babbling to the void on a stormy day

"Give your stress wings and let it fly away."

--Terri Guillemets

today is a workday but it feels like a holiday. that's me talking (or more aptly, writing). i should have just stayed at home instead of doing what i did -- showed up at work -- and be like this -- lazy (and feeling guilty about it). haysss. bed! that's where i should be. after all, it's a very wet, very windy and cold, gloomy day. i should have just slept in. hihi.

outside, as i am writing this, typhoon pedring (international name: nesat), the 16th tropical cyclone to enter the philippine area of responsibility this year, is busy bringing in howling winds and scattering rain -- signal no. 2 in batangas; signal no. 3 is already up for places in eastern luzon. pedring's timing, projected path, and tendency to wreak havoc is reminding a lot of people of ondoy (international name: ketsana), that underestimated (read: initially underestimated) typhoon that caused massive flooding and shocking disaster in september 26, 2009. i'm throwing in memories of milenyo (international name: xangsane) of 2006, which entered the philippine area of responsibility and sowed destruction during the last week of september that year.

how could i forget ondoy and milenyo? i have blog entries about those two -- i was outside the comfort zones while they raged and i personally experienced what it was like to be out while they raged (but minus the traumatic imprints that they left on so many, many people).

booooo. i was hoping my entry after the "re-entry" (i'm making sense, right?) would already be about travels -- see i so want to go back to being able to blog about personally experienced travel adventures (along with their social, historical, and cultural implications, if any) but i've been postponing writing about my travels for so many, many months now and there's too much backlog already; i'm now finding it difficult where to pick-up and start. ugh.

yeah, i know. i better stop procrastinating.

right. so little time, so much to do. yet, i take time to boondoggle. no, don't tell me. i already told myself that. stop. then, start. bye bad habits. hello, good ones! yes and amen to that.



lightning strikes. i took this picture while spending time with friends
at guimaras's villa igang wharf on the 24th of september, 2010 -- just a year and three days ago.

i guess i'll be posting entries like this until i get my signature blogging groove back. ;-)

re-entry: a simple hi and more

it all starts and re-starts with a hi or a hello. as simple as that. everything else just follows.

here's hoping this is the entry that marks my honest-to-goodness comeback to blogging. hello world! hi there!

-¤-

my inspiration for coming up with this from-out-of-the-blue entry is also a from-out-of-the-blue message sent to me via gmail chat while i was offline. it said, "elo vallll!!!!!" just that. nothing else. nevertheless, it made my heart swell because it came from someone i haven't heard from for a long time already -- a dear labmate from my graduate school days in UP.

the message reminded me that a simple hi or hello can really go a long, long way. it also made me realize (again, i must say) that there would always be people with whom we share important connections with in our lifetime, that it doesn't matter how long we've last seen them or last heard from them; by the time we see them -- or hear from them -- again, it's just as if the time between then and the present is just that -- the time in between. the connections, however, are there and they stand the tests of time. they spontaneously burst to the surface from the depths of our beings once rekindled. they are fast reinforced, built, strengthened. time lapses, along with gaps, distances, and walls -- real or imagined they may be -- all simply dissolve.

for me, this triumph of connections over the challenges of time spent apart applies not only to the connections i have with people whom i actually shared lots of valuable time with on a face-to-face basis before; this also applies to those connections i have with people whom i have only seen once or twice so far in my lifetime (and very, very briefly at that!) as well as with those i have never really seen but interacted with so much on a virtual level -- chatmates and blogger friends -- people with whom i exchanged thoughts and whatnot's, laughed with, empathized with, argued with (and, at certain stages, had painful misunderstandings with), and celebrated even life's trivialities with through instant messaging, SMS, emails, comments, and/or -- quite rarely -- voice calls.

with each re-establishing of connections, no matter how simply achieved -- even if just through a hi or some whatnot initiated by the other party -- i recognize a heartwarming gift from heaven. i see the connections as blessings and rekindled connections are, in my lifebook, blessings multiplied. i acknowledge that they often come to me when i least expect them so i really do get caught by surprise. all the more that they become cherished wow moments. i cannot be faulted then for feeling so grateful that, oftentimes, i feel so moved to pay things forward -- i am inspired to be the one to say hi -- and this is one of those times.

i envisioned my comeback article to be about one of my many blog-worthy travel experiences. countless times, i attempted to start the draft only to stop even before i could complete the first sentence and, again and again, i ended up working on something else. i did some preparations, too, by introducing more than the usual minor changes to the template -- i thought the changes would finally get the ball rolling again -- but it still took me until now to act on my resolve to blog again.

what i shared with one of my younger sisters recently also applies to me: you gotta start at some point or you don't move.

this is it, time to hit the ground running.

with all that said, let me mark my re-entry to blogging with this simple combination of three characters: hi!



wherever you are right now in the world, if you're reading this, journey with me, see you around.