A House With Uneven Columns

I woke up one day to a soft dewy morning,
Looking up at a chestnut tree,
In a house on a hill.

This is my chestnut dream,
The house of my future,
The house of my dreams.

Whereas
I now sleep in a country house,
I used to come from a simple edifice,
A thatched hut
With uneven columns.
A basic house,
With pillars of strength,
Its foundation can support even a superstructure.

I used to live in a simple edifice
A primitive hut
With a gargoyled spout,
Its grotesquely carved figure
Attached to walls of dried mud,
It’s a simple house that does not stand out
Except when it rears its ugly head.

This is the house of my past, my family,
The house of my stories,
The house of my daydreams,

Where I used to wake up some days to a soft dewy morning
Looking up at a chestnut tree,
In a house on a hill.


Pillar of Strength I

My mama is a martyr
A strong independent woman
Borne out of the bosom of poverty
Embraced by love
Hardened by her trials
Caressed by God.

She is not the soft clay you pound on, hit, wedge or pug,
But the kiln from which formed clay is fired
Molded by years of experience.
Day in and out,
Relentlessly, without abate,
She is tousled, beaten, scoured
Only to come out with character
Well worth the effort that God put her through.

“Where is your brother,” she would wake up after dozing off
in front of the TV, her body spent from working from 5 AM,
toiling away at her canteen, doing the marketing, menu planning,
the PR, the accounting, so she can send us to school.
“What time is it?” startled, at other times she would say
as soon as she opened her eyes,
and closed her open-hanged mouth,
not really demanding an answer
Then she would transfer from the couch to her bed,
sleeping alone, with her languid thoughts,
her worries, about bills,bills, bills
and her special child.

It’s only now that I wonder
What a pillar of strength she is
Forgetting about her own self
She is a mother, a daughter, a friend, a boss, a neighbor,
A guidance counselor, a sister, a servant, a prayer warrior, a healer.
never the wife,until recently.
Bearing the family burden of raising the kids,
Managing the household, keeping a profitable coop.
She must have felt lonely,
With a queen bed all to herself, I realize now,
never the queen, always the servant.

She would feed us, clothe us, entertain us,
Educate us, hug us, kiss us.
She was seldom angry but always busy, always tired.
“When you don’t have anyone else to hold on to,
you learn to talk to God as you would to a friend.
Go ahead, talk to him,”
She told me once when I began to hit some snags.
She prayed at dawn, prayed towards the sun, prayed for everyone.
She worshipped, she danced, she forgave a thousand times,
Then she would be off to work.
But not after fixing our breakfast,
our allowance on the dining table,
our tuition ready.

She is the pillar of our home--
She kept it together
In spite the distance from her husband
Who worked in a foreign land most throughout their marriage.
She never wavered in believing he did not cheat, or lie.
She never succumbed to temptation beguiling at her feet during her 30s, her 40s.
Her husband toiled away, sending money for school
While he waited for his naturalization,
she danced, she bowled, she prayed,
She was busy, she had her life.
She kept us together.
She kept the love alive within her family, within her marriage.
She was a buttress of the cause of love, of the cause of family.

“Mama, how often should we forgive? It’s too hurtful and I’m tired..,”
I told her one night when the cloud of dread swept over our house
like a smoke in a fire.
The smoke started to engulf everyone,
and its smell permeated all the tiny corners of our simple house.
It reeked, it smelled, it destroyed.
It wreaked havoc in its way, and almost robbed us of sanity.
It chipped away at our foundation, shaking us to the core. Even her.
She lost weight and her eyes, they grew sad.
The vibrant young woman I knew, one day turned old.
A warrior in the midst of a battle,
She grew weary but she never gave up.
“We must forgive seventy seven times seven times, “
And with that, almost everyone turned their backs on her,
Including me, for what she was asking was too much.
We are, after all, only human.

She forgave my father for retiring too early,
Leaving all responsibilities to her.
She forgave his outbursts,
his uncontrollable anger, coming in staccatos,
A hurricane in a path of destruction
Leaving the wind knocked out of everyone.
But in one instant she could forgive,
Knowing he was once a baby, left alone in his crib,
Crying his heart out in hunger and loneliness
While his mother eked out a living.
She loved him enough to put up with him,
A simple minded man who had simple dreams and means.
She easily forgave,
and told me, to learn to forget .

She often asked for signs, and she acted out her ways.
No one believed her when she uttered her prayers
“That all my kids will finish college, “ she swore she would, and she did.
Even our brother, who was a drug addict.

Dear God, please don’t take her yet.
I have so much to learn from her.
Let me love her; let me help her, let me serve her.

My mama is a martyr
A strong independent woman
Borne out of the bosom of poverty
Embraced by love
Hardened by her trials
Caressed by God.

Pillar of Strength II

My father, the provider.
He always went away, to the Middle East, to colonized islands,
Chasing after the green dollar, a greener pasture, the American dream.
He was never at any of my graduations, from kinder to college.
But I remember his gifts, he would ask us what we wanted, and he would deliver.
He remembered and he would always send them in giant boxes,
enough for me and my sister to slip into.
He would send bars of chocolates thicker than my arms
A Barbie doll for my sister
A Samsonite attaché case for me
(Which was just what I wanted),
A baby piano for Christmas
A train set with tracks
My father, the provider
I never knew how to kiss him,
Relate to him or respect him.
I never had to.
Until he came home,
Bloated from a fishing incident, and
With rheumatism gnawing at his joints and tips,
My father, the provider
Ceased to be.

