ONE HEART, ONE LOVE, ONE LIFE

My dreams when I was a kid  was to be a hero like FPJ, killing Japanese invaders and other bad guys, and to marry someone as beautiful as Liberty Ilagan.  The first dream was just a mere fantasy.  Fortunately the second dream came true. Too pretty. too tall , why would she pay attention to someone like me ?  But like a storybook romance I started to make her smile, then laugh at my jokes, and then melt her heart with my words. The once dream became a reality and the real challenge was keeping it from becoming a nightmare.

That was 33 years ago.  Age has taken away some of her beauty.  I sometimes forget how beautiful she was but it doesn't take long for me to remember.  Love hasn't waned. One heart, one love, one life - its the simplest recipe for a happy life. I just pretend that our life is a movie. my role  to keep her happy and hers was simply to play the role of the leading lady, willing to go wherever, whatever, whenever, and forever. We both were the old romantic type, against all odds,  two imperfect lovers trying to live a perfect life. Impossible ?  I guess so, but there's nothing wrong with wishing to live happily ever after ...

She never read what I write, except the love letters and the poem I made when I was courting her. She joked that whenever she feel that she made a mistake, all she had to do was to take a peek at her drawer and she would remember the days when love was blind. I guess that's the reason why I have to keep whispering sweet nothings to her ears so as not to break the spell. We all start thinking that love will never end, but as reality sets in, it will rock the very foundation of a happy marriage.  Like a campfire, to keep the fire burning the firewoods must not be spaced too near each other for little air would come in. Same with  a shared life,  there must be spaces between your togetherness.

I don't remember seeing the moon as bright as it was when she said  she love me too.  Its easy to fall in love with a beautiful woman but it was a bit hard to believe that someone like her would love someone like me. The first half of my life I lived so recklessly, aimlessly ... so I thought this girl must be crazy !  I wrote a poem that bared my soul, love letters that said what was deep inside of me, and yet I acted clumsily whenever I was with her. Maybe its what they call destiny  for I could only ask my self how could this be.  The first 2 years were a bit rocky, but after identifying the villains, mowing down the bad guys was easy. 

Love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that they themselves commit. Love alone cannot bring food to the table. There are bills to pays and there are some people who comes between the two of you. Unexpected things happen and some problems will test the relationship. But as the saying goes, "All the water in the ocean cannot sink a ship unless the water get inside it." It may sound difficult but there are problems and there are "real problems". The first can be solved easily when you understand each other and once solved will never cause a "real" problem. As you grow older, its no longer what happens, its how you handle things together.

My definition of happiness is simple. Only happy memories are to be stored. The bad times ... a little bit of patience will turn them into good times. You have no control about the wind and the waves when you' are on a boat but you can adjust the sail. When the storm had passed, you can smile about them. Happy thoughts never leave a smiling idiot. Laughter always visit the crazy lovers and most of all, tears of joy never depart from romantic fools.  Dreams last when you don't wake up ...and unlike your favorite movies, you cannot download it and later play it back. But dreams could be kept inside your heart. Its just a matter of perception but for two people wanting to keep the fire going, their perception is their reality.

Past loves never interfere with the present love if the memories only dwell in a faithful heart. Its a feeling, a part of our romantic nature for how could you teach your heart to stop loving someone who has stopped loving you.  To be honest about it, they at times jump into your reveries.  But memories are just like beautiful flowers you pass by when you're driving down the memory lane - just don't stop the car, pass them by.  You can write about them, use them as inspiration for like villains in a movie, they define the character of the hero lover - for how can you know the value of gold if you no other metals to compare it to.

THE BOOKSTORE : THE WRITINGS ON THE WALL

The writings on the wall for bookshops can no longer be denied.  The rising cost of overheads (rentals, utilities, etc.), changes in reading habits and not being able to find a successor will soon force the bookstore out of business. Customer base is either constant or getting smaller and that lesser profits.  As the saying goes, "dreams are dreams, but it cannot pay your bills and put food on the table."

Einstein was right. When you keep on doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results, that is insanity.  We should have made a decision ten years ago, but we kept on, hanging and hoping that things will change for the better the next year 'round.  Yet every year the slice of the pie gets smaller as rental appreciate 10 to 20 percent, while nothing is ever done to improve the place condition. Its hard to give up a place you've learned to love. A "comfort zone" and at our age, I couldn't think of anything better to do. We'll keep on while we can still row, and continue hoping the tides will turn.

On-line book shopping may be the fad right now,  easier, but the browsing experience is not the same.  You don't get the chance to look at books that might interest you the way you can in bookshops.  The sentimental ones still prefer the conventional bookshop. A better location could be an option but it would be like starting all over again. Going on line ia another option but having to teach old dogs new tricks is way beyond our "jurassic" understanding.  

I am old and tired, but still unwilling to give up the fight.  Another round, another year, I am willing to bear.  I have stocked up nearly a thousand selected books for future reading. filled up over a thousand movies in my 1 terrabyte hard drive but I will surely miss the the bookstore life. Stories I hear from customers, the sweet smiles from lovely faces and the feeling of being somebody to be listened to.


