Dia Delos Muertos

That's Day of the Dead, quite an interesting Mexican celebration if I may say. These Mexicans believe that the spirits of those departed visit their love ones on October 31 and leave on November 2. It is a festive holiday marked by offerings such as food of what they call, pan de muertos, bread shaped in the form of skulls, incense, candles, candy skull etc. I guess our own tradition, honras funebre or undas is akin to this Mexican tradition though its not colorful and festive. Rather ours has a reunion feel to it. We see it as a chance to be with family departed or not. Which brings me to conclude that our cultures look at death with a mixture of joy and mourning or is it that we love (or miss) our departed that we still continue to wish they were near or it's that we respect or honor our ancestors very much. Perhaps too this springs from the belief that death is not the end rather the beginning of another stage. Stage? What stage?

I got bored staying in the house all day. After resting a bit from my proofreading (as if!) work, one which gave me a migraine, I decided to leave the house. I thought of scaring myself by watching a horror movie. There wasn't one so I settled for The Banquet, a Ziyi Zhang starrer. Oh how I love her movies! Just when I was about to buy me a ticket, they announced that they were closing early. The mall was practically empty and it was only 6.30 pm. I guess it's at the cemetery where most of the action is. Seing as I don't have anywhere else to go and it was still too early for me to head for home, I decided to go to the Internet cafe to continue my long overdue writeup on Flattening the Organization but blogging got me as usual.

Why am I not at the cemetery? You might ask. Well, most of my relatives are either buried in Leyte or in Cebu. I did have my share of going to the cemeteries though when I my ex was still my boyfriend. He would let me tag along with his family to the cemetery or sometimes the both of us would go there on our own to light candles and offer prayers. We don't stay that long though, I have a thing against too much crowding around me.

So maybe I got bored because it's my first time to be doing nothing on a November 01.

The guy in the next cubicle is chit chatting with someone I guess but he's laughing like crazy. I hope he woudn't strangle me or something. Oooppss tis getting late I gotta go back to my writeup.