Bouquets and buffets spark joy

Netnet Camomot . 

STEPHEN Speaks performed at SM CDO Downtown Premier’s Acoustic Popfest on Valentine’s Day.

Stephen who? Well, I also had to Spotify his name and that’s how I learned he’s the singer behind “Passenger Seat.” Yup, you learn something new everyday. During his mini-concert, he also sang Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” which then became my LSS—last song syndrome—for the day: “If I lay here / If I just lay here / Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

Whether the heart is in love or broken, it always has the potential to attract fats as restos and hotels usually have Valentine buffets that are pang-lovers na, pang-pamilya pa, and that’s with live music featuring love songs, of course.

Speaks also sang love songs at SM and we gotta feeling nine months later, the lovers among his audience would be singing lullabies to their newborn babies.

Cagayan de Oro was blooming with lots of flowers last Feb. 14. Some women even brought their bouquets and roses to the mall, and I saw one struggling with two bouquets! Wow! Haba ng hair!

Flowers would soon wilt. If she continues to love the man who gave her the bouquet, she will keep that until her umpteenth spring cleaning when she begins to ask, Do these brown and dry flowers still spark joy?

There are some ways to preserve flowers, though—for example, press each rose between pages of a book. Which could be a bookworm’s preferred way to preserve the wonderful memories that the rose evokes.

But the gift that truly survives through many spring cleanings is the ring. It could be the wedding ring, the engagement ring, or simply the ring.

Even Gollum “hates and loves the Ring, as he hates and loves himself,” according to Gandalf. Hmmm. “My precious.”

But Rappler CEO Maria Ressa probably didn’t have time to celebrate Valentine’s as that was the day she posted bail after being a served an arrest warrant at about 5 pm on Wednesday and eventually arrested by early evening of the same day. She was then detained at the National Bureau of Investigation headquarters where she stayed overnight as alarm bells rang over press freedom.

Is Ressa’s case an appetizer for a wider media control comparable to the martial law years in the ’70s and ’80s? You know, kind of one step at a time, one day at a time until the madlang pehpohl don’t notice that fake news is the only news that reaches them.

There’s the boiling frog syndrome where a frog will jump out if thrown into boiling water, but if it’s room-temperature water that slowly reaches its boiling point of no return, the frog will learn to acclimatize itself until it’s too late for it to escape from being cooked. That can be the Pinoy’s reality if he continues to ignore alarm bells. Listen to your gut whenever a situation doesn’t feel right.

The pro-Duterte Pinoy celebrated when his candidate won in 2016, expecting the newly elected president to keep his promises. And then, the war on drugs began. If that Pinoy has remained happy with his choice, then he’s truly loyal to his president.

There’s the Pinoy who’s not exactly a Duterte fan but he’d rather wait and see. Wait for the next chapter and see how it unfolds. Like reading a book. But it has been almost three years since Election 2016, with political candidates now campaigning for Election 2019. Perhaps this is already the next chapter, and what the Pinoy can do now is to widen his eyes in order to truly see the truth and nothing but the truth. But love is blind, as the saying goes.

Still, here’s the better description of the truth, thanks to this oft-quoted line from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s “The Little Prince”: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

If only the Pinoy will also trust his gut instinct before indulging in any Valentine buffet, the effects of which the body can feel right after eating all that yummy food. I think I gained ten pounds in one day. Haha!

Once restos were SRO—standing room only—fast food became the next best thing to celebrate the day of hearts.

Fast food is not as fancy as the Valentine buffet but biting into a juicy and meaty burger could make you ask if there’s now a sin tax on junk food since it can be as harmful as cigarettes and alcohol. Well, with medical marijuana now a possibility in Pinas, there could be more hard-habit-to-break sources whose reputation as addictive substances may soon be replaced by its healing properties. Who would have known then that marijuana would be described as medical in the future?

And love can also be addictive, enough to inspire someone to write songs like this: “And I’ve got all I need / Right here in the passenger seat / And I can’t keep my eyes on the road / Just knowing that she’s inches from me.”