Waiting for that Serendipity

“the right time and at the right place, again, we’ll be together”

Funny, she thought, how you read old letters from way back. They give you different meaning when you re-read them. Only, even if it’s a hundredth time you read them, it gives you the same feeling. You see a different, even more confusing meaning but nevertheless, it gives you the same sting on your chest. Some promises were made and most of them were broken into a million pieces together with your heart.

She almost cried, felt like she’s transported back in time. The heart that never healed thumped against her ribs and each words were like shards of glass, bleeding her ever bruised heart.

I found my soulmate

‘…at least once in every incarnation, the Soulmate who is sure to cross our path. Even if it is only for a matter of moments, because those moments bring with them a Love so intense that it justifies the rest of our days.’

I almost choked myself with my own tears after reading this. I had to re-read it over and over again and it just felt the same. I do believe in soulmates and if I were to believe Paulo Coelho’s words, I could fairly say I did met my other half not too long ago. It was a brief encounter that would last me a lifetime. And if someone would ask me if I would risk the same heartache and all that crap I’ve been through, I’d do it over and over again in my next incarnation-to find my way in my soulmate’s arms and kisses until one day fate would keep us apart. I’d never waste a single moment and never let that someone pass by. It would be the same feeling that would keep my heart beating. It would be the same reason that would paint smile on my lips. And that someone will always be in my thoughts and my dreams. Now, I think, that justifies the intensity of love I am feeling for the rest of my days.

We could have more than one soulmate in our lives and that would make things complicated because it would cause tears and heartbreak. Nevertheless, once you think you found them, cherish that someone and never let time pass without telling them everything that you feel. Whether their making you smile, angry, happy, loved… We don’t want to wait another lifetime or incarnation to tell them exactly what we feel for them and what they are making you feel.

“But how will I know who my soulmate is? she asks.
By taking risks. By risking failure, disappointment, disillusions, but never ceasing in your search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.” P. Coelho.

I’m Sorry

I hit her once. I hit her twice. I hit her more than I can tell till her tears look like blood. God! Am I becoming my mother?

I could have knock her out cold when I hit her on the head while in our toilet. I kept barking out loud what she should do while my hand do all the damage to her young flesh. What am I doing? When she cried in agony and looked at me as if to ask for my mercy, I saw myself through her eyes when I looked at my mother as if pleading her to stop beating me years ago when I was in her position while mom beats the hell out of me.

Thank God that look of her awaken me from my senses and realized that, unwillingly, I’m becoming the monster I once used to fear, used to hate, used to hide from. I looked at my hand and saw that taint of blood and it creep the hell out of me. I couldn’t believe I was hitting my sister just because of that one, tiny, innocent mistake. Every slap, every blow, every tears… I couldn’t imagine how I could have done it to her when she was young. When she was so fragile.

It never happened again-thank God. It was years ago when I decided to put leash on that monster. But never a day passed without that episode came flashing back like a slow-motion movie intended just for me to see. I clearly remember that day when one last smack hit her head and that was when all the questions and guilt came and all I felt was a frozen slap on my face, waking me from a bitter past and anger that I never got over with and one of my youngest sibling became the object of my retaliation.

I’m a restless soul. I never wanted to stay in one place for a long time. Like my mind, I want constant movement, constant change, new scenery, fresh air, a first time experience of something. I don’t like rules. It kills me. It suffocates my whole being. I don’t like being held by my neck.

When I was young, when I knew my mom would be waiting by the door and shower me with volley of blows because she’d think I did something out of ordinary, I’d roam all throughout the village. Or if I have nowhere else to go, Id sit by the tall, grassy field near our home while I hear my mom shouts my name at the top of her voice searching for me.

When I was in 5th grade, I’d sneek out the house and bring my brother with me and go fishing by the filthy creek where you’d get anything but fish. Or I’d ran and rang all those doorbells of our neighbors. Or climb tree, the tank tower, anywhere my feet takes me. I even managed to had this little adventure with my grade school pals when we tried looking for turtles in a smelly tunnel near a creek but we ended up with nothing but rubbish smell all over our school uniforms.

