An Incident for Silence

1. I have a dear friend who wrote about a very real speech impediment she developed at some point during childhood. In her case, the real consequences of stuttering involved developing her deep-rooted fear of public speaking. Although I don't have that kind of fear, what I suffer from is a strong aversion to personal discourse. It makes me feel uncomfortable because I never know what to say (this is partly the reason I enrolled in a personal essay class) and I'm always wary of how to package information with neither exaggeration nor irony.
2. (The above should also account for the way these entries are written. Sometimes in the heat of the moment but more often--when I talk about sex, sexuality, friendship, and love--I always reread my entries and cringe because they sound disingenuous.)
3. The friends I made in my youth were loud and boisterous and unruly and I preferred them that way because they could perform and continue a discussion with little input from me. My bestfriends will attest to that (hello, I talk about you again). But the friends I made in college--Ace, Peep, Nica, Jamie, to name a few--are much quieter, subdued, and restrained (or maybe that's because I met them at a quieter, more contemplative point in their lives). This is why I had a hard time adjusting to the silence of four years in high school to the silence of an audience waiting for me in college, when I found I wanted to speak but afraid, so terribly afraid, of making people sit down to listen.
4. This evening, during dinner, I almost wept. A friend I hadn't seen consistently since graduation finally agreed to have dinner at a restaurant in Maginhawa. During the jeepney ride over, I carried  a collection of infinitesimal fears like a palmful of marbles gnawing at each other. My relationship with friends had been strained lately, influenced by the shifting plates of our separate lives. This friend and I had arranged each other on an equal platform built upon mutual respect & admiration and I was afraid that, having ridden so far abroad and away from each other, we would struggle and drown in all that empty, wild sea. Now, after a few hours together, I'm still afraid. I've lost enough friends this year. 
5. Relationships are strange, massive, and terrible to navigate.  
6. On the way home walking to the Ministop along Maginhawa, she talked about friends in unhealthy romantic relationships and her position as a voyeur of those relationships, her obligation towards friends gone astray. And she said, "I love them but I disagree with their relationship ethics." And I asked if it applied to me. And in her apple red van, I wept into my hands, devastated by the revelation that I had been acting in a way that disappointed her. 
7. And she said "as your friends, we want to listen to you" and nobody had ever said those words to me. She also said, "and as your friends, we want the best for you."
8. And I'm writing those words now, here, so I will never forget. Because if you write something down, you will not forget. 
9. A sort of morbid curiosity clawed its way out of my heart and I wanted to know how I acted, what she disagreed with, and why, and I wanted, most of all, to apologize although she made it clear it was behavior for which she neither blamed nor judged me. In that case, is an apology still necessary? I apologized for crying in her car and for my human weakness and inconsistency. How do you apologize for that? What's good enough?

Truth Thursday: Today I Leave Behind

When I was ten, our family dentist spent all of five minutes tapping the smooth shells of my new, permanent teeth. No cavities, again! I remember my mother--before she traded in her pencil skirts, flared slacks, and white, starched blouses for much more informal wear--shaking her head, making an impatient noise, waiting for my brother already half an hour in the dentist's chair. At the end of our examination, the dentist beams at me. She has an oval, owlish face and she calls me by the nickname only my mother and brother use. I was a chunky, moody child so the instances I remember feeling proud of my body as a whole or specific (problem) areas were few and far between and I remember this moment at the dentist's every time I am obligated to visit her whitewashed office (her operating area used to be only a couple of meters wide; though her space, now, is far improved, she continues to use the same faded green chair, the same dirty yellow lamp).

More than a decade down the line,  I will wake up with a mouth riddled with holes. Since I had my braces removed as a college freshman, I've gotten used to canker sores brought on by erratic weather. I have a tiny wound on my tongue where I drew blood investigating a cavity.

The real story is what happened when I looked up. I finally caught a cab to the dentist's office. We passed a school's billboard with a familiar name spelled out in white cardboard. I'm writing this for Truth Thursday so I will be honest and say it aloud, how a tiny part of me contracted in pain, some leftover reflex from grief. I don't know why (the concept of) leaving and departure must dredge up images and memories of pain. Maybe because when we were all young, we flinched. We were taught the balm of distance.  I guess what we're not taught is how there is pain even in absence and in leaving but suffering and pain are two different things. Given the chance, I would take the pain, which can teach and inspire and create. 

