a little interested 

pondering upon the frustrations 

wishing on a star

note: this one here is a contribution from MADDIE, a good friend and a creative artist. she is an architect by profession and she manages their family business. right now she is in paris.

WISHING ON A STAR
By MADDIE

"Star light, star bright! First star I've seen tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight..." I closed my eyes and made my wish.
He was standing by the dusty roadside waiting for his ride as I pulled up my jeep asking for directions through the deserts of Morocco. He squinted under the afternoon sun as he pointed to the direction where I was supposedly headed to. I thanked him and sped right off, hoping to catch the beautiful sunset.
I pitched my tent under a blanket of stars away from the other travellers who set camp nearby. I huddled close to the bonfire, making myself comfortably warm while gazing at the diamonds in the sky. He taught me how to wish on the first star I happen to see as I looked up in the clear sky.
I now remember the story he once told me while we were still together...
For two weeks he had spent his nights under the sky, but he still has to see a single star fall out of its place.
Yuletide was still months away yet the young September was already blowing a cold wind. He pulled his clothes against him, and as he laid on the grass smelling the sweet earth around him, somehow he knew it was going to be a long night.
The breeze was gently slapping his face and it brought a scent that instantly shook him from his thoughts. Without turning his head and looking back he knew it was her. She gently walked towards him, then sat upon his side. Against the pale light of the moon he could see the eyes that always haunt him, the lips he always dreamt of kissing, and he wondered how it would feel to run his hand through her long auburn hair.
"You really should stop wishing on those falling stars."
Her words brought no comfort, and he watched her as she lazily traced the stars while softly speaking their names.
"Pelè, the bear hunter with the golden arrows
Istari, the centaur"
With fondness she added:
"Hiiaka and Lohiau, the lovers"
It was then that she told him the story.
When the world was still young and everything was new, Lohiau was the sun-god and Hiiaka was the daughter of darkness. They fell in love with each other at their first meeting, but Hiiaka, being an offspring of darkness, was terrified of Lohiau's light so she fled across the sky. Lohiau chased her but could never really quite catch her. So they both died of exhaustion.
He smiled for he was the one who told her that story. he could have laid there on the grass all night just staring at her face, but she eventually said the words he dreaded.
"I'm leaving tomorrow."
For a minute he could hear nothing but those words repeating themselves in his head. Above him, viewed against his tears, the stars and the sky blended into a single color of gray.
As she was about to get up, he said it for the first time.
"I love you."
And for an instance he thought she would stay. She kissed his tears away, but in the end she still left him.
For an eternity he was numb. He wanted to sleep and never wake up. As he was about to close his eyes, he saw Pelè let loose one of his arrow.
Was it too late for wishes?
He smiled, and for the first time in two weeks since she told him she was leaving, he was happy. She was a free spirit that could never be tied down--- like the wind that wills its way and goes where it must go. Only now does he understand her.
"Return to me after all your journeys
You know I will be waiting."
So he makes his wish, while above him, Lohiau finally let Hiiaka go, ending his chase.

"You really should stop wishing on those stars. They might come true."

How long was I gaping with my mouth open? I was startled to see him sitting across my bonfire with that familiar squint. Was I dreaming? I certainly didn't recognize him while asking for directions awhile ago. He slowly got up and came over to where I was huddled. He sat behind me and gave me a tight back hug and slowly kissed my left ear down to my nape.

I closed my eyes and all the stars fell into place.

