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IV. At eight years old, my task was to read to my Lola, then blinded by cataract and cancer. Articles from the two newspapers and the monthly Newsweek Magazine that Lolo subscribed to were already chosen early in the morning, long before I was due back from school at noon. Lolo, having read some of these articles by the time I arrive for my task, would doze off as I read to Lola. Meanwhile, Lola would be attentive to my… Continue reading »
Making Lemonade There is a romance that we like to imagine about writing, and especially the writing of a book. And while my rebellious self would like to tell you that this was not the case for Of Love and Other Lemons, that would be a lie. Certainly it came from a personal history of love and loss and sadness, complete with the high – if not OA – drama of buckets of tears. But the writing of this book… Continue reading »
As it turns out, nowhere. On an otherwise regular Friday night this single girl would find herself in a non-descript bar on the Fort Strip – the most recent incarnation of which has less of the sosy clubbing crowd, thank goodness. The years might have taught me of the need to dress appropriately for certain spaces, but adulthood has made me more stubborn about being myself too, especially for a night when all I need is a round or two… Continue reading »
it must have a lot to do with the conversations. on the last 24 hours we didn’t have yet, before a flight was cancelled and rebooked, before you try and fit in seven months of self into bags, i watched not with wonder but distance: your back was turned to me as you washed the dishes, 10 beers between us, you tell me to stay put. your word upon word upon word become a slow reveal, weighing heavier and heavier… Continue reading »
it must have a lot to do with the conversations. over those introductory cups of coffee it was a lesson in first meetings: (1) choose a quiet(er) place, (2) remember to pee before it begins, the better to (3) prepare for a four-hour conversation. measure the time spent sitting across each other, compare it to the time spent in each others arms. get a ruler: how far is the distance between us as we walk the streets? how many minutes to… Continue reading »
it must have a lot to do with the conversations. there’s the limits of a text message, like a finish line i refuse to cross, so i stop right before it, and begin again. you call it eloquence. i edit myself. you call out to me through the tiny box that you complain is too small a space, appearing just above your right hand as we chat. the tiny box ain’t so bad i argue, and isn’t it above your… Continue reading »
it must have a lot to do with the conversations. when it can be had about the billboards that riddle the streets, where capital and colonialism, consumption and crises, become par for the course, of that long stretch of EDSA that cradles the car from one city to the next two, as it shifts from quiet residential to sprawling Manila, the dip in the tone, the way that it sounds, onomatopoeic i say, a conversation you’ve been having with your… Continue reading »
it must have a lot to do with the conversations. but also the fact that as the evening ends with a quick goodbye, that split second that it takes you to unbuckle the seatbelt and give me a peck on the cheek, the swiftness of that moment is in slow motion: the wall of the squatters area further down sounds brighter, the lights of the korean plaza feel like an intrusion, the darkness of your building a foreboding. of this… Continue reading »
i grew up not really knowing what being an inaanak means, where i never had to call anyone ninang, where that didn’t mean any different from a standard aunt. but the three kids all the way in Holland began calling me such, and i realize it means something, especially when it comes with Lucien instinctively leaping onto the bed to hug me, or Francisco giving me a shy knowing smile like we’re the same age (coz we probably are you know),… Continue reading »
By circumstance, and with a lot of luck, I grew up in homes where grandfathers were fixtures. Today Lolo Ding turns 100. He died in 1989. I was 13. I used to tell my writing students, I tell the ones who have become my friends: talk to your elders, ask them about their stories, talk to them about their lives. Know that they all lived — parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles — long before we did, separate from who we… Continue reading »
Provincial hustle and bustle are redefined in a space that takes pride in its religiosity. In the province of Cebu, on an otherwise regular weekend, there was nothing special to celebrate. Other than stillness, the kind that’s about being anchored in faith that you might not practice a whole lot of, but which in this space is a ride you’re in by default. After all, where religion is part of history and hysteria, rhyme and reason, the irrational and rational, it… Continue reading »
