Just passing through

December 31 2007- January 1 2008 4:17 pm



“The only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most extraordinary, the most singular, and the most inexplicable that we may encounter.”
Rainer Maria Rilke


31

After five nights, I finally slept because I was so tired from being sleepless since December 25.

It takes courage to sleep--- to be so defenseless against nightmares. I had always wondered why I cannot sleep. I know it is this--- I cannot allow myself to sleep:

What nightmares may come.

I woke, knowing that I re-lived a nightmare in my sleep, because I finally slept.

Asleep, I have no control of where I would be taken. I am learning to move in my dreams, to control my nightmares.

I woke up gasping.

Ma had immediately come to my side and rubbed my back.

I shook my head, “It’s ok Ma. Just a bad dream.”

I went outside, smoked, and called my cat.


30

I swam 4 laps in the CWC pool and alternated attending to Biboy with Magpie.

I was walking with Biboy as he pointed out and chattered about the wakeboarders when I heard someone calling me.

It was Quentin, my friend since grade 5: he had a crush on me and taught me how to tie the sheep shank and dog shank knots. In high school, he had courted me and taught me to dance, too. [And this is why when I dance, I dance like a boy.]

He had asked, “Anak mo?”

I laughed, “Hindi. Kay Yan-Yan.”

I told Biboy to say hi and “mag-mano” to his Uncle Quentin. Biboy had asked to be carried that moment and nestled his head on my chest. Quentin stroked his cheek, smiling.

Then he asked me if I were already married to which I said no. He was and already had one kid. He thought that I had left the country a long time ago. I said that I was just in the big, bad city. Then he asked what I was doing now.

I smiled, “Writing.”

He laughed, “You’re still the same. Makata ka nga.”

I laughed and he said he’d come by the house before I leave so that we can exchange numbers and talk.

After, we went to mass. The priest had mentioned a letter written by a 14-year-old girl who was talking about being a mother to her younger siblings.

She said that when she grows up, she doesn’t want to be a mother.

She said, “It’s the worst job in the world.”


28

I tagged along with Gnomie in her Colegio-Ateneo soiree (as her driver/chaperon/wallflower in my teapot dress). Most of them couldn’t recognize me anymore so I was re-introduced: the public-school-sister who thrashed all of you in all the English contests and would thrash all of you in defense of her sister.

My people and these people don’t mix.

“What does she do now?” they would ask Gnomie.

Gnomie said, “She writes.”

And they gave the usual blank looks that people have when confronted by that sentence. What does a person who writes do?

In comes two of my batchmates in UP who were friends with Gnomie and TJ. They had hugged and kissed me and said that they heard of my recent achievements through the Internet. I had laughed it off (to cover a blush of horror).

“Bat di ka magturo sa UP?” one asked.

I laughed, “Puede rin. Puede rin magsundalo na lang ako o puede rin mag-NPA.”

I had only laughed and observed all of them, writing of them while I plugged my Zen to my ears, drinking my beer, smoking, ignoring the looks. Those who looked meant that they didn’t know whom they were looking at and stripping of clothes.

After all, I wasn’t out with Robert and the boys.

Bitoy [Gnomie’s contemporary and one of Robert’s boys] was surprised to see me out and there. He asked, “Alam ba ni Robert na andito ka?”

I said, “Alam. Pero di pa kami nagkikita. Baka iffy kay misis eh.”

The Ateneo boys stayed on one end of the bar, comparing most likely who urinates higher given their jobs and achievements in life--- trying to ignore the Colegiala girls. And the girls went about sitting on one end--- chatting and staying by their own set of friends.

I had laughed: it didn’t matter if they were already married, pregnant, had children because it was still so high school.

Barbs (who had gone to the same public elementary school with me and has been our friend in UP) had asked me sometime during the night, “Ok ka lang? Parang out of place ka.”

I had laughed, “No, pare, ano ka ba. That’s the best time for me, in the middle of a crowded bar and I do my own thing alone. I’m comfortable. I’m in place. What about you people?”

And Barbs had laughed, knowing exactly what I meant. I had continued to tease him, “Uy, may cuts na ang biceps natin ah. Macho! Naku, may tumatawag sa ‘yo “Baby”? Tapos mas bata sa ‘yo? Ano!? 5 years younger?! Ok yan ah. Nagpapalaki ka rin?”

Barbs kept on laughing and we remembered two years ago when I tagged along with Gnomie and TJ in one of their public shindigs.

Barbs said, “Alam ko di ka lasing eh. Nangtritrip ka lang naman that night. Pero, padi, naniwala mga tao na tayo nga at ikakasal na tayo!”

I laughed, “Trip eh. Alam mo naman na malakas akong mang-trip. Tapos ngayon
ipinagpalit mo ko sa “baby”? Nga naman buhay ito oh.”

I called him “baby” the whole night, all flirty, making him laugh in amused horror as he waited for what “trip” I would pull that night.

Kuya Chipmunk had suddenly sent a message after midnight, telling me, “Punta ko diyan.”

He had thought that I was out with my friends so he thought I would be okay. I told him that I was not with my friends and that I was bored.

He arrived and some people recognized him as someone older from the Chinese school. He sat down beside me and chatted with one of Gnomie’s classmates. The girl said, “Di na ko natratrabaho. Repsonsabilidad ng asawa ko na buhayin ako no?”

Aghast at her sentiment, I struggled not to laugh at her. Later on, I laughingly quipped to Kuya Chipmunk, “Did you hear her? There’s this thing called “feminism” you know.”

Kuya Chipmunk suddenly told Gnomie, “Bet, subliun ko muna”, which meant he would borrow me for a time and just return me when it’s time for me to drive her home.

I had laughed because he was telling her not asking her, and that he called her by her childhood nickname, reminding her that he was “kuya” after all.

