Peevish PV of the unwrinkled spirit

Dear PV*

87 ka na nga ba? Owws? Hindi nga. Yung tutuo?

We always love saying this, the UP ISSI staffers of my generation – "PV was looked up to as THE grand old man when we were young and callow and foolish. Now that we are old and jaded and foolish, PV has remained as he has always been." Time has seemingly stood still for him, and allowed us, alas, to catch up with him -- in a manner of speaking.

What is the secret of his youngish looks and longevity? Only he can say. But I can surmise (and I mean surmise beyond the clean, healthy, disciplined life he lives that is for all to see):

PV has amazing energy and vigor … a passion for being productive and creative … an obstinate refusal to be shunted away from the mainstream. He constantly makes himself better, looking out for opportunities to contribute, to help, to get involved, to guide, to lead.

Over the years, over the infrequent zig-zagging of our friendship, over our occasional "political" differences -- -- I have glimpsed love, warmth, sweetness and compassion inside that usually peevish and tough exterior. Malambing at mapagmahal si PV.

PV took me to his former classmate, then Philippine Constabulary Chief Fidel Ramos, when my father was detained at Camp Crame in the early days of martial rule. PV would buy oversized remote control cars for each of my five boys during his trips abroad, never taking them out of their big boxes -- never mind if they took up all the space of a big maleta -- the better for me to wrap them for Christmas.


When I rocked his boat and unwittingly created a leadership crisis for him over what I called "a matter of principle," PV sent me flowers.


I thought I had lost his friendship then ... but it didn't take more than a few months for us to shake hands, hug each other, and make up. The "I am sorry(s)" did not have to be said.

He understood even when we were standing poles apart on some issue or other.

PV has kept his soul unwrinkled.

Tough act to follow for all of us. But we can always try. I know I try.

* Message to be delivered in tribute to Dr. PV -- former boss and mentor at the UP ISSI, and now friend and fellow-SME advocate -- on the occasion of his 87th birthday.

Photo: “01-14-08- camelot” by Frank, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

So they'd know whether to plug or unplug: buhay na habilin

Nang mamatay ang aking best friend na si Arthur, nang madama ko kung paanong nagdusa ang kanyang pamilya noong kanyang mga huling araw, sinabi ko sa sarili ko na hindi ko papayagang mangyari ito sa aking mga mahal sa buhay pag ako'y nakapila na sa dakilang pre-departure area ng buhay.

Si Arthur ay mahigit na kuwarenta anyos lamang nang dalhin sa ospital na agaw-buhay, biktima ng traydor na hemorrhagic stroke. Massive daw ito -- ang mula sa utak na pagdudugo ay umabot hanggang batok. Tatlong araw na walang malay o nasa coma si Arthur; ang humihinga para sa kanya ay isang artificial respirator.

Ikalawang araw nang magsimulang magtalo ang kanyang asawang si Beth at ang mga kapatid niyang babae kung tatanggalin o pababayaang nakakabit si Arthur sa makinang siya lang nagpapatibok ng kanyang puso. Hindi sila nagkasundo, kahit binalaan na sila ng mga doktor na kung sakaling mabuhay pa siya, hinding hindi na babalik ang dating si Arthur na matalino, mapagisip, mapagbiro, masiste, malambing, masipag, maaalalahanin-- bagkus mananatili lang sa isang estadong walang malay at hindi kayang tulungan ang sarili. Sa Ingles, "vegetative state." Mala-gulay.

Lihim ko siyang pinalakpakan nang si Arthur na mismo ang nag-desisyon para sa sarili niya. Huminto siya sa paghinga kahit nakaplug-in pa din sya sa breathing machine sa ospital. "You go, boy," bulong ko sa kanya. Ikatlong araw noon ng kanyang pagkalugmok.

Matagal ko ding pinagluksa si Arthur. Wala na akong makikitang kaibigang lalaki na kasing-bait at kasing-sensitibo niya. Pambato siyang lecturer sa opisinang pinapasukan namin kapwa, ngunit wala lang sa kanya and papuri, walang ere, walang yabang.

Napraning ako para sa sarili ko dahil sa nangyari sa aking best friend. Lumuhod, nagnobena, nagdasal, umiyak. Sinabi ko sa Kanya na handa akong gawin ang kahit ano, ipamigay ang lahat ko, “basta, Lord, pag time is up na para sa akin, bawiin mo ako nang mabilis at kung maari’y walang gaanong kirot at kuskos-balungos. At pinaka-mahalaga, Lord, huwag mong pahirapan ang aking mga anak at asawa.” Gusto kong makipag-negosasyon, makipagareglo sa aking Diyos -- x-deal kung maari. Ngunit, pwede ba talagang makipag-bargain sa Lumikha?

