Why I Write What I Write

I wrote my last story in 2003; which earned me a slot in the Iligan national writers’ workshop, usually held in summer in the city of Iligan, where I spent about a week with the most amazing mix of young poets and fiction writers from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao; and some unforgettable awestruck moments before the great names in Philippine Literature, who sat as our panel of critics.

Until then, I realized that no matter how often and how many people abused the term, not everyone can actually be called writers in the real sense of the word until you go through a “rite of passage,” that is called the “writers’ workshop,” and come up with something that you can call your body of works afterwards dealing with serious stuffs.

Yes, serious stuffs.

The workshop, in itself, was an experience. Just think how it is to sit in wait for judgment as critics (most of them belonging to the Philippine literary canon) scrutinized what you’ve written to its tiniest bit of detail.

First, you get the feeling that you are lucky enough to get admitted inside that chosen circle, just for having written something good enough to be chosen over the rest of the manuscripts that did not make it to that workshop.

But just as you thought you’ve got the taste of heaven, you finally found yourself in a series of sessions where each manuscript gets scrutinized for every detail, motive, innuendos, nuance, by all critics and fellows present. Our usual preoccupation, every break of the session and in the evening before we sleep, was to go over the roster of stories and poems to be read next, trying to figure out the author’s name behind the pen name, and trying to guess more as you read the story.  The author’s identity used to be withheld until after the manuscript was read in the session and everyone has given her comments. His identity revealed, the author can finally say something in return; but usually, it didn’t really sound good to defend ones work against criticisms, so, we deemed it best to keep mum and think about everything in silence.

Every moment of the workshop actually felt like a stretch of the Green Mile, every one of us heading towards the guillotine, a terrible execution chamber from which there was no escape.  “But even if they kill every bit of my soul, they could never get to that part of myself where the poems come from,” I remember what a young poet named Duke Bagaulaya said during our darkest hour in another writers’ workshop, the UP national writers’ workshop in Davao; and that was how each of us found the real meaning of what it was to be a “writing fellow.” I remember the elevator ride with the beloved fellow alien named Ava Vivian Gonzales, when our manuscripts were about to be read; the last ones to be scrutinized towards the end of the workshop. Ava and I and the third fellow Janis had taken to calling ourselves “aliens” at this time after our realization that we have been perennial outcasts in the world and its celebrity culture whose shallowness we abhor. We realized we could no longer belong anywhere except to ourselves.

Contemplating our impending doom, I told Ava, I felt like I was about to deliver a baby for the second time, and knowing the impending pain, I wanted to escape from my own body and run. But Ava had put up a good fight during the scrutiny. I remembered her calling the critics an offensive name I can’t recall.

Afterwards, I felt an urgent need to tear the whole manuscript to pieces, except that it was already accepted by a literary editor of a national magazine for publication, which made me feel even worse.

Since then, I thought I haven’t written anything.

But that’s not true! I’ve written many things since then. News stories, long features, a chapter of a book, journals, blogs, diaries, instruction manuals, foreword and afterword, an introduction of a book, a preface of a book that came out last year, introduction of another book I edited, a preface, love letters to my mother, accusatory letters to God, emails, etc.,

But they did not count because they were not the kind of things I wanted to write about. But what are the things that I want to write about? I don’t know.  I must have forgotten.

How I Fared in that American University

[This is an excerpt from a Journal.  I really did not think of posting this here until this time when sisters are bullying me to give up journalism, where I'm earning a pittance, to spend the rest of my life at the farm.]

Sometime in 2010, as soon as I got the Latin diploma for Magistratum Artium (MA) mailed to me from ADMU, signifying my successful completion of the MA in Journalism fellowship programme at the Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ) at ADMU, it was not my Ateneo grades that that got me very excited upon opening my transcript but something else.

I already knew how I fared in the journalism class, so, it was not the reason why I gasped, half-anxious, half-intoxicated, as I opened the transcript. 

It was my excitement over the fact that I’d finally be seeing the part of the transcript I hadn’t seen before: the part which showed my performance in the MA in English major in Creative Writing programme I took at Silliman U several years earlier.  

I never had the chance to come up with the Fiction Collection demanded by my thesis; and so, I have left that part of my transcript half-finished; and yet, I was wondering how I was faring among the subjects I had loved so much that I crammed myself to the brim with long readings during my brief stay at Silliman U: Literary Criticism and Creative Writing, Contemporary Novel, Asian Feminist Writings, etc. 

Touting itself as an American university that pioneered the longest running creative writing tradition in the country, Silliman U kept a grading system that is quite different from other universities I’ve gone to.  Instead of the usual 1.0, they kept the highest grade at 4.0, which is an equivalent to an A+. This must be why, getting a 3.5 from the American professor Dr. Law once flustered me, because in the previous universities I attended, 3.0 already carried with it the stigma of failure. And yet, looking closer at SU’s unique grading system, I checked and realized that a 3.5 actually meant an A-, which was not so bad after all. I was in the lowest point of my life at Silliman U that I decided to get back through my grades.

So, that day I received my ADMU transcript, I went over my records for Contemporary Novel, Literary Criticisms, Contemporary Drama, and my heart leaped with delight. The lowest grade I got from the university, which I always look up to as the only university that really introduced me to Art and Letters, was an A-, and in some other really difficult subjects, I even managed to post an A+; not really that it mattered so much in life, but I remember standing side by side with journalists, who thought there was only one way to write a story, I can’t help recalling how, in one of those creative writing classes, we were allowed to write about one subject, and each of us came up with totally different stories. Remembering how I straddled the totally alien world of journalism and the world of writers, poets and artists, I realized it was not so bad at all; not really half so bad after all.

Some shocking things I encounter

The past few days, I’m holed inside my room transcribing interviews for the story of a life of a man. I’m holed in, too, for a purely online class on How To Write Fiction with the University of Iowa, which gave me pure delight at some time, and pain and torture the next. But now,  realizing what I’ve done, I’m asking myself, why-oh-why didn’t I remember getting Prateesh, and even Sheilfa, to sign into this as well when I signed in a hurry one deadline day the previous months? We could have been into this together! And they would hate me when things get rough and love me when they find such brilliant and inspiring writers such as what I felt when I heard the Russian writer Alan Cherchesov say in the introductory lecture, “to learn how to write, you have to learn how to not write, how to keep silence, to think and to observe.” I’m sure they would have plenty to say about the whole thing that’s why I miss them so much.

