Existential Musings – Frame of Mind

The Blue Tsunami

**“Nature Yields to No King”**
This editorial cartoon was inspired by Japanese artist Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.” As a meditation on impermanence, the Blue Tsunami of 2026 stands as a stark harbinger of a shifting American landscape. It is a philosophical reminder to Washington’s elite: billionaire money and executive hubris can attempt to build walls, but they will always be swept away when the ocean of public desperation finally decides to move.
*Disclosure: This editorial cartoon is an AI-generated image created via* *Nano Banana 2* *based on conceptual prompts provided by this author.*

In the closing weeks of October 2026, President Donald J. Trump pleaded with his MAGA base to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”

On November 3, 2026, America responded. What was predicted as a possible “blue wave” turned out to be a massive blue tsunami, catching many poll watchers off guard. The Democratic Party didn’t just gain a majority in the House of Representatives; they also flipped the Senate. Driven by massive turnout in an election cycle that historically sees tepid voter participation, the results were a staggering surprise. In the words of some TV political pundits, the Democrats truly outdid themselves.

Expectations vs Reality

Heading into the 2026 midterm elections, the Democratic Party held optimistic but cautious expectations of a blue wave that could flip control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This momentum was fueled by deep voter dissatisfaction over Trump’s handling of the war, high fuel prices, and anxiety over the cost of living. Democrats were confident they could reclaim the House majority (needing a baseline of 218 seats) by flipping just three seats to take control of the chamber. At the time of this writing, Democrats lead comfortably with 245 seats to the Republicans’ 147.

Flipping the Senate was seen as a much tougher task, considering the staggering amount of money billionaire donors poured into electing and defending Republican candidates. Elon Musk alone shelled out an estimated $483 million to super PACs supporting Republican candidates, with much of it targeting Texas, Musk’s adopted home state. Prior to the midterms, Republicans held a 53-to-47 seat advantage. A day after the elections, the tables have turned: Democrats are poised to control the chamber with 54 seats, alongside 2 independents, leaving Republicans with 44 seats. The most stunning victories occurred in historically conservative or highly competitive states, highlighted by wins from James Talarico (Texas), Adam Hamilton (Kansas), Annie Andrews (South Carolina), Roy Cooper (North Carolina), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Josh Turek (Iowa), Troy Jackson (Maine), and Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan).

The Gargantuan Cost of Midterm Elections

According to media reports, the top 40 megadonors pumped an unprecedented $2.4 billion into the 2026 midterm elections by mid-October alone. To put that into perspective, that is roughly equivalent to what the entire government of Afghanistan spends in a single year to operate. All spent on a single election cycle—and not even a presidential one at that!

These megadonors did not line up behind just one party. While the top donors heavily favored Republicans this cycle by a three-to-one margin, significant funding flooded both sides. Strikingly, bipartisan big spenders—largely representing cryptocurrency, online gambling, AI, and pro-Israel interests—poured nearly as much money into both parties as the top donors who gave exclusively to Democrats. Prominent special interest entities leading this charge included crypto giants Coinbase and Ripple Labs.

Overall, ad industry tracker AdImpact reported that ad spending this cycle hit a staggering $11.6 billion, surpassing the $11.2 billion spent in the 2024 presidential election. OpenSecrets, a non-partisan research group tracking money in politics, pegged total spending for these midterms as on track to reach $11.9 billion.¹

The Megadonors

I am betting my ass that Musk did not stake nearly half a billion dollars just to preserve budget cuts on “government waste.” He spent that money to protect his billions in equity and shield his 90-odd business entities in Texas alone.² Now that the Democrats are poised to control state and national policies, his business concerns—which rely heavily on government contracts and largess, most notably SpaceX and Tesla—may face far greater legislative scrutiny.

SpaceX is heavily dependent on NASA and Department of Defense contracts, holding over $22 billion in federal awards. Tesla similarly grew and was nurtured by government support and favorable regulations over the years, including a $465 million Department of Energy loan in 2010. Furthermore, a massive slice of Tesla’s profits historically comes from selling regulatory and zero-emissions credits to traditional automakers unable to meet government fleet-emission standards.