Tutuo ngang binibigay ni God ang lahat ng ating pangangailangan, dahil hindi nagtagal, napag-alaman ko na meron palang tinatawag na living will.

Buhay na habilin. O habilin ng isang buhay.

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Ang aking lihim na buhay onlayn

Ako daw yung laging kulelat. Chronic latecomer at late bloomer.

Hindi lang sa pagpasok sa eskwela at opisina. Hindi lang sa pagdating sa mga sosyalan at mga miting. Hindi naman daw dramatic ang entrance ko, bagkus kiming-kimi. Mas puno daw ng embarrassment kaysa drama.

Kulelat din sa pagsunod sa mga bago at uso – sa pagbibihis, sa pagsasalita, sa pag-aayos ng bahay o sarili, sa teknolohiya.

Nuong kapanahunan ko, hindi ako nagsuot ng mini-skirt hanggang pawala na ito sa uso. Ngunit nang magamay ako dito, hindi ko na ito hinubad – nang 15 taon. Ako na yata ang pinakatalyadang buntis na naka-mini nuon. Nag-mini ako hanggang tatlong kabuntisan. Kaya’t inabutan ako ng ikalawang pagkabuhay ng mini nang naka-mini pa din.

Naalala nyo ba ang shoulder pads? Natagalan din bago ako nagsuot niyan, siempre. Aba, bagay pala sa akin. Lumalapad ang aking mga bagsak na balikat at lumiliit ang aking puson – siempre, ilusyon lang yong huli, pero yun daw ang mahalagang “total look.” Wala nang nagsusuot ng shoulder pads ngayon – bukod sa akin at, marahil, mga PMAer. Wala akong magagawa -- nagsumpaan na kami ng aking mga shoulder pads na hindi maglalayo – till death do us part.

Mahirap akong hindi makilala ng aking mga kaibigan kahit dekada na kaming hindi nagkikita. Kasi kung ano ang ayos ng buhok ko 30 taon na ang nakalilipas, eksaktong ganoon pa din ngayon. Pabilog ang gupit – apple cut ang tawag -- may bangs na nakalawit sa nuo, pinasabugan ng kaunting hair spray upang hindi magulo. Faithful ako sa aking "do" -- through thick and thinning hair.
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They could have pranced all night ...

Only for that day, they will play dress up to the nines. The moms who blog and lunch and farmtown together, who whisper deep dark secrets to each other, and attend each other's kids' birthday bashes. Only for that one day, they won't be drudges nor grunges but rather hot mommas on the run -- but only on cam.

Both Chats and Cookie wore their dreamy wedding gowns. Chat's was off shoulder, off-white, minimalist (her word). Cookie's was a spaghetti-strapped, lightly embroidered number that couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be called maximalist. Each married ten years (more or less), they seemed to have defied the years as they fitted easily and flawlessly into the flowing white dresses they wore on the last day they were maidens. They were so pretty one could almost cry.




Cess, slender as a whisper, looked like a girl going to her first prom in a half black, half psychedelic outfit that showed off her waif-like, almost pre-pubescent-like figure and sweet countenance.

Noemi stirred excitement when she announced she was coming in the Pitoy Moreno gown her mom passed on to her but changed her mind for reasons she didn't explain. She was nonetheless glamor and sophistication personified in what she settled for -- her silver wedding anniversary outfit. A maroon, off-shoulder, gown with a darling sparkling side accent.


Anna showed up in a two-piece burgundy ensemble. Snug. Sleeveless, backless, strapless. Audacious for someone well past 60 and who for 30 years considered it unchaste to wear anything more revealing than three-fourths sleeved and sabrina-necked blouses. But what the heck, what did she write "In Another Dress" for?


At professional photographer-blogger Mike Yu's residence-cum-studio at Bel-air Village, Noemi, Cess, Cookie, Chats and Anna posed and preened and pranced and strutted, as Mike gave out directions: "smile," "ok, look serious," "now, act wacky." He was generous with his "greats" and "nices" and "perfects" as he clicked away.

The ladies also pranced in informal outfits and costumes and props they thought represented the themes of their personal blog sites. Chats was the quintessential Fitness Doyenne as she posed in jogging pants and sports jacket, while Cess sat for the camera wearing the uncanny combination of shorts and tees and angel's wings, a subtle symbol of what a young, stay-at-home mom ought to be to stay afloat and keep sane.

At one point, one of the ladies fretted: "Oh, dear, we are all dressed up with nowhere to go?!"

Nowhere to go?

But didn't they go to "town, " a metaphorical town ? -- and painted it red, had the time of their lives, behaved like dorks or divas (take your pick), did something they've never done before except perhaps in their imagination, and did it with all the flaire and elan and bravura they could muster? Mike thought they were "naturals." "Natural for what," it didn't occur to any one to ask.