Yet, I also think I was a little crazy for signing into this thing when I have rarely been online the past months, when I was always running after some elusive news stories every day, the kind of stories which increase my skin rashes and irritate my nose, causing sudden bouts of sneezing when I interview my sources, embarrassing me and alarming Pamela, who immediately taught me how to irrigate my nose the other day, using Indian technology with some improvisation she learned on the web! 

I never knew she’s a magician, this Pam Chua, and it’s beautiful when you get a taste of such magic at the most difficult time of your life, when I’m always shuttling back and forth to Bansalan and here, keeping an eye of my old folks, unobtrusively because they do not want to be kept an eye on, “like hapless children,” father says, so, I keep going back and forth, keeping an eye on them without making them feel I’m keeping an eye on them; but as a result I’m quite shocked and horrified of the things that I discover there.  
What shocked and horrified me most are my sisters, who think the old folks will live forever and so, they trust them to strangers, instead of informing me so that I can properly take action for their safety.  It really horrifies me that the helper’s judgment is better than those of my sisters, what a shame, when my sisters, were supposed to be, “educated,” Titing didn’t even go to college, but she knows how to deal with the world, she has wide-open eyes, not blinded with delusion or wealth, she has both feet planted firmly on the ground, and not on the steering wheel of a car.  But looking back, I realized, it must have largely been the sisters' mis-education, the kind of education that is prevailing in the country before and now, who can blame them? I was quite unlike them. I was the odd one out in the family. Owing to my extreme unhappiness, I left home at 17, to study in the University of Life.  I disappeared and learned many things in a life of simplicity and struggle. They stuck to their boring lives and now, they social climb. Their kind of friends are not really my kind of  friends, and now they end up totally trusting and naive, and this really is quite a shocking thing to me.

When I see the mess at home, I get the feeling that we’re back to the Stone Ages, or was it the Stone Ages, before such thing as political organization was invented? Was it the reason that our people were easily conquered, subjugated, because we are so disorganized, and we let emotions rule over our mind? They’re so irrational and you can’t even talk sense with them!

When the island wakes up to the news about a kidnapping

This morning when I wake up

The road that leads to you is nothing fancy

A particular Monday morning

The Myth called B'la

Gecko

Last night, I listened to the sound of the gecko. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. You don’t have any idea how much each stop or pause of the gecko can affect me. I feel some tightening in my stomach as I lay still thinking of you. I came here by way of Kialeg, where I heard about a new bike trail being carved in one of the mountain barangays in time for the approaching local festival. I learned about the B’laan community in a village called Tagaytay. On my way home, he stopped by the roadside, fiddled with his phone and gave me your number. I couldn’t resist taking it. The number would bring me a step closer to you, a proximity that is fret with risks or dangers, depending how I would use it. I noticed the way he slumped his shoulders. I kept thinking of what I should (or should not) do with your number. With each sound of the gecko, I keep thinking of you. He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. I lie still in utter darkness until I drifted off to sleep.

Inventory

Pawned my Samsung tablet for the second time after redeeming it from the New World, pawned it again at RV, the guy appraising it nodded his approval and threw a sneaking look at me, thinking this woman must be in dire need of money, this woman is not used to pawnshops, does this woman ever have a piece of jewellery, why does she have to pawn a tablet? and suddenly, I was seeing myself through the man’s eyes, I see this middle-aged woman in a dark blouse, a knitted chalico over it, drawing from a heavy black bag what must be her last treasure in the world, did the man ever see that that tablet was my reading tablet; that I read from there W.H. Auden’s essays on poetry, W.H. Auden’s essay on reading and writing, that guy Nathan Poole’s impressive short story, “Stretch out your Hand,” which won first prize at Narrative.com in 2014,  Joyce Carol Oates, “Fragments of a Diary,”  Salman Rushdie’s The Duniazat, Salman Rushdie’s Personal History; I’ve been reading from that tablet about Stalin’s daughter, and volumes of poetry I downloaded from Narrative.com and The NewYorker and The Paris Review; and plenty of books about photography and the past presidents of the Philippines. Can’t the man see, how that piece of equipment has sustained my life, given me a rare source of pleasure when things are becoming unbearable? But as I said, these are times of extreme difficulty, when the pay I receive could not last until the next payday; and so I have to forego the source of life’s greatest pleasure to buy a kilo of fish and vegetables and rice, pay the fare, and most of all, feed the cats, and the boys, until the next payday comes again with a shock, because no matter how hard I work, the pay always run short, and life always ground to a halt before the next payday arrives. Now, I know that even though man (woman) does not live by bread alone, woman also needs bread to live and have a soul, I’m not sure if I still sound right at this point.

Still, I hope pawning the tablet  will not completely deprive me of my secret pleasure. I can still find so much to read everywhere. I can still make do with the books at home, mounds of them staying unread in one corner, gathering dust; on top of my cabinet, towering over my table, threatening to fall. Books are growing on the floor, at the side of my desk, on my table. Haven’t I told Sheilfa books are streaming in my room, like a river? A copy that I bring home one day can first be seen on my table, and then on the bookshelf next before it succumbs to the floor; and then gone to sea afterwards because I could no longer find it. My books don’t stay in a fixed place, in a fixed position. They form part of a bigger universe where everything is revolving around something and rotating.  At times, they grow wings or gills, they begin to have lives of their own. Sheilfa was shocked. At first, she hesitated lending me a book; but because of desperation, she left me some of her most prized collections, Edith Wharton’s Old NewYork, Proust’s The Germande’s Way, Zeotroppe’s, Willa Cather’s, when she was hurrying to leave for Jolo.  So, here I am now, friendless and tablet-less; my friends are faraway, battling their own battles. I’m fighting my own battles vigorously but I can now feel the strength draining out of my body. I just discovered that I’m now a 47-year-old woman, without a past and a future; trying hard to retrieve my past to understand it; turning it over into the light, like a piece of jewellery you’ve seen for the first time. For a moment, I believed that by understanding the past—my past—I might discover the future—though, the future for me is already way too late. Now that I no longer have that tablet, I feel naked.

