romance

Tricia celebrated her birthday a couple of days ago and I had the chance to reflect on our friendship and feel gratitude for what I think now was her greatest gift to me: the gift of romance. Different people seem to have different ideas of what romance is. It isn't romansa, which suggests acts preceding physical intimacy, neither is it pagsuyo (courtship) nor pagibig (love). During mass, I thought of this definition of romance: a self-induced high that you share with someone else. Perhaps pagsinta is its closest translation.

What was wonderful about our friendship- and this has been the template for my relationships with other women- was that while together we basked in the glow of passion, we directed its flames to others rather than one another: our friendship through the years was never consumed by conflagration.

In Middle School, she explained to me the meaning of the Gallic phrase, "Je suis amoureux comme un fou de toi." It's an extravagant way of saying I love you: literally, it means I am like a fool in love with you. Since we used French to write top-secret notes to each other, these words are branded on my heart.

When we saw each other again after more than a decade apart, we had barely finished hugging in front of City Lights when she said we would spend the day in Napa Valley. I seldom drink wine, Wine Country was a couple of hours away, yet Trish instinctively knew that this was a day the romantic in me would always remember. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.


Subscribe Free
Add to my Page

Thanks to Basil Valdez for the song Paalam.

camote bread

The shortage in cheap rice has been an opportunity for many of us to reexamine our diets and look for alternative staples. On Labor Day, I took Ate Nene and Kuya Mario to Café by the Ruins in Baguio City to have camote bread with fish roe pâté- ang sarap! The recipe for camote bread is here.

More healthy and affordable Filipino vegetarian recipes are here.

yoga

Subscribe Free
Add to my Page

When the student is ready, the teacher appears. -Old Indian adage

There were a number of new activities I resolved to try out this year and one of them is yoga. I view it as an exercise for the development of flexibility and improvement of posture, though longtime yogis emphasize that it is primarily a spiritual practice, one that leads to a profound understanding of our existence. Some authorities believe that yoga originated in the Indus Valley as far back as 3300- 1700 B.C. I joined a tantra yoga school in which a mantra is used together with the asanas or postures. The Sanskrit mantra in the recording is "Baba nam kevalam," and means "Love is the essence of all things."

One of my interesting discoveries is the difference between breathing in the Japanese martial arts and in yoga. In aikido, we are taught to inhale slowly through the nose and exhale through the mouth- the exhalation corresponds to the exertion of energy or ki. In yoga, we are taught to inhale and exhale only through the nose, forcing one to slow down. It took me several sessions to adjust and realize yet again that there is no one correct way of doing things, that there are many paths for even the most basic activities such as breathing.

As regards the mental attitude developed, aikido teaches one to blend with external forces, to become one with the adversary; I've read that tantra yoga eventually leads one to a kind of union with the universe, but I've noticed that at my beginner's stage I've simply become more self-aware and perhaps assertive on a gut level. Physically, I've found that with the stretching of the different parts of the body- and perhaps the vigorous massage given by one dada after the class- my backache has disappeared.

trust

One of the surprising things I discovered about business is how it is founded on trust. In law school, I had read so many cases of breach of contract that I had assumed there was an element of coercion or fear in the enforcement of agreements, that business operates on mistrust. In the best business relationships I have, however, written contracts are mere formalities: someone trusts you to deliver a product or a service, and you trust that person to pay you in return.

In April 2006, I was tasked by one of the shareholders of Makati Medical Center (that's her golden shoe in the picture) to create a PowerPoint marketing presentation with simple animation for a global sharing center she was setting up in Makati. Prior to signing our agreement, I had met her once in Oakwood for about an hour after being introduced by W., who I had met in a conference that same day. They didn't ask for my CV or portfolio, they just wanted me to begin making the presentation right away!

For this project, I formed a team comprised of photographer Ric Lopez and graphic artist A.P., both of whom were former colleagues in Living News, and writer Gabby Lee, who was part of my production team for Dr. Custodio's biography. I had confidence in my team, even if we were working in different geographical locations and communicating by email most of the time.

The only kink in the process was when work on the animation caused us to be late in submitting the PowerPoint by a couple of minutes. I was chastised by our client and I learned that in the global services marketplace, submitting deliverables on time is paramount. Nonetheless, our client was able to fly to the US the following day with her marketing presentation and all members of our project team got paid. The greatest fulfillment for me was seeing the success of our virtual collaboration and contributing to the growth of a multi-billion dollar BPO industry in the Philippines.