Following the election, the immediate financial toll was evident. According to a report by the Turkish state-run news outlet Anadolu Agency, Elon Musk was poised to lose billions in valuation across his business holdings tied to the massive loss of Republican power. Tesla shares fell 5.7%, while SpaceX reportedly dropped 7.6% in early trading, putting immediate pressure on Musk’s fortune.

Musk wasn’t the only billionaire trying to shape the landscape. The second largest contributors to the Republican war chest were industrialists Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, owners of the shipping and packaging giant Uline. In Silicon Valley, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz focused their capital on shaping regulations around cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. Hedge fund investor Jeff Yass aggressively pushed a school-choice agenda centered on private and charter school vouchers. Meanwhile, Miriam Adelson, majority owner of Las Vegas Sands, focused her influence on pro sports, gaming, and far-right pro-Israel policies.

Even the tech sector’s famous Winklevoss twins—Cameron and Tyler—poured money into the cycle. Best known from “The Social Network” for suing Mark Zuckerberg over the creation of Facebook, the brothers turned their landmark settlement and early Facebook stock into a massive $11 million investment in Bitcoin, becoming prominent figures in the crypto-political funding wave.

On the Democratic side, the party’s own PAC, Majority Forward, served as a primary financial engine. Coming in right behind them was the father-son duo of George and Alexander Soros, who contributed over $103 million while continuing to channel their family wealth into global philanthropic and civic causes. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg made a massive late-campaign push, dropping an additional $36 million just days before the election to bring his total contributions close to $116 million, with a heavy focus on gun safety advocacy. Rounding out the top individual Democratic backers was LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who gave $16 million to a super PAC backing James Talarico’s historic Texas senate run while managing his broader business focus on high-emotional-intelligence AI models and therapeutic drug discovery.

With the dust settling on a multi-billion dollar battlefield, the map has been thoroughly redrawn, proving that even a historic deluge of conservative megadonor cash couldn’t stop the momentum of the blue tsunami.

The New Kids on the Political Donors Block

In 2010, an advocacy group successfully challenged the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which had barred corporations and labor unions from airing election-related communications and ads endorsing or opposing a political candidate close to an election. That group was Citizens United, founded in 1988 as a non-profit membership organization dedicated to conservative political causes.

In the years prior to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, labor unions and traditional special interest groups played the dominant role in campaign contributions. However, in 2010, the nation’s highest court ruled that the government cannot restrict independent political expenditures by corporations, unions, and non-profit organizations, equating political spending with protected speech under the First Amendment.

The court’s decision split sharply along ideological lines. The five conservative justices—Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito (appointed by Republican Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush)—outvoted the four dissenting liberal justices, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor (appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford and Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama).

This ruling triggered a rapid proliferation of “Super PACs”—political action committees capable of raising and spending unlimited sums from corporate entities and ultra-wealthy individuals. Ultimately, it sparked an explosion in election spending, ballooning from roughly half a billion dollars per cycle prior to the ruling to a staggering eleven-plus billion dollars today.

So, who holds the real power to influence an election? The ordinary citizen who can barely keep up with the soaring cost of gas and groceries, or the filthy wealthy megadonors with endless capital to spare? Guess whose interests indebted politicians are more likely to serve? And guess which party reaped the absolute largest share of that billionaire cash in this cycle?

The Catalysts for Change

Among the chief complaints voiced by the electorate were severe financial hardships tied to the high cost of groceries, gas, and utilities. Alongside deep-seated perceptions of government corruption and anxiety over executive power, the ongoing war involving Iran and the administration’s foreign policy missteps ranked at the very top of voter anxieties. Furthermore, harsh immigration enforcement provoked sharp backlash across the country.³

Historically, midterm elections suffer from chronically low voter turnout. In the U.S., presidential elections typically engage 55% to 67% of the voting-eligible population, but participation routinely plummets to 35% to 50% when the presidency is not on the ballot. Data demonstrates that this historic surge was heavily fueled by an unprecedented Latino turnout, alongside heightened engagement from young voters under 30 and a notable leftward shift among men.

The Finger-Pointing Begins

Shying away from any personal responsibility for the party’s losses, President Trump deflected blame entirely onto the candidates themselves, suggesting that voters simply “didn’t like the candidates.” He also blamed the war in Iran for hurting the campaign, even as he simultaneously defended his original decision to enter the conflict.

