A Love Called Man

One love, and I became a man possessed. Having had a taste of it, I searched for it in everything I saw. No, no, it wasn't about sex, it was love, the ideal, the sublime. It was the apex of all feeling, the summit of all existence. In it I moved and had my being.

But no, I was still far from being its personification. Very far. I was in love...once, and love was what I wanted to be, long ago, it never left me. But when it came to me, I was lost. It became an obsession. No, it's not supposed to be that way. Love is a giving, complete giving. How can you be love when you want something, or someone for yourself. For love is a sharing. Obsession is a prison, both for the 'obsessor' and for the one obsessed.

Vainly I sought for it in every encounter. And the more they came the more disappointed I became. There was no meaning in those meetings underneath the sheets or elsewhere. The momentary touches (for that was all they were) gave very little pleasure, if any. You rise a tiny bit above yourself, you reach out, but find nothing you can truly hold on, that can give a semblance of permanence or a union more sublime, a merging of the spirits in complete giving to one another. Ah, to feel an embrace that fuses more than the bodies, but more of the selves, and then again it is a coming together in a forgetting of the selves such that you are no longer aware of who you are nor of the other and that somehow you meld into the eternal now, not knowing nor caring where one began nor where they ended.

Yes, I became obsessed by that ideal. I sought to lose myself into someone, but couldn't find her, tried to lose my self in love but could not find completion, fulfillment. I had to journey out of that obsession.

A Man in Love

I did fall in love. And how! I was like a man possessed. Every waking hour I thought of noone else but her, and even in my dreams, she barely escaped me. It was not unlike the first time I was attracted to this girl in my childhood years. It was my neighbor. Suzie, it was. I remember distinctly when we played in their yard next door, how I thrilled to hold her hand and heard music when she laughed. It was magical, too, but somehow something was missing. Things were nothing more than moments. And even though the moments lingered long after her presence had faded, they held no meaning for me. When I came home from a vacation one day and found they had already moved - without a word of goodbye - I was deeply saddened, and for days and weeks kept repeating the song "You Don't Know Me" that first became popular during those days. No, there was no pain at all.
Ah, that pain called love, but such sweet pain! For when love is true, its seems you can endure all pain for whom you love and still find joy in all of it. Every moment of absence is torture and every moment of presence equally tormenting when uncertainty still prevailed. And yet, you keep coming back for more because you cannot bear to have it any other way. Such it was with Monique. Time existed only for her, and everything I did during this time I did for love of her. In her I reached for excellence for only then could I see myself as worthy of her.
And then, a friend - I thought he was a friend - entered the picture. Janus, he was; a man of the world, he was, I knew. And when I introduced him to her, he endeavored to make her his own, too, not contented with all the women he already had. I was devastated. It seemed to me I had defiled her, violated her sanctity. And then mine. I could not face her anymore. And when Monique chided me about it, I could no longer continue seeing her. My world crumbled down. Everything turned gray. My world came to a standstill.
Nothing around me mattered anymore. Sure, I still moved and had a world about me and life went on, but something had changed within me. The love that had possessed my heart and soul took over my whole being. While the memory of Monique still remained, the love had taken on a new, different meaning for me, an ideal that consumed me to the very core. I longed for that pain in a somewhat masochistic sort, but more than the pain, it was the longing for the joy that came with it.
I had become a love called Man.

A Man Called (Part 2)

Well, it was not until I was 19 that I had my first woman. I got it from a seedy place in Manila, thanks or no thanks from the barkada who made sure I lost my virginity that soon (or late). But no, I wasn't proud of it. I found it wasn't as people got excited about. A rubbing of flesh against flesh and nothing more, or less.

Some would probably ask, what are you, some kind of a faggot? As if something were terribly wrong with being gay, but no, I wasn't one. I just thought there ought to be something more to it to make it worthwhile. Because later on, when I had had some more 'meaningful conquests' - if you'd like to put it that way, I still felt the same because I was convinced there was something more to it.

Meanwhile, at the back of my mind the 'cloth' remained a strong possibility. No, I never told anyone about it, not even Mom, who would have been immensely thrilled if she had known about it; not even my best friend, if I ever had one at that time in my life. Once, a friend, Just Aquino, asked me to go with him to a vocation seminar, but though it enjoyed it a lot, nothing in there moved me strong enough to follow through. Sex still had me transfixed in the world's path, although there was yet something that kept me from being, well, reckless.

