Monday, July 30, 2007

Doing a Julie Andrews

No, I can't belt out "... the hills are alive with the sound of music ..." but I can recite, sing-song, my favorite things. Here are a few of them:
Sudden rains tempering a sizzling summer day.
Scent of mangoes ripening, adobo simmering, bread baking, coffee brewing.
A warm corner, corn on the cob and John Steinbeck or Bob Ong on a rainy afternoon.
Sunsets on a picture window in the campus I work in.
Festive sunflowers on University Avenue.
My girls giggling over some deep dark secret and letting me in on it.
My boys looking at my girls with a silly grin and being overprotective with them.
Reading a good story or blog piece; writing one.
A "Q" on a blue and an "I" under and right of it, on a scrabble board.
So ...stand me up, let me down, steal my thunder, rain my parade (or even step on my blue suede shoes) -- I cope, I get by. Simply by thinking, what else -- favorite things.

By the way, what are yours?




Sunday, July 22, 2007

THE APPLE OF MY EYE - Conclusion (Women in Love and in Trouble - 2)

by: Lilian (as told to Annamanila)

Didn’t I tell you about Ding’s string of girl friends? There were so many I couldn’t any more distinguish one from the other. But there were two whom I’ll never forget.

Eva was a girl from his office. She’s small, cute, brown, sexy. Well, to make a long story short, I was able to track down Eva and she turned out to be really nice as well. She promised to forget Ding. And she also asked me to bring her home “... so I can see Ding’s children ... so I can prop up my decision to break up with him.”

Taking a crowded bus, we were hanging by the estribo all the way. When we alighted, Eva said: “You could have pushed me from the bus, you know.”

Ding came home very early ... which I did not expect. He saw the visitor right away and was about to backtrack. I called him back and Eva saw him and he did not have a choice but to stay. We talked awhile, the three of us. Finally, Eva told him: “Sana naman, matauhan na tayo,” to which he answered curtly: “Ikaw lang.”

When Eva took her leave, Ding said he’d take her to the bus stop. No, I said firmly, I’ll take her. Before climbing the bus that would take her home, she asked me to forgive her.

Ding was cold and scornful after that. One night, I noticed him tossing in bed. When I looked at him, his face was glistening with tears. I asked him: “Why do you weep? Don’t you love me anymore?” He dd not answer but turned his back to me.
There must be a place, a place where love has gone.
- from the song
I found out later that Eva was sacked from work and away from Ding. He was crying because of her.

There had been many Evas in Ding's life. But this Eva stood out because she was a good girl, who could have been a friend.


Sarah

Sarah was not a good girl, I think. She had no compunction about breaking up a family. She broke ours quickly.

When Ding met Sarah, the toast of a karaoke bar in Ermita, he threw all caution to the wind. He used to be reasonably discreet about his other affairs. The affair with Sarah he openly flaunted as if taunting me to do the worst I could.

She’d call our home and ask for Ding even if I was the one who answered the phone. When I badmouthed her, she badmouthed me back. One time, she insisted that Ding told me in my face that he loved her more than me. And what do you know – Ding did as told. “She’s drunk,” Ding explained simply.

When Sarah’s mother was hospitalized, he took a week’s leave from work to be their all around macho man and errand boy.

He came home infrequently. Before Christmas two years ago, he came home to ask for his freedom, as though marriage to me was prison.

For months, I held back. I’d never let him go, I said.

Going to church daily gave me hope. My friends rallied around me. They’d call up Sarah at my bidding. Through them, I learned when the affair was at high gear. Sarah had quit working at the bar, so Ding would quit being jealous of other men hovering around her.

I tried to end it all. But then, maybe I didn’t really want to. I attempted to drown myself – in, of all things – a bucket of tap water. I only succeeded in giving myself a bad case of sinusitis and colds. But that was enough to alarm my mother-in-law who in turn alerted my mother. My family came in full force to take me home. Already tired, I let them take away my things, my children, my self – away from the apple of my eye.

Away from Ding, I healed fast. I reviewed our life together – and found little that was worth salvaging. I guess I couldn’t love him enough for the both of us.

