The Japanese and I

A war baby, I was fed, while growing up, with stories about the difficult war years and the uneasy peace of the Japanese occupation.

It should have been easy for me to hate the Hapon but the ambivalent stories impressed upon me made it hard for me to indict them absolutely. Sure, I heard later accounts about “Japanese atrocities “ (why does that phrase sound almost like a cliché?), how the Japanese treacherously bombed Pearl Harbor, how 10,000 Filipino and American soldiers perished in the Bataan Death March, how Japanese soldiers used some Pinays for personal "comfort." But maybe because my immediate family was largely spared of wartime catastrophes, with no one dead nor hurt nor gravely abused, the tales twice told me were mostly benign.

The first story happened on Day 1 of my chequered life.

From Gagalangin, Tondo where we lived to Ermita where the Philippine General Hospital was located was an hour’s distance by karetela (horse-drawn carriage). My long expectant mom, whose time finally had come, would have preferred to be whisked away in a cab for she sensed, by dint of experience, the baby inside her was in a hurry to get out. But alas, taxis were as hard to come by those days as American Spam luncheon meat and Hereford corned beef were hard to buy. Sure enough, whby the time the karetela ho-hooed to a stop, its seats and floor had been splattered with placental blood, with baby’s head already bobbing out. My dad, by then a bundle of nerves, clambered down so hurriedly he almost slipped by the pavement. Who would happen to come by and steady him with a swift hand but a Japanese officer who, summarizing the situation in one sweeping glance, later helped lift anxious mother and half-born infant from out of the carriage into the hospital’s obstetric unit?

When I was a toddler, another friendly Japanese soldier came into my life, or so my Lola loved to tell me. He was a sentry who would pass by our house to and from work. I reminded him of his own daughter whom he sorely missed, he would tell my Lola who subbed as my guardian every time my mom tended her rice store at the talipapa. For the entitlement to pinch my cheeks and make goo-goo eyes at me, the Japanese would give me pieces of bubble gum and candy.

These stories are, of course, third-person accounts but were told and retold so many times I sometimes confuse the memory of the telling with first-hand memory. Actually, it would take about 30 years more before I made my first true Japanese friend.

The Nagoya International Training Center, Nagoya, Japan, where I was sent on a fellowship training on small business promotion by my office in 1974, became both school and home to me for three months.

I arrived at the Center in the early evening after a two-hour trip by shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo. The train ride had been pleasant but uneventful and I was reading a pocketbook some of the time -- until we reached tall, snow capped mountain ranges partly hidden by blue gray clouds -- whereupon a couple of Japanese gentlemen suddenly rose from their seats to jolt me away from my book, almost frantically pointing outward. “Look, Fuji, Fuji!” they chimed. Truly, what right had I to bury my nose on a banal story when I could feast my eyes on splendor and majesty just by looking out the window?! I was grateful for the magnificent eyeful, but more than that, I was amazed how proud they were of their Mt. Fuji and – as I found out later -- of many things Japanese.

I fell in love with the Japanese people overnight.

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I was at EDSA, too

“Who do you think you are -- Gabriela Silang?” my husband snapped, as his eyes swept me over from teased head to 5'1", 98-lb frame to size-4-1/2 feet, when I woke him early and told him we HAD to go to EDSA that Saturday morning 25 years ago.

I hardly slept the night before. I kept vigil with what was happening out there with my ears glued to Radio Veritas. I kept track of the events that stockpiled within hours, ringing if faintly the death knell of a hated regime.

I heard the incredible turns of events unfolding -- blow by blow:

Ramos holing inside Camp Crame. Enrile at nearby Camp Aguinaldo. Both men grimly proclaiming they were ready to die with their ideals intact. FM’s cabinet men coming forward – one by one – publicly resigning from their posts, emphatically renouncing their boss. Butch Aquino imploring the public to join the crowd amassing, nay, snowballing, at EDSA to safeguard the camps and those who sought refuge there. Cardinal Sin urging his flock to leave home and make a stand as a Christian duty.

How could I have slept? For the first time, the dream seemed possible – our liberation from the dictatorship, the end of martial rule, the stop to crony capitalism, massive corruption, the killing of political dissenters (and their disappearances), and other human rights crimes ad infinitum.

(Why I had the radio on that night -- I who hardly ever turned on the set except to find out what was the exact radio time so I could adjust my watch or our clocks – I still cannot explain. My best guess is that Providence wearied of my ambivalence and [divinely] intervened.)

My husband was, of course right. I was no Gabriela Silang. No one would call me feisty, the pipsqueak that I am. I knew deep down I was a mouse, a mouse that wanted to roar, but a mouse just the same. I have this tiny heart that goes out to the poor and the oppressed, but my ass, oh my ass -- it had remained firmly fence-seated and inert and comfortable and very safe.

Ideologically, you might describe me as left of center but as the Marcos rule increasingly strangled not just the economy but also the national psyche, I had veered leftwards more and more. I had also grown more and more restless with my do-nothing ideology.

Months before, I had begun to walk my talk as I joined yellow-confetti rallies and parades in Cubao and Makati as well as the boycott against crony companies.

Still when my husband flatly refused to accompany me to EDSA that Saturday, Feb. 22, 1986, I did little beyond mutter limply about “history in the making and here we are cooling our butts.” Still then a young(ish), unliberated woman, I felt I had no choice but to stay put and vicariously join the crowds by staying tuned to Radio Veritas.

The following morning, Sunday, it was my husband’s turn to wake me with unaccustomed urgency. “Let’s go,” he said. “And bring sandwiches for the soldiers (who were guarding the camps 24/7 and presumably were unfed).

As I was spreading mayo and inserting sweet ham on slices of loaf bread, my husband added: " Don’t forget towels."

Towels? I asked, uncomprehending. Yes, towels, wet towels -- he repeated. It seemed soldiers – those who had not yet defected – were throwing tear gas bombs at the crowds to disperse them.

My home was unfortunately and constantly short of towels. But I had dozens of gauge diapers (well laundered and well bleached after months of use by my then three-year old Bunso). I got them out from the cabinet and force-pressed them inside an overnight bag. My husband lugged a jug of water in case the diapers needed wetting. On the way to where the action was, we bought packs of biscuits and tetra juices.