Under the yellow lamp and breathing beneath her prodding fingers, I search for a focal point to stare at but the ceiling is riddled with sharp corners. She is wearing a pair of pearl earrings as she drills hole after hole. Half my face is frozen from anesthetic and my tongue is a slug in the cave of my mouth. The drill screeches and whirrs and that's what I'm most afraid of, the sound and anticipating the bite of the drill. I have to unclench my hands. I think, she is drilling me full of holes.     



This week's Truth Thursday. Go join!

Checking in after an afternoon on the sickbed

"This story has taken on a life of its own and I'm not even sure if the plot is solid or if the execution is excellent but oh well, forge ahead! I am proud to admit I am reckless this way.

I would like to point out that I've begun yet another revision for The Hand She Was Dealt and that I've finally, thankfully, crossed the three thousand word mark! I'm officially on my way to finishing this story. I hope to churn out another five hundred words before I turn in because I spent most of this afternoon dry-heaving, slumped on the seat of my toilet; I'm not used to getting sick so when it happens, it always takes me by surprise. When Ate Janice--the latest in a string of house helpers--checked in to drag me to lunch, she found me immobile on my parents' bed. But she was adamant and stern and told me if I couldn't carry myself to the table, then she would bring up a bowl of hot Nilaga and rice cooked the way I liked it (warm, but not steaming hot, and moist). I inhaled the clean and sobering fragrance of stewed whole pepper, polished off my huge plate of rice and steamed vegetables, and downed a mug of ginger tea. Three hours later, I would regret giving into the temptation. Suffice it to say I won't allow myself another few hours of sleep until I've earned it.

A hybrid collection

I've decided I will not write for an audience as much as to document and to supplement my faulty memory.

I used to email myself sad notes (short, bite-sized letters; I was good at those) whenever I felt repulsive and uncouth in the middle of a work day. In the absence of the time to grieve and a refuge in which to do so, I allowed myself tiny pockets of remorse or guilt. I spent five or ten minutes composing them--I described events, places, images, people, and experiences--whatever it was that made me feel horrible and then I sent them off to my secret email. Each subject line would advertise only the date or the time. When I got home, I sorted everything out and banished them to a separate folder titled 'Sad Things'.

I saw a recent photograph of a friend on his wall and I stared and stared. I couldn't recognize him. The few years that separate us was written on that image. He had grown up and into someone who looked--not tired--reserved, resolved. I hope this language is appropriate because I'm talking about someone I do not know. Kaibigan, pahiram. When I saw your photograph, I had to stop and blink. I had never seen you so serious before.
My friends all agree my brother is a handsome young man but they have never seen him stubborn to a fault, his expression an non-collapsible brick wall. Behind this stare is nothing at all, there's no desire to listen or forgive. It is brutish in its simplicity. And that's my brother with my own stare.             
 

(another) woman's intuition

A couple of months ago, Isa wrote about the contents of her bag and I've been itching to do the same. I'm not as candid a storyteller as this beautiful woman (I've bookmarked some of her entries including "More than Fine", "What Real Feels Like", and "When We Talk About Real") because the stories I have to tell require a heavier, less sophisticated hand.

When one of my bestfriends went through a break-up, I immediately linked her to the same entry Isa wrote for me (guess which). 

A few days ago, I asked my mother to help me put together my first make-up kit. I did my research (I haven't finished but I successfully fought the urge to create an excel file about foundations and concealers and liquid liners and bb creams) and several friends offered to help but I staved off telling my mom about the intention to finally, finally get my act together because I knew it was something she had been waiting for since I hit adolescence and began to look (without acting) like a woman.

Have I told you about my mother? She could have birthed an alien Jesus more capable of understanding her than what she ended up with.

This is what my bag contains before I imagine having to carry a battalion's worth of tiny tools, palettes, cotton balls, and bottles of make-up remover.

I don't carry a purse; I prefer satchels or backpacks or rucksacks (the difference between them I only found out early this year). On the other hand, my mother carries several purses in several different colors and with several separate functions. One for everyday, another to hold her money, another for special occasions. She keeps them locked up like a secret.

"my rucksack turned inside out"

1. The rucksack, a striped medium-sized bag from Soul Flower. 
2. My notebook
3. The yellow coin purse
4. A slim pencil case
5. Notes
6. A wallet

The only real problem I have with this rucksack is it was made from faux leather so I have to be really careful. I'm not a careful person--In fact, I'm violent and prone to some theatrics. I also commute all over the city.