Karma

Karma, my friends called it. If it was, it came quickly for Ding.

Less than a year after we parted, Ding had a second coronary attack that was far more serious than the first. He was in coma at a hospital’s intensive care unit.

It took two days and all entreaties of my family and in-laws for me to visit Ding. You’ll never forgive yourself if he died and you didn’t see him, my Ate said.

Looking at him on his hospital bed with all the life support systems wired to him, the tears did not come anymore. “Take good care of him,” I asked the red-eyed Sarah who stood guard.

Ding came out of the coma eventually. He’s young and he’ll bounce back. Already, he’s on his feet, although still a bit wobbly, after a few months of therapy. He comes to visit me and the children every other day. He is wooing me again, after a fashion. He drops hints of a reconciliation. I laugh them away. Sometimes, when he becomes insistent, I answer with sarcasm. The tenderest thing I can feel for him now is pity.

There is very little in the apple that has not been eaten away by worms. I’ve thrown it away.





Now you say you love me
And just to prove you do ...
Come on, cry me a river
I cried a river over you.
- Barbra Streissand in Cry Me a River





Friday, July 20, 2007

Women in Love and in Trouble 2: THE APPLE OF MY EYE

by Lilian (as told to Annamanila)

When we meet the person for whom we are intended, recognition comes through the fact that we fall in love ... we think we will then be able to satisfy all of each other's needs forever and ever .. and therefore live happily forever after. Should it come to pass, however, that we misread the stars .. nothing can be done about the situation except to live unhappily ever after or get divorced (or separated).
- Scott Peck
“When will you set me free?”

Twelve years after my family pushed me into marrying Ding, he was begging me to release him. “I married you against my will,” he said, avoiding my eyes. He was telling me he wanted out of our marriage. Out of my life.

Out of my life, he said.

I called him the “apple of my eye.” But it was an understatement. He was my whole life for many years. So, how could my life get out of my life? Wouldn’t that leave me with nothing?

“I’d rather die,” I thought. Aloud, I said: “You can never leave me. Wherever you go, I will find you.”

How did he stray – the sweet apple of my eye?

My best friend

He was my best friend – the only one in the whole world who understood me … my quirks, my moods, my silences. When I was 18, I had a nervous breakdown. I lived in a fog for weeks. The only person who could break through me was Ding. He defied my parents in order to reach out to me. That was the time I started calling him the “apple of my eye.”

Not so dark, not so tall, not so handsome. He was quiet, gentle, not given to drinking nor smoking. But it seemed to me he was always around – like an angel.

He was so quiet that he only said “I love you” once – one Valentine’s Day, when we were courting. He never repeated it. It did not bother me that he did not. I married, after all, a man of few words.

My parents thought we eloped. But that was not quite true. When I ran away after a bitter scolding from my father, also on account of Ding, it was not he whom I sought out. I went to a friend’s boarding house to let off steam. Ding followed me there. In fact, he implored me to go home. But when I would not, he kept me company. He stayed on, although I urged him to leave when night fell. “I will not leave you,” Ding insisted. He stayed with me, until I went home two days after.

My father could not believe that “nothing happened” during the two days I was away. A medical examination would have confirmed our blamelessness. But my parents would not hear of consulting a doctor. Certain were they that “my honor” and that of the family had been blemished. We were married at civil ceremonies a few months later, when his mother came home from her contract work in Singapore. We were both 19.

This is what Ding meant when he said “… napilitan lang siya.”

No expectations

I did not have any illusions about marriage. No big expectations from my husband. All the years we were together, we lived either in my parents’ or my in-laws’ house. We occupied a room in either house. Both small, cramped, lacking in privacy. At the beginning, we – as well as our children – were fed, clothed, sheltered by our elders. Our basic needs were taken care of. So, it did not occur to me to ask anything from Ding, even if he had a job every so often. I would take whatever little he gave but never asked for more. I never knew how much his monthly pay was. I never asked.

Come to think of it, I was never really a housewife. I never learned how to cook, go to market, beautify my home, make housewifely decisions.