I don’t like being told what to do. I get really edgy if someone won’t shut their filthy mouths and mind their own business. I tend to be all by myself and figure things out on my own and if I damn needed help, I’d still be thinking twice of asking for one.

what causes you?

Sometimes, that feeling of sadness will suddenly surface and every thing else will seem like a blur. Like everything else was what they all seem to be and never changing and you feel like you never moved an inch from where you are. That those people around you are nothing but a dots that you need to connect until you reach the final dot to be able to form something but you yourself will never figure out. Sadness engulfs your soul you feel like dying on that very spot you’re standing on. It grips your heart and not even shedding all your tears could lessen the burden you feel. It just pops out of nowhere and it paralyzes every nerve you feel like it would be the end of it all. You feel like suicidal. You want to end it. Right then and there. You just want to stop feeling it. Oh, sadness. How to stop it? How to prevent it? How to get over it?

He’ll always be the King

‘Remember the Time…’

‘Yes. I remember it very well.

I remember the obsession of wearing white gloves on my right hand. The effort I made perfecting my moonwalk on our tiled-toilet floor.  I remember trying to do the spin move but always end up banging myself somewhere hard or pointed corners.

I remember imitating every Michael Jackson move I could master. From how he wore his black fedora low to cover one side of his face, to how silly but good it felt doing the grab-the-crotch move then shout at the top of my lungs like what he does in his music videos.  Up to that dance-like-a-zombie MJ style that I enjoyed so much I never thought zombie could dance that good with the King of Pop leading every step.

‘Ben’

How cute it was to watch that 13-year old Afro-haired Michael Jackson, who wore this yellow tie to complement his orange suit, serenading someone named Ben.

Since I heard that song, I felt someone out there could also be my Ben. Or how I wished I was Ben and MJ would be my best friend. It felt so right as if every words of his song was directed to me. That it doesn’t matter if people never liked me and all those bad things anyone would say against me because I got MJ who believes in me. That I don’t have to look that far because all the while, he was just there beside me.

‘Beat It’

I never understood then what this song was all about but, heck! I felt like dancing my ass around the house or getting myself into trouble.

The tempo was so right it felt like it’s just fair to beat someone. I never backed down from any fistfights and little did they know I always have MJ singing inside my head singing ‘Beat It’ over and over every time trouble finds me.

“I just can’t stop loving you”

It seems to me that wherever Michael Jackson goes, he’s like a god of some sort. Either the throng of fans cry their hearts out when they hear even just a single word from him, or one line from his songs. Fans would be shouting at the top of their lungs. Or they’d just faint dead when he does a moon-walk. He got this something that will make you lost in trance and you’d just be too amazed to speak any word while he performs and for a moment or two, for all you know, you feel like crying too, even if you’re just watching him on television.

‘Bad’

Ever since the allegations of child molestation came to surface, I didn’t really know who to believe in. He became the joke of the town. He was the topic everywhere. I read everything that is not the MJ I knew before. I never read anything about how great performer he was. All I read was he’s a molester and his Neverland ranch was not a place to be for the young boys.

There are some articles confirming his sexual eccentricities, some are based on scientific evidence and other stuffs I could barely dig in. Some are just smack-to-the-face injustice that further degrade his personality and people started to forget his musical genius.

But all the while every body had their chance to ridicule him, he remained as he was. While media kept the hype about his personal life, he continued to make music. He continued to be a father to his children. He chose to stay close to that elusive quiet life that we never gave him until the very last minute of his existence.

‘Earth Song’

I was at work at the time MJ was pronounce dead somewhere in L.A. hospital. I was too busy working when I  heard this song playing over the radio and how I felt like crying for how poignant it was to hear the earth actually cry for help through MJ’s voice.  Not until it was played like four-times over the radio that I realized the icon behind the song has passed away.

