Curious Life

This was a portrait of my life on May 27, 2018, the exact date this image was taken.  I lived here for almost a year even if I never really wanted to go to this particular city because I never knew what to expect here. But somebody said I had to come here to get a job because there was no job opening in the place where I lived. So, I tried to make do with myself here.  I never knew I could survive months in this tiny space with just a reading lamp, books and my cellular phone to keep me company--but I did!  (Well, of course, I only lie down here after work; so, that's not exactly accurate.  I only had a few hours to lie down in this tiny space every day). 
Now, when I look back to my life here, I remember all the New Yorker magazines that I've read, all the podcasts that I listened to, the Toni Morrisons and those folded The New York Times on my cluttered bed? Yes, it was such a rich reading life (though, I felt so detached, headless, without my boys).
And minus what I've been going through at my workplace, this tiny space actually brings me good memories, good vibes when I think about it now.  
But at my workplace, it was different. I'm writing that experience, though, because what use would that experience be if I couldn't mine it for a story?

Crystal Memories

In one of my forays to the Legazpi Sunday Market, I once met the Crystal Woman.  She was tall and her rather blonde hair was loosely tied in a bun, some unruly strands falling on her face. She was wearing a faded blue cotton shirt; or, this might just be the way I remember her, I'm not really sure now.
Then, she talked about what she had in her hands in a loving, animated way, that everything around her seemed to dissolve and fade away.  I've been to other crystal shops before--including that one at the Makati Square or another more expensive one somewhere in Binondo--but because I really did not know much about crystals, their rugged edges and abnormal shapes, their shimmering colors and most of all, their staggering prices almost always intimidated me. How could I know the stones they purport to sell are real ones and not synthetically made? I stayed away because I can't keep my eyes off the price tags and I can't trust the voices that I hear.

But here I was, one Sunday morning in the mid of a leisurely crowd of condo dwellers, drawn to this towering Crystal Woman whose explanations were so down-to-earth, I can't help but gasp.  She had asked me if some of those crystals communicated to me, if I can feel their particular pull, I said I was drawn by the ones that were so clear and long but more expensive.  In a moment, I could sense her wanting to give those particular crystals to me. This perception lasted a minute and then, I could feel her going over me, trying to fathom if I was telling the truth about what I felt about her crystals. 
Then, she started talking about the Herkimer and it didn't take long for me to get convinced. "It's so small and yet, so powerful!" she said, putting such a tiny sparkling piece on her palm. "Don't ever underestimate the power of this small crystal!" 

When she handed it to me, she took a bell to cleanse it.  A bell to cleanse a crystal! This really blew me off.  She placed the crystal in the middle of my palm and sounded a bell to cleanse it. Really, it had that cleansing sound.  I could swear it cleansed my soul as well.
[Curiously now, I can't remember ever seeing the the shape of the bell. All I can remember was its sound--and what a cleansing sound!] 

The crystal had stayed with me through thick and thin inside the newsroom.  When I used to get close to an obnoxious energy, I would place the crystal on my palm or in my pocket and the obnoxious energy became bearable.  The crystal worked in a very subtle way.  It worked in the in-between of things so that you could not really claim without a doubt that what you perceived was its work was actually its work. But it worked the way it did with the obnoxious thing (or person) and you begin to wonder why. 

I can't forget my first encounter with the Crystal Woman. Somehow, it changed me somewhere. She made me perceive things in a different light.  She made me think of the energy I encounter and to make good use of energy. She still stayed in my mind somehow.  Sometimes, when I think of Legazpi, I would think of her.  I also think of bumping into her one of these days and when the comes, to talk to her, soul-to-soul.
That day I talked to her, I saw the worried glance on her staff's face when she began explaining things to me.  The staff tried to interpret her sentences, thinking I wouldn't understand her language. But her language transcended human speech and so, when the staff saw that I was entering her world, she slowly retreated away, leaving me and the Crystal Woman alone.
Now, I'm saying this as if there was only me and the Crystal Woman in the whole Legazpi market that Sunday.  Of course, there were lots of other people. One of the listeners, a man with a strong, commanding voice, flaunted his knowledge about crystals, trying to impress her.  This somehow turned her off.
She said she was giving yoga lessons somewhere in Batangas but she said she was getting too busy taking care of her daughter to continue those lessons.  She said she was calling off those lessons soon. I wouldn't be able to attend those lessons, anyway.  I had a hard time going out of Makati on weekdays.  

But her crystal had stayed with me until it got lost one day in our foray with Ja to Samal Island.  The date that it got lost seemed to be a reminder to me about the things that I've forgotten.  [O, crystal, can you just speak to me in a more straightforward manner, please?]
When it got lost, I was so upset that I kept sending it a distressed message. Then, somehow, it shot back its crystal clear message to me: rest now, everything would be okay. 
Thank you, crystal, wherever you are, rescue me when things get so murky here! 

The politics of the ugly

Mother always taught me to see only the beautiful and ignore the ugly.  I was always in trouble with her. It was not really that I had the talent for seeing ugly things--for that is something that I would develop a taste of much, much later.  But early in life, I'd been made aware of the politics of the ugly. "Ugly girl," Father, rest his soul, used to tell me over the dinner table when he was angry and ill-tempered, which he always was when I was a girl. Your own father telling you that. The feeling stayed with me until I grew up and  I had to tell my boy one day at breakfast: "I grew up believing I was an ugly duckling only to catch my reflection on the mirror and discover I was  a swan!"
That startled everyone in the family.
Later, I discovered it was the in-thing to be ugly.  Still, I could not yet bring myself to do it the way that my boy would scrunch his face, distort it before the camera, revealing things inside out.  Will  that make him automatically an artist? Making a canvas out of his own face? 

It merely made me more aware of how much of my own Mother's creature I had become. Was this also the reason I was junked at about the same age she was cheated, betrayed by friends, fellow teachers? corrupted supervisors?