Vice President JD Vance issued an equally blunt assessment on social media, writing, “the reason we lost is the war,” conveniently sidestepping how the administration’s own geopolitical priorities triggered the domestic economic fallout.

True to form, House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to acknowledge any internal GOP faults, pointing his finger instead at a new breed of what he labeled “far-left radicals” and “socialists” within Democratic ranks, warning that they would turn Congress into a “circus” driven by political retaliation and “lawfare.”

Behind the scenes, the blame game quickly intensified as rank-and-file House Republicans fiercely criticized party leadership for the “brutal” defeats. Yet, according to media reports, party insiders are privately tearing into Trump, calling his deflection of blame absolute “nonsense” and arguing that the election was a direct, sweeping rejection of Trumpism.⁴

Quo Vadis?

Whither goest thou, America? Post-election, Trump countered by stating he is fully prepared to work with the new Democratic majorities, though he paired that openness with a firm warning that he will aggressively deploy his executive veto power against any legislation he opposes.

Political analysts from across the spectrum agree that with dual-chamber control, the electorate’s primary expectation will be an immediate ramp-up of congressional investigations and oversight into the executive branch. Already, just days after the election, talk is rife that impeachment proceedings against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will immediately resume the moment Congress convenes. Both chambers have separate, pending articles of impeachment against Hegseth that were abruptly shelved when leadership prematurely forced a congressional recess before the midterms.

This shift in power is also poised to trigger a massive showdown over fiscal policy and budget constraints. On Election Day, Trump announced a sudden plan to completely cut off nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the end of 2026, claiming in a Fox News interview that the country “doesn’t need it” anymore. While pro-Democratic pundits viewed the sudden policy shift as a tactical maneuver to neutralize a potent progressive talking point championed by figures like Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, a deeper calculation appears at play. Methinks ‘ol Donnie is anticipating a brutal legislative gridlock ahead, scrambling for a face-saving foreign policy pivot before he hits an immovable wall with anti-war proponents in the incoming Congress.

Pardon the Interruption, Hear my Two-Centavos Worth

The ballots have been counted, the seats have flipped, and the cable news pundits have crowned their winners. In the end, the 2026 midterms proved that while you can buy airwaves, algorithms, and political parties, you still cannot buy a mandate. The megadonors poured billions into a high-stakes chess match, only to have their entire board upended by the quiet, angry stroke of a pen held by working-class citizens who just wanted to afford breakfast, lunch and dinner in their family table. The elite were reminded that inside the ballot box, a billionaire’s dollar carries exactly the same weight as a voter’s desperation.

Yet, as the celebrations fade and the new majorities take their seats, a sharper, grimmer reality sets in. Winning a legislative majority is one thing; overcoming a heavily financed executive branch is another. While the pro-masses electees head to Washington championing structural change, Donald Trump still holds the ultimate trump card: a red hat emblazoned with the word “VETO” and a Rolodex of corporate titans ready to bankroll the resistance. The voters successfully changed the guards of Congress, but the true test now begins. The people proved they have the power to put their champions in the arena, but as long as a handful of billionaires retain the ear of the executive, the fight to turn that historic ballot into actual bread-and-butter relief remains an uphill battle against a system designed to protect the highest bidder.

The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/nov/02/who-funded-midterms ↩︎
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/elon-musk-companies-texas.html ↩︎
AP Voter Poll as reported by Public Broadcasting System (PBS)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-voter-poll-voters-want-congress-to-impose-more-checks-on-an-unpopular-president ↩︎
BBC Report
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6x29rr8djy3o ↩︎

The Golden Fields of Summer

The sweet, earthy smell of steaming white rice wrapped in a banana leaf, our version of eco-friendly Tupperware, is my personal time machine. It teleports me back over five decades to a tiny lakeside nipa hut, a place filled with wonderful memories and one highly specific, deeply unpleasant incident. Ultimately, that summer taught me a valuable lesson: just because everyone else is doing something, it doesn’t mean you should blindly dive in.

Picture this: endless, bright green rice fields baking under a sun so brutal it turns the horizon into a shimmering mirage. Millions of rice stalks are bending low, heavy with the grains meant to feed the village. It looks peaceful, right? A rural paradise.

