Room 912

At last, at long last, I am heading back to Manila again. For a moment there, I thought I never would. Not because I couldn't go home, or because some part of me wanted to stay, it was just because time passes strangely in room 912 at the 9th floor of the Mita Kokusai Building. In ground zero, there was no concept of days. The shades were all drawn up against the sun and Tokyo Tower's shadow. The only measure of time was the occasional chime and, more indicatively, the constant tick-tock of weariness. And though it was an office to most, for the managers and the people with the burden of responsibility tying them down, it was also their bedroom. their transitional quagmire for the course of their stay.

But I'm a few miles apart from it now, and furthering. I'm being thoughtful on the last transfer to Narita Airport. This Keisei line will be taking its time stopping at every station in between and I have about 60 minutes to appreciate the view and finally wind down, finally get the chance for some much delayed retrospection.

And I could say now that it wasn't such an awful time--joining this much-bemoaned mission-impossible project the Japanese managers are hurling warm bodies at. Though it definitely wasn't any fun either, or at all something I'd jump into again, no. It's a lot like your first take at sex. It's such an awkward affair at first though you know theres a lot to be appreciated as it goes on but you can't because your trying so hard to get it right. Your partner, of course, depends on you and your performance. Extend that feeling over a month and you pretty much have an idea of how my stay has been--though I had to use an orgy-at-work metaphor to do it, but it kinda works out.

The next time, I'll be prepared, learning from all the terrible mistakes of this stay. Namely, being more available and consciously avoiding the tendency to shut-out the world and shut the pain in. I do that a lot, bearing everything on my own on the noble intention to lessen the burden of others. But looking out at the expanse of blue skies and small, quaint Japanese homes dotting the docile countryside as my train passes by, I have to conclude there's a lot of good in the world and whatever tortures I endure I could just as easily share and, in turn, dissipate into that calm immensity.

I was such a wreck last week. I get the work done, but wow, it felt like I wanted to barf my rotting soul and watch it fester in the gutter. Things were happening back home that I was trying to handle along with the pressures here and I wasn't a happy trooper about it. I just tried to get by day-by-day, task-to-task, dream-to-dream and thought I couldn't afford to talk to people and risk discovering another mishap, another problem, another concern.

But talking helps, to anyone. Vocalizing concerns and risking discovering more with someone is a hell of a lot lighter than alone, curled up in the darkness of my unheated hotel room. In the end, that's what kept me sane in room 912. Who knows when I'll be back there again or which dark, distant place I'll find myself stranded in, but, as my Japanese senior Hasegawa-san advised, I'm bringing something with me to make me stronger(with flashy hand movements, he suggested a bazooka). I'm dropping by Manila for it: the renewal of friendships forgotten and love denied.

the Garden of My Dreams

Autumn visits my garden tonight. She bears a mantle, rouged and bloody, and in her wake the trees weep bitter leaves. She glides with purpose through the untended grass and sets her steely gaze upon my two prized trees.

Her eyes fall upon an ornate tree straddling the eastern most edge of the grove, where the gliding branches stretch out to salute the sun first among his leafy brethren. She pauses and allows her eyes to take everything in: the dizzying height and lofty grandeur of the tree, its dark, rigid, uncompromising bark, the delicate leaves that seem to just barely hang-on in mid-air. She imagines this tree blossom in its ripest season with eruptions of varied fruit of myriad colors, the buds explode and sparkle with bright lights and scatter an aroma of a distant alien sweetness, while the branches sway and creak a strange language among themselves.

Autumn's face is grim, cold, yet endowed with a certain serenity borne out of constancy. She keeps her facade, as she averts her gaze and lets her lashes blink a sudden eternity, before they part and unveil the vista of my second prize.

He sits in the heart of my garden, and his massive girth speaks of his roots that have permeated the very being and soul of this garden. His boughs widen and curl around and twist to shield a swath of soft grass underneath, then curl downwards to embrace the very earth. His complicated branch-work is strewn with the greenest leaves and plenty of fattened fruit that is easily picked and ripe not unlike blessings from the gods. In his core is a hollowed retreat shielded from the cold wind and the harsh world where one could fall asleep tuning into the ebb, flow and warmth of his rich sap.

She approaches each and touches them briefly with an open palm and fingers splayed. She communes. And at once she sees the toil and tragedy that beset and have been overcome by these mighty giants. The earth they've grown from is rich with my blood, sweat and tears and it has only strengthened them further and made them greater, memorials of great deeds, terrible sacrifice and grand rewards.

And suddenly she turns back, and before the crimson curls of her hair settle, as her face gazes away to other gardens, the trees shake, and tremble and the leaves spark and catch fire and the garden's usual mist parts in this wild blazing of treetops. Leaves, now tinder, rain down and form bloodied pools of murky red, the remains of what was once verdant, now dead.

This is autumn in the garden of my dreams. The trees know of this story, ingrained in their very fiber: seasons come and seasons will go. But this time, this moment, for these two monoliths, the warm seasons, their fairness and enriching presence, may never come. For it is not change but, instead, judgement that visits tonight, and now there may be no more blossoms, no more green shoots, no more clear morning dew or fragrant hush. For these two dreams, planted earnestly and nurtured with good intentions for long days and longer nights, there may be no waking.

And I weep for it, for them, for myself, as Autumn's cadence becomes distant. I continue to weep, and my mangled heart prays to whoever is listening, to whoever cares, to whoever at all, that Spring will be more merciful. In the coal-black remains and strewn and streaming bark, I plant the fragile seedlet of hope and water it with my tears.