Tuesday, June 12, 2012
The Breaking of Bones
(Published 5/18/12, Phil. Free Press)
I lost my son, my father, and my mother in that order, within years of one another.
I have questioned God’s wisdom in this matter; not for their deaths – I know that’s non-negotiable – but for Him taking my son first. I reasoned that if He is truly merciful and all-knowing, He would have put my father’s name at the top of the list. I wouldn’t have argued with that.
My father was a charmer. He was handsome, gregarious, smart, charismatic, and visionary. But he was not an easy man to love. The fierce blood of the conquistador flowed strongly in his veins and in our home he was unquestionably lord and master. His word was law; break it and you were in for a world of pain.
I remember how the sound of his belt whistling through the air used to strike me with absolute terror. It didn’t matter if it was directed at me or at one of my siblings. We had all felt the sting of that leather on our young bodies and occasionally, even the bite of its metal buckle.
I don’t think any of our caring relatives or friends ever questioned my father for imposing such harsh “discipline” on his spirited children. Mother was our finger in the dike. She tried to intervene but there was never any doubt that her gentle spirit was a poor match to our father’s domineering personality.
So I grew up pretty much hating my father.
One night the beeping of my phone woke me; a cousin calling from the Philippines with news that my father had died. Pulmonary edema from pneumonia and heart complications. Not unusual for a man of 95.
He died alone, separated from his wife and children who had long ago left him and the life he clung to back in his hometown of Pampanga. What a pitiful denouement for a man who had been such a powerful presence in our lives.
I extricated myself grudgingly from the warm comfort of my bed, muttering with ill humor as I saw the time -- two in the morning at the height of the winter season. All I wanted was to crawl back under the covers and snuggle inside my cocoon. I didn’t want to stand irresolute in the middle of the room thinking about my father growing old and infirm and dying alone in a country I no longer called my own. Most of all, I didn’t want the rush of forgotten childhood memories that were suddenly bearing down on me.
New Look/new passion
I was about five years old, playing in the stream with my two older brothers; Titong was nine and Eddie seven. There was a depression on one side of the stream that served as a natural pool, deep enough for us kids to swim in. The water was clear but biting cold.
My brothers wrapped their skinny arms around their knees and jumped into the water, bottoms first, screeching with pretend laughter to disguise the chattering of their teeth. I dipped one tentative toe in and then the other, blinking away tears as my brothers called out jeering taunts at my “girly cowardice.”
And then Dad was there, hands on hips, telling my brothers to stop bullying me “or else...” He was attired in his city clothes so we knew he was about to leave for Manila where he travelled occasionally.
“What do you want me to bring back for you, Belmamina?” he asked.
“Nuluk,” I told my father softly, my voice barely above a whisper. He frowned but he didn’t scare me; I knew he wasn’t really annoyed. Our father was always in a good mood before his trips to the city.
“New Look again? Don’t you want something else this time? My lower lip started to tremble but I shook my head stubbornly. My father’s will was implacable but he knew that in my own timid way, so was mine.
He came back from Manila with the prettiest New Look for me – a white dress with red polka dots, velvet ribbons, and a frothy petticoat. And he also brought a book for each one of us.
“These should help keep you rascals out of mischief for a while,” he said. His eyes zeroed in on Titong, who managed to get into more trouble than I could count on all fingers.
I don’t remember the title of the book my father gave me but I remember its heft and size. I remember holding it close to my nose to inhale its clean book scent and sliding my palm repeatedly on its glossy cover in the same loving way I stroked my cat.
Strange animals and pictures of children who didn’t look anything like us leaped out of the pages as I quickly riffled through the book from cover to cover. My father beamed with approval at my obvious excitement. I don’t think I could have loved him more than at that moment. It almost made up for the last time he used his belt on my backside because I had refused to greet him good morning.
Indiana Jones
My father loved to hunt the deer and the wild bearded boar with deadly tusks that roamed free in the mountains of Mindoro where our orchard farm was located. I always looked forward to his return, not only for the fresh meat that the men roasted in darkened pits they dug in the ground, but for the stories my father brought back from his most recent adventure.
Dad was a riveting raconteur. He told his stories with much enthusiasm and eloquence, the pitch and timbre of his voice changing with each up and down twist of his tale. In my mind’s eye my father didn’t just tell stories -- he performed them.
I remember one hunting trip to Palawan where he and his friends had to cross a wild raging river in pursuit of their prey. They tied a stout rope around a tree and the strongest swimmer in the group crossed the river with the other end of the rope, which he then secured to another tree on that side of the river. The rest of the men followed, using the rope as their guide and life line.
Halfway through, one of the men lost his hold on the rope and was quickly swept away. Luckily, debris around a large rock stopped his impetus and he was eventually able to get back to safety. The only casualty was the sack of food he had been carrying, which was lost in the surging current.
Dad wasn’t worried. They would have fresh meat as soon as they took down their first kill. But the wild game they sought eluded them for two full days. The men grew increasingly hungry and exhausted. Their only food was the occasional fish they caught and water fresh from the river or boiled with wild mushrooms and river stones for a bit of flavoring.
Then on the third day a flock of wild geese foolishly wandered were the men were hunkered down. Their meat gave the men strength enough to return to civilization, empty-handed but grateful to be home.
“I’ve never tasted food as mouth-watering as those tough old birds,” my father laughed, “and hopefully never again.”
Years later I watched the adventures of Indiana Jones on the big screen with a sense of déjà vu. I had seen all that machismo twenty years earlier, sitting by the firelight with work-hardened men, watching my father perform.
El Rancho Grande
We were hunched around a mound of loosely piled soil, intently focused on our youngest sister Eva May as she poked at the mound with a long, narrow stick. Thin rubber bands were buried in the soil and whoever teased out the highest number of rubber bands got to keep the spoils.
The morning was young but already my sister’s left arm from wrist to nearly her elbow was ringed with blue, yellow, red and green rubber bands. “It’s not fair,” Eddie complained. “She’s cheating.” “Am not,” Eva May shot back heatedly.
“Shush,” I hissed, tilting my head toward the side of the house where the familiar lyrics of “El Rancho Grande” came floating from the kitchen where our father was cleaning his carbine.
Alla en el rancho grande, alla donde vivia
Habia una rancherita, que allegre me decia
Que allegre me deciaaaaaa
Soon our mother’s lilting contralto merged with dad’s rich baritone.
Su mama le dice a Julia
Su mama le dice a Julia
Que te ha dicho ese senor
Ay ay ay ay ay…..
We sat back on our haunches to savor the moment, our game of luck forgotten. Our parents next sang “Adios Mariquita Linda.” Eddie joined in the chorus enthusiastically to annoy Eva May whose given name was in fact – much to her annoyance – Mariquita Linda.
The beginning of the end
I was snacking on plump red aratiles from the huge tree in our front yard when I spied my father coming through the plantation pulling my brother Titong who was struggling in his grasp. I followed with a pounding heart as Dad dragged Titong through the house, his face a purple thundercloud, the veins in his neck like fat snakes wriggling to break free.
He pulled his belt off as my brother cowered in a corner, arms raised protectively around his head.
“You think you could run away again?” Dad yelled as the belt uncoiled and smacked Titong’s legs.
“Did you think I wouldn’t be able to track you down? WHACK “I hunt wild animals for sport.” WHACK “You’re just a boy.” WHACK WHACK
“Would you shoot me, too, Dad?” Titong asked through his snot and tears.
Our mother hurried into the room with Eddie and Eva May peering behind her, their eyes wide and wet. Dad threw Mom a forbidding glace as she struggled to speak. She looked long and hard at him, then turned on her heel and left without a word, pulling my siblings protectively along.
I ran sobbing to the den where shelves filled with books lined one wall. I pulled out a book I knew well and I ripped its pages savagely and tossed them on the floor while my brother howled with pain in the other room.
My father came into the den shortly, his breathing deep and ragged. He gazed at the torn pages and the broken spine of the very first book he gave me, the one I treasured most. Tears streaked my face but I looked at him defiantly, thinking that if I were bigger and stronger and meaner I could break his bones just as easily as I had torn that book apart.
His jaw tightened and his fists clenched but he turned around and left the room without saying a word, his shoulders bowed almost as my mother’s had been.
I never figured out who among us hurt the most that day, but I was certain it was the beginning of the end for my family.
**********************************
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
SPEED
Short Story Published on February 18, 2012
Philippine Free Press Online
AFTER MONTHS of interviews, endless paperwork, and interminable wait, Emil finally secured a position to manage a modern poultry farm in Sana’a, Yemen. This after he had lost his job selling veterinary products for a foreign company headquartered in Manila.
How well she remembered those early days – long rides in the Beetle with their infant son in her lap, crisscrossing Batangas, Laguna, and Calamba in search of poultry and piggery farms. Map Quest and GPS had not yet been invented, but they had something more reliable – they followed their noses. They knew they were close to their target when the air started smelling foul. The stronger the odor, the bigger the farm, and the faster Emil drove toward it.
She always suspected their son’s love for cars started when he was barely three months-old, riding with them on those sales calls, lulled to sleep by the movement of the car and the cooling breeze blowing from the windows. Sometimes when he was awake she would put him down on the back seat and he would gurgle happily, legs thrashing, fists clenched, arms pumping almost in rhythm with the hum of the engine and tires’ swishing. Surely it was during those long rides when the obsession for cars took root in her son’s soul, fueling his need for motion and speed. And was she wrong to blame her husband for that, too?
They called him Dr. Emil. He had a degree in Veterinary Medicine from Araneta University but he was a far better salesman than a veterinarian. Case in point; he successfully sold himself to her, didn’t he? She – Manila-born and raised, a true-bred kolehiyala with big dreams – had somehow fallen for this tough, macho Batangueno with his quaint probinsiyano ways. In fact his old-world gallant manner: opening doors for her, treating her like a queen, protective and caring – charmed her city-cynical heart. Certainly, having a cooler-full of live crabs and dozens of fresh buko left at her doorstep was a refreshing change from the tiresome flowers and chocolates other suitors plied her with.
Above all, she liked playing Henry Higgins to his Eliza Doolittle, advising him on the latest cut of jeans, taking him to museums and plays, introducing him to her artsy, sophisticated friends. Si malakas at si maganda, she’d inscribed on the leaf of her photo album chronicling their days together: swimming in the beaches of Nasugbu, haggling with fruit vendors in Tagaytay, enjoying bowls of steaming bulalo in a little tienda on the road to Tanauan. She’d never been so vastly entertained.
Nonetheless their courtship was fraught with dire warnings from family and friends (his and hers), which only strengthened her conviction that they were meant to be. The romantic in her was totally enchanted with the idea of the two of them standing resolute in the face of such universal disapproval. So Romeo and Juliet, she could barely stand it.
She married him on a crisp May morning in a dress so short, his mother fell to her knees with a quick sign of the cross as though her morals and character fell just as short of the older woman’s expectations. But Emil gave her a look of such total indulgence she couldn’t help flashing her fakest sweet smile at the woman she would soon be addressing Inay. And while the fad lasted, she wore her micro-minis whenever she accompanied her husband on his visits to the barrio, fully enjoying the attention and shocked exclamations that followed her wake. Emil never objected. She rather thought he liked parading her around. Look what I caught!
Emil left for the job in Yemen when their son was six and his sister Annie was five. Alex was a dynamo in motion. He learned to walk when he was barely a year old and then he was running all over the place, the quick staccato of his bare feet on the wooden floor of their home a constant rhythm that started in the morning when he jumped out of bed eager to see what the new day brought in terms of excitement, and up until he slumped back in bed at the end of the day, finally exhausted but blissfully fulfilled, his latest speed toy clutched in his arms. That’s how she would always remember Alex – a risk-taker perpetually in motion: a lightning streak on roller blades, daring moves on the skateboard, leaps in the air on his racing bike; and one of her most distinct memories – his Acura overtaking her Ford effortlessly, the throb of his car like wild horses momentarily held in check, laughter trailing as he zoomed past her yelling, Wanna race me, Mom?
She conceived their youngest Samantha when she ran out of her contraceptive pills the month she visited Emil in Yemen. Typical. How could she have imagined she could get her prescription filled in that hauntingly beautiful but backward country? Sana’a is the world’s oldest populated city, stretching back to about 1000 BC. It is home to the Great Mosque, Jami’ al-Kabir, considered as one of the oldest mosques in the Muslim world. The city itself is famous for its unique buildings towering several stories high, decorated with colorful geographical shapes, carvings, and stained-glass windows. Yet for all that, she couldn’t find a decent drug store that carried her birth control pills. Hello, Samantha.
In the days following her arrival in Sana’a, she soaped and scrubbed clean the walls and ceiling of his small company-owned bungalow and hand-sewed curtains for the windows. She framed collages of photos and hung them on his walls where before they were bare. One evening when he came home, the dining table was draped with an exotic scarf she had purchased from Souq al-Fetlah. A filigreed brass lamp in arabesque motif glowed faintly in one corner and his favorite country rock singer crooned softly in the background. At the center of the table was a water glass with maple-colored wildflowers she had rescued from the weeds that struggled to grow outside his back door where there was nothing but soil and sand and scraggly scrub.
Emil was exhausted from a full-day’s work culling sickly birds from the healthy and making sure his non-English speaking crew of Somali, Ethiopian, and Yemeni workers were on the job and not crouched in corners chewing khat and comparing jambiyas. He paused at the door in his dusty work boots and sweaty baseball cap looking bemused at the transformation she had created. Wow, he finally said. “Do you think we should take pictures for your mother?” The sheen in her eyes belied the mocking timbre in her voice.
He gave her a heavy, gold bracelet the morning of her flight out of Sana’a. It was a beautiful keepsake she cherished for the memories it brought back of dry, arid hills and strange, enigmatic people; and a husband who was yet to grow into himself. She nurtured those memories and the ones that came after, layering each loving touch, each challenge and triumph, to the perfect world she was building in her mind.
But fate, ever relentless and indifferent, had finally caught up with Alex and dealt her dreams a sweeping blow.
It had rained early that afternoon and there was water on the freeway. It was hard to see in the dusky October light. Alex was driving fast from work, weaving in and out of lanes to avoid slower-moving vehicles. He was meeting his friends for a hastily planned street race. One of them had just traded in his car for a new import and they were all excited to see how their own cars would perform against it. Alex was running late and he was growing increasingly annoyed with the slower car in front of him. He moved to his right impatiently and stepped on the gas to get ahead of it. That’s when he hit the spot on the road where water had collected. It was a shallow pool, but he was speeding and his car was light because he had taken out the back seats to max out his speed for the street race. His Acura hydroplaned, spun around, and when it landed, Alex was facing the fast oncoming freeway traffic racing toward him at 70 miles per hour. He never had a chance.
She thought she would die, too, but work saved her. When the tragedy struck she was working full-time and pursuing a graduate degree three evenings a week. Yet the weekends stretched before her like the sand dunes of Yemen: endless, dry, and pitiless, devoid of life and hope. Desperate, she applied for weekend work and soon found herself too busy and too tired to think about anything else but a quick meal and a soft bed at the end of each day, seven days a week. She learned to survive, one day at a time. Not so, with Emil.
Later she would ask herself how she could have been so oblivious to the extent of her husband’s pain; so blind to the despair that gripped him like a pit bull that had sunk its teeth into his throat and would not let go.
Witnesses at the scene said he had accelerated toward the concrete barrier instead of swerving to avoid it. The damage to his car almost mimicked the total wreck of his son’s.
Philippine Free Press Online
AFTER MONTHS of interviews, endless paperwork, and interminable wait, Emil finally secured a position to manage a modern poultry farm in Sana’a, Yemen. This after he had lost his job selling veterinary products for a foreign company headquartered in Manila.
How well she remembered those early days – long rides in the Beetle with their infant son in her lap, crisscrossing Batangas, Laguna, and Calamba in search of poultry and piggery farms. Map Quest and GPS had not yet been invented, but they had something more reliable – they followed their noses. They knew they were close to their target when the air started smelling foul. The stronger the odor, the bigger the farm, and the faster Emil drove toward it.
She always suspected their son’s love for cars started when he was barely three months-old, riding with them on those sales calls, lulled to sleep by the movement of the car and the cooling breeze blowing from the windows. Sometimes when he was awake she would put him down on the back seat and he would gurgle happily, legs thrashing, fists clenched, arms pumping almost in rhythm with the hum of the engine and tires’ swishing. Surely it was during those long rides when the obsession for cars took root in her son’s soul, fueling his need for motion and speed. And was she wrong to blame her husband for that, too?
