i've got mail

look what arrived in the mail today.

my la pomme goodies from provence! finally after two weeks i rip this much awaited package open & out comes the most heavenly of scents. christmas has come early!

out comes my sleep angels, lavender scented dream dolls filled with this season's crop of sweet-smelling dried lavender flowers from Provence.

and my bilingual cloves, linen ornaments stuffed with cloves & star anise, with customized words love, truth and light. in english and in french.

as if these weren't enough, apol (la pomme creator) has tucked in another cutie, a gift for being her first customer from her homeland, the philippines. yup, these babies are made with love by a filipina.

thanks apol! my new la pomme lovelies have quickly found their own corners in my home. :)

i am peter pan

i will always be a child in so many ways. it was a teacher who has said it first, you are an old soul. frankly it took me by surprise. i have thought myself as new to this world. i've always held a lot of fascination for the ordinariness of things. i have the eternal wonder in me as if i'm always seeing things for the first time. then i started to think, maybe it's true. that my soul, ancient, has gone through childhood in so many lifetimes that i remember it with graceful ease.

which is why this halloween i went as peter pan. not as the boy who never grew up. but as someone who vows to be forever young.

there comes certain points in our lives when we stop and realize that we are in the middle of nowhere. oftentimes we lose our way simply because we've forgotten who we are. i've suffered through a drawn-out quarter life crisis agonizing over not knowing who i was and where i was going. years have taught me that the answer wasn't out there. so i drilled down to the deepest place i could find within me and like peter pan, i realized i was not young enough to know everything.

thus i started being a kid again. i rediscovered old favorites and more importantly, i started remembering the things that made me happy as a child. i remembered my dreams which were sorrily dismissed somewhere along the road to being an adult. it's ironic how we couldn't wait to grow up and learn to become this amazing person, when we've had what it takes all along. as grown-ups we have learned to fear and hesitate on the brink of our goals. we've simply forgotten that no dream is too impossible, too wonderful to be real.

this journey of unlearning continues today.

if you find yourself lost or at the crossroads, remember. go back to that place where all our happy thoughts live. which way to neverland? second to the right and straight on till morning!

hope wins

i've had no televison these last 3 and a half years. no regular csi marathons, no glimpses of reality tv as they like to call the irony, no flashing neon box sitting in a corner of my room. for 3 and a half years i've enjoyed this peace and quiet, my own definition of luxury. some have said i've disconnected myself from the world. which is funny because i've never felt so connected before as much as i have now now. mornings come and i don't see celebrity gossip or hear the latest balita (news). instead i see the light changing its colors. i know if it's a good day for the surfers to ride their kite or if it's a morning i'd like to swim in the beach. i wake up with my own thoughts for the day, reinforced by my own positivity. on days which aren't as good, i wake up dealing with my own battles. i believe that the news that really matter will come to me anyway and come they have. from the the pertinent (obama is president! - an sms from my aunt in virginia the very minute he was proclaimed) to the the entertaining bits that hardly tip the scales (angelina jolie's having twins! - my mom).

this tube-less existence isn't apathy towards what's happening in the planet nor cynicism towards the people that run it. it's simply a choice that i've made. i choose to listen to stories of people whose actions make a difference, no matter how big or small; of people who have the same compassion and desire to change this world beginning with themselves. while i find a handful of tv series (straight from dvds!) wildly amusing, nothing entertains me more than real stories from friends i've known since high waist maong (jeans) were all the rage; to island folks who've chosen to live simply and therefore largely; and from beautiful strangers i've met here & in my travels. these are tales that make the fiber of everyday existence. more than anything, they are constant reminders that there's still more humanness in this world than is being shown in that box.



so when a story of gigantic magnitude reflects the same values, the whole world is up on its feet. barack obama's victory has not only made history in terms of color, race & number. he's had the whole world of hopefuls rooting for him, wishing that they too could vote. his win is a testament of a world crying out for change. in a time of disbelief, he united those who still had faith running in their veins, the same group of individuals across the continents who've been making a difference in their own little ways. the collective result is a miracle made possible not by gods, but by human beings.

what i have learned in these last 3 and a half years is that we are all connected. that whatever pockets of negativity we carry contribute to the disease that ails our planet. that whatever bursts of joy and love we bring continue to heal this affliction. what so many of us fail to realize is that it is hope why we still walk despite being wounded. because if there isn't any (as the jaded would love to rally), then why not drop dead and cease to exist? why go on, i mean really, if this life isn't worth saving? there's always hope tucked in the dustiest corners of our hearts. so long as we continue to breathe, hope lives.

i'm not saying or implying that you get rid of your tv :) what works for me may not work for everyone else. but i think that we all have our own personal televisions we can give up in exchange for something real. a life without it has not made me apathetic to the issues, rather it has made me more compassionate. i didn't ditch it because i became cynical, but because i wanted to be more optimistic. when i decided to stop watching it was then that i started seeing how things really are.