But summers in the province were long, lazy, and strictly DIY. No summer camps, no sports leagues, and absolutely no air conditioning. When the daytime sun turned the earth into an oven, my cousins, friends, and I would retreat to our family’s tiny patch of land by the lake. We’d string up a hammock under a small nipa hut and sway just enough to trick ourselves into thinking there was a breeze.

When our stomachs started to grumble, we’d unwrap whatever leftovers my mom had packed and eat with our hands. And our beverage program? Completely free-range. There was a little brook nearby fed by cold underground springs. Whenever we got thirsty, we’d just kneel on the bank and drink straight from the crystal-clear running stream. Total, unblinking, naive trust.

Until the day our adventurous streak—and my cousins’ terrible ideas—got the best of us.

They convinced me to explore upstream, claiming they heard a rumor about a secret, shady spot near a dense bamboo grove where fat river crabs liked to hang out. Visions of an afternoon crab feast dancing in our heads, we scrambled up the bank. We hadn’t gone a hundred yards before we froze.

There, right in the dead center of our pristine, crystal-clear, artisanal drinking water, was a massive, steaming, dark green mound. A water buffalo—a kalabaw—had decided that our favorite stream was the perfect place for a bathroom break.

I literally gagged right there on the grass, choking for air while my cousins absolutely lost it laughing. I made a solemn, lifelong vow right then and there: never, ever drink from nature again.

But even with the occasional traumatic plumbing surprise, the water was our entire world. On our best days, we’d “borrow” a small wooden boat and row out onto the open lake. Sunscreen wasn’t a word in our vocabulary, and shirts were strictly optional. In fact, going into the water with clothes on was a rookie mistake. The thick, muddy silt would get trapped in the fabric, and once the sun baked it dry against your skin, you’d spend the next three days scratching yourself like a dog with fleas.

Sometimes I’d play apprentice to my uncle, a lifelong fisherman whose skin was so dark and deeply wrinkled from decades under the sun that he looked like a walking oak tree—lines he wore with absolute pride. He taught me how to read the water and cast a net, and I’d march home proudly carrying a basket of weird, twitching fish. Mom would fry up the best ones for dinner, and the rest she’d heavily season and slap onto bamboo mats to dry in the sun.

We were mischievous, reckless, and borderline feral, but the village kept us from completely destroying ourselves. There were no fences or locked doors. Neighbors always had one eye on the kids running through the fields, letting us stay beautifully wild while making sure we didn’t accidentally drown, get trampled, or get gouged by an irate kalabaw. Which was a fair risk, considering we liked to poke them incessantly with long sticks. You know, just for the fun of it.

Living in the States now, I watch my own kids grow up in a completely different universe. Their childhood is a highly structured routine of organized activities, strict safety protocols, and digital screens. Sometimes I look at them and wonder if they can even fathom the kind of reckless freedom we had. A time when a boy, a borrowed boat, a piece of salty dried fish on a bed of white rice, and a vast sea of rice fields were all you needed to rule the world.

Or at least, until a vengeful kalabaw decided it was time for payback and ruined our beloved water supply.

How Odysseus Sparked My Passion for Literature

The summers of my childhood in tropical Asia were brutally hot and humid. I could still remember the day I grabbed a couple of ripe guavas from the kitchen to snack on. They were perfectly soft and fragrant, their yellow-green skins gleaming with an almost neon sheen against the bright summer sun filtering through the window. It was too hot to play outside under the blazing sun, and inside my grandmother’s house, boredom felt like its own kind of prison. I was ten years old, a boy with an insatiable hunger for stories but absolutely nothing left to devour. I had already read and reread every single magazine, book, and komiks I could lay my hands on until the pages were soft and frayed.

This is probably how bored I look when I was a young boy as imagined by AI. 🤣😁😂
(Image generated by Nano Banana 2 engine.)

In our small barangay (village), books were a luxury. Our public school didn’t have a library, let alone extra volumes to lend out. This was an era before the internet, before screens ruled our lives. Power lines had not yet reached our little barrio far from the town center, so when night fell, darkness was absolute.

