Finding Home

Illuminating. The only word I can use to describe my trip every time I visit home. Which is why after too long of an absence, me dreading the traffic and the flooding in the more urbanized Cebu, and with Typhoon Hanna hovering over the northern part of the country, I surprised my mom with a short visit last week. Rough seas left me stranded as fast craft trips were cancelled the day I was due to return to Ormoc.  With all setbacks being blessings in disguise, being stranded was no different. I'm starting to think the Universe absolutely loves giving me setbacks more than my two hands could grasp, just so I can recognize the blessing in each and every single one of these. So when the Universe sends me these packages covered in ugly wrapping paper, there are only four things to do: pause, breathe, ponder then do. In the pausing, breathing, pondering and doing, the packages are unwrapped revealing valuable insights that carry me through life: Spend time with the people you

I used to have a personal spot where I write and read my favorite books over and over again. I would pile them on the table and admire their mere presence. Then Typhoon Haiyan came and drenched them and everything else to the core. So I had to throw them all away.  It would be accurate to say that my heart broke when I did what I had to do because it meant I was forced to cut off something that has been a precious part of who I was at the time. Yes, it was just material. Am I being shallow? Maybe. Am I being human? Absolutely. We all have things that are meaningful to us because in one way or another, they symbolize our identity. For some jewelry represents a luxury earned for many years of hard work. For others an array of clothes, shoes and bags represents a wholeness of what wasn't in one's past. And for the enlightened few, they've reached a point where they see all material things as mere mediums or vehicles, if you will, to take them to places of pur