Breastmilk is still best for babies.

Joy found multiple copies of this by our fax machine. Hmmm. I suppose this answers the question, "After Lovapalooza, what will they do next?"

twenty minute verses

This is what happens when I am pressured to write brief, poetic (haha) copy for an invite to a welcome home party of our boss' son who served in Iraq.

for those who return

as a mother waits
and a father wields
the weight of absence

words on a page
become a lifeline
penned
with the ink of hopes

realized
in the embrace
of those who have returned

Illustrate, illustrate!

A rather late post. But hey--there's still time! If you want a copy of my story, just email me at marielle.nadal@gmail.com. Since I have changed my status on the GXP RP-UK Team 52 to cheerleader, rather than official participant, I suddenly have quite a bit of time (MA and Idea!s aside). Hehehe. I'm thinking of joining this one too. Sana ganahan ako.

The Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) is now accepting entries for the 2006 PBBY Alcala Prize. The contest is co-sponsored by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and The National Library. The winner will be given a cash prize of P25,000.00, a gold medal, and an opportunity to be published with the help of the PBBY. Prizes will be awarded in an appropriate ceremony to be held during the celebration of National Children’s Book Day on July 18, 2006.

Contest Rules:
1. The contest is open to all Filipino citizens except those who are related to any PBBY members up to the third degree of consanguinity.
2. Entries must be based on any of the three winning stories: Can You See (What Buboy Sees)? by Marielle Nadal; Tonyong Turo by J. Dennis Teodosio; and, Rosario and the Stories by Ian Casocot. Copies of the story may be requested from the PBBY Secretariat.
3. All entries must be original unpublished illustrations that have not won in any previous contest.
4. All entries must consist of three (3) illustrations that are of the same size and medium.
5. A contestant may send in more than one (1) entry.
6. Each entry must be signed by a pen name only, preferably on a small piece of paper pasted on the back of each artwork. Entries with a signature or any identifying marks are automatically disqualified.
7. Together with each entry, contestants must submit a separate envelope, on the face of which only the pen name of the contestant shall appear. The envelope must contain the contestant’s full name, address, contact numbers, short description of background, and notarized certification vouching for the originality of the entry and for the freedom of the organizers from any liability arising from the infringement of copyright in case of publication.
8. All entries must be sent to the PBBY Secretariat, c/o Adarna House, Room 201, JGS Bldg., 30 Scout Tuazon St., Quezon City by March 4, 2006.
9. Winners will be announced no later than March 25, 2006. Non-winning entries must be claimed no later than April 29, 2006, after which they will no longer be the responsibility of the organizers.
For more details, interested parties may contact the Philippine Board on Books for Young People, at Room 102, JGS Building, 30 Scout Tuazon St., Quezon City, Telefax 372-3548 or email pbby@adarna.com.ph.

Brokeback to the Future!

Offering

Sitting rapt in attention as if a thousand cherubims had exploded into song right above the congregation, I distractedly looked at my mother seated next to me as I felt a crackly sum of currency pressed into my hand. If only the attention I was earlier exuding was focused on the religious proceedings before us. I smiled sheepishly and took the bill, waiting for the collection basket’s sojourn towards us happy givers.

Ever since I was little, it would be regular Sunday mass protocol to give the mass offering to the youngest of the lot to drop into the collection basket. I vaguely recall asking my mother why they insisted on doing this, when the money really was coming from them, and not from us. After all, God could distinguish from whom the money came from, etc., etc. “Well,” my mother earnestly explains. She has this habit of explaining religious protocol with childlike simplicity and submission, brows slightly bent, eyes half-closed and focused faraway, hands gesturing with palms facing upward, fingers splayed as if she were literally offering you the gist of religious mysticism.

“It’s so that the blessings go to you.”

Well, who could bring themselves to argue, faced with that kind of reasoning? For an eight-year-old, that argument is selfishly unquestionable, and therefore absolute.

Ever since then, I never took notice of the practice. It was only today when I unconsciously took the money to drop into the basket that I realized how second nature the gesture was. Here I am, all grown up and already earning my own paycheck, and still whenever the collection basket is passed around, my mom still hands me money to give as offering.

Parents never cease to be parents. And children never cease to be children in the eyes of their parents (to their joy and ire). Up until today when my mother knows that I can very well produce my own mass offering moolah, she still hands me the crispy bill, in the hopes that her little offering will reap blessings and blessings for me. How wonderfully innate, this selflessness is. How Peter Pan-nish, the way we never seem to outgrow this parental womb.