Perhaps this is one of the late-life adventures the most senior of the ladies subliminally foresaw when she wishfully subtitled her ode20ld blogsite "THE BEST IS YET TO BE." It should be right there ... along with her bucket list of visiting Bohol and Batanes, of writing a book, of walking in the rain, of drinking one too many, of picking her neighbor's rosal flowers when the neighbor is not looking.

How did the blogging moms end up in Mike's studio, making like one-day celebrities? Blame it on the stars maybe. Better still blame it on Noemi who moves with Mike in bloggers circles. Blame it on Noemi's penchant for dragging along her barx when she gets exciting invitations like Mike's.



Yes, Mike Yu, who is between photographing stints abroad, has been taking photos of bloggers for several months now for his Bloggers Gallery project. Before the end of the year, he plans to gather and showcase the photos into an exhibit.

(Mike, we all feel lucky to have been photographed by you and perhaps make it to your exhibit. Thanks and hugs to pretty Bambi who wielded her magic brushes and combs to transform us or at least for trying to, while engaging us in her charming chika. )

P.S. Wench, you missed the adventure, and what an adventure. Rolly, thanks for "... as a whisper."

DECLASSIFYING DASTARDLY SECRETS

We were lingering over dinner at Kalye ni Juan -- my certified platinum amigas and I -- when we got to talking about terra incognita. We agreed that though we go back many years and trust each other more than anyone else in the world, there are still things we keep from each other. Indiscretions. Intimate secrets. Deep, dark, dastardly episodes of our lives.

May these be now declassified? -- we wondered.

"Well, I plagiarized when I was in high school,” I began, feeling absolutely bold and wicked.

This opened a flurry of cutesy confessions.

“ I read my daughters’ diaries.”

"I sent Valentine's Day flowers to myself."

“I hid chocolate from my children.”

“I used to pad the family expense account.”

Someone yawned out loud then heckled : “Are we all so dull? Can't we talk of more exciting stuff?”

Such as what?

Such as – amidst giggles – did any one of us have a face lift or a nose job or a lipo?

Lipo? Uhmmm – an amply endowed amiga demurred – maybe this year maybe next year or just as soon as the clinics guarantee the bulges would stay deflated forever. Face lift? No, never, we chorused. Too invasive. Too much down time. Too hard to disclaim. Too expensive. Husbands will not allow it or will never stop throwing it to our -- uh oh-- faces when we complain about money. Children will tease and laugh. Children-in-law may gossip. And nose jobs? What for?! -- was the consensus, as each lifted her own proboscis a bit higher, regardless button-cute or just short of Grecian.

The only coy admissions that part of the session produced were to an eye job (by two amigas) and to re-landscaping in that region where babies pop out from (by almost all).

“Those are still so lame and tame,” the heckler complained again. “Don’t we have stuff rated X or R?”

“What about ... did we love someone we shouldn’t have?” Emma volunteered primly. Did I just imagine she blushed?

“Oh, you mean did anyone of us ever have an affair?” Lyn shot back as the heckler sat back with a smile that said "now we're talking."

We looked at each other, half expectant, half afraid of what we might be about to hear and not knowing how to deal with it.

No one should have worried. Nothing scary was forthcoming.

Jane broke the silence by persisting: “Such as what else?”

“Such as getting rid of someone we shouldn’t have?" -- this from me.

“Like an old flame?” Emma asked.

"A lover?"

"Or a baby?"

"No way!"

When do we take old skeletons out of cupboards? -- we speculated before we stood up to go home, none of us the wiser. Will there come a time they wouldn't shock nor embarass anymore? When we get to 65? 75? At our deathbeds?

When we have forgiven ourselves?

Maybe never.

What If ...

What if you had a barkada of certified platinum forever friends who go back with you to your maiden days, and the dearest of them had to leave for distant climes and couldn't come back and visit though she sorely wanted to and neither could you fly where she was though you had tried to put on wings and you didn't meet for 15 long years, except online, by phone, and in each other's dreams?

What if you learned the absent one could finally come home --"soon, very soon, in a month or so" -- and you began to count the days, while psyching yourself you shouldn't mind the waiting, now that you could glimpse its end, and you sometimes slept smiling, imagining the sweet day you finally see her face to face and press her close to your sun-drenched heart?

What if the barkada -- all ten of you with that one dear exception -- gathered one night ostensibly to celebrate the college graduation of one of your kids -- and then talk among you swerved inevitably, wistfully to the absent one's imminent homecoming and you desultorily began to plan a reunion itinerary, and then: suddenly, wonderfully, incredibly, the one being talked about walked in, as big and vibrant as life -- face glowing with anticipation, arms open to engulf you like a rising tide?