I remember the year, it was 1998.
And I overheard him say
“I can’t work anymore, I am sick.”
To this day I recall how it made me feel,
Put a knot in my stomach, was unable to breathe,
Time stopped for a moment, before it hit me.
I am, now, the provider.

For years it took a lot of struggle to accept this.
I was young, I should enjoy life, have boyfriends, be normal.
But I am now, the provider.
It took me years, but the sooner I accepted my fate,
The easier it became.
I worked, I struggled, I enjoyed life, and I traveled.
I provided, but anger did not overcome me- I still loved our home.
Because my father was still the provider.
He cooked hearty meals and no one went hungry, or remained tired for long.
He showed his love and affection through a plateful of pasta,
He batted out I’m sorrys by whipping out adobo even if no one wanted to eat.
He knocked on our doors to call out breakfast, lunch, dinner, merienda.
He banged if you did not open at once.

When I worked in Japan, it was his recipes I asked for, not my mama’s.
And even when I moved to my own place,
He still managed to send his cooking, a package full of his love.

His food was warm, his love, sincere.
My father, a simple guy with simple dreams
His giant heart housed both his anger, and his love.

My father is still, our provider.


Little Pillar

Little boy, innocent one,
You’re almost like my son,
Little boy, angel boy,
I guess you never grow up in my eyes.

Little boy? You’re 18 now.
It only seemed like yesterday
When you were born
When you took your first steps.

Little one, our beloved one,
Unlike us, you didn’t enjoy papa’s gifts,
And instead you’re left alone in the empty nest,
Left in his wrath, with tears in your eyes.

Our little one, now taller than the rest,
How can you be so happy
Without the same privileges as our childhood
Oh but little boy, you are the luckiest—
For you were the only one
Who grew up with both a father and a mother
And two elder sisters.

Oh little boy, innocent one,
You’re almost like my son.

Lost Pillar

My brother, my life

How does one light a candle--
When the wick is short
And the wind continues to blow in its direction?

How does one love a lost soul--
Who lies, steals, and cheats
From the only ones left loving him?

He is vulnerable, weak; a misguided soul.
We prayed for him, talked to him, cajoled,
challenged, supported him, berated him.
We gave him jobs, sent him to interviews,
Gave him thousands of money
To learn to fish,
To become a productive member of society.
But his choices erred-
landed him once an overnight stay in jail,
Once again, to be rescued.

How does one rise up after many falls?
When the knee is bruised and the spirit is crushed?
How does one look forward to a day
When everything will be all right,
And the world will see you in a different light?
How does one start again?

My brother, life does not work out the way you see it,
It is full of struggle, full of strife,
But these shape your character,
We work to make our lives better
It does not just happen,
Every day is a chance, a do over.
Little by little, this is how we do it.

My brother, how does one teach
Someone who doesn’t want to learn?
Maybe it is time to let go

Of my brother, my life.



The Normal Pillar

My sister, my only sister
Always just cruising along
With a childhood of normalcy,
She grew up steadfast and strong.

My sister, how I envy my sister
She is the sheep, I’m the tiger
She’s taller, and wiser
She’s leaner, and kinder.

My sister, my wise younger sister
She scrimped like an old woman
Borrowed my clothes but bought new shoes
We had the same dress size, but her feet were a size 8.

My sister is a generous sister
With nary a problem, she saved up
In times of need, she opens up her palm.
Always ready to give what she can.

My sister, how different you and I are
She’s a brand new car in this life
Ready to be taken off the road
To a runway, a life of bliss.

I am happy for her;
She grew up steadfast and strong
My sister, oh how I envy, my only sister.



The Elder Pillar


And so this is how I came to be
The elder sister, the single head of the family
The one who blows hot and cold
The one who loves with a passion.

And so face to face, I look at me
I see my mother, my pillar of strength
She’s the warrior in me-
The resilient, hardworking, give-it-all me.

She is the strong woman in me
The one who never gives up, especially with the ones we love.
She is the fighter in me,
When all the others have given up.

She is the man in me
The provider, the father, the exorbitant shopper
When there’s no one else to take care of us,
She taught me what to do, I take care of me.

Yet I see my reflection in my father’s face
It is the same shape; we have the same mole,
A little bit of his temperament, it sometimes surfaces
Yes, I am my father’s daughter.

That same face, that gargoyled head
Blood to blood, this too, was passed.
For I am intense, and sometimes, rather blunt,
I blow cold, and I blow hot.

That same face, that child-like gaze,
That is my father in me.
We laugh, we dance and we don’t care,
Little kids are quite taken by us.

He is the provider; he does what he can,
He tried his best, and expected more from his clan
There were no words of wisdom, no secret talks
That’s the entire package-take it good, better, worse or worst.

I have learned to accept, and forgive their shortcomings
After all, they tried to make this life better, they believed they could .
It is only in accepting them, I learned, that I can be a better woman.
True wisdom, yes, it too, came from them.

And so this is how it came to be
This is how I came to be me.
Flawed, but surviving,
Reaching out to explore my being,
A twig, out there in the sun, exposed, but thriving.

My pillars of strength,
Our gargoyled head
Our resilient spirit,
Our hope, our faith.

This is how I came to be, this is how I am me.


Epilogue

This is our story, this is our past
A pageful of saga, of journeys never before told
It leaps in my memories, some scenes jutting out in vivid clarity
This journey of creativity has unleashed emotional scars.