We arrived to a fiesta atmosphere at EDSA. We met no tanks, no tear gas brigades, no Marcos soldiers creating mayhem. Only people smiling and laughing, and sharing their baon of food and drinks, and listening to transistors, and trading the latest bulletins on which military contingent or which general had defected and which were still steadfastly on the way to the camps to destroy Crame and Aguinaldo and scare away the crowds. There was tension, too, of course, as bang-bang military action was constantly half-expected. But in the meantime, the people seemed bent to savor the unusual -- uhm uhm -- oneness. In that huge picnic that randomly bloomed on the highway, the often divisive Pinoys seemed at last about to pull their act together.

Fast food chains were giving away Styrofoam packs of meals. Soft drink companies kept drinks flowing. We walked past the crowds to hew close to the camp’s gates and fences to find soldiers who didn't look hungry -- just bored and sleepy. I forced on them the sandwiches I prepared anyway.

Then a priest said mass, happily very near where we chose to stay. When the final “go in peace” blessings were given, there was a mild commotion. And I saw Fidel Ramos executing his now famous triumphant leap. Some people in the crowd followed his cue and jumped too. Others broke into clapping. But the elation was premature … it was all a rumor … the news that Marcos had fled.

We went back that night to camp out with a group of neighbors with whom we hitched a ride. The fiesta spirit prevailed at least in our part of EDSA (the Green Meadows area). The towels … I mean, the diapers .. didn’t have to be steeped in water and distributed. There were no bombs – teargas or the more lethal kind. There were no tanks to stop with rosaries and white roses – though we women were given these -- just in case, the leaders said. After dinner, we rehearsed for how we women would take the front lines when the tanks appeared with our smiles and peace offerings and loud prayers. We were assured in the same breath that the menfolk would actually be leading the regiment from behind, ready to overtake the women should the soldiers prove serious in wiping us off the street.

I fidgeted as I waited for the tanks, fingering my white rose and beads. But by the time the sun rose, they had not rolled in. I was almost disappointed. It could have been my mouse-roaring moment. Tsk.

I tried to snatch some sleep on blankets we spread on the pavement. But it was cold outdoors, with summer weeks away. When I couldn't stand the chill, I'd rise to seek warmth from one of the smoldering bonfires. Just then, a queue of people began to form, at the end of which were steaming coffee and hot pandesal, courtesy of a congregation of nuns and priests. I joined the line, yawning, beginning to warm up.

We went back the following evening , Monday, with our eldest son, Ariel, then a teenager, in tow. Adrian, our next son, was imploring to be allowed to join, too. I shushed him with an assurance: tomorrow will be your turn. I was so sure it would be a long, long road show. I reckoned Marcos and family would dig in for many days.

But I was wrong. On Tuesday, there was no more reason to stay the night. By about 8 pm, the whole of EDSA exploded into cheering and dancing and singing. The dictator had truly and finally fled.

We walked home that night – feeling like we were stepping on air -- never imagining 25 years later the EDSA peaceful revolution we just took part in would be called a failed success.

Photo: from OFW News on Web

Unforgettable Christmas Stories

I.

Paskung-pasko ay nagmamaktol si Dina. “Ano ba naman si Santa Claus, hindi ba siya marunong magbasa?” Ilang Pasko nang humihiling siya at sumusulat: “Mahal na Santa Claus ang gusto ko pong aginaldo ay pinggan-pingganan. Yun lang po at wala nang iba.”

Nang magising siya kinaumagahan ng Pasko, isang matambok na balutan ang nakita niya sa ulunan ng kanyang kama. Sa laki, sa bigat, at sa korte ng balot, alam na niya -- siniphayo na naman siya ni Santa.

Pilit na pilit na binuksan niya ito. “Ang pangit!” ang bulong niya pagkakita sa isang aparador-aparadorang yari sa kahoy. Malagana niyang hinila at tinulak ang maliliit na mga drawers nito, pagkatapos ay tinabig. Tumayo siya upang maghilamos; ni hindi sinulyapan ang laruang sumambulat sa sahig.

Gaya ng nakagawian nila, nagsimba silang mag-anak at nakinig ng misa sa kapilyang malapit sa kanila. Umuwi sila sa nagpuputok at wala nang maupuang sala na kung sa bagay at talaga namang napakaliit kahit walang bisita. Nakahilera duon ang siyam – oo, siyam -- niyang pinsang nakatira ilang bloke lang ang layo sa kanilang bahay. Siyam na dahilan kung bakit tuwing Pasko, nakakaisip mamundok at magtago ang kanyang amang kadalasan ay “alaws pe-pe.” Sa madaling salita: laging broke.

“Uncle, may bago akong poem,” sabi ng listang-lista at kyut na kyut na pinsan niyang si Myrla sa kanyang Papa. Kayang-kayang paikutin ni Myrla ang kanyang ama sa kanyang hinliliit. Kung may mga Paskong mas broke pa sa broke ang kanyang ama; si Myrla lamang ang palihim nitong inaabutan ng pisong papel.

Nag-curtsy pa si Myrla bago bumigkas ng tula nang malakas at punung-puno ng drama. Nang matapos ang palakpakan, tuloy-tuloy ang bata sa kandungan ng tatay ni Dina at buong lambing itong binulungan. Nang ginagap ng tiyuhin niya ang kanyang bulsa, mabilis siyang sinaway ng bata: “Uncle, ayaw ko ng pera.” “Eh, ano ang gusto mo--” tudyo ng matandang lalaki, “ang pitaka ko?” “Yun” – sagot ni Myrla sabay turo sa lamesa kung saan nakapatong ang maliit na aparador na kangina lang ay tila gustong wasakin ni Dina.

“Teka, kay Dina ‘yan” sagot ng Papa ni Dina sabay kamot ng ulo. “Pero, hmmm, ayaw yata niya.”

Sa puntong ito tumayo si Dina, tumakbo papuntang silid, nagbabaga ang mukha at nangigilid ang luha. Sinusi niya ang pinto at iniyak lahat ng sama ng loob –kay Santa, kay Myrla, sa kanyang Papa. Nakatulog siyang humihikbi. Pag-gising niya, tahimik at walang tao sa kabahayan. Mabilis niyang nakita ang agad hinanap ng kanyang mga mata.

Ang maliit na aparador ay nasa lamesa pa din at hindi na pangit.

II.

