Test, JWb Admin Nadia SKETCHING NOSTALGIA I saw River riding his little toy car, his good left hand gripping a red marker. With innocent excitement, he pressed the felt tip onto the immaculate white wall and signed his first canvas. I have al... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia A TIME TO THINK My Nanay used to tell me that her favorite breakfast was a clean kitchen sink. Back then, I didn’t understand it. I still didn’t even know how to hone a chisel when I first heard her say that. Now, I ... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia The Third Law of Marriage (Newton's Third Law of Motion) Sir Isaac Newton said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. He never mentioned marriage, but I suspect he simply chose not to complicate his research. Nadia and I have disagre... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia SKIN DEEP A fisherman went out to sea and hooked his luck in the form of a decent-sized snapper. He took it home, gutted it, removed the gills, and scraped off the shiny scales. Before cooking it, he seasoned i... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia The Opium Bed: The Benchmark of JWb’s Principles It was the summer of 1989. I had already spent a full year renting Nanay’s backyard, drenched in sweat, carrying the musky, wet scent of solid timber on my skin. My once white shirt had turned into a ... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia GRACE WITHOUT SHELTER From the house where I grew up, about three tongue-and-groove planks were missing from the dining room floor. Each was roughly a foot long, and together they formed a square about a foot wide. The cav... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia LOOSING FOR SUCCESS I once joined a quiz bee. It was a small, local contest sponsored by the church in our community—nothing fancy, just the kind where faith, trivia, and pride quietly collide. The timing was perfect. We... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia The Repurposed Driven Life It was a rainy afternoon, and everything seemed to be going wrong. My DIY table saw suddenly refused to cooperate. I switched it on again—the sound of the motor revving gave me hope—but it just couldn... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia PAMANA Nanay left us when she was only forty-nine. I was beside her in the hospital when our Creator decided her time had come. For three years, her life had been tethered to a dialysis machine, ever since h... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia The Best Teacher “The best teacher in the world is a mistake.” Nanay said it one ordinary morning, over breakfast, as if she were commenting on the weather. It was a Monday. I remember because my white polo—once proud... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia Gloria My Nanay—Aling Emma to everyone else—once ran a very successful hog-raising business. Our backyard bodega didn’t begin as a storage room. It began as a pigpen. I was around four years old then, small ... Feb 26, 2026
Test, JWb Admin Nadia The Unfinished Chair We began with good timber. Straight-grained, strong, full of promise. Together we laid out the pieces, measured twice, marked our lines true. In those early days, every strike of the mallet and every ... Feb 26, 2026