They called him Dr. Emil. He had a degree in Veterinary Medicine from Araneta University but he was a far better salesman than a veterinarian. Case in point; he successfully sold himself to her, didn’t he? She – Manila-born and raised, a true-bred kolehiyala with big dreams – had somehow fallen for this tough, macho Batangueno with his quaint probinsiyano ways. In fact his old-world gallant manner: opening doors for her, treating her like a queen, protective and caring – charmed her city-cynical heart. Certainly, having a cooler-full of live crabs and dozens of fresh buko left at her doorstep was a refreshing change from the tiresome flowers and chocolates other suitors plied her with.
Above all, she liked playing Henry Higgins to his Eliza Doolittle, advising him on the latest cut of jeans, taking him to museums and plays, introducing him to her artsy, sophisticated friends. Si malakas at si maganda, she’d inscribed on the leaf of her photo album chronicling their days together: swimming in the beaches of Nasugbu, haggling with fruit vendors in Tagaytay, enjoying bowls of steaming bulalo in a little tienda on the road to Tanauan. She’d never been so vastly entertained.
Nonetheless their courtship was fraught with dire warnings from family and friends (his and hers), which only strengthened her conviction that they were meant to be. The romantic in her was totally enchanted with the idea of the two of them standing resolute in the face of such universal disapproval. So Romeo and Juliet, she could barely stand it.
She married him on a crisp May morning in a dress so short, his mother fell to her knees with a quick sign of the cross as though her morals and character fell just as short of the older woman’s expectations. But Emil gave her a look of such total indulgence she couldn’t help flashing her fakest sweet smile at the woman she would soon be addressing Inay. And while the fad lasted, she wore her micro-minis whenever she accompanied her husband on his visits to the barrio, fully enjoying the attention and shocked exclamations that followed her wake. Emil never objected. She rather thought he liked parading her around. Look what I caught!
Emil left for the job in Yemen when their son was six and his sister Annie was five. Alex was a dynamo in motion. He learned to walk when he was barely a year old and then he was running all over the place, the quick staccato of his bare feet on the wooden floor of their home a constant rhythm that started in the morning when he jumped out of bed eager to see what the new day brought in terms of excitement, and up until he slumped back in bed at the end of the day, finally exhausted but blissfully fulfilled, his latest speed toy clutched in his arms. That’s how she would always remember Alex – a risk-taker perpetually in motion: a lightning streak on roller blades, daring moves on the skateboard, leaps in the air on his racing bike; and one of her most distinct memories – his Acura overtaking her Ford effortlessly, the throb of his car like wild horses momentarily held in check, laughter trailing as he zoomed past her yelling, Wanna race me, Mom?
She conceived their youngest Samantha when she ran out of her contraceptive pills the month she visited Emil in Yemen. Typical. How could she have imagined she could get her prescription filled in that hauntingly beautiful but backward country? Sana’a is the world’s oldest populated city, stretching back to about 1000 BC. It is home to the Great Mosque, Jami’ al-Kabir, considered as one of the oldest mosques in the Muslim world. The city itself is famous for its unique buildings towering several stories high, decorated with colorful geographical shapes, carvings, and stained-glass windows. Yet for all that, she couldn’t find a decent drug store that carried her birth control pills. Hello, Samantha.
In the days following her arrival in Sana’a, she soaped and scrubbed clean the walls and ceiling of his small company-owned bungalow and hand-sewed curtains for the windows. She framed collages of photos and hung them on his walls where before they were bare. One evening when he came home, the dining table was draped with an exotic scarf she had purchased from Souq al-Fetlah. A filigreed brass lamp in arabesque motif glowed faintly in one corner and his favorite country rock singer crooned softly in the background. At the center of the table was a water glass with maple-colored wildflowers she had rescued from the weeds that struggled to grow outside his back door where there was nothing but soil and sand and scraggly scrub.
Emil was exhausted from a full-day’s work culling sickly birds from the healthy and making sure his non-English speaking crew of Somali, Ethiopian, and Yemeni workers were on the job and not crouched in corners chewing khat and comparing jambiyas. He paused at the door in his dusty work boots and sweaty baseball cap looking bemused at the transformation she had created. Wow, he finally said. “Do you think we should take pictures for your mother?” The sheen in her eyes belied the mocking timbre in her voice.
He gave her a heavy, gold bracelet the morning of her flight out of Sana’a. It was a beautiful keepsake she cherished for the memories it brought back of dry, arid hills and strange, enigmatic people; and a husband who was yet to grow into himself. She nurtured those memories and the ones that came after, layering each loving touch, each challenge and triumph, to the perfect world she was building in her mind.
But fate, ever relentless and indifferent, had finally caught up with Alex and dealt her dreams a sweeping blow.
It had rained early that afternoon and there was water on the freeway. It was hard to see in the dusky October light. Alex was driving fast from work, weaving in and out of lanes to avoid slower-moving vehicles. He was meeting his friends for a hastily planned street race. One of them had just traded in his car for a new import and they were all excited to see how their own cars would perform against it. Alex was running late and he was growing increasingly annoyed with the slower car in front of him. He moved to his right impatiently and stepped on the gas to get ahead of it. That’s when he hit the spot on the road where water had collected. It was a shallow pool, but he was speeding and his car was light because he had taken out the back seats to max out his speed for the street race. His Acura hydroplaned, spun around, and when it landed, Alex was facing the fast oncoming freeway traffic racing toward him at 70 miles per hour. He never had a chance.
She thought she would die, too, but work saved her. When the tragedy struck she was working full-time and pursuing a graduate degree three evenings a week. Yet the weekends stretched before her like the sand dunes of Yemen: endless, dry, and pitiless, devoid of life and hope. Desperate, she applied for weekend work and soon found herself too busy and too tired to think about anything else but a quick meal and a soft bed at the end of each day, seven days a week. She learned to survive, one day at a time. Not so, with Emil.
Later she would ask herself how she could have been so oblivious to the extent of her husband’s pain; so blind to the despair that gripped him like a pit bull that had sunk its teeth into his throat and would not let go.
Witnesses at the scene said he had accelerated toward the concrete barrier instead of swerving to avoid it. The damage to his car almost mimicked the total wreck of his son’s.
Monday, December 12, 2011
The price we pay
Published 12/12/11, Philippine Daily Inquirer, HighBlood section, Opinion
After months of interviews, endless paperwork, and interminable wait, my husband finally secured a position to manage a poultry farm in Sana’a, Yemen. This was after he lost his job selling veterinary products for a Manila-based company.
How well I remember those long rides in the Beetle with our infant son in my lap, crisscrossing Batangas, Laguna and Calamba in search of poultry and piggery farms. Map Quest and GPS had not yet been invented but we knew we were close to our target when the air started smelling foul.
His clients called him Dr. Willie. He had a degree in Veterinary Medicine from Araneta University. I was a Manila-raised colegiala with big dreams, yet I had fallen for a tough Batangueño with quaint probinsiyano ways. In fact his old-world gallant manner charmed my city-cynical heart. Certainly, having a cooler full of live crabs and dozens of fresh buko left at my doorstep were a refreshing change from the tiresome flowers and chocolates other suitors plied me with. Above all, I liked playing Henry Higgins to his Eliza Doolittle, advising him on the latest cut of jeans, taking him to museums and plays, introducing him to my artsy, sophisticated friends. Si malakas at si maganda, I’d inscribed on the leaf of the photo album chronicling our days together: swimming in the beaches of Nasugbu, haggling with fruit vendors in Tagaytay, enjoying bowls of steaming bulalo in a little tienda on the road to Tanauan.
I married him on a crisp May morning in a dress so short his mother fell to her knees with a quick sign of the cross. But Willie gave me a look of such total indulgence I couldn’t help flashing a triumphant smile at the woman I would soon be addressing Inay.
Willie left for the job in Yemen when our son Dexter was nine and his sister Sharon was eight. Dexter was a dynamo in motion. He learned to walk when he was barely a year old, and then he was running all over the place—the quick staccato of his feet on the wooden floor of our home a constant rhythm that started in the morning when he jumped out of bed, eager to see what the new day brought in terms of excitement, and up until he slumped back in bed at the end of the day, finally exhausted, his latest toy clutched in his arms. That’s how I would always remember Dex—a boy perpetually in motion, always in a rush to get somewhere. My most distinct memory is his Acura overtaking my Ford effortlessly, the throb of his car like wild horses momentarily held in check, laughter trailing as he zoomed past me with a challenging cry, “Wanna race me, Mom?”
I conceived our youngest Carmela when I ran out of my contraceptive pills the month I visited Willie in Yemen. How could I have imagined I could get my prescription filled in that hauntingly beautiful but backward country? Sana’a is the world’s oldest populated city, stretching back to about 1000 BC. It is home to the Great Mosque, Jami’ al-Kabir, which is considered one of the oldest mosques in the Muslim world. The city is famous for its unique buildings towering several stories high, decorated with colorful geographical shapes, carvings and stained-glass windows. Yet for all that, I couldn’t find a decent drug store that carried my birth control pills.
That month in Sana’a was an almost perfect interlude that I cherished for the memories of dry, arid hills and strange, enigmatic people; and a husband I loved who was yet to grow into himself. I cleaned and cooked and played housewife. Willie came home most evenings exhausted from a full-day’s work culling sickly birds from the healthy and making sure his non-English speaking crew of Somali, Ethiopian and Yemeni workers were on the job and not crouched in hidden corners chewing khat and comparing jambiyas.
After Willie came back from Yemen we immigrated to the United States in search of the proverbial greener pasture. We found employment and built a fairly good life in the Pacific Northwest, and like any fool I thought it would last forever. But fate finally caught up with us and dealt my family a mortal blow.
On his way home from college one October afternoon, Dexter was carjacked and forced to drive to an isolated spot in the city of Tacoma in Washington State. He was shot in the head and left to die on the roadside while his attacker escaped in Dexter’s prized Acura.
I thought I would die, too, but work saved me. When the tragedy struck, I was working full-time and pursuing a graduate degree three evenings a week. But the weekends stretched before me like the sand dunes of Yemen: endless, dry and pitiless. Desperate, I applied for weekend work and soon found myself too busy and too tired to think about anything else but a quick meal and a soft bed at the end of each day, seven days a week. I learned to survive, one day at a time. Willie found something far more destructive.
Later I would ask myself how I could have been so oblivious to the extent of my husband’s unraveling; so blind to the despair that gripped him like a pit bull that had sunk its teeth into his throat and would not let go. Not unless he was in front of the slot machine gambling his pay away before he even earned it. He didn’t stop until he lost our life savings, his retirement fund, his job, his family and his self-respect. All that, and it didn’t even bring our son back.
I sometimes wonder if things would have been different for us if we had never left the Philippines for the promise of a better life in America.
After months of interviews, endless paperwork, and interminable wait, my husband finally secured a position to manage a poultry farm in Sana’a, Yemen. This was after he lost his job selling veterinary products for a Manila-based company.
How well I remember those long rides in the Beetle with our infant son in my lap, crisscrossing Batangas, Laguna and Calamba in search of poultry and piggery farms. Map Quest and GPS had not yet been invented but we knew we were close to our target when the air started smelling foul.
His clients called him Dr. Willie. He had a degree in Veterinary Medicine from Araneta University. I was a Manila-raised colegiala with big dreams, yet I had fallen for a tough Batangueño with quaint probinsiyano ways. In fact his old-world gallant manner charmed my city-cynical heart. Certainly, having a cooler full of live crabs and dozens of fresh buko left at my doorstep were a refreshing change from the tiresome flowers and chocolates other suitors plied me with. Above all, I liked playing Henry Higgins to his Eliza Doolittle, advising him on the latest cut of jeans, taking him to museums and plays, introducing him to my artsy, sophisticated friends. Si malakas at si maganda, I’d inscribed on the leaf of the photo album chronicling our days together: swimming in the beaches of Nasugbu, haggling with fruit vendors in Tagaytay, enjoying bowls of steaming bulalo in a little tienda on the road to Tanauan.
I married him on a crisp May morning in a dress so short his mother fell to her knees with a quick sign of the cross. But Willie gave me a look of such total indulgence I couldn’t help flashing a triumphant smile at the woman I would soon be addressing Inay.
Willie left for the job in Yemen when our son Dexter was nine and his sister Sharon was eight. Dexter was a dynamo in motion. He learned to walk when he was barely a year old, and then he was running all over the place—the quick staccato of his feet on the wooden floor of our home a constant rhythm that started in the morning when he jumped out of bed, eager to see what the new day brought in terms of excitement, and up until he slumped back in bed at the end of the day, finally exhausted, his latest toy clutched in his arms. That’s how I would always remember Dex—a boy perpetually in motion, always in a rush to get somewhere. My most distinct memory is his Acura overtaking my Ford effortlessly, the throb of his car like wild horses momentarily held in check, laughter trailing as he zoomed past me with a challenging cry, “Wanna race me, Mom?”
I conceived our youngest Carmela when I ran out of my contraceptive pills the month I visited Willie in Yemen. How could I have imagined I could get my prescription filled in that hauntingly beautiful but backward country? Sana’a is the world’s oldest populated city, stretching back to about 1000 BC. It is home to the Great Mosque, Jami’ al-Kabir, which is considered one of the oldest mosques in the Muslim world. The city is famous for its unique buildings towering several stories high, decorated with colorful geographical shapes, carvings and stained-glass windows. Yet for all that, I couldn’t find a decent drug store that carried my birth control pills.
That month in Sana’a was an almost perfect interlude that I cherished for the memories of dry, arid hills and strange, enigmatic people; and a husband I loved who was yet to grow into himself. I cleaned and cooked and played housewife. Willie came home most evenings exhausted from a full-day’s work culling sickly birds from the healthy and making sure his non-English speaking crew of Somali, Ethiopian and Yemeni workers were on the job and not crouched in hidden corners chewing khat and comparing jambiyas.
After Willie came back from Yemen we immigrated to the United States in search of the proverbial greener pasture. We found employment and built a fairly good life in the Pacific Northwest, and like any fool I thought it would last forever. But fate finally caught up with us and dealt my family a mortal blow.
On his way home from college one October afternoon, Dexter was carjacked and forced to drive to an isolated spot in the city of Tacoma in Washington State. He was shot in the head and left to die on the roadside while his attacker escaped in Dexter’s prized Acura.
I thought I would die, too, but work saved me. When the tragedy struck, I was working full-time and pursuing a graduate degree three evenings a week. But the weekends stretched before me like the sand dunes of Yemen: endless, dry and pitiless. Desperate, I applied for weekend work and soon found myself too busy and too tired to think about anything else but a quick meal and a soft bed at the end of each day, seven days a week. I learned to survive, one day at a time. Willie found something far more destructive.
Later I would ask myself how I could have been so oblivious to the extent of my husband’s unraveling; so blind to the despair that gripped him like a pit bull that had sunk its teeth into his throat and would not let go. Not unless he was in front of the slot machine gambling his pay away before he even earned it. He didn’t stop until he lost our life savings, his retirement fund, his job, his family and his self-respect. All that, and it didn’t even bring our son back.
I sometimes wonder if things would have been different for us if we had never left the Philippines for the promise of a better life in America.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Stranger in my mirror
(Published 5/18/11, Manila Standard Today)
There are two things human beings have in common that make all of us equal, no matter our gender, race, education, religion, political persuasion, or economic standing. We all age and we all die. When and how we die is largely beyond our control and not worth fretting about, but how we age—that’s about as personal and unique and interesting as each of us makes it.
While men generally associate aging with wisdom and experience, most women I know tend to focus on the inextricable link between aging and physical appearance. We lose our looks as we age, or in the vernacular: “Tumanda na, pumangit pa.” It doesn’t matter if we’re smart, successful, talented, accomplished, and highly cherished partners, wives and mothers. The finale’s the same, no matter the journey to get there.
When I was in my twenties, my friends and I would walk from the Arts & Science (AS) building to the Main Library of the UP campus in Diliman, fully enjoying the stir our micro-minis created among the law and engineering students loitering on the front steps. One boy would sing the opening lines from “The Girl from Ipanema”: “…tall and tan and young and lovely…” and I would give him a side look and a faint smile, toss my long hair back, and sashay away with my friends. Every day, it was the same. The girls flirted and the boys lapped it up. We were on the verge of…something, and not knowing what or where or when only added to the excitement.