Here's what happens if all that happened -- and, believe me, it all happened.

Please click here to see what happened and please don't forget to turn up the volume:

http://upissi.multiply.com/video/item/2/Arrival_of_a_Balikbayan_BFF

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)

Little Anna of A Thousand Stitches

There's a new Anna in my anarchic (well, almost) little world.

She came today in this tiny, silvery package.

She came fully authenticated and identified by its maker/giver.



















As we hugged noses, I just knew we're gonna hit it off.




One tiny problem -- where to locate her.

Among the other Annas/Annes in my analectic corner?





Uhmmm, no. She needs a place to shine. Maybe a tiny shrine of her own nearer her new owner the better to know each other.

Lemme see. .... Here ...


















There she is in close up. Isn't she beautiful?

















(Hey there, you handcrafting genius from the peanut gallery ... you know you have made anna-der dream come true, don't you?)

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)

APPROPRIATING PAIN

I caught my friend Doris crying silently in her cubicle. Although she doesn’t say anything, I know its again that good-for-nothing whom she calls “my everything.”

When your sister or friend hurts badly -- physically or emotionally -- and you feel so helpless, what do you do?

You make your shoulder a little broader for crying on.

You want to say "You nitwit you. Why should you let that SOB hurt you.” Or: "You think you love him but you don't, can't. " But you don't. You don't deny her her feelings.

You want to tell her about your kumare or kapitbahay who suffered bigger than she does, but who was able to cope. But you don't. You don't say "wala lang yang problema mo compared to so-and-so." Nope, you avoid belittling her troubles.

You just listen, make those cooing little noises, try to rephrase her pain, turn it every which way, and hope she talks some of the hurt away. Talking -- like writing -- can be cathartic, you know. You listen -- even if you can almost lip-sync what she's saying. And then you listen again. You take the phone even if it’s 2 a.m.

The cliché way is to pray for the hurting friend. Maybe it is unfair to call prayer that word. I am sorry if I offend others by the narrowness or recklessness of my vocabulary. But it’s too easy to say “I will pray.” It is even easy to do, too. I can pray by rote; I can compose a prayer – as I sometimes do –and say it over and over again until the repetition erodes it of meaning. And my own experience is that prayer does not always produce immediate results but has to patiently wait for “God’s own time.”

There must be more than listening and praying.

Can you – uhmm -- appropriate for yourself some of that pain? Can you carry around a piece of it to relieve someone of his or her load?

I have this lame-brain theory that pain is a universal pie that can be cut up and distributed thinly. And that if you get a slice bigger than your quota, you leave the other person with a smaller and lighter piece to carry around.

But I am just full of hot air, you know. Big deal, big talk.

For … what are the mechanics of appropriating pain for oneself?

How does the hot air translate into action?

I don’t know.

Another’s pain can never really reach me – except in an abstract way. The only way for that pain to touch me is for something to happen in my personal life that will cut and bleed me.

Then and only then will my talk turn into walk.

But I wouldn’t want that, would I? I am not as numb as I might tout myself to be. And if I have really desensitized myself, what pain would I be talking about?

No, there should be a better way. But I don’t know it yet.

Can it be to spread more kindness to the world?

Can it be to fix one’s own unmended fences – no more pretending the damage is not there, but rather pick up the pieces and hammer away.

Can it be to forgive those you are most hard pressed to forgive?

How will that help Doris who is hurting badly?

It is hard to say. I am not blind to the gaping fallacies of my reasoning. My brain is shot full of holes. Still, I rest my case on that fragile ground.

I just know, sure as the sun sets and rises, that people’s fates -- friends’ especially -- are inextricably connected.

(Ano daw?)

(To my friend, D)
Yesterday we cried, stung by life
That promised, gave, then smashed away.
The broken shards lie in the sun
Shimmering, a river of tears.

We swam, my friend, we swam
We swam for our lives.
Our eyes dried with every stroke
As we glimpsed the shore.

Yesterday we cried
But yesterday's far and gone.
We're safe, we're free -- we've always been.
We've forgotten why we cried.

You'll Be Fine

I was cleaning up my word files the other night while waiting for my sundo to come. Came across this poem written years ago when my boss Leon Chico, former director of UP ISSI (my organization) died. He died in California sometime during 9/11.

I was among those who spoke at the memorial service for him. This is what I delivered.

Thought I'd share it with you.


Was it ages ago? My first day at ISSI?
You were my one-man welcoming committee.
Who flashed the first smile
Held out the first hand.
Assured: "You'll do well. You'll be fine."
That chased away first day jitters.
Made the day soar like a song.

