Livin high and takin it easy

Sometimes I go to to a play, know almost half of the people there, and still feel like an outsider. Sometimes I go to the U.P. theatre department and feel like an outsider. This was not one of those times.

I remember going to see Labfest 4 Revisited in CCP a few months ago. It was my first time to step foot once again in CCP for more than a year. More than a year is a long time. I completely missed Labfest 3 even if I was supposed to at first direct one of the plays to which I deferred, then was supposed to participate in one of the staged readings to which after one rehearsal deferred, then finally to totally not participating at all – not even to watch any of the plays. I remember going to see Labfest 4, watching actors on stage who were people I knew, sitting in the audience next to people I knew, hanging outside during the ten-minute breaks with people I knew, and chatting in the lobby with people I knew – and thinking, I have been gone a long time and nothing has changed. Nothing at all has changed.

A year or so is a long time. I went back to therapy and lived in my Prozac world. I dropped all my theater classes. I went to live with my parents three times and while I was there, secretly went to another university to study digital illustration and animation, took a very interesting Political Science class, impressed my undergraduate classmates with my professor-level knowledge in the corniest computer class known to man and managed to last three weeks before I went half-crazy because I thought we were going to move to land-locked city in Texas where there was no beach in sight for miles and miles. I have been to Coron, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Albay, Catanduanes, Siquijor, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Misamis Oriental, Camiguin, Iloilo, Guimaras, Pangasinan and even almost made it to Batanes if not for the cancelled Asian Spirit flight, all the while I was with child. We eventually moved out of the cramped and noisy condo in Taguig, stopped hanging out at Bonifacio High Street and moved into a two-storey two-bedroom apartment in a quiet neighborhood and started hanging out at quaint little places within a two-mile radius. Most of all, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. A lot has happened in the past year and a lot has changed. I have changed.

**
I remember watching Dead Stars 1925/Sepang Loca feeling bored, wanting to get out and not finish watching the play, thinking that if I were to spend time away from my baby, it better be worth it. Although I stayed to finish the play because I was not there for only myself, but for the friends for whom my presence mattered, it was then that I began to slowly realize that from here on, any time I spend outside the house is time away from my child and because of that, it should be spent on something worth my while. Gone are the days of just going with the flow, of waiting for people to decide what to do and going where everybody else goes. I thought that it just was not right for people to waste my time. Since then, I only went out to see my friends when I thought it was really important. When I had not gone out for a week or more. When I missed my friends. When I longed for intellectual stimulation and a chance to practice my rapidly deteriorating social skills. I began to identify and allot time for people and things that really, truly mattered to me. I thought it was just right not to waste any time or effort on people that were not really my friends or to senseless pursuits. Gone are the days of senseless pursuits of things and people that did not really matter or perhaps in other cases, for whom I did not matter at all.

**
Waiting for the play to begin, I went around to catch up with friends. Someone asked me if and when I was coming back and it took me more than a moment to come up with an answer. A lot of times I have asked myself that, when am I coming back if at all?

Hanging out in the lobby during the ten-minute intermission, I looked around at the various faces doing the same thing as I was, hanging out in the lobby and looking at the various faces around. These are all familiar faces. We know each other if not by name, by face. We have seen each other in other places other than the A.S. Lobby of Palma Hall, in countless other times before. When am I coming back, if at all?

It being a gala, we stayed after the play was over to chat with friends, actors, the staff, the director and other audience members. And someone asked me from the office, when am I coming back? By that time, I finally had an answer, “I am waiting for inspiration.” My friend laughed and said to me, “Go eat pancit. Maybe the inspiration can be found there.” Maybe indeed.

**

I am waiting for inspiration.

Coming back from the play, done with dinner but not quite eager to come home, we stop by our usual place for a bottle of beer and a cup of coffee and a lot of conversation. We talked about the play like we always do. In the middle of the conversation, a memory came back to me. It was that of what of Glecy Atienza said in a class while we were talking about the Virgin Labfest back in 2007. She said that if people in the industry only wrote whatever it is they talk about every time they watch a play, we would all be better off. Everybody talks, but nobody bothers enough to write what we talk about. Some people tell me I should write about what I see or write an opinion when I post my events. I tell them I am afraid. Not because I do not have anything to write about or that I do not have an opinion but simply because my opinion might count more than it should. The last thing I want is to be another Joey Ting, no matter if his intentions might be good or even that I completely understand what he does even if not what he says.

