ARE YOU... TALKING TO ME?!

I always find it amusing albeit odd when out of nowhere things seem to be talking directly to me, like they know how I feel at the moment or something.

I feel sure you've had the same experience as mine. You're pondering over what to do with your vacuous career amid listening to the radio (for background eh?) when the DJ suddenly says to you: "Believe in yourself and you will go far. It worked for me. I'm sure it'll work for you, too."

You're on your way home on a bus perhaps and really feel bent on taking a long time off from your 9-to-5 grind when you happen on a song that goes like: "You'll never enjoy your life living inside the box/ You're so afraid of taking chances/ How you gonna reach the top?"

You're on your insipid way to work and have already labeled the day as ho-hum while looking outside the jeepney window when a car with its rather delightful plate number GOD 100 passes by.

You're like, "Ok, I'm not gonna stress myself with this seemingly unending battle with myself over what my next step will be" by watching your recently discovered highly entertaining TV series when you catch a glimpse of this four-line poem on the screen: "Hold fast to dreams/ For when dreams go/ Life is a barren field/ Frozen with snow." And the list goes on.

"You'll never enjoy your life living inside the box," the song told me then. Curious, I searched for the rest of the song's lyrics on Google and found them to be very apt "words of encouragement" for a scaredy-cat like me.

Waiting Outside the Lines
Greyson Chance

You'll never enjoy your life,
living inside the box
You're so afraid of taking chances,
how you gonna reach the top?

Rules and regulations,
force you to play it safe
Get rid of all the hesitation,
it's time for you to seize the day

Instead of just sitting around
and looking down on tomorrow
You gotta let your feet off the ground,
the time is now

I'm waiting, waiting, just waiting,
I'm waiting, waiting outside the lines
Waiting outside the lines
Waiting outside the lines

Try to have no regrets
even if it's just tonight
How you gonna walk ahead
if you keep living blind

Stuck in that same position,
you deserve so much more
There's a whole world around us,
just waiting to be explored

Instead of just sitting around
and looking down on tomorrow
You gotta let your feet off the ground,
the time is now, just let it go

Don't wanna have to force you to smile
I'm here to help you notice the rainbow
Cause I know,
What's in you is out there

I'm waiting, waiting, just waiting,
I'm waiting, waiting outside the lines
Waiting outside the lines
Waiting outside the lines

I'm trying to be patient (I'm trying to be patient)
the first step is the hardest (the hardest)
I know you can make it,
go ahead and take it

I'm waiting, waiting, just waiting I'm waiting
I'm waiting, waiting, just waiting
I'm waiting, waiting outside the lines
Waiting outside the lines
Waiting outside the lines

You'll never enjoy your life
Living inside the box
You're so afraid of taking chances,
How you gonna reach the top?

The poem, I later found out, was penned by Langston Hughes and has a title "Dreams," which reads: "Hold fast to dreams/ For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird/ That cannot fly/ Hold fast to dreams/ For when dreams go/ Life is a barren field/ Frozen with snow." And I suppose it likewise fits the bill. (I stumbled upon another great poem of Hughes. See it here.)

And so I say props for these inspirational happenstances. I guess, I've got to be talking to them again soon.

PLEASANT SURPRISES

I'll tell you what, I guess, I was really wrong posting on my Facebook wall that "life indeed is full of surprises, but never when you need one." As sour as that status was, it prompted one thing that I suppose holds true: The way we perceive something as surprising greatly depends on where we look at it from; what's surprising for you may not be for me, and vice versa. Which reminds me, aren't you surprised that DMC, a French brand of embroidery threads, can allow anyone to have an Amorsolo? No, not the real paintings, just the cross-stitch patterns.

The brand's only local distributor, Focus Global, Inc., partners with the Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation for this project, which has turned eight Amorsolo paintings "that reflect Filipino culture at its best" into patterns: Planting Rice, Cooking the Noonday Meal, Winnowing Rice, Sunset: Return of the Fisherman, Girl with a Banga, Tinikling Dance, Lavandera, and Girl with Mangoes. (For further information, better check this out!)

This may seem like a free brand advertisement to you (and if it does, I'd be, in fact, glad), but for me this comes as something of a surprise, and pleasantly so. Not so long ago, in an entry here, I was just wishing to have one of the Master's works, but needless to say, how could I? Notwithstanding having only the chance to own its cross-stitch version, I now assume that having the real one is just within my grasp. But first things first: I gotta start that needlework now. Let me, fingers crossed, surprise you with my output, then.

THE HUNT FOR A POEM (revisited)

It is surprising to know that this blog's The Hunt for a Poem (supposedly a "series"), written a little over a year ago, gets the most number of hits (read: the counter on the right says so). Curious, I ran through the said entries and realized that I have had not "completed" the task. For that, I felt kind of sad and dissatisfied with my output for I know that most of these hits were scholastically related. "Did they find what they've been looking for? Was I able to help them with their 'assignment'?" I asked myself. Pfui to my so-called "ningas-kugon" attitude, you know that kind of I-really-am-setting-out-to-put-all-my-enthusiasm-into-this-at-first-but-loses-it-in-the-end-anyway approach of my ilk (pardon the excessive use of hyphen ). But most of all, I'm saddened by the implication of this on my working attitude: that I have the predilection for abandoning what I have started and for being swayed by "distractions."

Yet, the goals still stand: I need to look for "that poem" and record the ones on display in the commuter trains; even if not all, at least a little more than I already have here. So, be set for Part 3. ^_^

I JUST REALIZED...I CAN STILL DRAW!

The fish!:)