It starts off early in the morning as an optimistic kind of lemon yellow. Around 10 am, it turns into a sort of pallid, regretful grayish gold. Noon to about 4 pm features an oppressive, debilitating platinum yellow. This is followed by about an hour and half of apologetic ochre. Finally, like a Filipino parent ashamed by a particularly unjust display of
cariño brutal, the sun hides behind manila's smog-kissed clouds and the light leaches into the sky as a neapolitan shock of dull purple, dull peach, dull blue.
I'm rediscovering that my anxiety in Vancouver was partly linked to anguage and internalized racism. English, which I spoke exclusively while in Canada, is the language of my intellect, my most complicated thoughts, my most eloquent emotions. It is
not, however, the language of my simple joys, of jests and friendly insults, the language in which my daily rituals of breathing, eating, shitting, sleeping are inscribed. English is not the language with which I can most effectively curse my fears, mock my terrors, nor insult my anxieties. English has a brittle, complex, crystalline taste that i appreciate; but English, on my tongue, does not sate my hunger. On my lips, it does not sing.
Of course, I exaggerate a little. My spoken English is digging its way into the core of my being; besides, I'm learning how to imbue my English with the vitality of my Tagalog.
The only question that remains: in which language do I love? And
that I don't even want to think about right now. :)
~This is Amsterdam, not Manila, but it's a pretty good simulation of what sunsets in Manila are like, everyday, courtesy of pollution and volcanic particulates.~ 
