Category: Reflections
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What the guitar knows
I still remember the first time I really heard Walang Hanggang Paalam—not as background music, not as something drifting from a radio, but as a wound opening. The title itself feels like a contradiction: an endless goodbye. How can a farewell have no end? And yet, that is exactly how some relationships, such as friendships,…
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What it means (and doesn’t mean) to be a full-time writer
I’ve been a full-time writer for a few months now, and I still hesitate to say it out loud. Not because it isn’t true, but because the phrase comes loaded with assumptions I don’t recognize as mine: freedom, abundance, clarity, discipline perfected at last. It suggests a clean break, a decisive crossing from one life…
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When love is not neutral
Why The Leaves Still Fallow matters right now Some books arrive at exactly the moment they’re needed—not because they predict the world, but because they refuse to look away from it. The Leaves Still Fallow is an anthology of queer love stories, poems, and essays. On the surface, that sounds gentle, even familiar. But this…
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The work of writing
On reward, exhaustion, and choosing to stay I’ve been a full-time writer for about three months now. By “full-time,” I mean I no longer have a full-time job—not because I chose some romantic leap of faith, but because I was laid off. The organization I worked for decided my contribution was no longer needed, and…
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Among Bruges’s bells and quiet corners
Bruges welcomed us with cobblestones, winter light, and a moment that tested both my patience and my ability to behave. We had just arrived and wanted something simple: a warm place to sit and a cappuccino while waiting for our hotel room to be ready. We stepped into a café, expecting the usual café choreography—sit…
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Among the padlocks and other confusions
I noticed the padlocks even before we stepped foot in Cologne. As our train rolled across the Hohenzollern Bridge, they flashed past the window in a blur of colour—pink, brass, rust, red, an entire spectrum of declarations fused to metal. I didn’t know what to make of them then. Just an impression, a texture of…
Renato Gandia 