Declaration

Since my frequent comings and goings, and my infinite trips back and forth to my hometown are causing so much disruption and severe hemorrhage to my writing life, which also means, my financial life, I promise to spend every tiny bit of a rest day or holiday only with books, and not with people. I will get back by totally boycotting all forms of inebriating liquid, and by avoiding like plague all types of merriment and the wrong type of people.

Dreaming of you

Awakened from a dream at 1:45 am. I was in a group, the usual crowd of journalists herded for an event, trying to find a restaurant. We were on a bus, as usual; and in a strange city. Aboard, we walked and ran while the bus was running, trying to keep pace with its speed inside the abnormally-shaped narrow space near the steering wheel.
The  woman next to me was a journalist from Manila, she had that look; and later on I saw my old buddy Bong Sarmiento, sidling up to me, and we beamed at this pleasant recognition. He used to call me, Luka, which was actually loka (crazy) but in this dream, he did not do such a thing. He was dressed in an old red shirt and he appeared so thin and bedrraggled, which was not quite like him in real life. Awakening with a headache and a bloated feeling in my stomach, I went down the house and did some stretching and kicking exercise before the big mirror. I forgot to say, I was in Ma's house inB'la. W hen I was huffing and puffing, the sweat threatening to burst, I stopped, fanning myself vigorously with Ma's paperfan, the kind the stores at the malls give you to advertise their products. 
When I went back to bed, I dreamed of you but couldn't remember anything from that more important dream.

Growing Wings

My Ma had asked my Pa, so, how is the copra going? And Pa thundered, “How should I know?!” and I told Ma in a whisper, “Don’t worry, Ma, I will go, I am your Magick Daughter, your runner, I am your Mercury, I go where ever you want me to go and you don’t have to worry because I run so fast; just like Mercury, I grow wings on my feet.” She looked at me with amused disbelief, and when I came back, she was surprised that I have paid her tax dues, paid the electric bills, pre-empting impending disconnection, talked to the people at the farm, all in one sweep. I said, I told you Ma, I’m your magick daughter, do you believe now? 
I’ve been intrigued by life at the farm. I’ve never been here for years except to sleep in Ma’s bed and then gone off the following morning, chasing love and happiness, which was always beyond reach.
But now, Ma’s crumbling memory, Pa’s ailment which we want to believe is only old age - [sisters don’t want to talk about Pa’s lungs anymore now that Pa has stopped taking painkillers] - have forced me to stay here several days a week to find out how they’re doing. 
I always find them in the mornings staring into space, their faces devoid of any sense of urgency; and so, I get disoriented, too.  I couldn’t touch the things I was supposed to write, as I stare into space myself.  
But life in this place intrigued me a bit.  Some curious things always happen to people and the rawness of them sometimes struck me dumb. As soon as I arrived here Thursday night, for instance, I heard about a boy the neighbors rushed to the hospital because he cut off the tip of his penis. They’re still in the hospital now, I hope the boy survives, and why would he do such an unimaginable thing? People here are asking. His classmates at the public high school said it must be the exams which are getting tough, but I suspect it must be something about his mother or father’s attitude towards sex, the rest of the folks said it must be that madness running through the family. His elder brother was mad, his father was mad, they’re not the kind of madmen you can see running around naked, but still they’re mad, said T, our househelp. 
I forgot to tell her madness is also a sign of genius, and I hope, I’m also mad—but I mean that in another sense.  I spent the morning reading part of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, thinking about you; and about what he said about the two of you, target shooting inside the property you inherited from your Pa and Ma. He asked, what did you two call each other before? Luv? Swiddah? I cringed. Questions I’ve been longing to ask you: What is your name? Who are you? Where did we meet? Where were you when I left my childhood?  Where were you when I arrived? 

Thinking of you

At 45

She’s old enough to think and behave like her age, but right now, she’s behaving like an infant straight out of the crib. Maybe, Mother had spoiled her with too much bad milk that must have stunted the growth of her brain; and so, as a consequence of spoiling her, Mother had to suffer. At 45, she tried to justify her lack of foresight, her abject ignorance, and all the weaknesses in her character by pointing out that she is the youngest of the three sisters; but at 45, that’s hardly justifiable anymore, considering that there were only two or three year gap between her and her sisters; which more or less even out the differences in years. At 45, she was supposed to make some discernment in her judgment because at 45, a woman is supposed to have reached her peak as a person, everything that goes from there would be going down; a downward spiral, that is, they say. So, if you’re not getting sense at 45, there’s no hope you could still get some sense at all towards the end of your life.  Besides, I knew of so many people who are much younger than her and yet, they make sense. They would not just leave a sick man alone or ask someone to quit their job in 10 days or else. They can’t even abandon a sick kitten. But she, as a shock, would have a stranger in the house for company of her two ageing parents because suddenly she wanted to serve other sick strangers abroad. Some people have well developed sense and sensibilities, which are utterly lacking in some people like her at 45. At 45, she cannot stand my reasoning, so she preferred to assassinate my character in front of a domestic help who knows nothing about the world. At 45, a person is already considered middle-aged, a scary phase; it is assumed that she has gone through life’s numerous learning experiences. To be haplessly ignorant at 45 is such a big shame for there are so many things she could have known at 45, which she would not have anticipated at 20. Right now, she’s behaving like she missed some important learning of some 25 years of life. She’s utterly lacking in sense and sensibilities alone. She’s such a pathetic character, this woman of 45. 

Chanced Meeting?

That afternoon, I was a bit restless. I thought I needed to go to Upper to find out the next schedule for copra. I asked Ma if she wanted me to go, but Ma said, it’s getting dark, it’s not good to be out at this hour. I said I waited for the sun to cool to be able to go; and so, disregarding Ma and her fears, I walked out of the house all the way to the Crossing to wait for a ride.  I did not like the look of the motorcycles I met along the way. I did not like the look on their faces, those calculating look. So I texted him if he was in B’la. He said yes and asked if  I needed a ride. I said I was at the Crossing on my way to the Upper B’la and when I turned around, I heard a motorcycle engine revving up, and saw him emerged from under the trees. We were already a way off when I asked him where he’d been when I texted because it seemed he was just very close by. He said he had been up to your house. “His house?" I froze. "Is he here?” 
"Yes," he said. 
“Let’s go back, " I said.  
“Why?" he asked. "He is so busy, he’s got work to do.” 

