No. 4: The One About Sisters from other Mothers

This one will be short, but not less vivid.

Freshman year in college, I had an intense crush on a guy named Joseph. He was tall and fair, solidly built, and with the nicest dimples ever (or so I thought in 1999). He never spoke in class unless directly confronted by a teacher or our classmates. He was a bit of a mystery to me, and my crush on him was built on nothing except his looks. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it really was a pretty dumb reason for liking a guy, but hey.

My happy memory happened on the day I saw him walking around with a pretty chinita girl. Him with the girl was devastating, make sure of it. I’ve heard of rumours before then, but Joseph’s hand at the small of her back confirms everything.  However, I was lucky to be with two of my closest girl friends, Andrea and Mariel. It’s almost silly how they unequivocally banded together to defend me, and when that didn’t work, to cheer me up.

Mariel said, “Baka cousin lang naman.”  (Which the hand at the small of the back denied). One after another, they came up with reasons, each one more plausible than the last, as if gradually helping me accept the reality that Joseph ris taken and probably cannot even remember my name. Finally, Andrea, shot her hands up in the air, and proclaimed, “His loss.”

Years later, I found someone else with even more perfect dimples than that guy. Joseph has become a footnote in adolescent history. But those two girls who helped me get over that first of many tiny heartbreaks never left my side until today and will always be thought of with fondness and love.

No. 3: The One about my Bestselling Fiction feat. Boyzone

When I was in high school, writing was my "thing." But I didn't have the discipline for journalistic writing, which I found constrictive. I had a lot of authors I wanted to model myself on, not least of them is Jane Austen. But when you're a teenager in an all-girls convent school in the early 90s, Jane Austen doesn't sell. What sold were those Sweet Dreams books, a teen romance series (before it was coined its current term Young Adult or YA).

I tried writing those sober, gothic stories. But once, I translated one into a play for English class, and it didn't go over very well. It could be because of the trite writing, or maybe because of my hammy acting of the hero's dying mother. Which ever reason it may be, it made me want to see if I could write anything my own age-group would appreciate. So something like Sweet Dreams mixed with something popular, maybe. And what was popular that decade were boy bands. There were tens of thousands of them doing the duck-face pose before any girl on Facebook ever did (check pic above). So I wrote one about Boyzone who happened to be my world as well.

I knew I needed research to make a strong, believable plot, and thanks to being a teenager, I knew that I know all about:
1. True Love, obviously
2.  Pimples, Cramps and PMS
3. Mean girls
4. 200 alternative words for crush
5. MTV (back when it was cool)
6. Boyzone's whole discography
7. Every minutiae of what the band members made, ate and pooped for the last 3 years

Of course I was qualified to write a teen romance!

And so when I was 14 years old, the short novel "More Than a Fling" was born. (oh geez, I am cringing as I type this).

It was about Liv (duh!) our heroine who is an MTV Video Jockey who got to interview this hot new boy band called Boyzone (double duh!). Liv is like She's-All-That, but getting really tired of the fame and popularity and the tons of money she makes while doing pretty faces and sounds in front of the camera. (I didn't know how mortifying this was going to be when i set myself to write this).  But meeting Boyzone, Stepehen in particular, changed her life. She fell in love with his quiet, unassuming ways, and he loved her energy and smile. They had some problems as love stories go, but they overcame it and lived happily ever after.

To make it more interesting to my classmates, I made sure I used their names and paired them up with their crushes. So V was partnered to Ronan Keating, J was partnered with Nick Carter when the Backstreet Boys made a cameo in the story, etc... you catch the drift. If it makes sense for them to be there, I put them there. And sometimes, even if they don't. What the heck, put it there anyway.

And oh boy, was the short novel a success. My Dad printed it up all nice and bound it up (oh God, I am just realizing what if my Dad read that story? Wait, what if his staff who printed and bound it for him did?) People who wanted to read the story wrote their name on the front page, right under the credits, as a system. My happy memory here is this: my last glimpse of that novel was a 3-column list in front of classmates and batchmates, and at the back, a name of one of our teachers among the list of borrowers.

I don't know where that novel is now, thank heavens. I can't remember if  it was ever returned to me. That novel was utter crap. It's worse than Twilight, which you know I totally abhor. I don't even know if my classmates liked it. I don't think they would've told me anyway if they didn't. I was the tallest and biggest girl in the class after all.

But I wish I still have it. It can remind me that... well, I am capable of selling out, is one thing, but not really the point here. Remembering it reminds me that I can do whatever I set my mind to do. Taught me some marketing strategies too, which came in handy later in life.

1. Ownership -- my most loyal fans who promoted the book til their dying breath were those whose name were mentioned at least once, in the story.

2. Context - it helps if you know your audience. It helps if you can get them to relate to your story. Empathy is key.

3. Accessibility - I wonder what would've happened if there was more than one copy circulating in the school?

4. Opportunity - I really should start getting paid doing this creative stuff. Dang it.

And by Jove, it was surreal seeing this picture again. Rest in peace, Stephen. Have fun up there, girlfriend. 

Tuh-muh!

No. 2: The One with the best Pinakbet

I grew up masticating chunks of animal flesh. My poor mother tried to get me into the whole vegetable healthy eating thing, but I turn into a savage if forced to eat anything bitter, suspiciously leafy or green. I got my way and made it til 24 years old without having imbibed anything more substantial than kangkong (water spinach) and the occasional pumpkin. But life has a way of draining your spoiled ways out of you. It's called the Real World. And in the real world, you have no choice but to chew the cud or starve.

