[update] we can start over;
Came home today after my second round on the Night Shift. All I can say is: Houston Hub, Represent. I will keel over laughing if my team keeps up their shenanigans. (Seriously, I am looking forward to a wholesome Chicken Bonchon dinner tonight. There was too much dirty talk *cough* Sinangag Express *cough* on the floor last night.)
I need to take a photo of Seiichi one time. I am happy though that he and Yanagi are getting along famously. Only one more to go to complete the Troika now. And then I can start being ambitious about acquiring the rest of Rikkai XD
I leave you guys two memes before I head on off to sleep:
『 HONESTY MEME 』
« my thread »
plz 2 b leaving the noeychu comments?
(i swear i try this every year but it never goes anywhere)
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And heh. Did they say it had to be 30 consecutive days? I think not ;)
30 Days → 01, Introduce yourself. | 02, Your first love. | 03, Your parents. | 04, Your most significant childhood memory. | 05, Discuss your feelings on the word “love” and the way it’s used today. | 06, Your day, in bullets. | 07, Your favorite super hero and why. | 08, Your favorite quote, in your handwriting. | 09, Your siblings. | 10, The shoes you wore today. | 11, Ten things that make you smile and a picture of yourself smiling. | 12, What’s in your bag? | 13, Short term goals for this month and why. | 14, A book that you’ve read more than 3 times. | 15, Your best friend. | 16, The weather outside. | 17, Ten things you’d like to say to ten different people, without using names. | 18, Your favorite birthday. | 19, A picture of you when you were younger. | 20, Your favorite writing project/universe. | 21, The fears you can't seem to shake. | 22, Something that makes you feel better. | 23, A prized possession. | 24, Something that makes you cry. | 25, A first. | 26, One interesting fact for every year you’ve been alive. | 27, Something that you miss. | 28, The places you went to today. | 29, Your guilty pleasures. | 30, One last moment, in great detail.
I didn’t have to think too hard on the second question in this set because the truth is, I already knew what I wanted to say for Day #2.
There is such a huge emphasis on ‘firsts’.
Ask your parents and they’ll probably be able to tell you your very first word or have photographs of your first few steps as a child. I know that I like going through my old journals just to see if I managed to document first meetings, introductions both brief and lengthy; landmarks in relationships that either are lost or survive the passing of time.
A photograph, a shared memory, a date circled on a calendar; a sketch on a strip of paper, that VHS tape you never quite got to return. These are reminders, sometimes physical and often charged with memory -- and not just your own.
But what about love? How do you know that very first one -- the one that had the potential to change your life and worldview? It is easy, after all, to claim the intensity of feeling and then brush it off when it doesn’t work out. To say, “Nope, I don’t think that was my first love.”
I know mine though.
I will always remember the piano behind the window, my eyes falling on the small, ivory keys - white against the wood. I could have just passed it by, and I did; only to look back and say out loud: I want this. I want it to be mine.
I have had music in my life for as long as I can remember. They say memory is tangible as early as the age of three, and it was then that the lessons began: one hour every week, under the instruction of those who would teach me how to draw out sounds through the use of my fingertips.
For over a decade I worked to understand this instrument made of wood and wires, tiny, padded hammers and brass pedals I once couldn’t reach. I grew familiar with its nuances in the same way that a dancer works to comprehend his or her body. But you cannot teach a person to love what they do, and you cannot instill passion if it is not there. One can learn the notes, the steps, the piece or routine, but it is not the books or the videos, the tapes or recitals that will show you how to find the love of the doing.
I talk about my music a lot. I know this. Every now and then you’ll see me put up a post here swinging from ecstatic to angst-ridden because of one set-back or another.
You could say it’s my version of angsting over a relationship, the few ups and the frequent downs. Especially of late, what with life throwing wrenches into otherwise well thought-out plans and having to step up to take on certain responsibilities.
But it’s just something I can’t give up. Something I find I can’t quit even if I’ve thrown mini-tantrums and flipped figurative tables and screamed that I don’t see the point in it anymore.
I was seven when I found this odd dance partner of mine. I was in the back of a van with my cousins all talking up front. Our parents were outside, in the botica picking up a few things that we needed to stack up on for our few days' stay in the province.
I had a bunch of stickers in the notebook on my lap. They had words and somehow, looking up and down, left and right, I put those silly words of encouragement to a tune that my mom still hums to herself to this day. She tells me that I'll sing that to my little girl or boy one day, I just laugh and say: "As long as it never leaves the house."
It'll be two decades soon, since I put down that little rhyme. And while the dream is still alive, its not so easy to see.
No one likes to think that opportunity is just passing them by in spite of whatever avenues you manage to resort to. I know I don't. Its why my music and I have 'fights' -- or rather, I stay away, opt not to touch the keys; sometimes get a little dramatic and hide the file folder where I keep the 'demo' I put together here at home.
And then it occured to me. If I were talking about some other person instead of this... non-physical thing that is as temperamental as well... a person; then I’d probably have my friends dragging me out to coffee and poking fun and calling it a variety of creatively thought-up names -- all terrible, all designed to make you laugh and flip a finger and say: “screw this, I’m a freaking catch, I don’t need this shit.”
I've heard about people being married to their work and maybe this is something like that. If it is, then I guess I'm still being schooled on the meaning of "commitment".
But you, there's that thing they say about first love: the one that you can’t let go of; the one that sticks with you until someone amazing comes along to change your mind. The one that lingers, just on the very edge of your vision because you lost your heart there first and that would be able to tell (better than most) how far you’ve come.
And thinking on this, I guess I should count myself lucky that instead of photographs to tear up I’ve got scattered notebooks that I can never seem to let go of, and document files and posts here on the internet; that handful of .mp3s that I’ve grown brave enough to set loose into cyberspace. That instead of wondering if I was silly and naive, there's a thrill and a hitch in my heart whenever I step into a music store and ask, all shameless smiles and bright eyes if I can walk my fingers over the keys of their baby grand pianos on display.
If this is my first love, then it's a love that I can’t quit. One that I won’t, because I suppose if ever someone does come along, then they’ll just have to understand that I need to see this through first.
Or else.. I don't know; they better be so, utterly amazing that they’ll shrug, grin and tell me that they’ll be right there with me until I get to where my music and I want to be.
/)_(\ o-okay. done being weird now.