‘Heal the World’

Love him or hate him, I believe Michael Jackson made this a better world through his music. His music paved a way to break that invisible barrier that divides this nation. His accounts of what truly happens between you and me and the rest of the world through his music woke us from a deep slumber and realize that all we need to do first is to look at that ‘Man in the Mirror‘ to make it right. Never mind his eccentricities over the last few years or the biased media ridiculing him every chance they can get, his message has always been clear: a better place could start within us before we can heal the world. He never lead a perfect life but he made an example to make a change. I hope that’s what we all remember of him. For me, he’s the best thing that happened in the last 50 years.

‘Gone Too Soon’

“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.” – Michael Jackson

He was the best ‘Daddy’

LOS ANGELES – For all the hasty preparations, hand-wringing over security, breathless media competition to scoop details and soul-wrenching performances, the essence of Michael Jackson’s memorial service came down to 20 poignant, powerful seconds: the moment when 11-year-old Paris-Michael Jackson inched up to the microphone and, in a statement no one saw coming, referred to the late pop superstar as “Daddy.”

It was a remarkably humanizing moment. Then again, it was remarkable just to see Jackson’s three children in public to begin with. A fiercely protective father, Jackson rarely brought his brood out into public, covering their faces in veils and party masks to protect their identity when he did.

Now here they were, unveiled, before an audience of thousands at Staples Center and millions more around the globe.

Starting out seated in the front row, the three youngest Jacksons eventually joined the rest family onstage as the two-hour service wound to a close. Dressed in the same dark suits and yellow ties as the rest of the Jackson men, 12-year-old Michael Joseph Jr., known as Prince Michael, chewed gum and toted the memorial service program; 7-year-old Prince Michael II, known as Blanket, held his program and clutched a Michael Jackson doll.

Paris, wearing a black dress with white trim, turned a small patent-leather purse over in her hands as other family members spoke. And then a dramatic hush fell over the crowd as family members whispered that the little girl, whose lifetime of public exposure amounted to a small handful of paparazzi photographs, Paris-Michael wanted to say something. She furtively emerged from the tight circle of family members, who rushed to lower the microphone to her level.

And with her uncle Randy on one side and aunt Janet on the other, Jackson’s little girl stood center stage. “I just wanted to say,” Paris began weakly. “Speak up, sweetheart, speak up,” Janet encouraged, sweeping the girl’s long hair back. “And get close.”

Paris put one hand behind her neck, another on the microphone, and began again. “Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine,” she said, her tiny voice cracking.

Rebbie and Marlon Jackson moved in closer to comfort their niece. She shut her eyes tight. Then she wrapped her hands — little fingernails painted red — around the microphone and fought back tears as she continued: “And I just wanted to say I love him — so much.”

She collapsed in tears into her aunt’s arms. “It’s OK, baby. It’s OK,” Janet Jackson said as she held Paris close. Prince joined in on the hug.

And all at once, Jackson wasn’t the larger-than-life King of Pop, or Wacko Jacko the tabloid freak. He was a doting father who had left three adoring young children behind.

He was “Daddy.”

“The King is Dead”

The King Is Dead

by Bob Lefstez

He missed his childhood and now he’s gonna miss his old age.

How fucked up is that?

Michael Jackson never had a chance. He had to succeed for his family, his parents’ dreams were dependent upon him.

And a boy with that much pressure delivers. He works truly hard, so he will be loved. That’s all Michael Jackson was looking for, love.

He wanted to be accepted. Wanted to be so good that he couldn’t be denied. But you can’t change family history, and the public no longer treats you as human, as an equal, once you break through. People want to rip you off or tear you down, or shower you in faux love that’s more about their unfulfilled desires than yours. It gets so confusing that you retreat.

