Hütte

I met her on the spring of 2012.

I left my job a week earlier without a 2-week notification so I think it is pretty understandable that the company I had been working for had been calling me nonstop to probably know what was up. I did not answer any of those calls because honestly, neither do I not know. I just wanted time to figure things out for myself alone with myself.

I was wandering around the town with my old red kei Subaru when I spotted a store which name was hütte. I have this crazy obsession with Germany and their language so I parked and helped myself in. It was a really small bar. It could probably accommodate 10 people at most.

Irrasshaimase! Said the voice from the kitchen.

She came out drying her hands with her apron and flashed a big smile. I was suprised to find out that the bartender, which I found out later was the owner, was a japanese woman. I was hoping to meet some German dude or chick, and maybe boast a little with my Deutsch skills and talk about their culture and some of their fine literary works. This woman did not disappoint though. She was more interesting than I initially thought she would be. 

You're my first customer for today, she said while handing me an oshibori.

She told me she usually opens at 5:30 but she arrived at her store way earlier.

Might as well open the store early, right?

Yeah. I agreed.

She was playing Juju's Calling You when I came in and this made me order a drink. I love beer, and so I ordered one. She gave me a salad to eat. I don't know what it was called but it had eggplants, okra, spinach, tomato sauce and cheese. I ate all of them and she gave me seconds, for free.

She introduced me to different kinds of music. She was especially fond of jazz so we listened to that a lot that day.

I liked how intimate that place was so I kept going back. We became really close. I would help her pour other customers' drink. I would help her wash the dishes. One night I was the only customer. I was sipping on my chardonnay and she was gulping shots of umeshu. We got really hungry but she was maybe too tired to make something.

I want to eat nabe at that new izakaya near the station. Have you heard of that place?

I said no and off we went. She also invited her twin sister and we ate and drank and talked until morning. You will not believe how big our age gap is by the way we laughed so much about petty and silly things.

I drank way too much. Unable to drive, she invited me to her house. We talked some more over tea. She showed me videos of his son, who was also my age, playing the jazz guitar. She told me places she had been. She even got to the point of crying in front of me. 

I have been seeing someone but he is married. I really feel bad. I feel bad for myself and his wife. But I love him.

She asked me not to mention it to anyone.

The next day, I helped her open up the store. We cleaned some of the remaining dirty dishes. I washed the ashtrays while she mopped the floor. She made us a simple meal and we ate.

It was Friday. Everyone goes out for a few drinks on Fridays and apparently that bar was one of the locals' favorite. I met a lot of people that night. Most of them were her customers from the bar she used to work at. There was a musician who also owned a bar with live jazz music every night, of course with him playing. There was also a very rich businesman who told me he had a drink with Mick Jagger in Phuket because they were staying at the same hotel. I also met a coffee meister who owns a coffee shop nearby. He taught me a lot of things about making coffee--from roasting, to grinding and even techniques on pouring your coffee. Now, I can make really good coffee, thanks to him. There was even a ramen chef who offered me a job at his ramen shop. There were surfers and I even got involved with one of them for a while. Of course there were assholes but we easily thwarted them away.

Basically, I met everyone there that I would never have met anywhere else. This place made me get out of my comfort zone. This place made me realize what I want and who I want to be. Three months later, I purchased a one-way ticket to Cebu.

I've decided to get a degree in Linguistics and I'm leaving in two days.

The room fell silent but it was a good kind of silent. They gave me a toast.

To natsumi's future! They laughed.

We all drank and talked for the last time.

Gambatte ne. They wished me well and I left.

I miss her.

I miss her so much. I still think of her and how much she had helped me find myself. I had told her my fears and worries which I could never share to my own mother. I wonder if she realizes how significant those three months I spent drinking with her were to who I am today. I was practically bumming around without a job and without any plans for myself but she and her other friends were there telling me stories that would act as pieces of advice.

I wonder if any of them still think of me as the girl who loves beer and Mevius. I wonder if they are wondering how I am doing.

I wonder.

