being human

Morning

/ RCRuiz

It’s cold in the house. I can’t decide whether it’s winter moving into Holland or if it’s in its final throes. I like the days when the skies are clear and blue and where the sun comes out even if there is a chill in the air.

I don’t think I’ve ever listened to music so much as I have in the past few months. It’s as if my entire self is striving to compensate for an absence.

This morning, I’m listening to a group called Fun. They sing…it gets better. And I believe it does get better. At present, I am struggling to find the balance where I can be the Mom my kids need me to be and still carry on with the things that fuel me. Finding the headspace to write has been the most challenging of all. I’ve had my computer open to scrivener and the pages I worked on previous to the trauma of loss. Just a little bit more, I tell myself. Just a little bit more. My novel is almost done.

Let me gather up my brains…they’re scattered all over the place.

I fluctuate between now and then…and I grab onto the things that anchor me to now. Now and the future. Now and the future. Push onwards. Push.

I’m slow, but I’m gathering up the things that have fallen by the wayside. The thanks that haven’t been put into writing just yet because there are too many things demanding time and attention and it takes so much energy to focus on now and the future. I am still here. It’s morning. Waking up isn’t easy, but I am greeting the day.

For the record

/ RCRuiz

For self-care reasons, I’ve requested that my name be removed from any publicity connected to The SEA is Ours. I’ve written the organizers to say that I will honor the perk that I offered in support of the fundraiser ( a criticque of a piece up to 8000 words ), but I have stated that I don’t want my name to appear on the page anywhere. I am making a note of it here, in case people wonder why my name has vanished from the fundraiser page and also to assure the person who took my perk that I will fulfill my word.

I wish the authors all the best and am thankful to the editors for their understanding.

My heart: Your heart: Our words

/ RCRuiz

The past few months have been very stressful and difficult months for me. Not only because I had to deal with health issues, but also because I could feel hostility from places that I had once considered safe. Friends who I had trusted chose to question me. People who I believed in turned their backs on me and left my side. It is only natural to feel pain when these things happen.

My first reaction is to defend myself in anger. To tell the world that I am not guilty and it is those who have chosen to throw my name out into the open who are to be blamed. I had, in fact, already written such a post.

But I am also deeply aware of what goes on in my heart, and I am thankful for the friends who lift me up and remove me from that place that demands vengeance and justification. People have questioned my friendship with certain white people and made this a reason to pass judgment on me.

I want to say: It is easy for us to pass judgment on others. If we hear a story on the wind that seems to contain the smallest kernel of truth, we are liable to think: Oh, it must be true.

But in the course of my journey, I have arrived at this point where I choose not to judge on hearsay. I choose not to judge on what has been reported to me or what the wind brings to my ears. Rather than passing judgment, I choose to know and to believe with my heart.

I think that brown women from third world nations understand what it is like to be judged. We know what it’s like to be judged by the color of our skin, by the country we come from, by the way we speak, by the way we act and even by what we carry on our persons.

It is because I know exactly what it’s like to be judged because I am a dark skinned Filipino that I choose not to judge people by the color of their skins. It is because I know what it’s like to be shut out of conversations that I choose to include others in my conversations.

If you are reading this post, I want to ask you to examine yourself and to examine your own heart. To examine ourselves and to own the truth about ourselves is not weakness.

When I was still a child, I became aware of the power that rests in words and how it was possible to use words to move people either to tears or to anger—to love or to hate. I also became aware how by using words in a certain way, it is possible to sway people and to make them see my side of things as being the only right side in any conflict.

Today, more than then, I am very much aware how words wielded with cruelty and powered by malice have the capacity to destroy the person on the receiving end of those words. So, when I see people excusing words wielded cruelly as being just words, I cannot help but wonder if they truly understand just how a word in the hands of the wielder can break a spirit or strengthen it—how words can bind us together or tear us apart.

I know exactly what it’s like to be at the receiving end of words meant to make you feel so small that you want nothing more than to crawl away and vanish from the face of the earth. For this reason, I do not wish to wield words in that way. I do not wish to use my words to destroy, to belittle, or to question the humanity and the heart of others.

I have been judged for many things. Among these things, I have been judged for my choice to remain friends with people others deem as not being the “right sort” of people.

But you see, in the time since I started my decolonization journey I have changed from the person I was. I see with different eyes and I look with different eyes at people. I have been called naive for my choice to continue to trust and believe in the goodness that rests in the hearts of white people. But this is my choice. Just as it is my choice to believe in the goodness that rests in all of our hearts. I choose not to see myself as being of more worth than a white person but rather, I choose to see myself as being of equal worth.

We are all prone to failure. If I distance myself because people fail, I would be left standing alone—bereft of family, without a single friend.

It is because I see and acknowledge my own flaws that I can see clearly the flaws of those I love and love them still. I know what it’s like to be judged, so I choose not to judge. Instead, I choose to welcome those who welcome me. I choose to see the good in the hearts of those who see the good in me.

It doesn’t mean that I no longer see injustices or that I am not angry about them. I am still angry and I am still capable of great rage—but when it comes to people, I choose not to dwell in anger, I choose not to dwell in hate.

Ask yourself this question: how do you choose to wield your words and who do you destroy when you choose to tear down and destroy the other?

Adding this note as it has been pointed out to me that my post could be misread on certain things. So to make things clear:

(1) I do not condone any abusive behavior towards anyone.

(2) I am not aware of and I do not condone whisper attempts or any attempts to blacklist or blackball any writers.

On Being Human: An offering of thanks

/ RCRuiz / 1 Comment

It is August and I find it incredible to find myself here on this page, able to write without feeling the edge of anxiety.

Winter months are particularly hard on me and this year, I found myself struggling to keep depression at bay. I had recently lost two dear friends to cancer, and another loved one was fighting it. We were out of a job, I was missing home, and I found myself in a state where I had to constantly wrestle with my body. Throughout the years, I’ve learned to live with bouts of chronic pain, but this year for some reason, the pain escalated to the point where I could sometimes not write because of it.

The thing is, I did not want to give up. I still wanted to finish writing my novel. I still wanted to meet my deadlines and I did not want to surrender and admit I needed medication.

I kept reminding myself that I’d won through this before without taking meds. Sure, it took a good chunk of a year, but still I had done it. I’ll admit, I was also terrified of the build up phase when things sometimes get worst before they get better.

I’ve talked about depression with friends as this feeling of moving through a tunnel. Every little thing becomes too much and in order to survive I have to focus my energy on things that I feel are of the utmost importance. To appear normal and functional even when things are falling apart is an art I mastered the first time I wrestled with depression.

Regardless of my will, the well from which I drew energy was exhausted.

I think that it’s in these moments of weakness, of being completely weak and human that we learn to fully appreciate our companions on the journey. I am emerging from the build-up phase and inside me I feel again that deep well of energy from which I draw when I am in need of it. I realize that I would not be writing this if not for the kadkadua who wrote me and chatted with me and reminded me that seeking help is not failure.

I’ve received messages from the most unexpected places and I feel completely humbled. I am reminded that connections are made when we open our hearts to others. I am thankful for the community, for the circle of support, and for those who have opened their hearts, welcomed me,  and encouraged me just by being. Maraming Salamat.