We loved the University of the Philippines and the extra cachet it gave us. UP students were not only known as the smartest of the bunch (we liked to say we were la creme de la creme), but also as free and independent thinkers, unafraid to push boundaries and to challenge those who questioned our convictions. We gloried in being identified as subversives, activists, instigators. We joined rallies and were proud to see our faces among hundreds of others on the covers of magazines, like it was a badge of honor. We raised our fists and eagerly marched in support of the Marcos opposition. And we wept bitter tears for those who were captured, imprisoned, raped, tortured and killed. Yet for all that, life was somehow sweeter, more poignant, more real.
Life calmed down considerably after college and the ouster of the dictator. I left the young, rebellious girl behind and entered the next phase of my life. I found employment, returned to UP for graduate studies, got married, raised my children, lived a normal life.
I liked the older, wiser me. And at 35 I was still slender and young-looking. My legs looked good in a short skirt, and I was still turning men’s heads occasionally. My husband was both proud and worried. I liked it.
But child number three made an appearance when I was thirty-nine and my body sneakily hoarded some of the pounds I gained while I was carrying the baby. If I had been paying attention, perhaps I could have done something to stave off the effects of the late pregnancy. But I was distracted, and worrying about my looks was the last thing on my mind. I was a mom again after an interlude of 13 years. It was like starting over; I felt clumsy and ineffectual. Did I still know how to take care of a baby? What about my job? How would I balance the demands of an infant, the needs of my teenage children, my husband, and my work?
To compound it all, we relocated to the United States at about that time. I was a 40-year old immigrant with a full-time job, two displaced teenagers, and a kid at home. I missed the friends I left behind, but to be honest, I missed my housemaids most of all that first year in America.
The years rolled by. Tragedy struck my family three times. I lost my son to a carjacker and my mom to a weak heart, and my 30-year marriage fell apart. On the plus side, my older daughter gave me a great son-in-law and an amazingly talented grandson. My younger daughter graduated from college and found a job, and finally, finally….I could breathe again.
That’s when I realized to my utter dismay that in the hustle and bustle of daily living, I had succumbed to the dreaded A-word. I had aged. The model-thin girl in a mini skirt had been replaced by an old woman with graying hair, droopy face, and a sagging body. Oh. My. God!
My thoughts flew to the college friends of my youth. I wondered if a strange old woman now inhabited their mirrors, too. After a flurry of e-mails and phone calls that bounced back and forth from the US to the Philippines, to Australia and Canada, we got together in Manila to get re-acquainted with our older selves.
We laughed and cried as we reminisced about the past and our youthful escapades in UP 40 years ago. We toured our old haunts in Diliman and were saddened to know that the lagoon where we had spent many pleasant afternoons was long gone. The AS basement, that smoke-filled bastion for intellectuals and bohemians where we used to hang out, had been converted into a dusty storeroom. All that was left was a small plaque by the door and the fading memories of its past denizens.
And my friends and I? If you closed your eyes and simply listened to our voices and shrieks of laughter that day, you wouldn’t have known we were baby boomers well into our 60s.
Robert Heinlein once wrote: “…there was never a girl born who ever grew older than 18 in her heart no matter what the merciless hours have done.” Indeed. Time to play “The Heartbreak Hotel.”
There are two things human beings have in common that make all of us equal, no matter our gender, race, education, religion, political persuasion, or economic standing. We all age and we all die. When and how we die is largely beyond our control and not worth fretting about, but how we age—that’s about as personal and unique and interesting as each of us makes it.
While men generally associate aging with wisdom and experience, most women I know tend to focus on the inextricable link between aging and physical appearance. We lose our looks as we age, or in the vernacular: “Tumanda na, pumangit pa.” It doesn’t matter if we’re smart, successful, talented, accomplished, and highly cherished partners, wives and mothers. The finale’s the same, no matter the journey to get there.
When I was in my twenties, my friends and I would walk from the Arts & Science (AS) building to the Main Library of the UP campus in Diliman, fully enjoying the stir our micro-minis created among the law and engineering students loitering on the front steps. One boy would sing the opening lines from “The Girl from Ipanema”: “…tall and tan and young and lovely…” and I would give him a side look and a faint smile, toss my long hair back, and sashay away with my friends. Every day, it was the same. The girls flirted and the boys lapped it up. We were on the verge of…something, and not knowing what or where or when only added to the excitement.
We loved the University of the Philippines and the extra cachet it gave us. UP students were not only known as the smartest of the bunch (we liked to say we were la creme de la creme), but also as free and independent thinkers, unafraid to push boundaries and to challenge those who questioned our convictions. We gloried in being identified as subversives, activists, instigators. We joined rallies and were proud to see our faces among hundreds of others on the covers of magazines, like it was a badge of honor. We raised our fists and eagerly marched in support of the Marcos opposition. And we wept bitter tears for those who were captured, imprisoned, raped, tortured and killed. Yet for all that, life was somehow sweeter, more poignant, more real.
Life calmed down considerably after college and the ouster of the dictator. I left the young, rebellious girl behind and entered the next phase of my life. I found employment, returned to UP for graduate studies, got married, raised my children, lived a normal life.
I liked the older, wiser me. And at 35 I was still slender and young-looking. My legs looked good in a short skirt, and I was still turning men’s heads occasionally. My husband was both proud and worried. I liked it.
But child number three made an appearance when I was thirty-nine and my body sneakily hoarded some of the pounds I gained while I was carrying the baby. If I had been paying attention, perhaps I could have done something to stave off the effects of the late pregnancy. But I was distracted, and worrying about my looks was the last thing on my mind. I was a mom again after an interlude of 13 years. It was like starting over; I felt clumsy and ineffectual. Did I still know how to take care of a baby? What about my job? How would I balance the demands of an infant, the needs of my teenage children, my husband, and my work?
To compound it all, we relocated to the United States at about that time. I was a 40-year old immigrant with a full-time job, two displaced teenagers, and a kid at home. I missed the friends I left behind, but to be honest, I missed my housemaids most of all that first year in America.
The years rolled by. Tragedy struck my family three times. I lost my son to a carjacker and my mom to a weak heart, and my 30-year marriage fell apart. On the plus side, my older daughter gave me a great son-in-law and an amazingly talented grandson. My younger daughter graduated from college and found a job, and finally, finally….I could breathe again.
That’s when I realized to my utter dismay that in the hustle and bustle of daily living, I had succumbed to the dreaded A-word. I had aged. The model-thin girl in a mini skirt had been replaced by an old woman with graying hair, droopy face, and a sagging body. Oh. My. God!
My thoughts flew to the college friends of my youth. I wondered if a strange old woman now inhabited their mirrors, too. After a flurry of e-mails and phone calls that bounced back and forth from the US to the Philippines, to Australia and Canada, we got together in Manila to get re-acquainted with our older selves.
We laughed and cried as we reminisced about the past and our youthful escapades in UP 40 years ago. We toured our old haunts in Diliman and were saddened to know that the lagoon where we had spent many pleasant afternoons was long gone. The AS basement, that smoke-filled bastion for intellectuals and bohemians where we used to hang out, had been converted into a dusty storeroom. All that was left was a small plaque by the door and the fading memories of its past denizens.
And my friends and I? If you closed your eyes and simply listened to our voices and shrieks of laughter that day, you wouldn’t have known we were baby boomers well into our 60s.
Robert Heinlein once wrote: “…there was never a girl born who ever grew older than 18 in her heart no matter what the merciless hours have done.” Indeed. Time to play “The Heartbreak Hotel.”
Monday, May 2, 2011
(Note: This is an amended version of the essay published 4/30/11, Manila Standard Today. It's a true story. If I had met this guy during his prime I would have married him in a heartbeat. The title is meant to provoke thought -- this could easily be every man's story. We are born, we live, we die. If we're lucky, we find true love and friendship in our lifetime. I like to think there is another, much happier life after this where we can live out our fantasies and be with our loved ones again.)
Just one man’s story
He used to be a fighter pilot during WWII. In the faded photograph, he wore dark aviator glasses and a battered brown leather bomber jacket with interesting patches. A scarf wound around his neck trailed behind him, lifted by a mild breeze. He was standing by the cockpit door of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, eyes narrowed against the lowering sun. He was grinning cockily, his arm slung casually around the shoulders of another man.
Of the six pilots in his squadron, Lucas was the only one who made it safely back home. He married his childhood sweetheart but lost her and the baby during childbirth. He never remarried. Instead he went back to school on the GI bill. He later became a professor of botany at an Ivy League school on the East Coast. Glowing articles were written about his war exploits and the botanical books and academic journals he published. Much to his embarrassment, he became quite a local celebrity when all he ever wanted to do during his time away from the classroom was to watch his prized orchids grow.
Lucas was well into his 80s when he came to us. His tall, big-boned frame was shaky, his hair pure white. The capable hands that had expertly flown fighter planes and grew astonishing varieties of exotic orchids were palsied and arthritic. But he was still handsome in the way strong, confident men get to be in their old age.
He checked into our facility wearing scuffed cowboy boots, white shirt tucked into faded jeans, and an aw-shucks killer smile on his craggy face. He was an instant hit with the ladies. It hardly mattered that his mind and formidable intellect had started to fail him. In our community, he was just one of many similarly-afflicted senior citizens.
For a number of years now, I have spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons helping out at a continuing-care retirement community for the elderly and the infirm. What had started out for me as a desperate attempt to cope with my son’s untimely death has become a true labor of love for the residents of this facility. Lucas easily became one of my favorites.
Like most retirement homes of its kind, this campus provides a graduated level of care for its residents. Incoming freshmen (youthful individuals or couples from their mid to late 60s) live in self-sustained cottages. At age 90 or thereabouts, when they no longer have the strength or interest or good health to maintain their own homes and yards and cook their own meals, residents move into one of the condo-style apartments in a multi-storied building where the choices range from studios to single- and 2-room combinations with toilet and bath and a mini kitchen.
Each floor has its own communal kitchen and laundry room and on the ground floor there is a spacious dining room for residents and their guests. There is also a spa, exercise room, hobby room, gift shop, computer /business center, and a library. The waiting area is furnished with comfortable couches, fresh flower arrangements, a grand piano, and a fireplace. The six-story building has the look and feel of a boutique hotel.
Lucas moved into a choice corner room on the fifth floor overlooking the lush gardens and resident flower plots. From his veranda, he had breathtaking views of Puget Sound and Vashon Island. Mount Rainier peeked on the east horizon and on the west, the Olympic Mountain range. It was not a bad place to be for a man who loved open spaces and the wide expanse of the sky.
He was content. He tended to his plants, volunteered at the library, and spent many happy hours recalling earlier times. He would take out the faded photograph from his wallet and regale me with stories about the war. Not the sad, terrible things he experienced but the excitement and wonder of meeting people and making friends with strangers who didn’t even speak his language. He spoke of the joy and thrill of flying and how it almost made up for the horrors of World War II.
I showed him the photographs I kept in my own wallet and told him about the boy who dreamed of being a pilot, but never became one. How death came for him so suddenly, without warning and without mercy. Lucas said if he ever made it to heaven he would teach Dexter how to fly. The thought of my son in the cockpit of a vintage fighter plane doing loop the loops with angels in the sky was immensely entertaining.
Then one day Lucas had a particularly bad fall and when he came out of the hospital he was on a wheel chair. He still wore his cowboy boots but he never walked again. All too soon he had to give up his apartment and move to our assisted-living facility where he received help with daily living: keeping track of his medication and doctor’s appointments, getting dressed, bathing and eating. I think losing his independence finally broke his spirit.
Spending time with Lucas taught me one thing. Nothing ever prepares you for death. Even when you know it’s coming; even when it’s imminent. I knew Lucas was failing rapidly, yet I was unprepared for the sorrow that gripped me when he passed away.
I wonder if there really is life after death? It's comforting to think that Lucas lives again in that wondrous place where angels are rumored to be, and that all my loved ones, my son Dex and my mom, are waiting there for me.
Just one man’s story
He used to be a fighter pilot during WWII. In the faded photograph, he wore dark aviator glasses and a battered brown leather bomber jacket with interesting patches. A scarf wound around his neck trailed behind him, lifted by a mild breeze. He was standing by the cockpit door of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, eyes narrowed against the lowering sun. He was grinning cockily, his arm slung casually around the shoulders of another man.
Of the six pilots in his squadron, Lucas was the only one who made it safely back home. He married his childhood sweetheart but lost her and the baby during childbirth. He never remarried. Instead he went back to school on the GI bill. He later became a professor of botany at an Ivy League school on the East Coast. Glowing articles were written about his war exploits and the botanical books and academic journals he published. Much to his embarrassment, he became quite a local celebrity when all he ever wanted to do during his time away from the classroom was to watch his prized orchids grow.
Lucas was well into his 80s when he came to us. His tall, big-boned frame was shaky, his hair pure white. The capable hands that had expertly flown fighter planes and grew astonishing varieties of exotic orchids were palsied and arthritic. But he was still handsome in the way strong, confident men get to be in their old age.
He checked into our facility wearing scuffed cowboy boots, white shirt tucked into faded jeans, and an aw-shucks killer smile on his craggy face. He was an instant hit with the ladies. It hardly mattered that his mind and formidable intellect had started to fail him. In our community, he was just one of many similarly-afflicted senior citizens.
For a number of years now, I have spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons helping out at a continuing-care retirement community for the elderly and the infirm. What had started out for me as a desperate attempt to cope with my son’s untimely death has become a true labor of love for the residents of this facility. Lucas easily became one of my favorites.
Like most retirement homes of its kind, this campus provides a graduated level of care for its residents. Incoming freshmen (youthful individuals or couples from their mid to late 60s) live in self-sustained cottages. At age 90 or thereabouts, when they no longer have the strength or interest or good health to maintain their own homes and yards and cook their own meals, residents move into one of the condo-style apartments in a multi-storied building where the choices range from studios to single- and 2-room combinations with toilet and bath and a mini kitchen.
Each floor has its own communal kitchen and laundry room and on the ground floor there is a spacious dining room for residents and their guests. There is also a spa, exercise room, hobby room, gift shop, computer /business center, and a library. The waiting area is furnished with comfortable couches, fresh flower arrangements, a grand piano, and a fireplace. The six-story building has the look and feel of a boutique hotel.
Lucas moved into a choice corner room on the fifth floor overlooking the lush gardens and resident flower plots. From his veranda, he had breathtaking views of Puget Sound and Vashon Island. Mount Rainier peeked on the east horizon and on the west, the Olympic Mountain range. It was not a bad place to be for a man who loved open spaces and the wide expanse of the sky.
He was content. He tended to his plants, volunteered at the library, and spent many happy hours recalling earlier times. He would take out the faded photograph from his wallet and regale me with stories about the war. Not the sad, terrible things he experienced but the excitement and wonder of meeting people and making friends with strangers who didn’t even speak his language. He spoke of the joy and thrill of flying and how it almost made up for the horrors of World War II.
I showed him the photographs I kept in my own wallet and told him about the boy who dreamed of being a pilot, but never became one. How death came for him so suddenly, without warning and without mercy. Lucas said if he ever made it to heaven he would teach Dexter how to fly. The thought of my son in the cockpit of a vintage fighter plane doing loop the loops with angels in the sky was immensely entertaining.
Then one day Lucas had a particularly bad fall and when he came out of the hospital he was on a wheel chair. He still wore his cowboy boots but he never walked again. All too soon he had to give up his apartment and move to our assisted-living facility where he received help with daily living: keeping track of his medication and doctor’s appointments, getting dressed, bathing and eating. I think losing his independence finally broke his spirit.
Spending time with Lucas taught me one thing. Nothing ever prepares you for death. Even when you know it’s coming; even when it’s imminent. I knew Lucas was failing rapidly, yet I was unprepared for the sorrow that gripped me when he passed away.
