The Flight of the Rocketman

What is for us does not pass by us... -- Siege of Blue Mountain (Elfquest), written by Wendy Pini

How strange, this driftwood floating on the sea, pushing back and forth with the tides against the shores... Will it settle there or just be carried back into the oceans, traveling like birds migrating to warmer climates? Are they some flotsam of a larger vessel, maybe some frigate or caravel bringing home treasures to eagerly awaited merchants?

And why am I so eager to pick them up when, here and now, they are nothing more but useless wood?

I have a memory... a beach in Quezon province called Atimonan where the water is knee high all the way into the horizon. I remember myself, a young child of 4, staring at a couple walking on water shin-high, tiny, almost the size of dolls and still, the water was shin-high. If I had imagination enough, I would think that I could reach Australia on foot by taking this route. Had I been so precocious; but I knew that at one point the water would just get deep and in one simple step, gone... everything would be gone.

But the beach was filled with shards of glass and driftwood. And hand-in-hand, my father and I would comb the beach in search of beautiful shards of glass and interesting looking driftwood. I didn't know why until we had reached home at the end of the weekend and my mother and father would make mobiles out of gorgeous coloured string, driftwood and shards of glass. They'd hang them and they'd be the most peculiar thing in the world to me -- and only because they were so lovely and I knew exactly where they came from. I knew its history; so it held no wonder, no magic, no mystery.

I'm much older now and I find myself picking up figurative driftwood and truth be told, have no talent to make them float on air on coloured string. I couldn't be all the more bothered with it.

What am I to do with it?

On the phone, my good, good friend Jaypee and I talked. We caught up on times that we have lost not having worked side-by-side as we used to... We are both earning our wages on the same show but in different hours. It seems I no longer have any reason to go to the shoots, or so my producer says. She just wants me churning out episodes from the editing room with the footage the rest of the crew gets. But I can't churn out episodes because she keeps getting in the way, one way or the other.

But play catch-up, we did and somehow I've come across the decision to stake my claim and to let known my feelings to the Spearmint. After all, I've been chasing the Spearmint's affections for so long and have done nothing in terms of collection. It isn't as if the situation is any better... It can't even really get any worse, so I might as well bare arms and see where it leads me, right? May not be the most pragmatic of decisions, but at least it is honest and more aggressive. At least I'd be doing something rather than waiting for things to happen.

Whatever is for us, is for us... -- Whatever's For Us, written and performed by Joan Armatrading

I try my best to be honest and work-hard. I try to be grateful and humble yet confident. I try to be worth the time and the breath... I try very hard, sometimes too hard and sometimes not hard enough...

And I may not be deserving of attention, and I may not be deserving of love... But I know I'm worth the time to at least consider it and the breath and spit to say whether I am or not. Treat me decently and treat me good. Be fair with me, that's all I ask.

And all that is meant for us will not pass us by, but will come hurtling by us and then slowing down, ready for us to pick it out of the sky if ever we were clever enough to figure it out that it is there because sometimes it hides; sometimes cloaked in shadow, disguised as something different -- but it is exactly what we want. Whatever is for us, is for us and will only be ours if we stand up and take it.

Carpe diem, they say. Sieze the day. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll just end up stumbling and falling down... But no one can deny me the step that I will take... May everyone be ready for it...