She always gave us the English equivalent of things, although the Cebuano ones had more texture, more color.  Why would I call kamungggay horse radish? Why would I call nangka jackfruit? kaimito, starapple, ampalaya, bitter gourd? My first writing composition, which had to be done in English, did not include the mud that got stuck and dried flaking on the carabao's back, or those that had caked around my shoes--I never had shoes at this point, she only bought me sandals! Mud wouldn't get itself into my writing composition because it was simply dirty, messy, and way below Mother's eyes. She always wanted things to be dainty, like the round white crocheted doilies she put on the table top or the settee. With Mother, I had learned to clean up;  though, her things around the house were always so messy. She never had the time to fix them.

Now, as my adulthood deepens and I've been going through lots of pain and disorientation, I would consciously study the ugly. I would stare at it in the eye and I would not flinch. I should be the one to strip it naked, to describe it inside out. I should be the first to explore its underbelly.  Speaking the ugly truth, this should be my project.

I'm almost back!

A mandala clock I saw at the Art Hunt during the 2019 Kadayawan

Prateeh has moved to Chiang Mai while I got stuck where I am. Of course, that's because she has the courage to jump off the cliff while I stood frozen, staring at the abyss.  Maybe, it might not even be an abyss I was staring at--who knows it could be paradise?! Only that it's too dark out there, I could not see a thing. But what did I say to Badette (Bernadette) before when she was about to go, and just like me right now, was assailed by so many doubts?
I told her, whatever you do, Badette, just follow your heart because it will lead you to the right decision. During the times when you make big decisions and you could not yet see what's far ahead of you, just close your eyes, quiet your mind, and follow what ever it is that your heart asks you to do.  Your heart, not your mind, will lead you to the right path.
Where did I learn this? Since when did I ever start blurting out things from the mystics?
I spent the whole day yesterday in an activity that only reminded me where I am in the scheme of things. Yes, I'm not yet back. I'm trapped. I can't even summon myself to follow what I told Badette. I couldn't even follow Prateeh. I'm not yet completely back. I'm still hovering over some hazy corner of the horizon, watching some YouTube vloggers leading such simple, carefree lives that I don't have.

There are some things that I missed

I am surprised to discover that I only posted five blogs for the entire year last year.  I failed to mark the coming of the new year and the going away of the old because I'd been working nonstop since July 2018, and the workload never allowed me to breathe all through the year. At Christmas and the New Year, I was simply too tired to celebrate. I even remember battling with sickness while I was doing the usual work overload.  My memory comes in fragments now because of fatigue. 
Since I arrived here in July last year, my days have been bleeding into each other,  the nights becoming days and nights into days, I could no longer tell one from the other.  At times--and it's because I edit the stories fast before they go out to the world as news, I oftentimes get the feeling that the headlines are stale when I see them in the morning. I get the feeling that they happen the other day or the day before that, instead of just yesterday. 
Sometimes an excruciating pain shoots up from my back somewhere and I begin to be afraid of things that I don't understand about spines and lumbar column or whatever they are called. I want to read and learn more about them but the breaking stories keep me occupied. The breaking news, they get in the way of everything I do. They even awaken me from sleep in the middle of the night. I long for simple things--like reading a good book at a leisurely pace in the middle of the garden or eating pizza with my boys at a table near a big window. 
The other day, I got a message from Prateeh but I was too busy when it arrived, I can't even put a finger on the goddamn phone. When I replied, Prateeh must have already gone too far away to even see it. I want to sit down and read a book without anyone disrupting me. The thing that I loved most working in Makati was reading The NewYorker everyday and listening to the Fiction podcast until I drowse off to sleep.  Now all I hear in the morning is the sound of gunfire.

What am I supposed to do?

So, am I supposed to tell you my life has become too laid back now? My life? What life? I don't even have a life. If I had, why can't I rest even just for a day and read Fiction? Am I complaining? During times like these, I used to turn to God. But now that my Pa has left, I always turn to him in my thoughts. Where am I going, Pa? Do you think this is the right path to happiness? What were you thinking before, Pa, did you think I was happy? But did you ever think about your daughters, Pa? Why can't I just give up everything and retire under an old Red or White Lauan, one of those which survived the logging era but fast being threatened by thieves and robbers? (This is a picture of our Maranao friend looking at Lake Lanao during our visit to Marawi in 2014, at least three years before the dreadful siege that reduced the beautiful city into rubble.)

I'm back in Davao!

Staring again at this view from our smoking window (which means, the window where we smoke; este, the windows where smokers smoke because I'm not really a smoker). But I could not yet begin to tell you how hard my trip back home was. How I almost had a breakdown, but a friend at the dorm was kind enough to accompany me to the airport, and it really made me feel better.  I did not have any sleep the night before my trip and so, when I arrived at the passengers' lounge, I felt I could almost collapse from sheer exhaustion.  The people I saw were no longer people. But I waited until we had boarded the plane to finally get my sleep.  Because I was feeling so, so, really bad, so shocked and horrified, I bribed everyone along the way.  So, I paid huge tips to the porters, to the guy who helped carry my luggages, everybody who helped me every inch of the way. I was feeling so bad that I was thinking the only way to save my sanity was to see people happy.  And that was how I started feeling better.  I was thankful to all those people.  When I arrived home, I went to the office right away and began work as if I were superhuman. You could not believe what kind of work I do there. I realized I had to assume the work of three people.  On the third day, we got blame for sleeping at night.

To look so happy!

