I came face to face with my childhood twice this week, and both were fairly good to me.
First was when my yaya was preparing food for my brother's birthday celebration at home: I was snooping around in the kitchen making "papak" some of my mother's baked macaroni, when I saw a bright blue packet with splashes of yellow around it. It caught my attention and so I picked it up and read what it was. In big bold letters, clear as day, it said "MANGO ORANGE JUICE." I was absolutely elated. This was my love drink when I was about grade 5 (the year i ballooned like crazy!). I drank it every day for maybe a year and a half accompanied by 3 pieces of Bell-cap nuggets (yes, the ones that taste like Mickey D's.), a cup of rice, and 2 packets of pancit canton. hahaha They were the reason to my 20 pound gain (which I have already lost). But recently, I have been gaining a few more pounds, therefore I decided to go on a "strict" diet. I was debating on whether or not I should make a tall glass of mango-orangey goodness when I knew deep in my heart that all it contained was pure sugar.
My nostalgia won, and I ended up drinking a whole glass. It was delicious! Childhood never tasted so good!!!
Second ecounter would be that just this Saturday, Marice, Hazel, Aids and I went to Serendra to have drinks (non-alcoholic). But before doing so V wanted to buy a particular book...ergo Fully booked. As usual, I was transported to another world as I skimmed through their wide selections starting from Historical up to the non-fiction. I wasn't sure how long I was there by myself reading from blurb to blurb, but I realized that my friends were all of a sudden missing. They weren't on the first floor, so I decided to go one floor up. As I stepped off the escalator... my eye caught a low shelf that had rows of books with the colors blue, green and yellow on it and alas, I had to saunter my way over and spend another couple of minutes just smiling and staring at them. This was what I saw:
STAR GIRL by Jerry SpinelliMy cousin Mindy who is an absolute bookworm introduced me to this book when we were younger. It has become one of my favorite reads ever since I finished it. Stargirl...who wouldn't love a girl like her? She was spunky, original, quirky, weird, and absolutely fascinating. So Iwhen I got home, I re-read some of my favorite parts and it moved me the same way it moved me when I was younger. If it were possible, I think it moved me more than it did before.
You know how when you watch a movie over and over again you see new things that you didn't see the previous time you watched it. Or you learn something entirely new after seeing the movie the second time around? I guess it does have something to do with where you are in your life at that moment that you read it. Anyway, that's what happened to me after browsing through it once more. I re-learned random lessons, and learned a few more things which enlighted me.
Anyway here are some of my favorite quotes:
“I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.”
“I root for everybody!“
“Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”
“You were smitten with me. You were speechless to behold my beauty. You had never met anyone so fascinating. You thought of me every waking minute. You dreamed about me. You couldn’t stand it. You couldn’t let such wonderfulness out of your sight. You had to follow me.”
“I root for everybody!“
“Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”
“You were smitten with me. You were speechless to behold my beauty. You had never met anyone so fascinating. You thought of me every waking minute. You dreamed about me. You couldn’t stand it. You couldn’t let such wonderfulness out of your sight. You had to follow me.”
“The earth is speaking to us, but we can’t hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then–maybe–the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.”
“She was the opposite of cool; she held nothing back.”
“The trouble with miracles is, they don’t last long.”
“How did this girl come to be? I used to ask myself. Sometimes I thought she should be teaching me. She seems to be in touch with something that the rest of us are missing.”
“You know, there’s a place we all inhabit, but we don’t much think about it, we’re scarcely conscious of it, and it lasts for less than a minute a day…. It’s in the morning, for most of us. It’s that time, those few seconds when we’re coming out of sleep but we’re not really awake yet. For those few seconds we’re something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are, for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then… and then–ah–we open our eyes and the days is before us, and–we become ourselves.”
and of course...
“The trouble with miracles is, they don’t last long.”
“How did this girl come to be? I used to ask myself. Sometimes I thought she should be teaching me. She seems to be in touch with something that the rest of us are missing.”
“You know, there’s a place we all inhabit, but we don’t much think about it, we’re scarcely conscious of it, and it lasts for less than a minute a day…. It’s in the morning, for most of us. It’s that time, those few seconds when we’re coming out of sleep but we’re not really awake yet. For those few seconds we’re something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are, for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then… and then–ah–we open our eyes and the days is before us, and–we become ourselves.”
and of course...
"I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl…. And… I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I’m not outside my world anymore, and I’m not really inside it either. The thing is, there’s no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.”
I haven't gotten a copy of his second book: Love, Stargirl, but right after I finish P.S. I love you I will definitely get on it.
I also like the journal. Teehee. It had random quotes scribbled all around it :)
Ahhh my childhood in a cup of juice, and fully booked.
Funny how things present themselves to you at random moments, and how unexpected it is that you realize after encountering them how much you needed to feel them again in your lives.
I like that most of all, being rain -Star girl.
Let me tell you about a girl I know.
She like hip hop and rock and roll.
She walk slow down the avenue.
I ain't met her, but I get her when I do.
She like hip hop and rock and roll.
She walk slow down the avenue.
I ain't met her, but I get her when I do.
Labels: books, childhood, happy-happy, memories, random rants, thoughts, trina