Some Kind of Ordinary, Some Kind of Sabog

I'm posting this 30 minutes before my MA class, with Larry a few computers away. What's on my mind: it's amazing how, even after an extraordinary, momentarily earth-shaking event, your life goes back to normal the next day. It's comforting, yes, and expected---so why the wish that the rest of your life be permeated by that fleeting moment? Unless you want to keep that memory separate, because it's one of those un-integratable spur-of-the-moment things that shouldn't have happened---making it all the more delicious. This morning I got up at 10:30, after 6 hours of sleep, with wobbly knees. While waiting at the corner for a taxi, a child in a pink sando, turquoise cotton shorts and lilac slippers (hanep na color combination) was blowing bubbles from one of those cheap bubble mixtures sold by sidewalk or tiangge vendors. Bubbles over J.P. Rizal. Like those bubbles over Session Road last April. She snickered when bubbles burst against my shirt.

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I had good intentions of seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again last night, but we never even got there. Ok lang, baka maiyak na naman ako e, as I did when I watched it last Monday. It's my favorite Kauffman-written film to date, being not only funny and intelligent, but poignant. I love how a/typical and fucked-up the characters are, especially Clementine. I love the tender, quirky quality that shines through even in the hilarious but twisted scenes where Joel escapes to a memory of himself as a 4-year-old and Clem flashes him her crotch. The scenes that got me most weepy, though, were set on the beach where the two first meet. "This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon." "I know." "What do we do?" "Enjoy it." Boo hoo. In the darkness of the cinema, with all my phantoms, I was grateful for the now-platonic arm that extended itself to me in comfort. An arm with elbows that are now simply pointed.

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Thanks to Tarie and Elmo, I found the Alexander Pope poem that contains the line Kauffman turns into the movie's title.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"

The above excerpt's from a poem entitled "Eloisa to Abelard," published in 1717, inspired by real-life 12th century lovers Peter Abelard and Heloise/Eloisa. He was a 40-year-old philosopher aiming for clergyhood; she was his 18-year-old student, the niece of a friend. As these things go, they had an affair, she got pregnant, they had a son (whom they named Astrolabe!), and secretly got married. Her uncle reacted by having him castrated. In shame, he became a monk, and she a nun. Their renewed correspondence twelve years later show how passionately she still felt about him, though his mind had long turned towards theological matters. Diane Ackerman has a wonderful section about their story in A Natural History of Love. Though it doesn't say whatever happened to poor Astrolabe.

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Chilled white wine smuggled into a mall in plastic Jollibee cups. Where do I tuck this memory away?