I wonder if there really is life after death? It's comforting to think that Lucas lives again in that wondrous place where angels are rumored to be, and that all my loved ones, my son Dex and my mom, are waiting there for me.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Confessions of a mall walker
(Amended version of essay published 3/17/11, Manila Standard Today)
The Tacoma Mall in the state of Washington, USA, is my favorite place this time of the year. The holiday rush is long over. The mall is quiet and the throngs of shoppers are gone; so are the huge sales and discounted items. But that’s all good because I don’t come to the mall to shop. I come here to walk. In the winter when it’s freezing cold out, I become part of a growing constituency in America, the “mall walkers.”
You can tell us apart from other mall habitués by our tennis shoes and our brisk and purposeful walk. Judging by the silver streaks in our hair and the lines on our faces, majority of us are closing in on 60 or beyond.
One does get to be a bit more cautious as the years add up. I walk the mall because it is safer and far less strenuous than braving the elements outdoors. Plus, there are no bicyclists and skateboarders to dodge from and no power walkers with their quick dismissive side glances leaving me in their wake. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I would mumble under my breath, envying their youth and their lithe, supple bodies.
The mall walkers do not belong to a formal association with bylaws and monthly dues. We do not keep a list of members with contact information and other affiliations. We are not on Facebook as a group; we don’t tweet, we don’t blog, we don’t meet. We are simply a loose group of individuals who acknowledge one another with a short, friendly nod or a soft “Hi,” as we cross paths.
From my office in Olympia -- provided the usual traffic by the military Joint Base Lewis-McChord is flowing smoothly -- I can get to Tacoma Mall within a half-hour drive. I contort my body in the driver’s seat of my SUV to trade my winter boots for tennis shoes; then off to the warmth of the mall I go.
Tacoma Mall is fairly small, about one third of a mile in length. I normally do two laps around, which is about a half-hour’s worth of cardio workout. I walk briskly, though I don’t swing my arms like I would normally do when I walk outside. Health experts say that to maximize the exercise, walkers need to swing their arms in an exaggerated manner as they briskly move their legs.
Now I don’t know about you, but the first time I saw a jogger swinging her arms out in an exaggerated manner, I almost fell to my knees laughing. She looked ridiculous, like a chicken flapping her wings chest high while she trotted her stuff along the water front. So I’m sure others got a good laugh, too, when I started doing it myself, having found out that sticking my elbows out and pumping my arms as I walked, propelled me forward faster. This is not to say I am willing to make a spectacle of myself at the mall, however.
So I walk briskly, trying not to get into eye contact with young people skilled in trapping the often gullible older generation into listening to their impassioned sales spiel. I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not easy to disengage politely once contact has been made. (Persistence is a virtue but not when you’re on the other end of an aggressive sales pitch.) Thankfully, this is not normally a problem as most mall workers can tell the serious shoppers from the “look-sees,” the idlers, the high school kids playing hooky, and regular mall walkers like me.
Having walked the mall for a couple of years now, I’m wise to the traps and pitfalls lurking there. I learned early on not to look too closely at window displays or be tempted by the wonderful scents wafting out of Victoria’s Secret or Bath and Body Works. I made the mistake of going in one time -- just to look, mind you -- and came out an hour later with three bags of deliciously-hued under things, various creams and lotions and body butter, and cinnamon/vanilla-scented candles that I am apparently unable to resist, even in my 60s. I am happy to report that my friends and family are still enjoying the largesse of that unplanned shopping spree.
When I visited Manila last month, I was amazed at the number and size of the shopping malls there; easily three to four times what we have here in Washington State. Most are clean, well lit, and artfully stocked with merchandise. (I’m going to digress here to advise fellow balikbayans not to bother lugging those heavy suitcases when you come to visit the Philippines. You don’t need to pack your bags with US canned goods and chocolates, Taster’s Choice and coffee creamer, blackberry jam and orange marmalade, Pepperidge Farm cookies and apples and oranges and grapes, because those are all available in Manila now. I kid you not. Remember when you could get US goods only if you had access to JUSMAG (Joint United States Military Advisory Group) or Subic Base? Ancient history.)
I cannot, however, imagine walking any of the malls I visited in Manila as I do here in Tacoma. Manila malls are generally packed with people and some have overly loud sound systems that practically blow your head off. (Aging ears are particularly sensitive to the loud, screechy, discordant sounds that pass for music nowadays.)
You don’t want to walk the malls in Manila anyway. If you can tolerate the loud sound and the press of people, you can get yourself some of the yummiest food available on the planet. You can sit at one of the tables and eavesdrop on OFW conversations that include such foreign places as Dahar and Doha, Hongkong, Sydney, Vancouver, Rome, and Bahrain. You’ll leave for home feeling like you’ve traveled all over the world, and you didn’t even have to walk the mall to do it.
(Amended version of essay published 3/17/11, Manila Standard Today)
The Tacoma Mall in the state of Washington, USA, is my favorite place this time of the year. The holiday rush is long over. The mall is quiet and the throngs of shoppers are gone; so are the huge sales and discounted items. But that’s all good because I don’t come to the mall to shop. I come here to walk. In the winter when it’s freezing cold out, I become part of a growing constituency in America, the “mall walkers.”
You can tell us apart from other mall habitués by our tennis shoes and our brisk and purposeful walk. Judging by the silver streaks in our hair and the lines on our faces, majority of us are closing in on 60 or beyond.
One does get to be a bit more cautious as the years add up. I walk the mall because it is safer and far less strenuous than braving the elements outdoors. Plus, there are no bicyclists and skateboarders to dodge from and no power walkers with their quick dismissive side glances leaving me in their wake. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I would mumble under my breath, envying their youth and their lithe, supple bodies.
The mall walkers do not belong to a formal association with bylaws and monthly dues. We do not keep a list of members with contact information and other affiliations. We are not on Facebook as a group; we don’t tweet, we don’t blog, we don’t meet. We are simply a loose group of individuals who acknowledge one another with a short, friendly nod or a soft “Hi,” as we cross paths.
From my office in Olympia -- provided the usual traffic by the military Joint Base Lewis-McChord is flowing smoothly -- I can get to Tacoma Mall within a half-hour drive. I contort my body in the driver’s seat of my SUV to trade my winter boots for tennis shoes; then off to the warmth of the mall I go.
Tacoma Mall is fairly small, about one third of a mile in length. I normally do two laps around, which is about a half-hour’s worth of cardio workout. I walk briskly, though I don’t swing my arms like I would normally do when I walk outside. Health experts say that to maximize the exercise, walkers need to swing their arms in an exaggerated manner as they briskly move their legs.
Now I don’t know about you, but the first time I saw a jogger swinging her arms out in an exaggerated manner, I almost fell to my knees laughing. She looked ridiculous, like a chicken flapping her wings chest high while she trotted her stuff along the water front. So I’m sure others got a good laugh, too, when I started doing it myself, having found out that sticking my elbows out and pumping my arms as I walked, propelled me forward faster. This is not to say I am willing to make a spectacle of myself at the mall, however.
So I walk briskly, trying not to get into eye contact with young people skilled in trapping the often gullible older generation into listening to their impassioned sales spiel. I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not easy to disengage politely once contact has been made. (Persistence is a virtue but not when you’re on the other end of an aggressive sales pitch.) Thankfully, this is not normally a problem as most mall workers can tell the serious shoppers from the “look-sees,” the idlers, the high school kids playing hooky, and regular mall walkers like me.
Having walked the mall for a couple of years now, I’m wise to the traps and pitfalls lurking there. I learned early on not to look too closely at window displays or be tempted by the wonderful scents wafting out of Victoria’s Secret or Bath and Body Works. I made the mistake of going in one time -- just to look, mind you -- and came out an hour later with three bags of deliciously-hued under things, various creams and lotions and body butter, and cinnamon/vanilla-scented candles that I am apparently unable to resist, even in my 60s. I am happy to report that my friends and family are still enjoying the largesse of that unplanned shopping spree.
When I visited Manila last month, I was amazed at the number and size of the shopping malls there; easily three to four times what we have here in Washington State. Most are clean, well lit, and artfully stocked with merchandise. (I’m going to digress here to advise fellow balikbayans not to bother lugging those heavy suitcases when you come to visit the Philippines. You don’t need to pack your bags with US canned goods and chocolates, Taster’s Choice and coffee creamer, blackberry jam and orange marmalade, Pepperidge Farm cookies and apples and oranges and grapes, because those are all available in Manila now. I kid you not. Remember when you could get US goods only if you had access to JUSMAG (Joint United States Military Advisory Group) or Subic Base? Ancient history.)
I cannot, however, imagine walking any of the malls I visited in Manila as I do here in Tacoma. Manila malls are generally packed with people and some have overly loud sound systems that practically blow your head off. (Aging ears are particularly sensitive to the loud, screechy, discordant sounds that pass for music nowadays.)
You don’t want to walk the malls in Manila anyway. If you can tolerate the loud sound and the press of people, you can get yourself some of the yummiest food available on the planet. You can sit at one of the tables and eavesdrop on OFW conversations that include such foreign places as Dahar and Doha, Hongkong, Sydney, Vancouver, Rome, and Bahrain. You’ll leave for home feeling like you’ve traveled all over the world, and you didn’t even have to walk the mall to do it.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Inquirer Opinion / Columns
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20110313-325094/Coming-home
HIGH BLOOD
Highblood : Coming home
By Belma Villa
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: March 13, 2011
THE FIRST thing that greeted me was a blast of hot air. I breathed in deeply, trying to take in as much of the warmth as possible. Home, I thought blissfully. How could I have ever left it? Twenty hours earlier, I was shivering in the freezing rain and snowy landscape of wintry Seattle in Washington State where I have resided these many years. I was back in Manila for a short reunion with my group mates from the University of the Philippines, English Majors’ Class ’69.
My visit turned out to be not just a reunion with my college friends (and a precious, stolen moment with my high school classmates) but also a much-needed reunion with my home country. Seeing Metro Manila again, up close and personal after many years of absence, was alternately invigorating and exciting, frustrating and annoying, but also inspiring and uplifting. So much had changed in the intervening years since I left; some good, some really bad, and a few were downright comical.
Condos. I don’t know when this new trend in housing began, but it was certainly not during the time I lived in Manila. The present-day Metro Manila skyline is dotted with condo high-rises, and in the short time my friends and I were there, we were able to enjoy the comforts of three condo units that had all the modern amenities of Western living. It seemed that each person I met during my trip either owned a condo or was related to/knew someone who did.
I dare speculate that condos are the new status symbol in the Philippines. A condo can be the perfect summer vacation home for balikbayans, a handy bachelor’s pad, a rental property, a convenient pied-à-terre for the rich, and a good nest egg for the smart investor. Whatever the reason, I found the boom in condos initially perplexing, as I have always believed the Filipino people to be industrious and hard-working but essentially poor. “Who has money to buy all these condos?” I mused.
Shopping malls. The question of who has money to spend takes me right to my daughters’ favorite past time—shopping. There were only three department stores worth mentioning when I left: Rustan’s for the more exclusive shoppers with money to burn; Shoemart and Robinson’s for average folks like me. The Manila I came back to had evolved the concept of department stores into huge shopping complexes and malls: Glorietta, Rockwell, Shangri-La, Greenbelt, The Podium, Landmark. There were SM malls (Shoemart’s progeny) everywhere we went including the nearby towns of Laguna, Batangas and Cavite, and doubtless all across the country. And there was the biggest of them all (fourth largest in the world and third in Asia), the SM Mall of Asia. “MOA,” as the natives call it, combines the finest in Philippine shopping and entertainment and boasts average daily foot traffic of 200,000. Two hundred thousand!!!
Again the question: “Who has money to spend in all these malls?”
OFWs. The answer, once I got it, was pretty obvious. OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) and their hard-earned dollars are changing not only the landscape of our home country, but also our shopping habits, our language and the hopes and dreams of our children. Many of our countrymen toil at menial jobs abroad so their families in the Philippines can build new and better homes and their children can go to good schools that in the past, only the rich could afford. OFWs come home with heads held high, money in their pockets to buy SUVs and condos and iPads and other tech toys. They throng the malls and restaurants and movie theaters—God bless them—but alas, they also clog our streets even more.
Traffic. This one is under the category of “really bad.” My friends and I discovered to our chagrin that it is no longer possible to spend the day hopping from place to place in Manila and Makati as we used to do in our youth. Traffic has gotten so bad that you have to factor in hours of frustrating time spent on the road waiting for the vehicles around you to move. Filipino drivers do not let lanes, or traffic rules, or common courtesy deter them from reaching their destination as quickly as possible. As a result, driving in Manila has become a test of courage, cunning, resourcefulness and ruthlessness. On the other hand, I’ve never seen such skillful driving in all my life, as our drivers Jing and Sonny exhibited. I guess you need to, if you are to go anywhere in Manila.
Our people’s propensity for disregarding rules was most apparent in some of the signs I read along the road. “Accident-prone area,” one such sign read. To emphasize the point, the next line warned, “May namatay na dito.” Coming up the toll area from Cavite was a large sign, “Exact Toll,” and under it in equally large letters: “ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGE.” I had to smile in spite of myself. Only in the Philippines!
Still, even with all the changes that I found coming home, getting together with my college friends was joyous and memorable. We quickly made a pledge to meet again in two years. Australia, or Oz, as the Aussies call it, or Spain, to trace whatever of our roots can still be traced, then on to Provence in France. It didn’t matter. The plan would come together just as this first one did and we would be there to share impressions, trade stories of heartaches and triumphs, and try not to think of our waning years coming quickly upon us.
God willing, we would look once more into each other’s eyes and see only the 18-year-olds that we once were.
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20110313-325094/Coming-home
HIGH BLOOD
Highblood : Coming home
By Belma Villa
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: March 13, 2011
THE FIRST thing that greeted me was a blast of hot air. I breathed in deeply, trying to take in as much of the warmth as possible. Home, I thought blissfully. How could I have ever left it? Twenty hours earlier, I was shivering in the freezing rain and snowy landscape of wintry Seattle in Washington State where I have resided these many years. I was back in Manila for a short reunion with my group mates from the University of the Philippines, English Majors’ Class ’69.
My visit turned out to be not just a reunion with my college friends (and a precious, stolen moment with my high school classmates) but also a much-needed reunion with my home country. Seeing Metro Manila again, up close and personal after many years of absence, was alternately invigorating and exciting, frustrating and annoying, but also inspiring and uplifting. So much had changed in the intervening years since I left; some good, some really bad, and a few were downright comical.
Condos. I don’t know when this new trend in housing began, but it was certainly not during the time I lived in Manila. The present-day Metro Manila skyline is dotted with condo high-rises, and in the short time my friends and I were there, we were able to enjoy the comforts of three condo units that had all the modern amenities of Western living. It seemed that each person I met during my trip either owned a condo or was related to/knew someone who did.
I dare speculate that condos are the new status symbol in the Philippines. A condo can be the perfect summer vacation home for balikbayans, a handy bachelor’s pad, a rental property, a convenient pied-à-terre for the rich, and a good nest egg for the smart investor. Whatever the reason, I found the boom in condos initially perplexing, as I have always believed the Filipino people to be industrious and hard-working but essentially poor. “Who has money to buy all these condos?” I mused.
Shopping malls. The question of who has money to spend takes me right to my daughters’ favorite past time—shopping. There were only three department stores worth mentioning when I left: Rustan’s for the more exclusive shoppers with money to burn; Shoemart and Robinson’s for average folks like me. The Manila I came back to had evolved the concept of department stores into huge shopping complexes and malls: Glorietta, Rockwell, Shangri-La, Greenbelt, The Podium, Landmark. There were SM malls (Shoemart’s progeny) everywhere we went including the nearby towns of Laguna, Batangas and Cavite, and doubtless all across the country. And there was the biggest of them all (fourth largest in the world and third in Asia), the SM Mall of Asia. “MOA,” as the natives call it, combines the finest in Philippine shopping and entertainment and boasts average daily foot traffic of 200,000. Two hundred thousand!!!
Again the question: “Who has money to spend in all these malls?”
OFWs. The answer, once I got it, was pretty obvious. OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) and their hard-earned dollars are changing not only the landscape of our home country, but also our shopping habits, our language and the hopes and dreams of our children. Many of our countrymen toil at menial jobs abroad so their families in the Philippines can build new and better homes and their children can go to good schools that in the past, only the rich could afford. OFWs come home with heads held high, money in their pockets to buy SUVs and condos and iPads and other tech toys. They throng the malls and restaurants and movie theaters—God bless them—but alas, they also clog our streets even more.
