Quiet Thoughts

I stand here
awaiting,
listening, feeling

I smile,
when I see yours, my sweet
My sweet,
can you hear mine beat against yours?

Scared am I, the possibilities
Truth be told,
something of sorts

What is it, I ask
You cannot answer
It is something only together,
we would one day discover

Be there will I be, through struggles and laughter
As long as again we will be
dancing under the streetlights

Talk to me, show me
What it is you are afraid of
I hear, right here
I echo your quiet thoughts

I reach out
touching,
thinking, embracing

What is mine, if not yours,
I ask you to hold

When all is settled and down

I had had the pleasure of going to 9 different weddings last year. Yes, you read correctly.

2 decades-old friends; 1 destination on white sands; 1 that made everyone cry; 1 of old family friends where I tried to avoid all my parents' friends' inquiries on "when is your turn?"; 1 classic one that went until 7am; 1 we had been waiting for 8 years; 1 in a beautiful park overlooking the city; 1 colleague where I didn't really know anyone.

Aside from weddings, showers, and the all-fun hen parties, all these weddings signified something more than just a row of gifts and wedding cakes. Or one too many champagne.

I knew then as I know now, that the storks will be flying by anytime now.

Sure enough, recently I received news of 2 friends who are expecting. A few more are trying. All this baby talk is making me dizzy. Spinning conversations on love, relationships, and life. R and A had it planned. It happened a little earlier than expected, but such is life. They are both excited at the prospect of the upcoming bundle of joy, and so am I for them. B broke the news to me last night. Of all my male friends, he is definitely the last I would ever expect to have one. It was an accident. They are going to try and make it work.

I'm not in love with you, he had told her. That was what he could utter right before he made the decision to move in with her.

She needs me to be there for her, at least for a while. He is nuts, I thought.

How can you want to be with someone you don't love? Then again, this works for some people.

At first I was flabbergasted at the idea that it happened to the one guy who seemed the least responsible and settled-down as the rest of the lot. What do you expect out of a twenty-something guy, still completing his graduate studies, working full time, with many aspirations and possibilities? I was disappointed for him.

Then I understood. Things happen for a reason. This is going to teach him something; he will be a great father; his life will be turned upside down. He will have to grow up. I was proud of him and excited about the prospect of whom he will become.

It hit me that I am still a novice at this Blahblahblah called relationship and love; how different each one is for everyone; what they mean individually and collectively. I yearn to understand.

My head is spinning upon the realization that although I would want something more for myself, you cannot plan everything in your future. Baby talks aside, I am instantly reminded of something my favourite TV character once said:

Some people are settling, some are settling down, but some of us simply refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies

I may not know what my future holds. But this, I know for certain.

A Student of Sorts

When do I feel whole? When do I experience bliss in its true, timeless definition?

Always when I define answers with questions, when I share myself with others, and the harmony of the elements: the magnificent rising of the sun, the quiet sound of falling snowflakes, the reverberating beat of crashing waves, the tranquility of soft breeze brushing against your skin, and the majestic layers of colours of a sunset painting the sky.

My friends would describe me as a thinker and an inquirer. A perpetual learner of sorts, with a propensity to ask - no answer is ever satisfactory, until the questions can stop. You say black, I see the small specks of light coming through. You see white, I ask "where did all the colours go?" You think 'run as fast as you can', I say "slow down!" Why rush through this fleeting moment called life like it is a five-second obstacle to get you to the next best thing?

Five seconds.

The amount of time it takes for your heart to melt at the sight of a puppy dog's eyes. The amount of time it takes for your hand to feel warm inside his. The amount of time it takes for your eyes to adjust in the dark just in time to catch his loving gaze.

I enjoy so much and can't seem to get enough. I am cursed with compassion, affection, and a giving nature. I am blessed with sensitivity, curiosity, and complexity. I have yet to find everlasting peace; a sense of unrestrained and continual-searching for growth, meaningful and uprejudiced understanding, the fill to an insatiable urge for teaching, learning, embracing.

I am a student of life and all that it has to offer: an eternal apprentice of love and its virtues, of people and their relationships within, of myself with all of its imperfections.

I pride myself in being a seeker in an endless pursuit of knowledge.

In what, you ask?
Anything, everything, and sometimes nothing at all, as long as it brings me closer to who I am and completes whom I will become.

And why, you ask?
Because there are no answers, only more questions that can bring you back.

To a simple thing called love.

The joyous cries of delight of a child, the warm touch of a friend's heart, the butterflies in your stomach when you see his face.

I forever stand in awe, in front of life.

Absence Makes the Heart

I turned the key to my apartment; a task so simple as I had done a million times before, almost robotically, expecting the same thing I see each day I come home from a full day of work. Though never was there ever music playing or human chattering sound greeting my arrival, such is a life of a single gal, today felt it was going to be different somehow.

I asked myself: Did I expect that it would be, or was it truly out of the ordinary?

I placed the keys at their usual place, dropped my bag onto the familiar foyer bench, kicked off my ballet flats carelessly in my usual flair, and reluctantly walked into the living room. Stillness screamed all around me. Not the kind of silence into which I had come to assume everyday, this time its presence was palpable. I felt it not only in my surroundings, in everything I touched, but also within.

He was only here for just over a week, a mere short time in a year-long journey of me on my own to have my routines down almost like second nature. How did he affect them so, shake them up like one of those snowy-globes my parents had, until you couldn't see what was inside but the whites coming down in a blur of giant flakes? And even so, it still put a smile onto your face, and dared you to shake it up all over again just so you could see it one more time. How did I come to anticipate seeing his smile, sensing his warmth, and the safety of his embrace?

I saw it and I felt it as he came and he went.

And so the story goes. It will only repeat itself, surely and steadily, and until then, my impatient heart awaits.