Entertainment was a communal, intimate ritual. Every weekday evening from six to nine, we would huddle around the living room table. It was lit only by a single kerosene lamp, which cast a flickering orange glow across our expectant faces. In that warm, dancing light, we would listen intently to the crackling AM radio, transported by the serialized fantasy soap operas that played out in the dark. We knew there was a television station out there somewhere, but without electricity or money, a TV set was out of the question. My imagination had to build its own worlds.

On that dog day of summer, desperation drove me to explore my uncle’s room. My uncle, whom I call Papa Max, kept a modest cabinet that I usually ignored. It was packed mostly with dusty college textbooks, faded paperbacks, and a stack of old magazines. I began to browse the shelves, expecting nothing, until my fingers brushed against a worn paperback.

I pulled the thinnest, most unintimidating book I could find, settled onto the floor, and took a bite out of the guava. The fruit split open to reveal a vivid pink flesh, and its sweet, tropical aroma immediately bloomed and lingered in the warm air.

With the taste of guava on my tongue, I opened the book. It was about Greek mythology.

At first, the names flew off the page like strange incantations: Zeus, Athena, Minerva. They entertained me, but then the narrative shifted, and the trap snapped shut. I stumbled into the grand, sweeping epic of the Trojan War. I read of Odysseus, a keen and clever warrior with unmatched bravery, embarking on a treacherous sea voyage to wage war against Troy. More than the battles, it was his grueling journey home… the sheer peril, the heartbreaking loss, and the unyielding suffering he endured… that captured my soul.

The world around me faded. The humid air of the house vanished, replaced by the salty spray of the Aegean Sea and the roar of ancient battle cries.

*1984 photogravure of “Ulysses Defying the Cyclops” by Louis-Frederic Schutzenberger.*
*(Public domain media. Source: Wikimedia Commons)*

As I read, the ancient myths collided with my own bloodline. My grandmother, whose eyes were clouding over and nearly blind from advancing cataracts, used to sit with me and trace the past. In her gentle voice, she would tell me tales of my late grandfather. Long before I was born, he had briefly been a crew member of a commercial ship that sailed all over the archipelago.

Sitting on that dusty floor, the book resting on my lap, my mind blurred the lines between legend and reality. I didn’t just see Odysseus anymore; I saw my grandfather. I imagined him standing on a wooden deck, bracing against crashing waves and battling the stormy, unpredictable seas of our own country, mirroring the perilous journey of the Greek heroes. The distant past and my own family history became the same.

I devoured the entire book in three days. But when I finished, I didn’t put it away. I turned right back to the beginning, reading section after section, over and over again. My mind was craving to relive those moments. I felt the thrill of their victories and the agonies they endured trying to go home. That battered paperback didn’t just pass the time; it rewrote my DNA. It was the exact moment my lifelong passion for literature was born.

Decades later, I look at the world today, completely saturated with instant streaming, blockbuster movies, and endless digital entertainment options at a child’s fingertips. Sometimes, I watch the screens glow and wonder: in a world where everything is visualized for them, would a ten-year-old child still find the magic to pick up a book, sit by a flickering light, bite into a piece of fruit, and spend hours building a universe of their own?

The Northridge Earthquake, and a Test I Will Never Forget

A Trial by Fire on My First Night Shift

On January 17, 1994, at 4:31 in the morning, I was taking a quiet break before starting my early-morning clinical duties. It was my very first full shift as a charge nurse, and my first night shift after completing hospital orientation. As a recent immigrant to the United States, I was already learning a lot and trying to find my footing in my first American nursing job, and my first nursing job since graduation from nursing school.

Then, without warning, everything started shaking.

The magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake had struck.¹

The Los Angeles Times front page news covering the Northridge Earthquake.

I grew up in Asia’s earthquake belt, the so-called “Ring of Fire²”, so I was no stranger to earthquakes. But this was different. The shaking was violent, and within seconds, the quiet of the early morning turned into confusion and fear.

Our facility was a 50-plus-bed long-term care hospital in Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, and we were at full capacity that night. There was one experienced RN, six nursing assistants, and me. That was our entire team.

Managing the Chaos

For a few moments, everyone was simply stunned. Patients were frightened and screaming, and some of my coworkers froze because they didn’t know what to do first.