He wrote me a heart-breaking letter from Palawan where he had a business buying and selling lobsters and other seafood. "I am sorry, I can’t come home on Christmas," he said. The pre-Christmas catch was very meager, he explained, and he had to wait another week of diving to make his trip worthwhile. “Don’t worry,” he hastened to add, “I’ll ask my mom and dad to bring my caboodle of nieces and nephews to spend Christmas eve with you and the children,” as though it would make an iota of difference.

As the holidays approached, I prepared myself for a blue-blue Christmas.

I was inconsolable but I behaved coolly that Christmas eve. I decorated, cooked, whipped, baked. When my in-laws arrived, I thought they hugged me more tightly and greeted me more warmly than they usually did. I was terrific: I acted the part of a faultlesssly gracious host.

At half past two am, the last guest had left, the last dish was wiped clean and the last child had been tucked into bed. I breathed in the silence, feeling numb.

Just then, I sensed the stillness outside break -- even before I heard a cab stop, gently purr, and one of its doors open and shut smartly.

I was all ears as our sweet sweet gate screeched sweetly open followed by the sweet sweet sound of familiar footsteps. Then the sweet sweet knocking on the sweet sweet door told me in no uncertain terms the sweetheart made it home for Christmas.

III.

Christmas rush many years ago.

The old woman cheerfully sat beside me on what must be the last remaining seat in the congested bus, carrying a box of cake on one hand and a bayong containing a live chicken on the other. She let the bag drop on the floor as the fowl complained cackling but kept the cake close by her. The box was so big it spilled from her narrow lap to rest on a fraction of mine. She kept lifting the box up, anxious it would bother me. I turned to smile at her to implicitly assure her it was no trouble at all.

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House of Many Rooms

My house has many rooms
I lock or unlock at will
Some brick-walled
Fortressed, forbidding
Others with swinging doors
Where I wraithlike slither
From room to room
In the order of the moon's
Waxing and waning
Or shuttle in reverse
In the surreal fashion of dreams
Or flit from end to end
Edge to center and back again
Godlike, omnipresent
In every which corner
Of my house of many rooms.

My house has a charmed chamber
A treasure trove
Of mysterious joys
Of things old
And half-forgotten
That I visit often
When the rains pour
And joints grow cold
And eyes mist with tears
Of remembering and forgetting.
The sun ever shines
Brooks gurgle
Birds twitter
Embers smolder
In that charmed chamber
In my house of many rooms.

You
have this charmed place too
In your house of many rooms
However far you've gone
In whatever clime.

Soon we will meet again
In the chamber of a million charms
Where we all began
And to which we will come back
To know each other
For the first time.

Photo: “The mysterious Door” by , c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

(Written on the occasion of the 50th year anniversary of our high school graduation)

Vivid Vignettes of a Vincible Childhood - 2 & 3

2. SOMEONE TO BEAM OVER ME

We couldn’t have been more than 13 -- my classmate and I -- when we espied the man and a woman inside a taxicab. Both were dressed up to the nines. The woman wore a shimmery gown, French-twisted hair, and vivid makeup. The man was dapper in a barong tagalog.

“Look at her” -- I cried aloud from our seat in the jeepney we were riding -- “she’s so beautiful! “ My friend gushed just as volubly: “Parang artista!”

The traffic was stalled by then, as it always was on that hour in that part of Juan Luna Street. This was circa 1950s when vehicles were not yet fitted with ACUs and car windows were often down. So the couple heard us – every effusive word we said.

I don’t exactly remember how the woman looked, whether she was fair or morena or slim or amply-built or if she blushed at our unabashed admiration. But I have not forgotten how the man tightened his possessive grip on the woman’s shoulder and beamed very happily and proudly at us.

I thought in my girl heart I didn’t have to be that beautiful. But I wanted some guy to beam like that for me, too, when I grew up.

3.

MY PROFITLESS LIFE AS A SIDEWALK VENDOR

Summertime and the living was easy ... and lazy. Except my mom had other ideas. She wanted me to work to earn pin money. And what better way but to be a market peddler. And what better product to sell but the molido (camote-coconut bars) her Kumareng Luring prepared so nicely.

Why me? Why not my Ate? Oh, no, she’s too old – dalaga na -- to do that. Why not Zeny, our bunso? You guessed it, she was too young and couldn’t yet count money. Go, now, she shooed me away, handing me a heavy basket-tray and reminding me to rearrange my unprintable, rage-contorted face.

So there I was, all of nine years old, pouty and about to cry, standing by the talipapa entrance behind an apple crate on which perched the basketful of molido. Throngs of people passed. A few would eye what was in the basket but most went past it without as much as a glance.

I was instructed to shout out my merchandise. “Molido, molido kayo dyan. Masarap ... bagong luto.” But the halfhearted tindera couldn’t bring herself to open her mouth. Her anger soon gave way to boredom, and boredom to near panic when the morning passed and nothing happened.

Two or three women stopped by to ask “how much?” They must have found “dalawa singko” too expensive and turned away.

A kid younger than me was the one who hovered around the longest. Then she was joined by two more. They looked and looked but didn’t buy. “Penge?” the littlest one asked shyly. I had the urge to give it all to them -- molido, basket, and crate -- and be done with it. But I wasn’t gutsy and angry enough.

By lunch time, I had zero sales. It was time to go and face the truth.

It was my first and only foray into selling. It must have spoiled me forever for entrepreneurship.

(Years later, I taught entrepreneurship, researched and wrote articles and books about it as a “fake it-fake it - never made it” expert.)

Vivid Vignettes of a Vincible Childhood - 1

The Nether World of Our Silong

We used to live in a ramshackle house we had the audacity to call a chalet. Looking back, its only legitimate claim to being a chalet is a six-step stair leading to its front door, posts on its four corners, and a silong less than a meter high.

I loved-hated our silong.

We had slatted floors in parts of our house where coins, keys, and sundry small items would go through accidentally and very often. We, children, had to make a dash for under the house to retrieve whatever fell through the slats, at our elders’ say so. On rainy days, the silong would be puddled with water and mounded with mud. We were obliged to go there, when asked, and get ourselves dirty. Even when it got dark, we went there just the same, if there’s something to retrieve, with a flickering candle and a pounding heart.

But the silong was also a magical place where we let our imagination fly with games of fantasy. We pretended it was prison, and we were all counts of monte cristo. We pretended it was the pit with a pendulum where we mock-tortured each other and from which we foiled each other’s attempts to escape. It was also the place some Count Dracula might sleep and wake thirsty for plasma and the “dungeon” would reverberate with blood-curdling screams.