I've been looking for a durable leather satchel since high school (I actually found my dream round satchel from an amazing specialty leather store in America but it costs at least $400 and I'm only, as yet, a poor graduate student) but until I amass a small fortune which will allow me this luxury, my striped little number will do just fine.

After graduating from high school, my mother took me shopping for college and she brought me to the department store to look at purses, these leatherette things that gleamed like plastic but one look at the animal-skin rip-offs convinced me I never wanted to own anything neon.
 

The venzi notebooks are my favorite. This one is small (it fits in any kind of bag) and lined (I look for notebooks whose lines are relatively closer together because my handwriting is small and clipped and illegible) and red and costs significantly less than the moleskin its design emulates. If you find me scribbling in it, it means I'm updating either a diary entry or chasing down plot details. It contains, above all else, a ton of story ideas, character sketches, thoughts about strangers, friends, and family members. All written in an offensive, pointy scrawl.

I began hoarding venzi notebooks after I found a purple one at a local bookstore. It was perfect--it even smelled amazing--and, terrified I might never find one again, I bought five of them at once (they come in black, red, purple, green, and brown). I'm happy to report they can be found, now, in most National Bookstore branches (in several sizes!). I even found a selection of plain, unlined versions.

I used to call these my doodle books. When I was nine or ten or twelve one of my mother's friends, Lisa, wrote to me. She told me to carry a notebook everywhere I went, wherever I went, in case an idea or a phrase or an experience prompted any form of visceral reaction. She told me to document, to record, to write an account. Understand I was once a very difficult child--stubborn, angry, judgmental, and mean-spirited--and most adults ignored the temper tantrums. In any case, children's rich and largely incomprehensible emotional and psychological lives are mostly ignored; my childhood was no different. (I want to remember why I was so angry and some of my notebooks were helpful in that respect.)

I carry three essential items in the slim pencil case: pens in two colors, a highlighter, a pencil, and an eraser. 

Last and possibly most important: my aunt gave me this wallet a long time ago, when I was far too young to appreciate it. It is glossy and textured and it rasps. Against all odds it retained the smell of the box in which it was shipped (my aunt bought it in Italy when she lived and worked at the Vatican) and sometimes I count the even stitches. It fits well in my hands.

I like small, compact things (colorful and even strange). I'm not the friend with a talent for finding charming objects (that's Peep) but I have a talent for safekeeping and making things last. 

Found project 1

Looking through old files, I found a couple of untitled notepads from almost a decade ago. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a poet so I scribbled relentlessly (in the bus to school, during classes, during break periods, during laboratory lectures). At thirteen, one of my mother's friends told me to carry notebooks and pen and I took that to heart (I went through several dozen notebooks before I settled on my staple now, a small venzi pocket-sized one).

During high school and at the peak of my obsession with Lord of the Rings, I scribbled "Turin Turambar Turun Ambartanen" on my notebooks, the text interspersed regularly among notes about geography or whatever it was we were learning at the time. I must have been thirteen, a freshman, when my natural science teacher picked up a notebook as I took down notes in her class. She looked at that phrase (it means master of doom by doom mastered) and back down at me; she looked at once perplexed and revolted but she hid it masterfully and then turned away. I would encounter that same frustration in the next four years, often mingled with some shade of pity.

I was blogging to find strength for an apology until

I found The Bull on the jeepney home. Notes collected on my dying blackberry include: hollow in his cheeks, strong eyebrows, womanish hands, scuffed five year-old leather office shoes, grubby corduroy pants, a white and red striped shirt, clean fingers, a five o'clock shadow, an expression of pain or anticipation or the pain that attends (intense) anticipation, lines around his mouth will deepen with age, how would it feel to be held flush against him like some blunt hill piercing sky?

The Bull is twenty-nine, on the cusp of respectability, and waiting on the sidewalk for an Angono-bound jeepney, same as I was. He drew the eye the way he was angry, and I noticed him when he raised his arm curved like a hook, anxious to get home. His stop was Pioneer Homes past the last SM east of Manila.  

Gail took me on a short tour around her part of the university. White buildings stacked on top of each other on a gentle slope. The path opened out to a spacious field, a couple of wide white roads, a couple of slim trees whose shadows cracked on jagged concrete. It was a beautiful day.

I was anxious to sit back and rest but I had been walking all day, my white shirt translucent with sweat. Summer officially ended a week or so ago, officially lifted the giant bell jar under which everyone wilted. The rainclouds from the past couple of (months) days were beginning to clear the way wind scatters a thunderstorm. Soon there will be nothing left to remember or fear (that sounds strange, even to me). 

