Going home to B'la

My Oregano survived!

Over the weekend, Ja was becoming restless and insisted that we went home to B'la to see the impact of the quake on the abandoned house. We saw cracks on the wall and decided it would no longer be safe if another strong quake struck. Water from the last rain had flooded the backyard and drowned most of the plants with mud but I was grateful that my Oregano under the care of Titing had survived!

Swinging back!

I have to put it on record that I've finally cleaned my room today. I have begun sorting my things out and putting them in order. This is for me such a great achievement, considering how crazy and stressful my schedules (and my struggles) had been in the last nine months. Now that 2019 is about to end, I have decided to take things really easy, to just take one step at a time, to not strain myself too much; to not demand too much of myself, to just be good and forgiving to myself.
Things that make me smile: my peppermint and rosemary have been doing well. I've cleaned the refrigerator and now, I'm eating figs bought from Majid's Kabab while reading Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle, volume 3 alone in my room!

On our way to Dumaguete

We missed the fast craft and so, we were pressed to
take the Cokaliong boat which leaves Cebu city at 12 pm.

Roommate

They would always look for proofs and so, I would deliver these from the ceiling.  They would also ask for testimonies and in that case, I would bring them Carol dela Cruz who used to live in a room next to mine, who got fired by the call center where she worked so, she was spending long hours at the dorm watching TV at our common dining hall. Sometimes, I'd find her there, designing and stitching a gown for one of the roommates who was expecting a party with her Boss. I never knew she could sew but she said she can, her mother was a seamstress, she was born with a needle in her mouth and she grew up designing gowns and dresses. 
In fact, she was able to come up with a gown, using only her bare hands.  She didn't have a sewing machine at the dorm; no one was allowed to.  Even the volume of our clothes and other belongings was closely monitored by Big Brother. She had a boyfriend who flattered her exceedingly on her cell phone. Other people did not like her because sometimes she nagged the guard to change the container of the water dispenser, acting like a mayordoma of the place. The water dispenser already ran out of water (we were not allowed to change these, ourselves), so she scolded the guard, who was always sleepless and overworked and that was how she pissed off the rest of the roommates.
But when I was about to go to the airport, I dropped a hint that it would be perfect for her to accompany me. She was aware that I had been packing for days. That I never had enough sleep, that I never had breakfast nor lunch that day and that my flight was at 3 pm. That I was too tired from all the packing; that  I ended up throwing away my things because they would no longer fit into my luggage.  That I would have wanted to bring along my tumbler and my reading lamp and my mug as a souvenir of my stay at the place but still, I ended up throwing them because they wouldn't fit my luggage. I just made it a point never to throw away the books that I'd accumulated from my almost-two-year stay there and so, I sent them by courier.  The LBC girl who was so snotty and strict the previous day noticed that I kept coming back for more books to send, saw the haggard look on my face and suddenly turned gentle and helpful.
But I was simply too tired and too stressed out to go to the airport, I felt I would collapse.  "How about if you'd go with me? Just take a little stroll?" I asked Carol. "But I don't have any money for fare," she said. "Don't worry about that, I'd shoulder it," I said. That fired up her imagination and she said, "Okay, I just want to take a look at the airport."
She was a really heaven sent on our way to the airport. I swore I could never have lifted my heavy luggages, there were just too many of them, without her. I wouldn't have been able to negotiate with the people to carry our luggages down the dorm to the Grab taxi, I wouldn't have been able to spot the Grab, she was really a perfect Doña Carolina, everybody obeyed her; she was perfect for the role.  I was already crushing under the weight of my emotions but she was the one who brought us both to the nearest McDo at the airport to grab a bite. She even brought me to the chapel while I tried so hard to keep awake.

Old Photograph

Pa was still alive when I took this picture.  He was already stricken, though. I went off to take photos of the landscape during the height of the El Niño and ended up taking photos of my shadow.

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?