By the light of the candle

*This post transferred here from a handwritten essay done last night, Sept.29--8:20pm

I’m staring at my salvation: a yellow light flickering on top of white wax.

The power hasn’t returned yet in our part of the world. Meralco is begging for a little more time to restore power in all of Metro Manila. After the terrifyingly strong storm that whipped Manila, the bruises—fresh and sore—are evident everywhere. Broken signages dangle dangerously, tree branches and leaves litter the streets, shops not big enough to afford their own generators are losing business.

Today I decided not to work. Partly to give my still-weak body a rest. I almost convinced myself to get a CBC yesterday. The paranoid in me suggests “dengue” but the logical in me reasons out, “If you really had dengue, you should’ve been dead by now.” I do the next best thing instead: a consultation with a doctor/friend who was on call, as in, I called him. He prescribes Cefalexin for 7 days, which I promised that I would take. “I’ll be a good girl.”

Early afternoon, coming from the bank, I walk around SM Bicutan with my eyes darting towards where I might find an outlet—an electrical outlet, that’s what. Near-desperate is what I am, with my laptop battery drained and an outside editing project due.

I order batchoy from Ted’s and politely ask if I could use my laptop. “No,” the crew answers. Running on minimal electricity powered by a generator, SM ordered tenants not to let people like me charge cellphones and laptops.

Halfway through my meal, I hear the devil whisper, “C’mon, plug into their outlet. There’s a chance they wouldn’t see you do it anyway.” I answer back, “But I would know. God would. Besides, my integrity is worth more than an hour’s worth of electricity.” (I make it sound so simple. But the battle wasn’t as easily won as that.)

Still undeterred, I look for another restaurant that could accommodate power-hungry me.
“Do you have corn muffins?” I ask at Kenny Roger’s.
“Yes.”
“May I use my laptop inside your store?”
“Sorry, no.”

I finally accept my sad fate.

But I didn’t go home completely broken-hearted. A blouse, bought at a discount, helped ease my pain. Isn’t it amazing how it takes so little to make us women happy? That’s the secret why less women than men suffer heart attacks—Shopping. Really.

- - - - - - - - - - -

"I believe in being fully present," Morrie said. "That means you should be with the person you’re with. When I’m talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what’s coming up this Friday, I am not thinking about doing another Koppel show, or about what medications I’m taking."

Good advice from a dying man. There’s something about staring death in the face that blurs non-essentials into periphery. Wisdom is distilled, bottled, and then offered to anyone who might be thirsty for the meaning of life. Morrie is Morrie Schwartz, the teacher afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease. The student, Mitch Albom. Their class met Tuesdays. As in Tuesdays with Morrie.

It struck a chord—Morrie’s advice. Because I should take it.

With my proclivity, while talking with people, to watch a hundred dancers garbed in fabrics of reminders—do this, check that, email this, finish that—I should stop them from distracting me. I should stop them from sashaying endlessly in my mind. And give every person the attention his value as a human being—made my God, loved by God—deserves. "Be fully present," Morrie admonishes. Echoes of the words of Jim Elliot, martyred missionary to the Auca Indians, who said, "Wherever you are, be all there."

The light is growing dimmer, and the night, deeper.

There’s something about the dark and quiet that ushers one to a sustained exercise of reflection and introspection. For by the light of the candle, and the stillness of the night, the mind is illuminated as quickly as the heart is thawed.