some things i remember

[from a letter to my cousin who lives an hour away in hostile territory]

about growing up in the 1970s and 80s... that was the kingdom of our childhood and so it will remain a sort of unreal/magical realm, no matter that we now know how much grief there actually was all around us. memory has a way of distorting and blurring events/perceptions that it is certainly impossible to capture all of that with any accuracy. though we can try, the result will of course be colored by who we are and who we have chosen to be today. there is the danger of nostalgia, even that perverted kind that makes the past to be worse than it may have actually been.

i tend to begin my nonfiction using fragments of memories. that is always the starting point. our respective childhoods had a lot of strange contradictions and i don't know if i should curse or thank the adults around us for shielding us and/or not telling us the whole story. somehow my writing, especially about papa's experiences, is my way of filling the huge gaps in those stories our titos and titas did tell us. still, no matter how much i invent, the blank spaces remain, stretch out even further, because there are still too many things they aren't willing to talk about.

it's impossible to think of my childhood in a detached manner. it will always have little hints or threads in it of my parent's separation, papa's disappearances, the many kinds and instances of abandonment, the political activities, and the many attempts (which i'll always be grateful for) of our family to fill in the holes left by my parents' absence. even when i consciously try to write generally about issues and events of that time (martial law, marcos, EDSA, my jasms years), the personal wounds and echoes of papa's politics always intrude, changing the picture just a little bit.

i assume your POV is quite different. but yes, even my citadel church memories are colored by how different my family situation was from everyone else's. do you remember for instance how we used to ride in the back of lolo's old station wagon, and how we always fought over who got to sit on those two bumps where the wheels are? i remember that you were the bossiest, and you always got one of them. there was a lot of yelling and pushing back there in those days. at least that's how i remember it. i could be making this all up.

anyway, my memory of that changed drastically when i found out that a few years before you and i were born, that same smallish space in the back of lolo's car had carried the broken bodies of three murdered boys who didn't live to be twenty. they were papa's aktibista/guerilla friends and because papa was in jail at the time, it was lolo and one of my titos (either your papa or tito R) who had to drive and pick up their bodies from the mountains of isabela.

today, those boys share a grave in the same cemetery where we buried lola (here i have a flash of R playing brahms' lullaby on his violin as she was lowered into the ground; you have no memory of that because you were in singapore that day). their tombstone was cracked and dirty and their names almost faded the first and last time i saw it. papa brought me there some years ago. i have a feeling those three never have any visitors because that day we visited, it took even papa a long time to remember where they were. they were children of peasants, he said. their parents are probably dead too. i have a feeling only three people today know they are there: papa, your papa/tito R, and me. i would like to think i am wrong in thinking this.

lolo probably doesn't remember those three boys because he doesn't really remember much anymore. he actually thought he turned 73 today instead of 83 (he did his math calculations wrong). we all had dinner at superbowl gateway this evening and i asked papa what gift we could give lolo. he said: lolo needs a memory stick, a flash drive. i asked: pwede na ba yung 512 kb? papa said: kulang yun, kelangan niya 4 gig at least! haaay... if only it were that easy.

so there, basically that's how i write my stuff. one memory leading to so many ideas. we're actually telling the same story but from different angles. but i think your message will be heard more clearly if rendered through a more specific and personal voice, kind of like how you sound in your prayer letters, whose quietness make them all the more compelling to read.

so you ask: what was it like for me to live in the 70s and 80s? again, my simplified answers are very particular: the world was getting ugly and those who loved us tried to keep the ugliness at bay as best they could. this is what i remember:

we mostly stayed in the house instead of playing in the streets (too dangerous), we spoke in English, were taught to love books and music (we could and *did* have piano lessons during those hard times!) and learning (as a way to light up those dark days). we were taught to pray and to trust in a God who will make things right, were also made to give macopa and coins to children from the nearby squatter's areas whenever they tried (and often failed) to sing christmas carols come december. i remember they always had colds during those chilly nights and had crusts of dried snot between their mouths and noses. many of them ran around barefoot and because they were still very young, they actually looked happy doing so.

one of my first memories of marcos: he looked like a weak wizened little monkey on TV, all wrinkles and gravity pulling the rest of his face down. his high voice quivering with effort, like a yelp in some parts of his speech, like someone was poking him. he was always seated on what looked like a wooden throne (or maybe it was a wheelchair) and i remember wondering how he was able to make every man woman and child in all the 7,000+ islands in this country under his control. we were told to eat up and think of the children in africa and biafra and negros and chernobyl, even if we were too full sometimes. we or at least i liked to listen to the grownups' conversations and they would always talk in ilocano when they knew we were listening.

i remember a lot of things but i'm not at all sure what they mean. maybe we can put our stories together, make a clearer picture. our version of what happened back then and what it could mean now that we're all a little bit older.

it's my party and i'll fry if i want to

the sandra update: don't worry, this'll be quick.

