May 28 to June 12

Copenhagen, Denmark
Stockholm, Sweden
Helsinki, Finland
St. Petersburg, Russia
Tallinn, Estonia
Gdansk, Poland
Oslo, Norway

If you need to reach me, please email ginny dot mata at gmail dot com.
I will reply to you when I get back to Manila by the third week of June. Thanks!

“I fell in love when I was 17. With God. A foolish girl with romantic notions about the life of a religious. But my love was passionate. Over the years, my feelings have changed. He’s disappointed me. Ignored me. We’ve settled into a relationship of peaceful indifference – the old husband and wife who sit side by side on the sofa but rarely speak. He knows I will never leave him. This is my duty. But when love and duty are one … then grace is within you.” 

- Diana Rigg as the Mother Superior in The Painted Veil (2006), adapted from Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same name.

Dear Muse,

Where have you been?

I have been waiting for you to come back to me. For the past six years or so, you haven’t been visiting me as often as you used to. In fact, you’ve all but disappeared. Without you, I am ordinary, as common as the bowl of cereal I have every morning for breakfast.

See? Even my metaphors are stale.

I’ve done all kinds of things to entice you to return: I travelled to Europe, kissed more than my fair share of men, did crazy things my mother would not approve of, deliberately sabotaged my former relationships so I’d have something to write about, posed nude, ran for miles and miles, loved and lost and loved again… and still, you did not come.

What can I do to make you fill me up again? My hands are arthritic, unable to write the words that so easily flowed from me before, my body is weaker, my memory not as sharp or as clear as it used to be.

I’m getting on in my years, darling, and I’m so lonely without you.

I have stories due in two weeks. These stories have to matter, have to be brilliant and explosive, or else I will lose the respect of my seniors (if I ever had it in the first place).

I have commissioned writing projects up to my neck.

I am part of a group that supposedly advocates healing through art.

I’m a complete fraud. What am I doing with myself?

I read books. I dance to the music only I can hear in my head. I make love. I make paella. I go to meetings. I torture my body in the gym. I wake up in the middle of the night from the pain in my hands, then go back to dream dreams where I have the power to stop time and to make things move.

I feel terribly self-indulgent. Help me. Wake me from this stupor.

More than ever, I need you to come back to me.

I’ll keep the porch light on. You know where I keep the key.

Your devoted slave,

Ginny

Since I got back from Europe in June, I haven’t stopped moving.

Always in constant motion, never stopping, never taking more than a minute to rest, always, always, there are things to do, people to meet, places to go …

I’m always on the go, yes, but it seems that I never get anywhwere. I’ve been running in place. I am a hamster pawing frantically at this spinning wheel. Thus, I feel like my well is empty, and I need to recover the creative energy that I’ve expended on so many useless things.

I have a mountain (literally) of books on my shelf, all begging to be read.

I need to meditate, find my center, seek my Truth. I want to go somewhere, alone, without the pressure of deadlines, to wander and feel wonder again. Perhaps to the mountains? Banahaw is calling my name.

More than this, I want to be more connected to my body, which through the years (and because of all the stress and abuse I have been putting it through) has been getting weaker. I’ve been feeling aches and pains here and there that no person my age should feel. I want to be like a dancer, who knows every sinew of her body, and moves accordingly, aware of the space she occupies, wrapping the air around her so that when she enters a room, the light and grace she emits warms everyone else. This is why I want to lose weight and be fit: not to be thin, but to be unemcumbered, to be free.

Most importantly, I need to write again. It has been years since I’ve written anything of value (have I ever done so in the first place?). I don’t want to pretend anymore. How can I go on reading and performing ‘poetry’ when I have not earned the title ‘writer’, much less ‘poet’?

I don’t just mean PR fluff, vanity pieces for rich doctors and politicians, yet another article on make-up or the celebrity of the moment. I want to create something meaningful, the very thing that I was born to produce. It’s a tall order, I know, bordering on delusions of grandeur, if it isn’t there already, but this is what I truly desire. More than love (which I already have, for which I am very grateful), more than fame and wealth. I don’t want to just be remembered for posing nude for artists or as the Fat Girl That Could. There’s more, much more to me than that, and by God, I’m going to everything I can to prove it, or else I will die trying.

So, ciao for now, dear friends. You’ll see me again, sooner than you think.

Inspired by Ivan Man Dy’s Binondo Food Wok-ing Tour, I am heeding the call of my inner foodie. Here is the photo journal of a wannabe, trying-hard gourmand.

Some excerpts, to whet your appetite:

This is literally mountain food. All these ingredients were picked by chef and set designer Jay Herrera from his garden in Kinabuhayan Café and cooked in whatever manner that may have occured to him at the time. The black chips are eggplant slices marinated in soy sauce, and the rice is a heavy, filling mixture of various vegetables, cooked in yummy chicken stock. Yes, the flowers are edible too.

(Side note: I miss Banahaw!)

Patisserie love in Capri, Italy.

Oh gracious. This herb-roasted chicken made go ooooh and aaah. Not many things can make me do that. This is plump, tender chicken roasted with sage, thyme and oregano, served with sweet sauce. At the regular size, it’s already big enough to feed two very hungry girls.

At La Mansion Trinoma.

These pretzel sellers can be found on virtually every street in Istanbul.

Hungry for more? Go here.

At Sayao Farm, Sagun Extension, Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur.

Photo by Reg Hernandez. July 4 2007.

I am a strange person.

My family has given up on trying to understand me, the Daughter from Another Planet, the exotic creature that wanders about the house in micro-skirts and men’s shirts, who craves soy milk at odd hours of the day, who takes her sweet time in the shower, and brings home her very funny friends for them to meet.

Hence, this game, Six Weird Things About Me, was simply made for me to play.

Tagged by Maryanne:

The rules:

1. Each player of this game starts with 6 weird things about him/herself.
2. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state the rule clearly.
3. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names.

Just six? Well, it’s a start.

• I like writing in the nude.
• My brain only begins to function after 10 in the morning and only after I’ve had 1-2 large cups of coffee.
• I take my coffee black. I feel sugar and milk and any other additions to the beverage  defiles the purity of the beans from which they came.
• I can be really, really pretentious (see # 3).
• I can’t live without lip balm and hair serum.
• I send friends long SMS messages at any given time of the day or night. These are the strange thoughts that frequently occur to me wherever I may be. 

I’m tagging Gabby, Anabel, Moki, Janet, Lara and Juan.

PLEASE BRING STRANGE THINGS

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
And the ways you go be the lines of your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
And your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
Walk mindfully, well-loved one,
Walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
Be always coming home.

- Ursula K. Le Guin

(Thanks, B.)