Traffic. This one is under the category of “really bad.” My friends and I discovered to our chagrin that it is no longer possible to spend the day hopping from place to place in Manila and Makati as we used to do in our youth. Traffic has gotten so bad that you have to factor in hours of frustrating time spent on the road waiting for the vehicles around you to move. Filipino drivers do not let lanes, or traffic rules, or common courtesy deter them from reaching their destination as quickly as possible. As a result, driving in Manila has become a test of courage, cunning, resourcefulness and ruthlessness. On the other hand, I’ve never seen such skillful driving in all my life, as our drivers Jing and Sonny exhibited. I guess you need to, if you are to go anywhere in Manila.
Our people’s propensity for disregarding rules was most apparent in some of the signs I read along the road. “Accident-prone area,” one such sign read. To emphasize the point, the next line warned, “May namatay na dito.” Coming up the toll area from Cavite was a large sign, “Exact Toll,” and under it in equally large letters: “ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGE.” I had to smile in spite of myself. Only in the Philippines!
Still, even with all the changes that I found coming home, getting together with my college friends was joyous and memorable. We quickly made a pledge to meet again in two years. Australia, or Oz, as the Aussies call it, or Spain, to trace whatever of our roots can still be traced, then on to Provence in France. It didn’t matter. The plan would come together just as this first one did and we would be there to share impressions, trade stories of heartaches and triumphs, and try not to think of our waning years coming quickly upon us.
God willing, we would look once more into each other’s eyes and see only the 18-year-olds that we once were.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Cooking tips and life lessons
(Published in Manila Standard Today, 2/5/11)
My children love Filipino bistek (beefsteak). The combination of soy sauce and fresh lemon makes it a very tasty meal and every time I make it for my children I think of my mother, who taught me how to cook it the Toledo way.
Like any typical older-generation Filipina, my mother didn’t use measuring cups or spoons when she cooked. She added ingredients as she marinated and cooked the meat. “You’ll want the sour taste to complement the salty flavor of the soy sauce,” she would say, “but neither should overwhelm the other.” And she would simmer, taste, add a little bit more of this, simmer, taste, add a little bit more of that, until the meat was perfectly flavored.
Easy, I thought. If I put too much of one thing, I just needed to add a little bit more of the other. But it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that because it took me many failed attempts and countless batches of bistek look-alikes before I got the nod of approval from Mom.
I learned to make Mom’s adobo in the same cook-taste-and-adjust method. I taste the broth several times as the meat is cooking to see how each flavor complements the other ingredients. A pinch of oregano, a bay leaf or two, onions, garlic, pepper and salt, soy sauce and vinegar.
She always said there are three secrets to a good adobo: plenty of garlic, lots of patience, and properly cooked vinegar. “You should never ever stir the pot when you’ve just added vinegar in,” she warned. “You have to wait for that strong sour taste to slowly blend in with everything that’s already there. You can’t rush it because the vinegar will be uncooked and the flavor of the adobo will be off.”
When I first came to the States I worried that I would never again get the taste of bistek right because none of the groceries carried calamansi. Mom advised me to learn to use what was available, because in her words, “That won’t be the last thing you’ll find different here.” So I experimented first with lime, then with lemons, until my bistek came close to the taste I knew from back home. “All things come together in the end,” she said, “with a little bit of compromise, resourcefulness and creativity.”
There she goes again, I thought—another life lesson dispensed with her cooking tips.
But I learned to cook tinola with sayote and spinach instead of green papaya and sili leaves. I use mustard green instead of kangkong, and fine powdered table salt instead of the rock salt I was so familiar with.
One change my family welcomed with gusto is our breakfast menu. Here in America, we usually have cereal, toast or a bagel for breakfast, but on weekends and holidays, we like to cook a fairly heavy meal. Thick-sliced SPAM grilled on the pan until the edges are toasty and crunchy; corned beef sautéed in garlic, onions and tomatoes; and Vienna sausages with fried eggs and rice. Once a month we step up our family breakfast extravaganza into a brunch, adding into the mix tocino and longaniza and tinapang bangus. We all, including our American-born, Caucasian spouses and in-laws, love the variety and mix of our Filipino-American breakfast.
In Mom’s Life Lesson 101, this is proof positive that we have accepted and incorporated American ways into our lives and allowed some of ours to blend into the Western culture. Not that Mom ever said so. That wasn’t her way.
Mother had a subtle, indirect way of communicating. She hardly ever gave direct orders, for instance. If she needed something done she would frame it as a question, or a comment, a theory, a thinking-aloud kind of wish. That meant we had to read between the lines and we had to pay close attention to her words.
She was a gentle, soft-spoken woman who avoided harsh words and confrontations at all cost. Ironically, she was blessed with assertive, strong minded, and self-reliant off springs. I think she figured out early on how to get the best out of us without too much trouble. So she suggested rather than commanded, she hinted and temporized, and she sneakily laced her cooking lessons with bits of wisdom that were hard to spurn.
She taught me to be flexible, to be patient and subtle, not to rush to conclusions, and to build each relationship with a light touch— whether personal, social or professional—and always open to change and accommodation. Above all, I learned from Mom the wisdom of that old adage: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” And that’s me in essence—I never ever give up.
I wonder if that was the lesson Mom wanted me to learn all along, and does she know, now that she’s sleeping with angels, that she succeeded?
(Published in Manila Standard Today, 2/5/11)
My children love Filipino bistek (beefsteak). The combination of soy sauce and fresh lemon makes it a very tasty meal and every time I make it for my children I think of my mother, who taught me how to cook it the Toledo way.
Like any typical older-generation Filipina, my mother didn’t use measuring cups or spoons when she cooked. She added ingredients as she marinated and cooked the meat. “You’ll want the sour taste to complement the salty flavor of the soy sauce,” she would say, “but neither should overwhelm the other.” And she would simmer, taste, add a little bit more of this, simmer, taste, add a little bit more of that, until the meat was perfectly flavored.
Easy, I thought. If I put too much of one thing, I just needed to add a little bit more of the other. But it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that because it took me many failed attempts and countless batches of bistek look-alikes before I got the nod of approval from Mom.
I learned to make Mom’s adobo in the same cook-taste-and-adjust method. I taste the broth several times as the meat is cooking to see how each flavor complements the other ingredients. A pinch of oregano, a bay leaf or two, onions, garlic, pepper and salt, soy sauce and vinegar.
She always said there are three secrets to a good adobo: plenty of garlic, lots of patience, and properly cooked vinegar. “You should never ever stir the pot when you’ve just added vinegar in,” she warned. “You have to wait for that strong sour taste to slowly blend in with everything that’s already there. You can’t rush it because the vinegar will be uncooked and the flavor of the adobo will be off.”
When I first came to the States I worried that I would never again get the taste of bistek right because none of the groceries carried calamansi. Mom advised me to learn to use what was available, because in her words, “That won’t be the last thing you’ll find different here.” So I experimented first with lime, then with lemons, until my bistek came close to the taste I knew from back home. “All things come together in the end,” she said, “with a little bit of compromise, resourcefulness and creativity.”
There she goes again, I thought—another life lesson dispensed with her cooking tips.
But I learned to cook tinola with sayote and spinach instead of green papaya and sili leaves. I use mustard green instead of kangkong, and fine powdered table salt instead of the rock salt I was so familiar with.
One change my family welcomed with gusto is our breakfast menu. Here in America, we usually have cereal, toast or a bagel for breakfast, but on weekends and holidays, we like to cook a fairly heavy meal. Thick-sliced SPAM grilled on the pan until the edges are toasty and crunchy; corned beef sautéed in garlic, onions and tomatoes; and Vienna sausages with fried eggs and rice. Once a month we step up our family breakfast extravaganza into a brunch, adding into the mix tocino and longaniza and tinapang bangus. We all, including our American-born, Caucasian spouses and in-laws, love the variety and mix of our Filipino-American breakfast.
In Mom’s Life Lesson 101, this is proof positive that we have accepted and incorporated American ways into our lives and allowed some of ours to blend into the Western culture. Not that Mom ever said so. That wasn’t her way.
Mother had a subtle, indirect way of communicating. She hardly ever gave direct orders, for instance. If she needed something done she would frame it as a question, or a comment, a theory, a thinking-aloud kind of wish. That meant we had to read between the lines and we had to pay close attention to her words.
She was a gentle, soft-spoken woman who avoided harsh words and confrontations at all cost. Ironically, she was blessed with assertive, strong minded, and self-reliant off springs. I think she figured out early on how to get the best out of us without too much trouble. So she suggested rather than commanded, she hinted and temporized, and she sneakily laced her cooking lessons with bits of wisdom that were hard to spurn.
She taught me to be flexible, to be patient and subtle, not to rush to conclusions, and to build each relationship with a light touch— whether personal, social or professional—and always open to change and accommodation. Above all, I learned from Mom the wisdom of that old adage: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” And that’s me in essence—I never ever give up.
I wonder if that was the lesson Mom wanted me to learn all along, and does she know, now that she’s sleeping with angels, that she succeeded?
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The real magic of Christmas and New Year
(published 12-22-10, Manila Standard Today)
I sometimes think of Christmas and New Year as fraternal twins, outwardly different but fostered by the same magic.
Christmas is the more popular sister, gay and frivolous, boisterous and scintillating. She is known for her excesses; spending money with abandon, gorging on treats and drinking herself silly with family and friends. The ultimate party girl -- that's Christmas.
She loves nothing better than organizing family reunions, office parties, choral concerts, and Nutcracker ballets. Christmas is generous to a fault and has made lavish gift-giving a global tradition.
Children of all ages wait for her with bated breath. They know Christmas is a weaver of dreams and a sorceress of great wizardry. She conjures all kinds of toys and fanciful tales of busy elves, reindeer that fly and a jolly old man with a long white beard and a belly full of jelly.
For most of the year Christmas stays hidden and unnoticed, and sadly, there are those who prefer not to see her at all. In fact if the liberal PC (politically-correct) extremists in the United States prevail, Christmas will one day be totally annihilated, replaced by an atheistimpostor named “Winter Holiday.” (I can only hope my home country does not also devolve into this asinine secularism.)
How many of us remember Christmas’ humble origins in Bethlehem,especially now that public display of the manger and the holy family is increasingly frowned upon? Instead, the commercial mystique surrounding Christmas has gone viral. Those merchants outside the temple whom Jesus tried to banish are back in full force hawking their merchandise through Google, Facebook, YouTube, Tweeter, iPad and iPhone. There are hundreds more of these Web-based infidels and their numbers are growing exponentially.
Even as I type these words I know the merchants are camped behind my computer screen ready to launch their assault through cyberspace. Their Internet sniffers have discovered I am looking for new tech toys for 12-year old Cole, clothes and accessories for Sharon and Carla, and a new winter coat for Jason.
My Inbox is deluged with special offers and holiday promotions, all geared toward my interests and online shopping history. I am powerless to resist such onslaught. I lay my neck on the block, prepared to bleed my hard-earned dollars with a big smile on my face.
Christmas does that to people—makes them act silly and reckless and impetuous. It is the time of the year for hugs and kisses and teary reunions, overblown sentiments, grand gestures and promises we can’t keep.
It’s good to know that after all the excitement, the frenzy and disruption that Christmas brings, New Year is soon upon us.
New Year is the more responsible sister who stays in the background while Christmas takes center stage. When it’s her turn, she is ushered in with a big bang, a lot of noise and a huge party for old times’ sake.
But after the champagne and the confetti, New Year rolls up her sleeves and resolutely tries to undo the harm done by her frivolous sister. Bills have to be paid down; unwanted pounds have to be shed, waistlines reduced and unsightly bulges gotten rid of. The house has to be put back the way it was before Christmas let loose her colored lights and balls, ribbons and wreaths, candles, bows
and mistletoes.
New Year goes shopping—not for gaily wrapped gifts, but for dozens of totes and boxes of all shapes and sizes. In the next few weeks she will sort, organize, label and put away Christmas and all her glittery accessories. In her own methodical way, New Year conspires to keep Christmas hidden until it’s time for her to break out and cast her magic spell all over again.
In the meantime there are lists to be made: The Best American Essays of 2010, The Year’s Top Inventions and Technological Gadgets, The Top Ten Stories of the Year; the worst- and best-dressed female entertainers; the best bumper stickers; and the best and worst Super Bowl ads of 2010. My favorite remains David Letterman’s top 10 reasons why there can never be a Filipino-American US president. Number one on the list—Air Force One does not allow overweight Balikbayan boxes.
But the list that really matters is our personal New Year’s resolutions. Traditional favorites include spending more time with family and friends, learning something new, breaking bad habits, and becoming more fit. I like what one comic once said, “Next year I will no longer waste my time relieving the past; instead I will spend it worrying about the future.”
No matter what, it is the challenge and the disappointment of unmet resolves and broken promises that gives Christmas that edgy, frenetic energy that some of us find so addictive. We celebrate the year’s imminent demise with great abandon and cheer knowing we have failed yet again, but it’s all right; New Year gives us another chance to make up and try once more.
It is this message of hope and renewal that ultimately transcends the growing crassness and commercialism of each holiday season. It is the real magic at the heart of Christmas and New Year.
(published 12-22-10, Manila Standard Today)
I sometimes think of Christmas and New Year as fraternal twins, outwardly different but fostered by the same magic.
Christmas is the more popular sister, gay and frivolous, boisterous and scintillating. She is known for her excesses; spending money with abandon, gorging on treats and drinking herself silly with family and friends. The ultimate party girl -- that's Christmas.
She loves nothing better than organizing family reunions, office parties, choral concerts, and Nutcracker ballets. Christmas is generous to a fault and has made lavish gift-giving a global tradition.
Children of all ages wait for her with bated breath. They know Christmas is a weaver of dreams and a sorceress of great wizardry. She conjures all kinds of toys and fanciful tales of busy elves, reindeer that fly and a jolly old man with a long white beard and a belly full of jelly.
For most of the year Christmas stays hidden and unnoticed, and sadly, there are those who prefer not to see her at all. In fact if the liberal PC (politically-correct) extremists in the United States prevail, Christmas will one day be totally annihilated, replaced by an atheistimpostor named “Winter Holiday.” (I can only hope my home country does not also devolve into this asinine secularism.)
How many of us remember Christmas’ humble origins in Bethlehem,especially now that public display of the manger and the holy family is increasingly frowned upon? Instead, the commercial mystique surrounding Christmas has gone viral. Those merchants outside the temple whom Jesus tried to banish are back in full force hawking their merchandise through Google, Facebook, YouTube, Tweeter, iPad and iPhone. There are hundreds more of these Web-based infidels and their numbers are growing exponentially.
Even as I type these words I know the merchants are camped behind my computer screen ready to launch their assault through cyberspace. Their Internet sniffers have discovered I am looking for new tech toys for 12-year old Cole, clothes and accessories for Sharon and Carla, and a new winter coat for Jason.
My Inbox is deluged with special offers and holiday promotions, all geared toward my interests and online shopping history. I am powerless to resist such onslaught. I lay my neck on the block, prepared to bleed my hard-earned dollars with a big smile on my face.
Christmas does that to people—makes them act silly and reckless and impetuous. It is the time of the year for hugs and kisses and teary reunions, overblown sentiments, grand gestures and promises we can’t keep.
It’s good to know that after all the excitement, the frenzy and disruption that Christmas brings, New Year is soon upon us.
New Year is the more responsible sister who stays in the background while Christmas takes center stage. When it’s her turn, she is ushered in with a big bang, a lot of noise and a huge party for old times’ sake.
But after the champagne and the confetti, New Year rolls up her sleeves and resolutely tries to undo the harm done by her frivolous sister. Bills have to be paid down; unwanted pounds have to be shed, waistlines reduced and unsightly bulges gotten rid of. The house has to be put back the way it was before Christmas let loose her colored lights and balls, ribbons and wreaths, candles, bows
and mistletoes.
New Year goes shopping—not for gaily wrapped gifts, but for dozens of totes and boxes of all shapes and sizes. In the next few weeks she will sort, organize, label and put away Christmas and all her glittery accessories. In her own methodical way, New Year conspires to keep Christmas hidden until it’s time for her to break out and cast her magic spell all over again.
