties without a chaperone if allowed at all. If allowed it was strictly up to a certain hour only and at that exact appointed time I got to be fetched by no other than my father himself and not a minute time extension whatsoever.

It was home to school and school to home and just going out from time to time during weekends with him for long walks at Rizal Park or the coastal areas along Roxas Blvd near the CCP complex in my early elementary days. I almost contracted polio and the doctor thought it would be a  good therapy to exercise the legs more to build muscles just to be safe.

In higher elementary, high school and college, I got to tag along with him to auctions and conventions because he was a numismatist. He thought I gave him luck in his dealings. Those weekends were fun because after that I got to be treated to good food and shopping galore and most of whatever I wanted I got. With him it was always a taxi ride and never a passenger jeepney commute that my mom made me ride every time we shopped after buying too many things..

I used to be sickly when I was small and while he earned a lot during those times, most of the money went to paying hospital bills and buying medicine. As a businessman with his own manufacturing company, we did not have Medicare benefits and health insurance were not that popular in the Philippines at the time. So that accounted for him being overly protective of me long after the time when I was not sickly anymore. So it was still basically school and home, and home and school and a few "monitored" diversions in between.

10 days after graduating college, I got a job, so after that it was home to work and work to home. The 3 of us siblings were not allowed to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend while we were still studying. So I was already working when I had my first boyfriend whom I married. After marriage, he preferred that I be a stay-at-home mom for the children so it was home and shopping, and shopping and home from then on.

So I had a pretty much sheltered and relatively secured life for the most part. I have not even toured most parts of the Philippines. I never even had the chance to explore the world or even my own personal potentials and possibilities.

So back to the question if I am seeking security or adventure - it is probably both.

But first let me define how I take security. I take it to mean being free from harm, danger, threat, fear or anxiety. But more importantly I take it as the feeling of being secured in a loved-one's love, and that there is still somebody there to catch me when I fall.

Having a father whose business folded just when I was about to go to college back then had been a trying experience for me after experiencing the "good life" our bag business had to offer. I don't want to go through the same feeling of uncertainty again. There was the anxiety that I would not be able to finish school college at the time and I so really wanted to. It even made me worry if there will be food on the table the next time.

Same thing happened with the father of my children who work as a freelancer. But it was not just worry about having food on the table the next time and the children being able to finish a college education. After him not allowing me to work so I can take care of the children properly or as how he wanted it, there was also the constant threat of him leaving me and the children and how that would make me the loser. Whenever there was an argument, he threatened to no longer work or to leave and he won each time. So I used to have a feeling of being dispensable and not being loved enough to matter so I left him. I don't want to go through the same feeling again.

After not being allowed to work and being treated unfairly just because, my motivation to work now is to be financially independent so I will not be so dependent again and controlled or treated so low and without respect. So maybe I seek that kind of security. I want to be secured enough to be independent but still stick to a relationship because I wanted to.

Also after having just 3 years of regular work experience and long years of intermittent freelance job and then stopping for a long time, there seems to be a feeling of insecurity in fitting in a regular 8 to 5 job again. So I also need to feel secure of being accepted no matter what.

As for being adventurous, I can go so long as it is not debilitating or life threatening and although there is risk, just calculated ones.

I think, I just had my share of "adventure" when I went to the United States all by myself for the first time and decided to alter the course of my life, which I hope will be for good. With that big step it changed the way I view the world, too. I realized that there is more to life than the everyday routine and safety or uncertainty of the four corners of the room I frequently stayed in back home. I now understand why white can't be all that white or black through and though black and how sometimes it has to be the color in between. I also discovered the free-spirited person in me surfaced after being used to living by a given set of conventions. It felt like a breath of fresh air after being stifled for so long.

So now I felt that I have missed on a lot -- a lot of "I have not seen that..." and "I have not done that...". So maybe with adventure it is more of seeing the world more, being less conventional in my views, experiencing things I have not experienced before, learning to actually live and taking the plunge to love again, the biggest adventure of all."

wings still intact...

"wings still intact..." photo by Gina Matchinsky, at the Henry Doorley Zoo, Omaha, Nebraska

January 21, 2014 question is "What are you looking forward to?"

Ever dreamed of late? I don't for quite sometime now.

Sleep researchers say that every 1 1/2 hours in between sleep we dream every sleeping time of our lives. People, like me, who say they don't simply just do not remember. Because the only times we recall our dreams was when it occurred right after we wake up and sometimes our minds were so preoccupied with many things to ever spare a thought.

