Both of them tell me that it's important for me to keep a journal. Not the moleskin ones because that would be too expensive for someone with as tight a budget as I have. Both of them have said, at separate times, of course, that it would be better if I kept one of those small ones that can fit easily in the tiny purses I carry. That way, whenever an idea pops up, I would be able to reach in any inane purse I was carrying and speedily jot down what I've thought of, else, it will be lost. One of them said it is possible for these thoughts, these magical phrases to be lost forever.

I've been home for almost a week now and have experienced those rarities flittering in and out, as if they were guests that were too busy. I took too much of their delightful time. There was one moment yesterday afternoon when I thought up a fabulous beginning for an insanely romantic story about a woman with long hair, coming in from the rain. I find the occurence of rain romantic. Once, I imagined a whole stanza for a song. There were, of course, the lilting voices of phrases, keen on maintaining the distance between me and the rest of the text that I was supposed to make them fit in.

People like me --- people who don't keep notebooks within reach, who easily forget the occasional key in certain locks, who neglect turning out the lights --- have it easy. We say, Oh, I've forgotten, when the truth of it is we're believers in the temporariness of things. Seeing a part of some vast and incomprehensible whole doesn't mean that you'll understand eventually. Being the sole witness to a singularly spectacular phrase doesn't mean that it is yours to write about. People like me do not get to own anything or anyone and in return, we flounder; we go through life mostly by ourselves. What we want are witnesses, like the two people I mentioned earlier, companions who will remind me what the essentials are, what things should be accomplished today. I always maintain that each day is vastly different from the day before it. I'm talking Mars and Bigfoot. I'm talking eggs and rainbows. The morning light goes loom and you're different from who you were at 11:59pm.

Everything is so extraordinarily transient. Don't you see? Tomorrow, I can say that I've decided to be a tiger. And that's what I'll be for the day. I'll prowl and hunt and roll around under the sun. I'll talk with my fellow tigers with short but persuasive growls. Then tomorrow, it'll all be different. Tomorrow, I'll be a vase. Then you can put daffodils in me. You can water the daffodils, even put some plant vitamins with it. It's always easier to imagine that you can be something completely different, that simple things like daffodils, water, and vitamins are all you're really allowed to contain.