I'm afraid I have to start this the way he started mine... apologetic.
For really, I'm apprehensive about words and how it will justify my intimacy with him.
How would I start when starting would mean the yearning to never end it at all? Words... satiate our world.
That was how we met.
We both love words and ponderings... and silences too.
He introduced me to solitude...to his solace and i taught him (he told me so) how to be a child.
I will always be his five-year old and him,
my dad back those times when days were lazy and less complicated...
when our favorite refuge was either the dilapidated skating rink that has mustered its beauty in our sight or under the moonless foggy baguio night beside the solitary weeping pillow near the UP pond.
Those were happy times sharing poetry and fascinations...
when we bottled messages and inserted cookies inside our missives.
He taught me how to walk best under the rain...
to cry and not to allow people to see we were crying.
He taught me how to laugh hard and how to have a tamed cry.
He taught me how to drain my tears yet never numb my eyes.
He showed me how winter can be redder and autumn whiter
(though until now, it's still a puzzle that i have not given up contemplating about).
He taught me the value of leaving yet never losing...
my profundities are best seen in the light of his.
We belong to the same sphere of profundity i guess... we are kindred.
And when he needed a home, my arms were there.
And when i needed a true north, his shoulders were there too with a bunch of surprises in between sobs.
until now,i am still the keeper of his journals
(to tether his past pieces because he is too happy to remember his shadows.)
He is still my turtle, with two open doors.
-Pamela Herrera. Journal entry dated january 2004.
Refusing Arrivals. The Experimental Folio Project. December 2004.
"..Pambie and I felt we had everything ready for a shoot, pretty much. Or else that shoot that she envisioned. I had my room in Rancho set up. We poised in lamps i have made, and a few objet d'art, before they went up for sale. We honed in some potential. This was the beginning. And so the summer brewed in with plans for the future, and dreams the sea could contrive. We had Catanduanes' sea air as our own, we were sun-kissed by Bicol rays..."
Summer Hugs!
Framed artwork is oil pastel on paper. Dress is pewter thai silk, pashmina wrap, with silk rose brooch. Implements including lamp by TutubiWorks. All woodwork by Ernesto Sr. Violin is model's own.
