In-between times
It’s Wednesday, middle of the week, “hump” they used to call it in San Francisco when I lived there more than 30 years ago. I had to go to my cell phone, into calculator to compute 2016 minus 1984 equals 32. That’s a whole person. It has been a long time ago since I lived there but when I think about it, it feels like yesterday.
Why am I writing this? The weather has been bad. Monsoon wind and rains. You don’t know how strongly the monsoon wind is where I live. In the mornings it is strong but manageable. But after lunch I have to close my partially opened terrace doors because the wind blows off virtually everything that’s on my dining table. I think it might even blow me off the face of the earth. My building is not new. The doors don’t close tightly so there is a light whistling sound. I try not to be conscious of it but it seems to put me in a mood that I can’t quite define. Am I just a little depressed or am I going crazy? I don’t exactly know which one it is.
Wednesday, this past one anyway, was the first day in a long while when the water drops outside the glass windows near my bed dried up. I miss them. While the wind’s power here sort of horrifies me, the strong rain does not. I love the sound of rain against my windows, the way they are covered with water drops that trickle, the way I can lie in my bed and just watch them and let my memory carry me to wherever it wants to go, recalling other storms, other typhoons, other heavy rains, making me pleasantly nostalgic. Sometimes at night I look down at the shiny streets, the beautiful dark shadows of the trees, the cars moving so slowly like turtles in traffic.
Did I write traffic? The traffic in the city is positively maddening. Makes me want to just stay home and stare out the window at rain, sun, or clouds, anything but please keep me away from the thickness of cars on the road. Yesterday I was lunching with two of my very good friends. I asked that we schedule it for 11:30 a.m. because my car is off the road on Tuesdays, meaning I have to be home by 3 p.m. I left home at 10:30 a.m. to give us the time to find the place where they wanted to meet. We used Wayz but it brought us to the wrong place. I did not realize the thickness of the traffic at C-5. Before I found the place it was 12:15 p.m. and I felt like killing someone, anyone, everyone, who made the traffic so impossible.
I walked into the restaurant feeling like all my hair was standing up. I had been on the road almost two hours and it was not that far. I live in San Juan. I was just going to Pasig. Why did it take so long?
But my friend who saw me first exclaimed that I was so sexy now. That compliment sort of unraveled me. You see, I have been exercising and teaching at The Sunshine Place and I guess the results are showing now. My T-shirt size has gone down to L because I’m a tall big woman from XXL. I’m sexy (or so she says) at 72 years old. That has to mean something.
And maybe because of the exercise classes that I take, I love The Sunshine Place. I would also love teaching there if I had more students but I can’t seem to get more students. I don’t know why. When I taught in San Juan, there were many students who wanted to enroll but they were from Makati so they said it was too far. Now that I teach in Makati, the students I get are from San Juan and Quezon City. Then many don’t come because it’s too far. I don’t know what to do.
I talk to God and He tells me to relax. I’m just in-between things. Be patient. One day the students will come. So all right I am trying to relax. On Saturday, Sept. 3, I will be opening a class on Discovering Writing in the morning at 10 a.m. and another class on Phenomenal! at 2 p.m. Phenomenal! is a wonderful class that makes us creatively look into ourselves to learn better ways to live. I love giving both classes.
May I suggest that you call me and book your classes with me. Let’s see if that brings about a change in the response rate. Please call 856-4144 (The Sunshine Place) or 880-2263 for more information.
Up until then I am floating along in a weird state between joy and depression, but having a fair time nonetheless. I guess you could say I’m in between.
* * *
Please text your comments to 0917-8155570.