None of the kids will follow my footsteps.  Theirs is a world of discovery, filled with numbers.  Its algorithm for them not poetry.  One thing good about technology is that you can keep your thoughts recorded and maybe someday be played back even when you're gone. I've had some good years, good lessons learned, and  maybe a few more years.  No regrets just a bit sad that people of this generation were not as romantic as we were once. 

THE BOOKSTORE : HOW IT ALL STARTED

"  Dreams  like that doesn't pay the bills.

The only thing it does is to keep you like this  -

away from realities, from knowing what is real . "

- from the movie,  " I Can Only Imagine"

Dreams die first ... that's what happen when your focus is in making a living rather than having a life.  Working as an engineer in a government corporation did not suit me well for no matter how hard I tried. my heart was simply not in the right place. From a grand dream of providing for the future needs of a growing population of the metropolis, the new administration that replaced the old one decided to scrap everything that the old regime started. It took only four years for the second largest government corporation to go down the drain and then later on privatized, and the firm's direction shifted to making profit rather than public service.

I opted to quit and tried my hands in business. My parents have a nice place near the market so we started rent-free and I dealt with second hand goods - imported over-runs and clothings,  and reconditioned electrical appliances, orphaned books, magazine and a garage sale sort of things.  I was making good until I discovered that the "relief" clothings came from illegally diverted US donations for flood victims so I stopped after selling our remaining stocks.
The early 1990's saw the metropolis suffering from daily 10-hour brownouts so the "recon" appliances also became obsolete. But the books and magazine prospered especially after the tagalog comics priced itself out of the market. And then came Valentine Romance tagalog novels, and we started renting out pocketbooks. Before our store burned down in 1993 we have over 2,000 members

Second hand books  Also came cheap from garage sales we visit on weekends and someone tipped me about a "tiangge market" in Dau, Pampanga  where books and magazine were sold at give-away prices.  We have quite a big store space and we have to fill the shelves to a bookstore appearance. 9 out of 10 customers go for tagalog pocketbooks but one good thing I noticed about customers patronizing english novels, they prefer buying to renting the books.

Then one day a rather beautiful woman in her 50's entered the store, picked up two books titled "Lolita" by Nobokov and "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, both priced at php 10, and handed me a hundred peso bill.  She smiled and told me that she was surprised how cheap the price was and started to share some insights how hard it was to find such rarities.  I also read books but mostly western adventures and I hardly have any idea about the so-called classics. What really got my attention was the way she revealed herself and for the first time I found myself listening more, falling in love with a woman's mind who was 20 years my senior.

That day I went back to my Literature books to find more about what we talked about. Then I read my first classic novel - "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck and followed it up with "Of Mice and Men" also by Steinbeck. My Reader's Digest Condensed Book days ended for I came to see the missing ingredients in storytelling - the depth of human emotions.  The business became a bookstore and the bookstore became a home, and after more than 20 years, the bookstore became me.

"When you stay in a place for too long, it becomes you"
                                                             -- Rocky Balboa

THE LONELINESS IN THE EYES OF JOY

The misty eyes looked familiar ... for the eyes say what the lips cannot utter.  I have had  a lot of these heart to heart talk in my many years  as a bookseller.  I love to talk, but I also love to listen. People who you knew nothing about and who knows nothing about you are at times the best people to talk with, be it matters of the heart or family matters. You can be totally honest with them and them with you ... and then later forget about everything that had been that had been said.

Recalling bad memories they would share with their loved ones can easily be related with other people who have no vested interest in you - the reason why in the western countries, they pay professional therapist and "shrinks" just to get the heat out of their burners. We Pinoys are not so accustomed to that so we seek advice, pour our heart out to almost anyone who are willing to listen to our miseries but later find ourselves no better than where we started from. Most are merely forum-shopping, trying to embolden themselves by seeking favorable counsels from people they know who most of the time think that its rather demeaning to disagree.

Loneliness in the eyes of joy, pretending everything is okay and they are fit enough to handle their problems. Pretending that they want to hear some words of advice but in reality they have all their mind made up. They won't stop until they have  a horde of people backing them up to make their stand. They would try to rationalize, and refer to some readings they have made,  but one thing I have learned in learning - there is no sure remedy for each case, each problem have to be dealt with differently.  You get 20 people to read one book and you'll come up with 20 different interpretation - that's how things are and that's how things will ever be.

Books may have some answers but they do not have all the answers.  The human mind, the human heart, and the human soul, poetically are three different CPU's that operates inside every human being.  Unlike computers, one algorithm to a thousand PC's will produce the same result, but for humans, one solution will produce different results for different  people.  Even husbands and wives who are supposed to be "one" speak with different voices except when the "man" of the house will come to realize that even him as the king of the castle is no match for an "Ace of heart" that every loved woman had.

I will surely miss days like this ... when I can say what I want to say, relate to people what I have discovered, and maybe in a way or two tip in a hint of which door they could open to aid them in their journey.  Most of them build walls to keep away people they despise but fail to realize that what they have really built was their prison.  Some seek serenity through religion but find themselves shackled to their beliefs.  And some use knowledge learned to heightened their "ego", paint themselves into a corner and cannot find a way to move out of the miseries they got themselves into.

Deserves got nothing to do with it  ... we reap what we sow,
and most of the time, we have it coming ..we just don't know when.