My Real Treasures

Treasures

"Sometimes." said Pooh,

"the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

They're short. Good-looking, if I may say so myself. In pre-K, just graduated from pre-K, and entering second grade, respectively. They're my Real Treasures.

I've witnessed all three of them take their first unsteady steps. I've vigilantly held up a throw-up basin by their bed when they got sick. I've occasionally cleaned their butts, Filipino-style, with soap and water in a tabo. I've summoned them with the distinctive Filipino, Psst, with my pointy lips. 

I've snuck in unhealthy treats (Hubba Bubba gumballs, chocolate "ring" cookies, "MMs," sour gummies, and "valilla" ice cream) to their delight and to their Mums' displeasure; arrived early during Christmas and end-of-school programs to get a front-row seat; and clapped shamelessly, as if they were the sole stars, at the end of each performance.

1.

The youngest of my Real Treasures just turned five, celebrating the occasion at Chuck E. Cheese's. Originally, her plan was to host a potion-making party in Grandma's house. Among others, BJ whom she claims has a crush on her, was going to be invited. BJ is her Dad's new, black Lab who chews on people's hands inappropriately because he thinks he's a puppy. 

She takes forever to shop at Claire's Boutique, carefully weighing what item she can afford to buy with the five dollars in her Minnie Mouse purse that she just earned from doing house chores. 

Sounding very much like the TV cartoon character Peppa Pig, she articulates the word Mummie with a proper sounding lilting English accent. A self-proclaimed "expert on Easton mall," she quickly spots Chuy's and Melt, her favorite "restnants." She claims to be Katy Perry's number one fan and is an enthusiastic ComFest follower, well-taught in its jazz and rock music. She will not pass up the chance to splash about in a fountain or mud puddle. Certainly a summer favorite are the wave pool and Slippery Seals body slide at the Zoombezi water park. Try it. It's lovely! she enjoins us, with so much feeling, pronouncing her vowels fully and rounded out. 

She knows she is her Mum's Dream Come True.

2.

The long-tressed five-year-old absolutely adores all kinds of furry stuffed animals, although the now-scruffy purple Bunny remains as her favorite. I can see her propped up on her pillow, a bevy of My Little Ponies - Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Princess Celestia - all around her, taking up most of the space on her princess-themed bed. In the mall with Santa, she floated royally in her red Elena of Avalor ballgown and tiara, her upturned face affirming that Santa was, and always will be, love and magic and hope and happiness.

She's fearless. During visits to the pediatrician, she volunteers to be the first to get the scheduled shot. Not sure that she'd be doing a sleepover in the condo with us, she mutters, Did I pack for nothing? - without looking up and continuing to nonchalantly play on her computer learning station. She loves make believe - growling like a cheetah trying to escape out of a cage of stacked-up pillows, or taking the role of a makeup artist fastidiously brushing and putting makeup on Doggie or Dino for a fashion show. 

She wants to be a vet, practicing her skills on her stuffed animals in a Pet Clinic that her Mum had set up. Her older brother and I roll up my eyes whenever she hoards all the Slap Jack cards before doling the deck out so she can get the upperhand in slapping the Jack. Heaven forbid that someone else should beat her to it or her face will darken with the grudging remark, No fair. Game over. 

Her Mum tells her she is God's Promise, An Angel from Heaven.

3.

The seven-year-old is the first grandchild in our nuclear family - an early Christmas gift that has blessed us all to no end. He has always loved cars and would point to each vehicle passing by, saying emphatically, Cah! - one of his first words. Now he can identify, correctly and without hesitation, the makes and models of every vehicle that passes by. He tells us, with an impish smile coming to his lips, that he will buy a Porsche when he grows up. 

He now reads "chapter" books and has taken a liking to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Earlier on, he was observed performing a made-up classical piece on the keyboard, replete with the dynamism and expressiveness of a maestro the likes of Mozart whom he also admires. Piano lessons which he recently started taking should lead him onto the masters' path.

Give him a Lego construction set, and his dexterity comes to life - creatively putting together disparate shapes into his own unique design. Not surprisingly, he has of late taken an interest in robotics. For a class at a STEM summer camp, he built Flying Bird and later, Giant, out of Legos, both of which he programmed on the computer. Recently a prize winner in a school poster contest, he has shown proficiency in the visual arts as well. 