All is Love in Play and War

Asleep she is, peacefully.

Alert she is, of her surrounding.

Insatiable she is, for love

I moved gingerly so not to wake the two bodies lying still on the ground. I smiled quietly as if afraid they would notice. My heard settled in its place, sense of peace washed over me.

What is it about this image, I wondered, that made things seem easier, problems smaller, choices

immaterial, and life...more blissful?

As each day goes by, each simple move serves as a reminder on what is truly important.

Days filled with squirrel-chases, plays with friends, drinks from fresh or not-so-fresh streams, hikes on the North Shore trails, and if I happen to pretend not to notice, a few hours of snoozing on the couch.

Head turned to the side, tail between the hind legs, and body slowly moving to the Timeout corner. She sheepishly looks up at the wagging finger and a word sounding familiar, yet so far: "Bad Girl". I turn a corner and come back. There she is, staring back at me, as if nothing has happened.

Please, pretty please, I love you. Can I now have my dinner and a walk?

Please, pretty please, I adore you. Can we now sit back and relax?

I look into those light eyes, filled with exuberance and lightness of being. I shall forgive, as you have forgot.

The image of two, as one. I accept you, and respect you, as you have mine.

Awake he is, smiling

Attentive he is, of my presence

Lucky I am, in love

New York, New York

Lit up sky in Time Square. Pristine sidewalks on Upper East Side. Trendy boutiques on its Lower side. Chic Cafes in Soho. Barney's on Madison, Bergdorf on 5th, Macy's on 34th. Central Park on their sides. Boutique Lounges in East Village. Tall glass buildings on the Down side. Brownstones in Greenwich Village.

The city that never sleeps.

High-heeled on sidewalks, I braved the city waving my arm to the oncoming blurs of yellow, much like the locals, a la Carrie Bradshaw. There is something to be said, still so European yet very much North American, in this busy lovely city called New York. Everyone dressed to the nines, a complete opposite end of the spectrum compared to its laid-back, surfer-yoga-enthusiast-tofu-eating-hiking-snowboarding westcoast counterpart. I felt out of place, yet at home in this city, having labelled myself as a city girl at heart, regardless where I actually reside and guilty admitance for my penchant for Ugg boots on weekends and rainslicker in my dogwalking moments.

Despite the sudden change in the out-of-normal warm January temperature to frigid east-coast bitter cold that cut through your flesh like an icepick, I walked outside. I put my hood up and survived. Anything that would sustain my endurance in order to not miss out.

If I could just brave the cold, keep my eyes open, stand my 4-inch-heeled feet on the ground, I can take in just a little bit more, and not lose a single fleeting moment in this city that truly does not sleep.

Hotel on Rivington. Koi and Buddakan. MoMA. Chicago on Broadwayl. Dream Lounge. The Royalton. The Guggenheim. Clear Manhattan skyline through leafless Central Park. Lunch with the ladies who lunch at Bergdorf 7th floor Cafe...

When biting the big apple, a bite is never enough, and the night never ends.

In a manner of speaking

In a day where arguably chivalry is assumed to be DOA, women equality is prominent, and proper etiquette is a subject of old adage, how important are good manners in today's age?

At dinner, we talked endlessly, had a lot in common. We laughed at the same time, and the silences were not at all awkward. I excused myself, he got up as I did. When I came back to the table, he stood up as I was seating myself back down.

It was the first time I was ever truly impressed with a simple, old-school gesture and what it meant.

I grew up in a household where you wait your turn to speak, even though speaking your mind was always encouraged; where you let those older than you take their turn before you, even though you should always go for what you want; where you eat with your mouth closed, even though you can converse during meals; be courteous whenever possible, no matter how old or young those around you are. I was taught the simple manners in life that have become second nature and unquestioningly part of a regular life.

So when does a simple conduct become debatably out-of-the-way notable by those around them? Have etiquettes of the past become extinct - words of the past we only see and read about in 19th-century novels or movies?

The way I see it, there are 3 levels of good manners: Level 1 are the timeless, must-have simple etiquette such as the ones I learned from my parents; Level 2 is the nice-to-have gesture most of us might need a bit of reminding from time to time; and Level 3 which is the bonus-if-you-ever-experience-it sort, because of their out-of-the-way-nice nature such as my dinner date anecdote.

Level 1 is a given. I wonder about those who do not practice them on a regular basis. Who actually still responds with "huh?" instead of "pardon?"; forgets to say "please" and "thank you"; does not introduce people around them to each other, or worse yet, excludes a person out of a conversation?

Level 2 can be tricky. We sometimes need to remember to offer our seats to the ladies, the elderly; open doors for women, or even hold the door open for the person right behind you regardless of their sex; to say 'yes' instead of 'yeah'; and in the age of mobile phones where shared land-lines are almost non-existent, to ask politely "May I speak to..." for the person with whom you are wanting to speak.

Level 3, on the other hand, is a way to memorably get attention. This category mostly falls under the chivalry section, and arguably dead because women, wanting to be treated equal to men, do not 'need' to be treated any differently. Do we need to order first at a restaurant? be let out of an elevator before a man? have our tabs taken care of all the time? or, as my date Matt was taught at a young age by his father, to stand up for a woman whenever she leaves or approaches the space where you happen to be?

I do not need the people around me to know that you pass the salt and pepper as a pair (and to your right), or to place the napkin on their laps immediately upon being seated at a dinner table, but can appreciate being addressed first by a server at a restaurant. I like to pay for the bill every now and then, but won't get offended if a man asks me to wait and offers to get the car while I wait inside. I do not have to have my chair pulled out for me before I sit down, but would love it if one introduces another with more than just a name.

I don't need to be reminded of how much time has changed, but I can certainly recognise the value of good manners of any kind.