That night, my wish came true.

just another love thing

“Over hearts, I have painfully turned every stone just to find. I had found what I’ve searched to discover. I’ve come much to far for me now to find. The love that I sought could never be mine.”
-Overjoyed, Stevie Wonder

Of Heartbreaks & Letting Go
By Bon JP Largo

At three in the morning I am still awake thinking about the recent events that came my way. It is as if a silk screen was conjured right at the ceiling and memories flashed back as lively as they happened.
One lazy Sunday evening, I was at a coffee shop with two friends – an old pal and a new acquaintance. We were shared some talks for a while but as each of them got some appointments, I was left to myself. Having nothing to do, I killed time strolling inside the mall. I grew tired so I went back to the coffee shop and settled at a table outside where I puffed some smoke and sipped another serving of caffeinated shake.
I was buried deep in my thoughts when someone from my left approached and hugged me – the type of hug that is from a person so helpless seeking for aid amidst an ocean of uncertainty and confusion. I stood up carrying his weight and recognized it was my newly found acquaintance I call “Dad.” He isn’t my dad and I am calling him that way not for anything but convenience.
He buried his face on my shoulder and he was sobbing so hard and everybody around stared at us with eyes seemingly shooting millions of questions. I would say, Dad was at his saddest that time.
Learning the night before that he is fresh from heartbreak, I preferred not to ask him what the crying is for until he can muster himself. I sort of comforted him and let him settle down. When he was pacified, he told me that he saw his ex inside the mall with another guy he suspected to be the third party who caused their breakup. As I have a little background of his failed relationship, I settled to asking him why couldn’t he just let go. His answer was brief and prompt. “I love her so much.”
So what's the fuss about love? It’s just that everybody feels it. Everybody loves the feeling of being loved, of being cared for, of being attended to. Well, talking about the kind of love we give to a partner we believe to be “the one.”
Well, most of us fall too easily and are very much vulnerable to pain. It must be because we are emotionally weak when it comes to “love matters.” If a person shows an ounce of concern, we tend to think it is affection. If a person shows a gram of care, we tend to think it is love. We tend to assume too much and expect a whole lot from what is shown to us and from what we hear.
You can just imagine how hurt one would get upon finding out that there is nothing to think about and there is no basis for all the assumptions.
We tend to love with the expectation that we will be loved back. We think that that person is the worthy recipient. We think that that person can give us all the love, all the attention and all the affection we need. We tend to think that they are forever, the ones for keeps, the one we have been waiting for and the one destined for us. None do we know about the future – what it will bring forth, what it will inflict. We seem not to care about the thought and that time and little circumstances changes the course of things.
In the case of Dad, the love that he thought will be forever suddenly disappeared, leaving him shattered and in pain. Vanished dreams, broken promises, bleeding heart – a picture that of a person hanging in mid air, no clear stand and no clear hope. He voiced out all the ill feelings nourished by all the hatred inside him through the worst of the words he know. He even thought of hurting his ex and the guy. He even thought of going to a “quack” to take revenge.
But after harming the person, after taking revenge, will there be satisfaction? Will there be a bonus? Will praises be sung? Surely none. Just the good feeling brought about by the hatred. But will that “good feeling” last? And if it will, for how long?
It is really hard to accept reality as it is. We tend to defy it. We tend to hold back. Dad said he did everything he could and is still looking for more ways to resurrect the relationship that withered. He tried to patch up the shattered pieces of their relationship and tried to forget about what happened to give way to a new beginning, but to no avail.
Like what is said in the song Overjoyed, no matter how steadfast we are in our efforts to keep a thing or a person with us, no matter how we want them to stay, if the things just can’t be and are never meant to be, there is nothing we can do.
The best way to deal with it is understanding and acceptance. Through understanding and acceptance, we will be set free from the agonies of suffering, from the pains of a lost love, from the hurt of failed idealisms and the aches of vanished dreams. It must be hard but it is breaking free from a fixation, from an obsession and from a bad dream. Just shrug it off and tell yourself that this is life and you don’t have to live a life of regret.
As the maxim goes, “Love cannot be forced or created nor be destroyed if it is destined to be there.”
In a way, it is our basic instinct to rely much on how we feel rather than think of what is right for us to do. If only we know how to rationalize. If only we know when to hang on and when to let go. Maybe our teary nights will be lessened.
However, in the end we will still go back to who we are – emotionally weak creatures, vulnerable and bound to the pains of loving and living. That’s life.