8.24.2003
August 24, 2003 || 3:32 pmMay bago akong natutunan kahapon. Ang simbahan ng Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe ang pinakamatandang simbahan sa kalakhang Maynila. 1629 nang ito ay matapos maitayo. Nakaligtas ng di kukulangin ng 5 malubhang lindol, 4 na giyera't rebolusyon, ilang henerasyon ng mga naniniwala atdi naniniwala. Lampas 300 taon.
Doon ikinasal kahapon sina Jules at Erwin. Kasama ng mga import na entourage. Sa blessings ni Fr. Dacanay. Mabuhay silang dalawa at ang dalawa nilang anak.
Siguro ako lang iyon. O kami ng mga kaibigan sa college. Ang nae-excite sa libro, sa unang talata ng isang libro. Ang mapangiti ng pagkalaki-laki, magtatalun-talon sa bookstore, ingudngod ang libro sa katabi, paghinga ng malalim, mapakagat labi at basahing muli ang unang pangugusap.
Napakatagal na panahon noong huli kong maranasan iyon. Ilan sa mga librong kaagad nasasaisip,
"In the beginning there was river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry."
— Ben Okri, The Famished Road
"One day a man may just pick up and walk out. What he leaves behind stays behind. What's left behind has nothing to stare at but his back. In the winter of 1965 Yonatan Lifshitz decided to leave his wife and the kibbutz on which he had been born and raised. He had finally made up his mind to run away and start a new life."
— Amos Oz, A Perfect Peace
Ilang linggo nang nakaraan, napadaan ako ng Fully Booked sa Power Plant at nabasa ko ang unang talata na ito,
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. Specialized readers may have come across me in Dr. Peter Luce's study, "Gender Identity in 5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites," published in the Journal of Pediatrci Endocrinology in 1975. Or maybe you've seen my photograph in chapter sixteen of the now sadly outdated Genetics and Heredity. That's me on page 578, standing naked beside a height chart with a black box covering my eyes."
— Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
at na-excite akong uli. Hindi ko alam kung sino si Eugenides (maalala ko pagkatapos na siya ang gumawa ng Virgin Suicides na di ko pa rin naman nababasa) at kahit nasa Bestseller section ang kopya (katabi ni Tom Clancy), malakas ang kutob ko na maganda ang libro. Ngunit, hay, hindi ko nabili kasi hardbound ang kopya at 1,374.00 ata ang presyo (basta hindi bababa ng isang libo).
Pero isang araw may natanggap akong text kay Vivian, "Middlesex is now available at 360. I can get it for u at 288. :)" God bless Vivian! Siguro'y dadaan ako next week sa Fully Booked, by that time, tapos na ako sa The Once And Future King.
Ernan at 4:10 PM