Finally, after more than two years, I had my ailing tooth extracted. That tooth had survived Pa's battles, it had survived Digong's election, it had survived Makati, it had survived Nanay V. where we used to live near the river Pasig, it had survived all the newsroom drama, story conferences, birthdays, cakes and numerous desserts.  A few weeks before the elections in 2016, I remember how the ache started and my gums swelled so bad, I couldn't eat.  I went to the dentist to have it extracted.  She said it was swelling so bad, I had to take antibiotics first and come back after a week.  A week later, when I came back, the gums were still swelling, so, she gave me another set of much stronger antibiotics, and asked me to come back in another week. I began to have doubts whether it would really subside.  I told her it would be very difficult for me to have my teeth extracted because my father was dying of cancer.  She said I should not take it emotionally, everybody dies. But she did not get it: We had to lift him almost every second and lifting him used to take so much strength, it might be too risky once my tooth got extracted, because the bleeding might not stop. She said I should stop lifting heavy things because I would be grinding my teeth in the process, and that would increase the swelling.  I said, how could I do that? There were only a few of us in the family, there was nobody else to lift him. I also said, we were not lifting things, we were lifting my Pa. To end the argument, she told me to come back the following week after I'd taken the antibiotics.  But I failed to come back the following week because it was election time and I had to cover the elections. My sisters said they were going home to Butuan to vote so I had to stay behind to watch Pa.  The Mindanao bureau chief was shocked that they had to leave my seriously ailing father just to vote and prevent me from covering a major historical event for Mindanao and for the country.  That coverage was not just like any other election coverage because it was the first time that somebody from Mindanao was running for President.   "This is our story, we couldn't just let the Manila people cover this," he said.
So, what I did, I watched Pa while I covered the elections; and it was so stressful, I almost had a nervous breakdown. Of course, the boys were there to help me, but this added to my anxiety, because I was the daughter, I was supposed to be there in my father's sickbed but I was not there all throughout.  I was there but I was not there. So, the nervous breakdown started right at that moment, though, it would unleash its full force weeks later, when I would writhe in a kind of pain that the doctors had trouble explaining. Looking at my laboratory results, the radiologist said, there was nothing wrong with my gall bladder, there was nothing wrong with my stomach, was I in some form of stress? The room was dark and just chilly enough to relax. I said, yes, I was under such indescribable form of stress, I felt I was about die. Why? she asked.  If you've been in that kind of work for far too long, why were you so stressed? Then, I told her what I couldn't even begin to tell you.
[[Tonight, before I went home, I saw all the editors in the newsroom, their eyes glued to the TV monitors where the story of Anthony Bourdain's suicide was being aired. I heard them say they could not believe a man like that could be so sad. I heard them say they had never been that sad. They said, perhaps, he did not really kill himself; maybe, it was just an overdose, an accident.  I did not say anything. I couldn't even begin to tell them how it felt. How possible it was to look so happy and yet feel so hollow inside. And it happens even at your most successful moments, too. It never chooses a particular time or venue.]]

Sunset by the Pasig River

An Afternoon in Malolos

On my first days here, Pam was trying to convince me to join a photography club composed of aspiring (and most probably young) photographers . I told her I could only join such a club it it would have a Joan Bondoc in it. What would Joan be doing in a club like that? she asked. So, what would I be doing in a club like that? I asked. She can't believe it! To make new friends, she said, after a while. New friends?  I don't have a shortage of friends, I have so many!  What would I need some new friends for? The look she cast me that day was a baffled, uncomprehending one. Here was somebody who just arrived in this new strange place and didn't want to make new friends.  But it was true.  Why would I, when the first that I needed to befriend yet was myself? I just arrived here, totally lost and the first person I needed to find was myself. So, the first things I went searching for were the bookshops. I would always emerge with quite a number of books that would add up to my growing hoard. So, you could imagine how much time I needed to spend alone, just to read them. I never had enough time to go out and make friends.
Lately, however, the thought of spending two days in my room oppressed me so much that I ran away and took the bus to the historic town of Malolos.  (TO BE CONTINUED as the pictures take too long to upload and I've been overwhelmed by new spasm of coughing, I still have to go to my room and rest)

Walking in Makati

Last night, a woman stopped her car in the middle of the street to talk to me.  I was walking home on Pasong Tamo, lost in thought, when I heard a  car stop and a voice calling out,  “Where’s Guijo, can you help me?

” I looked up to see a white car, and bending forward from the  driver’s seat, a woman , her hair silhouetted by the soft glow of the city lights, asking for direction.  “It’s somewhere there,” I said, waving my hand to where she just came from. For although I can’t tell exactly the exact location of the street she was looking for,  I was pretty sure it was not where she was headed.

Have I gone past it? she asked with a sigh.  I nodded sympathetically. “I think so.”

 “How about Bagtikan?” the woman asked again.  I threw her a glance which said I was as lost as much as she was.  “It’s one or two blocks away, I think,” I said, gesturing again. “Though, I could not tell you exactly where, it’s there.”    

The encounter was brief and noncommittal and yet it was for me a deep human connection.  If you spend a large part of your day feeling invisible, lost, to be asked for a direction and to have an answer that is readily accepted would be enough to feel good. Getting lost is part of a life here; this is a city of lost people like me; a city of transients; a city where nothing stays the same, including its buildings.

Nights at Edsa

Chrismas shift at the newsroom

This was the second Christmas I spent inside the newsroom. Many things were happening in the regions, so, we could hardly look up from our desk to consider what day it was.  Three days before, Vinta made landfall on Cateel, Davao Oriental; and had badly hit the provinces of Zamboanga del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte, and we had to keep track as the stories--and the numbers--kept coming.  It was not until I was about to go out hours before Christmas Eve that I noticed the many gifts  gathering at the bottom of the staircase and remember what they meant. I said goodbye to the guards and the last few people left behind.  Everybody was asking where I was going and what I would be doing during the next happy hours! I went out as fast as I could, my heart beating fast. How I loved to be alone with my thoughts and my readings at the strike of Christmashour!  Merry Christmas belated!