This is our story, our typical house
Our house with uneven columns
A resilient mother, a simple father
A broken brother, normal sister

This is our past, this is our history
Our house with uneven columns
Simple or small, or tall and strong
Pillars of strength, we all are to each other.

This is our story, this is our past
Who knows what lies ahead?
A brighter future, a bigger house?
Where one day, all of us together,
Can wake up to a soft dewy morning,
Looking up at a chestnut tree,
In a house on a hill.

Fan Mail

"Barbara C. Gonzalez" wrote:

Armi, this is an excellent piece. Your errors are uniform — verb tenses and how you mix them up in a paragraph. Anyway, just read my footnotes. Those are my edits.

A wonderful piece! Did I teach you to write that? How did it help you?

Tweee

From: "Armi" <@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: my graduation piece

Hahaha. You just made me laugh- "same error to the bitter end." It's not your fault, I really am lousy at tenses and grammar, and that's not part of your class, I'm afraid. I'll take this now as part of the class learnings, I will be conscious.

I also finished your book last night, your writing makes my right brain swirl, with so much creativity, and so much fun. The sessions spent with you made me see a glimpse of that person- someone with just the right sweetness, bitchiness and taray. Ok, I'm a fan, I know, I know!

Seriously, yes, you taught me a lot of things. I had difficulty with the metaphors, but you write them like they are stored in every nook and cranny of your belly, not just your brain, and now I have a real appreciation of metaphors. They are great! You are so right about clustering, I think that really is the key. It really made tapping to my creative side possible. I reached out and there were some sparks, and I just made those sparks write themselves down on paper.

Thank you so much! Please keep writing!

Love,
Armi

My Graduation Piece

In case you're wondering why there is a little backlog on my post, I've been writing my graduation piece for my writing class. It's an emotional journey, and intellectually taxing as well, requiring focus and concentration, especially when you are asked to write about your family, about each and every member of your family. There is a lot of material for one to write about their family, and writing a 2500 word article is a perfect inauguration in the religion of creativity.

It is a difficult class. I mean,you really have to exert effort to improve your writing, to write in the prescribed way, the creative way, using metaphors, dialogues, recurrences, images, wholeness and creative tensions. It is not a class where you just have to show up, and that's it, like my Docent Training Program, this one I've to write at night, review my drafts, rewrite if I have to, and I have to be satisfied with my output because I have to read it in class.

I sent in my final piece yesterday, short of 100 or so words, sending it in poetry format, yes, with all the metaphors I could muster. I winged it a bit, just writing whatever poured out of my clustering, and in my spontaneous writing. I'm not sure I can make it in a different tonality if I had to redo it, so I just used whatever came out of my writing (3 nights writing, 1 day editing), and edited it for grammar and style and am awaiting judgment.

So there, I'm drained. The stuff that came out is too personal to be posted in this blog, but some of you who know me know my story, and that's what I wrote there. The truths, as prescribed.

My Body

my body,
hearth with dancing fire,
hear it crackle
hear it sigh,
watch with pleasure
as it dances on life's experiences
feel its embers'
warmth and comfort,
watch it dance
....and die

Metaphors

Woman, who are you?
What defines you?
You are heart and soul
Body and mind
Twisted, convoluted,
Playful, flesh.

Woman, who are you?
You are both hard and soft
Like the twig that wraps around a gazebo
You reach out to the blue skies
Flowering, thriving under the sun.

Woman, who are you?
Are you today the soft dewy scent of lavender?
Or the doe that captures many a man’s fantasy?
Are you the tiger pouncing and growling
Menacing, yet just fiercely protective?

Woman, what are you?
With more than two arms,
A giant heart, a face, a smile for all?
Hard bones, unending charm, sharp wits
And both feet steadfast on the ground.

Shake it, shake her
Upwards and downwards
For her buds to proliferate
Shake it, shake her
You still won’t have a clue.

Woman, what are you?

Dreams

My eyes are now open,
I am awake
But in my dreams you distract me
Confuse me, silence me.
Swirling thoughts go back and forth
You are everywhere and nowhere.

I see you. Talk to me—
Against the cacophony of sounds that linger on,
As I try to be still, while the pained look on your face
Blinds me from the photographs and memories
That I have kept in my heart.

Help me. Breathe me.
I am warm, I am small
In a white casket.
I stood watching
But I am light, I am free.

Talk to me, come to me.
To say goodbye to the past.
I rise again. I embrace, tenderly welcome
this graceful moment
where life offers a chance to start over.
I no longer chase you. I am light, I am free.

Look at me one last time.
For I am no longer me.
My eyes are now open,
I am awake.

Inspiration From Barbara Gonzales

I send in my vignettes to Barbara, and wrote a fan mail. My first.
(Read my Blue and a Lesson for Marilou writeups, October 2007. For some reason my hyperlinks don't show on this blog. Must be the background color?)

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:11:44 +0800
Subject: Re: Thank you
From: "Barbara C. Gonzalez"
To: "76 Armi

Armi, thank you for sharing all this with me. You are a wonderful person.

The worm of pain that squirms inside you, weep, cry over him, but after a while you will stop. Keep crying for as long as you feel it necessary. Then one day it will be all over, just a memory.

Thank you once more.

On 10/11/07 2:43 PM, "Armi" wrote:

Hi Twee,

This may be spam to you, but I'd like to let you know that so far, I look forward to my Saturdays because of your class. I even fore go of a Boracay trip with friends this weekend because I love being in your class (and I'm glad I wont miss the class on Oct 20 when you'll be off to a wedding, because I will be off too- in Bangkok). I would like to share with you how I thought of the class, as we progressed.

