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they call it sanggumay, from the tagalog words masangsang (strong smell) and umay (feeling sick of something). they say its scent is cloyingly sweet, that it clings to the air like cough syrup. sobrang masangsang na nakakaumay na (it smells so strong that it makes you sick). but ive only ever known it to be subtle. my friend G says it smells like panda ballpen lol
more than once ive gone out of my way to visit where they bloom at night, just to see if it might be stronger then. i press my face close to the orchid, like that might coax something out. tbf it does smell stronger, but only just
then again ive only ever encountered them in cities, in spaces where theyve been deliberately placed. of course theyre well cared for. they bloom beautifully year after year. but when they open i dont smell much
i wonder if terroir has something to do w it. how scent and expression and presence arent fixed traits but conversations between living things and their surroundings, how the environment is also something thats alive - responding, informing, shaping
i wonder if in the places where it grows wild, the sanggumay rly fills the air the way people say. i wonder if it lives up to its name
and then i wonder when we feel dulled or distant from our own fullness, what if the question isnt whats wrong with us ?? what if instead its: what kind of world have we been asked to survive inside of ?
what systems shaped it ? who does it serve? who does it silence ?
maybe our fullness isnt missing, maybe its just been made harder to reach. by design
i wonder what we would smell like in the wilderness of care
Apr 23, 2025
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im never more offline than when im commuting. it does get unpleasant, but i have no real alternatives so i stay. i stay with the noise, the waiting, the elbows, the heat. but theres also something in that pocket of time that feels like a sort of gift ? like the city letting you in on something, if youre willing to sit with it long enough. not rly silence bc manila rarely allows for that lol but a kind of stillness that moves alongside the chaos. the kind that doesnt ask for attention, but rewards it
for months i kept noticing these lines along edsa: crescent-shaped shadows on white walls, like soft brushstrokes. id wonder what caused them but theyd slip out of view and something else would take their place: pillows soaking up the morning sun on rooftops, a deflated nemo balloon tangled in trees. and id wonder about those instead. the lines werent a mystery i carried constantly, they just became familiar questions i greeted whenever they returned
one windy afternoon i watched the plants outside the mrt dance - rooted in place, their bodies bent in the only directions they could, in arcs so well rehearsed theyre almost muscle memory. each gust of wind sends them brushing against the wall, over and over, gently eroding the white paint. time passing in small, invisible repetitions. the plants were painting
i later traced the area on my favourite archive google maps haha and slid back through time. i found a coconut tree. in older images when the tree was younger and its leaves hung lower i could see how it once touched the wall. the tree had grown since then, its reach no longer the same. but the marks remained, like a growth chart. a timeline written in strokes only the wind could carry
i think about these lines often, how the body can grow taller and further away but the places it once brushed against can still remember. i try to hold the same feeling in my ceramic practice: a mindful documentation of the in betweens, the soft evidence of something passing through. in that stillness theres something lasting, something that can be held in the hands long after its made. a way of saying: we were here once. and we danced
Apr 12, 2025
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I have many Ideas. I ponder over them like an obsessive collector; organizing, re-organizing, packing them into words so the meaning is captured, transferable. Most of my transformative experiences are unexplainable - how does one capture the depth of a still, silent night? The whispering of leaves in warm summer breezes. Vague feelings of wholism while sitting in the grass, photosynthesizing like plant ancestors - a fish swims without direction. Many call it god but the church is alienating; the word massacred and butchered beyond the recognition of what it once meant.
One idea I have kept unmolested by the opinions of others, is that these holistic experiences in nature, with friends, live music shows, where the pulse of life beats strongly, are everything. An anchor point for a life well lived. It’s not enough to just be in nature, alchemizing the circumstance missing the key ingredient. A couple of friends and I went on a trip to where the ocean went on forever, unbroken horizon. We were down by the water, sunset and glistening, warmth of the sun and sand beneath my feet. But it was nothing more than looking. I did not have access to this other way of being - locked out, truthfully, by being eaten alive by the stress of exams and stewing in the feelings of being unlovable. It is somehow within you; the trees and ocean reflect it back to me. A quality of self brought out by sincerity and solitude. It’s everything, reflected in everything worthwhile.