I knew we had to get organized.

I gathered the staff and first made sure everyone working that night was safe. Then we divided up the team and started checking every room, one patient at a time.

The other charge nurse stayed on the phone, trying to handle the flood of calls from worried family members. That left me to coordinate things on the floor.

Thankfully, our first assessment brought some good news. All of our patients were accounted for, and none had been injured. The building had no major structural damage, although some items had fallen beside the beds. At least in those first few minutes, things seemed to be under control.

We thought the worst was over.

We were wrong.

The Emergency Aftershock

About 30 minutes later, the power went out throughout the neighborhood.

Fortunately, our backup diesel generator came on immediately. It wasn’t much, but it gave us enough light to keep working.

We had barely started getting back into our normal morning routine when the fire alarm suddenly began blaring.

We checked the floors and looked everywhere we could, but there was no sign of smoke or fire. We called the fire department, but they were overwhelmed with emergencies all over the area. They told us they couldn’t come unless we actually saw flames.

That didn’t sit well with me. The blaring alarm added anxiety to the already frightened residents.

I decided to investigate the situation myself. I walked around the outside of the building and eventually went down into the dark basement. That’s when I found it, a thick cloud of smoke and a strong smell of diesel fumes.

The generator was running, and its exhaust had filled the basement garage. That was what had triggered the fire alarm.

I managed to reach our physical plant manager by phone. He talked me through what to do, and I got to work.

He told me to open doors and windows to get some fresh air moving through the basement. Then I found some industrial-type fans at a nearby workshop and brought them in to push the smoke toward a ventilation shaft. Finally, I reset the main fire alarm panel to stop the sirens.

It wasn’t exactly how I had imagined spending my first night as a charge nurse.

Delivering Care Against the Odds

By about 6:30 AM, the morning-shift staff started arriving. Having more people on the floor was a huge relief.

Only then did I finally have a chance to sit down and do what I had originally planned to do that morning, check blood sugars and pass medications.

My shift was supposed to end at 7:30 AM, but I stayed few more hours to make sure the handoff went smoothly and the unit was settled before I left.

When I finally got home, I was exhausted. More than anything, I was relieved to see that my wife and our two children were safe. They understood why I had stayed late and never questioned it.

Looking back, that morning taught me something I have never forgotten. As nurses, we prepare for emergencies, but sometimes the real test comes when there is no time to think, no perfect plan, and very few people to help.

You simply have to step up and do what needs to be done.

I was grateful that our patients and staff made it through that morning safely. I also knew how fortunate we were, especially knowing that more than 9,000 people in the Los Angeles area were injured or killed in the disaster.

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From Rice Fields to Hospital Halls: A Journey of Memory and Meaning

I grew up in a small rural community in the Philippines, surrounded by rice fields, simple homes, and people who knew one another. Some of my earliest memories are of bright green rice paddies stretching into the distance, the sound of people talking and laughing, and the ordinary sights and smells of village life.

An Amorsolo reproduction being sold in an e-commerce site. — A decorative reproduction of Fernando Amorsolo’s Planting Rice, inspired by one of the Filipino National Artist’s best-known depictions of rural life. Amorsolo was renowned for his distinctive treatment of tropical light, often using backlighting to give figures and landscapes a warm, luminous quality. His various Planting Rice paintings portray farmers working together in the rice fields and reflect his enduring interest in everyday life in the Philippine countryside.

When I look back now, those memories sometimes seem almost like a painting by the late Fernando Amorsolo, the first ever designated Filipino National Artist. The warm sunlight, the green fields, the people working and going about their daily lives. It was beautiful, but life was not as idyllic as it may appear in those memories. There were also poverty, political turmoil, corruption, and the feeling that ordinary people had little control over their future. Even as a child in the ’70s, I sensed that there had to be something beyond the world I knew.

Eventually, that desire for something different led me, or IMO my wife led me, to the United States.

Coming to America was exciting, but it was also a huge adjustment. Everything seemed bigger and faster. I was learning a new culture, finding my way around a new country, and trying to build a future at the same time.

When I was younger, I imagined doing many things with my life. I wanted to be an artist, a writer, maybe even a world traveler. But life has a way of changing your plans.