Equally adept in sports, he has proven himself to be a swift and passionate Dirty Dawg flag football player on the field, and then turns around to surprise the family when he performed keiki hula footwork and hand motions during the school's Mayday celebration.

He knows he is a Miracle From Heaven.

*****

By the wonder of their creation, by their smallness, and their amiability, my Real Treasures have made me realize that the greatest moments in life are the simplest, and that the world with all its little things inspires the most delight.

Turn Around, Bright Eyes

On Monday, August 21, 2017, all of North America was treated to one of nature’s most awe-inspiring sights - a total solar eclipse which was seen from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina.  The moon completely covered the sun and its corona. 
In Columbus, observers saw a partial solar eclipse that lasted for two hours and 48 minutes, beginning at 1:04 pm, with maximum coverage at 2:30 pm, and ending at 3:52 pm.
The seventh hour is 1 pm, if one begins to count the hours of the day at sunrise, or approximately at what is six o'clock in the morning.                                                               

Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I'm only falling apart;

And there's nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the heart.

Turn around, bright eyes. - Song, Bonnie Tyler

It is early morning, that strange time when the air tastes wet and the sky is starting to lift second by second from the darkness. The light is flat and muffled, colors indistinct. I anxiously wait for the sun to break through.

At mid-morning, I see it - a faint golden glow appearing on the horizon. The light is streaming down between puffy clouds. It feels like theater to me, and the stage is stunning. A beautiful day, I whisper to the wind. 

The sun has lit the leaves of the crab apple tree in the front garden. A snatch of sky peaks through, a mosaic in blue and green that shifts gently with the breeze. I stare into it, allowing my focus to soften. There is nothing unusual in the scene. 

But something phenomenal is about to happen. Together, the sun and moon will occupy the sky on the seventh hour, I say softly, looking around warily.

I check the time. It's now well past noon. Already the day is hot and humid. I shield my eyes and cast a long glance upward. The gleam making a slit of bright color on the deck makes me blink. I know the sun will continue to rise huge and heavy overhead, a burning, shimmering sphere that will later pour its heat, but for now it's holding in its breath only the premonition of what will come. 

At 1 p.m., the moon, passing across, begins to shut off the beams of the sun. I run to the back window and peer out into the sky. Across the yard I can see a ghostly cloud above the housetops blotting out the sun. It's not quite black outside, just disagreeably gray. I press my lips together in concern. Zeus, father of the Olympic gods, is turning midday into shadows.

As darkness passes in the same way all over the world, I try to appreciate the nuances of color but try as I may, I can only see a lackluster palette of dreariness. It is as if an evil mist is hovering over to eclipse the heart.

Turn around, bright eyes, I tell myself, waving a finger in an arc like a magician performing a trick. The sun has to be up there somewhere in all that murk. 

After some space of time, almost on the tenth hour, the sun gradually unveils itself. A dramatic slash at the horizon shows a delicate pink beyond, as though there is a world with its own sun on the reverse side of the cloud. Then radiance bursts from behind a westering cloud bank, dazzling with unexpected brightness.

Never in my life before has sunshine looked so good. 

No longer falling apart, my heart sings as the light returns.

My Treasures

Treasures

A box without hinges, key, or lid,

Yet golden treasure inside is hid. - JRR Tolkien

My Treasures are in a black boot box, re-purposed to hold small and simple things that to me have become dear and familiar. Like a system of secret caves, they take me into that split bit of being when time and space have no meaning, and warmth envelops me in the overflow of love's arms.

1.

A tiny pink card with a Hip Hop Hop sticker for a stamp. Inside, a small heart carefully drawn in ballpoint ink, followed by a dash and an uppercase U. Love You.

A floral design with real yellow lily petals and an appropriately-bent green pipe cleaner for the stem and a leaf, mounted on pink construction paper.

A helicopter cut out from blue construction paper with crossed popsicle sticks for rotor blades flies in the sky filled with cotton ball clouds. At the bottom is the inscription: If I flew on a helicopter I would visit my Grandma's house.