Hazard light blinking on the dash, my best friend listened as my voice dropped and grew sombre; she didn't comment on how I fidgeted, unstuck my thighs from her seat.

My cousin told me The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey piqued his interest in the larger Lord of the Rings mythology and I successfully suppressed the instant and insistent desire to drag him to Taytay to watch. Complimentary popcorn available.

The Bull existed before I discovered him; there were a couple of chairs carved for giants in the Physics building. Cut pieces too large to dispose of, these were only planks of some tough old wood sanded till they shone and forced together with violence so thorough it created a seat, a throne, an awkward bed. Gail pointed them out to me, these two cradles, both on the basement ready to be gawked at, and she led me down to knock, reverently, on the wood. And I asked, what if I knocked and someone answered? What if these weren't chairs but carved doors? And that is how Gail led me to another story.
   
 Also, if you looked into my mind, you will find a chain of broken sound reforged from this:

A list will help

1. I wrote two scathing facebook messages. The first, an irate and immature reaction to a long, drawn out issue that really doesn't need to be repeated. The other, specifically for one person. Kaibigan, I, too, hold you in high regard. But there's a reason I keep a tight hold on my temper where it concerns my friends. 
2. I hope never to resort to declarative sentences to describe how wretchedly I feel. It always sounds insincere.
3. A few hours after I posted the message, Jamie texted asking how I was. I don't know why I prefer to vent (semi)publicly instead of soliciting help directly from people who will gladly listen until I have nothing else to say.
4. I'm so tired.

"I was going to skip school, altogether."

(what cannot pass as) Recompense

"Not sure how to feel about this."

Since I was old enough to register the somber monotone of regret, to separate it from feeling cheated or hurt or devastated or, simply, angry, I've always felt as though I owed this cousin an apology. As children, he spent summers in our company (we live in a neighboring province so he saw it as a vacation of sorts) but my brother and I saw him as something of a goofball, a second-class citizen. It pains me to admit to alienating him, to treating him less than how he should have been treated, for being the hard-ass who perpetuated certain masculine myths. I don't know how to apologize for any of this.

The screenshot above was from a fairly recent conversation. I'm keeping a close eye on his online activities (as much as I can) because he's so far removed from my little bubble of power that I am anxious for him to discover the world and join me/join us (my brother and I) on a platform of equals. I'm waiting for him to graduate from college, maybe get a job, maybe.

The apology isn't the only thing I owe him. (I'm afraid that no one can properly apologize for the cruelty of children and childhood) I owe him explanations and I owe him and my other cousins a little respect. This is how I know I have a long way to go before I can become who I should be.  

From a few weeks ago, before B's departure, and another long separation

I've begun working on a third revision of The Hand she was Dealt. It will take too long to delineate all the little details I somehow managed to iron out. I would show you  my desktop now only it hasn't changed much.

"I will show you this."

Not featured:

1. Gail, our other best friend, who arrived half an hour or so afterward. I was leaning on the table between B and I. 
2. The other cupcake Gail ordered when she arrived.
3. Dinner at Friuli Tratoria because Gail had not eaten yet.

What I remember:

1. Ruby over dinner (Crazy Katsu)
2. How she no longer wore glasses, the girl whose image I kept in my mind was rougher and, now, far from the original. 
3. The large phone in her hands. 
4. Her speech patterns changed over time; now, no longer erratic. She no longer trails off when she tells stories, that's the biggest change. 
5. And her stories themselves were different. In a different league, about vastly different things that I forget how I could have imagined we'd talk about what we've always talked about. 
6. She wore, still, a frilly top in an appropriate somber color and when she laughed she still covered her mouth with a hand. And true enough when Gail came I could safely disappear into the glorious babble of their easy conversation.

A list will help

1. Briefly visited the Ateneo this afternoon. 
2. Somewhere out there, some prick is reading a handwritten I love you, scrawled on the back of a randomly selected business card and written in purple ink. 
3. I sent a couple of my hugs to a comrade I haven't seen in more than two years. May he stay warm. 
4. The walk home will always feel lonely, sweetness, because you do not share it with anyone. Whoever you walk with will have another home. 
5. Today--you should have seen me--I wore a loose button-down, a long-sleeved white polo, a choker of raindrops, humidity and vehemence both like a second skin.