Soon, I will write down what I think. Not because I want to let people know about them but because I want to remember. People forget. I know whatever I think will pass me by and will be forgotten, unless I keep a record for myself. I will not try to pretend I know what I am talking about or that I am educated in the matter even if I may be. I will write what I know limited as it may be to my failing brains. I will write what I feel and what I think because I felt. I will write for nobody but myself.

I am waiting for inspiration still. But it might be round the corner. And it might be coming sooner than I expect. But if it does not, I guess I will continue waiting. And hoping it eventually will.

Contrary to what some people might think, I did not have the baby by accident. I had wanted the baby. It was not even as easy a “task” as I thought it was. There came a point when I even thought that I, unlike other women whose fecundity can only be admired, did not have the ability to.

Still, when the lines turned violet, I was not prepared for the barrage of emotions that washed over me. I remember feeling so excited, so happy, so scared.. and so lost all at the same time and one after the other in quick succession that I could not help but feel confused. The first of a wave of totally new emotions that would overwhelm me in the succeeding months.

Before I had the baby, I was getting good grades in graduate school. I even made it as a University Scholar with a general weighted average of higher than 1.25 – a thing I could only dream about and could never have done during my undergraduate as a Biology major. I dreamed about getting a doctorate in Media, Technology and Society at the Northwestern University in Illinois.

Before I had the baby, my marriage was rocky. It had been a very difficult journey from day one. Many a day and night were spent contemplating and even talking about how best to go about the marriage. Many a cup of coffee or even bottles of beers or even glasses of cocktails were downed talking about what went and is wrong and what to do.

Before I had the baby, all I ever wanted was to get away. I thought about coming back to live in the province, anywhere but the city where life the hustle and bustle of the city and the many people living in it seemed to confuse me, if not totally tear me up at the seams. I gave up commuting all together. I frequently went on out-of-city trips by myself, in search of myself, an inspiration, a thought, an experience that would help me make some sense of what is missing. I was adamant about finishing my masters in the shortest time possible so I could pursue a doctorate some place else, best if abroad. The motto was anywhere but here.

I went on therapy on and off for months at a time. Looking back, I am not ashamed to admit that I went on therapy and I do not regret a single bit of it. Yes, not even the taking of five different kinds of meds everyday and yes, not even the thousands spent. Those were not the best of times in my life. I moved from El Nido, away from a place whose beauty and rusticity and whose people I have grown to love, away from a job of teaching science to kids ages seven to ten that I thoroughly enjoyed, to move back to the city; to living alone in the condo, to teaching high school science and chemistry at an exclusive school for girls, to pursuing a masters in theatre arts – a field that has totally captured me and the most life-changing of it all (or so I thought at that time) to getting married. I was totally blown away in the whirlwind of change because my life was too much all too soon. A year later, I was still faltering and stumbling along. I taught theatre for a change, in the hopes of putting an end to my forever being torn between science and the arts. I had the misfortune of having a very disobliging boss who was biased in many ways and seemed to always set me up for failure. I failed my students; but most of all, I believed I failed myself. Failure never did become me. I got very lost and confused. Looking back, my husband says he never really believed there was something seriously wrong with me although he admits it was a very good experience to learn about ourselves. We learned a lot and in the end, I found an unlikely best friend in the doctor I started out hating and ended up loving.

The doctor who made sure I was making a good decision when I first announced I wanted a baby. The doctor who made sure I knew what I was doing and prepared me as much as he could for what I planned to do.

I had wanted the baby because I believed I was getting old. The best age for childbearing is still below thirty five years and I realized that if I took the doctorate, I would have to wait at least four years before I could have a child. I was not getting any younger and my husband was actually getting sadder. He said, “Yes it’s good to have a career. It’s good to have dreams and chase after them. It’s good to be successful but what about a family? What about your family?” and then on to, “Buti pa ang bakla may anak, ako wala,” and then finally to, “Ph.D. or me?”

I had wanted the baby because I did not know where my life was headed and I honestly did not know where to take it. I thought that if I had a child, I would at least know how the next nine months would be – and I thought that was good enough for me.

Still, no one can really be prepared for having a child. I read a lot of books and talked to as many people as I could about it but when I got there, it was still just me and no one else but me.

Some days I cannot help but hate my baby. On the average, I probably hate my baby once a week, four times a month, because even if I am a mother, I am just human too. Some days I do not want to go home. Some days I want to drink and get drunk too and forget things that are painful, feel the way I used to, before I had the baby, before I got married, when I was still younger and cared not about what I did.

I am not perfect. The last thing I want to come off to others is that I am someone living an easy, rosy, perfect life. What I want and have been doing is to live this life as humanly as possible, flawed and imperfect but whole… and beautiful, even if only in hindsight.

