From An Irish Wake To A Vigil

From 20 Magnetic Poles: Listening to Mag:net Readings

Written on Me.

January 22, 2008 10:30 am

O U T S I D E

I came to do what I do. I went through the motions of coming, listening, taking down notes, laughing, talking to people, and exchanging apologies with an estranged friend.

My friend had said, “You had hurt me.”

I had nodded and quietly asked, “How hurt were you?”

My friend had described how it felt and I listened.

Before I left, I had hugged my friend tight and long, and said, “I’m sorry, so sorry that I hurt you.”

I had kissed my friend’s shoulders to say what I couldn’t say: You are cherished.

Going through the motions of doing means that I was watching myself doing what I had done.

I listened to nineteen readers last night. I wrote nine pages of notes in my moleskin that I will blog about. I enjoyed some of the readings so I laughed and clapped. I was amazed by some, stunned and clapped. My jaw hurt from laughing so much because of one reading.

I laughed when Adam sang once more a Belle & Sebastian song that he said, “Kinanta ko pala ito para kay Mia nung 18 or 19 ako. 26 na ko ngayon.”

It’s an affair of affair song.

It tells me that he remembers.

Before he left, I laughingly told him, “Naku, yun kinanta mo, mapagkakamalan na naging tayo niyan eh!”

Adam had returned me to

sometime during the Academic Year 2000 – 2001

Adam first sang that song for me in the UPAC tambayan in UP Diliman— that’s in front of the Faculty Center.

For about a year or so, people would think and joke that we would slaughter live chickens in that tambayan for our evil atheist meetings. People knew for sure that it was the campus Tanduay-Empoy-Gin hole of the so-called loser-deviants and rabid-freaks.

As for the evil atheist meetings--- we were actually required to submit expository papers about our existential/philosophical masturbations and discuss them. More academic and critical training liberal on the use of:

“Misquoted!’

“Carabao Logic!”

“Different language game!’

“Adjust your language!”

“Alin ba yan? Yun Putang Ina ni Witgensttein or yun about-face Tractatus?!”

“That’s absurd!”

“That’s just stupid!”

“Magbasa ka pa!”

“Assumption mo lang yan!”

“Perception mo lang yan!”

“Libog lang yan!”

“Tang ina inom na lang tayo!”

“Tang ina drugs na lang tayo!”

I was already known then for killing papers and ripping people apart for awful writing.

What made us losers and freaks? We didn’t have a God… among other things like having meltdowns once in evil meetings we realize that our bright new ideas about the academic and existential were already said a thousand or hundreds of years ago.

We would laugh when we hear what people say—except I would really scoff:

How many losers and freaks could explain to you almost everything?

How many losers and freaks could be so honest about themselves?

How many losers and freaks could accept you for who you are?

Losers and freaks who prize the brain rather than brandish absurd trophies like vaginas, penises, egos, broken hearts, and tears.

Characters who are remembered by people for what they’ve said and done and stood for. For example, one of us-- a Mass Communications undergrad-- has been immortalized for saying:

To one Philosophy professor:

“Virginity is a curse!”

To one frat boy in front of the whole brotherhood:

“Hoy! Putang ina mo! Kung naka-score ka nga at virgin ako, di nga ako madidivirginize ng titi mo!“

That tambayan was our home in UP. Some of us laughingly called it the Bat Cave. I had called it when I would write about it “the abode of the damned”. So gothic.

sometime during the Academic Year 1999- 2000

“Goth?” that was what Adam’s brother Basha had asked me upon meeting me in the UPAC tambayan.

I was wearing my white tennis dress, my eyes kohled, and Wet&Wild blue polish on my nails. I had only looked at him blankly and pointed to the young woman beside me--- Ayn--- her usual silent deadly self in her fatal knee-high moss suede Nine West boots.

“Cool,” he had said.

And I had said, “So you’re Basha”--- which meant I have heard so much scandalous gossip about you. He was wearing a plain gray shirt, khaki cargo shorts, white ankle socks and blue Chucks. His hair was spiked by gel and he had earrings.

He had laughed.

Thus began our friendship. And really, it was easy being friends with God’s unholy gift to women.

He would later tell me, “You are so intellectually arrogant, ever since that night I met you.”