More placidly in summer, we would spread mats on its earthen floor, and take cool naps in the company of its denizens – lizards, spiders, beetles, snails and – who knows – maybe even little snakes?

Best of all, the silong was a place to gather the cutest little eggs you ever did see – lizard eggs about the size of oval MMs. Better than easter egg hunts, I swear! -- anyhow unheard of then. We gingerly put the fragile little thingies in tiny bamboo baskets and later boiled them in small clay pots. Some boys in the neighborhood might also help us look for the eggs but mostly they hunted for spiders which the silong likewise bred abundantly.

When we girls grew too old to play house and cook lizard eggs, the boys seemed not to weary of spider hunting. “Oh well, boys mature slower than girls” was how we excused them. Until my Ate Mila, always the feisty and smart one in the family, figured it all out. The boys were actually no longer so much interested to catch spiders as to catch a glimpse of skirts and things that skirts are supposed to hide!

Soon after my Ate’s brilliant detective work, our slatted floors gave way to wooden slabs. There was no more reason to go to the nether world of our silong.

POST SCRIPT TO A REUNION

50 years musn't have inflicted too much havoc on me. They remembered me at our high school reunion.

Whyever not. I took extraordinary measures to look girlish -- blow dried my hair, suffered a girdle to melt my middle, applied an extra layer of goo on my face, and smiled, smiled, smiled if for no other reason but to lift ooopsy-drooopsy skin.

And I recognized most of them too, if not by face, then by some manner or inflection or gesture or simply by gut feel. And I clasped them to my chest and held their hands, as though by hugging and touching I could bridge the chasm of the years.

At the Tondo penthouse (owned by an affluent and generous classmate) where the first event of the week-long reunion was held, the air was thick when one came in. The excitement was so palpable it crackled like burning wood in a fireplace.

Even as one got immediately engulfed in a flurry of embraces and digicam flashes, one craned one's neck out looking for special faces -- the high school best friend, barkada, crush. The partner at the senior's prom. The comrade in "crime."

When at last you find her or she finds you, it was all you could do not not to jump up and down But you try to keep your cool. You remind yourself: "Shush, you're an old woman now." Still you let out with an occasional shriek: "Omg, omg, there you are. Let me look at you. Oh my, you haven't changed a bit."

But we changed -- all of us. We did change.

Occasionally -- not too often -- I'd get an eerie feeling a strange someone was pretending to be a familiar someone else. How could this glam lady be the Juliet that she insists she is when I don't see a hint of the long-ago Juliet in her. Where have the unruly curls gone? And where the little-girl-lost look?

They looked for my pigtails too and I replied the louse-infested pair had been pruned long ago. In the same way I looked for Renato's killer lopsided smile, Dolly's nerdy eyeglasses, Pining's whistle-bait shape, Fely's copper coloring. Rocky's quiet, brooding ways. Gone. All gone.

It's not just the lines and ridges and the extra poundage. Not just the loss of lush in the hair, rose in the skin, sun in the eyes, spring in the limbs.

We changed inside and out and at the same time there were things that kept constant.

Anna for example is still as shy and as unsure of herself as she was in high school. The difference is that she has learned to affect poise and cool.

Medy still blushes when paid a compliment. And she still wets her lips in the fetching way she was wont to do as an adolescent.

When he met his first love again in the reunion hall, something inside Emiliano broke loose and he had to tell her he had not stopped dreaming of her.

But it takes more than a big reunion event to get in touch with the variables and immutables -- those that do not meet the eye. One tries to circulate from event to event, from table to table, spreading self thinly to cover as many classmates as possible. It was impossible to talk beyond the level of who, what, where, when, and how many, even as the more important why, why not, how, and so what questions remain unasked.



















A week after the reunion, three of us took a trip from Manila to Los Banos to visit a classmate who lives there. In the three hours it took to go there by car, we probed into each other's lives and psyche. We continued to talk at the level of hopes and fears and losses and gains and leftover dreams when we reached Guia's beautiful home.

In that single trip, Guia, Milette, Myrna and Anna began to truly know each other for the first time. Never mind if they didn't get to soak into the hot springs they thought they went there for. As they all agreed before they parted, they were together that day -- talking soul to soul -- for a reason.

It was to them a potentially life-changing postscript to the reunion.

(To be continued, I hope)

THE HOUSE OF MANY ROOMS

My house has many rooms
I lock or unlock at will.
Some brick-walled
Fortressed, forbidding.
Others with swinging doors
Where I wraithlike slither
From room to room
In the order of the moon's
Waxing and waning.
Or shuttle in reverse
In the quirky fashion of dreams.
Or flit from end to end
Edge to center and back again
Omnipresent in every which corner
In my house of many rooms.

My house has a charmed chamber
A treasure trove
Of mysterious joys
Of things old
And half forgotten
That I visit often
When the rains pour
And joints grow cold
And eyes mist with tears
Of remembering and forgetting.
The sun ever shines
Brooks gurgle
Birds twitter
And embers smolder
In that charmed chamber
In my house of many rooms.

You have this charmed place too
In your own house
Of many rooms
However far you have gone
To whatever clime.
The lark still sings
Teasing our shynesses
Awaking strangenesses.
When we cried over everything
And everything mattered
And laughed over nothing
Though nothing was funny
But not when it melted
Into the silence of goodbye.

Soon we will meet
In that chamber of charms
Where we all began
And to which we will come back
To know each other
For the first time.

(Written on the occasion of our high school grand reunion on February 7, 2009)

REUNION JITTERS REPRISED

Let me reprint this old, old post, now that my grand high school reunion is really approaching.

I have signed up to attend my high school grand reunion .. and things have never been the same again.

All because I will have a fit if no one recognized me when I entered the reunion hall.

I have begun to work out and diet. Although there’s no way I can get back my lampayatot look way back when, I should at least get rid of my spreading middle spread. I need to recover my waistline — even if I had to hire D.I. Trece or the NBI to find it.

I am letting my hair grow. I have months to get back my adolescent hair style — waist length, twisted into pigtails. I’d like to dare frisky Nelson Pangan to pull them again — the way he used to before Homeroom. And surely, I can whack him one — now that he shouldn’t be able to run as fast. I have a tiny problem though. My hair has gone from “betcha-by-golly-wow” thick to “son-of-a-gun” thin. And shall I wear my bangs again? Someone, please tell me if there’s a law against a golden girl trying to look like Tessie Agana when she was Roberta.