I have been everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I have had my shares of joys and pains. I always tend to chase after dreams, after experiences, in my endless quest for that one thing that will make this life worth living. Even if that means going out of my comfort zone, even if that means hurting and being hurt, if it means learning, growing and making the most out of this life then it’s worth it. After all, who in this life comes out unscathed?

When people see me these days, they tend to say, I have not changed. When I go out, to a play, to a mall, to the university, to see my friends, I sometimes cannot help but say the same thing – nothing has changed… oh, but I have.

Maybe I look the same but I do not think nor feel the same.

No more aimless wanderings. No more just hanging out, or hanging out with so-called friends. I make sure that every time I am out with other people or spending time on things, those are the people and things that are important, that truly matter and that are worth the every minute I spend away from baby for. When I had the baby, never has it been as clear to me what the important things in life or who the important people in my life are.

I had wanted the baby because I wanted to change. I wanted my life, me, something… to change. I still do not know where my life is headed but really, who among us can say he knows? I have changed and that in itself has been worth it.

Ferry sinks off Philippine coast 9 confirmed dead

It was a nice quiet Monday morning when I was told of the news. We read it online here. No, I did not know any of the passengers. My interest was only due to the fact that I had thought and wished it was not the one that went to Palawan.

I have taken the SuperFerry thrice. The first time was October 2007 and I was alone. In October 2007 I had a round trip ticket to Butuan. I had wanted to explore Camiguin and Siargao on my own. What was most unfortunate was that a Philippine Airlines plane crashed on the Butuan airstrip that morning and all succeeding flights were thus canceled until the mess had been cleared. The thing I hate most about traveling is unpacking. I did not want to go home, unpack my bags and pack them again for the next day for when my flight was rescheduled. Actually, I just wanted to go away, anywhere. It did not matter. I spent most of the day trying to get into other Cebu Pacific flights to other destinations to no avail.

And then I remembered it was a Friday. A SuperFerry departs for Palawan on a Friday afternoon. I thought that was a good time to go to Coron and I had always wanted to go to see what the fuss was all about. I took a cab from the airport to the port and made it. I made a friend whose name was Jeff and who was a local while waiting at the booking office and ended up spending a week in Coron hanging out with his friends. I booked myself in the cheapest accommodation available. I paid less than P900.

Though it was my first time to take the SuperFerry, it was not my first time to travel on a boat – a big boat. When I was still attending YFC leadership conferences, we took the Negros Navigation to Iloilo as well as to Bacolod. And I loved being in the top deck the most. In my experience, it was where the wind blew all day and all night long and where there was an almost 180-degree view.

I went back to Coron in April 2008 simply because the first time I was there, I did not get to see the beaches, the lakes or the islands. It rained most of the time the last time I was there and I spent my days just lounging around in my quaint little room in the main house of Darayonan Lodge reading magazines and having massages and manicures and pedicures. I took the SuperFerry again. Again, I was on the wait list at the booking office. Again, I took the top deck. Again I made a friend at the office while waiting and his name was Owen. He had a group of people and I wanted to come along with them so I could go see the islands, the lakes, the beaches and all that. This time though I paid more than P2,000. They told us the boat was full, that I was even lucky to get onboard. Didn’t matter whether I paid almost thrice for the same accommodation and that I along with the others on the wait list had to wait for almost three hours in the lobby for the receptionist to give us a bunk.

I went back to Coron in June 2008. I took the Super Ferry again. I was traveling with my husband and a lot of friends this time.  More than half of them took bunks in the tourist section because it was air-conditioned, it was cleaner and actually, so much nicer. I still took the top deck – the red deck.

Passengers at the Superferry railing

On my first trip to Coron, I flew back to Manila via Asian Spirit. On the second trip, I took a boat called the Asian Fairy to El Nido and then from El Nido took the I.T.I. plane back to Manila. On my third trip, I took the Super Ferry back. I still took the red deck.

The red deck.

The red deck has metal bunks painted in red. It is open-air. It can get either really windy or really hot and stuffy. It is easy to get sea-sick as you can feel the movement of the ship the most in the top deck. It is also where animals like roosters, chickens and birds can be kept. Smoking is allowed in the red deck. That being said, it can get noisy and stinky in the red deck. But I always have and will always take the red deck no matter what anyone says.

Because…

In the red deck, you have a 180-degree view, it is easier to see what is going on. It is also easy open and wider.

Every time I took the boat I always thought about what I would do and what would happen if ever we had to abandon ship. I always checked out where the life vests and rafts were. I always checked out where the emergency exits where. I always thought the top deck was the safest. No cramped hallways. No stifling walls. It provided the easiest way of getting out.