“Let’s go back,” I said.

And so, he turned the motorcycle around so fast that before I knew it, we were already in your house, the motorcycle going right up to your front yard, what would your mother say? I did not know what to do. He stopped and pointed to you, “There, he is,” he said, saying your name. “That is him!” 
When I looked up, I saw several you’s at the same time, all seated there under the tree; and the eldest one, wearing a dark blue polo shirt, was looking at me, nodding, confused. Briefly I was able to say, “Just excuse us, we’re just passing by,” and then, we were gone, me, trying hard to hold on to the back of the motorcycle without touching his shoulders, and then, when we passed a hump, bumped upon his shoulders anyway.

We left you wearing a puzzled look on your face, watching me very closely; watching me and our friend sped away. 

Lover's Tryst

Will I ever have a chance to tell you at the right moment and the right time how you played an important part in my life, that the memory of you astride a horse treading the river ford is forever etched in my mind? Will there be a right moment and a right time now that we no longer own our time, our space, our bodies?

Happiness

Wish me luck!

A glimpse of you

The motorcycle skidded, the driver said something; called out your name, asked me if I knew you, before I turned around, and very briefly, so briefly that it never even allowed my mind to register until long afterwards, flashed your image—your face, a little bit rounded now, your faded blue and gray collared shirt, your feet stretched out before the whole length of your body in perfect calmness, just the way I thought you used to do—as the motorcycle skidded past, so fast that I couldn’t even register in my mind the meaning of your sudden presence. As I turned around again you were gone. All I saw were trees, the coconut fronds, some weeds, the wall of some houses, the iron gate of Uncle’s house, and my heart sank.  What followed was the stillness that lay between us through the years; the long quiet that has forbidden me to speak your name. Can we ever cross that stillness? Will I ever hear your name again? When will I ever find the courage to ask: Where have you gone? Why did you leave?  What were you thinking when you used to sit on the porch of our old house? What did we use to talk about? Did we ever have anything to talk about? Or, did we just stare at each other as the seconds and the minutes ticked by; and eternity swirled in a moment of stillness? 

Hearing about you

On our way back to town the previous week, someone brought up your name to ask if I still remember you.

But how could I forget? Those nights you used to sit on the porch, which we’ve torn down long ago to give way to a ground floor terrace that remains unfinished until now. That porch remained in my memory, haunting me in my dreams. It had a rectangular trough, which used to hold Ma’s potted plants that included a palmera, and other ornamentals that made the pit of my stomach churn with longing every time I remember them now. 
Enclosing the trough was the open-air window whose frame was carved with wood of various geometric shapes. 
On the nights that you would come by for a visit—you’d sit on this porch, your back to the plants, your whole frame of a lovely body directly facing us. The porch gave the full view of the insides of the small house, the living room opening to an adjoining dining room, the edge of the dining table directly on the line of your sight. 
What were you thinking back then? I was thinking of hiding somewhere but the house offered no extra space to hide! We used to be taking dinner every time you drop by for a visit but no matter how we prodded you, you'd refuse to join us. Instead, you stayed there where I could not see you, eating me with your eyes, tearing away my soul from my body.  How did it feel back then, to be feasted on by your eyes in the dark, in full view of Mother and Father? It was something I could have enjoyed sumptuously in private, but right then and there, it was such a discomfort. 
Now that I'm hearing your name again, I remember those secret feasting we had, and wondered when our feasting ended, replaced by long years of your absence? 

Pa's Story

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to bring Pa and Ma to the shrine of the Infant of Prague, which has always been my favorite place, an airy place full of greenery overlooking the city. The place has a personal significance to me because it was here where, when Sean was still a toddler, and I was oftentimes left without a house help at home, I would go up here with Sean to light candles. Candles, I know, have their religious significance--but for me, at that time, a candle was not only the light of my own darkness, it was also the balm to my frayed nerves. The simple act of lighting candles and watching them melt seemed to melt away all my troubles (until I go back to the house again)!
It was this secret pleasure that I wanted to share with Ma and Pa. We spent the Saturday afternoon strolling about, doing nothing, staring at the greenery. Pa, as usual, was his grumpy self. Shortly after we arrived, I asked if he was tired. "Ngano gina-treat ko nimo parang bata? Bag-o pa ko naabot diri (Why are you treating me like a child? I just arrived here)," he replied. We went to an adjoining property, where I pointed to him the coal dome of the coal-fired power plant near the sea. "That is Binugao, Pa," I said, because Binugao held a special place for my Pa. The place always figured in his stories about his arrival in Mindanao. But he said,  "Ambot, kung motuo ba ko nimo (I don't know if I should believe you)."
I told sister, who was left at home, we should just be patient with Pa because of what he endured since he was nine years old. Sister replied, "Kay imo jud diay nang gisukitsukit (So, you really dug it up?!)" and I felt I was stealing Pa's history, as if Pa's story is not my own story; and Pa's story is not our story. As if it was not a story about Mambusao, as if it was not a story about Capiz, as if it was not a story about Davao, as if it was not a story about Binugao, as if it was not a story about B'la, as if it was not a story about Upper B'la. As if it was not a story of our people, as if it was not a story of our country.

Cassandra

In our family, I am a Cassandra. I can “see” but no one believes me, so I ran the risk of suffering the fate of being slaughtered, as Cassandra did after the Fall of Troy when she—along with the rest of the family—was taken by the winning army of Agamemnon as part of the war booty. Cassandra was the distraught woman standing with Agamemnon at the foot of the stairs, before Agamemnon took the red carpet welcome prepared for him by Clytemnestra upon his arrival home. The red carpet led directly to his death in the poisoned tub.

Unlike Cassandra, I did not wait for the total devastation to come. I escaped to tell the story. My Pa arrived in Mindanao from Capiz as a nine year old boy after the war, when people in the villages of Tum’lalud and Sinunduhan (just across the river), in the town of Mambusao, were talking of migrating to Mindanao to look for better life, or perhaps, a better land. Pa told me this story, sitting on his hospital bed, the dextrose on his left arm, as he emerged seventy years later, trying to make sense of the pain.