And come to think of it, in 13 years, Ding and I never went out together – except in rare outings with the children. We never celebrated a birthday, a Valentine’s Day, or an anniversary. He never gave me a gift though I’d save for a new pair of Nike shoes for him every Christmas. He was also a distant father. And yet, in my heart of hearts, he remained to be the apple of my eye.
Love may be all you can give, but honey, I can't live without it.
- Barbra Streissand in "More Than You Know"

I’m not what you might call sweet and gentle. At work people called me the “taray princess.” At home, even my accomplished Ate who was used to bossing us around, could not make me toe the line. I was careful to let people know that in spite of my petite exterior, I was no pushover. But I was putty in Ding’s hands. He was, after all, the apple of my eye.

I finished my secretarial course in-between pregnancies. In time, I too began to earn. My mother-in-law set me up for a sari-sari store business. I liked being busy. Later, I found an office job.

Perhaps Ding never loved me. For he began looking for other women to love soon after we got wed.

He had a string of girlfriends in his office. I would find pictures of office parties with some giddy-looking girl seated beside him. He would take home video tapes of office socials to watch over and over. She and the giddy-looking girl were inseparable even in film.

I took refuge in my job, raising my children, and studying. With such busy routine, there was little we saw of each other. In the early morning, we’d have a few minutes of breakfast together. At night, when I came home from school, he’d either be asleep or out. Either way, I’d also be too beat to talk with or wait up for him.

When I was just beginning my job, Ding took seriously ill. He had coronary thrombosis that confined him to the Heart Center for almost a month. He almost died then. His heart stopped; it took a respirator to revive him. Although I was afraid of the prognosis, part of me was happy to have him all to myself to take care of.

During his confinement, the hospital was my home. I slept there, ate there, had a change of clothes there. Luckily, my office at Balara was just minutes away from the hospital.

When Ding was released, a blood clot still remained in his right eye. It took years for the blood to disperse. And even when the clot was gone, Ding was still prone to severe headaches. When the attacks came, they were so bad he wanted to hit his head on the wall. I’d apply cold compress, massage his pain away, pray over him.

I felt most like Ding’s wife when he was afflicted.

Eva

Didn’t I tell you about Ding’s string of girl friends? There were so many I couldn’t any more distinguish one from the other. But there were two whom I’ll never forget.

Eva was a girl from his office. She’s small, cute, brown, sexy. Well, to make a long story short, I was able to track down Eva and she turned out to be real nice as well. She promised to forget Ding. And she also asked me to bring her home “… so I can see Ding’s children. So I can prop up my decision to break up with him.”

Taking a crowded bus, we were hanging by the estribo all the way. When we alighted, Eva remarked: “You could have pushed me from the bus, you know.”

- to be concluded

Sunday, July 15, 2007

It was summer in England ... and the skies lit up and the women cried


"Oh to be in England now that summer's there." *

I was … in England … and it was summer. Not just an ordinary summer, but the most incredible summer for believing in love and its power to endure. Who could have known then that not only England but the whole world was bound to be heartbroken?!

The summer I arrived at Heathtrow, all England was spruced up for a wedding.

I came in the first week of July, 1981 at the behest of the British Council, to attend a summer program on enterprise promotion at the Cranfield School of Management in Bedford, an hour from London.

The program was cool and relaxed. I made friends quickly with the Indonesians, Malaysians, and Latin-Americans in that international group of 40. I was elected vice president – simply because I spoke the best English of the five women in class.

We had weekends off and plenty of time to go around– the Big Ben, British Museum, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, and the Westend for some theatre. I peeped into an English pub house, gulped English draft beer and apple cider, sipped tea with cream and 8’oclock mints, and shopped at Harrods. I wanted to go to Stratford on Avon (birthplace of Willy, the bard) or even just Liverpool (cradle of the noble mopheads). But I was told going to those places would take some doing, not to mention British pounds which I was short of.

All too soon, it was time for the wedding. We could have the day off and go to London, our training coordinator announced the day before. I demurred at joining the wedding mob. But I grabbed the chance to go to Hyde Park at its eve – a sort of despedida de soltera for the affianced couple.