“As dawn broke in waters off the Zamboanga peninsula on a clear day, the SuperFerry 9 had capsized, according to officials, leaving at least twelve people dead in the panic and scramble for the exits.”

Panic. In times like this, panic is everybody’s worst enemy. The ship took hours to sink. There was no need for panic. It was a clear day with calm seas, a generally good weather. There weren’t big waves or rain to make evacuation or rescue worse. I hate panic.

And the most appalling of all…

“Survivor Raffy Borro said it was his first time to see babies and children thrown out to the water as their mothers cried.”

I was, WTF?!

I spent the rest of the day thinking, trying to understand why these mothers thought it was best to throw their babies and children out to the waters. Did they think they were gonna float on their own? Did they think other people were gonna take pity on them and save them first? I was so angry.

If I were on a boat with my child and we were told to abandon the vessel, the last thing I would do is throw my child into the sea and spend the next hours wondering how or where she is. In fact, I would not let my child out of my sight or out of my reach. I will keep her safe and she is safest with me. A human’s natural tendency is to put himself or herself first and so in a time of such panic, one is not to depend on anybody else but himself. A human mother’s natural tendency is to put her child first – unless she is so freakin stupid. Yes I am still angry. In fact, I don’t think I will get over it.

I hate panic but I hate stupid selfish parents more.

I climbed higher up the hill, pausing each time to look back and take in the sight of the sea from way up. The sky was overcast but the zephyr kept my heart light. I spotted a hammock tied between two thin tall trees, swaying gently with the wind. I was delighted, but shortly disappointed to see that it was wet after I came running towards it. I then walked slowly towards the narra bench, dry and gleaming. I sat on it, untied my hair and let the wind blew it across my face. My hand in my hair, my elbow on the bench, one foot tucked underneath me and one dangling loosely to the ground, I stared at the boats dotting the sea in the distance. The sun was trying to peek through the thick gray clouds. I stretched my full length on the bench and stared at the rays of sunlight coming through the leaves overhead. It was a bit too bright. I flipped onto my stomach, rested my chin on my arm, and looked through the strands of hair over my eyes towards the trees, hoping to see wild monkeys playing somewhere in the woods. I saw none. I heard a bird shrilly call out but it was cleverly hidden in the trees. I flipped onto my back again. I was rolling on the smooth bench over and over again, I have no doubt I must have swept it clean.

I am lonely.

Just then, as I was looking through my splayed fingers, into the bright rays coming in through the leaves, the wind gently blowing my hair falling to almost touch the ground, my neck cool against the shiny, smooth narra wood, it suddenly came to me. That gnawing realization, the thought that suddenly comes into your mind from out of nowhere, like sudden inspiration, coming to you as if it is some important clue to a very essential puzzle that has been haunting you for life.

It is easier to find men to love you than to find a man to love.

Written September 11, 2005

I woke up this morning with this thought, I am giving you up. Not for any reason but that. I woke up this morning feeling and thinking I am giving you up. Not because last night you said you do not want me anymore not once, but three times with complete conviction. Not because you said you have always wanted to break up with me, that you had wanted to for an entire year, that you wanted to let me leave on that airplane knowing full well that there isn’t any you I am coming back to and it hurt like hell, but because this morning I woke up thinking and feeling I am giving you up. Not I should give you up, but I am.

Tonight I looked in my small round mirror and saw that I couldn’t see the ends of my hair anymore, remembered I was growing it because you love long hair, and thought that now that it’s as long as I have wanted it to be, you are not here to see it. You will not be there to see it when I walk down the plane, you will not be able to run your fingers through it, you will not see me style it in all the ways imaginable, you will not see my face look the many ways it can with the various hair styles I can whip up with this mane and you will not be able to see it splayed on the pillow when you lay me down.

This afternoon right about one in the afternoon, the wind picked up, and blew and howled. I stood firmly on the ground as the wind whipped stray fine hairs into my eyes and I watched gray heavy clouds drift swiftly past above the densely green hills. A thousand tiny knives borne out of the loneliness of my heart, surged  and pricked me in a thousand sundry ways as deliberate diffident tears escaped from the pools I collected from the corners of my eyes. The leaves rustled, twigs flew, branches were broken and torn, tumbled down the bleakness of the grass bowed low. The wind commiserating with the turbulence in the depths of my heart roared silently. I know this sadness. I have felt it over and over again countless times. It is as familiar as my smile, the smell of my skin, and the feel of my hand against my cheek. In the grayness of early afternoon, something was sticking out tenaciously against the willful wind, vivid still – one lone crape myrtle flower, that gave me hope, gave me joy.. Just as in the past, there was you, now there is only this purple flower, now there is only me. No one else but me. Steadfast. Resolute. And as I always have been, will always be, stubborn though weak.