Mambusao

They had this beautiful church in my Pa's hometown.  When I first saw the image, months after he passed away, I regretted that I could no longer show it to him to ask how it was to run or walk around its grounds as a boy? And if he ever was allowed to climb up to its belfry and when he was there, what did he see? Did he see the entire Mambusao, did he see his mother looking everywhere for him? Did he see a girl? Did he see an angel? 
Then, I regretted, too, that I abandoned my desire to visit his hometown. I was always broke during those times, I worked too hard--even on Sundays and holidays--and earned too little that the only way for us to push through with the trip was for Pa to shoulder the expenses.  I was not aware that he could afford it but I took pity of him (for having a penniless daughter like me) when I thought about the idea. Besides, his temper was the worst during those times; he insulted me for the flimsiest things he caught me doing, such as, talking to my cats!  Smarting from all the insults I got from him, I retreated to the deepest corner of myself, licking my wounds. Inside my room, reading a book,  I heard him badgering Ma, "What was she saying? She wanted us to go to Mambusao? Why? Shall we go?"
But I never pursued the topic anymore.  With pursed lips, I stopped talking.
Months after he was gone, while editing stories from the regions, I came upon the old church named after Catherine of Alexandria, and was wondering what could Pa's memories be of that church. Did he ever run around those grounds and how did it feel to be there as a boy? 

How I nearly lost all the important papers

Sometime in November--no, it was on November 2, to be exact; which was an All Souls Day--I went out of the house in B'la to Mrs. M. to follow up some documents on Pa's property while Eve was on her way back to Davao.  Eve dropped me off at M.'s house, along with all the documents, which were all very important, to talk to Mrs. M.; after which, Mrs. M. also handed me another set of documents, which were also very important, I had a hard time carrying them all in my arms. 
Mrs. M.'s house was shielded by shrubs of gumamela in a garden she made in her yard and the moment I went out of Mrs. M's gate--Mrs. M. was even so generous as to accompany me outside her gate and to hail a SkyLab for me, I thought it was still too early to go home.  It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and the hot sun was beating down my cheeks, hotly and fervently, like a long lost lover and I asked the SkyLab to bring me to Bansalan. 

Earlier, upon saying goodbye, Ma'm M said I could hardly find a ride going home to B'la from there, though, I knew I could, if I would only give the Skylab driver the right price quotation; but for some reasons, I did not go straight home. 

But I only went to the public C-R when I got there. Yes, you're right, I merely went to the comfort room to see myself before a huge mirror, then, went off to board another SkyLab on my way home to B'la. 

It was only when I was already riding another SkyLab, and we were already passing by Mrs. M.'s place, that I noticed  I was no longer carrying anything in my arms; no folder, no documents, no nothing! Those were the moments you could never describe the color of my face. I was already moaning and mumbling incomprehensible syllables, when the driver and some passengers, figuring out what was going on, had dropped me off in an area where I could most likely take a ride back to Bansalan.  
Every step of the way along the provincial and national highway that day was fret with unearthly pleadings to God and to the dead. I asked my Pa to please, take care of those documents; to not let it fall in other people's hands (who might not need it anyway) and to return it to me.  I even promised many things to Pa.  I promised to keep my hands off the land he had worked for most of his life, though, I was not interested in it but for the story. 

Something happened to me along that road.  The SkyLab driver, a soft-spoken, gentle old man, did not know the anguish I was going through.  I tried to speak gently to him. I tried to suppress my panic. Those were probably the longest ride I ever endured in my life.  As soon as we reached the public mall, I literally jumped off the SkyLab, stopped breathing as I stepped into the public toilet, and saw--for all the goodness in the world, and all the Saints in Heaven--that the two folders entrusted to me, was just where I left them; a little disarrayed, maybe, someone must have looked through it and found nothing, but they were there. Intact. I promised to light a candle on All Souls Day. 

I went home very wet and tired.  There was a downpour on my way home but I managed to protect the documents with a set of plastic bags I bought from a sarisari store.  

Missing Files

There's a full moon outside.  I went home, excited to open the new USB that Ja just mailed from Davao, thinking I'd finally find the missing journals that I thought would make my life complete.  But just as I suspected, Ja got it wrong again. I was looking for the 2015 and 2016 journals which have been missing in my collection of files which started back in 2008. So, I asked him to do the impossible thing of having my old USB cleaned by a technician.  It did not take very long for him to do that.  He soon texted me saying all my files, including my journals, were safe inside. I discovered, though, that all that the flash disk drive contained were useless files.  The drive only contained all my attempted projects for Adobe Premiere that would no longer open because their photos have been moved somewhere else. Suddenly, I  felt very tired. I opened my old photo files and found that even the photos can make a journal. This picture, for instance, says it was taken on March 7, 2016, a Monday; when I was alternating every two or three days going home to B'la to find out how Ma and Pa were doing.  It was the height of the drought but I couldn't sit down long enough to write.  I wanted to connect the drought happening in this part of the world with the melting of the glaciers somewhere in the Himalayas. That drought took rather long and I saw grass and vegetation begin to wilt.  But life, for me, was also speeding very fast.  The drought ended while I was inside the buses, or aboard a SkyLab on my way  to Bansalan and back.  The days moved even faster than a click of a camera shutter, a blink of an eyelid.  I mastered all kinds of public transport about this time. I also went to all kinds of strange places, saw all kinds of sadness and horror,  met lots of beautiful people, among them was the driver named Benny, who told me never to leave my Pa, no matter what. Did I follow what he said? I felt I did, though, I also felt I did not, and would sometimes feel bad about it.  But most of the time, I feel that I was right. 
I met lots of people who were kind and eager to help at times I least expected help. [I have to stop now because I'm having a sore throat that threatens to be a full-blown flu. I feel I need to rest. I think I'm sick.]