Was it ages ago? My first years at ISSI?
I got wed, had my firstborn
Lost my second.
Lived life, got hurt, lost and found self.
Grew a small faltering step at a time.
You were a constant – friend/boss/teacher
Who teased, cajoled, soothed, inspired
Assured in many different ways I'd be fine.

Was it ages ago? The day you left ISSI?
Did you outgrow us?
Were you destined to be an ex-patriot?
You missed people power 1 and 2
Erap's impeachment trial too
You'd have spilled your guts like us
Felt proud of your countrymen.

But you stayed away, flitting about and
Around somewhere
In the rain forests of Micronesia
The steel jungles of California
The predictable non-traffic of Singapore.
Wherever, you always did well
For the people you served
You were fine.

Was it just three Sundays ago?
When the phone rang '
Through dreamless sleep.
"LC is gone" the message said.
Say one for him, it prodded.
I mumbled rote words
But the tears didn't come
It is safe to die, I know
It is safe to fly.
You've never been as fine.

But wait, it was I that wasn't safe
Not from the memories
Of my first day at ISSI
Of my one-man welcoming committee
Of my first season of growing older
Of the one constant boss/friend/teacher.
I choked from all the remembering
Till I heard the wind whisper
"You'll be fine."

I Have Two Mananquils

Mananquil in his home studio in Ontario

I have two “Mananquils.” No, make that three. For I used to own a third, which was actually the first.

If Romi Mananquil had stayed in the country and not migrated to Canada in the 1980s as he had, that would have been about the same as saying I have two or three “BenCabs.”

Mananquil and National Artist BenCab(rera) were contemporaries at the UP College of Fine Arts. With another classmate, Dan Dizon, they were the formidable “Triumvirate" -- the pick of their batch, perhaps of several batches put together.

Viewing the Triumvirate’s art exhibit the other year at Galeria, I felt my mouth water and discretely asked around for the price of the smallest Mananquil. I found out I could easily afford the six figures quoted, if my family stopped eating for a year. That was when I remembered he sketched me -- light years ago -- for The Torch, our high school paper.

But the artist didn’t remember drawing me. “Did you keep a copy?” he asked with his characteristic half smile and soft speak. That was not a question to ask of someone who lost her passport twice and all of her children’s birth certificates!

About a year later, as we met again in our highschool website, he emailed me I was the first author ever to write about him.

Not without devilish glee, I wrote back: “I don’t remember.” But unlike me, he had evidence to show. He promptly emailed me a yellowed clipping from The Torch, which showed a boy sporting Elvis Presley sideburns and a shy half-smile.

A week ago, I attended the opening of Mananquil’s first solo exhibit (since he left the country) at the Corredor Gallery at the UP College of Fine Arts, mounted by the College and the UP Alumni Association of Toronto as a special feature of the UP Centennial.

By then, he had done two sketches of me while at lunch at the University Hotel’s garden restaurant, with his beautiful wife, Necie. By then, too, I had written of him again, which came out in the Inquirer.

The writing did not have anything to do with the sketching, and neither conversely. They were, in his words, what former classmates and forever friends do for each other.

Wishes to YOU from Rolly thru Annamanila

Don't you sometimes read something and it hits you smack where your tenderness resides? This Christmas message written by Rolly Lampa, my ole high school friend, did it to me.

With Rolly's permission, I pass on these beautiful Christmas thoughts, wishing with all my heart I had written it myself for ALL OF YOU.


Christmastime is always a season of hope …. and a time for wishful thinking. These are the things I hope for and wish for you.

I wish you holidays of remarkable evenness and ordinariness. Not rollercoaster days of emotional peaks and troughs. No ecstasies or tragedies. Just days of quiet. Days you can curl up on a sofa and read a pocketbook or watch an old movie. Days of peace.

I wish you days of long forgotten pleasures – an extra half-hour in bed in the mornings; light traffic all the way to office or to the mall; short queues at the check-out counter; steaming hot coffee or frosty cold beer at the appropriate times of the day; the light of your life wearing a silly old thing that reminds you of a moment in your courtship when you both were young and the world was young with you.

I wish you days of small, splendid joys - the car pulling out from the parking bay just as you happen to turn into the parking lot; the shop assistant/office receptionist actually smiling up at you as you come in; an unexpected email from an old friend; a favorite song you haven’t heard in years now playing on the car radio; the keys or your eyeglasses just where you thought they would be; your kids (or grandkids) rushing in with a garbled greeting and a tight hug and a warm look around the eyes that says they’re actually glad you’re home.

I wish you little nuggets of happiness … the peace-be-with-you moment at midnight mass when you turn around to your loved ones and embrace and kiss each other; the count-down craziness on New Year’s eve; the warm sand on your bare feet at the beach; the tiredness at dusk on an outing that was just perfect. At such times, you get the feeling all is right with the world and the heavens.