I had laughed, “I am, aren’t I? But hey, I don’t pretend that I know everything and I can say ‘I don’t know that. If you’d like to tell me about it, I would be grateful.’”

sometime during the Academic Year 2000- 2001

Before Basha went away from UP to become a grown-up, he had introduced Adam to us. Adam was then a member of the UP Chess Varsity Team. Chess is a very dangerous game and---

“You’re in Malikhaing Pagsulat??” I had exclaimed, “What are you doing there?”

Meaning:

Super galing mo sa Filipino?

Kaya mong magsulat in Filipino?

Sigurado kang kapatid ka ni Basha?

Mga ingglesero kayo di ba?

Okay ka ah, iba rin takbo ng utak mo.

Adam had shrugged.

Adam is the same age as Yan-Yan, my youngest sister. Basha is the same age as Magpie, my eldest sister. There are ten years between them.

Adam was dating someone who was as old as Basha at that time. Basha was dating someone as young as Adam at that time.

I had teased Basha about it.

Basha had drawled, “Karma ata ito eh.”

Once Basha was in Tarlac when I had called just before lunch. He had simply asked, “AA?”

Anxiety Attack. I think I had written what might-be-a-poem about that at that time, something like “He comes to consume with fear/ I wait---/ trapped---/ Then it ends with something like “I wait/ knowing that he will come again/ and rape me. //

I had said, “Yes.”

He knew that it triggers suicidal impulses that I had a hard time controlling. Especially since I went cold turkey and said adios-motherfucker to the guerilla medications that were supposed to help me with those by desensitizing me.

Basha said, “Give me two hours, three max and I’ll be there. Wait.”

I waited and he was beside me in the tambayan in two and a half hours.

Whatever I had told him, he had sighed “Oh, well” which was really the most appropriate reaction before, during, and after an anxiety attack.

Adam—in a way--- became his proxy.

Adam and I would talk, that much I remember. Or rather, I had allowed myself to talk to him and he would listen. He was just a boy, really, but he listened like an old wise man. He would also accompany me sometimes to eat. I would wonder sometimes why he bothered to spend time with me.

I never worry what people would say about me. I worry though about what people would say about the person spending time with me.

I had told Adam as much then. Again, Adam had just shrugged.

That day, he had just read a story I was supposed to submit for fiction class. The story’s title was “Room 22-B”. Outside the classroom workshops at that time, I went through what some Creative Writing students would go through: I did not allow anyone to read any of my stories.

“No resolution,” he had said.

I agreed. No resolution stories are such cheats: don’t know how to end it, let it hang. After all, the short story was 100% nonfiction and in my life at that time “Room 22-B” had no resolution.

It was either 11 am or 1 pm [the way the sun shines at those two exact times is sometimes the same] when he sang that song for me that day. To cheer me up was the intent. The song is poignant and if it were any other time, it would have depressed me and driven me to slap him for singing such a song.

Adam was the first male who sang for me. I remember patting and hugging his shoulders after, saying “Thank you”, and I sure couldn’t slap him because I found his gesture sweet.

But I went by tacit rules in my family: one doesn’t become friends with siblings of friends because you’ll be encroaching on personal space.

Several months later, Basha told me that Adam got accepted to the UP National Writers Workshop. One of his stories was about and inspired by this photograph of a man he had found while on a jeepney.

I had said, “Wonder boy! Good for him! He would set their asses on fire!”

Basha had quipped, “Naunahan ka pa.”

I had said, “Not ready. I need to learn more. In time, in time. ”

Especially since I had a classmate in one of my classes at that time who could rip your texts apart and would be right.

I had called that classmate an arrogant prick and his name was Carljoe Javier.

Well, what do you know--- Carl became my friend.

Well, what do you know--- Carl and Adam have been friends for some time now.

If Adam says “Oh well” too, Carl has his own two variations: “That ain’t right” and “What can you do?”

sometime during birth until I die

I find it taxing to be friends with those younger than I am. Some of them are just too young sometimes--- not enough understanding of the way things are or should be and not driven enough to understand. It’s not their fault. But if I would look at it in terms of movement, I would be walking backwards if I were friends with them.

In college, I would sometimes snap at those younger:

‘That is so high school.”

After college, I would sometimes snap at those younger:

“That is so college.”

In life, I would sometimes snap at those younger [the way I had once or twice with Oso]: “Please. I’ve been through this shit already and I don’t want to go through it again. I’m going backwards with this shit. I’m moving forward. Catch up.”

Sure, their sheer energy is a marvelous thing. I’m amazed by it but then again it becomes draining when we’re not in the same language game--- when the younger don’t get what I’m saying and I have to constantly explain things to them.

