Breaktime

Breaktime
By Jonathan Aquino

Saturday Stories

August 30, 2019

I

After years of being offline, I logged in again on Facebook on January 2017 just so I'll still have my contacts. And to have a reason to log in, I'd feature original Filipino music. The first four songs were my favorites – "Reaching Out" by Gary Valenciano, "So It's You" by Raymond Lauchengco, "Friend of Mine" by Odette Quesada and "Constant Change" by Jose Mari Chan. I'd go to YouTube first, and share the video on my Wall.

II

And then, for some reason, all shared videos had disappeared. It happened after more than a hundred songs – the 100th Song is "Kayganda Ng Ating Musika" by Maestro Ryan Cayabyab and Basil Valdez. Just for fun, I call it The Huggybear OPM Show, and I wanted to continue it, so I instead, I posted the lyrics of the songs and photos of the albums, which eventually became movie themes in an evolution of its own.

III

At some point, I would write things and post them on Facebook. I seem to have this urge to put down my thoughts on paper, which is a metaphor because I type stuff on Notepad. I realized that, instead of being too open to the public, it would be better if I just talk about the books I've read, if I were to talk at all, because if I were to do anything at all, it would be to read.

IV

And what I write are essays, like diary entries (not reviews nor critiques) but within the confines of a book so the personal essay won't be too personal. I read mostly ebooks, and they are on my tablet under different folders, so I sometimes I would read one or two chapters from four or five books before I go to bed. But some of what I've been reading last week are things I find a bit complicated to talk about – the Law of Attraction, mystical healing, astral projection, lucid dreaming, "A Course In Miracles" and "The Lost Years of Jesus" and many more. In other words, I don't have a non-controversial book to write about this week. As for last week, there is a totally non-literary reason, and though I have a lot to say, I'd rather not. 

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