The Blog

Raymund L. Fernandez
Kinutil / Cebu Daily News / August 17, 2014

"Do a blog!", his friend said, one evening, over drinks set on a glass table. Over there, the ash tray, some saucers, half empty now. His eyes follow a trail of glass upwards to the little jasmine tree a bit to the right of him. It is blooming blue polka dots tonight. His eyes immediately searched for the moon. He found it. It flew over a squadron of clouds. 

"It will not rain tonight!" he blurted out, realizing only too late how disconnected his answer was. Now he will have to explain himself. 

The friend on the other hand was not surprised with this answer. He knew he could take it as a yes. He has known him this long. They go back a long way.

The Moon on August 12,2014 / Estela Ocampo-Fernandez

Tonight the moon cast a light shade of blue over their group of friends. There is a garden of potted plants in the left hand side of the balcony. They are a group of friends, 6 tonight, but usually numbering anywhere from 4 to 7. They hang out here when there is no rain, this garden of good friends going along in years, but still quite young. Since it is always a good thing to be young, then let it be. 

Who was it who said? There must always be the young child inside us from whence comes the best things we ever do in our lives. Isn't it true? We must always nurture this little child as if it were a young tree. Like jasmine perhaps? We need more than a small measure of discipline to do this. The tree like a little child inside us, here, even now, that we are grown along in years.

Do a blog? He nods his head. And then finally, after a bit of a pause says: "Yes!" 

And how emphatically he states it. "Yes!" And then waits just a single second before quickly adding: "But it will still not rain tonight!"

"Don't worry about it. I'll help!" Estela tells him from across the table. She likes the idea. Danny takes this as final guarantee it will be done. And so here it is: kinutilthefamily.blogspot.com.

He guesses a blog is only a place that points to other places, like a doorway to a house. Every place must be an address on the map inside our heads. Every name is an address that must give us clue how to find it. Hopefully, "kinutilthefamily" will be easy to find. Hopefully, we will visit here from time to time. 

It will of course have "kinutil", the column, published through Cebu Daily News twice weekly. We should buy CDN whenever we can. CDN is a good idea we should help keep alive by buying the paper. "Keeping alive good ideas" is the first intent of kinutil and kinutilthefamily, since they are also good ideas. And how else do good ideas survive in the world over time?

Pictures give birth to words. Words are signs we exchange between us to tell each other how things do look and feel, what we sense, what we feel and think. Words are the medium by which we exchange notes between each other in order to describe the world about us. Ideas are the smell of jasmine under a moonlit night.

Kinutilthefamily will have a lot of words. If words are our pleasure, we will find a lot of that here - that and pictures. This is a place for finding art and literature and other things that cannot live in a place without good friends. The name comes with an invitation to keep alive certain things. It comes with an invitation for a regular visit as good friends do.

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