Drive safely. Enjoy the year-end break. Be happy. God bless.

Rolly and Lynn Lampa

Mang Romy

Mang Romy, aalis ka na pala?
Hindi pa tayo nagkwewentuhan. Di ba
Halos gabi gabi, tuwing alas siete.
"Anna. Uuna na ako. Ikaw na bahala dine?"
"Hwag muna, Mang Romy, hintayin mo na ako."
Ngiti. Talikod. "Goodnight, Mang Romy."

Nguni't Mang Romy ...

Paano ka aalis nang di ko pa arok
Kung ano ang nakakasaya sa 'yo? Ang nakakakirot?
Paano ka magtampo? Mainis? Malungkot?
At aling pangarap pa ang di mo pa abot?
Mang Romy, aalis ka nga ba?
Marahil sa yong paglisan makikilala na kita.

Rough translation:

How can you go, Mang Romy
When we haven't talked?
Remember, every night, around seven --
“Anna, I will go now. Lock up when you leave?”
“No, not yet, Mang Romy. Wait for me?”
But you turn your back with a little smile.
“Goodnight, Mang Romy.”

Mang Romy, how can you go
When you haven’t told
What makes you laugh? What gets your goat?
What drives you, irks you, makes you bleed?
Which of your dreams are yet unreached?
Are you really going ? Are you done?
Perhaps I’ll know you better when you're gone ...

(Written in tribute to our all around, well-liked, trusty Mang Romy on his retirement.)

My Alter Life as Fertility Goddess

I should have seen it coming when my doctor diagnosed a myoma somewhere inside me where babies come from. It was an itty bitty growth that would soon grow up, I was warned. Rather harmless, except it was obstructive of motherly ambitions.

"Go and multiply now and I mean NOW-- or forever remain two," the OB-gyn as much as told husband and me.

That was countless years and countless babies ago. The duo has not only become a trio but a glee club that is not always in tune.

Myohmy! Whereohwhere has my little myoma gone ? That's a question which I’d have wanted to confront Dr. Young with, for all her U.S. training credentials (not from some Philippine med school, ha? hahaha!).

If it’s still inside me, it must have grown into an amulet. A fertility charm.

And that is how I have become goddess of fertility, with childless women worshipping at my altar.

Mary and Waiping did. They are two Singaporean women I met in an international program in KL some time in my prolific past.

They had no children yet, though each four and five years married, they told me during our getting-to-know you lunch. Their woebegone look gave away the yearning in their heart.

Their eyes popped when I told them how many I got or begot.

“If you want to have children, stick by me,” I declared, “I'm a fertility deity."

I am not sure if they believed me. But stick by me they did -- all through the one-month program. They’d flank me in class pictures. Hustle to get into my group during field work. Knock on my door to chat.

Waiping and I met again in Singapore three years later. The conference I was attending was held at the National Productivity Board where she and Mary worked.

I was delighted to meet again a very big, very pregnant Waiping. It’s her second baby she said. It was then I noticed she still looked woebegone and -- did I only imagine it? -- wary.

“And where’s Mary,” I asked.

“She’s on maternity leave. Her second, too."

Before I could react, she added: "I don’t think she wants to see you.”

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.

Clamp down on a Stand out?

In our highschool batch e-loop, I made the mistake of announcing I wanted to nominate Arthur Garcia as outstanding graduate in our class.

Arthur Garcia is a shadowy highschool memory. He didn't make waves back then. He was absent from the campus political scene. All I remember of him are smiling, chinito eyes, prominent nose, crew-cut hair and .... I guess that's it. Later, when I checked out highschool memorabilia, I found him in the official photo of the Torres Torch editorial staff.

In the early years of martial rule, when I was starting a family, a Kumander Arthur was being bandied about almost in same breath as Kumander Dante (Buscayno) in the dissident movement. I vaguely recall a clash between them -- I am not sure now. Anyway, I didn't associate Kumander Arthur with anyone I knew.

Not too long after, a news story announced Arthur Garcia, aka Kumander Arthur, was found dead. Apparently salvaged.

The report carried a picture. A face of a man not yet in his prime. Chinito eyes, high nose, close-cropped hair.

I tried to deify him in my Marcos-hating mind. Or what's a hopeless romantic for?

I filled up blanks in his life I didn't know and couldn't browse about.

After highschool, went to a university. Got recruited by KMU. Was taught ideologies that hit home. Dropped out of college, abandoned family, took less-travelled road to NPA territory. Left soft bed for mosquito-infested bushes. Traded "promising-young-man" dreams for country's "dictatorship-free" future.

In a word: namundok (fled to the hills; went underground).

In my mind, I concoct a final scene up in the hills just before he was killed.