He was still a boy when they arrived. What prompted Grandma to bring her children to Mindanao was not really the need to look for better land, but that row between her and Grandpa over the eldest daughter Maria, who ran away with a man not of their choice and went to live with him in Iligan. [[This story seems to be lost now, because Maria died years ago and the only cousin who I knew can link me to her also died the following years.]] But according to Pa, Manang Maria ran off with a man. She was the eldest daughter in the family—engaged to someone important back in Mambusao. As a result of her elopement Grandma and Grandpa had a row, which ended up with Pedro (the name of Grandpa), already drunk, chopping off the leg of their table, which like the house, was made of logs, a sturdy material. As a result of this quarrel, Grandma rushed to migrate to Mindanao, where everybody was heading.  She was a tough, strong-willed woman, and as I imagine, high spirited. Women were not allowed to go to school during her time, so, she only reached up to Grade 2, while her brothers went to Manila to become a priest and a pilot. Yet, she was an intelligent and ingenuous woman, who, during the war, was able to feed some hungry souls straying to her house because she never ran out of supply of rice from her harvests. She immediately secured the money (sold their land? Borrowed? I’m no longer sure) for the trip to Mindanao, where they eventually landed in Davao and came to settle in Binugao, where Pa eventually worked as the encargador of the land of the Gods (Guinoo).

In Binugao, the teacher was distraught when all the Grade six pupils failed to solve the Math problems he had written on the board. When he came upon Pa during lunchtime solving all the problems on the blackboard with ease, he asked, “What grade is this?” and someone answered, “Grade 1V.” Pa suddenly basked at the attention of all those girls (dalaga), most of them Haponesa, regarding him with awe, which slightly embarrassed him, though, he said he felt assured to realize he was wearing his Boy Scout uniform on that day, with the matching shoes at that.  He was also amazed that the lessons in Binugao could be that easy compared to those in Mambusao.

When Mr. Espanol and Mr. Buenaluz, the teachers from Luzon, realized Pa was already tilling the land and planting corn in it, they asked with concern, “Why, where is your father?” Pa blurted out, just like a nine-year-old child, “They kept fighting with each other so they agreed to separate. Mother left him in Mambusao.”  His teachers never let him work in school after this. “Parang Luzon (like Luzon),” they said to describe his farm because they were Ilocanos, and might have missed the land where they came from.

Reading the Paris Review

...and loving the feel of it while mulling over the fact that they took Father and Mother away from the rented apartment in Nova Tierra only to move them in a poorly-ventilated one-room apartment in a seedy area not easily reached by taxi, where they were in constant threat of floods when it rains; and how about leptospirosis and other water-borne diseases? Why can't they think about these things when they consider Father or Mother and why did they not tell me about the whole idea in the first place, as if I were a woman from Outer Space? Is it because they hate my penchant to say the things I had to say; which they they equate with creating trouble?

To the Best Beloved

March 18, 2015. Fourteen years ago today, when everyone else was preparing to leave graduate school, I entered Silliman University Medical Center at 1 pm, gladly and fearfully, expecting your birth. I was glad because finally I would be meeting you, not just any other child any mother can give birth to, but the special subject of the personal essay, “Letter to the Womb: Writing and re-Writing Woman in the Literary Text,” I submitted for the final exams of our Contemporary Criticism class under Dr. Ceres Pioquinto. The idea came to me out of the blue, after the realization that on the verge of childbirth, I could no longer think in a clear, linear and logical way but in swirling, maddeningly spiraling fashion; and so, to suit this particular frame of mind, I abandoned the methodical way most scholars used to write their “scholarly” texts and wrote instead a personal essay addressed to you, Best Beloved, applying the critical literary theories I learned by heart.
And so, in a gist, this was how you came into this world, Gloria Steinem spewing words on the TV screen in between my throes of labor, making the pain slightly bearable, Kuya Karl watching at the hospital lobby, as my stretcher rolled by; and Ja, your Dad, trading jokes with the nurses in a voice grating to my ears.
Now, I can’t believe it’s been 14 years; and I'm slightly disoriented. Where is that toddler who used to grab my books every time I attempted to read? Where is the one who tirelessly climbed over my body? Where is the tireless watcher, who used to monitor the hands of the clock inside the newsroom, who used to tell me, Ma, the sky has turned black outside, are we not going home?! What a delight to have you! Happy 14th year, Sean!

Dear Tea

I remember some years ago as I sat in a veranda facing the road towards Genting Highlands, and someone said, “Good morning, how was your sleep, shall I make you tea? Right, I'll make the right tea for you,” and he disappeared into the charming little kitchen of the hut in Kuala Kubu Baru. That was how I got  introduced to Teh Tarik, so sweet, so heady, I thought I could never get over it, in fact, I was crying uncontrollably on the airplane weeks later when it was time to go. I called the Teh Tarik the Malaysian counterpart of the Filipino coffee, which is sweet and creamy, and speaks something about our relationship with either Spain or America; the Malaysians, of course, had their British; and that explains their right-hand-drive cars on the road. I said, we, Filipinos, are coffee drinkers; we rarely drink tea, except when we're sick; and that explains why, traveling by land from Davao to other parts of Mindanao, I always find myself asking the stores in every bus stop for tea, a cup of hot, bitter, sugarless tea, preferably piping hot; because when I travel I endure some discomfort that only the taste of hot bitter tea can ease. But to my dismay, not one of the sarisari stores at the terminals is selling tea. I said, Filipinos are coffee drinkers; some want their coffees pitch black and very strong; some style themselves as real coffee connoisseurs, buying their coffee beans on e-bay from as far as Yemen and developing appropriate drinking rituals to heighten the effect of their every sip. But others like me, want our coffee sweet and creamy, to make us dream and forget the bitterness of life, which in one way or the other is brought about by the convoluted history of its arrival to our shores. But back to you, Tea, you are the love of my life, your benign flavor, your soothing effect, even the sound of the tinkling silver spoon against the dainty cups. I love the shape of teapots, reminding me of some rich godmothers forcing us to take the obligatory afternoon naps. “I have fallen in love with Malaysia,” I once told our Malaysian professor as we inched our way into the jungle called Quiapo, years after Kuala Kubu Baru, hunting for pirated rare DVDs. “I thought you said you fell in love with a Malaysian,” he said. I said, I love the sound of the Malaysian names, it gives me the feeling of deja vu.  But it was you, Tea, that I was talking about. I love you, Tea.