I have several friends who are younger than I am. Most of them at 16 years old were already 35. That’s why they became my friends and we all got older.

Adam got older. I began seeing not Basha’s younger brother but someone who might be a friend— someone who can be taken inside.

In the morning of January 22 2008

I had said to Adam, “…I’m writing about you.”

He had teased me, “Katakot naman yan…” and asked what it was all about.

I had said, “A memory. I’ll post it later. All the wives would fall like flies if they read it.”

He replied, “Hahahahahaha!”

I know what Adam would say to this: Drama!

I’m thinking that he would know what I would say to that. He would probably text it to me once he reads this. Or coming to know how that brain works, he would do something else really funny.

INSIDE

Text message from Magpie 1/21/2008 6:55 pm:

Pls text/call Mom, she’s still in hospital.

Reply 1/21/2008 6:56 pm:

I’ve been texting her. Di sumasagot. Text ko uli.

Text message to Ma 1/21/2008 6:56 pm:

Hi Ma! Been texting you. Kumusta na? What’s wrong daw?

Text message from Magpie 6:57 pm:

Nagre-reply cya sa akin. Until tom daw cya doon. Major operation daw cya after Egg’s visit and their sked at emb.

Reply 7:01 pm:

Ha??? Ng ano??? Wait, nahilo ako dun

Text message from Magpie 7:08 pm:

Don’t know nga eh, deficil daw to explain sa text. Kwento daw nya kapag nagkita tayo.

Text message from Ma at 7:11 pm:

Am BETTER BP KO OK NA. Ika musta na? Wats new?

Reply 7:12 pm:

Natapos ko pa lang po deadline for UP. Hinahabol ko po deadline naman jan 31. You sure you’re ok na?

Text message from Ma 8:06 pm:

Relax ka sana. Don’t pressure YOURSELF TOO MUCH. U take care. Musta JOEY?

I live another memory

from 6:57 pm to 2:21 am

1 9 8 6

I would wake up in the night, usually by midnight, my stomach being raked by waves of pain. I would almost crawl to our only bathroom opening to the children’s room from its left and the parents’ bedroom from its right.

I would bear it all alone until I scream out four hours later. That’s when Dad would rush to open their door to the bathroom, woken in panic. He would see me and move to clean me up but then I would insist that I could do it on my own.

After, he would carry me to their bedroom and lay me beside Ma. I would feel her warmth as she cradled me. Only then would the pain stop--- from 4:00 am to 6:30 am— until I am woken because it’s time to prepare for school.

I never touched my Ma and I didn’t allow my Ma to touch me except for a kiss of greeting on the head or a touch of the forehead. I loved my Ma but I was angry at her for a lot of things--- a child’s anger when expectations from a parent are not fulfilled--- so I couldn’t allow myself to talk to her either. I just kept quiet, afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would start screaming at her and never stop.

I had only started talking to Ma in 1999--- when I talked to her not as a daughter but as an individual--- and then touching and hugging her shortly after the way a loving daughter would to a mother. Finally I began saying to her “I love you, Ma.”

Before then, I was her daughter only from 4:00 am to 6:30 am.

That went on, almost every night.

Finally, I was taken to our pediatrician Auntie Lita. Hyperacidity, she said. But really what was making my stomach hurt, she had asked.

I had thought:

Me in

The house in

The city in

The region in

Luzon in

Philippines in

Asia in

World in

Earth in

Solar System in

Milky Way in

Universe in

Space

I had thought:

Where did these all come from?

I had thought:

I’m being swallowed as it all becomes wider.

I had thought:

I need to know where it all goes.

And I had answered Auntie Lita, “What if Mommy dies?”

Auntie Lita had laughingly said, “Din, di na ka kan mag-isip. Tanganing iton na burus mo di na magparakurug.”

I was in Grade 1 in 1986.

A photographic memory enhanced by memory exercises and drugs:

There is relief when something is forgotten.

Reply to Ma’s 8:06 pm message

January 22 2008

2:21 am:

He’s ok, Ma. We have the same deadlines. I love you, Ma.

Please don’t die.

Text message to Mother

January 22, 2008

2:30 am:

…It didn’t really matter; not even poetry mattered. I went through the motions of everything, listening, taking down notes, laughing…nothing mattered but the news that Ma’s in the hospital & will have to undergo a major operation. Nothing mattered but her feeling that she needed to lie to me abt it so as not to make me anxious. Nothing mattered but her life AND death.

Nothing else.