There was a time I used to remember my dreams a lot. I even recall knowing I was dreaming and there were times when I was even able to control the happenings in the dream. That awareness that you are in a dream state is what was referred to as "lucid dreaming". It can be a "dream-initiated lucid dream" when while dreaming you realize that you are and a "wake-initiated lucid dream" when the awareness that you are dreaming came after  you woke up and then continued dreaming again. And I have experienced both so that just goes to show that at one point I dreamed and recalled them.

During those times I remember most of my nighttime dreams, I recall having too many  daytime dreams, too. Not much for myself, I dream mostly for my children. I longed for a happy and secure home for them. I so wished they would all finish a college degree. I prayed that they will be God-fearing and grow into a responsible and successful individuals. I dreamed that they will have a brighter and happy future.

Then one day, I just woke up to the thought that I have no control over any of those dreams to get realized especially the part about giving them a happy and secure home.

Giving them a secure home was hard enough already but what was harder was the happy side to it since it was already a living hell for me to stay in a house that I could no longer call home. That was the time when I started not recalling my night time dreams also.

But by accepting the things that are beyond my control, it cleared my mind and made me think no longer in terms of the dreamer's solutions, but more workable ones. I stopped brooding over the what might-have-beens and thought instead in terms of possibilities for the future.

The way Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. worded it has been an inspiration:
"Yet in opinions look not always back --
Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;
Leave what you've done for what you have to do;
Don't be "consistent", but be simply true."

So back to the question of what am I looking forward to - I don't think I have much to look forward to because I view looking forward as already getting what you hope for for certain. But I still dare to hope and perhaps, I may still have a few dreams left, too - not the kind that needs recalling when I wake up. And probably I no longer recall nighttime dreams because of a busy mind working and getting too much preoccupied with more feasible stuff to ever have the time to entertain the thought or have the luxury of recalling things as trivial as dreams.

So not much of looking forward to but it is more of still being able to dream. I still dream of the dreams I had for my children, but now I also learned to dream of dreams for myself, too, and I am holding on to that dream. And as a quote by Langston Hughes says "Hold fast to dreams, for if a dream dies, life is a broken-winged bird, that can not fly." Sometimes it is the hope of realizing dreams that keeps people going - fly. It can even inspire them to soar.

So what do I dream for myself? John Lennon, Beatles singer and composer, once said that "A dream you dream alone is just a dream..." So it is the dream of building beautiful dreams together with someone that I dream of because it is only a dream you dream together that turns into reality.

no rat poison for me, please...

"Rat" photo by Gina Matchinsky at the Henry Doorley Zoo, Omaha, Nebraska

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January 20, 2014 question is:  "Are you holding a grudge?"

Not everything goes smoothly in our lives. There were times when other people caused us not just simple disappointments but too much pain or anguish - times when we were deliberately caused harm or humiliation, when we were instilled fear, made us lose our self-esteem and our dignity, manipulated us, misled us, and even verbally and physically abuse us. Sometimes the people who do these things are even the ones who swear to love us and protect us, too. And we are just human not to feel hurt and betrayed.

When we feel we've been taken advantage of too much and while we are still in the middle of suffering from those abuses, it is at that point when we feel like bearing a grudge on people especially if what they did to us caused us irreparable damage.

We often hear people talk about grudge. It is a kind of ill feeling directed to a person who caused us harm or pain. So how do we know when we are actually holding a grudge?

I think for a simple resentment to turn into a grudge, it should be deep-seated. A grudge is a really strong feeling of hatred that do not fade or die down with time. It is firmly established so much so that it is difficult to change or curtail the feeling.  Some people even have ill will to go with the resentment, too.

In my life I had experienced how it was to be hurt so much by someone whom I have trusted, somebody who should be the one protecting and supporting me, and perhaps even loving me.

Too many might have-beens like what would it have been like if I had been allowed to have a regular job? Or what would it have been like if my first son did not die inside the womb? And the feeling that his death was attributed to the painful words somebody said to me -- what would it have been like if those words were not said? Or what would it have been like not to be expected to be like somebody else's mother and to be genuinely loved for being you? Or what it would have been like if me and my children had a loving, secure and happy home and not the opposite?

So many things that I won't be able to bring back. There was a time when I can only feel bitterness and anger for all the unhappiness somebody caused me. Too much time and effort and tears wasted for somebody who is not even worth it.