The name signature is peculiar: the first three block letters are in proper sequence, but the final letter suddenly has taken precedence over the first three.   

A three-page story book made out of ruled notebook paper, stapled on the right-hand side, so the pages flip from right to left. Illustrated are three stick figures of graduated size. Their hair is spiky. They all have exaggerated smiles and their arms are held up high in the sky. On the last page is revealed the reason for the exuberance - a bright sun whose rays reach down to touch the arms of one of the stick figures. Their faces are turned toward the sun.

A flip-flop shaped stationery page with numbers meticulously inscribed thereon. They start with 5, going down as in a countdown to 1, then continue on the second line in proper numeric order from 6 thru 10. 

2.

An invitation, promising that butterflies and ladybugs will flit, as her birthday candle is lit. Two-thirds of the page is filled with an endearing photo - all chubby cheeks, a button nose, her signature "paci," a dimpled smile, and hair curlicues adorned with a white polka-dotted bow, topped with a floppy sun bonnet.

A blue hand print mounted on a homemade card. The typed inscription says:

This is my hand.

My hand will do a thousand loving things for you.

And you will remember, when I am tall, 

that once my hand was just this small.

The handwritten signature in pencil, in upper and lowercase, is carefully crafted, some of the letters bending toward the left, the others upright - all slightly wobbly but distinct. 

A Monet-like watercolor abstract of circles and emanating lines, all entangled: in primary colors, slightly muddied with brown. A seemingly insignificant dot is strategically drawn on the side. It is a bug.

A drawing in ballpoint ink. I can tell from the exaggerated long, curly lines that extend from the figure's head, along the side, way past the entire figure's delineation, that it is a self-portrait.

A minimalist rendition of grandparents: two stick figures with a head, arms jutting out of the face where the ears should be, and legs. They have large round eyes made out of incomplete circles and a happy smile. Both lack a body.

3.

A hoppy greeting card shaped like a frog, looking upon a gift-bearing bug wearing a birthday hat. Inside is a printed wish, Hope it's unFROGgettable! made prominent with yellow crayon rays all around it. Randomly filling both inside pages of the card are festive though indistinct scribbles and shapes in various colors and a penciled-in signature. Unlike previous name signatures, the final letter S no longer faces backward.

A lei made out of red, blue, yellow, and green construction paper- each piece cut and curled to emulate petals, then strung together. A paper box constructed from scratch, riddled with staples and tape. It is empty. 

A neatly-delineated scenery on a flat, grassy plain with symmetrically-placed details of two houses, each with a couple of glass pane windows and a chimney. Between them is a yellow butterfly. Flanking each on the outer side are yellow multi-petal flowers and palm trees. Hovering overhead are three red, larger butterflies. The sky color graduates from a yellowish-green on the left side to a broader blue. In beautiful tightly-spaced lettering, the inscription on the top reads, Sight Is Beautiful. It is a third prize poster winner. 

*****

Such are My Priceless Treasures.

On those days that seem to be a duplicate of the ones before in regimented routine, I know that I can simply look into my stash to find fragments like the fluttering glints of gold in the dark.

In the static air of my room, I relish the thought that I'll have many more notes and crafts that will leave their mark on me. But right now, my world and its treasures have shrunk to fit just perfectly inside a box.

King Tut's Gold

Treasures

Because the ancient Egyptians saw their pharaohs as gods, they carefully preserved their bodies after death, burying them in elaborate tombs containing rich treasures to accompany the rulers into the afterlife. When King Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered in 1922, despite rumors that a curse would befall anyone who disturbed it, its treasures were carefully catalogued, removed, and included in a famous traveling exhibition called Treasures of Tutankhamen.

At first I can see nothing. Darkness closes in around me, thick and tangible. I blink to clear it, to see something in its depths, but there is nothing. The air seems lifeless, melancholy, filled only with shadows. 

Presently, my eyes grow accustomed to the light. Details of the exhibit room in the Field Museum in Chicago emerge slowly - strange animals, statues, ornaments, jewels. The glint of gold is everywhere. 

The Treasures of Tutankhamun. It is nothing short of magnificent.

