Food for thought...

Two books made its way and landed on my kitchen table.  

One, in a convoluted manner.  Many exchange of hands: from my mom's childhoold friend, Tita Sarah, who thoughtfully, handed it to my mom.  She knew I had plans of visiting Italy with "E.".  But sometimes, something as simple as "life", can mangle a well-thought out plan.  My mom sent it through her loyal girl Friday, Edna.  Edna sent it through Mang Art, our family chauffeur, along with a plastic bag of newly washed clothes.   It was Frances Mayes, "Bella Tuscany".   

The other through a direct purchase at National Bookstore in Shang.  An afterthought, after having piled a bunch of canvas boards on the cashier's counter.  "Miss, wait lang, pls.  There's a book..."  I ran to grab it.  There was an exchange of money for goods.   "Julie and Julia" by Julie Powell.

Two books joined at the hip by the protagonists' search for some inexplicable "missing ingredient" in their lives.  Frances found it in Bramasole and poured her heart and soul to discover love and life in the ruins and rolling hills of Tuscany.  Sunlight and the aromatic smell of grapes, assorted fresh herbs, fresh tomatoes, fresh vegetables, fresh flowers combined with the stench of ancient ruins peppered the pages and awakened my desire to bask under the Tuscan sun.  

Julie would find it in the book by well-loved Julia Child, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".  She drowned herself in tubs of butter and assorted cooking pans, lost herself in aisles of grocery stores and streets of New York to look for pink gooey stuff nestled in the enclaves of bone marrows that would punctuate the steaks in its declaration of a "life well lived!" 

A pang of jealousy consumes me alive.

The bag of laundry remains untouched, propped on a bench at the foot of my bed. It is a revelation of a well-ordered life because to get from our bathroom to the laundromat on the other side of the city and back to our home, would require a great deal of coordination between Edna, the chauffeur and me.   I stare at the ordinariness and everydayness of the garments.  Is this my "bella" life---my living the vida loca---reduced to an unattractive lump of boringness?

I rip open the bag like it's Christmas eve  and sort out the bland of blacks, whites, grays, browns and blues.  I refold a t-shirt that has spilled out of the bag onto the floor.  I notice I've had this one for years, almost tattered and torn by time.  I find traces of linseed oil brushed on different areas of the t-shirt.  I come alive when I   paint to the point of madness.  I cannot be bothered to wipe clean my brush on a rag.  That's just ridiculous!

My memory instantly reels me to that moment when I, too, seemed lost.  How I woke up one day and announced with absolute clarity, nary a thought, and heaven help me,  not even an art class tucked under my belt, "I am going to be a painter!"   And how I quickly plunged into the great abyss of turpentine, linseed oil and varnish;   lurked the streets of New York with large sized canvases in tow and a purposeful stride; and begged for guidance from my gods at the MOMA and the Metropolitan Museum.  How foolish of me---this isn't jealousy I feel.  This is one of recognition.  Frances, Julie and I---we are sisters in fiction.  We have trudged the same road less traveled.  I remember now just like it all happened yesterday.  To be found, you must  lose yourself completely, totally and in wild abandon.