i carry your heart with me(i carry it on my ears)

e.e. cummings is stirring in his grave right about now because I have just bastardized one of his well-loved poems. Sorry, e.e.. I love your work, but your poem was asking for it - asking to be used on a blog post about earrings.

Chill e. , because I'm pushing this a bit further and putting you in good company by quoting the Nolan brothers in their Memento screenplay:

 Leonard Shelby: Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts.

Well, Christopher and Jason, your stuff about memory is spot on. Except the last part that is. This should go like this: "And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have ... earrings." Yes, earrings. 

Okay, enough dissin' great poets and great moviemakers and let me tell you why of all the stuff I've bought and have been given from different places, my earrings hold the most memories. [insert flashback music here] 

1. Cebu


My stash from the Queen City of the South always reminds me of hardest year for me, and that was 2008. I've been through tougher situations since then, but you know what they say, the first cut is the deepest. Or as Jesse talks in Before Sunset about dealing with tougher stuff, but being more equipped to handle them. In 2008, my worldview changed - I stopped being naive and started being more realistic and more self-aware.

Top: Capiz shell earrings I got for P10.00 a pair from the stalls beside the Sutukil restaurants in Mactan. Bottom left: Lapu-Lapu, moi, Au, and Rej. Bottom right: With Gail at the Taoist Temple. 

Don't get me wrong, two of the best things in my life happened in '08 too. But my earrings from that time remind me that I said yes to the three-week business trip because I needed to get away and forget. They remind me of the people who barely knew me but consoled me and kept me moving when I wasn't up for anything. Of the people I've developed friendships with, friendships that I know are for keeps.

2. Iloilo


Still in '08, the same company sent me to Iloilo for two weeks. It was a reunion of sorts with two of the most sensible people I met at different times in my life - Joyce, an Iloilo local, who had, at that time, been my friend for three years, and with Dan, who was part of the Cebu gang.

 Left photos - Top: With Joyce and my trainees. Middle: An hour-long stay in Guimaras with Joyce. Bottom: At Buto't Balat Restaurant in Iloilo with Dan, Dwight, and Joyce. 



The earrings I got in Iloilo were parting presents from my trainees. They found out about my fascination with native stuff because I had asked them information about the local market and the sorts of things I was looking for.

3. New Zealand


In 2010, the same company that sent me to Cebu and Iloilo  sent me to New Zealand (I guess when you're with a company for five years, these things are bound to happen).

Bottom left: At a farmers market in Auckland where I got the coconut husk earrings. Right: Moi rockin' my Iloilo earrings at the Orbit Rotating Restaurant in Auckland (Photos, except that of the earrings, by Emil Bigornia). 

My earrings from NZ, I got from Pacific Islanders peddling stuff at a farmers market. The memory they evoke, you say? They remind me of my shameless attempt to haggle for a lower price despite our Kiwi mentors warning us beforehand that there is no culture of haggling in NZ. The result, you ask? The seller asked me if I was Filipino, and he said it was because he overheard me speaking in my native language with a companion and not because I tried haggling. Right. 

4. Other Parts


Within the same company that sent me to Cebu, Iloilo, and New Zealand, I made a  friend, who's well-travelled and who's made it his lifelong mission to bring me earrings from all the foreign countries he visits (hint, hint Emil).

The Emil Bigornia collection. Clockwise: Phuket, Thailand; Taipei, Taiwan; Bali, Indonesia; Torrevieja, Spain; Guangzhou, China; and Bangkok, Thailand.


These earrings from Emil obviously hold no memories for me of the places where they come from. Not yet. They are instead reminders of the places I have yet to visit and the earrings and the memories yet to be taken away.

This is my entry to Pinoy Travel Bloggers' Blog Carnival for July 2013, with the theme "Memorable Travel Souvenirs, Objects and Mementos," hosted by Jun Baris of galangpusa.

Check out  the complete list of past carnivals.

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