Outpouring

Do you remember when I talked to you that night when it was raining and the rain had soaked my shoes I left outside the door? I discovered it only in the morning when it was time to go and I realized I didn't feel like walking on a wet pair of shoes, so, Eve let me use her pair of black thongs which until now I haven't returned?
No, maybe, my memories got mixed up and I was talking of a different night. 
Maybe, it was not raining that night; but you, as usual, had your old tantrum. You called us names. You said words we never heard at home when we were growing up; words that made us wince with loathing. Ione must have given up on you, she merely sighed a tired sigh.  She had taken cared of you, night and day, and all she got was humiliation. Was that what she was thinking as she closed the door and went outside? 
Ma, I brought her upstairs to rest, ignoring your nagging, Beth-Beth! Asa ka, Beth?! Beth! She was looking very frail. I said, Eve, let Ma sleep here, I will be the one to watch Pa.  
For anyone to watch you at this time meant that one would not sleep a wink until morning. You would ask us for help to sit up and once you're up, you'd ask for help to lie down; and when you're already lying down, you'd say you want to sit up again; and this way over and over all the way till morning. I said, puslan man, Pa, you don't want to sleep, let's have a good talk, Pa. You said, what?! Your eyes glaring. I said, let's talk, and quizzed you about Lola, your father, your sisters. 
"Why do you keep asking me about the dead?" you retorted. 
I did not give up but backed out a bit by asking you about Upper. What the place was like before you came. Who was Ayok, Bagobo. How did he look like. 
"I don't take stock of people in the past," you said. 
I said I'm sick and tired of the city, I want to live in a place like Upper.  I want to plant trees. I want to live in the rainforest (and read Dostoyevsky, Foucault, Annie Proulx). 
You said I can squat there in Upper, there are lots of places to squat. "Squat?!" I asked, wildly amused, feeling betrayed. "Yes, squat," you said. "Many people squat there. You can be like them, squatter." 
"But how will I live?" I asked, feeling you just fenced me off your property.  
"You can plant corn, bananas."
I had that sinking feeling again.
"But I can't live there, Pa," I said, after a while. "I will still stay and work in the city until the boys got to finish college. I will see to it that they finish first, no matter what it takes, before I go and live in a place like Upper."
I heard you pause when you heard this.
It was only much, much later, after I've gone home and taken a bath and was watering my Oregano when I realized what that pause could have meant.
I remember our conversations in the past and I remember that boy who desperately wanted to go to school, but no one else out there had staked it out for him.  Instead, he ended up sending his younger siblings to school. Later, I would hear this boy asking his mother, why? Why? Long after his mother was gone.  He felt betrayed. No one remembered. Or so, he felt. 
You used to say to me, "and that's because I sent you there." "You have your life now because of me." 
You felt abandoned. 
No one come back to return the favor.   
So, when you paused that night, did you finally get it, Pa? Did you finally see a break from the past, did you see a return of a favor, did you see that no one is going to be left behind?

That conversation with my father

I posted this on social media, exactly three months after we brought him to the hospital and we grappled for the first time with the seriousness of his condition. By this time, he must have already been staying with me somewhere in Novatierra; or, was he already taken to that rented room in Ecoland? I could no longer remember exactly. I only knew the days during this time had bled unto each other, I could no longer tell when one ended and the other one began as I precariously struggled to eke a living, while at the same time, trying to face up to that reality that was Pa. 
But I took this picture some time in October 2012 or 2013, when he was still relatively strong. I decided to post this here because that conversation I had with him the night before was probably the last sane conversation I had with him. Perhaps, it was the only conversation in my entire life when I told him what was on my mind (or my heart, actually); what I've been longing to do for a long time; but which I never got the courage (or the time, the resources) to start:

July 1, 2015. He was still strong when I left home to take these pictures. He walked three kilometers, looking for me, thinking that I had gone away to the farm. He did not know I was only crouched in a neighboring ricefield; so, when months ago, I first saw him being wheeled to the x-ray room unable to get up, I looked back to this particular day, when he walked three kilometers looking for me; and when he did not find me, he walked back another three kilometers to the house; and I said, wow, Pa, you're still strong to cover all that distance in one morning!

Timber Dreams

That night, I told him how I dreamed of planting timber trees.  

“I want to plant timber, Pa, I want to collect them all,” I said, “I will cover the land with molave, Philippine teak, dipterocarp, Philippine mahogany, even the old lauans which used to thrive here.”

I told him how I loved indigenous trees and had already befriended someone who knew where I can source the Red Lauan.  I said I knew where I can find the seedlings of Ilang Ilang and all kinds of trees, including what other people think are useless ones. I said there is no such thing as a useless tree. I’ve been hunting for a tree called Makuno, or Ironwood, which an environment director once described to me as a wood so hard it could replace real iron needed for an important part of a ship engine; and in one area hit by a landslide, people talked about the fall of an old ironwood tree, which caused the number of the dead to swell. There, people began to fear an ironwood as they feared something evil but I figured out, the ironwood was only getting back what had been taken from the environment. After years of neglect and abuse, the soil where the ironwood stood, had loosened; causing it to fall.

I remember Pa beaming with excitement. In the morning, I had set out with my camera.  I found him sitting in the sofa and I said, I’m going outside to take some pictures, are you going with me, Pa? He smiled. I must have sensed him wanting to go.  I must have seen something in his eyes. But I only planned to go somewhere near the rice fields, where for an hour or so, I lay crouched under a rectangular trellis, the one used perhaps for ampalaya or upo or other crawling vine, which was not there anymore.  

I was trying to compose a picture, experimenting with different angles, while a farmer or two had passed me by, wondering what I was doing there. 

When I went back to the house, someone from the farm had been calling on my phone. “Are you coming? Your Pa is here, looking for you.”

He expected me to go to the farm.

He must have been excited by my dream to plant timber.  But my love for images, the impulse to capture the world through the lens of the camera, got in the way. 