Finally, I would like to say Thank You, for having this class, sharing your talent, and inspiring me to be a more courageous woman.

10/1/07

We sit in class enraptured by the lines read by each one, all full of emotions, and sometimes ending in tears. Here we are, strangers in the room, baring ourselves, sometimes letting go of feelings so raw, you almost cry in empathy. Sometimes we'd all erupt in laughter, closing our eyes while we listen as the words are read, and it is played out in our minds. Sometimes, when a good vignette is read, we clap our hands, and people remark, sigh, "That was good." I realized this class is not just about writing, but about journeys in life taken by each of the participant, and we are witnesses, as each recurring theme of our lives slowly reveal itself as the weeks go on. This is for Marilou, who is more heartbroken than me, struggling to keep afloat, as her writing keeps leading her back to Frank, her husband, whom she recently lost. She is unsure how to go on with life, with young kids and not enough experience with life's struggles to be really confident that she can make it alone. This is also for Bernadette, who chose to stay in a marriage that is keeping her hungry for self expression. We have 3 guys in class, a Dentsu advertising guy, a 60 something doctor, an 18 year old boy who is so full of angst we all think there's something wrong with him, a 24 year old virgin, a married woman with 3 kids whose poem is about Maybe I'll Lose Weight, another twentysomething girl who also seems restless and is in transition, and my favorite, Tita Nida who writes about Growing Old means Growing Soft, and Maybe If I'm Thin I'll be Mean..

I think there will be more arguments next time in class, and yes, even more tears. In the meantime, I dedicate this to my classmate, Marilou.

( I actually wrote about A Lesson in Letting Go inspired by her struggle, and of course, from mine.)


10/8/07

Believe it or not, all of us, though solely interested in our own progress in creative writing, looked forward to each one’s readings. We know each one has their own style, and slowly, we can already hear the difference in our works from the past weeks. Twee said, “I can now hear your voices. This is what clustering does to your writing, you find your own voices.“

The doctor has now slowly used less medical terms as he described the color white telling a story about a patient friend describing a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. We saw the marked difference in his writing and still, he would express his discomfort about writing the "natural way". Twee tells him to stop censoring, to tell his left brain to shutdown. Bonnie, the creative guy read about A Lesson in Photography, and as I listened, I closed my eyes as he keeps repeating the line, “Tell me a story” to create recurrences in his vignette. I saw each one of the pictures as he read it, even with my eyes closed-- now that is what photography is all about, telling a story! Bonnie is very creative and when asked to write about color, his vignette was, “The Darker Side of White”, deprecating white vs brown sugar, white rice vs brown rice, and so on..

Marilou still wrote about Frank, while Bernadette (the 40 year old married to a 70 year old) read A Lesson in Letting Go, which is more aptly titled “A Lesson on Coming”. (Yes, that kind). I sat next to her, so I tell everyone I am not reading my Letting Go piece, and instead chose to read the Driving Lesson. Marilou requests I read both, but no, I have decided already after majority of the votes I took from friends said hands down, I should read the sadder, melancholic one. Twee wanted me to read the Letting Go piece too, but I figured she must have written about it a thousand and one (better) ways (more on that later). It was fun to read my inspirational piece, and as I looked up to the men (as I read the line about being undmindful of how men see girls drive), the doctor’s eyes were twinkling, and when I finished everyone clapped and Twee said it was good. Ysabel, the 24-year old Povedan alumna told me she loved it, “It’s really all in the mind noh?”, and I remembered Puto, my staff, who is trying to learn how to drive who said she printed this poem from my blog to inspire her to drive. Go girl, you can do it!

Marilou also intimated to me that she only learned to drive after Frank died; she had no choice (Ahh, that is why she always asks to be led out of Salcedo to Ayala Avenue every Saturday. I drove ahead, leading her this week, and we wave goodbye at AIM).

Even Ysabel started using wonderful words, as she used Tumble Down for her recurring piece, and it was great to listen as she used these two words to describe how she should live her life. Tumble Down, make a mess, let go, have fun, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, she seemed to say.

***
I borrowed Twee’s book, “How Do You Know Your Pearls Are Real?:On Single Parenthood and Other Ms. Adventures.”

Last night, as I lit up my green tea home fragrance oil after insidiously, viciously cleaning my toilet, prepped my feet up, fluffed up the pillows and turned on the airconditioning, I started reading. She writes so well, all these feelings associated from everything, from the mundane to the ordinary, to the gut-wrenching emotions pulled from girth, the knife-sharp images about her separation, the end of her marriage, and her fight to be alone, earning her own money and coming into her own as a woman, brought alive, from pages of her diaries, her poems, lessons she learned about her men, and put out there for everyone to see. I text her that I can now understand why she chose to hie away to Cebu the day her book was released in 1991. I also told her I could relate, and that I am stopping reading her book for the next few days because they started to make me feel the scars and the writhing, living worm traversing inside my blood that I kept asleep, thinking it has gone away, flushed out of the tear ducts that now remained dry. I was so wrong.

I started weeping and realized it will leave me scarred forever.


Armi

Blue

Last Saturday we learn about images. “An image is an internal whole in the mind’s eye complete with all the sensations surrounding it, full of meaning for the writer. Images have strong visual significance, but they also evoke the feel or sound or smell or taste of things. Images are constant in all natural writing for they heighten or intensify the implicit, often becoming interlocking patterns of related images full of meaning.”