1) turned 29 last saturday. slept all afternoon waiting for my dad who said sorry by giving me flowers (now in a vase on my dining table). gorged on strawberry ice cream the next day. had a party at my house wednesday evening. served loads of carbs (lemony creamy pasta, muffins+scones, cheese+baguettes, tuna parsley sauce, potato salad, pita+hummus, chocnut fudge pie) to unsuspecting guests. said guests went home reeling from cholesterol overload. thursday the 24th, around noon, 2 colleagues stopped me in the corridors of FC to say i was getting fat. am i missing something?

2) finally got a phone! my tita ninang got sick of my pathetic phoneless state and gave/lent me her old nokia clunker, which despite my disparaging horrible ungrateful tone here i really actually do appreciate. really, i do.

3) realized my spiritual birthday was sometime in october last year. me trusty little tungsten e2 has the exact date but am too lazy to fetch it und czech. if only i can train my pda to come running when i need it. alas, it has no legs. conclusion: my dog is waaaay smarter than any old handheld computer.

4) bought a toilet. yep, you read it right. it's a set: water closet (yknow, ze thingy you sit on), tank (more efficient, uses less water), lavatory (the sink thing), stand for lavatory, toilet paper dispenser (you hack a big enough hole in your bathroom wall and stuff this into the aperture), soap dish (ditto). ceramic parts all in what manufacturers like to call "Soft Ivory". got it all cheap at trusty sm north hardware annex for less than eight grand. yep, you read it right. cheaper than a phone! that includes all the metal things they call "fittings". everything's under my bed for now. gotta raise clams to buy nice tiles and a snazzy hot shower contraption that won't KAZZAP-kill me in the end.

5) got myself into what looks like a really challenging (read: difficult as heck) american lit class where we write short papers on a regular basis. must point out that the inability to write such got me into this mess in the first place. but know that i'm not that big an idiot, i'd like to think i'll do okay.

6) had to go have 3 of my skirts altered. they were so tight around the waist i was afraid of getting gangrene from lack of circulation. so yes, it's official: i'm a 29-year-old fatty. ack.

an hour (?) with the goddess

it's official: i can die now.

spent what felt like an hour ahem mucking around with cynthia alexander (!!!) and her musician friends last monday evening preparing for tomorrow night's event with brit peformance poet francesca beard. my good friend and guru V invited me to this british council-sponsored workshop. the point of the whole exercise was to prepare a set of performance poetry with music by cynthia and her band. francesca liked my poem so she asked cynthia to help me create atmosphere. there was a mention of noseflutes and a gong somewhere. all a could do was stand there and goggle at her and read my poem over and over again so they could figure out how best to build on the existing tension of the piece. or something like that.

towards the end, malu, the chick who does the percs and bells, suddenly comments on the whole sad mood of my poem & kinda relates it to cynthia's recent album. and of course, idiot me had to butt in and say that i did like rippingyarns better. more listener friendly, blah blah blah. and the whole time i was mentally kicking myself because *of course* she knows what her album sounds like because she *wrote* the darned thing. but i just couldn't shut up.

thankfully, cynthia very kindly said that she did mean the third album to sound that way because her *life* during the writing of the album felt that way. the sad stories in rippingyarns were *nothing* daw compared to what she had to go through in recent years. and she said that it's my choice what i like best. and of course i know that but i'm still glad she said it. because by this time i had my foot in my mouth, bakya and all, and it's best to forget just how stupid i was.

we perform tomorrow night at conspiracy cafe, visayas ave., 7pm.

i'm terrified as it is but i expect the panic to set in around noon tomorrow. i pity the students who get in my way tomorrow morning.

downtime for my brain

am doing undergrad CW advising in my office right now. or at least i should be. students drift in and out my room sporadically so i get to do other things like update my syllabi and reading lists (which involves reading byatt and dalisay and calvino), check my mail and (haha) fill out stupid memes (as geek friend #1 calls 'em).


Ano'ng student number mo?
93-14724

Nakapasa ka ba o waitlisted?
duh.

Paano mo nalaman ang entrance-exam result?
my tita who's a prof in CHE called me one evening when my high school classmates happened to be at my house. i think i was hysterical for a full 5 minutes.

First choice mo ba ang U.P.?
yeh. my dad told me it was UP or nothing. di daw ako mag-aaral kung di ako pumasa.

Alam mo ba ang UPG score mo?
wha dat?

Ano ang first choice mo na course?
creative writing

Second choice?
journalism

Ano naging course mo?
creative writhing

Nagplano ka bang mag-shift?
yeh. to european languages, french. but i gave up when i discovered i can't conjugate to save my life.