Argao belfry mirrored in the puddle of water

Shortly after the traditional nine-day prayer (novenas are always nine days, stupid), sister made an edict that Ma should spend some time in  Argao, Ma's hometown, just to see people from her childhood--and perhaps--to keep her mind off the memories of Pa (how can she keep off memories?!); and that, I should accompany Ma make the historical trip. I didn't know how sister got this outlandish idea, but I did not protest, and had accompanied Ma to the place, which also held my endless fascination since I was a child. "We should all go there, one of these days," I told my boys, "The soil there is white because it's made of limestone, unlike here in Mindanao, where the soil black," I said, without bothering to explain what difference the white limestone and the loamy black soil brings to farmers. 
But when we reached Argao, I never got the chance to go to the house on the hill where Ma grew up, and where we had summer memories looking out of its big windows out to sea. 
Right in the morning of our arrival, I missed the apple cider vinegar I've been taking to heal my skin rashes and skin sores, and decided to substitute it with two or three spoonfuls of the vinegar I found on the table.  Later, I was seized by chills and a fever.[Are you crazy? What did you do?" my Aunt, a biologist teaching at the Pamantasan ng Maynila, called in, angry, "You can't substitute that vinegar for apple cider--it's acetic acid!]   The doctor, also a relative, kept repeating, "No doctor ever recommended that you take apple cider," a veiled criticism for the relative she had seen for the first time.  She suspected that my stomach pain could have been caused by the vinegar  -  but she can't explain the chills and the fever, so she sent us to  the laboratory to have some tests taken but when  we got there, the lab was closed and would open only at 8 am the following day.

So, we went home and saw this puddle that caught the image of the Argao's belfry on water.  I never got to have that lab exams, though.  I know that it will still show the running allergy that kept showing in my past laboratory results and which I continued to ignore. I should go see the doctor soon! Promptly!   

Things that fascinate me

NOTES FROM MY JOURNAL
September 13, 2012 

What did photographer Nick Onken say in his book “photo trekking?” 

Choose the subjects that interest you. 

Don’t only photograph subjects just because you are paid to do it  but explore also those that naturally fascinate you and attract you for some reasons.

This is how you develop your style, he wrote. 

Just a bit like writing, I think. But what are the things that really fascinate me? 

Alleyways. Skies (although I just found  how their colors change at different hours of day, as Ja used to point out to me). Mirrors. Doors. Windows. Labyrinth. Churches. Buildings. People. Roads. Shapes. Sillhouettes. Books. Shadows. Ceramics. Jugs and Jars.  Signs and writings on the walls. Cats.

Roads. Especially roads.

Rivers.

I discover this journal because I was looking for traces of Pa among the things I wrote before.

My greatest pleasure

Japanese Zero

As soon as we were back in Davao, I had asked Sean what he remembers about his Lolo; and he said, "That particular moment when we went home to B'la, and Dad and I were so crazy about airplanes, we were making airplanes made of cardboard, and suddenly, Lolo noticed what we were doing and said, Uy, eroplano man na sa Hapon!" For Sean and Ja used to make  Japanese Zero out of cardboard and scotch tape.  I remember holding one cardboard Zero when we left Nova Tierra a year after Pa's first attack; holding it up to Ja for I wanted to give it to one of the neighborhood kids, and Ja said, "Leave it alone with the garbage," and I remember feeling sorry both for the Zero and the neighborhood kid, who would be deprived of the joy of playing with an airplane replica, even if it was only made of cardboard, even if it played a cruel role in the war theater, I was only interested in it as a toy.
Yet, I remember, too, leaving a pot of wounded Oregano--its branch had been unwittingly cut off in the midst of our moving, and saw the aghast face of our next door neighbor when I left it to her to care for.  She never really loved plants, and never knew anything about Oregano, so, how can I expect her to appreciate the extraordinary mission of healing a wounded plant? It was only later when I realized my stupidity, for she actually  expected me to leave the healthy ones, and not what she considered a reject! So, to avoid further embarrassment, I followed Ja's order to leave the Japanese Zero to the garbage, instead of handing it out to Jamal, the Maguindanaoan boy who was our next door neighbor, because maybe, Jamal would not really love to have a  Japanese Zero made of cardboard.  (But still, I strongly suspect that he'd love it!)
Now, I'm warming to the fact that when Sean thinks of his grandfather, he remembers those times, he and his Dad were so crazy about airplanes, they were building Japanese Zero out of scotch tape and cardboard, and it was his Lolo who first took notice of what they were doing. Did they, at least, leave one Japanese Zero for him?  I wonder what Karl is thinking when he thinks of his Lolo, but as for me, I remember so many things, including an unfinished conversation when he was in pain and sleepless throughout the night.  I had a deluge of memories that needed to be sort out and taken down, one by one, never to be forgotten.

Pa voted in 1965

But for whom? Did he vote for Ferdinand Marcos, who won that year and later, plunged the country into the darkest era of its history? Or, did he vote for Diosdado Macapagal, who lost that year but whose daughter, who got the taste of Malacanang at age 14, also became the president in the post-Marcos years, one of the presidents who faced a plunder case toward the end of her  term? I don't know to whom did he cast his vote but the moment I first laid eyes on his voter's ID, I was simply awestruck  by how young he looked. "So, this is the guy who had smitten Ma?" I asked.  A quick math showed he was still 28; if the birth year on the ID was right; though, we were told all our life that he was born in 1935, just like Ma; and later, I would discover another document which showed he was born in 1936. The place in Mambusao, Capiz, which held the documents of his birth had been burned during the war.
I found his voter's ID sometime in 2016, when he was in his 80s [age count based on the latest document]; and he was in Davao City, struggling with lung cancer, taken under the care of my sister Ai-Ai, while I had to rush to the house in B'la to oversee the sale of copra the following day.  I was alone in the house the whole night, when in the wee hours, armed with a flashlight and my reading glasses, I decided to trespass my way through his dust-covered nito bag, to rummage his old and yellowing documents.  I wonder about the life of that young man, then. Below the word occupation, the clerk had written, farmer. His entire life was the land and the coconut farm. I wonder what gave him so much pleasure then, what made him wince in pain, what made him sad, what were the dreams he dreamed of, what were the things he thought about so often, what were the monsters he feared. "I used to have lots of money because I was always working," he had told me, over and over, while we were in the hospital waiting for his diagnosis.  
"But I've always been working since the day I left college, Pa," I had wanted to say because my experience was different.  "I always had a lot of cash," he kept repeating.  
He told me all about his abundance of cash at the time when I never had enough to survive, so poor, I could not even afford to take a few days off from work. I had wanted to ask, so, where is your money, Pa? Can you save a daughter with your lots of money? But an admission of poverty would surely anger him.  "Pobre?! Kinsa'y ingon, pobre?!" he'd say, and so, I kept everything to myself. 
After delighting at the picture of the younger Pa, my eyes fell on the rather strong and uneven handwriting on the card's left corner, the same cursive that appeared on my birth certificate.  Even the handwriting spoke about my Pa.  It may have lacked the grace and spontaneity of someone accustomed to hold the pen but it showed the stubborn firmness, the grit and determination of the boy who was already working the farm since he was still nine years old.   When they got to Mindanao, he had wanted to study and be a pilot, just like his Uncle, he said. But when the family was able to buy land, he had set aside the dream and helped four of his younger siblings go to school.  At times, when he was bedridden, he still had his memories of Uncle Erin or of Uncle Jose--which of the two uncles was the pilot or the priest, I still kept confusing, until now--and how, he was taken in an airplane with the Uncle once, when he was still a boy.
The back of the card showed his thumb mark and the date, March 29, 1965, when the voter's ID was issued.  Both the presidential and legislative elections was slated in November that year, still a good eight months away.  Pa used to be either dismissive or tyrannical about his views of politics. Some time in the past, I could have picked up a hint whether he voted for Macapagal or Marcos. Sometimes, in fact, I had the vague memory of hearing it, not from his mouth but from the things he refused to say. 
Marcos had won the elections that year, which eventually paved his way to becoming a Dictator.  
I had the feeling that Pa wouldn't have voted for him. 
But that's only a daughter's opinion. 

