#igaki

While washing the dishes after our new year’s dinner tonight, I caught myself smiling at the thought of a foreigner friend, (after working and living in the same house with him for our projects outside the Philippines for a couple of times), have kept me and my colleagues wondering why when he’s tasked to wash the dishes, he leaves them (by our Filipino standards) half washed, still with a few soap foams to dry (and yes, by our standards, completely unwashed and uncleaned)? And every time that happened, we just finish where he left off. It was really mind-boggling for us. And then one day, as we’ve been friends for a long time, we finally confronted him, why? 

Apparently, he said, the dishwashing liquid we were using (remember we were in his country), if I remember correctly, were safe/organic (to the point of edible or something like it, and that’s why also, their dishwashing soap was not as foamy and bubbly as what we are used to the likes of Joy or Axion). We were left dumbfounded! :p 

Anyway, my point was: my remembrance of things, stories, incidents are triggered by the things I am currently doing or an action or a certain word or a certain place, smell, sound, taste, touch, the weather, a person, a feeling. I have always been amazed at how much I remember and frustrated at how much I can’t remember at all. 

I’m first to admit I am not the best person to ask about certain memories or stories unless I really really vividly remember them. 

But what I’m saying is, I’m just glad I have these moments where I’m doing something and I’m reminded of certain things that happened in the past. Something I never thought I’d know or remember again. Something that reminds me that I have been alive, just allowing myself to feel and go through the moment and experience everything: how I really felt at that very moment. Or most of the time, logic comes after feeling. 

Fascinating isn’t it how we forget and how we remember. How moments just suddenly fills in or enters again the cracks and missing gaps. And other times, you just can’t really remember anything or just chose to forget.