I have toyed with the idea of wearing my old Torres High uniform. Not that I could squeeze into any of them by any contraction of the imagination. But well — a modista should be able to sew a maroon skirt and a gold blouse to fit my present XX size, but sorry, sobrang sorry — though I am willing to die for my alma mater — well, almost — I’d die first before I wore that sorry color combination again.

I now look at my reflection every which way, 24/7. Now, if mirrors could complain! I see tell-tale lines and ridges even if I didn’t turn the dresser lights on. Shall I call them laugh lines? But they don’t go away when I am through laughing.

My mirror says I am no longer the “tiny wisp of a campus leader” Rolly Lampa wrote about in the graduation annual. Nor the apple-cheeked girl Romi Mananquil sketched once for a Torres Torch story.

Oh, well! Who will recognize me now? I have gone to pot.

Or have I?

I probe deep into myself, the essential me that mirrors do not reflect.

I am still the same person who loves sunsets, sunflowers, the smell of mangoes ripening and adobo simmering, who loves to read a good story and to write one. My favorite people are still those who are bubbly and witty and funny — like my Ninas barkada Tessie, Pining, Cora, Lolit, Jing and Sol — as I can never be.

I still don’t know a lot of things and have disappointed my kids by saying “I don’t know” so many times. I still can’t swim, dance, sing, ride a bike, or drive a car to save my life. I am still searching for the meaning of life and only know it isn’t just a big house or a sleek car or an impressive title or trophies or plaques.

I am still shy and clueless and sometimes clueless about being clueless. The only difference is that I have learned the art of not showing it.

I am still lampa. The one who the other team left for last at touchball games because she was slow and bungling and easy to hit. The one who always got to be “it” in tumbang preso and patintero games. The quintessential Binibining Atsay. Only that has evolved today as the “Quintessential Pulot Mom” from the badminton and pingpong games I still try to play in a huffy-puffy way.

I am still the girl who can never find the X in the simplest of equations. Over whom Miss Tienzo — for all her awards as outstanding Math teacher — shed tears of frustration. But also the girl who loved to paraphrase Shelley and Byron and Dickinson and was the darling of Mrs. Timario, Mrs. Alejandro, Mrs. de la Cruz, and other English teachers.

I am still hungry for affection, praise, approval, still pikon over slights — real or imagined. Still trying to be the best mom, wife, sister, friend, worker, neighbor I can be. Still working on relationships that have gone awry.

And yes, I am the person about to attend her high school reunion with a mixture of breathlessness and dread.

(My dear buddies: This is why I am on a semi-sabbatical from blogging -- working on "JUBILATION 2009: the best is yet to come" -- meant to be a yearbook like no other. Will see you all soon.- anna)

SHORT LIVED THE QUEEN: Mayday Mayhem in Gagalangin

Her first crush didn’t see the light of day.

It happened in Maytime, summer of beginnings, of awakenings, even rude ones; season of the santakrusan festival and alay bulaklak kay Birhen Maria -- (the Lady wasn’t called Mama Mary back then).

Naku, the hermana mayor wants you to be a sagala tonight -- her mom told the young girl that Mayday, as she came home from the palengke, catching her breath. Excited, she omitted to say she was to stand in for another girl, a cousin, who suddenly came down with the flu.

The 10-year-old, just then beginning to enjoy being quirky, said no, no, no. You can’t make me. I will die first.

You don’t want to be Reyna de los Flores? -- her Mom asked, unbelieving. That’s second honor to Reyna Elena, don’t you know? The girl wasn’t impressed.

She showed her a pink frock of taffeta, chockful of sequins and flowerets, borrowed from she didn’t care who. The girl didn’t give it a second look.

Then she added that Rudy, a young boy from Antipolo Street -- would escort her.

That was when the ten-year-old blinked: “Sige na nga,” she relented, but not before she played pakipot for yet another hour.

Rudy was the younger brother of her Ate Malu’s best friend, Rodora. He was mestizo-looking, tall and quiet, and had this smile best described as pamatay. Every other girl she knew had a crush on him, but quirky as she was, she herself liked to boast she didn’t give a hoot about boys.

She had her first ever hair-styling session at the neighborhood beauty parlor that afternoon. Her long straight hair was intricately rolled, patch by patch, around wire rollers then inserted into a helmet- shaped dome where her head was turbo-broiled -- sort of -- till her ears turned lechon-red. When the hair stylist was done fussing with her hair, she had a headful of coily curls or curly coils – take your pick -- loosely tied at the back. It was called tribuson, the preferred do for young hair.

She had goo applied to her face. And a black pencil drawn on soft places around her eyes. Plus the final touch – red kolorete smack on her mouth and smudged on her cheeks, blusher-like. She liked what lipstick did to her face – almost grown up, and a bit like, she decided, not child star Tessie Agana as the stylist insisted, but her favorite adult actress, Lolita Rodriguez.

That night, amidst torches ablaze, and to the beat of bugles and drums, the mestizo boy, looking dapper in embroidered barong tagalog, took his place beside her. She thought he looked worried but she continued to beam to the crowds, feeling absolutely gorgeous.

A few paces later, as the procession turned from Angat to her own Pampanga Street, he leaned to whisper in her ear as her heart skipped a beat.

(NOTE: Here's where the audience/READER participation begins. Rudy could have whispered one, ONLY ONE, of three things. Pick one, if YOU will.)

· “Anna, this is so boring. May chewing gum ka ba dyan?”

· “ Anna, ang kapal ng pulbos mo. Bawasan mo nang unti.”

· “Anna, mas bagay sa akin ang gown mo.”

As she dabbed a pink handkerchief on her face, “Dios te Salve, Maria” reverberated dolorously, like a funeral march. She felt the beginnings of a stomach ache as the procession traversed the main Juan Luna Street, and then back a seemingly endless time.

She never marched as Reyna again, not that she remembers being invited to be a sagala again.

(Two years later, Rudy became her classmate in first year high school. Neither of them behaved as though he or she remembered that disastrous May evening. They would nod shyly at each other when they met, and that was it. They didn’t even become friends. Tsk.)