I became a husband and a father. With a family to support, being the breadwinner became my priority. Nursing became my profession, and eventually I found myself working at a nationally ranked teaching hospital in Los Angeles.

Nursing was never boring.

Some days were exhausting. Some were heartbreaking. Others were incredibly rewarding. There were alarms going off, phones ringing, doctors and nurses moving quickly through the halls, and patients and families dealing with some of the most difficult moments of their lives.

Somewhere in all of that, I learned that nursing was about much more than medications, procedures, and medical knowledge. It was about people. It was about listening, staying calm when someone else was frightened, and sometimes simply being there. It was also working alongside wonderful colleagues and feeling that I was a part of a work family.

I had moments when I felt proud of what I was able to do. I remember helping save patients’ lives, and for a brief moment, I felt like some kind of superhero. Of course, nursing quickly brought me back to reality. The grueling 12-hour shift. Multiple tasks at once. Trying to keep my sanity while caring for patients and dealing with their families.

And then there was being a parent.

One of my favorite reminders that life doesn’t always follow the script came when my son decided to test the laws of gravity while hanging in the playground parallel bars. The result was a broken arm and a trip to the emergency room.

There is something strangely surreal about walking through a hospital as both a nurse and a worried parent. Suddenly, all the clinical knowledge in the world doesn’t stop you from being a dad who is worried about his child.

Those experiences — both big and small — shaped me in ways I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.

Now, after many years in nursing, I have finally hung up my stethoscope and packed away my uniform. Retirement has given me something I didn’t have much of during my working years: time to slow down and think.

And, perhaps more importantly, time to return to some of the things I had put aside.

Writing. Photography. Art. Travel. Storytelling.

The creative side of me that was there when I was a young boy in the Philippines never really disappeared. It was simply buried beneath the responsibilities of work, family, and everyday life.

Now I’m ready to dig it back up.

I want to write about the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, the experiences that changed me, and the memories that have stayed with me all these years. Some stories will come from my childhood in the Philippines. Others will come from my years as a nurse, a husband, and a father.

I sometimes find myself thinking about the reasons I left the Philippines in the first place. As a young man, I wanted to escape the political chaos¹, the greed, the graft and corruption of the trapos² that seemed to limit the possibilities for ordinary people. I came to America believing I was leaving those problems behind and entering a society built on greater opportunity, fairness, and the rule of law. Yet, decades later, I sometimes look around and wonder how far we have really come. The political and social climate in America today can feel increasingly divided and unsettled, with money and influence concentrated in the hands of a very small segment of society. In some ways, the problems I thought I was leaving behind have taken on a different form here. That realization has made me reflect more deeply on my journey, not with regret, but with a greater appreciation for the complicated realities of both the country I left and the country I chose to call home.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I simply want to observe, remember, question, and share what I have learned along the way.

In many ways, this feels like coming full circle.

I started life surrounded by rice fields. I spent much of my adult life walking hospital corridors. Now, in retirement, I’m finding my way back to the creative dreams I had as a young man.

Maybe that’s what growing older really means — not leaving your past behind, but finally having the time to understand it.

So this is a new chapter for me.

I’ll be sharing memories from the Philippines, stories from my nursing years, moments from family life, and whatever else catches my attention along the way. Some stories may make you laugh. Others may make you think. A few might even bring back memories of your own.

After all, life rarely turns out exactly the way we imagine it.

Mine certainly didn’t. And I’m grateful for that, and there are still stories to tell.

PS: Full disclosure: I needed AI to help me jump start this rusty writer’s mind. In my younger years it would have been an easy job spin a yarn and craft narratives, but like an athlete needing to up his game, I enlisted ChatGPT and Grammarly to coach me and refine this piece. I am sorry, I promise I will be back and it is going to be me, not some electricity-hungry and water-hogging voracious robot housed in a sprawling complex somewhere in rural America.

Marcos’ martial law: Golden age for corruption, abuses | Inquirer News ↩︎
Trapo (noun) is Filipino word for old useless clothes that has been repurposed as wash rags or as a mop to clean floors. Used as a slang for traditional politicians, it denotes that they are the lowest form of life in a society. ↩︎