Some things new

I’ve grown quite fond of this blog. Not only has it given me a book, it’s also served as a way for me to make sense of my Pinoy-in-American life. I’ve said that all along because it’s true. Writing has always been for me, as it has been for others, really a way of thinking. That is, as you’re finding the right words for what you want to say and composing sentences and paragraphs (as I’m doing right now), you’re actually realizing what and how you think of what’s happening around you, so that if you didn’t do it, you wouldn’t have had those thoughts. And it would be a loss on your part.

Of course, whether it’s such a great loss or not is another matter altogether. But you keep writing because you want me to keep finding out how you feel about things.

Not everyone needs to do that, of course. In fact, most everyone is fine as they go about their lives and they are able to reflect on their experiences as they happen, without writing them down. At the same time, though, you wonder whether some people should make it a point to reflect on what happens to them—whether they do it through writing or some other way. But that’s beside the point.

It’s just the mark of a certain kind of writer that he needs to pause every so often and type away at his keyboard or start scribbling or, these days, tweet. He’s not fine if he doesn’t do it. He wouldn’t die if he didn’t do it—but he would die a little.

This blog has been my notebook these past seven years, a period that’s been markedly different from my previous life. That’s the other component of this project: It’s about something that for me was worth writing (that is, worth thinking) about. I wouldn’t have done it had I stayed in the Philippines, although now that I think about it, it would be interesting to have a blog called “Pinoy in Pilipinas,” that’s by a Pinoy who’s lived elsewhere for a while. Maybe I will do it if and when—who knows?—I go back to live in the Philippines.

Being in a different land—whether that land is America or the Philippines or simply another city—is just one of those things that move you. No, it jars you. If you’re past a certain age, that is. I don’t suppose when you’re very young (mentally, rather than biologically) and you move, it would mean a lot. But if you’re of a certain age and you move, like in my case, then things get quite interesting. Just imagine: you wake up in a country that isn’t the country you’ve always woken in every single day of your life. You wake up essentially to a different world. The traditions, the rules, the language are different. You encounter strangers instead of friends. And the climate is different. It’s enough to give anyone a pause and make him think, “What the heck am I doing here?”

That’s essentially the question I’ve sought an answer to all this time, in this blog. Of course, there’s no single answer. If there were, this blog would’ve ended seven years ago, as it began.

And the funny thing is, the longer you stay here, the more the answers become elusive. The more you don’t know, although in a way you do. You do and you don’t—both at the same time. It’s quite the paradox, really. But you keep going because it feels as if you are moving forward despite the “you don’t know” part.

Nevertheless, I decided sometime ago that I would start doing things a little differently here to keep things interesting not only for me but also for my readers (both of them, as the old writer’s joke goes).

I decided to start writing more about other Pinoys in America, do some more reporting on the things that happen to them, rather than dwell on the angst I’ve felt as a stranger in a strange land, which I feel I have done sufficiently. It’s time to move on, in other words.

This blog will still be here, no doubt, but I’ll take it on a slightly new tack: less about me and more about others. I’ve actually started to do that with some recent articles—one on a Pinoy American Guardsman who died while serving in Afghanistan and another on Filipino and Filipino-American writers.

Speaking of the latter, I also started another blog called Filipino American Writer devoted to them. This summer I attended several literary events involving Filipino and Filipino-American writers, and the one thing I kept hearing both from them and their supporters is that they’re not getting enough attention. Which is sad because I feel they’re doing important work but they’re not getting enough help as far as getting the word out. So I decided to do something about it in my own modest way.

So that other project might take away some of the time I would otherwise spend writing for this blog. But I’ll try to keep both going at the same time. I think I can do it. Besides I see the two blogs really as two separate projects. General feature articles on the Pinoy-American life here, and things concerning books and writers there. As I like to say whenever I embark on a new adventure, tingnan natin kung anong mangyari.