Notes:

1. Santakrusan- or Santakrus de Mayo, a procession/parade reenacting and celebrating the search for the Holy Cross led by Queen Helena of Spain.
2. Sagala – the young women/girls who marched in the procession, playing the various characters in the long-ago search, wearing long, colorful gowns.
3. Hermana mayor – the host and organizer of the Santakrusan
4. Alay bulaklak - flower offering.
5. Reyna de los Flores - Queen of the Flowers.
6. Pakipot – coy, hesitant, but only pretended
   
7. Pamatay – killer, thus killer smile.
8. Ang kapal ng pulbos mo, bawasan mo nang unti – You have too much powder on, remove some of it.
9. Mas bagay sa akin ang gown mo – Your gown would look better on me.

Food Trippin' ala- Gagalangin (Tondo), circa nevermind

Bibingkahan at the Manila Hotel began by the Pritil Bridge.

In my young and maiden years in Gagalangin, I’d munch on a cob of roasted corn while reading Liwayway magazine, curled up on the sofa. If it rained, I let it. That was my idea of a perfect day.

Great food then as now came in binary pairs – dinuguan at puto, mangga’t suman, tokwa’t baboy. Mine was gatas ng kalabaw at tapang baka. You pour a cup of the rich milk over a plate of steaming, pandan-fragrant rice, add a sprinkling of rock salt, and top the caboodle with chunks of fried tapa just slightly fringed with golden fat. You close your eyes involuntarily with every spoonful -- feeling all is right with the world. Though I didn’t know the phrase then, it was to me the quintessential comfort food.

There must be farms near Gagalangin for the milk was delivered to our doorsteps still mainit-init, with the top cream two inches thick, in a coke or gin bottle, stopped by folded banana leaves twisted screwlike.

My Tio Kulas, a wealthy hatter, lived in a big house on Cavite Street three or four streets away. They did not only own the only phonograph (the only place I could play a vinyl record some relative sent me) but also the only authentic lusong that side of Gagalangin, with which they made authentic linupak every month or so.

I’d hop-skip my way over to Tio Kulas’, though it was 20 minutes away, if it was “linupak day,” for it was more eagerly anticipated than an official holiday. Authentic linupak is not mashed cassava but saging na saba pounded on lusong, with fistfuls of grated coconut and sprinklings of sugar quickly tossed in between the rising and falling of the giant wooden pestle. Since the banana is semi-ripe, the linupak is not sweet and soft but tart and springy. This delicacy is rarely commercially available in the city, then or now.

(Years ago, in a fit of craving, I tried to prepare linupak using only persistence and a kitchen almires. To say it was a disaster is an understatement.)

I have other scrumptious memories of Gagalangin.

Sunday morning would find us youngsters sitting expectantly by Aling Tisya’s food stall in the talipapa. Aling Tisya opens only on weekends and was worth waiting a whole week for. She served the best goto in the world -- the bowl big, generous and steaming, the porridge freshly cooked and not yesterday’s bahao, the tripe and bituka pieces succulent and just a bit softer than al dente, and the calamansi-patis sawsawan slightly more sour than salty. Followed by ginatang bilo-bilo with langka strips and a curlicue of kakang gata on top, which young heart could ask for more?

One didn’t even have to go to the talipapa for a food trip. If you waited patiently at home, the treats would come.

Itinerant vendors would stroll by with puto-kutsinta, taho, and fresh produce in the morning, including the freshest talangka my Lola would magically transform into the most savory buro, inside which was red-black sinfulness called aligue. Never mind how she did it. (The SPCA did not go after people who tortured tiny crabs by salt-treatment, did it?)

By three o’clock, other vendors would come in succession, bilao perched on the head, basket tucked in the arm, shouting out their ware. We were always in a dilemma which merienda to buy. Corn on the cob? Binatog? Bitcho-bitcho, butche-butche, sapin-sapin? Kalamay, maja blanca? Turon, maruya, lumpia? Carioca? Sometimes, it could be halo-halo, ginatan, or sweet beans with crushed ice – a stall was always a dash away.

Later in the afternoon, a different set of vendors would be passing by, with fresh saging lakatan and latundan, tuba, and paros, a sweetish kind of shellfish we scalded and ate as appetizer.

Nights are stormy when you don’t hear “Baluuuuut….. penoy, baluuuut.” It took me some time to learn which end of the egg to crack so that it opened fetus- side up so I could drink the savory broth-like liquid – never enough, always bitin -- before gulping the whole egg in two bites. No, I didn’t have to close my eyes and we didn’t have an expression then for “yucky” or “gross.”

Mendoza bakery was where we ran to buy galletas de patatas and Marie-like biscuits by the hundreds, at 35 centavos per, when a horde of children was waiting to be fed.

Botika Santos, a pharmacy-cum-PX store, had Horlicks, Baby Ruth, Lifesavers, and Cadbury chocolate bars with fruits and nuts when our sweet tooth craved for something imported and our father was home to give us extra spending money.

When unexpected company came, my mom didn’t panic. A Chinese panciteria at the corner of Solis and Juan Luna, opposite Torres High School was open 24/7 – well, maybe 16/7 –which whipped up miki-bihon, hototay, and sweer-sour meatballs faster than you could say yi-er-san-si- go.

At the Torres High School canteen, there was cake I never could get enough of. It had a chiffon base and a custard-caramel topping and tasted to me like a prelude to something ... uhm .. sublime. Anyway, I would nibble on it morsel by tiny morsel, trying to prolong ... uhm ... heaven. At 25 centavos a slice, and my baon usually only 30, it was often unreachable as the ... uhm ... sky.

Around the school were hawkers unlimited who broke into smiles as soon as the bell rang to dismiss throngs of youngsters. Most of us Gagalangin girls literally ground our teeth on manggang hilaw at bagoong, papayang manibalang at heko, and singkamas marinated in salted water. For the sweeter-toothed, there was ice cream sandwich, tira-tira, belekoy, and Milady (pronounced mee-ladee).

Later, when we were a bit older, after a late-night double-bill movie at Scala Theater on Avenida Rizal, there was no way my sisters and I wouldn't stop at this bamboo restaurant at the foot of Pritil bridge, home of melt-in-the-mouth bibingka galapong and to-die for chewy puto bumbong. Put up in 1938 by Ceferino Francisco, it grew so phenomenally that by the 60s it had outlets all over Metro Manila, including one in the Manila Hotel. Its name: Ferino's Bibingka.

Light years away were Jolibee, McDo, KFC, Pizza Hut, Goldilocks, Greenwich and Shakey’s.