Nakapag-dorm ka ba?
i live behind sm north. it woulda been dumb to do that.

Naka-uno ka ba?
ja.

Nagka-3?
nein.

Highest grade?
uno, too many to mention. nyahaha!

Lowest?
5, PE 2 skindiving. can't swim kasi. heh.

Worst experience sa U.P.?
most bad experiences were work-related. napag-initan ng snitty colleague who was having a bad day. she pretty much threw a hissyfit while observing my class.

Lagi ka bang pumapasok sa klase?
yeh. but generally late, to my everlasting shame.

Ano'ng org mo?
shet, AI. lots of bad memories there. a few good ones.

May scholarship ka ba?
ngayon meron, as faculty.

Pinangarap mo bang mag-cum laude?
gawd, yes. i'm such a loser.

Kelan ka nagtapos?
October 1997. was at the april 1998 graduation.

Fave profs?
franz arcellana (dead poet-fictionist whose dentures flew out of his mouth in class), jing hidalgo (spiffy dresser, brilliant teacher, still scares the hell out of me), jimmy abad (who i once compared very favorably to kermit the frog)

Worst teachers?
some lecher named tapales for soc sci 2. oh and the bastard from filipino who gave me a 2.75. wrecked my average.

Fave subjects?
a lot of my writing and lit classes were really brilliant. any nonfiction class under hidalgo, whatever level. i'm such a brown noser, i try to enjoy any class i'm in.

Worst subjects?
soc sci 2 and that really boring filipino class. oh and PE in general was hell for me. haha, lampa.

Fave landmarks?
that bench near the AI tambayan where people went for "privacy" and "serious talks". on top of that pozo negro overlooking the sunken garden where as idiot freshmen we used to have CASAA takeout picnics.

Fave building?
i misspent many many hours at the main library, because the AI tambayan was there. perfect place for ogling the hotties from UPMountaineers. i especially loved it when they held triathlons because the sinewy sweaty guys would go running by in their wet swimwear.

Paboritong kainan?
beach house, casaa. but when i had food issues, no more favorites.

Noong estudyante ka pa magkano ba ang binabayad mo sa jeep?
1.25 for ikot, 2.50 going to SM. am still a student but now the damage is 10 bucks for sm and ikot is 6.50

Lagi ka ba sa lib?
yeh. see above.

Nagpunta ka ba sa clinic nung minsang nagkasakit ka?
nope.

May crush ka ba sa campus?
yeah... peds, that jopson guy, and eng.

BF/GF:
i started iniquity rather late. days after graduation, actually.

May balak ka bang mag-Master's o mag-Ph.D.?
am doing it now. watch me..

Anu-ano ang mga naging P.E. mo?
swimming, skindiving, fencing, weight training, hydrobics. i spent too much time in that swimming hole of death (so murky-filthy, they couldn't find the body of a varsity swimmer who drowned. they had to drain the damn thing). all really horrible, best forgotten.

Kamusta naman ang block ninyo?
there was one really creepy musclebound martial arts guy who thought he was bruce lee; brought various killing implements to class. he's a lawyer now at the country's top firm. i'm still good friends with two of em: one is my semi-roomate at the faculty center, the other edits summit media's gaming zine.

Nakapanood ka na ba ng graduation sa U.P.?
too many. i've even helped put one together.

Memorized mo ba ang alma mater song?
uhm. snatches of it. it just kills me when i see kids sing it at graduation with raised left fists. sooooo cute. i'm sure they flock to call centers the day after to mimic rednecks.

Member ka ba ng varsity team?
nyahaha.

Naka-perfect ka na ba ng exam?
a few times. the first one was difficult: we pulled an all-nighter at my house and kept ourselves awake with the most vile coffee-cream-and-strawberry wine concoctions. my hands shook so hard during the exam, i could barely write.

Anong ayaw mo sa finals week?
checking. back then, it was the lack of sleep. i'm a hideous procrastinator.

Dito ka ba natutong uminom ng beer?
technically, no. our drinking places were always off-campus (malate circa blue cafe/third world/penguin, tumbang preso, 70s bistro, sagada, baguio, el amigo in dumaguete)

Ano'ng gusto mo sa UP?
where to start? the trees, the size of the place. the red things that fall from the fire trees in the summer. many of the good things that have happened to me can be more or less connected to this university. heh, feel-good moment yata.

Ano'ng ayaw mo?
bobong classmates, bobong estudyante. oh and walang gwapo. lalo na sa MA & PhD level.

Maganda/Guwapo ba ang ID pic mo?
my faculty ID scares the hell out of most people. i lost my undergrad ID walking from STS class in october 1997. someone found it and it's been creepily on display at the CS atrium ever since. check it out.

May ginawa ka bang illegal sa loob ng campus?
yes. many times. never mind what that was.