My kind of toxic love is being woken at 4 am by two tiny paws cold on my cheek. She sneaks into my blanket and starts licking my ear with her smol tongue.
Her tongue is so tiny and full of mini sharp spikes, like velcro, it feels like sandpaper. This is how she licks herself clean and shiny. And this is how she expresses her care and affection.
Underneath the blanket, she continues to lick the back of my hands and forearms, over the red claw marks and fang bites she has made.
When I don’t get up before sunrise, little miss carnivore starts nibbling on my toes, sending me into a fit of laughter in the dead quiet of the morning.
When she finds me stirred and awake, she runs all over me under the blanket, dashing everywhere in a mad frenzy. I chase her with my hands, oh these heavily scratched hands, and we play cat and mouse — to trip, tickle, frolic, and tackle.
With her lead I learn to modulate my throat and vibrate like a cat. We purr onto each other to express pleasure and contentment.
She is only two months old. When she arrived, she went through 22 hours of land travel before she was delivered at the newly built theme park where my family and I were spending the day.
Out in the loftiest city in the country, we were surrounded by tourists and clouds, blue skies, and pine trees.
And there she was, as tiny as my palm, in a cardboard box made for a rice cooker. The poor thing, it took her two days to sleep and recover from all that tedious land travel.
It’s only been one month and she’s tripled in size. From a tiny baby she is now a toddler — hyperactive, hyperaware about her surroundings, and curious about all things that move and rattle.
Cutting her claws is probably the hardest part of caring for this feline. I’d have to tire her through long walks among pine forests and scare her among big hairy dogs that may attack and eat her.
When she’s exhausted from all that, she takes a nap and I can clip her claws. Her claws grow fairly quickly — how do they stay sharp despite me clipping them?
It’s the baths that make her a ferocious kitty, despite being washed in warm water. The water may be warm but it’s the afterbath that leaves her shivering down to her bones, what with the cold air here in the mountains.
Try as I may to keep her clean, I am left with red scratches and tiny vampire bites on my forearms. Sometimes I bite her back just to tame her.
During the day, kids as little as four years old would bang at my door early in the morning to play with my kitten. An average of about five kids come visit daily to play with her.
They have grown to love her and her ways this past month that they have started to bring her toys to play with — balls and strings, trinkets, dismembered parts of stuffed toys, rocks and marbles.
Even when I take her with me to most places I go, I am careful with things that might hurt her. She’s still a baby after all, and she still wobbles into strange places, unsure of the big world of humans around her.
For now she’s safe and warm in swathes of blankets, sleeping like a baby. Oh, my little carnivore. She is my sweet precious one.
I will outgrow these marks and bites one day, but for now these scars have become a part of me.
// 01 Oct 2024
When the storm ended last week, three little nuggets invaded my cabin.
The storm was heavy and it flooded the cities. Here in the mountains, it was clammy and freezing for a week. The sun was absent, and there was only the perpetual wind and cold. It seeped into my cabin wetting my bedsheets and blankets.
Meanwhile, my family drove through knee-deep of flood water in Manila. My sisters said they were going to visit me here and spend the holidays.
I was looking forward to bringing them to my favorite places. The blue mountains and pine forests, the bonfire sites and sweet little villages, the cultural areas and the old hanging coffins.
But they failed to keep their promise and I was a bit heart-broken.
Until then, the three eight-year-olds just walked into my cabin and decided to make it their homebase. They took over one of the three double beds. They asked for food and we prepared their favorite meals. The ramens with seaweeds, the stir-fry broccoli and shrimps, and the cheesy spiral spaghettis.
I missed my nephews and nieces that I poured my love for them towards these three little nuggets.
And when the sun came out, we made the most of the outdoors as we could. I sneaked them to backtrails and wallclimbing sites. I showed them caves where the bones of the dead used to be kept. I brought them to scrambling sites and rivers and waterfalls.
They had so much fun that they pleaded to stay and sleep in my cabin. I said yes, of course, you can stay here. But their parents came over one by one to pull them by the ear and take them home.
And when their classes ended at school, they would go straight to my place to play and hangout. Sometimes they would even bring their pets such as kittens, baby crabs, and hamsters.
They remind me so much of my own childhood and my many animal friends. Every bit of pleasure they had gave me so much enjoyment. And I gave them the freedom to experience nature in return.
“My mother wouldn’t let me do this,” one would say.
“My dad said we can’t go to the waterfalls anymore. It’s dangerous,” another would say.
“I don’t like you anymore, you have so many rules. It’s not fun,” the third would say.
The more time we spent together, I realized we had to work through so much of the bickering and the foul jokes. We made rules such as no shouting, no punching, and no stealing. Follow your parents, don’t talk back to your parents, and no lying to your parents. Etc.
Every unacceptable behavior was met with a 10-second tickling by the rest of us. It was pure torture. They didn’t make a single mistake after that.
I remember my four older siblings would kill me from tickling all my sides and feet when I was little. Looking back, it was the worst experience, being ganged on and tortured and bullied physically until I ran out of breath.
It’s payback time now. We have to pass on our dark memories somehow, constructively, to the next generation.
My long hair got frizzy from spending three months on a tiny tropical island, so I had a haircut. I also cut my own bangs. Cos I’m eight. :3
// 08 Aug 2024
There are a million things we can do in the world.
And relocating to El Nido was one of the better decisions I’ve ever made.
I met two new island folks — DJ Couscous and an acroyoga coach named Eugene.
We went on this guy’s partyboat, on the worst and least booked island tour.
The boat was a double decker, where you can jump into the water from the upper deck.
And the islands we went to were the least crowded.
But we saw the same gorgeous limestone islands of Bacuit Bay.
It wasn’t just the islands we wanted to see, or the ocean to swim in.
It was the DJ’s music we went here for, along with the growing expat community.
And his music played all day like we were in a beach club.
I met Eugene at a hostel one hour before the tour.
He was the first to speak to me and he asked, “How did you feel about love this morning?” What a pick-up line. Lol
When he said he was a yoga teacher I asked him to join me on a partyboat tour.
Others were skeptical about what we were doing on the side of the boat.
But we all had fun eventually, with some guys and gals also trying acroyoga.
None of these people practiced yoga, but Eugene was solid on his groundwork. Even with his recent motorbike injuries.
The sun was about to set and the music was getting even better.
When the day ended, it was the worst island tour ever, but DJ Couscous made it the best one for sure.
// 08 Feb 2024