Photo credits: The amazing picture was filched from "Sa Likod ng Bahay Kayumangge," (on which I tried to post a comment to ask permission for use of the picture but couldn't as there was a registration process beyond my ken) which gives a more detailed account of the history of Ferino's Bibingka.

I hope the blogger behind "sa likod" will not mind my taking liberties with the picture. But if he/she does, I will delete the photo as soon as he/she lets me know.

Apologia: Tama ka, Rolly Lampa, it was Ferino's Bibingka! -- not Aling Nena's. Wow, what a memory!

More credits: Salamat po, Mario Silva, for reminding me there was a delectable bibingkahan a jog away from Pritil bridge. Ferino's po pala yun!

Where There Is More Heaven Than Elsewhere (Paying Respect to Gagalangin)

Gagalangin is in Tondo -- as in Gagalangin, Tondo, Manila. But its residents behave as though it is not. It is thinly separated by the unimposing Pritil bridge from the more trouble-prone Tondo of Bangkusay, Vitas, and Moriones, but the residents pretend it is a world away.

Ask a Gagalangin lass where she lives, and she is unlikely to mention Tondo, lest it scare away prospective suitors less fearless and fist-happy than Fernando Poe, Jr.

Kaming mga taga Gagalangin, the old guards say proudly, are respectful and respected.

Taga-rito si Dolphy, King of Comedy, they would tell the uninformed, and proceed to point to where his old house once stood in Sunog Apog. If you had more time to listen, they would probably whisper that Dolphy wanted sorely to marry the mother of his first batch of children, except the family of the woman thought he'd be good for nothing. "Big mistake, huge," they'd probably interject, with a "tsk, tsk."

Ganun din si Tirso Cruz, great band leader, and his famous offsprings. Same with Perla Bautista, Tony Santos, Ricky Belmonte, Gina Pareno. Award-winning movie stars.

Pitoy and Virgie Moreno. Renato Constantino. Atang de la Rama and Amado Hernandez. Armando Malay. Rolando Tinio. Teodoro Agoncillo. Francisco Buencamino, Jr. Vicente del Fierro. Icons of letters and the arts.

They all grew up there, these gentle and genteel people.

It was where I was born and grew up, too. I'd call it the "Gagalangin of my affections," except it is already taken.

The Gagalangin of my childhood was a congenial place where people lived more or less comfortably -- neither too richly nor too poorly. There were very few homes there that would qualify as mansions; neither were there too many rundown shanties. Many residents think it is the best place to live and have stayed put and they may not be too far from the truth.

My family lived in a squatter community, but you wouldn’t know from the way the houses looked.

We had spacious front yards, where we played patintero, piko, and tumbang preso every summer afternoon just as soon as the sun began its downward slope. Being lampa, I was always “it” and ended up “balagoong,” but it didn’t stop the quintessential Binibining Atsay from playing. Anyway, I could often cajole playmates to go inside the house later to play sungka, siklot and jackstone where I was sure to redeem myself.

Our side yards had gardens. My mother tended a proud one that was fed with horse manure, gathered from the droppings of the karetela that plied our street and therefore grew lushly. She had bandera espanyola, san francisco, paco, champaca, calachuchi, chichirika, water plants, and fragrant jasmine, sampagita, and dame de noche that sweetened our nights and our sleep. We also had a guava tree which so became a bone of contention with a kapitbahay who claimed it was theirs that I sometimes wished lightning would strike it down – the tree, not the kapitbahay.

It was much later that the garden gave way to a bigger house to give us children more room to grow. And I guess gardening had to give way to mah-jongg to give my mother more diverting escape from some huge sadness.

Our house had wide capiz windows, the better to watch the santakrusan in May, the prusisyon on Good Friday, and the drum and bugle band at fiesta time. I would spend summer afternoons looking out the window to watch younger children play when I thought I was too old for piko. Weekends were a good time to gawk at folks in their Sunday finery on their way to and from church. I must have watched from the window a trifle too often, for later, high school classmates would refer to me as the “babaeng laging nakadungaw.”

Our house was strategically located near where we studied, Gregoria de Jesus Elementary School and Torres High School. It was also a dash away from the Gagalangin public market (talipapa), St. Joseph Parish, Gagalangin public library, Gagalangin Theatre, Torresian School Supplies, Botika Santos, Mendoza Bakeshop -- Gagalangin landmarks all. As a result, our house was THE hangout of choice. Friends would gather there on the way to the graduation ball, jam sessions, and outings.

In first year high school, six or seven classmates from Maypajo and Caloocan would go home with me to eat their lunch baon at our table and my mom would sometimes serve them hot soup and matamis na saging.

One day, just as we were done with lunch, my Mom anxiously but sternly announced bad news -- she was missing a P50-bill (which could easily be P 5,000 today, given what it could buy then). She apologetically searched through every school bag and purse my classmates carried but didn’t find it. That night, she found the money tucked in a pocket of a soiled duster in the ropero. The following day, lunch was on the house and the classmates cried with joy and relief. But it took me months to forget that most embarrassing moment of my young life.

Six years into my marriage, I left Gagalangin to settle with my new family in Pasig. I visit it now and again, but more often lately -- in my mind.

Some translations:

Karetela - horse-drawn carriage

Kapitbahay - neighbor

Patintero and tumbang preso - team games -- seldom played now -- that required running stamina and quickness/nimbleness.

Piko- a game similar to the western hopscotch

Ang babaeng laging nakadungaw - Woman/girl who's always looking out the window

Ropero - closet for dirty clothes

Conversations With Myself

1.

I can't write good fiction.

You don't say.

I have weak imagination. I can only write about what I have gone through and known and felt. Sure, I can exaggerate, understate, embellish, take liberties. But I need a solid floor of truth -- no matter how thin or ramshackle -- to lovingly polish, mess around with, stamp my foot on.

The next thing you'll say is you're a poor liar, too.

I don't have a good liar's imagination, creativity, and diligence. I am too lazy to try to remember lies or note them down. And I hate being caught up in the maze of one lie after another. I'm not saying I don't lie.

For a while, you haven't written. Write something, anything.

You don't when you are empty. When there's no kindling in the head. No fire in the belly. When you're dry in the heart, and elsewhere.

Some people hate to be angry or afraid or lonely. But the saddest thing to feel is nothing.

It is sad not being able to write.

Come on lighten up. You're too old to take yourself seriously.