Where do images come from? Aside from our five senses, they can also come from daydreams, fantasies, internalized experiences of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste, as well as from dreams and nightmares.

The exercise that day was to cluster around the word color. I choose blue, and then I let my pen guide me, totally disregarding my left brain, and words tumble, and they continue to come out pouring, gushing from an unknown source, as if possessed, wanting to come out. I instantly felt the shift, and I was surprised where it led me to. (I almost choked at the last two lines when I read it in class.)


when i think of blue, i think of the sea,
the shorelines, melting away with the sand
the aquamarine, the greens, as they dip further away
into the deep blue yonder.

when i think of blue, i think of its many hues
and like its palette, emotions weave through me,
evoking, stirring nostalgia--
The Fine Romance. The yesteryears.

when i think of blue, i get the blues
i think of jazz, the crooning, the melting,
the sound of Billie Holiday's Yesterdays, whispering,
Norah Jones's, "Come Away With Me", sadly beckoning.

when i think of blue, i think of you
i catch the blues and the darkness
surrounding this agony. let me be.
stay away. don't go.

when I think of blue, i think of you.

Twee (that’s how she wants to be called) was pleased with this one because she said the clustering led me to a very personal experience, and she clearly saw (and heard) that.

***

Believe it or not, all of us, though solely interested in our own progress in creative writing, looked forward to each one’s readings. We know each one has their own style, and slowly, we can already hear the difference in our works from the past weeks. Twee said, “I can now hear your voices. This is what clustering does to your writing, you find your own voices.“

The doctor has now slowly used less medical terms as he described the color white telling a story about a patient friend describing a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. Still, Twee tells him to stop censoring, to tell his left brain to shutdown. Bunny, the creative guy read about A Lesson in Photography, and as I listened, I closed my eyes as he keeps repeating the line, “Tell me a story” to create recurrences in his vignette. I saw each one of the pictures as he read it with my eyes closed-- now that is what photography is all about, telling a story! Bunny is very creative and when asked to write about color, his vignette was, “The Darker Side of White”, deprecating white vs brown sugar, white rice vs brown rice, and so on..

Marilou still wrote about Frank, while Susan (the 40 year old married to a 70 year old) read A Lesson on Letting Go, which is more aptly titled “A Lesson on Coming”. (Yes, that kind). I sat next to her, so I tell everyone I am not reading my Letting Go piece, and instead chose to read the Driving Lesson. Marilou requests I read both, but no, I have decided already after majority of the votes I took from friends said hands down, I should read the sadder, melancholic one. Twee wanted me to read the Letting Go piece too, but I figured she must have written about it a thousand and one (better) ways (more on that later). It was fun to read my inspirational piece, and as I looked up to the men (emote ang lola when I read the line about being undmindful of how men see girls drive), the doctor’s eyes were twinkling, and when I finished everyone clapped and Twee said it was very good. Ysabel, the 24-year old Povedan alumna told me she loved it, “It’s really all in the mind noh?” I replied, “You don’t drive noh?”, and I remember Puto. Go girl, you can do it!

Marilou also intimated to me that she only learned to drive after Frank died; she had no choice (Ahh, that is why she always asks to be led out of Salcedo to Ayala Avenue every Saturday. I drove ahead, leading her this week, and we wave goodbye at AIM). Even Ysabel started using wonderful words, as she used Tumble Down for her recurring piece, and it was great to listen as she used these two words to describe how she should live her life. Tumble Down, make a mess, let go, have fun, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, she seemed to say.

***

So the competitive me was not competing with anyone but myself because I want to learn from this expensive class, yes? But I thought that everyone anticipated my reading, as well as that of Susan and Bunny. It’s not yabang, DEP, it just is. Tita Nida’s short, rhyming funny vignettes ceased to be- she was harried and will be missing the rest of our sessions as she will be traveling. Actually, now that I know more, I dare not call myself a writer- at least not compared to Bud! (Maybe I am a good reader, now that’s yabang- hahaha). Actually, Susan is very good with poetry, her words, when put together, they are something else.

***

I borrowed Twee’s book, “How Do You Know Your Pearls Are Real?:On Single Parenthood and Other Ms. Adventures.”

Last night, as I lit up my green tea home fragrance oil after insidiously, viciously cleaning my toilet, prepped my feet up, fluffed up the pillows and turned on the airconditioning, I started reading. She writes so well, all these feelings associated from everything, from the mundane to the ordinary, to the gut-wrenching emotions pulled from girth, the knife-sharp images about her separation, the end of her marriage, and her fight to be alone, earning her own money and coming into her own as a woman, brought alive, from pages of her diaries, her poems, lessons she learned about her men, and put out there for everyone to see. I text her that I can now understand why she chose to hie away to Cebu the day her book was released in 1991. I also told her I could relate, and that I am stopping reading her book for the next few days because they started to make me feel the scars and the writhing, living worm traversing inside my blood that I kept asleep, thinking it has gone away, flushed out of the tear ducts that now remained dry. I was so wrong.

I started weeping and realized it will leave me scarred forever.