Then one day, I woke up wanting to change my circumstance. As  Jocelyn Murray says “Sometimes it takes great suffering to pierce the soul and open it up to greatness." Not that I have done anything great yet but I was able to tap my most daring self to make something good for the remainder of my life and the people I love.

I stopped feeling bitter from then on. I now think in terms of taking charge of my life. I realized most things happen because at one point we permit it to happen. Like I should not have let somebody else dictate how I should live my life or how I should define myself.

 There is sense in what Harvey Fierstein said "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." And I did.

Of course there were things that are beyond our control and we can't do anything about it. No amount of worrying or holding grudge would ever change these. So the best thing to do is just accept things, learn from your mistakes and move on.

It is like how you drive a car to reach your destination. You look at the windshield more than the rear view mirror. You only look at the rear view mirror as a precaution. To move on, we need to look more at what is ahead of us and not much of what had already been behind us, but it pays to check it once in a while to not forget the learnings from it that we had.

So to answer the question if I am holding a grudge? No, I don't. Holding a grudge is like a rat poison you take in the hope that the rat itself would die. And more often than not, that varmint is a bad rat and will die long after everybody else did. So there is no sense in me stressing and holding grudge over somebody even more after all the sufferings that person had already incurred. But I don't intend to make the same mistakes again.

not just another meal

"A bouquet of fresh fruits" photo by Gina Matchinsky.

January 19, 2014 question is: "List 3 foods you ate today."

It has always been a bouquet of fresh flowers and I have heard of a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils. In an email from NY152 to Shopgirl, he typed: "Don't you just love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address" from the movie, You've Got Mail. Being an artist, I'd love to receive a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils instead of flowers for a change. I think it is something cool, creative and thoughtful, too, especially if it is being sent to a writer or an artist.

And that's not where the bouquet things stop. When I went to Hyvee, I saw a bouquet of chocolates they sell as a Valentine gift. You can find some really expensive chocolate brands there, too, and getting a bunch of them - so sinfully good! But what I tried at a friend's potluck party, I liked a lot, also! It was a bouquet of fresh fruits - delectable minus the guilt. I think it was me who finished most of the strawberries there. So that was one of the food I had.

"Shrimp" photo by Gina Matchinsky

Another of the food I had today was lots and lots of shrimp.

When I was in Philippines, I don't eat shrimp much. I take it for granted because I know I can always buy them when I want one. It just took a trip to Coastal Road and buy at the Bulungan and I got really fresh seafood just right after they were caught. And having lived around these areas most of my life, I just know I will never run out of supply. Had I known that that status quo will not remain the way it was, I would have enjoyed all the fresh shrimps, crabs, squids and oysters, especially oysters, that my tummy could take.

"Dinuguan" photo by Gina Matchinsky

The third food I had at the potluck  was the "dinuguan". It is a Filipino dish made of pork meat (usually innards like the small intestines and the big intestines), pork blood, vinegar and green finger peppers. It is a little tricky to cook especially if you use the innards because it has to be cleaned thoroughly. It will not taste right, otherwise. Then you have to get the right consistency for the blood because it could have that gamy after-taste if you don't. Another tricky part was just how much vinegar you are going to put so it will be a tinge sour but not too sour.

So here's my dinuguan version. For me, I prefer to use pork meat instead of innards because that is one less difficulty. The pork should not be too lean for added flavor. I first cut the pork into small cubes including the fatty portions and have it really fried and crispy. After that I saute minced garlic and onions, then I add beef cubes. After the cube is dissolved and mixed well with all the other ingredients, then comes the pork blood.

The pork blood, by the way, has to be strained first. The jellied blood needs to be broken with the hand in a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water. It has to be poured in first. I then let it simmer for a minute or so. After that I pour the rest of the pork blood and add about 5 to 6 green finger peppers, stirring as I do. After it simmer for about 7 minutes, I then add around 3/4 cup of vinegar. I cover it and then let simmer for another 7 minutes. Last but not least, I season it to taste with fish sauce, monosodium glutamate or msg and a little brown sugar. I stir it again and after a minute of low heat, then it's done!

It is really a good tasting food when done right and I think most Filipinos love it except of course those whose religion do not permit them to eat something that has got blood on it. It can be eaten with rice for lunch or supper. When eaten with "puto", some kind of rice cake, it is treated as just a "merienda" or a snack.

I'd say all the food I've eaten today were some kind of novelty considering where I am now. I enjoyed them and I hope people from different cultures will learn to enjoy them, too, especially the "dinuguan".  Cooked just right, everything was good! Bon appetit!

peacefully turbulent

"Peacefully Turbulent" photo by Gina Matchinsky, Red Rock Dam, Pella, Iowa

January 18, 2014 question is "What is peaceful about today?"

