Just a word of welcome

K asked, "So, what did you have for the New Year?" 

I knotted my brows because suddenly I can't  remember.  Take note that he said, "what did you have," not "what did you do" for the NY; which made me ask, "Is he being more materialistic?"

To focus on "having" and not on the "doing?" or perhaps, on the "feeling?" Is that what he got from communing more with his father's part of the family? Or, maybe, even with my other part of the family? Sometimes, I get the feeling that he is discarding me. 

"I can't remember because you were not there," I said as a way of explaining. He nodded. He belted another song. Belted. Finally, I found the word. He had learned how to belt a song without my knowing it. The first time that I heard him scaling the notes so well, I said, "Wow. Now I finally knew why it took you so long to finish Architecture." I paused, looking at his face for effect, before saying, "I think you went to another class, the videoke class." He laughed. "You're doing so well now that we can finally say we are a real Filipino family: we sing the videoke.  Ja and Sean - and perhaps JL, too - laughed. Ja took the microphone, which we brought all the way from home. The videoke staff had to agree when I said we had to bring our own microphone as part of our anti-COVID-19 measure. I simply needed to make sure because no one was certain yet whether or not we were already out of the pandemic. Ja filed at least five songs. He was having a concert. I was worried the rest of the company--all young people--might get bored.  Sean said it was okay.  Happy New Year!

 

Being Mary

I resented it when Ja prevented me from getting a house help in the last seven years and now he flew into a rage because he said he was beginning to feel like a house help. I remember A.S. Byatt’s “Jesus in the House of Martha and Mary,” and then, I remember that story itself the way it was told in the Bible, and curiously felt like I was Mary for the first time in my life, talking to Jesus while Martha flew into a rage over the dishes. This is something new to me because all my life I have often felt like Martha, doing all the dishes while someone else like Ja do all the talking to Jesus. [Now, don't ask me, who is Jesus, here, it's Karl].
Being Mary for the first time makes me feel a bit giggly and happy for a change. Ja would kill me once he read this and realized he was being compared to Martha. [[Shhhh, it's Ja's birthday today so I better stop!]]

My Changing Landscape

My landscape has been changing so fast the last few days. First, I remember taking a snapshot of davaotoday at the two-story YMCA building in Davao at the back of The Venue. Now, as I climb up the Cebu Daily News' rooftop canteen to eat, I can't believe I'm being greeted by the sight of cranes and containers being loaded at the Maersk container port! Last night, I climbed up here at six o'clock and I actually saw all those lighted cranes at work! What would Ja say if he'd find out I'm closely living close to Maersk?! He has been in love with Maersk for a long time. He has been in love with all container ports for that matter. Cargo boats and cranes and container vans litter his adult dreams. His love has been so deadly and fatal that it has driven us out of our rented house in Matina! Maersk, of course, had delivered his shipment of bananas to Vladivostok! But sometimes, luck is in short supply. Sometimes, the yellow corn from Bulgaria also get stranded in the Black Sea on their way to Vietnam. So, we are cast homeless. Now, I can't believe I'm actually staring at the pile of Maersk containers at the port! Sighing and turning around, I see on the opposite end, far off Nivel Hills, where Marco Polo Plaza beckons! This is a totally different landscape!