As the sun sets on the hilltop, splashing the sky with mournful colors, the young man -- with sweat on his brow and dirt on his feet -- huddles with a group of kapatid (ideological siblings) under a tree, beside a brook.

"Someone has to go down to tell Ka Enteng the killings have to stop," an elderly says.

The youth's teeth shines white in his sunburnt face as he quickly replies: "Then I will go."

"No, not you, this mission is too risky," the old man retorts as the others chime in: " Stay here. We need you here." "Don't you know you're most wanted?" an anxious woman asks.

In not so many words, he tries to convince them he knows what he was about to do. "I will go tomorrow," he concludes , as though it were non-negotiable.

If his companions looked close enough, they might have seen the glint of terror that briefly passed his eyes before he shrugged and walked away.

He was, after all , not much older than a boy.

He goes down to the poblacion the next morning.

And that was how I imagined Arthur Garcia gave himself up to his fate.

When I decided to nominate Arthur Garcia as outstanding in our batch, I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, not a climb uphill.

Nothing prepared me for the vehement protests it drew among batchmates.

One Fine Day (Grief Subverted)

In g-mail chat, he asks
"How are you my friend?"
Shall I tell him like it is?

That I woke up late
To alien lethargy
Limped to the kitchen
And found we ran out of coffee?
That I called out to trusty Ate Owet
Scrambling for my purse
Until silence reminded me she climbed
Bus and ferry
To splurge a year's wages
On a fiesta by the sea?

That before I finished the cup
That passed for cafe latte
The phone rang and a message said
An old friend
Single, childless, frail, and lonely
Passed away last night
From a heart attack, the doctors say
(But virtually from a broken heart)?

That after checking text after text
The news was neither joke nor hoax
I took the guilt road welltravelled
Counting the times I didn't have time
To hug-talk the precious hapless
Who looked for love
In all the wrong places?

That I rode cold car on way to chilly office
Past the raving village idiot
Shaking his fist at imaginary foes.
Past a committee of beggars
Jostling like the children they are.
Past a megaphone blaring
Thanks to all for trust and votes
As inside a lump grows
Where my sorrow resides?

In g-mail chat at the office
He repeats: "How are you my friend?"
I smile and say I'm fine.

Friends in Word, Indeed! (My Scrabble Buddies)

Long before I stumbled into blogging, I had run into online scrabble. Or more precisely it crashed into me -- splitting me in two. One online (the virtual me), the other off (the real me).

For a while, I was in quarantine from my real life -- unable to give anything to it, wanting nothing from it. (I have since, auspiciously, regained my sense of balance.)

The Internet scrabble club gave me what I then called the "undiluted pleasure" of playing my favorite game with people of all colors, ages, nationalities, and other demographics.

As in the real world, I've met all kinds: the nice and not so.

Unlike in the real world, where you have to grin and bear with all types, you can shut off the absolutely un-nice in the scrabble club. By simply being put in your "no play" list, they can't play nor chat you even if they itched trying. They might as well be in limbo, as far as you know.

You of course "buddy" the very nice. "Buddying" means you'd know when they're online or off. You'd be alerted to their comings and goings. You make scrabble dates with them, play a dozen games with them until your back breaks and your eyes drop out of their sockets, observe them while they play another, kibitz them if neither of you mind.

Making scrabble friends online is as easy as boiling eggs in a pan. Many are drawn to my profile which I wrote so ingeniously it made me sound better than Pollyanna. So, players chat and buddy me. And I return the compliment.

Online friendships can be so fleeting, though.

For various reasons, you lose touch or lose interest. One may decide the other's not "that nice," or "that hot," or "that cool," after all or anymore. Or you playing style may not match -- you like playing an open board and she prefers it tight. Or he may like to tease and you don't. Or vice- versa.

The problem might lie with the time zone. He lives on the sunrise side of the mountain and you on its sunset slope, and you couldn't get synced for a game. Or she finds out how old you are and may get bored or intimidated playing a goldie, no matter how goodie.

Possibly, you outgrow him or he outgrows you -- in ratings. Or your games get skewed. And hey, I don't mind losing. But if someone beats me in all of five successive games -- that's no longer so sporting of anybuddy!!

Yup, most online friendships seem to have a shelf life. I've had as many as 40 on my budlist, and most have drifted away.

But there are exceptions.

In my buddy list, there are (at least) two that have come to stay ... and stay ... and stay ....

Let me tell you about them.

Marthalee Pietri aka Marthalee aka Pennielane aka Lucyndskys


A trueblue Beatle fan, as her aliases imply (all of them alluding to songs by the mopheads). An American from New York who married a Frenchman and has since settled in Britanny, a seaside haven northwest of France. Teaches English to French children and twice a year makes me hmmpphh and harumfff when she disappears from online to accompany a group of them to a study tour of England.