Sunrise Breaking

This picture, taken when sunrise was breaking beyond the veranda of our home in B'la outlining the leaves of the Song of India, makes me think of my Pa. 
At the height of his ailment - those long uncertain months after his first hospital stay when we deemed it good to let him stay in the city - I used to leave Davao City at dawn to go to Bansalan to oversee the weighing of copra.  I was so insecure about the whole proceeding because: first, I didn't even know how to read the weighing scales used by the Chinese merchants to weigh sacks and sacks of our produce, so, you can imagine how strained I was, standing there, pretending to understand, when all the while, I was feeling like an idiot (of course, this did not last long because Pamela Chua, a Tsinay from Binondo, whispered to me the secret code--okay, this part is purely isturyang hubog, see, I put it inside the parenthesis?!); second, there was no one in the family overseeing the workers in the farm, which actually meant, we are slowly, gradually but surely, losing control of things over there.  So, to calm my nerves, I used to leave Davao City too early, when everyone else was still snoring;  to see to it that I arrived at the house at dawn so that I had enough time to be at the farm at 6 am, when everybody least expected me.  This would allow some time for me to get to know the people and to observe what was going on in the farm (though, I hardly had two hours to do all these).  During those months, I had studied the proceedings of the farm and studied the people there just like the way I read my books.  [Of course, I eventually developed a grasp of the politics and economics of the place, developed a feel of whom to trust and whom to be wary, honed my skills to read people's hearts and people's intentions; but I admit that up to now, I still can't tell a coconut ready for harvest  from a buko or a banana!  Uh-okay, I can tell a banana, but to tell a mature coconut fruit ready for harvest from a buko continues to be a puzzle to my untrained eyes! To compensate for this, however, I knew someone I can trust who can tell the difference.] 
Once, I overshot my target hour of arrival in Bansalan and had left Davao City at 2 am, which was rather too early. I arrived home when it was still dark and drank the loneliness of the house. I went to the upper bedroom and saw Pa's things and shirts scattered in different places in our frantic search for things to bring that day we left for the hospital. I felt this searing pain as I saw the pillow where Pa's head used to lie, the old Bisaya magazines he used to thumb through and had left in the corner, still half-folded; the glass, still half-full of water, where he drank that night, before he was seized by the pain which made him say, "Dios ko, Dios ko, Gino-o," as he made the sign of the cross; which made me send a text message to my sisters, "It must really be painful because I've never ever heard him say, Dios ko, before;" which made my sisters, hundreds of kilometers away, race for home days after. 
Still, I can't forget the sight: his slippers which were scattered in different directions, the discarded clothes, the poor state of his old shoes, worn, weather-beaten, gathering dust in a cordizo;  and even the dusty nito basket hooked to a nail on the wall, where he kept his documents.   

Why can't we just shut the door and only allow our dearest ones to enter?

The funeral did not really allow me enough room to mourn and grieve for my Pa.  There were so many people around; most of them someone I knew from childhood, but not all of them were offering a word of comfort. Some were there only to measure you and be critical of who you are. Some were really so tactless and mean that instead of consoling us in  times of grief, they only succeeded in upsetting me, and taking me away from thoughts of my Pa. For instance, there was this guy, who was so rude, he said I must have been so old by now because I was already far ahead in school when he and Eve were still in Grade One. Of course, he was Eve's barcada. "Day, ikaw ba, tiguwang na jud ka kaayo karun, Day, no, kay Inday na man ka daan atong naa mi sa Grade One ni Eve?" he asked. Of course, I told him, Hoy, I was far ahead of you because I was very young when I entered school! I was a visitor at age 5 but I was good enough to pass Grade One. (I should have told the guy this: I bet, you were still struggling to read your first alphabets at a very late age, while I only breezed through it at 5! But I was not quick enough to say that!)
Recalling it now, I realized, I was not quick enough to shoot back my killer one-liner (the way I used to) because I kept telling myself I was in my father's funeral and I had to be very careful not to make a scene with tactless and unwelcome visitors!  There was another guy, who was already drunk and started making some statements about the eldest daughter, because he mistook me for the youngest.  But our youngest sister said,  "Ah, she's always mistaken as the youngest," which immediately alerted the guy. I was curious what that drunkard was about to say about me before he was stopped by his companions.  Was he going to blurt out something about my political beliefs? Or why I hadn't married?! 
Then, the wake was really a wake, because it forced you to stay awake, even if your body was already crumbling for lack of sleep.  I had to get along with some people, including the driver who told me pointblank in between gulps of Fundador, I should be ashamed of myself because at my age, I still don't have a house and a car, I should strive to have one! As if those were all that mattered in the world. [But maybe, he was right?!] I told the foolish fellow those were not the things that I treasure most. What I treasure most are things that people like him could not see. But the guy was so stupid to even understand a word of what I was saying. 
Except for some kindred souls--like the two women friends from the Seventh Day Adventist, who offered me some beautiful verses to light up the dark moments of grief (and surprisingly, they belong to another religious sect and only came to pay their respect), most of the people at the funeral really upset me.  I was wondering why can't we just make the funeral a private affair?  Why not shut the door and only allow those closed to us to enter?