A Lesson For Marilou

We sit in class enraptured by the lines read by each one, all full of emotions, and sometimes ending in tears. Here we are, strangers in the room, baring ourselves, sometimes letting go of feelings so raw, you almost cry in empathy. Sometimes we'd all errupt in laughter, closing our eyes while we listen as the words are read, and it is played out in our minds. Sometimes, when a good vignette is read, we clap our hands, and people remark, sigh, "that was good." I realized this class is not just about writing, but about journeys in life taken by each of the participant, and we are witnesses, as each recurring theme of our lives slowly reveal itself as the weeks go on. This is for Marilou, who is more heartbroken than me, struggling to keep afloat, as her writing keeps leading her back to Frank, her husband, whom she recently lost. She is unsure how to go on with life, with young kids and not enough experience with life's struggles to be really confident that she can make it alone. This is also for Susan, who chose to stay in a marriage that is keeping her hungry for self expression. We have 3 guys in class, a Dentsu advertising guy, a 60 something doctor, an 18 year old boy who is so full of angst and we all think there's something wrong with him, a 24 year old virgin, a married woman with 3 kids whose poem is about Maybe I'll Lose Weight, another twentysomething girl who also seems restless and is in transition, and my favorite, Tita Nida who writes about Growing Old means Growing Soft (she promised to send me this one so i can share with you), and Maybe If I'm Thin I'll be Mean..

I think there will be more arguments next time in class, and yes, even more tears. In the meantime, I dedicate this to my classmate, Marilou.

(A Lesson on Letting Go)

i say letting go is a hard thing to do.
without preparation or lesson in life--
when something goes beyond your control,
you have no choice, but to let go.

cry if you must, til the tears run dry;
it comes in waves, sometimes leaving you gasping for breath
as if life sucked you off its energy,the spirit and the will
to move on, but you must

let go. Don't look back.
don't hold on to the joys of the past.
just remember, re-live, only for a moment, for the chapter has ended,
and everyone awaits til you can rejoin the world again.

in the meantime, let go, have hope,
forgive, even yourself, trusting and believing
that you can do it- be alone, in control, and happy.
let go, have faith.

let go when you're ready. Let time take its course
as you weave through emotions, trying to understand,
asking all the questions, and trying to make sense of it all,
whenever you're ready, that's the best time to let go.

i say letting go is a hard thing to do.
but try anyway.

No Boundaries

(A Lesson in Driving ...For Girls)

a girl should drive, if she can
just take the wheel and step on the gas
shake off the weak knees and the cold hands
just drive, if you can.

a girl should drive, take the risk!
it's all in the mind, really.
as you take on uphill roads, highways and crazy taxicabs
turn the wheel, drive if you can.

a girl should drive to see the sights
to feel the speed, smell the ocean from afar,
discover new places; whether it's noon or night--
off you go, no one's there to stop you.

a girl should drive, unmindful of men and the way they see you drive.
"too slow", "be careful", "look in the mirror" they say
and then you do-- seeing yourself, saying silently
"I can drive!"

a girl should drive so she can use her time
growing, learning, getting lost,singing while driving,
be where she wants to be. Choices, choices--
there are no boundaries to where she can be.

a girl should drive, if she can. really.

Noise From Within

Today we learn about recurrence-meaningful repetition of words,images,ideas, phrases, sounds, objects or actions. Recurrence strengthens our writing, makes it more powerful and persuasive.

From the word MAYBE, we are asked to cluster. I penned on my paper- MAYBE life is really unfair,MAYBE it's time to run, MAYBE it's You, MAYBE I'm wrong, MAYBE you should know better, MAYBE I'll get some sleep. I chose the last statement, and clustered around this thought. This is what I came out with.

one by one the lights are dimmer,
and the noise grows faint.
slowly,gently, everything's quiet;
one bright light flickering away
until all there is-
is darkness.

softly, gently, i listen to the stillness of the night,
tossing and turning, until all the voices in my head are silenced.
a song to listen to, a book to read, until--
slowly, gently, the soft wind calms the spirit
and a lullaby sets me to sleep.

one by one, the lights are dimmer,
and the noise inside my head grows faint.

Write Down Your Dreams

I was reading snippets of the book Charmz and the Rotary Silangan gave me as (ahem, ahem) token for being the guest speaker the other night and I was struck by one chapter. Bo Sanchez wrote down his dreams, at some point in his life, and when he looked back years after, guess what? Most of them came true. It struck a nerve because I have this little notebook, a memento from one of those trips in Japan when I was 19, and it is handbounded by thread, where the cover opens from the end, and on the cover is an origami of a woman in kimono, except it is tattered now, and the black hair is gone. But there on the pages are the dreams I had when I was 19. The notebook fits perfectly in my bag organizer, so small it is now sitting alongside my Benefit and Nars make-up. I tell myself a writer should always have a pen and paper on hand, but I think it's because that tiny notebook is a reminder to myself to write new ones, because yes, most of them I have achieved.
And so, even if I have more gadgets than a girl should ever have, and more beautiful, bigger, made of finer paper notebooks, I'd like to hang on to this one and look at it from time to time, and when I have rewritten new ones, I will joyfully cross the old ones out. Those dreams were written in Mongol # 2 pencil, dated June 25, 1997, when my longhand was still legible.
Yes, it is time to write new dreams. I have big and small ones; it will be a longer list, this time, I'm sure. The best part about the act? It is free, and so spiritually healing.

I used to think that dreams end with the happy ever after line. I was so wrong. But who said one can't rebuild dreams in our most broken state? In fact, if there's any chance at all to start spinning new webs for new dreams, this is it. Time to start anew.

Let's see how it works out this time. I'm pretty sure, though, that it will be just like the first list, achievable, despite the odds. For I am not me, without the fighting spirit and the resilience of a warrior.