Maybe I saw Diana and Charles at the park. Maybe not. It was hard to say from our distance of 20-25 meters from the grandstand.

The most vivid recollection of that night at the park should have been the fireworks -- the most spectacular I have ever seen to this day. But it recedes side by side memories of the women, the English women -- many of them in tears.
"Charlie, oh, Charlie ... goodbye Charlie."

"Charlie, let me have a last look at my Charlie,” a blonde woman about my age, was crying loudly, piggybacked on her husband for a better view of her Charlie – as though Charlie was about to die instead of get wed.
I took it personally when that marriage failed. I took it hard when Diana died

On the 26th anniversary of that star-crossed marriage, I remember the women crying.
* Adapted from:
Oh, to be in England now that April ’s there
And whoever wakes in England sees
Some morning, unaware
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
- from 'Home thoughts from abroad' by Robert Browning.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

PMN, the ezine


Something's happened to the Pinoy Moms Network and its awesome!

It has been reborn as an online magazine!

Born this Monday, July 9 at exactly 00.00 o'clock. Brainchild of two Greek, I mean Geek, goddesses Connie Veneracion and Noemi Dado. At hand during birthing were cheer-leading moms Dine Racoma, Dexie Wharton and Annamanila (the first three who came forward to be section eds). Attending too were countless other PMN member-moms who kept vigil as baby was delivered -- with just a reasonable amount of labor pains -- beautiful, bouncy, bubbly, if itty-bitty bug-sy.

When the first welcome greetings for the newborn poured in, all Connie could say was:
"My knees are shaking ...... my hands are sweaty .... I can't believe this has finally happened ... thank you thank you ... if this is a dream, i don't want to wake up."

Excerpts from Connie's maiden editorial give clues the refurbished PMN, like Rome, wasn't built in a day ...
" ... Can’t even begin to tell you how much blood, sweat and tears went into the transformation of PMN. From an aggregator of the latest members’ blogs, we now have original articles — all in line with the vision of turning PMN into an e-zine and a useful and entertaining resource for mothers of whatever size, shape, race and faith. "

Don't take her, our word for it ... log in to the new PMN, the e-zine ... if you haven't yet.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Aww, Awarded I Am

Lemme see, is it: I rock, therefore I think? Or I think, therefore I rock?

If I am trying mightily to draw out existentialist meanings to blogging, thinking and rocking -- it's just from wanting to show I am truly entitled to the Thinking and Rocking Blogger awards given to me by esteemed blogging buddies. That I just didn't happen to be passing by with my umbrella open upside down when the awards were raining down. That Rachel and Gypsy and Singlguy weren't just mesmerized with my looks and style and charm (Ahem!). And that I didn't bribe them .

Seriously, now. Every blogger worth her dashboard knows blogging is its own reward, much like virtue. And to be given premiums -- medals, trophies, citations (and even tens of dollars and freebies) -- for blogging .. then that deserves an AWWWWWW! As in "Aw can't believe it .. you like me, you really like me (with apologies to Sally Fields.)"

Singl, Gypsy and Rach: I cannot tell you how much I appreciate these gifts -- especially coming from you who I so admire for -- well, what else, blogging, thinking and rocking. Its only measure is my inability to say how much. These are the first awards I ever received for blogging and I pin the medals on the lapel of my heart.

Before I flood this piece with gush and mawk, histrionics and hyperbolics ... let me compose myself and pass on the trophies as I have been instructed to do.

The envelopes please.

ROCKING AWARDS

The Rocking Girl award, is passed on to:


  • Noemi, quintessential Prime-time Gal, who translated grief into positive energy, inspiring and giving hope to those who suffered excruciating losses like her -- as she now shines and shines. and rocks
  • Chateau, Queen of Quirks -- the one, the only who can beat my own royal weirdness. She's very kalog and funny -- though she has to unfreeze first before she goes campy. With a heart soft as marshmallow for Nate, Patricia, Vgood and Technohub and big enough to embrace new friends like me.