In the meantime there are lists to be made: The Best American Essays of 2010, The Year’s Top Inventions and Technological Gadgets, The Top Ten Stories of the Year; the worst- and best-dressed female entertainers; the best bumper stickers; and the best and worst Super Bowl ads of 2010. My favorite remains David Letterman’s top 10 reasons why there can never be a Filipino-American US president. Number one on the list—Air Force One does not allow overweight Balikbayan boxes.
But the list that really matters is our personal New Year’s resolutions. Traditional favorites include spending more time with family and friends, learning something new, breaking bad habits, and becoming more fit. I like what one comic once said, “Next year I will no longer waste my time relieving the past; instead I will spend it worrying about the future.”
No matter what, it is the challenge and the disappointment of unmet resolves and broken promises that gives Christmas that edgy, frenetic energy that some of us find so addictive. We celebrate the year’s imminent demise with great abandon and cheer knowing we have failed yet again, but it’s all right; New Year gives us another chance to make up and try once more.
It is this message of hope and renewal that ultimately transcends the growing crassness and commercialism of each holiday season. It is the real magic at the heart of Christmas and New Year.
Monday, December 6, 2010
A parent’s worst nightmare
(published 12-06-10, Manila Standard Today)
I never thought I would outlive my child.
I delivered my son after hours of excruciating labor. I should have had an easy time; my stomach was small. But he was my first child and they say the first is always the most difficult to birth. I cried when I first laid eyes on him. Dexter was born with a cleft palate and a hair lip.
He was barely a week old when he underwent surgery on his palate. For the next several months we fed him through a medicine dropper. A baby’s first instinct is to suck and although Dex tried mightily, he couldn’t do it with a split upper lip. He cried all the time. I cried along with him.
Dexter had two more surgeries before he turned seven but even when the gap in his palate reappeared as he got older, he refused to be put under the knife again. Instead he became adept at swallowing his food right and keeping his nasal passages clear so he could breathe properly. He grew up to be a strikingly handsome young man.
Dex worked his way through college and saved what he could to buy an Acura Integra. He was crazy about that car. All his spare cash went into sprucing it up, upgrading it, and making sure the engine and tires were in top shape so he could race it. Because racing was his second love. On weekends or after school and work on weekdays, he would gather with other young people his age talking cars and racing when they could. I’d never seen my son happier.
But I worried he would get into an accident. In the evenings before allowing myself to sleep I would wait to hear the hum of his engine, the sharp click of his car door or the bass rhythm of his radio. One time we found him in the garage fast asleep at the wheel of his car. He said he came home very late and tired, coming straight from the race after work. That car would cost your life, I warned. Prophetic words.
One afternoon at work I got a panicked call from my daughter. The cops were at the house; Dexter was hurt; he had been taken to Madigan Hospital.
All the way to the hospital I was thinking Dex had finally done it—gotten into an accident on his car. I prayed he wasn’t hurt bad. I negotiated with the God the German nuns at the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila had taught me to worship. I’d never prayed more desperately.
But I was wrong. Dex had not been hurt in an accident. A petty criminal had taken a fancy to his Acura Integra. He carjacked Dex, shot him in the head when he refused to give up his car, and left him by the wayside. The doctors at the hospital trauma unit told me Dexter’s wound was “unsurvivable.” He was brain dead when I got there. My oldest child and only son. Gone.
I cannot describe all the emotions that roiled inside me at that moment. I remember sobbing and saying “No” over and over again—not my first born, my only boy, the child of my heart.
How could such a cruel thing have happened in the United States? We left the Philippines for the opportunity America offered and because we no longer felt safe in my native country. How ironic that my son had been killed in this quiet Northwest city called Tacoma that I had considered my second home, perfect for raising my family.
Dexter hadn’t been a member of any gang. He didn’t do drugs, didn’t frequent bars, didn’t own a gun, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. He worked; he went to school; and during his free time he raced his car. How could such innocent pursuits cut his life short so violently? How could any member of my family—all well-educated, God-fearing, peace-loving, hard-working citizens —be even remotely touched by evil? HOW COULD GOD ALLOW IT?
That day I parted with my maker irrevocably.
I’d like to say that the pain of losing my son has diminished over the years but I’d be lying. Any parent who has ever lost a child suddenly and violently will probably never recover from the trauma. But we learn to hide it better because other people—friends and family members included—are often uncomfortable (even impatient) with any display of raw emotions. They do not want to see us in pain; they want to cheer us on to recovery. I’ve heard it all: “Get over it. It’s been years. He’s in a better place. Don’t wallow in your grief. Time to move on.”
As if grief can be turned off like a tap.
I live alone now. My daughters are grown and out of the house. My husband of 30 years has moved to the east coast. I’m as content as can be expected but holidays are hard, especially around Christmas. Dexter loved the gaiety and fun, the shopping, the presents, good times with the family. He lives in my heart but it’s not the same. I miss him terribly.
I wonder if I will ever see him again.
(published 12-06-10, Manila Standard Today)
I never thought I would outlive my child.
I delivered my son after hours of excruciating labor. I should have had an easy time; my stomach was small. But he was my first child and they say the first is always the most difficult to birth. I cried when I first laid eyes on him. Dexter was born with a cleft palate and a hair lip.
He was barely a week old when he underwent surgery on his palate. For the next several months we fed him through a medicine dropper. A baby’s first instinct is to suck and although Dex tried mightily, he couldn’t do it with a split upper lip. He cried all the time. I cried along with him.
Dexter had two more surgeries before he turned seven but even when the gap in his palate reappeared as he got older, he refused to be put under the knife again. Instead he became adept at swallowing his food right and keeping his nasal passages clear so he could breathe properly. He grew up to be a strikingly handsome young man.
Dex worked his way through college and saved what he could to buy an Acura Integra. He was crazy about that car. All his spare cash went into sprucing it up, upgrading it, and making sure the engine and tires were in top shape so he could race it. Because racing was his second love. On weekends or after school and work on weekdays, he would gather with other young people his age talking cars and racing when they could. I’d never seen my son happier.
But I worried he would get into an accident. In the evenings before allowing myself to sleep I would wait to hear the hum of his engine, the sharp click of his car door or the bass rhythm of his radio. One time we found him in the garage fast asleep at the wheel of his car. He said he came home very late and tired, coming straight from the race after work. That car would cost your life, I warned. Prophetic words.
One afternoon at work I got a panicked call from my daughter. The cops were at the house; Dexter was hurt; he had been taken to Madigan Hospital.
All the way to the hospital I was thinking Dex had finally done it—gotten into an accident on his car. I prayed he wasn’t hurt bad. I negotiated with the God the German nuns at the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila had taught me to worship. I’d never prayed more desperately.
But I was wrong. Dex had not been hurt in an accident. A petty criminal had taken a fancy to his Acura Integra. He carjacked Dex, shot him in the head when he refused to give up his car, and left him by the wayside. The doctors at the hospital trauma unit told me Dexter’s wound was “unsurvivable.” He was brain dead when I got there. My oldest child and only son. Gone.
I cannot describe all the emotions that roiled inside me at that moment. I remember sobbing and saying “No” over and over again—not my first born, my only boy, the child of my heart.
How could such a cruel thing have happened in the United States? We left the Philippines for the opportunity America offered and because we no longer felt safe in my native country. How ironic that my son had been killed in this quiet Northwest city called Tacoma that I had considered my second home, perfect for raising my family.
Dexter hadn’t been a member of any gang. He didn’t do drugs, didn’t frequent bars, didn’t own a gun, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. He worked; he went to school; and during his free time he raced his car. How could such innocent pursuits cut his life short so violently? How could any member of my family—all well-educated, God-fearing, peace-loving, hard-working citizens —be even remotely touched by evil? HOW COULD GOD ALLOW IT?
That day I parted with my maker irrevocably.
I’d like to say that the pain of losing my son has diminished over the years but I’d be lying. Any parent who has ever lost a child suddenly and violently will probably never recover from the trauma. But we learn to hide it better because other people—friends and family members included—are often uncomfortable (even impatient) with any display of raw emotions. They do not want to see us in pain; they want to cheer us on to recovery. I’ve heard it all: “Get over it. It’s been years. He’s in a better place. Don’t wallow in your grief. Time to move on.”
As if grief can be turned off like a tap.
I live alone now. My daughters are grown and out of the house. My husband of 30 years has moved to the east coast. I’m as content as can be expected but holidays are hard, especially around Christmas. Dexter loved the gaiety and fun, the shopping, the presents, good times with the family. He lives in my heart but it’s not the same. I miss him terribly.
I wonder if I will ever see him again.
Monday, November 8, 2010
For love of nature
(published 11-03-10, Manila Standard Today)
'Incredible,' murmured one of my hiking buddies as we stood gazing at the beauty around us. The place where we stood was called Paradise, located at Mt. Rainier National Park. Paradise is known for its spectacular mountain views, old-growth forests, subalpine flower meadows, and deep gorges and lakes.
To our left was a meadow of wildflowers: pink heather, white lilies, asters, magenta Indian paintbrush, shooting stars, and marsh marigolds. Towering all around us were mountains and rugged glaciers: Mount Rainier, the Emmons Glacier, Mount Adams, Mount Baker, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Hood, all nestled up to the bluest of blue skies.
Mount Rainier is the centerpiece of the park and the highest mountain in Washington State. At just over a million years old, it is a relatively young volcano and only one of many in a complex of mountains called the Cascade Range, stretching all the way from California to British Columbia.
Mount Rainier is easily one of the most famous tourist attractions in the Pacific Northwest, with over two million people coming to visit each year. But although I’d called this area home for 20 years and lived only two hours away, this was the very first time I’d ever been to Mt. Rainier National Park. Here in the US, that’s tantamount to a mortal sin.
I never visited Mayon Volcano in Albay either, not once in all the years I lived in the Philippines. In fact, other than going up to Baguio on my honeymoon, I don’t recall going anywhere in the Philippines for pleasure.
Touring the country was not something my family did when I was young and perhaps because of that, it wasn’t something I did with my children either. I took them to Sidney and Seoul and Narita, to Honolulu and Chicago, but not once to Bohol or Palawan or Albay.
In the United States, most families plan their recreational time around camping and touring and visiting in-country. Parents load their children and pets in their SUVs and vans; retirees take their campers and they drive across the country, stopping at campsites and parks and natural habitats. This land is rich with natural beauty and Americans just can’t seem to get enough of it.
They rhapsodize over flowers and meadows and rivers and streams, clear blue skies, mountains and valleys and hills. I would listen to their stories, unimpressed; thinking I had all that and more while I was growing up in the Philippines.
When the sun beats down on you every day from the time you are old enough to remember and brilliant colored-flowers bloom in your garden all year round, I submit it’s understandable if you don’t get as overly excited as your American friends when the temperature hits 90 degrees and the sun is finally out.
Over here, they say it’s easy to pick out Filipinos among the crowd during hot summer days. We’re the ones sheltering under the shade of trees (or heaven forbid —carrying umbrellas) while our white friends are trying to soak up as much sun as possible to get a nice tan. I tell them we are born with this beautiful skin color so why mess with perfection?
Along with their love of nature, Americans indulge in all kinds of outdoor activities. They go biking, mountain climbing, para-sailing or kayaking in the summer. They backpack though mountain trails, jetski and swim in the lake, paddle through rapids and go whitewater rafting.
In the winter, I can hardly wait to burrow under layers of blankets and comforters while my friends are up in Whistler or Crystal Mountain skiing and snowboarding to their hearts’ content. Children in my neighborhood are out in the snow throwing snow balls and sliding down icy slopes on makeshift sleds. I’m in my fleece robe and fuzzy slippers in the comfort of my home scowling at their antics, muttering to myself, “What’s the matter with these people?”
Then came my epiphany that day in Paradise. All I could think of was the waste—all those years gone when I could have been enjoyed the beauty around me.
So nowadays I walk along the waterfront on Ruston Way to watch the sailboats on Commencement Bay. It’s also a good place to gaze at the panoramic views of the Olympic Mountains, Vashon Island, and Brown’s Point, and in the distance, the grandeur of Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens.
Next year I’ll visit the Philippines. Mayon Volcano may be half the size of Mt. Rainier, but viewing up close its perfectly symmetrical cone shape will be well worth the trip.
The great American naturalist John Muir said it best: “Doubly happy is the (wo)man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illuminate all that lies below.”
(published 11-03-10, Manila Standard Today)
'Incredible,' murmured one of my hiking buddies as we stood gazing at the beauty around us. The place where we stood was called Paradise, located at Mt. Rainier National Park. Paradise is known for its spectacular mountain views, old-growth forests, subalpine flower meadows, and deep gorges and lakes.
To our left was a meadow of wildflowers: pink heather, white lilies, asters, magenta Indian paintbrush, shooting stars, and marsh marigolds. Towering all around us were mountains and rugged glaciers: Mount Rainier, the Emmons Glacier, Mount Adams, Mount Baker, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Hood, all nestled up to the bluest of blue skies.
Mount Rainier is the centerpiece of the park and the highest mountain in Washington State. At just over a million years old, it is a relatively young volcano and only one of many in a complex of mountains called the Cascade Range, stretching all the way from California to British Columbia.
Mount Rainier is easily one of the most famous tourist attractions in the Pacific Northwest, with over two million people coming to visit each year. But although I’d called this area home for 20 years and lived only two hours away, this was the very first time I’d ever been to Mt. Rainier National Park. Here in the US, that’s tantamount to a mortal sin.
I never visited Mayon Volcano in Albay either, not once in all the years I lived in the Philippines. In fact, other than going up to Baguio on my honeymoon, I don’t recall going anywhere in the Philippines for pleasure.
Touring the country was not something my family did when I was young and perhaps because of that, it wasn’t something I did with my children either. I took them to Sidney and Seoul and Narita, to Honolulu and Chicago, but not once to Bohol or Palawan or Albay.
In the United States, most families plan their recreational time around camping and touring and visiting in-country. Parents load their children and pets in their SUVs and vans; retirees take their campers and they drive across the country, stopping at campsites and parks and natural habitats. This land is rich with natural beauty and Americans just can’t seem to get enough of it.
They rhapsodize over flowers and meadows and rivers and streams, clear blue skies, mountains and valleys and hills. I would listen to their stories, unimpressed; thinking I had all that and more while I was growing up in the Philippines.
When the sun beats down on you every day from the time you are old enough to remember and brilliant colored-flowers bloom in your garden all year round, I submit it’s understandable if you don’t get as overly excited as your American friends when the temperature hits 90 degrees and the sun is finally out.
Over here, they say it’s easy to pick out Filipinos among the crowd during hot summer days. We’re the ones sheltering under the shade of trees (or heaven forbid —carrying umbrellas) while our white friends are trying to soak up as much sun as possible to get a nice tan. I tell them we are born with this beautiful skin color so why mess with perfection?
Along with their love of nature, Americans indulge in all kinds of outdoor activities. They go biking, mountain climbing, para-sailing or kayaking in the summer. They backpack though mountain trails, jetski and swim in the lake, paddle through rapids and go whitewater rafting.
In the winter, I can hardly wait to burrow under layers of blankets and comforters while my friends are up in Whistler or Crystal Mountain skiing and snowboarding to their hearts’ content. Children in my neighborhood are out in the snow throwing snow balls and sliding down icy slopes on makeshift sleds. I’m in my fleece robe and fuzzy slippers in the comfort of my home scowling at their antics, muttering to myself, “What’s the matter with these people?”
Then came my epiphany that day in Paradise. All I could think of was the waste—all those years gone when I could have been enjoyed the beauty around me.
So nowadays I walk along the waterfront on Ruston Way to watch the sailboats on Commencement Bay. It’s also a good place to gaze at the panoramic views of the Olympic Mountains, Vashon Island, and Brown’s Point, and in the distance, the grandeur of Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens.
Next year I’ll visit the Philippines. Mayon Volcano may be half the size of Mt. Rainier, but viewing up close its perfectly symmetrical cone shape will be well worth the trip.
The great American naturalist John Muir said it best: “Doubly happy is the (wo)man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illuminate all that lies below.”
Monday, October 4, 2010
When parents become babies
(Published 9/30/10, Manila Standard Today)
What do you do when the person you love who took care of you when you were young and taught you everything you know about raising your own children starts the slide back to infancy?
