Presence

This holiday season has been a journey of extremes.

Under the surprisingly balmy and hazy horizons of Oahu floats the lives of my bed-ridden father whose consciousness is halfway towards oblivion, and my mother who has clear memories of her daily routine two scores in retrospect but would not recall my brother’s visits within the fortnight. In the waning days of their demonstrable awareness, they nevertheless exemplify the contemporary gray panthers’ credo: “it is not that we are old and decrepit, it is just that we are no longer that young!” Consciousness has not ceased. It just requires a few more pit stops. That’s Jaime, Sr. and Lucrecia at Aala.

Downwind of the Motor City by the Great Lakes of the U.S. Midwest in the working class neighborhood of Riverview emerged Dillon Robert of Irish, Scot, German, and Malay pedigree, my first biological grandchild. Between the iterative pattern of eat, sleep, and pooh, Dillon will develop an enormous capacity for learning within the next two years. By the time he is 11, he will be hit by another spurt of synapse explosion that will propel him to the world of emerging adulthood in a body, mind and soul like the ones who now populate my 6th grade class at San Vicente Elementary School.

One journey is at the sunset of deconstruction with the green flash waiting to epilogue in all of its splendiferous munificence. Due to a steadfast Ilocano stubbornness that characterizes their will to live, and the efficacious buffeting of modern medicine, Papa and Mama manage to provide an elderly presence to the aging community where they now thrive, a presence that is evidently a product of scores of care and celebration to the style of “just being there.”

Neither in a parade of accumulated wisdom, nor an anxious enactment of willing the great deed once more, their lives remain simply an image of unadulterated ISness. Neither heralded by accolades of accomplishments, nor acknowledged for accrued knowledge, both preside on the sovereign wheelchair of imagio dei, the awe and the mystery of just being in the here-and-now. Equanimity and tranquility abounds.

Another journey made the green flash at the creation of new breath and aggressive whizzing in the labored airs of industrial Detroit on a freezing snowy day of December. Dillon has ears the size of edible forest mushrooms, his Chinese step-Grandma opines, and though that was not the first feature that caught my eye, it is evident that his little one’s presence is already being noticed.

To some of the Sino Ming Xiang perspective where the size of one’s ear is an indication of one’s state of being, Dillon already gained good marks. To this captive heart, every snuggled, cradled, swaddled, and cuddled infant in the public markets and at the airport terminals between the Americas and the Asian continent have become an embodiment of the Dillons who have entered the world in this holiday season of the great affirmation of existence.

It is finally immaterial if one’s symbol system comes from one of the rich millennial traditions of the children of Abram through Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. Or the colorful contemporary bubble that Kwanzaa has evolved into, or to the commercial ethos that has swamped international trade and global commerce in our time, this December to remember remains a unilateral celebration of human existence.

Presence. In the Here and Now.

I write this from the other side of the international dateline. The New Year has already come to Saipan. But fireworks still awaits my sparkling cider bubbly a few hours down Ala Moana’s Magic Island overlooking the famed Diamond Head, which towers over the crowded shores of Waikiki Beach where the world in all body forms and skimpy states of patches and thongs is come to welcome 2006 CE (of the Current Era).

With the wonders of the information highway, I already have been greeted by the well-crafted expression of Hope and Peace from NMI Humanities Chair Herman (Jun Pan) Guerrero. His HAPPY NEW YEAR in 50 tongues familiar if not spoken by, at least, someone on island is remarkable in its possibilities of sociological peace, in an island lair as a lively livery for the lamb and hare, the lion and the stallion. This is utopian in the idealized world of the old dispensation that has passed away. It is now the only reality available to the Ecozoic Era of our time, a matter of our choice, everyone’s choice.

Presence. Senses. Emotions. Intelligences. Will. In the Here and Now. This is not about yesterday with its accomplishments and neglects. The obsessive bashing of BB’s missed checklists and flagrant absences is patently a sado-masochistic perversion. Nor is it about tomorrow’s hopes and dreams. Ben&Tim are not yet on the driver’s seat, and already, because of the transition team’s assessment that tough times lie ahead, the familiar “Better Times” is now being dubbed and broadcasted as “Bitter Times!” Neither is this a wishy-washy why-can’t-we-all-get-along-together liberal promise. Being present in the here and now involves one’s whole being. It requires a resolve. It demands a covenant, with one’s self, with others, and with the object of one’s Ultimate Concern.

Jaime, Sr./Lucrecia move to the dusk shortly after the green flash. Dillon screams the cries of joy after the dawning of the morning green flash. I and my Saipan Ohana, with the infants and the man’amkos, but particularly among the pre-teens of my classroom, shall affirm our presence in the here and now, inject our bodies into the annals of human history, and labor to fructify 2006.

Presence. Body. Heart. Mind. Guts. In the Here and Now. Celebrate. Life.