Sunday, November 28, 2010

Over 60 and swooning


“Karma” – my BFF Gabby calls it.
She couldn’t relate to me, she says – which, shorn of diplomatese, may have meant she laughed at me -- in my Dao Ming Zu days.
Those were days I’d go home early to catch plays and replays of “Meteor Garden” where Taiwanese actor Jerry Yan (aka Dao Ming Zu) strutted, with his magnificent abs, big hair, and brooding, slit-eyed looks, into and under the skin not only of the saccharine Shan Cai but also of his huge audience of women, young and old and, yes, older. Days all I wanted to do at lunchtime was to recount the latest Dao Ming Zu tragedy or crisis with office friends, never mind if all of us watched the show the night before. Days I’d watch Meteor Garden episodes on CD which I cajoled my niece Maila to lend me and which I didn’t return though she more than cajoled. Days I’d shop at Bench, where Jerry was poster boy, only so I could grab a free poster.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time I swooned over a 20 year old. There was Diether Ocampo back in his Ang TV and Gimik days; and before him Romnick Sarmenta; and before him Dranreb Belleza; and before him …. ooops, my memory fails me.
She has been karma’d, Gabby confesses, because now, she’s hopelessly in love with K-pop idol Jang Geun Seok of “You’re Beautiful” fame. Hah, I wanted to gloat, JGS is only a Korean reproduction of my DMZ – a second rate, trying-hard copy cat.
This must be second childhood, Gabby frets. “I bought a lot of JGS stuff. I listen to his soundtracks and constantly watch his manhwas (Korean dramas). He has a new one showing here now,” she adds, referring of course to Korea where she is an exchange professor.
Gabby offers she is an escapist-dreamer whose outlook in life is “that there should always be magic and that anything is possible” -- her way of explaining why she is hooked to the young Kor-Kor idol. She is not keen on reality, she says, because reality for others is not HER reality.
Unlike Gabby, I don’t shun roller-coaster reality, even if some of the bumps really did hurt. It has brought enough high and magical moments, to savor while they lasted and to re-savor in the remembering. No, life has been good or has evened out for me – with its admixture of joys and griefs, surprises and disappointments, and gains and losses. Truly, I have sometimes surprised myself how well I played some tough cards life dealt me.
(Which reminds me how an online scrabble buddy recently complained about the tight board we were playing -- you know, the kind where you could only move edgewise. Don’t you just hate it? -- she asked. I replied honestly that I have learned to enjoy the challenge of difficult boards and bad tiles where I have to dip deep into my ingenuity, stock of words, and other resources to form a "respectable” word without passing or exchanging tiles.)
But I escape too sometimes. There is also this secret place in my mind, that I stealthily enter when I am alone, where everything is magical and where I am young forever and the season is always summer.
Is it horribly wrong – this living and dreaming-daydreaming, waking up and then starting the cycle again? Is it so ridiculous and laughable – this delighting in everything that elicits a smile and perhaps some kilig, regardless if it's Jerry Yan, Jan Geun Seok, an old flame, a virtual friend, or some other who has caught our fancy?
There is a secret chamber inside everyone -- young and old, male and female, rich and poor, wise or not so -- that one takes refuge in when the going gets rough or merely tiresome.
We don’t stop dreaming or swooning just because we are 50, 60, or older.
Maybe I should watch “You’re Beautiful” one of these days and then …. who knows?

Photo: from crienglish.com

9 comments:

imom said...

My ex BF Jerry Yan has a new telenovela airing every afternoon at ABS - Down with Love. I didn't go gaga over Meteor Garden like you did. But, mygaz, fell head over heels for him at Down with Love... My family did the Taiwanese DVD marathon. The one on ABS now is tagalized... Go watch it!!!

PS - I see the shiny PBA badge on the sidebar. Congrats! I hope you win because you truly deserve it!

Anonymous said...

People who cannot relate to this, I really pity. Life must have been so cruel to them so much so that they cannot conjure happy thoughts.

One of my mantras I borrowed from Peter Pan: "Think happy thoughts" and then away you soar! Does this hurt? Does it make us "dotty"? This has turned us ageless (sixty in a twenties mindset). This has helped us face drab days, tense days, sad days. So much so that we still look forward to life with excitement, thinking it is late summer, though in truth we are now in the autumn of our lives. - Gabby

julie said...

I can so relate though my escapist fantasy is neither chinky-eyed nor have a name that's difficult to spell and pronounce.

Magkaribal pala kayo ni Chats, hehe.

Congrats on the badge, MRC! :) Woot!

Anonymous said...

Mommy, you forgot Marlon Brando! He was your girlhood fantasy right? :)

Forever59er said...

Chats, anong oras ba yung down with love? And thanks .. sana we win!

Gabby, you should have wrote this piece. You're more into it than I am. And you write exquisitely.

Juliet, thanks for visiting this spot again. I know you too have a shiny badge. Manalo tayo sanang lahat. Ratsada ang mga mom bloggers.

Bonch ... how could you remember Marlon Brando ... he ka pa pinanganganak nuon. But you're right .. he's still the greatest actor of all time for me .. and his looks the broodingest.

imom said...

I think Down With Love airs at 4PM or 4:30PM siguro, thereabouts :D

kassy said...

CONGRATULATIONS! you made it to the blog awards finalist!! :)

whats your email address? would like to invite you to a book launch? :)

inquire@kas-events.com :)

Forever59er said...

hi Kas. thanks a bunch.

Here it is: myrnaco@gmail.com

-annamanila

Pacquiao Mosley said...

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