A year ago, my mother would sometimes forget small, inconsequential things. I didn’t think it was a big deal. At 84, her mind was otherwise as sharp as ever. I told her not to worry; I was starting to forget things, too. I’d forget where I left my keys or my reading glasses or whether I’d taken my vitamins that morning. I’d go to the basement and forget what I came down for. It’s no fun being 62, I complained. Mom laughed. Wait until you get to be my age, she said.
I should have been more observant. The signs were there. She used to read, though she didn’t have the same voracious appetite I have for the written word. I read at a fast pace, impatient to get to the end of the story. Mom read with the appreciation of an epicure, a gourmet savoring each word and turn of phrase, taking her time to digest the beauty of a passage before moving on to the next.
I don’t remember when she stopped reading and started merely collecting. It dawned on me one day that she had accumulated a motley collection of paperbacks, stacked neatly on her headboard: mysteries, romances, suspense thrillers—the kind of books she never read before. Huh, I thought. How weird is that?
Were the books a visual reminder to herself that she needed to start reading again? Was she challenging herself to be more open to other vistas of the imagination—those that would make her blood sing with thrill or revulsion or those whose intricate plots would engage her facile mind? Did she really mean to immerse herself in the spell-binding, heart-pumping, ass-kicking adventures of Zoe Sharp’s Charlie Fox or Lee Child’s Jack Reacher? WHAT was she thinking?
Of course she planned to read the books, she snapped. She didn’t put them there merely for decoration. The uncharacteristic asperity of her response surprised me. That alone should have clued me in.
In those early days she fooled herself into thinking that she was still all right. We all bought the myth. In truth, the books she collected—the books she never read—were the first of the signs that she was, in fact, “losing it.” To me they became a symbol of a door that had closed, a path no longer taken. Of a mind gone awry.
My mother was not what you would consider an active person. She was the sedentary type, preferring activities around the house rather than outdoor exertions of any kind. Perhaps that explains why her gradual slowing down went largely unnoticed at first. But one day I realized she had stopped dusting and rearranging her collection of blue china. You could tell by the time and attention she used to lavish on this task that this was absolutely something she loved to do. And now she couldn’t be bothered with it?
Then came the day we had to rush her to the hospital for heart complications. Her decline rapidly escalated from there. She was always too tired and weak and her doctor’s appointments taxed her to the limit. She stopped coming to family parties, and the last time she did, she appeared tentative and uncertain, like a reluctant foreign guest who didn’t really want to be there.
Each week there was one more thing she wouldn’t/couldn’t do any more. Her activities and the area around the house that she inhabited became progressively limited. She spent most of her days watching TV until she stopped doing that altogether. She vacated her room, encamped on the couch, and lay there the whole day except for meals and bathroom breaks. Soon after, she hardly even got up for those.
I thought nothing was worse than the loss of my mother’s short-term memory, the loss of herself. She couldn’t remember what she was thinking from minute to minute; if she ate, what she ate, if she took her medicine …….who I was.
But every time we changed her diapers and helped her into fresh clothes, I prayed she would have one of those forgetful moments; that she would not remember that assault on her privacy, the loss of her dignity. Please don’t let her know she has been reduced to this inchoate, helpless, needy baby, I would plead silently.
Mom was the gentlest, kindest, most loving person you can ever imagine. Her one wish was that she would die in her sleep. On Saturday, Sept. 18, God took her by the hand and very gently led her into that good night.
Ms. Villa lives in Tacoma, Washington and blogs at www.belmavilla.blogspot.com.
(Published 9/30/10, Manila Standard Today)
What do you do when the person you love who took care of you when you were young and taught you everything you know about raising your own children starts the slide back to infancy?
A year ago, my mother would sometimes forget small, inconsequential things. I didn’t think it was a big deal. At 84, her mind was otherwise as sharp as ever. I told her not to worry; I was starting to forget things, too. I’d forget where I left my keys or my reading glasses or whether I’d taken my vitamins that morning. I’d go to the basement and forget what I came down for. It’s no fun being 62, I complained. Mom laughed. Wait until you get to be my age, she said.
I should have been more observant. The signs were there. She used to read, though she didn’t have the same voracious appetite I have for the written word. I read at a fast pace, impatient to get to the end of the story. Mom read with the appreciation of an epicure, a gourmet savoring each word and turn of phrase, taking her time to digest the beauty of a passage before moving on to the next.
I don’t remember when she stopped reading and started merely collecting. It dawned on me one day that she had accumulated a motley collection of paperbacks, stacked neatly on her headboard: mysteries, romances, suspense thrillers—the kind of books she never read before. Huh, I thought. How weird is that?
Were the books a visual reminder to herself that she needed to start reading again? Was she challenging herself to be more open to other vistas of the imagination—those that would make her blood sing with thrill or revulsion or those whose intricate plots would engage her facile mind? Did she really mean to immerse herself in the spell-binding, heart-pumping, ass-kicking adventures of Zoe Sharp’s Charlie Fox or Lee Child’s Jack Reacher? WHAT was she thinking?
Of course she planned to read the books, she snapped. She didn’t put them there merely for decoration. The uncharacteristic asperity of her response surprised me. That alone should have clued me in.
In those early days she fooled herself into thinking that she was still all right. We all bought the myth. In truth, the books she collected—the books she never read—were the first of the signs that she was, in fact, “losing it.” To me they became a symbol of a door that had closed, a path no longer taken. Of a mind gone awry.
My mother was not what you would consider an active person. She was the sedentary type, preferring activities around the house rather than outdoor exertions of any kind. Perhaps that explains why her gradual slowing down went largely unnoticed at first. But one day I realized she had stopped dusting and rearranging her collection of blue china. You could tell by the time and attention she used to lavish on this task that this was absolutely something she loved to do. And now she couldn’t be bothered with it?
Then came the day we had to rush her to the hospital for heart complications. Her decline rapidly escalated from there. She was always too tired and weak and her doctor’s appointments taxed her to the limit. She stopped coming to family parties, and the last time she did, she appeared tentative and uncertain, like a reluctant foreign guest who didn’t really want to be there.
Each week there was one more thing she wouldn’t/couldn’t do any more. Her activities and the area around the house that she inhabited became progressively limited. She spent most of her days watching TV until she stopped doing that altogether. She vacated her room, encamped on the couch, and lay there the whole day except for meals and bathroom breaks. Soon after, she hardly even got up for those.
I thought nothing was worse than the loss of my mother’s short-term memory, the loss of herself. She couldn’t remember what she was thinking from minute to minute; if she ate, what she ate, if she took her medicine …….who I was.
But every time we changed her diapers and helped her into fresh clothes, I prayed she would have one of those forgetful moments; that she would not remember that assault on her privacy, the loss of her dignity. Please don’t let her know she has been reduced to this inchoate, helpless, needy baby, I would plead silently.
Mom was the gentlest, kindest, most loving person you can ever imagine. Her one wish was that she would die in her sleep. On Saturday, Sept. 18, God took her by the hand and very gently led her into that good night.
Ms. Villa lives in Tacoma, Washington and blogs at www.belmavilla.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
If there really is a God….
Why does he allow us, his children, to grow old and infirm to the point where we lose our dignity as human beings; where we become like babies, dependent on others to feed us and clothe us and take us to the bathroom? Why would he want those who love us to see us diminished and humbled, a creature to be pitied? How cruel is that? Why can’t we all have our lives end on a high note?
What is the lesson that is supposed to be learned here?
Why does he allow us, his children, to grow old and infirm to the point where we lose our dignity as human beings; where we become like babies, dependent on others to feed us and clothe us and take us to the bathroom? Why would he want those who love us to see us diminished and humbled, a creature to be pitied? How cruel is that? Why can’t we all have our lives end on a high note?
What is the lesson that is supposed to be learned here?
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Hard times in the United States
(Published 9/7/10, Manila Standard Today)
‘It’s not a perfect society, but it’s good. It’s better than my own country.”
(From a recent survey of US immigrants conducted by the nonpartisan group Public Agenda.)
America. I think it’s the greatest place to live, and millions of immigrants like me seem to agree. America’s allure remains so strong that some are willing to risk life and limb to enter its borders for a chance to live here. According to new Census Bureau data, the size of America’s foreign-born population has tripled since 1970 and now stands at 31 million.
What’s the reason behind this continuing influx of hopeful US immigrants?
It’s a combination of factors: economic, social, political, religious. “Opportunity for a better life,” is the major reason, but underlying that is the most basic need of all to have a decent roof over one’s head and food in the belly. To go to bed at night knowing there will be toast or cereal in the morning - if not bacon and eggs, too.
America, immigrants have found, is the best antidote to hunger.
Even through the bad times like now. You know the story. Economic crisis. Revenue deficits. Recession. Plummeting stocks. Massive layoffs. Enron. And in our own Evergreen State, a $2.4 billion budget shortfall.
The situation is so bad that services to children, the aged and the poor will be trimmed, our public colleges will stop accepting unfunded enrollments and some of our parks and libraries will have to close. Roads will not be built; sidewalks will not be fixed or streets lit. Businesses will close, and unemployment will continue to rise.
Can anything be more frightening and devastating?
Things could be much, much worse.
I come from a Third World country where I observed firsthand the poverty and misery that thousands of families and children endure daily, with little hope in sight. As inflight supervisor for an international airline, I flew to countries much worse than mine, where there are no parks or playgrounds for children, where roads are muddy tracks and medical services are not available for the poor.
Many transplants to this country have grim stories to tell. In some regions of the world, going hungry is not a euphemism. It doesn’t mean Thanksgiving without turkey and mashed potatoes, or Christmas without savory delicacies. It means you have harvested your last corn and have scraped your rice barrel empty. It means sharing what little food is left among the children and going without any yourself.
You are grateful to have a job that pays $2 a day. You don’t have a car. You don’t know anyone in your neighborhood who owns one. The company you work for does not provide medical, dental or life insurance. Social Security, 401(k)s, Medicare, SSI and unemployment benefits are unheard of.
You work and scrape and save in the hope of putting enough aside to send your children to college, because there are no government subsidies for the poor, no financial aid programs, scholarships or tuition waivers. Families and students, rich or poor, have to pay the total cost of a college education - or they can forget about it.
The poor never really get a chance for a better life. Hence, America is the utopian dream that is passed on from one family to another, from one generation to the next.
And having arrived here, if you are not picky and have the will and the strength to work, there is work to be had. If your earnings are not sufficient, there is help available.
Can’t pay your utilities? The city has special rainy-day funds for such emergencies. No toys for the children? Need clothes? The Salvation Army is right around the corner.
Soup kitchens and food banks supplement food stamps. There are free medical services and local shelters for the homeless. Needy students go to college for free and get extra help with board and lodging.
Poverty in America is not a shameful thing. It is a magic incantation that opens doors and coffers.
There is much more that I can say about the almost limitless bounty we have in this country and how fortunate we are, but I think you’ve got the message. Even if the current recession were to drag on, we would still be better situated than most countries, and immigrants will continue to knock on our doors.
Belma Villa of Tacoma, Washington used to be a guest columnist for the Perspectives page of the Tacoma News Tribune. This piece is an updated version of an original article published in 2003.
(Published 9/7/10, Manila Standard Today)
‘It’s not a perfect society, but it’s good. It’s better than my own country.”
(From a recent survey of US immigrants conducted by the nonpartisan group Public Agenda.)
America. I think it’s the greatest place to live, and millions of immigrants like me seem to agree. America’s allure remains so strong that some are willing to risk life and limb to enter its borders for a chance to live here. According to new Census Bureau data, the size of America’s foreign-born population has tripled since 1970 and now stands at 31 million.
What’s the reason behind this continuing influx of hopeful US immigrants?
It’s a combination of factors: economic, social, political, religious. “Opportunity for a better life,” is the major reason, but underlying that is the most basic need of all to have a decent roof over one’s head and food in the belly. To go to bed at night knowing there will be toast or cereal in the morning - if not bacon and eggs, too.
America, immigrants have found, is the best antidote to hunger.
Even through the bad times like now. You know the story. Economic crisis. Revenue deficits. Recession. Plummeting stocks. Massive layoffs. Enron. And in our own Evergreen State, a $2.4 billion budget shortfall.
The situation is so bad that services to children, the aged and the poor will be trimmed, our public colleges will stop accepting unfunded enrollments and some of our parks and libraries will have to close. Roads will not be built; sidewalks will not be fixed or streets lit. Businesses will close, and unemployment will continue to rise.
Can anything be more frightening and devastating?
Things could be much, much worse.
I come from a Third World country where I observed firsthand the poverty and misery that thousands of families and children endure daily, with little hope in sight. As inflight supervisor for an international airline, I flew to countries much worse than mine, where there are no parks or playgrounds for children, where roads are muddy tracks and medical services are not available for the poor.
Many transplants to this country have grim stories to tell. In some regions of the world, going hungry is not a euphemism. It doesn’t mean Thanksgiving without turkey and mashed potatoes, or Christmas without savory delicacies. It means you have harvested your last corn and have scraped your rice barrel empty. It means sharing what little food is left among the children and going without any yourself.
You are grateful to have a job that pays $2 a day. You don’t have a car. You don’t know anyone in your neighborhood who owns one. The company you work for does not provide medical, dental or life insurance. Social Security, 401(k)s, Medicare, SSI and unemployment benefits are unheard of.
You work and scrape and save in the hope of putting enough aside to send your children to college, because there are no government subsidies for the poor, no financial aid programs, scholarships or tuition waivers. Families and students, rich or poor, have to pay the total cost of a college education - or they can forget about it.
The poor never really get a chance for a better life. Hence, America is the utopian dream that is passed on from one family to another, from one generation to the next.
And having arrived here, if you are not picky and have the will and the strength to work, there is work to be had. If your earnings are not sufficient, there is help available.
Can’t pay your utilities? The city has special rainy-day funds for such emergencies. No toys for the children? Need clothes? The Salvation Army is right around the corner.
Soup kitchens and food banks supplement food stamps. There are free medical services and local shelters for the homeless. Needy students go to college for free and get extra help with board and lodging.
Poverty in America is not a shameful thing. It is a magic incantation that opens doors and coffers.
There is much more that I can say about the almost limitless bounty we have in this country and how fortunate we are, but I think you’ve got the message. Even if the current recession were to drag on, we would still be better situated than most countries, and immigrants will continue to knock on our doors.
Belma Villa of Tacoma, Washington used to be a guest columnist for the Perspectives page of the Tacoma News Tribune. This piece is an updated version of an original article published in 2003.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
If there really is a God….
Why didn’t he/she/they just make us all the same so that we don’t compare and envy, belittle and demean, ostracize and criticize, fight and kill those who are different from us? If there was no race but one, if all of us are born with the same skin color, same height, same frame, same body weight – then perhaps there will be no genocide or fratricide, even suicide. There will be no need for various agencies and commissions purporting to advance diversity and race relations; no diet plans or health clubs, no slim fast or weight watchers.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be just one among the crowd?
But then how would you measure excellence if there is no one to compare with? What would you reach for if the yardstick is the same for everybody? What would be the need for words that end in “er” or “est?” Bigger/biggest, smarter/smartest, kinder/kindest. Everybody will be the same. We will be like automatons, robots; nothing new to discover because we will be like everybody else; nothing there to peak one’s interest or curiosity.
Perhaps the very things that make us different; that provoke and challenge us; that make us think and question – perhaps that’s the proof that there is a God, and boy, does he have a sense of humor.
Why didn’t he/she/they just make us all the same so that we don’t compare and envy, belittle and demean, ostracize and criticize, fight and kill those who are different from us? If there was no race but one, if all of us are born with the same skin color, same height, same frame, same body weight – then perhaps there will be no genocide or fratricide, even suicide. There will be no need for various agencies and commissions purporting to advance diversity and race relations; no diet plans or health clubs, no slim fast or weight watchers.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be just one among the crowd?
But then how would you measure excellence if there is no one to compare with? What would you reach for if the yardstick is the same for everybody? What would be the need for words that end in “er” or “est?” Bigger/biggest, smarter/smartest, kinder/kindest. Everybody will be the same. We will be like automatons, robots; nothing new to discover because we will be like everybody else; nothing there to peak one’s interest or curiosity.