How I once endured the flight back home

What flashed before me was our last day at Esteban Abada, after I discarded my poetry notes and Seng took to our room the weighing scale he borrowed from Lyn, to help us find out if the books we were carrying would already exceed our baggage allowance for our flight back home. No, I told Seng in an unbending voice we used to assume when we were dead set at doing something they did not want us to do. I don’t want to pay for an extra baggage, I told Sengthong, everything that would exceed 10 kilos, I would have to hand carry, I said. So, we were taking out things from our baggage, even as we were weighing them. But we hoarded such an overwhelming volume of  books that summer that I ended up with what I thought must be some 12 kilos of books in my hands.  I put them inside a canvass bag, printed with a reproduction of an Amorsolo painting, and carried it to the airport like a rucksack. If Bryant had only seen me carrying that rucksack of books, maybe he would laugh. The load was so heavy, I couldn’t breathe after every six steps. It felt like all my internal organs would explode. I was already sweating all over. But I was very proud to let anybody notice, so, I made it a point to look natural, prevented my tongue from sticking out of my mouth, because I could hardly breathe.  If you had seen me, you would think I was only taking a leisurely walk as I boarded the plane, you’d never think I was only pretending, taking the easy stride, with a bit of rest every six steps of the way. 

That's how I knew how hard it must have been for you. 

Let me tell you about Eponine, the Grey

You never told me you had a little girl, so, when I heard about it, I was happy and surprised, even as I castigated myself for missing that particular part of your life, which must have been such a landmark. This was before I saw the picture of you and your little girl in my inbox. I used to have three very big girls, too; and I knew how big they have become when last Saturday, faced by a big Cat that suddenly appeared at our doorway, two of my girls expanded to twice their size, eager to prove themselves they were ready to defend their homeland.  I still remember how Eponine, the Grey, stood there, making herself as big as she can get; although the biggest that she can get at that moment was only up to the shoulder of the Cat. But Eponine was the most intelligent and the most brilliant of them all; the type who gets what she wants without even trying. I saw her last Saturday trying to scare the Cat; and I called my boy Sean inside the bathroom to come out fast because he will miss the action.  It was Eponine, the Grey and Oreo, the Black, who stood their ground against the Cat; while Henri Matisse, the Yellow One, shielded herself in the corner ready to duck and dart, if worse came to worst. But after a while of sabre-rattling without any actual action, I finally decided to call Oreo to my lap, leaving Eponine at the door alone to confront the intruder. Although she was able to maintain her size, I can faintly see her legs shaking at the effort. This makes me very sad every time I remember it now, the image of her standing bravely at the door. This was Saturday. The following day, a windy Sunday, Eponine got hit by a slamming door when I was coming out to get something.  What followed must have been 48 hours of terrible pain and suffering that only Eponine knew and I can only imagine with remorse.  In the morning of Tuesday, Eponine still attempted to join the boodle fight that characterized our feeding time with her two sisters but she could no longer make herself stand up.  I went to her to comfort her, telling her she did not have to move about because she was a very Special One, I prepared a special food for her.  Her mouth would no longer open when I tried.  Between 8 to 9 am on Tuesday, February 24, 2005, on the eve of the 29th year of the Edsa people power, I lost an intelligent, brave and loving girl of a cat. Her leaving fills us with sorrow so deep, it will take a very long time to heal.  

Dear Prateehba

Once you told me you’ve been reading Toni Morrison’s Love but can’t get to what she was saying, you decided to discard it, tucked it away somewhere out of sight.  Did I get you right about this, or is my memory messing up again, mixing up a bit of something with other snippets of past conversations?  I bring this up because I wanted to tell you about that particular man in Toni Morrison’s fiction; how he reminded me of a real person, someone I interview every day, sometimes at the dead of night, when everyone else—except for power-starved reporters—is already sound asleep. I think about this man, this Toni Morrison man, whose magic has caught everyone in his spell, so that, just like any other writer who came close to him, I, too, was overwhelmed by the desire to write his memoir; until it struck me one day that he was a Toni Morrison man, whose memoir I wouldn’t dream of writing, if I’d continue to love and honor Toni Morrison, unless I’d do it from the point of view of those who loved and suffered under his spell; the women.  Dear Prateeh, is there a way for writers to unravel the spell of an exemplary magician able to enthral his audience with the strength of his personality and magic?  Is there a way for us to span the growing distance between Davao and Kathmandu before it grows even bigger than the nautical miles in which it is usually being measured? Is there a way to reduce time and space and matter into pulp so that we can finally travel beyond walls, our minds soaring free of our bodies? It’s a Sunday morning here at my desk, where I face the growing clutter of wires, cables, chargers, keys, which I never had the luxury to set in order, as I was in a constant rush, just like the way we were in that dorm at Esteban Abada.  From my desk, I keep hearing the soothing sound of running water in the kitchen, where Sean is washing the dishes I abandoned, and somewhere in another corner of the house, Ja deep into his writing, quiet as a mouse. Outside my window, the three cats bask in the sunlight. Both soles of my feet keep brushing the top of the magazine pile growing fast under my table. We always dream of writing memoirs, though, we know no one else can write a memoir but the owner of the life we want to write. Unlike a biography, a memoir dwells only at a particular moment of a life, projecting it to eternity so as to render that particular life some meaning. 

The Magick "R"

[written when Sean was six, and never finished!]

After Ja first made me see what light does to the shape of an object, I began to be an avid student of light.  I fell in love with lights and shadows, closely studying them every time I get the chance.  Then, I introduced Sean to the “magic hour,” as the hour when unbelievable things happen.  Like most other six-year-olds, he mistook my “magic hour” for the “magic R,” perhaps, because of the way I pronounced it, pointing to the marks the sunlight makes on the wall when the sun starts to slant in the horizon. 

Then, I made him pose, midway between the rays of the four o’clock sun slowly sinking in the west and the white wall of the house directly facing the glass window.  The photo showed the soft face of Sean, half illuminated and suffused with the sun’s orange glow, occupying the first third of the frame.  On the frame’s remaining two thirds was the shadow that Sean’s face cast on the wall. 