The gold sarcophagus of the boy king who was only nineteen years old when he died is in a larger room. I pause for breath as the stunning death mask, a striped headdress typically worn by pharaohs in ancient Egypt, comes to view. At the end of the broad collar are terminals shaped like falcon heads. Regal.

It originally rested directly on the shoulders of the mummy inside the innermost gold coffin. The inscription reads, Constructed of two sheets of hammered gold.
Total  weight: 22.5 pounds. Dazzling.

I grimly observe a small wood and ebony chair with lion paw legs. He likely used that as his royal seat, I mumble in a quiet voice.

I narrow my eyes at the sight of a golden ceremonial dagger and sheath. What for? Protection in the afterlife? Of course. It is meant to be an answer, but it sounds like a question. I give out a laugh, a little bark.

And yet, despite all the royal glimmer, I experience a yawning emptiness that I hope my face does not show. There is an odd dissonance, a vibration, as though my foot had hit a loose board setting something in motion, making the morning seem sad. 

Maybe because I just remembered the story about a certain man who, when he died, took his gold bricks to heaven. When he arrived, the angel looked at him in astonishment saying, You brought pavement? 

Crown Jewels

Treasures

Are diamonds and various other gems and precious stones a girl's best friend? That is the question. 

I'm going to find out soon enough. I'm on my way to the Tower's Jewel House in London to view the reputedly awe-inspiring collection of crown jewels of the British monarchy.

It's undoubtedly precious, as evidenced by the noticeable presence of security. Soldiers of the Tower Guard stand at attention at the entrance. Thirty-eight so-called Yeomen Warders and armed police officers are patrolling the area dutifully. 

Like I would dare a heist, I say under my breath with a wicked grin. Have I mentioned that I know about the more than a hundred hidden CCTV cameras that are watching us? I shrug a small shrug. 

In the anteroom, we watch the obligatory video of the history and use of the crown jewels. Some of us respond with a breathless murmur of wonderment. The rest of the time, we're quiet, as if we were holding our breath.

As lights come on, quietude gives way to a burst of applause. A presenter takes front view. Behind his glasses, he opens his eyes wide in a gesture that makes his eyebrows dart up his forehead. Then he puffs himself up like a sparrow fluffing its feathers against the wind and intones:

Mi' lords and ladies, today we hold an old accustomed feast,

Whereto I have invited many a guest

Such as I love. And you among the store,

One more, most welcome, makes my number more.

His crisp enunciation has the purity of a well-tuned bell.

Look to behold 

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.

I gather as much that we're being invited to a feast that has been celebrated for many years. The welcome has been extended to us and many close friends as well. We can expect to see dazzling stars (the jewels, no less!) that walk on the ground and light the sky from below. Poetic.

We enter through vault doors containing electronic beams and steel shutters. The treasures themselves are displayed in the order they are used in the ceremony. Handel's coronation anthems can be heard throughout. The King shall rejoice. 

A beam of light projects intensely through the two-inch shatter-proof glass and onto the jewels resting majestically on French velvet. Let thy hand be strengthened.

I review the regalia collection. What is that? A spoon? I ask myself with a chuckle. What could be its possible use in a royal ceremony? I must have missed that vital information from the video. Anyway, it's 800 years old and silver-gilt.

I come upon the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross, on top of which is set a 530.2 carat Great Star of Africa, allegedly the largest colourless (note the very British spelling with the u) cut diamond in the world. Now, that's enormous, I wryly observe.   

Another crown. St. Edward's. Solid gold. Must weigh a ton, I mumble  in a low voice.

Looking now at Queen Elizabeth's crown, I can't help bursting out. What?! On top are 2,800 diamonds including the most famous diamond in the Jewel House, the Koh-i-Nûr or Mountain of Light. 

Heavy, indeed, is the head that wears the crown, I sigh theatrically, muttering the king's words in Henry IV in empathy.

There must be over a hundred objects, vestments, processional and anointing items, gold and silver plates, christening fonts, scepters, rings and bracelets, swords, and orbs. I'm getting tired. Bored, perhaps? After a while, the opulent objects all start looking alike to me. 

Are these treasures a girl's best friend? I invoke the character in the Rainman movie.

I don't think so. No. Definitely not.