Inspiration is for amateurs, or so Hugh Grant claims in the movie Music and Lyrics.
But whether I’m full or famished of inspiration, I find that there are no words that can adequately express despair. When my tita (who was a mother to me in every way, never mind not being related by blood) died on Day 2 of this year, it felt as if everything positive and meaningful in me was flushed out in my system.
Prior to her death, I can write about the most prosaic of things as if God has exhausted all of his power just to inspire me. Writing just came so easy, probably because I’ve been in the campus journalism jig since fifth grade. A degree then career in journalism was in view, but the College of Mass Communication begged to disagree. I am, nevertheless, having a blast in Sociology.
But you’re reading the proof that apparently, journalism wouldn’t let go of me that easily, despite my being fine without it. I cannot not write. And mind you, sociology as a discipline requires you to write yourself into a coma, so it wasn’t that different, I found.
Basically, writing never left me. And that’s probably why it seemingly has become second nature to me. I’ve learned a few tricks of the trade. I place words together and pose them as prose. Make them sound like they make sense when they don’t. People raved.
But on January 2, my tita died. My (nomadic) blog, which I have maintained since 2001, has lost its pulse, and any attempt to write for what made writing vibrant dimmed. I only write if writing was a requirement, no longer for self-fulfillment.
I couldn’t write about how my tita died, and the grief I felt. It’s not be- cause my vocabulary eroded – I still am familiar with the words I knew and how I used to piece them together – but I just couldn’t get myself to write about it. What use to come so easily, at one pivotal moment, became a mammoth of a task. To this day, I haven’t shared in writing the chronicles of her death and my nonchalance to what I used to place so much focus on before.
I can write about it, so exceptionally that I would make you cry as much as I have these past months. I can sell my woe and desolation and you – in the comforts of your taken for granted existence – would buy them. I can start an epidemic of malaise. I have nine years of experience, and recognition from dozens.
But as I hit the backspace to fully delete a number of unfinished sentences, and my tears simultaneously well up, I guess ability cannot exactly inspire accomplishment. There’s no sense in articulating my what’s if I cannot find the answer to my what for’s.
She was, however, beautiful. My tita made my life beautiful even if, to begin with, it was made up of piles of turd . It would be a shame to not be able to write about her, to continue to write for her, especially when she placed much confidence on my ability. Hopefully this pathetic article can get me back at it.