It could probably be one of the most striking pictures I’ve taken of him, so full of irony and rich in metaphors; a photograph of life, itself; a revealing moment captured by a click of the shutter, etched on the mind for eternity. But remembering the power of metaphors; and the cruelty that ironies can assume at the most unexpected moments, I took one look at it and decided to erase the photo.

I finally realized that that love you have as a mother could only be measured by how much you could sacrifice your love and lust as a photographer.

For photography demands on its altar the same sacrifice that God once demanded of Abraham, who made an offering out of his son Isaac, a sacrifice that I, a mother, could never probably make of my boy.  This reminded me of what my mother told me one day when I happened to ask her why she remained a public school teacher handling Grade Six all her life.  “Didn’t it ever occur to you that you can be something else?” I asked.  “How come you never chose to defy Fate?”

I asked her this question at the most crucial point of my life; when we were packing my things because I was moving out again from a failed relationship.  For I was the kind of person who has always been defying fate and as a result, ending up in all sorts of trouble. There and then, it suddenly crossed my mind that my mother had never moved and never packed her belongings the way that I usually did in every five years.  She never ended her relationship and never made any life-threatening decisions. She had married and never left my father, never questioned the conventions and simply took, unquestioningly, what life has laid down for her.  It dawned upon me that, perhaps, she never really followed where her heart wanted her to go.   My mother’s answer almost made me choke.  “You were still very young when beautiful things began to happen to me,” she said.  “I was terrified of having to set you aside if I accepted new responsibilities.” 

From what my mother said, I had a sudden illumination about the nature of women’s lives.  Every woman is condemned by the choice she makes of that magic hour, that crucial moment when she can either choose to reveal herself before the light; or stay in mediocrity forever, lurking in the shadows, unnoticed for life.

Thank you, 2014; Welcome 2015!

Welcome and help me make sense of my room happily cluttered with books, photographs, cables, wires, chargers, dirty shoes, slippers, old magazines mixing with the new, soiled clothes piling up to high heavens; old newspapers gathering dust in every corner, discarded schoolbooks that I failed to throw away, more piles of discarded tickets, useless receipts of past travel. Welcome to the life heavily cluttered with people, dreams, meetings and some affairs of the heart.

Love and Spices

There's a story going round and round my mind. It started with that pair of old trousers you were wearing, and traveled downward to your muddy feet. Actually, I could no longer see the feet as we turned to see the scraggly leaves of turmeric, remnants of the recent drought. When you said only a few of them survived, I looked up at the sky and up ahead to the footpath down the river where we were supposed to go.

Elizabeth, the Beloved Monarch

She was the monarch who understood the woman question during her time and in understanding it, kept her power hold. http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/elizabethiofengland/p/prelizabethieng.htm

Cryptic message to the Beloved

The year is speeding away and I have a hard time coping.  You asked me why eating beef and red meat is dangerous but instead of explaining, I told you it’s not your problem, you’re young; it’s  for the old people to worry.  We were climbing down the ravine when I inadvertently grabbed your arm because I was about to slip. What will happen if I quit? I no longer care about things as much as I used to. All I care about now is the image that I take but it's usually an image nobody else would understand. Whatever happened to Sheilfa? Is she happy in Jolo? I told her once I would bring her here. I can imagine ourselves talking, two witches in the holy land. She had a talent for images, whether they be images of the past or images of the future. I don’t know what’s happening to me now that the year is about to end, I could not get anything done. I have lost all love for life until I saw Matisse and then I saw you. 

Beyond Sudimara

Shortly after Indonesia's national elections in April, and the day before our trip back to our home country, Indonesian political activist Tedjabayu Sudjojono treated us for lunch in his home at the outlying district of Jakarta. We--included Tatikarn Dechapong, our journalist fellow from Thailand we called by her nickname, "Boom," and Ryan, another journalist fellow from the Philippines, who is also my fellow corres at the Inquirer. It was one of the rare moments I treasured most, because we did not only spend the hours partaking of the delicious Javanese food that the family prepared, but we also spent the rest of the afternoon talking about books and art in Indonesia.

Pak Tedja, as Boom insisted in calling him out of respect, is the son of the great Indonesian painter Sudjojono, whose works are on display at the Indonesian museum that she saw the previous day. Pak Tedja described his late father as the painter who refused to paint the beautiful scenes of Indonesia but insisted on painting the real condition of his people under the Dutch's colonial rule.
But there was something else that surprised me more about Pak Tedja.

Unlike most people I’ve encountered in neighboring Southeast Asia, he was not a stranger to Philippine history and culture. He learned about Jose Rizal at a very early age. His mother, a political activist fluent in Dutch and many languages, translated it into Bahasa and introduced it to him. Was it at 15, when Pak Tedja said he was already reading the Noli Me Tangere in English?   “She used to speak Dutch like a native,” Tedjabayu recalls his mother, who wrote the book, “From Camp to Camp,” about her experiences as a political detainee in a series of detention cells under Soeharto's Indonesia.

Letter from Kathmandu

I told her years ago, towards the end of our summer together, that I was very lucky to have a poet for a roommate, because I could not imagine rooming with another person who only read politics and current events and neglect all about poetry. I told her I would feel very oppressed. Though, I have disappointed her for refusing to take snapshots of her against the backdrop of that tropical downpour raging outside our window, she said she couldn't imagine rooming with  one of the rest of the fellows, either. I remember  going over the list of the women journalist fellows rooming in for the on campus session of our MA Journalism course at the Ateneo that summer, and indeed, I realized I had been very lucky to have this sweet girl from Kathmandu for a roommate.  I simply loved it. I remember waking up one morning, with her agitated in front of her laptop, mumbling about this guy named Prachanda, as her country teetered yet again on the brink of another political turmoil. Back in Davao, I met a man from Nepal in one of those international conventions on bird migration occasionally held in the city. It took a while for him to remember that anchorwoman of Kantipur TV. Ah! he said, at last, in the midst of my descriptions. She's the one on the English news!
His sudden recognition somehow exhilarated me, as if Prateehba, a continent away and living in another time zone, suddenly appeared in front of me, smiling. 

