By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

INDULGE me a bit. At times when I look at the moon in the dead of the night, I wonder if, my life, as little as the lights in the houses from a distant mountain, still matters to the universe.

Perhaps, this is why I am always in the garden, when done with the tensions of daily living. Gardening makes me notice little things, the different life forms in the soil, the birds that pick on the worms, insects that dig deep into my skin, warning me to lay off their sanctuary. I marvel how wounds heal from the bites with the passing of days, the formation of allergies that threaten to erupt with a sudden touch, mistaken visually, as monkey pox, threatening the sanity of some family members who are so afraid of getting infected, they gave a prognosis and stayed away, before the doctor declared her own diagnosis.

The garden reminds me that if I have the propensity to care for plants, insects and stray dogs, it is easy to believe in a caring and orderly multiverse. I want to believe I matter, despite the huge gaps in my understanding and the reality of the power of nature over human lives. Yes, nature bears itself upon humanity, including the inhumanity of human beings. Everything and everyone comes to an end, to usher another beginning.

Every death is a renewal of life. It matters then that poet Fethi Sassi lived and died too soon, even if Luz María López says, “One day you are alive next you are dead” and Shahid Bhutto thinks, “Life is a death dance.” Knowing this, it still shocks us when a friend suddenly departs for the great beyond.

A more agonizing situation is when friends are in the throes of the undead, when the situation is unclear and unknown, and when the last conversations are vivid, sending a plea, but all attempts to help are stymied by a cordon sanitaire. I was lucky to visit a dear friend, deprived of a mobile phone allegedly to protect and shield her from the tensions of the outside world. But she was crying because she was totally cut-off, with no one to share her predicament, her emotions, her thoughts. She was deprived of conversation and human touch which could have hastened her recovery. That is worse than the tension she is being shielded from. For these friend, life still matters, what remains of it, especially because they have enjoyed life fully at some point. Their existence matters to me, and to some others. For them, I wish to till the soil, and create a garden.

Dance macabre

in a tango with you
frantic, abrupt dips
swirls of passion
heart-stopping breaths
and you loosened your grip
my hands, my body
flailing
in the eddy with others
dancing
gasping
with my last breath

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