Perhaps the very things that make us different; that provoke and challenge us; that make us think and question – perhaps that’s the proof that there is a God, and boy, does he have a sense of humor.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Musings of a senior citizen
Turning 62 in the US
(Published 8/5/10, Manila Standard Today)
Life has changed for me ever since I became a bona fide, full-fledged, card-carrying senior citizen here in the United States. I’m embarrassed to admit I got to this point not in my usual logical, rational, methodical style. I arrived kicking and screaming, protesting to all who cared that “I’m not that old; I’m still relevant. I have years to go before I retire.” Yadayadayada. Which really doesn’t change anything. I’m 62. Game over.
The process of getting old is somewhat like losing a loved one. You move from denial to anger to sorrow, and finally, inevitably—to acceptance. One day you look at the face staring back at you from the bathroom mirror, the one with the droopy mouth, sagging chin and gray hair and you know the younger you has crossed over—permanently. Even John Edward and his pals from the “other side” cannot bring that one back. But it doesn’t mean paradise is totally lost. The game’s changed, that’s all.
Consider the perks.
Discount heaven. If you ride a bus, take a train, get on a flight, buy or rent a car, stay at a hotel, join a tour, see a play, go to a concert, buy season tickets to the theater or the ballgame, watch a movie, get your prescriptions, stock up on groceries, splurge on a new wardrobe – if you even as much as breathe, you get rewarded simply by admitting the sad fact that you have indeed reached the magic threshold of 62 years. With the plunging US economy (thanks as always, Barack), 10 percent off almost everything is not insignificant. Think about the contributions you can make to your grandchild’s GET account. “Shop here and save your 10 percent discount for future college costs.” Tugs at the heartstrings, doesn’t it?
And there’s more. You also get a discount if you want a haircut, a manicure and a pedicure, an in-house tan, and a few hours of pampering at your favorite spa. You get a discount if you order Chinese takeout, have beer and pizza delivered, go to a bar, and dine out every day of your life. Don’t worry if the unwanted pounds you thought were just there for a quick visit decide to camp out permanently on your belly, hips and thighs. You can take your pick from a dozen or so diet plans and health clubs that promise to make you lose 50 pounds so you can reclaim your youth and vitality. You might even end up looking like Raquel Welch who’s nearly 70 but looks like the bombshell she was 50 years ago. (Except for the teeth, which are just too large, fakey white and unnaturally straight. And—I forget which commercial—flirting with boys young enough to be her grandsons? Totally gross!)
Geriatric services. Getting old in the USA is almost like having a terminal disease. There are doctors and nurses and other medical personnel who specialize in it to help you cope with its gradual spread and prepare you for its inevitability. Early signs of the disease include thinning hair, hearing loss, memory lapses, reduced motor skills, frequent anxiety attacks, inability to tolerate rap music and similar discordant noises, and increasing dependence on your grandchild to program your TV and DVD player, Bluetooth headphones, digital camera, video recorder, Netbook, iPad, iPhone and its various apps. (When did life get so complicated?) Other indications to watch out for include an increasing dependence on your vehicle’s GPS to drive from your residence to your daughter’s home, all of five miles away.
If you don’t know what most of these devices are and couldn’t care less, it could mean one of two things: (1) your disease is far more advanced than suspected and there’s no known cure for it, or; (2) you’re just a stubborn old fool who thinks life was perfect before the dawning of electronic geegaws, Facebook, YouTube and other wachamacallits.
Life’s a joker. I remember when I was 10, 11 and 12, I couldn’t wait to be 13. Then I couldn’t wait to be 21, which was so close to perfect I wanted to freeze that time and inhabit it forever. Unfortunately, time does march on inexorably no matter how hard you try to pull it back. When you start receiving insistent mail from AARP and offers of funeral/memorial services and glossy retirement home brochures flood your mailbox, you know it’s all over.
But you can choose to go down fighting. A few nips and tucks here and there. Botox, liposuction, tummy tuck, face, breast and buttocks lift. (Think Raquel.) Thread lift to pull your sagging jaw line and crepey neck; creams and lotions that promise “to restore the elasticity and youthful glow of your skin.” Vitamins and supplements to make you look and feel young again, and soon for us women, a pill similar to Viagra. A big hurrah for equality. I can hardly wait for the creatively suggestive commercials that will soon populate my TV. (Where’s the remote?)
BTW, is there a significance to the fact that in the America, we are carded at least twice in our lives? I’ve mulled this over and here’s my theory. We are carded at 21 to prove we are old enough to drink our way under the table. That’s a no-brainer. But at 62, I think it’s some kind of a gatepost. You can choose to go forward and be a wiser, kinder, more loving person for the remaining years of your life; or you can stop right there, turn around, and simply rewind your life back to those halcyon days of your youth. Take your pick. And don’t forget your ID.
(Published 8/5/10, Manila Standard Today)
Life has changed for me ever since I became a bona fide, full-fledged, card-carrying senior citizen here in the United States. I’m embarrassed to admit I got to this point not in my usual logical, rational, methodical style. I arrived kicking and screaming, protesting to all who cared that “I’m not that old; I’m still relevant. I have years to go before I retire.” Yadayadayada. Which really doesn’t change anything. I’m 62. Game over.
The process of getting old is somewhat like losing a loved one. You move from denial to anger to sorrow, and finally, inevitably—to acceptance. One day you look at the face staring back at you from the bathroom mirror, the one with the droopy mouth, sagging chin and gray hair and you know the younger you has crossed over—permanently. Even John Edward and his pals from the “other side” cannot bring that one back. But it doesn’t mean paradise is totally lost. The game’s changed, that’s all.
Consider the perks.
Discount heaven. If you ride a bus, take a train, get on a flight, buy or rent a car, stay at a hotel, join a tour, see a play, go to a concert, buy season tickets to the theater or the ballgame, watch a movie, get your prescriptions, stock up on groceries, splurge on a new wardrobe – if you even as much as breathe, you get rewarded simply by admitting the sad fact that you have indeed reached the magic threshold of 62 years. With the plunging US economy (thanks as always, Barack), 10 percent off almost everything is not insignificant. Think about the contributions you can make to your grandchild’s GET account. “Shop here and save your 10 percent discount for future college costs.” Tugs at the heartstrings, doesn’t it?
And there’s more. You also get a discount if you want a haircut, a manicure and a pedicure, an in-house tan, and a few hours of pampering at your favorite spa. You get a discount if you order Chinese takeout, have beer and pizza delivered, go to a bar, and dine out every day of your life. Don’t worry if the unwanted pounds you thought were just there for a quick visit decide to camp out permanently on your belly, hips and thighs. You can take your pick from a dozen or so diet plans and health clubs that promise to make you lose 50 pounds so you can reclaim your youth and vitality. You might even end up looking like Raquel Welch who’s nearly 70 but looks like the bombshell she was 50 years ago. (Except for the teeth, which are just too large, fakey white and unnaturally straight. And—I forget which commercial—flirting with boys young enough to be her grandsons? Totally gross!)
Geriatric services. Getting old in the USA is almost like having a terminal disease. There are doctors and nurses and other medical personnel who specialize in it to help you cope with its gradual spread and prepare you for its inevitability. Early signs of the disease include thinning hair, hearing loss, memory lapses, reduced motor skills, frequent anxiety attacks, inability to tolerate rap music and similar discordant noises, and increasing dependence on your grandchild to program your TV and DVD player, Bluetooth headphones, digital camera, video recorder, Netbook, iPad, iPhone and its various apps. (When did life get so complicated?) Other indications to watch out for include an increasing dependence on your vehicle’s GPS to drive from your residence to your daughter’s home, all of five miles away.
If you don’t know what most of these devices are and couldn’t care less, it could mean one of two things: (1) your disease is far more advanced than suspected and there’s no known cure for it, or; (2) you’re just a stubborn old fool who thinks life was perfect before the dawning of electronic geegaws, Facebook, YouTube and other wachamacallits.
Life’s a joker. I remember when I was 10, 11 and 12, I couldn’t wait to be 13. Then I couldn’t wait to be 21, which was so close to perfect I wanted to freeze that time and inhabit it forever. Unfortunately, time does march on inexorably no matter how hard you try to pull it back. When you start receiving insistent mail from AARP and offers of funeral/memorial services and glossy retirement home brochures flood your mailbox, you know it’s all over.
But you can choose to go down fighting. A few nips and tucks here and there. Botox, liposuction, tummy tuck, face, breast and buttocks lift. (Think Raquel.) Thread lift to pull your sagging jaw line and crepey neck; creams and lotions that promise “to restore the elasticity and youthful glow of your skin.” Vitamins and supplements to make you look and feel young again, and soon for us women, a pill similar to Viagra. A big hurrah for equality. I can hardly wait for the creatively suggestive commercials that will soon populate my TV. (Where’s the remote?)
BTW, is there a significance to the fact that in the America, we are carded at least twice in our lives? I’ve mulled this over and here’s my theory. We are carded at 21 to prove we are old enough to drink our way under the table. That’s a no-brainer. But at 62, I think it’s some kind of a gatepost. You can choose to go forward and be a wiser, kinder, more loving person for the remaining years of your life; or you can stop right there, turn around, and simply rewind your life back to those halcyon days of your youth. Take your pick. And don’t forget your ID.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Today's musings - On the Petersons
I love my daughter’s home. I love its airy expanse, its creamy carpeting, and the wide glass windows that allow the light to filter through so the house is always filled with light. The house is surrounded by trees and flowering plants on three sides, with a wooden deck that wraps around the back from the master suite to the dining area. The French glass doors from the kitchen leading to the deck enhance the illusion of outside living indoors. At this time of the year, chez Peterson is our family Paradise.
The first to greet me at the door are Pudgy and Bear. Pudgy is my daughter’s pug puppy; his name suits him to perfection. He’s chunky and heavy (35 pounds) and round as a butter ball perched on four stubby legs. For some reason I cannot fathom, my daughter is crazy about him. Bear, my grandson’s frisky Chihuahua, is about a foot high, weighs all of five pounds, and the farthest thing from a bear that you can imagine. Except Bear doesn’t know that, judging by the way he bullies Pudgy relentlessly. No one gets through the Peterson door without running the gauntlet of Pudgy and Bear’s excited barks, frantically waving tails, and slovering tongues. The two of them together serve as a highly effective early warning, door alarm system.
My 13-year old grandson Cole hears the commotion and comes up from his room in the basement. He has lingering signs of the flu, but even sleepy eyed and slightly sallow from spending the last two days in bed, he is still a strikingly handsome boy. He has his father’s fair complexion and physique and his mother’s fine features and black glossy hair. With his dark slanted eyes, trendy hair (bangs nearly covering his eyes) and cool teen attire (obviously not my lingo), I’d be surprised if he’s not already creating quite a stir among the giggling population in his middle school. We’re growing another heartbreaker here for sure.
And here comes Jason, my son-in-law. He gives me his usual enigmatic smile and leads me upstairs straight into the kitchen where Shasha is performing magical things with pots and pans. I have had the pleasure of calling this young man son for close to 14 years now, but I have yet to break through his reserve. If there is one thing I will change about Jason, it’s that he would talk more. He will do things for me: prune the shrubs and tree in my yard, pull up the weeds and gather up all the detritus in his wake without prompting; climb up the ladder to put new batteries in my smoke alarm; figure out the strange noise coming from my car; carry things for me; put up with me and my strange ways and laugh good naturedly at my stumbling Filipino tongue that still gets tripped up in his language -- but I have yet to spend five solid minutes of conversation with him. I tell him the strong silent type isn’t necessarily always a good thing but he just smiles.
We have called my daughter Sharon “Shasha” or Sha for short, since the day she was one and her two-year old brother Dexter called her by that name. She gives me a smile and a warm hug, dishes up bacon and omelet and warms a pot of nilaga. “What is this?” I ask. “Are we having breakfast or lunch”? “Breakfast,” she says, “but I want you to have some of my nilaga.” She is beautiful, this daughter of mine, as well as an excellent cook. I hardly ever go to Maresol anymore, one of the few Filipino places (you can’t really call them restaurants) I infrequently visit to appease my craving for the food that nurtured me through adulthood. Shasha whips up sinigang, nilaga, tinola and bibingka with as much ease and panache as pot roast, baked salmon, frittatas, quiche, and French toast casserole. This is one trait she definitely inherited from her father whose love for cooking has become both an avocation and a career.
I came to visit that day to get help with my blog. I wanted to make it more appealing and easier on the eye and I knew from past experience that what would take me days to figure out would be merely minutes of creative fiddling for Shasha. Cole is soon helping out, too, and Pudgy and Bear are right on his heels. Jason pokes his head in and hands me a beautiful bouquet of roses and hydrangea from his garden.
On my way out, mission accomplished and feeling well fed, I take time to appreciate the inviting way the large living room opens up into the dining area, so perfect for entertaining and family get togethers. It’s a very welcoming home, one that invites you to curl up in a couch awhile or to linger by the tall windows and gaze at the spectacular view of the Narrows Bridge and Puget Sound. But today, I am struck by an unassailable truth. The Peterson home conjures up warmth and food and family and love because its occupants, both human and animal, have made it so.
The first to greet me at the door are Pudgy and Bear. Pudgy is my daughter’s pug puppy; his name suits him to perfection. He’s chunky and heavy (35 pounds) and round as a butter ball perched on four stubby legs. For some reason I cannot fathom, my daughter is crazy about him. Bear, my grandson’s frisky Chihuahua, is about a foot high, weighs all of five pounds, and the farthest thing from a bear that you can imagine. Except Bear doesn’t know that, judging by the way he bullies Pudgy relentlessly. No one gets through the Peterson door without running the gauntlet of Pudgy and Bear’s excited barks, frantically waving tails, and slovering tongues. The two of them together serve as a highly effective early warning, door alarm system.
My 13-year old grandson Cole hears the commotion and comes up from his room in the basement. He has lingering signs of the flu, but even sleepy eyed and slightly sallow from spending the last two days in bed, he is still a strikingly handsome boy. He has his father’s fair complexion and physique and his mother’s fine features and black glossy hair. With his dark slanted eyes, trendy hair (bangs nearly covering his eyes) and cool teen attire (obviously not my lingo), I’d be surprised if he’s not already creating quite a stir among the giggling population in his middle school. We’re growing another heartbreaker here for sure.
And here comes Jason, my son-in-law. He gives me his usual enigmatic smile and leads me upstairs straight into the kitchen where Shasha is performing magical things with pots and pans. I have had the pleasure of calling this young man son for close to 14 years now, but I have yet to break through his reserve. If there is one thing I will change about Jason, it’s that he would talk more. He will do things for me: prune the shrubs and tree in my yard, pull up the weeds and gather up all the detritus in his wake without prompting; climb up the ladder to put new batteries in my smoke alarm; figure out the strange noise coming from my car; carry things for me; put up with me and my strange ways and laugh good naturedly at my stumbling Filipino tongue that still gets tripped up in his language -- but I have yet to spend five solid minutes of conversation with him. I tell him the strong silent type isn’t necessarily always a good thing but he just smiles.
We have called my daughter Sharon “Shasha” or Sha for short, since the day she was one and her two-year old brother Dexter called her by that name. She gives me a smile and a warm hug, dishes up bacon and omelet and warms a pot of nilaga. “What is this?” I ask. “Are we having breakfast or lunch”? “Breakfast,” she says, “but I want you to have some of my nilaga.” She is beautiful, this daughter of mine, as well as an excellent cook. I hardly ever go to Maresol anymore, one of the few Filipino places (you can’t really call them restaurants) I infrequently visit to appease my craving for the food that nurtured me through adulthood. Shasha whips up sinigang, nilaga, tinola and bibingka with as much ease and panache as pot roast, baked salmon, frittatas, quiche, and French toast casserole. This is one trait she definitely inherited from her father whose love for cooking has become both an avocation and a career.
I came to visit that day to get help with my blog. I wanted to make it more appealing and easier on the eye and I knew from past experience that what would take me days to figure out would be merely minutes of creative fiddling for Shasha. Cole is soon helping out, too, and Pudgy and Bear are right on his heels. Jason pokes his head in and hands me a beautiful bouquet of roses and hydrangea from his garden.
On my way out, mission accomplished and feeling well fed, I take time to appreciate the inviting way the large living room opens up into the dining area, so perfect for entertaining and family get togethers. It’s a very welcoming home, one that invites you to curl up in a couch awhile or to linger by the tall windows and gaze at the spectacular view of the Narrows Bridge and Puget Sound. But today, I am struck by an unassailable truth. The Peterson home conjures up warmth and food and family and love because its occupants, both human and animal, have made it so.
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