The Jackson 5 broke through at the tail end of the sixties. When both Motown and Top Forty radio were in decline. But the burst of energy known as “I Want You Back” could not be denied. And the continuous singles made Michael Jackson a star. He sang a horror movie theme. He endured puberty. He was a faded child star.

Then, suddenly, he released a dance floor epic. When disco was supposedly dead, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones concocted a synthesis of rock and beats that could not be denied. Few were paying attention when “Off The Wall” was released. But over the course of two years, word spread. This was an album that could be played endlessly, that made you feel exuberant, totally alive. We didn’t stop listening because we could never get enough.

Then came “Thriller”.

There are indelible television moments. When there’s only before and after. Michael Jackson’s “Motown 25″ moonwalk was one of those events. Akin to the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon over a decade before. MTV was AOR. Dancing was something you saw on Broadway. Give Walter Yetnikoff credit, he forced MTV to play Michael Jackson and not only was the color barrier broken, not only did videos turn into extravaganzas, the biggest star since the Beatles was hatched, fifteen years after Michael had first gained public notoriety, years after he’d started performing. It’s “Outliers” in action. Michael Jackson made it look easy. But there were far in excess of 10,000 hours involved. When everybody was finally paying attention, no one else was close. You had newbie bands from the U.K. who could barely sing, never mind play. And you had this phenomenon prancing on screen fully realized. It was like the 1927 Yankees playing a Little League team.

And then it was over.

There was another album with Q, but it was a step down. There’s nowhere to go from the top but down. But Michael Jackson couldn’t accept this. Everything had to be bigger and better. A musician’s career can last forever. But to have those legs, you’ve got to have perspective. Existing at the center of the hurricane, unable to step outside the maelstrom, means that you have no frame of reference.

Not that you can’t buy one. Or that hucksters and shysters don’t try to give you one. You trust everyone but know you can trust no one. You’re a party of one. What means so much to everybody else means almost nothing to you. You don’t want to give up your money and fame, but they don’t buy you peace of mind, they don’t buy you love, they don’t keep you warm at night.

It’s been a sad movie that’s been unspooling. We can delineate the low points. But let’s just say it started with plastic surgery and it ended with court cases. Michael Jackson just didn’t think he was good enough. And when he tried to explain, when he showed up in court in his pajamas, we didn’t want to listen, we didn’t want to give him a break, we just wanted to make fun of him, deride him.

Michael Jackson was an entertainer until the very end. It’s just that his latest gigs were not inside theatres, but played out on “investigative” television shows and gossip Websites. Everybody was living off Michael Jackson. He gave good ratings. He rescued the hoi polloi from a life of drudgery.

But that’s all over now.

Sony can be thrilled that the digital marketplace insures there’s endless inventory for those sitting shiva to buy. And they’re going to end up with the Beatles catalog too. But we’ve lost something with the passing of Michael Jackson. A belief that America is a good-hearted place, a supportive place, where we want everybody to have a good life and be happy.

Wonder about the price of fame? Just look at the miserable Jon & Kate. Never mind their eight children.

We did this to Michael Jackson. And there wasn’t a single person who could save him. He was too isolated.

We’ll remember where we were when we heard the news. But I’d rather remember that explosion emanating from the radio back in ‘69.

Michael, we want you back! We want to see you moonwalk one more time! We want you to sing “Billie Jean”! Alas, that’s impossible.

As he once sang, “now it’s much too late for me to take a second look.”

The king is dead.

Long live the king.

(http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/)

autumn leaves falls from trees,

a young man endlessly sweep,

before starting the winter sleep

a lady walks down the street,

head bowed down

invisibly cloaked

by the veil of gloom

only if you look closely,

there’s nothing else to see

but tracks of dried tears

winter sting takes over autumn breeze,

so does heartbreak after you left so soon

in a funeral, someone is laid to rest,

tombstone says:

“she whose love could reach infinity,

remember this beautiful lady”

this, would be,

a long, endless,

winter sleep