R E V I S I T

I sit alone in a restaurant, it feels weird after a year or so of never sitting alone. Nothing's wrong, I'm just really hungry. So I sit alone, and look through my phone until I stumble upon a memory I never thought I'd ever see out of that proverbial rug I stuffed it under two years ago.

Golden flecks from brown eyes I know I'll never see again assail my thoughts as I struggle to finish reading whatever idiotic little puff piece I wrote about some douche (he wasn't, really, it's just easier to think of him that way) I used to pine for when I was twenty years old. Stupid girl.

You write it down, and write it down again.

Did I not understand, that the thing about writing things down is that you can't take the ink back?

So I carry on reading about how he used perfect grammar and understood the importance of commas, how he liked The 1975, how he always said goodnight when he could have left the conversation hanging like SOME guys I used to like. I read about how after months of absolute gray existence, I felt life trickle back into my veins.

Oh, how stupid. I didn't want love, I just wanted a good time.

Burn it, bury it, hide it.

Some guys just aren't worth it, but he was nice enough to be. Polite, smart, and wonderfully not arrogant. He wouldn't rub his car knowledge in your face, or make you feel inferior. I understand now, he was a breath of fresh air, a primer for what I would find after. A sort of crash course on how to handle the nice guy, because I found one.

I read about how I'll remember that he never liked travelling in the rain every time the sky darkens and lets forth its weight in water. But I don't anymore, the rain is just rain to me, now. Poetic, wonderful, addictive melancholia, but just the rain, all the same.

 His story's covered by others now, under the rug I keep in my brain. 

So over a meal of Korean fried chicken and spicy ramen where I struggle with my chopsticks, I decide to use my fork, and to clean out the rug in my mind. I have no time for this, and I have better, brighter, happier stories to tell now.

The Eulogies I Never Got to Say, Part 1: Nana

It has been seventeen years since you succumbed to bone cancer, and my heart still breaks every time I think about it. It's been seventeen years and I haven't gotten closure yet. I still haven't recovered form the loss of your light.

To most people, you were the caretaker of my mother and her sisters, and then you took care of their grandparents, my great grand parents. To others, you were a cook, whose food still stirs up pleasant memories of college until now. To a few, you were a friend, a sister, a guiding force. To me, you were, quite simply, Nana: one of the pillars a lonely little girl had to lean upon.

I was so young when you died. All I could do was cry at your bedside as you suffered through your sickness, and cry some more when you didn't wake up that morning. I wasn't able to attend your funeral. They took you back to your family home.

I remember your voice, a bit raspy from all the cigarettes that eventually killed you. I remember your always short hair, black tinged with gray by the time you were sick. I remember your face, wrinkled after 32 years of caring for children who weren't yours. I recall your laughs over a card game, or something someone said or did. I remember, most of all, you cooking in that old bamboo and nipa kitchen that was separated from the old house. I remember the cement sink, and the wood fires. I remember all this with such clarity because if I wasn't in front of the TV, I was in your kitchen bothering you about something while you cooked. I always liked watching you cook. It always seemed like magic to me. One minute there's uncooked fish on the table next to a few cut spices, the next minute, dinner's ready.

To me, you were warmth, and childhood happiness eating chocolate ice candy. No one makes ice candy like you did. You were there before I was born, and every day since, until that summer when I never saw you again. I wish I knew what it meant when you got sick. You never got sick before, I thought you'd get up one day and start getting ready to go to the market at 4 am like you usually did. I'm sorry. I never got to tell you things that I should have, and it seems unfair to have to say them now that you've been gone for so long. But I know you're watching over us like you always did.

I still don't know how to cook your Bangus Steak, Nana. But I'm trying.