Chase after your dreams, write them down
one by one, list them, with no regard to time,
let the vision flow freely--look up to the stars
look up when you write them down!

chase after your dreams like a knight in the dark
seeing and believing, without groping or stumbling,
chase them like a child chases after fireflies,
chase them like the wind, like the thoughts in your brain.

chase after your dreams morning, noon and night,
pin them down,sleep with them,awaken in them
focus on the vision, never let go,
don't let yourself be eaten by the realities--
dont falter, don't let go.

chase after your dreams; work hard, work smart
rest when you're weary, but
chase them in your dreams, continue while asleep--
spinning,weaving, rebuilding hope.

chase after your dreams, do what you can
paint,write,make today what you can
when you look back, maybe you're half way there,
when you look back, you'll know you've reached that far

chase after your dreams.grow.

More Clustering

Because I have no time
To set my ladder up and climb
Out of the dung and the straw
Green poems laid in a dark store
Wither and grow soft
Like unturned apples in a loft.
-John Stallworthy

Without too much thinking, we are asked to choose three words from the poem, and to cluster around each word. I chose Time,Grow,Climb. I created a pageful of cluster for each word until I arrived at a statement for each, then I select one. Here it is:

The Most Important Time Is Now.

"I have time, that's all I have," I said this to L over a month ago when I offered to visit his parents in his absence, and see how they were.

But really, I was saying that to myself. I have only began to understand the importance of time as it is most often taken for granted. We arrive late at appointments, we vegetate, we switch channels poring over satellite stations;we choose to do nothing, and sometimes we do too much with so little time. We let time pass by participating in the humdrum of life's rituals, not understanding its richness. Some things take too long, and we wait in agony and irritation, often hurting the ones closest to us, and yet often, we look back saying, "Oh how time flies." Sometimes, when we close our eyes we are jolted by our past; there are regrets, and yes, sometimes, we can re-live the joys of the past.

It takes time to let go, but often, with my tempo, I force myself to rush on, to move on to the next phase, only to regress, and to waste more of that precious time. The most important time is now, and it is up to me how to use it. This time, I tell myself, don't settle, don't rush. No pressure, but to remember to use it wisely-- to understand where I want to be.

What I do today matters to me because I know it will shape my future. I choose life over death; to be grateful instead of sorrowful.I choose growth and learning over being stuck and bounded. I choose health and surround myself with love. I choose to focus in the now.

I have time, that's all I have, and I feel immensely rich.

The Age of Innocence

The class yesterday was making vignettes in two perspectives-one as an adult remembering a childhood memory, and the other, writing that same memory in the moment, as a child. There are no rules, Twee said, except to cluster, shift, write, and make the snake bite its tail (another writeup, or just take her class ok?)

As an Adult

I remember the summer days when my cousins and I would spend time at our grandparents-an island away, an overnight travel by sea- to Aklan. There is one particular memory that remains vivid to this day. It was mid-morning, and my cousin Dondon and I were leading the pack-he with his younger brother Tonette, and I with my younger sister Eden. We were frolicking under the sun, and by this I mean running around the rice fields, climbing trees and discovering what else this huge "playground" held for us. It was during that day that we discovered the shack where all the hens were kept. I remember Dondon hushing us up, as we went inside, inched our way in and crouched to see a hen lay an egg. Our eyes grew big in wonder as we saw one translucent round object come out of the hen and turned white- an egg! We could not keep the delight in silence and squealed in the discovery which made hen after hen quack, disturbed by our presence. I remember that summer day when we ran as fast as we could, back to Lola's house, who was calling out our names, hearing the disturbance we caused.

As A Child
" What are we going to do today?, " I asked my cousin Dondon.

It was summer, and my cousins and I were surrounded by trees taller than our Lola's house, and there were fruits waiting to be picked- star apples, santol and indian mangoes.

Yesterday, Dondon went up to a tree, and we didn't know what it was, but from it he had stinging red marks across his stomach. It was kasoy, we learned.

"Let's run across the rice field and see what's out there," he suggested. So off we went, in our slippers, shorts and sando. Half running, half walking, we went to see who would fall off the pilapil when we saw something-a little shack in the middle of the field.

"What is it? What's inside?", Tonette,Dondon's younger brother asked aloud for each one of us.
We took a peep, and saw rows of hens filling up the tiny bahay kubo up to its columns. We wondered why they were in there, and why they were sitting still.

No words were said, but we were in agreement to go inside, out of curiousity. One by one, we slipped in and knew we had to be quiet. And then it dawned on us that we were about to see a hen actually lay an egg. So we sat down on our knees, near each other, near enough by the door, and close enough to one hen about to lay an egg.

I saw magic as the hen stared ahead in concentration, and then there it is- a round, translucent object coming out of its tail.

" An egg! An egg!", someone said and I watch as it turned white, but our noise disturbed the other hens and they flipped and flapped, quacked, and I saw feathers in the air as I turn my back and tell my sister to run out of the shack. We were giggling and laughing, and we were still half running, half walking as we make our way back to Lola's house, smelling of sweat, but with pure joy in our hearts.

****
Postscript: From now on, Twee tells us to write in the childhood perspective.

The Joy Of Writing Class

Barbara Gonzales holds her class at her home in Makati, a penthouse unit with a lanai, a living room full of books and art, a really nice couch made of wood with white cushion, and soft lighting. She ushers me in, as I make my Tuesday appointment since I had to miss the September 15 start of her class.