Once, when I was nineteen, I had a fifteen year-old-girlfriend. Actually, she had a crush on me and I had a strong liking toward her because she talked way over her age and was very intelligent. One day, she went with me home and because there was no one home at the time, we went straight to my bedroom. There, she challenged me to play chicken. It turned out that chicken was to hold each other at the knee and alternately move upward asking "chicken" at each's turn. It was easy to catch on where this was leading to. I had to turn yellow.

Maybe I was afraid it was too early to make any commitment; maybe I was wary because she way too young, or maybe I was too good to take advantage of her. At any rate, a few weeks later, she unceremoniously dumped me. Probably because she couldn't have her way with me. It hurt my ego somewhat, but on second thought it was best over and done with. But some years later when a lovely, young but already of age woman took as keen an interest in me I, too, very discretely warded off her advances. I advised her to first make certain about her feelings toward me even as I admitted to her that I wasn't sure about what I felt toward her. No doubt she appreciated my gesture even if it certainly disappointed her and and after a few more meetings, we never saw each other again.

And then I fell in love.

A Man Called

Part I

Still pretentious?

Can't help it. This is how my life went or rather how God wanted it. It all started when this old woman, who lived with us, offered to send my elder brother Jun to the priesthood.

This woman was a client my lawyer father picked up from the street where he found her scavenging among garbage. Odd, huh! Actually my father was merely curious about her being so well dressed, with coordinated clothes and matching shoes and handbag in that situation. It turned out she was gypped by a lawyer of practically all her property, and my father offered to help her and took her into our home. It turned out, Miss Roa, as she was called, was a very religious woman, and a piano professor, who spoke fluent Spanish to her numerous pet cats. Her religiosity matched Mother's and this made her most welcome to us, or at least to our mother. Unfortunately for Mom, the piano teacher was the eccentric sort and mostly stayed in her room - where we could often hear her scold her pets, "Sin verguenza!" or call out to them, "Ven Aqui!' - and out of the way.

So, this was how the issue of the priesthood began - an act of mercy from my father that arose out of a chance encounter with a person in need. Who would have thought it would change my own life forever. It wasn't long after Miss Roa came into our house that she made the offer to Manong Jun and Mom in my presence: that as soon as she gets her property back she would sponsor my brother. I was barely seven years old at the time. And when I heard it, I was fascinated as it sounded so special and I asked myself, why not me? I kept thinking about it every night that our family would together pray the rosary before the near-life sized image of Our Lady of Fatima.

However, the case to recover Miss Roa's property dragged for years. In the meantime, our family's fortunes took a turn for the worse. My mother's fashion school foundered and my father's practice in Pampanga became too small to support us. We had to move to the big city, Manila, and Miss Roa chose to remain behind. (She would later join us here after Father won the case for her, but too late for her to enjoy what remained of her wealth or to fulfill her promise.)

The big city cost the family much in terms of the spiritual life. Somewhere along the way, in our frenzied struggle to survive, we stopped praying as a family. We no longer had our nightly family rosary. Not that we lost our faith. Our daily travails sapped us of our energy, or we children needed more time to comfort ourselves we turned to amusement, however we could find it, and left the praying to Mother who never failed to go to church dressed in her Lourdes Marian habit - an immaculate white dress with a sky-blue sash.

At about this time, I entered into puberty and my raging hormones took over my life. Music became my passion and racy magazines, and many nights I spent sharing them with my friends at a nearby lumber mill's log yard Although I never forgot my secret wish to enter the priesthood, sex became too much of an attraction to me I bargained with myself, just let me have my first taste of a woman and I would go.

Some calling, huh! But that was exactly how the cookie, rather, the wafer crumbled.

More coming!

A Man Called Love

Pretentious ba?

Just trying this space lang naman. Actually, it's about my name, Noel. It started noong nag-graduate ako from high school. Nabaduyan ako sa nickname ko, "Len." Tunog feminine kasi. Sabi ko, I want to be a 'giving' person. (pa-idealistic kuno). Kaya I got the first syllable of my baptismal name and inverted it to form "Noel." Parang Christmas baga. What can be more giving than that. Kaya, hayun, pagpasok ko sa college, iba na me, and it stuck.

Pero, the giving part also stuck. Hindi ako naging materialistic and I like making sacrifices for others. Sometimes kahit people abuse me, give pa rin ako big time (Maybe I'll talk about it here someday). So today, kahit tough ang life, I find it quite easy to continue serving sa Church at the expense of my business. Sabi ko, if I make time for Him, He will make a way for me na ma-provide ang needs ko. So far, it's been working very well for me.

Sa mga future blogs, I think I'll share with you my faith experiences. I guarantee you guys, very colorful ito and very frank. No holds barred. And believe it or not, ang daming miracles, big and small, some simply jaw-dropping.