Carla and her red-eared turtle!

This is "Darling", the fascinating, teeny weeny turtle. We met this turtle with its equally fascinating owner, Carla, while we were strolling around Greenbelt Chapel. Denise (my daughter) and Gemma (our kasambahay) was so thrilled to see "Darling". We all were!..

I forgot to ask Carla whether this cutie-pie was a he or a she. "Darling" was not even a name but an endearment. Well, that's how it was explained to me by Carla. So, Darling was a red-eared slider turtle with no name and gender!

In this photo, I was prodding Darling to walk towards Gemma's hand. "Tingnan mo, kinakausap ka nya!", Carla said. It was staring back at me and blinked its eyes. It communicates through its eyes. Blinking it once means YES, and twice means NO (or vice versa, I think). Carla was one proud owner of Darling. "Intelligent siya at napakabait". Of course it's mabait! What could a tiny turtle do to harm us? hehe.. I may sound sarcastic, yeah, but it's more of a joke. I actually loved them both. Together, they emanate good feelings!

"DARLING" on the safe hands of Carla

On CARLA:

Carla was such a sweet, cute and all-smile lady. I guess, like Darling, she fascinated me too in a different, happy kind of way. Her being a turtle lover (she has 2 turtles and let them sleep on her bed at night) and her being such a regular church-goer fascinated me. She goes to Greenbelt Chapel almost everyday (and of course to stroll Darling around).

Then, she offered to give me The Face but unfortunately she didn't have one that time. It's the bleeding face of Christ, she explained. "Marami na akong nabigyan nyan". And most of them went back to her and claim some miracles happened in their lives after receiving The Face .. I was skeptical.

But you know what the miracle is? It's meeting her (and Darling) that day and making us play with her pet and making me feel like a giddy child once again. And it's her genuine, sweet smile plastered on her face all of the time that stirred me to smile back at a stranger like her. Those were simple miracles. I don't know, Carla must have sprayed some happy potion in the air. I was happy for some reason. Maybe she was contagious...

Then I went inside the chapel and said a little prayer for sweet Carla and her teeny-weeny turtle.

YOU OUGHT TO KNOW HOW LIFE IS

The Tree of Life

While I'm brooding in my own corner, things about LIFE is stirring up my mind..

I've reached this age when I must think I have seen enough. Won some. Lost some. Done this. Done that. Befriended life and many times messed up with it. I've seen enough and there must be no way that life can knock me off my feet just as it did with me when I haven't known enough. I must have mastered my own life now even with my eyes closed.

But one cannot master life in a lifetime. Just when we start to believe that we are now in control, life would throw something on our lap that would scare us and make us lose our balance. And just how it used to be, we are caught by surprise. Clueless of what life has to bring.

One cannot fully master life for life won't run out of things to teach us. Our age may be adding up but life will always treat us like a child who needs to learn, relearn and unlearn.. Trust Life. That no matter how many times it knocks us off our feet, it has ALWAYS (and always) its way of taking care of itself. Trust Life that no matter how it gets messed up, it has its way of putting things into place. And as long as we won't forget that God is in the details, we'll be fine.

photo credit

When UNDAS meant a different thing

All Souls day is my favorite time of the year ( next to christmas and new year), and it's a shame that I let it passed without writing anything about it.

When did I start loving it? Well, since my parents would prepare a banquet for our dearly departed while saying a prayer for their good souls. While we (siblings) would try to peek at the dining table and try to convince ourselves that somebody's eating the foods (!!!). Souls must not be eating too much. They hardly touch the foods. But take a closer look. There's a little bite over there. See it?? With our eyes so wide open!.. But of course our eyes knew otherwise. We're just trying to scare ourselves.

But I began to love All Souls day in a different kind of way during my teen age years. It became more than just a day for the souls, but also a "reunion" for our barkada.

Our friends studying in Manila goes home for the sem break and that makes us almost complete before Nov 1 comes. Well, we're a big group, we barely get completed (we're more than 20 in our group).. Sa sementeryo ang aming tipanan! Before bar hopping became an IN thing, sementeryo hopping was already a "fashion" that we do every undas. It's a festive ambiance in cemeteries. Ideal to loiter around searching for some NPA (Nice People Around)! -- mga crush ng bayan and campus heart throbs, the ex-bfs and ex-flings, and some good old friends (from highschool) that we kinda lost along the way. It's an all-night party! Everybody is invited, dead or alive! To top it all, I have my friends with me, and that's what makes undas oh so special !

Before the night ends, real bonding time is just beginning especially for the girls. We go to a friend's house, and there we sleepover. Share stories and strengthen our friendship a little bit more. We talk and REALLY talk until the wee hours, and up to the last drop of our energy! Nocturnal that we were!

Our friends are scattered all over now. In the US, in Naga, and I'm the only one that stays in Manila. There are some attempts that we go home one All Souls Day for another grand "reunion". But with our respective priorities in life now, I don't know if it's still possible for us to be all together again. I miss them, really. Although we'd always be with each other in spirit through our (yahoo) egroup, I still wish to reunite with them in flesh as well.

Those were the days, and maybe "reunion" in undas would not happen again. For now, it is but a wishful thinking... 'til next undas.