here, for good measure, is mine. when I speak of the RH Bill, these are some of the more consistent memories that I battle with, that I live: (1) an act of infidelity brings me to a room in the middle of nowhere, as the other woman needed a friend while she got herself an abortion: i was her only friend. (2) I skip a pill, and think nothing of it; let me overdose and do the-day-after-thing I’ve read about online.… Continue reading »
is victory avenue, quezon city. where a big house still is, owned by family but barely, a space i haven’t seen in years, a street i haven’t even gone into in as long. but on that street where i grew up, my notion(s) of the world began to be formed. between the padlocked gate, and the poverty beyond it; the old beetle that we played around and not within, and the huge garden that Lola loved; between the death of a… Continue reading »
or meeting my middle class self at the Muji Manila opening There was much talk about a Muji Store opening in the Philippines, and it would only be a couple of days before opening day that it would be announced as a truth: it was here, the brandless brand from Japan, the one that will bring us the best of Japan’s home and office supplies. And I kid you not, I loved it. And yes it was more expensive, but… Continue reading »
The noise is overwhelming. SaGuijo isn’t made for long conversations with friends, not even when you’re all outside sitting at the farthest table from the entrance, having drinks and cigarettes. The truth is you’ve been here since dinnertime when it was empty and bright. You almost forgot it was the place of noise and crowds and youth, the one you hadn’t gone to in a while. It had been a long day and, both emotionally and literally, food was what you needed. You also… Continue reading »
You were dancing to music you couldn’t understand at all, but isn’t that what music should be able to do? You were there with a boy you barely knew now, but whose life seemed intertwined with yours. He says this is the real fete de la musique, and you smile. Here? In this park? It’s practically empty. Cue memory number 1: crowds at El Pueblo in Ortigas, to the sound of music overlapping with each other, sweat sweat sweat the name of the… Continue reading »
To go where books and movies brought you, and to find it lacking. Not even art and its contingent romance(s) would allow for the overwhelming. Tell the boy who traveled through three countries to see you that you might cry when you see the Mona Lisa. Four hours after, inside and in tears for reasons beyond catholic art at the Sacre Couer, he whispers, “Buti na lang hindi ka sa Mona Lisa umiyak.” finally up, in a new space for… Continue reading »
this is up at Metakritiko where i’ve been alive in times that this blog isn’t. trying to link ‘em all together obviously. medyo hirap lang sa dating sariling namamayagpag sa blog na ito, na sa kasalukuyan (at dapat pala) ay (parating!) rine-revise. so in the meantime, eto ang isang sariling enjoy sa pagsusulat tungkol sa kulturang popular, lahat pinapatulan, lahat may posibilidad ng subersyon/pag-aklas/pagbabago, gaano man kaliit. *** Mix Tape 1: Ode to Sibling-hood When I was a kid, my liking… Continue reading »
speaking literally, in the sense that you carry your own bags, with no real options for help, no man to take pity, at least no man that’s yours. and this is the story of you, having a boy all the time, since you were in college to post-grad, working as teacher, living alone. there was always a boy. and you do this on purpose of course, calling all your men, boys. because that’s how they become, you find. they become such in… Continue reading »
This turned out to be a different creature altogether from what I imagined I would write about being invited to a Playboy launch party. Not surprisingly, talking about feminism and womanhood in the face of other Pinays just turned everything personal.
the only thing that links me to Cory Aquino is really memory. because while yes, it has been about these images of yellow my grandfather and mother carried, as her death sinks in it’s also about many other images in my head. of Butz Aquino and ATOM, and an uncle who was part of it. of Kuya at 13 asking that he be allowed to go with our older cousins to EDSA because, as he told my mother, what if there… Continue reading »
last friday, along katipunan avenue, ugly pink MMDA street dividers had yellow ribbons. today, driving through The Fort, lampposts and trees adorned with the same. on GMA 7′s sunday noontime variety show earlier today, all artists had yellow ribbons and pins on their shirts, Judy Ann Santos was in a crazy yellow bustier. the UAAP’s main game between U.P. and Ateneo this afternoon had all basketball players and coaches with yellow ribbons attached to their uniforms. and as in 1983,… Continue reading »