in return

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea.
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he.

Then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

American

i think i've mentioned it here before--about being an American and America. maybe you'd think i am a hypocrite if i told you that i didn't vote in this last election. oh yes, but i did register.

we are reading "The Man Without a Country" for humcore and as i read it lastnight, i thought it was a true story. it is, in fact, fictional. Philip Nolan is forced to endure the absence of his home and his country after being found guilty of treason and damning the United States--literally. he lives the remainder of his thirty/fifty years on a naval ship in the middle of the sea, never within sight, sound, or touch of his home. Such torture wrought a good deal of repentence. and said much about the nature of patriotism.

reading about this and thinking about this and sitting through a lecture about this has led me finally to this point: a point where i will write about something that has been bothering me since Christmas. i've always intended to write about it, but never did, owing--most likely--to the fact that it has always escaped my list of priorities.

my sister is getting married. she was born in the Philippines, lived there for four years before she came to America as a legal resident with my parents. now she is going to marry an American citizen--and will become so herself by virtue of said union. she and her fiance cannot go to the Philippines before the wedding so that out family there can meet him, but on Christmas Eve, we phoned our family on the Islands and her fiance got to talk to our grandfather for the first time.

and nobody knew i existed. my grandfather dwelt a long time on the fact that my sister's fiance seems like a good man and will take care of his granddaughter very well. my mother asked about his health and he barely mentioned it--save for many discourses about the unhealthy diets of the Americans and how Filipinos live longer lives because they eat properly. whenever i was put on the line--whomever i talked to--they seemed distant and aloof, and my own grandfather didn't know who i was, never mentioned my name, always thought my voice belonged to my sister. the only person who recognized me as a person was my aunt, a woman, who is by all accounts, a very intelligent woman.

but i felt so....displaced. i am not a Filipino. i was not born in the Philippines so my grandfather does not even know i exist. i do not communicate with any of my family there so they hardly know of me. i was born here in America, but i am not necessarily American either. i didn't vote, i hardly worry about the government and most of my culture is based on my parents culture. i felt, to some degree, like i had no country. i am neither Filipino nor American.

and then i remember an argument i had with a friend in seventh grade. she too is Filipino and i told her that i wanted to try those colored contact lenses. she didn't like the idea--i thought she was jealous that i could try them if i wanted to and she couldn't. whether or not this is true, she said something i will never forget, something to the effect of "why would you want to do that? its so American." and i yelled back, because i was truly angry. "I am an American!" at that moment, i felt i was. and why not? i was born here, i have a US passport, i am considered a citizen of this great nation--and in fact, so is she. literally, she has the same status as i do, but that day, she was not the American, i was.

what can be said of all this? was i merely naive? i am sure i spoke true that day. I am an American. but what is an American without his or her roots? what am i?

discrepancies

if, in any other circumstance, i found myself miserable but unable to decide how to ease such misery, i would find comfort in the usual places: a good book, playing the piano, typing on the computer, writing. but now...it doesn't seem enough. there is something in me that is restless and unhappy, wanting something i can't name. don't tell me its love or religion. i get plenty of that, i'm talking about something more abstract. i don't even have a sense of what it might resemble, just that if i ever encountered it, i would know, and be content.

i sometimes wish i were that kind of person who could afford to do anything. ride a horse, paint a picture, play a sport. but i can't. i think that my unhappiness springs from this: my desire to do so much but the restrictions set on me that i cannot forego--things like the lack of money and my parents. i think if i were rich, i would be able to pursue whatever it is that would restore my contentment. then i remember that money is not everything. so why cannot i find what i am looking for?

then sometimes i think it is the everyday monotony of my schedule. but even this does not hold up as a good enough excuse since my schedule varies from quarter to quarter. i don't know what it is. i can say for sure that i am happier on my days off than when i have to work.

work. its ironic, isn't it? how previous blogs of mine have conveyed a sense of pride and privilege towards this fact, the fact that i work. but even this has lost its wondrous infancy and is more of a burden than anything else. i refuse to quit, not only because i am too proud, but because i said i wanted a job and now i have one. i won't take something and then give it up, especially since it is not likely i will find another job so conveniently. its been half a year since i first started in july. i do not want to stay there longer than a year. henry david thoreau might have spoken true when he said he could see the wheel ruts his wagon left on the road everyday. i need a change. besides, its good for my resume to have plenty of experience in many different fields. now i sound like a banker.

i had lunch with my mother today. yesterday was her birthday. she told me that this year is going to be one of the busiest: what with my sister getting married and her company still plowing through a merger. then next year we plan to go to europe. at last.

i thought of something unusually clever yesterday, but now i can't remember what it is--save for the fact that it was clever. how cruel life is.