TOMORROW is Valentine’s Day.
By that I mean that I’m looking into the future, and “willing” everything goes well, and this article gets published on time.
I mean that today is February 12 as I write this.
But I am thinking of tomorrow, February 13 (your today, when the article is published), and what I could say in anticipation of Valentine’s Day.
Granted, of course, that people read “differently” by the season.
Or, that people are still attuned to the seasons like Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, et cetera.
***
Me, I am just grateful to be waking up every morning, and being able to think, and write.
But I am slowed down, admittedly.
While I may be serving you my column three times a week, I do so with a little effort now.
I enjoy more lazy days these days (of my golden years).
I do not feel compelled to save the world like I did when I was 20, or even until five years ago.
***
I have spoken about the sense of liberation the Philippine national election results of 2022 brought.
Nine months later, I still feel the same.
I have moved on. Totally.
I leave the nation-building, or the saving of the country, to the new generation.
I am not the bad person here.
I am the good citizen born in the wrong time.
My relevance is not in the political sphere.
***
My biggest legacy will be in the department of letters.
Literature and the arts.
Good or bad presidency, my literature will survive them all longer.
Politics is a chameleon, art is a four-dimensional pussy.
And so, I slow down.
I live.
And to be able to enjoy life, to be able to slow down because I am not in a hurry to clock in or clock out for a job, that’s the joy of being alive.
***
The original Valentine is, I suppose, a story about compassion, about caring for others that ultimately, people have reduced to the word “Love”.
And that Love is corrupted (that’s a strong word, but hey) to the simplistic Romantic Love, which again has been ultimately reduced to Desire and Lust.
Thus, trust me, on Valentine’s Day, the lodging houses and motels “by the hour” in the City of Love will be fully booked.
There is nothing wrong with that!
But nothing to crow about either.
***
I do Valentine’s everyday, in the sense that I do Christmas everyday.
Living with love and lust in my heart.
Everyday, I pine for love.
Love of one man, one boy, boys in succession, men and boys alternately, and some women in between.
I live with love for my compatriots, my fellow citizens of the world.
But such love is not reduced to helping them with their medical bills or prescription receipts.
If those idiots do not know where DSWD or DOH or their mayor’s office is, I really should exempt myself from loving them.
***
I woke up with gout a few days ago.
And if the normative range for uric acid is 3.59-7.18 mg/dL, mine is 12.77 mg/dL (that’s 747 in the 210-420 umol/L units) after I went to the labs to check it.
I did my colchicine therapy, but after the initial relief, I gave up.
I’m still stubbornly eating kansi, sisig, pata, lauya.
We are all going to die anyway.
Let me live enjoying my today.
***
I do not intend to live up to 109.
And if I die in two years, I would have still survived the “death by the vaccine”prediction of the anti-vaxxers.
Anyway, I do not see myself dying in two years.
If I meet a violent death until then, that’s a different story.
***
Anyway, Valentine’s is about love.
Love of neighbors, of others.
St. Valentine’s story is about caring, sharing, the love of neighbors as an expression of the love of the God.
My take, it’s about being alive.
Being alive and living a meaningful life by doing acts of service, deeds of compassion.
Me, I do it best with my words, with my wit, my humor, and my outrageous take on life.
Well, and if you follow me on social media, with my beautiful, contagious smiles.
Happy Valentine’s!/PN