The rain fell in torrents tonight, unfalteringly wicked. It fell on the tin roof, spit-spattering like Morse code, and made me wonder if somehow it was trying to send a message across that I because of ignorance just couldn’t get. Somehow I will know, sometime. I am slowly, painfully learning, though crawling through bit by bit.

So this is how coming home really means, my coming home to me. There is no one to come home to anymore but me. In this island far from home, far from the people I loved most, cherished the most, treasured the most and the things I deemed most important, I found me. Beautiful and ugly in more ways than two or three or even ten, but decidedly real.

Written August 9, 2005

Sitting with myself, a glass of coke on the balcony ledge, a cigarette in one hand, sprays of rainwater with the occasional gust of wind on my face, I look at the gray pouring sky and think, this feels familiar.

Four years ago, there was also this. Days of this in fact. Sitting with myself, a glass of coke sitting next to me, a cigarette in one hand, sprays of rainwater with the occasional gust of wind on my arms and legs as the roof of the small unused little hut standing in front of the house that was my home for the past three months was not enough shelter for the little me that found myself in a little town, deemed somewhat inaccessible, right by the beach with the looming Cadlao island right in front of it.

Four years ago, I was not married. I did not have a baby. There was just me. Venturing out into the unknown world of other people and other places. Places that my feet have trodden on for the first time. People whose faces I was just getting to know and getting used to. It was a big world and I made it little. Little enough so I could find myself. And I did.

Four years ago, I lived in a small house with four other people. I had a wonderful roommate who was vivacious in so many ways. When we were down, when we were lonely, she would cry out at the top of her voice, “Endorphins! Endorphins! Let’s make some endorphins!” and we’d dance on our living floor that five days a week was the classroom for the little boys and girls that we called pre-school. We’d get our badminton rackets and play right outside our house, in the middle of the street. We’d run to the beach, tie our shirts on the outriggers of docked boats and swim. We’d walk briskly to the Art Cafe and borrow mountain bikes.

On rainy days like this, we’d make hot cocoa drinks, sit around on our little dining table and talk about our past lives and the wonderful kids that made us laugh, that put meaning into our otherwise dreary, boring lives.

I miss those days.

It’s been four years. Two of us have gotten married. Someone is in Slovenia. Someone is in Singapore. No one is still in El Nido, that place that have adopted us and in so many ways, have made us into who we are now. I still live with three other people: my husband, the baby and the maid. I still have a dog, though now it’s smaller and officially mine. Not anymore the neighbor’s dog that I made into my own.

I wish I could cry out at the top of my lungs, “Endorphins! Endorphins!” right now but I can’t. I wish I could make hot cocoa drinks and laugh about the kids. There is no cocoa drink to make. There are no kids to laugh about. And most importantly, there is no one to laugh with.

Tomorrow morning, I know it’s going to rain. I will get drenched. My cheeks, my face, my shirt will all get drenched. Just as it did on my twenty-seventh birthday.

I always leave when Ryan leaves. Just because I cannot stay home by myself. The house just feels empty with just me in it.

Now I can’t leave. Because my plane to El Nido does not take babies. Because my parents can’t meet me in Catanduanes. Because I can’t drive me and the baby by myself to La Union. Because the weather is bad.

I know a week does not seem too long, but for me it does. It is. A week is a long time to be talking to no one but myself. A week is too long to be taking care of the baby on my own. A week is just simply too long.

I miss those days from four years ago. When you’d crawl under the covers and read a good book for an hour or two for your quiet time, knowing that when you need someone to talk to, someone to laugh with, there is someone in the bedroom next door, doing just what you are doing, feeling just the way you do.

Sitting on my twisted-abaca chair, bought from the flea market that is Dapitan, at eleven in the quiet evening of this village in the heart of the metropolis where everything becomes deathly still except for the sounds of the motor of the occasional tricycle passing by, the engine hum of a car on its final way home ,at least for the day, and the barking of a dog disturbed in the middle of its deep sleep, I think of my friends.

Travel friends

Artist friends

Graduate school friends

Teacher friends

Doctor friends

Biology but non-doctor friends

High school friends

El Nido and Coron friends

The past days have not been so good on me. Sitting in the middle of the night with no one but myself and my thoughts, back aching, head throbbing and arms sore, I thought about things I can be happy about. It helped to think about all my friends.