2.

It's funny how others think old people do not feel as they do. Or are not entitled.

People say, shaking their head:

Really, now -- you STILL sleep eight hours a day? Love chocolates? Swoon over Piolo? Go kilig over someone guapo? Smile at yourself in the mirror? March at EDSA?

And, oh wow, you STILL play games online? YM-chat? Blog? Giggle? Sulk? Dream dreams? Take yourself seriously?

As though one is transformed by the wand of old age into a eunuch -- calcified, barely moving, bereft of dreams and appetites. Or at least someone who doesn't do much beyond read newspapers, watch television, dote on grandkids, complain of aching joints, and go nostalgic over lost youth.

Have I joined the ranks of the disenfranchised ... or will soon do?

I need to have a fall back for that "someday soon" when I would be shunted from the mainstream to the edges of life. Or, God, let me just drop out from it.


3.

Before I forget, I can STILL skip-hop ...

And can still write feeling poems too:


I have forgotten the fire
The fire that spreads like a blanket
And takes the nip out
Of a rainy night.

I have forgotten the spark
That spangles the eyes that glimpse it
And scalds the hand
That reaches out to touch it.

Yonder smolders a bonfire of dreams
Whoa, heart,don't go.
Heart, heart
Oh ...





(My 100th post, celebrated with all the angst I am capable of.)

MIND STRETCHING (FIRST MEMORIES)

There are mind games and mind games. And there is mind stretching – going as far back in the past as one can remember, for bits and pieces to laugh about, for some old trauma that can be connected with present difficulty.

First memories -- you can call them.

My own mind-stretching exercise yielded little first memories to laugh about or get sentimental over, but heck, they were vivid enough to share.

At two, I was burning with fever, my eyes and nose running, shrieking, struggling to get out from my newly-arrived Dad’s arms back to my mom’s. As he released me, his concern for his sick daughter turned into anger, and his sulking made the silly girl cry louder.

At four, I was waiting eagerly for my Dad to come home. He had promised me my favorite Horlicks as a birthday treat. That night, I couldn’t sleep thinking of the bottle I didn't receive -- as the confection used to be packed in bottles, like medicine tablets – and wondering “… maybe next year?”

At six, and in grade 1, I was walking with my Ate Mila, grade 6, to school, clinging to her hand as usual. She pulls her hand away and I grab it right back. More pulling and grabbing until at last I whimpered “sumbong kita, che,” and she let her hand stay but not before it whacked me one.

At almost seven, I was called to the principal’s office where I joined five or six other pupils. A teacher said aloud: “O sige, mga iha. Suppose a visitor comes and looks for Mrs. Fabros, our principal, who is away, what will you tell the visitor?” All the other youngsters fell silent when they were pointed at to speak. When my turn came, I managed to mumble in my boses ipis: “Mrs. Fabros is not here.” "Ay, ito na, ito na," the teacher exclaimed and I wondered what it meant. A month after, I received onstage a book with the inscription: “most intelligent pupil, grade 1.”

At seven, and in grade two, I fretted as I waited for my mom to pick me up at our usual hintayan somewhere between school and home. At that time, I was allowed to walk by myself from school, but only up to where we had to cross big bad busy Juan Luna Street. After an hour of waiting, I got ready to cry; but what the heck, I looked to the left, looked to the right, half ran across, and reached home uneventfully. My mom was unrepentant when she met me: she never since had to fetch me again.

I laugh now at the silly little girl that was me even as I sense her immutably still in me. At this venerable old age, I am still a bit silly and shy and clingy, though I have learned the art of pretending I am smart and poised and cool.

What about you -- what are your first memories? Do the bad ones outnumber the happier ones, as they did in my case?

(Inspired by the boyhood recollections of Uncle Pung , sweetly-cutely-funnily written, in his maiden blog piece, “Unang Baitang, Grade 1.”

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.

Life After Mid-Life

Fear tells you, "I want to make you safe."

Love says: "You are safe."

- Pat Rodegast, Emmanuel's Book II

In my first blog posted five months ago, I whined about the prospect of growing old infirm, unneeded, lonely.

I equated retirement with: waking up without purpose, walks without direction, lunch breaks uninterrupted, and a nest chirpless, cheerless.

Left out in that catalogue of fears were more blatant ones. Of a body gone to pot. Of parts in need of overhaul or replacement. Of BP, sugar, cholesterol levels shooting up and energy and mental faculties slowing down.

My sister, a lawyer, died 10 months after she retired. Technically, it was a conspiracy of diabetes, asthma, hypertension and depression that did her in. But virtually, she stopped the clock herself with her own obstinate refusal to live empty days with husband gone, work done, and children flown from the coop.

I had cause to be paranoid, hadn’t I?

Lately, I am surprised I have lost some of these fears. How?

Flippantly I tell people it must be this blogging thingie. When one has two or three sites to manage and 30 to 40 people in one’s blogging community to visit twice a week – on top of 8-5 work and demanding family and social life – how can one find time to brood?

Half-seriously, it could be blogging with its requisite introspection that has put me in touch with higher wisdom. It tells me that without worrying I would have arrived exactly where I am now -- and more pleasantly.

Half-seriously, too, it could be blogging -- and its requisite raising of external awareness -- that has made me watch out for seniors who seemed to have found the secret to growing old, productive, and happy.

There is evidence to show creative juices need not dry up with age.

Who hasn’t heard of Anne Mary Robertson, aka Grandma Moses, who taught herself to paint at 70 plus? She lived to be 100 and for 30 years the toast of American folk art! Martha Graham danced well into her 70s and continued to choreograph 20 years more. Giuseppe Verdi wrote his last opus eight months shy of his 80th birthday.

We have local, if more modest, counterparts around:

M, scion of a restaurant chain-owning family, took an MA in literature at age 60. She now teaches English lit – the true passion she earlier pushed aside to meet family expectations to help with business. Nanay Curing, at 80 plus, still tends her own small grocery store in BF Paranaque. She is incidentally, the mom of Senator Manny Villar. R, a blogger-buddy you might know, enrolled in Law school at 50 something, after teaching high school for 20 years. Soon, she would be the attorney she has always dreamt to be.

And ... A, another blogger you might also know, snorkeled for first time -- for the big deal it's worth -- at age, hmmm , see for yourself.

Note: Top photo coutesy of stockxpert. Other photos are of some of A's children.