the great storyteller

i was there standing at the bus station waiting for a ride home. facing the sun, i did not move away. i wanted to savor its glorious heat.  working on a night shift, one needs to take advantage of the morning sunlight.  it is said sunlight is a good source of  vitamin c. 

it was about 10 in the morning but the sun's warmth is comforting.  i squinted my eyes and peripherally looked at this amazing disc of life.  i wondered how long she will last. how many generations more of earth life will she sustain. amazing, indeed! saint francis of assisi called it Brother Sun.  well, thanks so very much for life, brother sun!

there were others in that bus stop.  there were this group of very young people.  judging from the way they dressed and looked they were part of the city's young vagrants.  they just chose this bus stop to while the time away. horsing around.  i am saddened at this sight. young lives wasting away.  time slipping by and yet these young lives are somehow going to what direction, i wonder?  where are their parents?  why are they not at school? 

horsing around. this is what they do. i looked at them. one looked back at me and extended an open palm and contorted her face to approximate a forlorn face.  begging me for a coin or two.  yet, my heart is hard this time and i did not give any.  realizing i am not falling for her sad face she closed her hand and formed a fist instead and smiled mockingly at me.  she turned her attention to her group. one of them, a boy of about thirteen, had somehow captivated this young audience.  he is regaling them with his stories and the other five were really so engrossed except for the girl who tried to beg from me. she listened with an incredulous face.  all of a sudden, she pinched the storyteller hard on the boy's left forearm. 

" OUCH !!! "  the boy shouted in alarm and rained curses and expletives on the girl.  he even raised a fist at her that made the girl to scamper away.

" that's for telling us those tall tales, " she shouted back, " your "Ouch" is the only truth you mentioned this morning! "


while on the bus home i thought of what the girl had said.  it's true.  many times we are lost in words.  when we communicate we tend to rain words on the person we are communicating with.  we flood them with unnecessary things.  what could be said in two or three words, we try to say in twenty.  most times, this tendency for verbiage  causes miscommunication and misinterpretation.


this is why i'm ending this story now.  something might be lost in translation ...

our houses

"what is your address?"

"where do you live?  where is your house located?"

i was at the mall biding my time away when i happened to pass by this booth.  there is this company which is recruiting  people for jobs. i stopped by and read the posters on their bulletin board.  job vacancies. 

there was a young man seated near where i stood and he was undergoing some sort of preliminary interview.  the questions above were from the young lady who was conducting the interview.  i surmised the young man was not able to answer properly the first question so the lady had to rephrase it.  the young man was obviously nervous.  he kept fidgeting in his seat.  i'm guessing this was his first interview or he is desperately in need of the job.  this has always been this way with me.  i become nervous when i'm doing a thing for the very first time or when i'm desperate to get the thing done. i silently wished the young man good luck on his job hunting and walked away.  they say during these job interviews, it is always best to leave a good first impression on the interviewer.  well, by the looks of it, the young man might not leave a good one this time. but, he'll learn.  they also say the surest way to learn to do a thing right is to do it many times over.

i was sipping coffee when the above questions hit me again --"what is your address?" "where do you live?  where is your house located?"   i answered these mentally. gave my complete address including the zip code.  i even added my house phone number automatically.  all of a sudden, these flashed from a corner of my mind -- house of Dior,  house of Yves Saint Laurent, house of the seven gables, the house of Usher, house of the Rising Sun -- i don't know why these came up.

i sipped my cold coffee and turned these over my mind.  houses can have names too, i concluded.  and houses can have reputations too.  the house of Dior and YSL are prestigious fashion houses.  the houses of the seven gables and of usher were made famous in the works of nathaniel hawthorne and edgar allan poe respectively.  the house of the rising sun was in that popular song by that english rock band the animals and yet it was said this was originally a traditional folk ballad whose authorship was uncertain.

so, again, i asked myself, "what is your address?" "where do you live?  where is your house located?"

this is what i answered:  i live inside my body. so my house is my body.  the house of sito.  it is located where i am.  right now, i am inside this mall.  this house of sito is not famous nor is it infamous. it is a simple house.  it is where i am hoping the Infinite will dwell always.  it is where i find solace, peace, music, and light.

my house. it will not last long, i know, but the one that resides in it will, and will carry its memories, its lessons. and so this house must always feel right, feel good, feel homey.