We call each other, in Marthalee's own words, our "first real scrabble friend and kindred spirit." Our friendship hits the three-year mark this August. It is one unblemished by kink nor snag. The only time I got upset with her was when she beat me four times in four games and seemed so unstricken by remorse. I don't know that I have ever upset her .. nor that I have won over her more than twice in a row.

She plays an open game and doesn't mind (very much) when I (more than) occasionally jam the board. She doesn't have qualms opening triples which puzzles this "kindred spirit" who'd sooner part with a limb than open a red spot. Notwithstanding our differences in playing style, we're so evenly matched we always play a very close game -- one where you have to do a little math towards the end to figure out how you'd win by one or two points. She never minds losing to me she says: "Better to lose points to a buddy than to any tomdickharrry."

How can anyone find fault with Marthalee! She never misses saying "nice one" when I bingo and "bravo" when I win. Always willing to adjourn when what she thinks is a preferred friend logs in. Generously passes every time I form a phony word when we play a challenge game.

She loves handmade paper products from Cagayan de Oro and freshwater pearls from Greenhills and doesn't complain if one or the other is all I send her for Christmas or her birthday. They are a limp return for all the chocolate truffles, pate, and rilettes and French cosmetics I have received from Britanny And yes -- eat your heart out, my fashionista friends -- I get to dangle a shoulder bag from Paris when I want to go tres chic.

Marthalee always threatens to come to the Philippines "next year" which never fails to give me the jitters for my topsyturvy, hot'n'dusty home is not (yet) ready to entertain a French-American lady who swims 24 laps each morning and jogs by the sea each afternoon. Once, I told her (joking, half-joking) I preferred I went to France instead. And she replied (serious): "Hmm, let me look at airline rates." Then I backtracked. Haha.

Manuel G. Reyes aka Peanoie aka Beatlefan
(shown here with his wife and daughters)

I found serendipity on a Saturday in June at a mall near my home. I had finished shopping; my kids were late picking me up -- so I went to a Net cafe to kill time.

I had just finished a scrabble game as "Pipinay" when who would click me for the next but someone named "Peanoie." As we began, one of us remarked our names were like-sounding. One question led to another and it turned out I was pi-PINAY to his PINOY-eh. I didn't get it at first: I was "duh (that was exactly his word)!

You know when you meet a fellow Pinoy in that international scrabble club of about 20,000 members and he/she turns out to be nice, funny, witty, belongs more or less (more of less, and less of more) to your fading generation, and shares many of your interests -- it's almost like winning the lotto.

Well, that was almost two years ago and the friendship has grown, stabilized.

As a migrant in Hawaii, he was hungry for news and stuff about his home country. Philipppine politics, the dwindling economy, the poor governance, the natural and man-made calamities, the desperation of the people.

He waxed romantic over Filipino music, literature, art -- even the Pinoy every-man. I could almost feel him flinch when I ranted we were a quarrelsome people who couldn't pull our act together. Told him it was easy for him to idealize the people, with his farsightedness and glasses soft-misted with nostalgia and homesickness.

But he kept posting me on proud Pinoy moments I took for granted -- the Pinoy beach boys in Hawaii clinching the junior baseball world championship, Manny Pacquiao winning his umpteenth fight, a team of pinay volleybelles making a good showing. He reminisced stories redolent of the Filipino's good humor, endurance, hospitality, and grace under pressure and poverty. He reminded me of the boundlessness of hope, the pride in great Filpinos like Ninoy, Ricarte, Sionil-Jose.

I was abashed for giving up on my own people.

So, it must be true, I told myself -- that when you go away from someone or someplace, you get to know it better.

Because of him, I read or reread Bienvenido Santos, F. Sionil Jose, N.V.M. Gonzalez and Nick Joaquin. I began to listen with TLC to Constancio de Guzman, Nick Abelardo, Levi Celerio.

He avidly chewed old fat with me -- Tia Dely, Student Canteen, Ang Panday and his Susana, Elvis and the Beatles, Nardong Putik . He has his roots in Cavite but he was familiar with some of mine -- Gagalangin, Torres High, UST.

He self-deprecates and I wonder why. He is as witty as I can never be. I claim to write but his English is more impeccable than mine. And yes, he beats me more than I do him.

(And ... he sends me macadamias and I send him Philippine music and literature.)

Notes:
Last November, we had an offline scrabble party with Peanoie and other Pinoy scrabble players. Marthalee sent pate -- which unfortunately came late for the event.)

Topmost photo: courtesy of Stockxpert.

Want to play scrabble online? Log on to: http://www.isc.ro. But just a word of warning: it IS addictive.