This memory is one of the earliest in my life as a development worker. In an earlier post, I have relayed already that my job involved a lot of rural travel, and by rural, I mean places that Waze has never heard of yet. This took place, coincidentally, in Burgos, Ilocos Sur.  (Yes, we're related. But that's another story for another time). Burgos is a fourth-class municipality, which features a mountainous topography. For this particular project, we were building red school houses and we were looking for possible build sites. My job was to conduct an ocular and verify data from  the principal, teachers and community leaders. Entering Burgos was an event for me.

First, obviously, I get some twisted pleasure knowing the whole place bears my surname even if I do not own land to fit a teapot in the area. Second, the welcome marker is only a few meters ahead of an old town cemetery, which is slightly creepy at best. Third, it was the first time I saw a vehicle (ours!) forced to cross a river (shallow, yes, but about 4-5 feet wide) to get to the other side. What I didn't expect though was the school we were going to cannot be reached by car. The van had to park at the base of the mountain, and I have to trek 2 kilometers upwards to get to the actual school. I guess that forced mountain climbing activity set the stage for what was waiting for me up ahead. If I could go back in time to this particular juncture, I don't think I would be able to help chiding my younger self, "Now don't you wish you ate those vegetables and got that exercise when you were younger?"

When finally, I reached the school, it was almost noon. I tried to talk, really I did. But the principal could barely understand what I was saying between my heaving gasps. Out of kindness, she told me she prepared lunch, and maybe we should take a rest first and talk while eating. Talking, eating, at this point where not my top priority, because I could barely breathe. Out of politeness though, I agreed and sat down.

When she came back, she proudly presented her head teacher's specialty. Pinakbet. Full of strangely shaped vegetables some of which I do not even know the name. Without a sliver of pork or chicken or anything I call food. But culture dictates I eat, even just a bit. So I did. And it was the best thing I ever tasted. In. This. Life. The kind of delicious that makes your eyes roll up to the heavens in silent hallelujah. I was surprised out of my sweaty socks.

"It's the bagoong." the principal said. Bagoong, which I loved ever since.

I ate so much of it, they had to bring in another bowl of rice. The principal asked me how the food compares to the other pinakbets I have tasted before. I didn't want to tell them it was my first time. I don't want to be mistaken for a heathen. So I just replied, "The best so far." And I wasn't lying.

I went back to the hotel happy and with new-found respect for veggies. And just imagine my mother's delight when I started eating vegetables, little by little when I got back to Manila. I will probably never become a vegetarian, but we're friends now. These bitter, suspiciously leafy, green things and I.

No. 1: The One with the Volcano

Liv & Daragang Mayon, taken in broad daylight, at the Cagsawa Ruins. 

Bicol. Thanks to my first job, I have been to the region more times than I could count. Most tourists settle with Legazpi or Naga, but my job was to find far-flung schools in need of additional school buildings, and small, non-descript farmer cooperatives in need of a livelihood boost. So from Iriga to Ligao, Tabaco to Sorsogon, I rode the heck out of our organization's pick-up truck with our trusty company driver, Mang Fred, literally hours on end.

Things blur when you do something too many times though. At some point, the spice went out of the pinangat. But a recent photo of Mayon Volcano taken and posted on FB by someone seeing it for the first time reminded me of the many happy memories I had there. It inspired me to build on the current #100happydays trend with my own #100happymemories. The aim of the latter is not to get stuck in the past, of course. The first hashtag, the way I figure it, is for people who want to be content with what they have. The second is for people who also want to affirm that their life have had purpose all along, if they take a moment to reflect. 

The most moving memory I have of Bicol happened in 2006, where the best view of the then irascible Mayon Volcano can be seen from Daraga Church at night. First of all, it’s always interesting to go to old churches nearing midnight. In daylight, the worshiping masses populate the place and cancels out the strange energies. But during the quiet of the night, you’re not quite sure if another kind of population is surrounding you. But we weren’t there to hunt for ghosts. We were there to bear witness to an event Man cannot control.

Mayon Volcano has erupted again and the hardy townsfolks were so well prepared that it presented little inconvenience to their everyday life. But for a city girl like me, seeing a force of nature showcasing its strangeness before my eyes is nothing short of awe-inspiring.  The silhouette of the volcano was limned in glowing scarlet. A crimson river flowed from its mouth to its mid-base, flashing silver where the lava was hottest. I was watching from a safe distance, but I am not naive. I know that the earlier eruptions have taken lives. I know that it buried whole towns -- the Cagsawa ruins a testament to the destruction it can wield. And yet... there is seduction in its terrifying beauty.

I scrambled to capture that memory, but my point-and-shoot camera was useless. Camera phones were not a thing yet. All I had was my eyes and my brain, and a friend who could corroborate this story. It was she who told me, “Forget it. Let’s just watch!”

We sat there for about an hour without talking. She smoked a cigarette, a detail I remember because the red glow of the stick when she takes a puff was a counterpoint to the embers of the volcano in front of us. I was wearing a thin shirt, perfect under the harsh Albay midday sun, but ineffective in the steady night breeze. It wasn't what made me shiver though. It was more of the realization of how flimsy and fleeting a human life is, compared to what we were seeing. I understood why our forefathers treated volcanoes as potent deities. Today, we may understand how and why volcanoes erupt, but science wouldn't really be able to completely explain why we are fascinated by its power. 

We both knew it when it was time to leave. Without words, I got up, she followed, and we went back to Legazpi in near perfect silence. 

This is the first happy memory I would like to share. The memory of a volcano which is symbolic of the folks who live in the region. People who could live their lives with a volcano in their backyard and still look unruffled while they diligently prepare for the worst. 

Bicolanos whose beauty is graceful, and yet, fiery, fierce.