The Pink Floyd Epiphany

Many nights i've asked my ceiling, or the walls in my room - is earth really my home? Many days i've searched for something beautiful, something eccentric or extraordinary, or maybe something that made me simply happy. Something that is not pushed by the illogical minds of the majority which in result led many into oblivion. Something natural where people don't have to stick a needle right into their veins; because the scene of it makes me inevitably sad. Right now i sit at this verandah as i watch my friends learning a new water sport. I can't hear them; they are too far away. But i watch them as i watch the ocean expand as the wind sift in through the palm leaves. I have everything i need at this moment - beer, cigarettes, music and the lovely view from this olive green hammock. In case you're wondering, i'm listening to Selah Sue's Black Part Love. 'Be who you are now, be who you're supposed to be', she sings. Songs like these are simple yet they make you light a cigarette, look up and smile. And sometimes music and cigarettes just come in handy especially when you're taking a long, boring dump on the earth's crust. And even if i'm just sitting here like an old lady who just lost her memory, i think right now is enough. Even if others think it isn't - because we all have these contrasting ideas of indifferences - i'd like to think it is. This is who i am, this is the way i live. I am not in control of anything in this world but I love to plunge myself into different kinds of joy once in a while. I am sure everybody else does. Now that i've finished writing this, i'm not quite sure if this answered my question, or not. I don't even know if i made sense. But i can assure you that i wrote in all honesty so i guess that's okay. Because really, all we need is enough. We don't really need a big change, most of the time, little compromises are just as big.

♡Manganese

The Mean Reds

Outside the awareness realm of the gravitational earth I'm now living, lies a confusion that transcends every form of physical and metaphysical notion. The explosions inside my stomach and the high-frequency pitch ringing inside my head have been a lot more distinct.

And you see, that's the problem.

They have grown more distinct and evident only from my own perspective, and you wouldn't be able to see the glaring truth that has been up your ass the whole time unless they wave their hand giving you the go sign.

Some of you might think I've lost it, when in fact I'VE SEEN IT.

Some of you might just wait.

But you see, that's the problem.

Because the go sign will never come.

No matter how long you wait. It will take a lot of your time and I might as well say infinity. And while you stand there waiting, the waves will take you to places you don't want to go.

There will be waiters bringing you food you didn't order and they will let you pay double if you decline. There will be more funerals than birth.

More autumn than spring.

But you see, that's the problem.

Just like how the universe is expanding, every atom of my brain has been expanding - without my consent. And whether I like it or not, I need to stick some kind of gravitational force inside my head. Sometimes I get hold of these forces. Some other days, I don't. The opposite forces pulling my whole being apart is just much too strong and I get blown up - BLOWN UP WITH MY OWN CONFUSION without the slightest trace of my existence as a human being.

But I get to be reborn with a system built with a stronger gravitational force against the opposite force that blew me up before.

It blows you up and it builds a strong defense after.

But the cycle never stops.

I am so afraid that one day I might not get to be reborn again.

If I could turn around and run, I would. Because honestly, it SCARES me.

I wish Truman Capote wrote about remedies for the mean reds. I've been having the damn thing for a few years now and hell, Holly Golightly was right. It definitely is very unpleasant.

♡Manganese

To Leon

I had been in search for something profound

Something i could feel with my heart

Something i could see not with my eyes but through them

I had been in search for something big

Something my hands could hold on to

But not too big where it could easily slip

I had been in search for something new

I had been always moving and dancing and running

Even if it means running away

I had never been the one who sits calmly and wait

I had always been the one who kept people waiting but somehow

Somehow at this point, I can genuinely say

Without being naive that I can wait

Even if it means waiting through the long nights of winter

Along with my coffee table that sits by the window

Which makes a perfect contradiction with the busy cars running ten storeys down

These are my thoughts

Whenever i'm just sitting there

On that old wooden bench

Facing the lake blocked by tall bushes

With the light coming through

Painting beautiful silhouettes of trees

Trees that had lost their leaves

After autumn painted them red

And as I leave plunging my hands into the pockets of my black trench coat

I wonder how many more winters must I endure

And don't ever think it was easy

But I have to say

It is so hard to notice that it has been fifteen winters already when the world is this beautiful

So thank you

But I guess it's fair to say that you are waiting too

And so we are both waiting until fate takes over and allow me to be with you

I love you

Love,

Matilda

♡Manganese

Bullets May Turn To Stars

She saw the ashened look of the city lights and thought how incongruent it was with the living things that existed. It made her think that the gods who created them were impetuous, but the impetuousity was like the rivers; fully in control. She couldn't tell though which of the two was trying to obstruct, the city lights or the living things that existed? She suddenly thought of that man she met during her vacation. He told her calmly but vehemently, 'life is not a competition.' The words of that man, which she often consciously and unconsciously competed against was completely evoked. The moment she heard those words, she suddenly thought that maybe, maybe most of the people, if not all, were driven by their idiosyncratic belief of divinity. Though it was negatively drawed, she still thought that those people are far off better than herself. At least they have something to believe in. No matter what it is, even that one Nepali who never ate beef because he thinks that cows are the gods who created us, was far more better than her. She didn't have something to believe in. The books and poems she read, the words of the people she met, they are all void of meaning. What is left for her were questions. But she never stops searching. There was no time trip back to the place where the flowers bloom, but she thinks she can still make it. Bullets may turn to stars one day.

-Manganese