She looks lovely at her age, and after a stroke, her life alone, teaching, painting, working at home, is enviable. I notice her clear skin, with very few lines, and she still can be sexy, with her top exposing a little of her back. She must have been really hot when she was younger. As we say to Lester, " may asim pa".
She asked me why I am taking the class, and as I was retelling the story to Xtin after, Barbara instantly remarked that ," You speak in English and Filipino noh?...like most Filipinos.." She was just pointing out that in her class she wants us to speak in one language as part of the training (although she herself would speak in Taglish, with an Assumptionista tone pa). Oh well.

I love her dining table, which is a long mahogany table, enough to seat 12. We sat there for over an hour, mostly her giving an introduction about herself and her class, which is essentially based on the book Writing The Natural Way (guys if you can find this book, please buy for me). She teaches the method she learned from this book which is guiding our brain to use the right side and blocking the left side which tends to prevent our part of the brain from evoking thoughts, feelings, emotions, associations. We start lesson 1 which is clustering. Instead of outlining, which is how I would do a technical report, a business plan or most business correspondence, clustering would involve encircling the focus word and connecting and encircling words that would come out of our thoughts as we let the right brain focus on the word. We continue to write until we feel the shift, when we have explored all possible associations with the word, and then we are ready to write.

She asked me for a word. I said, " Art?". Then she starts her clustering on the whiteboard across the table, where I can see her dirty kitchen, and then she stops. Then she writes on the left side of the board. Magic!

She then gives me a word, and I was asked to write about rain (which is amongst my many repetitive subjects in this blog). She had 2 comments. I had one wrong grammar (told you about this weakness), and then she said it was good.

"The grey skies and the cold wind warn me that the rain is coming. The change in atmosphere reminds me that summer is over , yet it brings back days of fun-filled youth. The rain is here, and it brings back memories, turning me nostalgic as I listen to the sound of the raindrops touching the ground. The soft billowing wind accompanying the rain makes me remember the past. Was it all good?"

The assignment is to write about someone who has had a tremendous impact in my life using a modeling approach- likening the tone, format, ending to a work by a famous American poet Peter Meinke.

Joy of Writing Assignment 1: Modeling

This is a poem to my honey, Louie
Whom I have loved and hurt at the same time, many times.
He is a man with a stubborn spirit and willful independence
Yet his tenderness, his sweet embraces and kind words
Have brought color to my life.
I remember the rides along the highways,
The speed of the car with the wind blowing in my face,
The cold touch of white sand at our feet,
The distances we crossed; dreams spun and promises made.
He made me see, hear and feel a world that awakened my senses.
He is my first love, and like many great loves,
When ours came to a halt, there was pain like no other.
Dreams were shattered, they fell apart,
Questions went unanswered, magic turned to death.
I cried NOT for nothing, but for love and life.
To love, and be loved,
To experience joy brimming in one’s heart
At a particular moment in time,
That joy is worth going through whatever lies ahead.
As you struggle to find your own path,
I write this for you Louie, my love, my life,
Not knowing the ending, but knowing it will be all right.

I'm not sure which one to submit tomorrow. Here is another version.


This is a poem to my friend F
Whom I admire,
For he cares not what others think of him
He laughs, shouts and derides
Whether you’re a boy or a girl, young or old.
He is carefree, forever young, foolish and hungry.
He lets me be- slows me down, makes me feel.
He lets me be- angers me, confuses me, loves me,
Berating me, exhilarating, inspiring me.
He is a free spirit, a hunter tamed by his passions
That ground him, efface him, humanize him.
He lives life with such fire that I forget--
I am lonely.
To be spontaneous in life; to live in the moment,
To face fear and to live in laughter,
He teaches me, he lets me be.
This is a poem to my friend F,
Who I hope I see, for what he seems to be.

Classes! Classes!

No feedback on this one from previous attendees, and I think P4K is a bit steep. A better alternative is to go along with a local and go around town, taste the food, and take some shots. Yes, even a digicam will do.











***
Joy Of Writing

Hi, I’m Barbara C. Gonzalez, columnist for almost 20 years. I write Second Wind for the Philippine Daily Star on Saturdays. Now I can teach you to become more creative, know yourself better, then to write better.

Joy of Writing, my writing course, is made up of eight sessions, held on eight consecutive Saturdays:

Session 1 Intro to Clustering
Session 2 Childhood/Adulthood
Session 3 Recurrence
Session 4 Images
Session 5 Metaphors
Session 6 Creative Tension 1
Session 7 Creative Tension 2
Session 8 Graduation

The next class begins on Saturday, 15 September 2007. Usually classes begin at 2:00 pm and end before 5:00 pm. At the end of the eight sessions, without a doubt you will emerge a better writer. I teach you how to make your right brain lead the writing process. No one else can teach you that. You will become a more confident, more creative person with a few new tricks to guide you in the future.

The entire course will cost you only P8,000, payable in full in cash on the first session. After that you can make up whatever classes you missed in future sessions at no charge.

Just email me at secondwind.barbara@gmail.com or lilypad@skyinet.net or text me at 0917-8155570 and then I will let you know my address.

By the way -- if you have a group of five, I can give you classes on other days of the week. I can even come to an assigned house. Just inquire, and we will talk.

Thank you and I hope to hear from you soon.

Barbara C. Gonzalez

***
So I guess you will read more about my experience with this writing class. It's just unfortunate that I will miss the first class- I will arrive from Taipei on the evening of the 15th. Tsk tsk.