I left with him while people were thinking he was my boyfriend.

He said, “Makakanchawan ako nito eh. Anyway.”

I laughed, “What? That your macho kid sister who’s now a bratty lady is tagging along?”

I noticed that he didn’t nag me anymore and asked him about it.

He said, “I noticed that you don’t like being told what to do. You also don’t welcome being taken care of.”

I laughed, “That’s not true. I appreciate being taken care of. Di lang ako sanay na inaalagaan mo na matanda na ko.”

We joined his friends and they were thinking that I was his holiday fling. There were more stares, more looks. After all, they didn’t know me and couldn’t recognize me. And no boy/man in this city takes a girl with him unless she’s his girlfriend or his chick.

Kuya Chipmunk already has a girlfriend so they concluded that I must be the latter.

This is something that makes me laugh...in addition to straddling a motor bike in my teapot dress even when Kuya Chpimunk had asked, “Sakay ka na lang pangbabae.”


29

The parents arrived with TJ and I loved all the gifts that they and Egg gave me. Egg gave me shoes (!) among other gifts.

I was telling Ma, “Winner Ma! Winner! Yay! Christmas!”

I kept on kissing the three and hugging them, telling them, “I missed you! I missed you!”

I told Ma, “Now it feels like I’m home! Ma, you’re home! I can sleep! Kulit ni Magpie na kasama sa room. Ang kuliiiiiit! Pati yun mga bata ang ingay lagi!”

That night, I told the family that I was going out again to tag along with Kuya Chipmunk on more reunions. That was the last night I could hang out with him because the next day his girlfriend would arrive.

“So, we’re not going to the reunion?” I asked.

“No. Kainchikan na naman yun eh. Kakasawa,” he said.

The sentiment of non-Chinese people who went to Chinese schools.

“Plus the fact that I’m the housing problem,” I added and he laughed.

When we were growing up, we referred to our subdivision as “housing” i.e. “The National Housing Project”. That was what his friends had called me when they heckled him.

It’s something that I have always wondered about people: why can’t people comprehend the fact some people can only be friends? I had said so as much to him. He said that that’s why he’s not taking me to the reunion. We went to a bar, drank, and talked.

He told me of this beautiful 18-year-old girl who was working on a club. She became his friend and she had said to him, “Akala niyo kayong mga nakakaisa sa amin? Kami ang nakakaisa sa inyo kasi kayo mga edukado pero bat ganun kayo at bat ganun mga ginagawa niyo?”

It’s said that the girl was beaten, raped, and killed by the bar owner.

And of course, the bar owner is free.

He also said, “Do you have any idea how you look now, how you appear to people?”

I laughed, “Yes and no.”

He said, “What a transformation! That’s why people don’t recognize you anymore.”

I shrugged, “This is why whatever they say here and however they think doesn’t bother me. They think I’m your score? You and I know I’m not.”

Then I laughed, “If I were, it would mess up your life, not mine because I’m just passing through. And if one of your friends does ask me what’s going on between us, I would likely call him/her a provincial-minded fuck.”

“So,” I laughed some more, “Why haven’t you tried your ladies-man tactics on me?”

Not the he wasn’t tempted, he said, but “Because you’re different. Special.”

I said, “Yeah...I like you better anyway when you turn off the ladies-man-lingo.”

He laughed.

He and I understand that one doesn’t ruin this kind of friendship with a holiday fling. And one doesn’t do that when we grew up around our parents and siblings, too. Besides, he knows that I have a cat, a bear, a monkey, and an animal kingdom. He just never met them.

We joined his classmates and friends after midnight in another bar. I noticed that he was referring to me using my name, not nickname. I noticed also more speculative looks, especially because he had a hand on my knee the whole time.

I didn’t mind.

After all, time had already come for us that typhoon afternoon and the choice was made that day: we stay friends.

Sometimes, I do wonder about the whole meaning of “too late”. But then again, it’s always never too late.

I noticed that he wasn’t calling me by my childhood nickname, too.

He teased, “You were a kid. You know what I call you now? Mighty kid. Yan na ang name mo sa phone ko.”

I laughed, “Ano yan? Boksingero sa Trianggulo? Ayos lang. I call you Chipmunk anyway.”

We laughed and I asked him to email me the songs he composed. He reminded me to listen to “Danger Danger”.

He also gave me an idea for an entry: the wrong send phenomenon.

And he and I agree about the It’s-none-of-anyone’s-business-policy because you don’t make your business anyone’s business at all.


30

I was already asleep in the car on the drive home. I realized that I felt so relieved not to be driving anymore, not being the one to make the decisions since Dad and Ma were already home.

I sleepwalked to the bedroom and fell asleep to Ma’s rubbing my leg.

Magpie had laughingly complained, “Ma, she’s not number 1! She’s number 4! Why does she get to stay in this room?”

Ma and I just laughed.

Magpie said to me, “Tabi nga ako sa ‘yo!”

I said, “Eeeeee, ayaw!”

Magpie laughed, “You! You’re a brat!”

And Yan-Yan joined in, “And she’s not number 6 either! I’m number 6! How come she gets to be the bunso?”

I laughed, “Number 4 is really number 1 and 6, you know.”

Ma laughed, “Kanya kanyang diskarte lang yan pag marami ang anak.”

And I laughed, “Mahina diskarte niyo eh. Hehehe.”

Ma doesn’t think that being a mother is the worst job in the world.


31

I had replied to Radha [who sent me the quote]: “It made me immediately think of Plath’s ‘The Courage of Shutting Up’.”

I have been reflecting on what I’ve been writing on recently: the quote made me think that’s the whole point of living there and that’s the whole point in writing of living there.

Ah, courage.

It takes courage to shut up:

It takes courage to speak up.