It was Saturday and for me it was supposed to be a relaxed kind of day - free to wake up as late as I want, do some chores I was not able to do on week days and just have a leisurely time with loved ones or friends.

Saturday is my day, too, for long leisurely bath and a kind of pamper myself day. That kind of day when you are not so in a hurry to make sure that you were able to put lotion on each and every part of your body, when you rub your facial cream more, the time when you pluck your excess eyebrows or what else there is to pluck or cut or file your nails and set your hair a little more meticulously longer. So leaving on a Saturday usually took a longer time of preparation.

My husband and I were supposed to go on a photo shoot on Saturday but when we got to where we want to shoot, it was really windy and with the snow it felt chilly, too. The forecast said it was supposed to get warmer after noon but it didn't. So no shoot just when my husband needed to get some relief from stress and taking pictures has always been his way to do so.

My husband decided we went to Target to just buy something really important for him which in my mind, I think he will not find there. So I decided to look around for other stuff, too. It is seldom I got to go out shopping since I still don't drive a car (this, I discover, was something you really need to get from one point to another in the U.S.) so whenever we go to a department store I was just so excited to look around. Shopping had always been how I de-stress back when I was in the Philippines and the weather on that day was enough to get people stressed out, too.

The shopping ended with both of us not being able to buy anything and troubled. We got home both frustrated and disappointed, and all the more stressed. We were disappointed at each other for our own personal reasons that no amount of hugging gave relief. Things seem peaceful on the surface but I fell asleep with a huge lump on my throat.

So it was actually a challenge to answer this question and say something worth anybody's while.

So what was peaceful about such a turbulent day? Peace begins with a smile, said Mother Teresa. What was peaceful for such a day would probably be the hope of being able to smile again...

some things never change

"One of the boys" photo by Feliciano B. Villanueva

January 17, 2014 question is: "What is the oldest thing you wear today?"

Having went to the United States just recently and having not brought a lot with me in terms of clothing but summer clothes and now being winter, most of the stuff I wear these days are fairly new. So it is just a matter of which ones I bought more recently than the other and it is a bit confusing to track which was first or last.

So the safest thing to answer this question with is the oldest thing I wear today is myself. The good old fashioned me I have always known for years.

This brings me to think about the old things about me that did not change with time. They are the oldest things I've been "wearing" up to now.

For one, I still love my mom's spaghetti and when she died I cook the same recipe.

And then I love Astrud Gilberto's songs as a child and I still do up to now.

I hum a lot as a child and as an adult, also. At first it has a melody of a song and as my mind gets more busy just a steady note which I don't even notice that I was doing. There were even instances when my siblings got frightened when they thought they were alone in the room and heard that when we were all kids. Even classmates who often sat beside me noticed that, too and also co-workers. And just recently my newlywed husband and sister-in-law, too!

As a girl I have never been comfortable wearing mini skirts or shorts, even if my mother always made wear those when I was a child. I just thought my legs are not nicely shaped enough. And up to now I still do!

Another thing is when I was a kid, I prefer playing with boys. It is just that with boys there are not much fuzz and intrigues, and no cliques! Now, I still find it a lot easier dealing with men than with women.

As a kid I also love wearing boots and now when the opportunity of wearing one came, here being extremely cold, I just discovered I still love that kind of thing.

One of the most recent oldest things I thought I no longer "wear" and has outgrown already is my being like a "girlish minx".

One of the happiest part of my life was when I was still a child and my father still doing good in his bag manufacturing business and him being indulgent most of the time. He used to make me tag along in all his business dealings because he believed it kind of gave him luck. And after that we will go out to eat or buy stuff  that I like. And it always happen that I extended his set limit for spending on that day. It can be food or clothes or toys or even just extending time on the playground. Me haggling and cajoling for a little bit more and him capitulating most of the time not because he can be easily sweet-talked or him not being firm, he just makes it a point to make me know he loved me too much not to. For all I know he already set a budget for haggled stuff but I just felt loved and indulged.

I have not done any haggling for a long time now. It stopped after my father lost his business and I thought I already outgrew it until recently. Sometimes, when I shop with my husband, that cheeky, minx girl just came out of the blue without me meaning it and even if I know it is not appropriate for my age already.

Some things never change, one just have to know better enough to take things graciously, see life in a more mature way and even learn to accept frustrations.