BEING FIVE AND SMALL IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL
By: Iris P. Concepcion

Twice in a row (two days of walking back the alleys with a human being four rulers tall and binging on siomai), I had realized the importance of bringing a kid to an adult experience and see how the tot would respond to his/her new surroundings.

Nothing compensates for break-out guffaws and smiles that intermittently erupt as this rugrat eats her chocolates voraciously, deletes all my games on the cellphone, calls everyone a farting pig and she only weighs around a kilo I think.

I went to Intramuros with this kid a while ago. Yesterday, I brought her to my college alma mater, UST, and enjoyed the fountains and massive array of its forestry inside.

One of the fun things we do together is walking on square shapes and disregarding other painted things on cobblestones (I am again embellishing; I have not used that word in quite a while). She eats siomai like she owns a Roseanne Barr tummy. I was astonished she found ways to enjoy the wooden artifacts in Intramuros. Others will most certainly get bored by the musty smell--she liked the "old" oddity though and I just went hmmmmmm. I had her pictured with a guardia sibil who looked funny in that Aguinaldo hat. They looked splendid as a pair.

A spine-tingling experience likewise occurred out of my writing stupid things occasionally. Anyhow, the spectacular brochure episode widely laughed about in this page, horror of horrors, landed in a nook there. I smiled totally. I thought I was just part of a staid business group. I did not realize they were doing other stuff for coconut produce in art form. As I said, this guy does not speak much about creativity; I find the little things he does quite enchanting and charming, like boxes of surprises. I always ask: "He could do this?"

He always says he does some things with me in mind. I dismiss it often times as just trying to score a non-existent pizza but when I am too weird-wired, I do believe he does all these things for this writer, solely.

I am just surprised my little form of silliness got quoted, not to mention the swaying, hushed palm leaves in a literary angle, landing itself in a manufacturing brochure. I presented this to a creative god then (I did not know any better he is a crowned, squired person in the creative world) and I always feel a certain shame and embarrassment that I arranged the picture of that coconut in such manner. It surely was tacky but he never commented on it. That is how I got my break in shutting up your mouth when need be.

I always remember Intramuros with fond memory: a friend purchased chopsticks for me in that area. Of course, I realized now, the friend was a stand-in to the wonderful person I fell for after (and the numerous hosannas in this page that sent the world tumbling like blocks). This kid quotes this guy's name a lot and I am left with nothing but line the dots to connect this world of serendipity in multi-color flashbacks. Thanks G (who by the way, looks like a mini-mouse in his suit of happy muscles). It was weird but you had me spooked there. Better than the set-up business meeting at the club.

(G: "Damn, there she goes blurbing about an unblurbabble (not a word) episode."). He hates me for this. Smiley with fangs.

Back to my thread. Simple things do happen that put back balance in my sphere of writing mood.

In spurts of moments, I have heard senior citizens going to a concert (and regaled how a woman in her 80s shouted "I love you!!" to a Cascades member); a one year old Earthling was smelling her pee from her diaper with a huge chinky smile; I saw someone who takes photograph line up in an ATM outlet; people who flew stocks for a living pass and give me a knowing smile and nod; and I have occasional lunchmates who talk like cartoon characters.

Flashy cars may be good but when these things happen, even in a day in your life that could dilute all your sorrows, you could reach the epitome of fulfillment and go on and on and on and on rambling about anything without fear.

It is not that I complain; I may be beset by harangue that totally loses my cool more than ever, but these interactions in the silent wilds of my existence compensate for all that: I am responded to in a manner I appreciate best by people I had met in this world, road travel.