Understanding the Lumads

I heard from Tebtebba that the book I edited in 2010 is coming out with a new edition this year and is being distributed by the Department Education in their indigenous people's curriculum. I still have something to say about this book, though; which I will set aside for another time, another place.

Remembering Ampatuan

A week before the infamous date, we followed the road from Marbel, South Cotabato to do a story of the backhoe (actually, excavator) used to bury the dead--and the story of the Ampatuan massacre, where 58 people, 32 of them media workers were killed in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.  The road eventually brought us to the town of Tacurong, where the group of media workers slept their last in a hotel five years ago, before proceeding early morning the following day on the road to Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao, to cover the filing of candidacy of the former Buluan mayor, running for governor in Maguindanao against the ruling Ampatuan clan.  The media workers, together with the politician's relatives and supporters, did not reach Shariff Aguak.  They were waylaid to their death in an isolated hillside in sitio Masalay, barangay Salman in Ampatuan town.  They were all buried here.  This was the last of their journey, the beginning of our own, as we continue the search for justice for hundreds of journalists killed in the Philippines since the so-called democracy was restored in 1986.

Still in Search of My Mother's Garden

As soon as I get home, I will retrieve Alice Walker's book, "In Search of Our Mother's Garden," to read the essays again to find out if they still sound and feel the same as the first time that I read them years ago.
 I first read her essay under the dim light of a running jeepney, after opening a discarded Ms magazine discovered in a bargain bookshop. I realized my mother also has such a garden and it is through the colors of her garden that I've come to view even the most difficult part of our lives.

Sweet Memories of September

What Joyce (of the World Press Photo) brought us in September during the Mobile Multimedia Newsroom in Davao was so sweet, its image stays etched on the iphone, its memories stays in the mind. I can't help posting it here.

Morning in Paradise

Keep away from negative people. Finish reading Jon Lee Anderson's "The Fall of Baghdad" and Ken Auletta's "Googled." Finish all writing assignments. Finish all video editing, then export and send them to the editor as soon as you can. Stop eating meat. Run. Follow the weather. Walk. Memorize all the vital statistics of storms, with an intimacy reserved only for lovers. Don't panic. Recognize each storm's strength, ruthlessness and penchant for delays and romantic detours. Pray that all people (except Pnoy) will be safe; and all cats will be saved. Master your Adobe Premiere. Monitor your cholesterol level. Finish viewing all Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Jean Claude Monet and all the rest that are dead; and move on with your life and your writing.

Cat in the Pine Forest

My love for one missing cat made me aware of so many others. I befriended a cat in Eden. He had a particularly hard life. It showed in the way he demolished a couple of fried siomai I stole for him from the kitchen. It was indescribable the way he gobbled the pieces, which I unwrapped from a tissue paper, to the utter shock of the waiter. The word "gobble" was not enough to accurately describe the way that the cat wiped out everything violently in just a matter of seconds. The word "munch" is simply too mild, too civilized, too out of place here. I think of this cat and his life in the pine forest that covered most of the 80-hectare resort, and I simply felt he might be having a very tough one. The driver of a shuttle told me cats and all types of pets are forbidden in the resort but the cats, he said, are just getting too many. I was worried about the cat. I left him eating the suman we hadn't eaten during the afternoon session. I thought it was a lowly food for a strong cat like him but he ate it when I gave it to him at the door.  I hope the waiter would not be cursing at the discarded wrapper, they were banana leaves anyway, because we were already hurrying out the door to the waiting shuttle, there was no time to clean the garbage.  But would I ever see this cat again? Would he remember our brief encounter?

On the other side of Eden

I've been documenting a strategic planning workshop of an Iligan-based non-government organization in the past two days before yesterday; and on the second day of that workshop, a Thursday, I awoke very early to take a walk within the 80-hectare compound before the sun goes up.  It was very cold; and so, all I had was a jacket and a camera. I was all alone and had the entire place all to myself when the sun started to appear. It was the sort of morning I can only describe as glorious!

Richard Brody explains himself

Unlike most people, I only treat movies as secondary affairs to my first love, which are books. I may survive a day without food but I can't survive a stress-laden, hectic work week without sneak-reading one good book or one good story. (Ja keeps saying books are my primary vice). He was aghast to  see how I detested books and stories that have been turned into movies, unless of course, they go through the hands of directors with discerning eye. Until I started reading Richard Brody on The Front Row, I decided to seriously begin to consider my old views against movies.

The cat who wins our hearts

It was in September when the Yellow Cat came to stay with us. At first we called her Buffet because of her penchant to sit and sleep on Ja's working table. Later, we called her Gavroche, because she was a stray cat, we thought of her as a street-smart cat, just like Gavroche, the boy in Les Miserables.  But the Cat's elegant manners (she even refused to stoop down to the rudeness of the neighbor's dogs), her finesse and intelligence, indicated to us her superior upbringing as a cat. I used to tell Sean, the Cat’s openness to human conversations and her perceptiveness could not have been possible without a child’s love that once had nurtured it when the Cat was still a kitten. The Cat also wore a necklace, which told us she must have had an owner, although I kept asking myself why she finally came to live with us, if she had a home. Was she not loved enough in that other home? But this puzzle I merely took for granted, thinking, we were merely welcoming the cat, she was free to come, she was free to go, although, we loved it so much if she stayed with us.

What of its owner, Ma? Sean used to ask, to which I used to reply,  “The Cat owns her life, Sean, she is the real owner of herself.” So, we left our relationship with the Cat at that. She would arrive at close to midnight, meowmewing outside our door and either Ja or me would wake up to open the door. She would enter the living room, walking to and fro, telling us stories about what happened to her outside, and we would listen with keen interest, even if we don’t understand her cat language. Then, at 3 am or 5 am, the Cat would wake us up again, meowmeowing, asking us to open the door, hungry for the first stirring of life in the idle lot outside. For aside for her nightly prowl, the Cat had a voracious appetite for small things that move (including Ja's toes when Ja is sleeping).

But the cat suddenly stopped coming one day in November, shortly after my trip to the T'boli mining site and the Ampatuan massacre site. I sensed an air of finality only hours after the cat's failure to return, as if, something was amiss, something suddenly turned quiet. I never sensed such a deafening silence. Then, somewhere in my gut, I suddenly knew the cat is no longer coming back. Why? Whatever happened to this dear, dear cat?