  • Leah, woman of many talents, not least of them mothering. wifery and blogging with savvy and wisdom and facility of language.

  • Gina , whose cheerfulness and goodness of heart and humility just runneth over her blog site.
  • Rhodora - blogger after my own heart, goldie, too, though many karats younger. Often giggly like me. Coping with life's ups and downs bravely. I like it, really like it, that she is in Law school pursuing an early dream. Rock on, Rhoda baby.

THINKING BLOGGERS AWARD

Now, the second envelope please. The Thinking Blogger award is passed on to:

  • Chesca - whose pieces shift from being really down-to-earth to funny to absolutely deep and intellectual but not pointedly so. And her writing style, ooh, is to die for!
  • Abaniko - whose "soul" is often kept in check in his posts on everyday things (travel, scrabble, badminton, photography, restaurants) but somehow sneaks out every now and then. The guy's got brains! which he doesn't flaunt.
  • Myepinoy - though he blogs peripherally and is sometimes deliberately careless with his grammar (his words, not mine) he is an acute observer of events and is usually able to catch a different take on a subject ). Even his comments to others' posts are so well thought out they could be blog pieces in themselves.

  • Toe - Need I say anything about Toe? When she first visited me, I felt like Mohammed being visited by the mountain. An illustrada whose heart is in the right place : with the masa.

  • Vernaloo - One has got to have great thinking caps to make people laugh so hard and so consistently. She is at her best when laughing at herself. I sometimes call her "The Raconteur." And, yes, Candida -- go figure.

!!Now, the awardees are supposed to hand down the awards to bloggers of their choice!!

MY PARTIAL "TOP TEN EMERGING INFLUENTIAL BLOGGERS"

Speaking of awards, I take this opportunity to address e-commerce guru Janet Toral and submit my partial list of nominees to her "Top Ten Emerging Influential Bloggers" award: GIBBS CADIZ , theatre blogger without equal whose blogging has influenced others to appreciate and write Philippine theatre and music and art; DINE RACOMA aka SEXY MOM of D-spot for her prolific and exemplary blogs on parenting and family life, continuing education, friendship, and other values we hold dear; and PHILOSOPHICAL BASTARD for his not so bastardy and definitely philosophical takes on his young life.

Note: I deliberately didn't cite a blogger twice, though the line between thinking, rocking and influencing can be so thin. And I didn't give back any award to their source as we may end up just tossing the ball, sweet ball, to each other -- in the manner of mutual admiration societies.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Unexpectedly, Old

Before you know you are old, you hear it from others.

Not in so many words.

It may be the vegetable vendor, not exactly looking as fresh as the spring onions she hawks, addressing you as Nana -- and you wonder if by chance she meant to say (your real name) Anna.

Or an acquaintance you haven't met for a while, fussing loudly as she meets you, all dressed up, lugging a brief case, "My goodness, you still work?"

Or young men -- and God forbid, women -- scrambling to rise in a crowded bus or train to offer their seat to you, just as you drop your lunch box to the floor and start reaching for the estribo.

Or the supermarket kahera , intently looking to and from your (credit card) picture and your face -- one time too many -- before irrepressibly gushing: "Ma'am ang bata mo pa dito."

So, that is how we grow old. In the eyes of other people first. And then, ever so slowly and reluctantly, we finally agree with their verdict.

From Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst

"Now that you're older," I once asked my friend Irene, 68, "don't you miss the men who used to look at you so lustfully? "

She stared at me for a moment, then responded indignantly with: "Used to? What are you saying -- used to?"

Remembered from Gifts of Age (author forgotten)

She watched the salesman's eyebrow shoot up as she asked for "tap shoes, my size -- size 5." She explained: "My feet haven't grown for 40 years." "You've been tap dancing that long?" he asked. "No, I began last month," she beamed.

As he was about to wrap the pair she fitted and liked, she asked him: "You find that unusual -- an old woman tap dancing? " "Unusual but cool," he answered, quickly adding: "Say, what about a demonstration."

She waited as he pushed aside some stools to clear the floor.

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