Apr 17, 2024
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there is something figuratively beautiful about the things we know and don’t know, the sublime and mundane
and when you visit the beach, do you ever think about if the animals who live in the embrace of the depths remember the beauty of the ocean?
where the salt envelops every single one of us,
accepting us as kin
letting her wind tousle our raw, visceral edges
and pepper them with her sea-foamed kisses
which tell me that it’s okay to pretend
and okay to tell the ocean all of myself
the ocean reaches out to me, hands cloaked in the sharp coolness of water and something else- something i don’t understand
as I poke around in a tide pool, like a vendor at a bustling market, observing the wares that the ocean has to offer
and i turn around and ask her, do the barnacles see themselves? do anemones understand their own beauty, fragile and ephemeral?
i don’t think they do.
but the ocean doesn’t have any words for me, instead shutting my mouth with a shhhh
as her sandy dress rustles down the shore, laced with white foam and gossamer trails of ripples
and wordlessly, tells me to look
and i do.
until the sun hurriedly retreats from the wispy radiance of the moon, enrobed in puffy clouds
and it's just the three of us.
the moon tugs at the ocean’s hand, dancing to their own secret rhythm,
letting me see them in their love.
personally, i think it’s beautiful \\ and i wish i had something like it
and the ocean laughs. nothing jeering or ridiculing, simply an acknowledgement that i understand.
everything around me falls,
like petals cast off from a chrysanthemum.
and then, we were wordless
like the ocean had never spoken in the first place.
i want to descend into the depths of the ocean one day,
to be hugged once more and never again.
not because i am tired of being alive,
but frankly within me exists too much zeal to live.
uncontrollable surges of wow i am alive in flesh, blood through my veins, and thoughts in my head
become more addictive than any form of fentanyl, cocaine, heroin
and better than any gateway into a better life
or a better existence, transcending normality
and the moment it’s just me in my head, without the viscous energy of being alive
suddenly drains me like a leaking bucket,
decrepit and dry.
i want to burn like a torch, setting my world alight into embers,
into flames,
into an inferno.
Sunrise:: being alight || with a halo of only thoughts and dreams || and the divinity of something new
May 2, 2025
Top Recs from @becoming
i dont know how i managed to field interstellar for more than a decade but today i decided i was finally going to see it. i didnt feel like holding my phone up for 3 hours and it was too hot in the living room (heat index today 41C wtf) so i went to the next best screen: the tv in my parents room. my dad was already in bed, cooling off after lunch. i climbed in beside him and put the film on, ignoring his half hearted protest that he wanted to nap lol i wanted to watch interstellar, he just happened to be there
and then an old murph said she knew cooper would come back "because my dad promised me" and i realised i was holding my dads hand, time folding in on itself
and i thought oh, maybe this is why i never saw this film before. maybe it was orbiting me all these years, waiting for this version of me, this version of my dad, this version of life where i could sit beside him, feeling the weight of a hot, humid manila summer, and the quiet gratitude of a moment finally arriving
Apr 8, 2025
making the most out of the beautiful sun we've been getting !
rly need to heal my productivity trauma bc the last time i printed on rocks was two whole years ago and the only reason i did this today was bc i had leftover solution from the cyanotype class i taught this morning 🥲 vowing to make more personal prints and to experiment more this season!!!!!
Mar 16, 2025
how beautiful is life that we get to hang out w friends and share a meal w them and i couldnt reach the pianggang so A scooped up some chicken and sauce to put on my plate that was hovering over the rest of our food hahaha
and wow palm grill!!! authentic southern mindanaoan cuisine!!!!! loml
Mar 26, 2025