Moments

Things really happen so fast these days, but not really that fast, because I'm sure, I've been given sufficient signs and sufficient warnings of what lays ahead. On May 1, I was asked to go to Taiwan in a spur of the moment and while walking along Chino Roces with Pam before my trip, I had told Pam over and over again I had wanted to go to Butuan to visit my Pa but how can I do it? It's so difficult for me to do it because of something. Did I tell Pam I was not on speaking terms with my sister? Do it, she said. You have to do it. But I can't. I still can't. Why? she asked. Because. Pam said, Do it. I said, maybe, I should talk with my Pa in other ways, through the mind, perhaps, or through dreams because it's very difficult for me to go there, Pa, you know.  So, on the eve of June 1 when Eve called, she said I would no longer make it. I booked a ticket to Butuan to catch up with my Pa, who had been bedridden there for about eight months and people said he was waiting for me.  When I saw him, I could not almost recognize him. His face had assumed the face of my grandmother, who was so fair and pretty, and his hair has gone long and white. Pa, nia na si Ate, Pa, said Eve from the door. Did I see a flicker of recognition on his closed eyelids? 
Oh, if you only knew the weight of those final moments.

View from my window on Zhongshan Street

I'm still sick so that excuses me from writing.

Break the ice, will you?!

I just finished all the four articles from Taipei and sent everything online except the pictures (which I fear I don't have) and so, I am posting this as an ice-breaker.  This picture reminds me that I never got to meet some ordinary folks in Taiwan when I went there the past six days.  Of course, I met some of them at the train station when we were heading to Hsinchu, a city about an hour south of Taipei; or, maybe, even our  Mofa friend Jack Li, who accompanied us throughout the tour; that is, if he considered himself just like another Taiwanese. But all I can think of were those folks at the train station. They were seated at the waiting area, some of them might have been pissed off with me for taking lots of pictures, but when I looked at this photograph in my photo file and saw these motorcycle-riding men, I realized that I never really got to meet some people in Taiwan.  We were shuttled around from one place to another to meet and interview the Ministers, and on the fifth day, we met the President at the Presidential Palace. Which was not really a good experience for me because I was the only one not wearing a suit. I left it in the Philippines in a hurry to leave Makati. I know that the office will kill me if they learn about this--which they might, when they see our picture with the President. Depending on how you look at it, it might be regarded as a breach of protocol, which it is. So, I cringe. I don't want to remember my trip to Taipei because I was the only one not wearing a suit when we met the President, and everyone was wearing their best, but I merely treated it as another day in the office, where I frequently told Lyca, no, it's not important what you wear there as long as your English grammar is perfect.  Now, I learned my lesson. What you wear is important, damnit! Maybe, I should not let anyone read this.  I should make the font so tiny so that no one could read. This is embarrassing!

Selfie

Lyca, April and I went to the Century Mall to watch Emma Watson's performance in the Beauty and the Beast but were flustered when we found out the movie house  already ran out of tickets.   Deeply let down, we ambled about the building, taking as much selfies as we can.

Setting sight on something

How the sky looked like the last time I went home

Happy Easter!

I've been holed inside my room for the entire duration of the Lenten break, so, I missed all the observance of the Passion here, which, based on the telltale signs I kept seeing on the streets on the days leading up to it, has been passionately marked by the community where I live. Still, I sat here deeply engrossed in my reading through out the Holy Week until this morning, when I happened to wake up late to find it's a Happy Easter, and I'd like to greet everyone out there, sending this image of the old the old belfry of the church of the Lady of the Abandoned, and its amazing stained glass windows, which have fascinated me since the first time I entered the church's dark cavernous hall alone.

Hunt for vegan food

I discovered this vegetarian outlet at the heart of Makati but I will only tell you about it later.

Postpartum reflection

I feel so devastated after that long-distance chat with my boy. It had started well, actually, but towards the end, he had been passing judgment on me quite unfairly about the choices I made in my life, without asking me how and why I made those choices. It hurt terribly. But in retrospect, I realized, who were the people who had been judging me that way and it was not my boy. So, I suspected, he just caught that narrative from someone else, just a whiff of an idea, which germinated and came out of his mouth as his own. That's the trouble with long-distance conversations, you only have such a next-to-nothing chance of getting heard, or having some points clarified, you could not even trace how and why he had said such things. I can glean from his lines that he had some issues with me, which had never been there before, well, it must have been the fertile ground for that wicked idea from wicked people to germinate. It puzzled me for a while until I realized where he had been to recently. He accused me of so many things, including perhaps, [because this was not said outwardly, but in between lines] blaming me for his difficult childhood. (Sigh). Life, of course, had not really been that easy for both of us and I had really tried to make it easier for him, though, my best was not really that good enough. But I still think I was not to blame. You know who was to blame. How could I ever make people understand when people can't even open their eyes? They're deaf and blind! 
So, well-what do you expect? He just came back from a visit to his father, so, are you still surprised? They always blame the women for all the effing wrong that happened to their lives, don't they?  Even if it was the women who did all the dirty work for them.
Yet, to hear those things from your own son. I was so disturbed, I did not write anything the whole day.  I was just staring in space and closing my eyes to feel which part of my body hurt the most.