"Piso-piso"

by Ewong



I take back what I said in my last blog post. Or rather, I am keeping what I said before: summer had been cruel to me. I got hospitalised early this month (for the first time ever), puked my guts out and subsisted on dextrose for four days. A week later, my very sick cousin died. She'd been sick a very long time: complications from the thyroid storm which killed her unborn baby months before, and then malnutrition. A few days before she passed, she told my mum, pointing to somewhere in her hospital room, that she was seeing Jesus in bright light... Jesus, she was certain, and someone she called "S." Of course, my mum told my cousin to stay with the light, go with Jesus. And she did eventually.

And no one must go with "S." Whoever he or she was.

For the next few days, relatives arrived for her wake. Relatives who don't live in the same town (she and her daughter, my aunt, uncle, and my other cousins just lived in a house a few blocks--a tricycle ride--away from ours). Yes, those whom we only see when a kin has died. I'm not close to most of my relatives, so I wasn't really excited to see them. Sometimes I think, and funny it is, really, that the families of my clan are in some sort of a contest of who gets to have the saddest, most MMK-worthy story. This cousin of mine tried to hide her pregnancy from her strict father for the longest time, and they lived under just one roof. She had goiter, hence her pregnancy was downright delicate, but she never went to see an endocrinologist or an ob/gyn. Before this baby, she already had a teenage daughter, with a man who just disappeared before the girl was born. Her new husband, the father of her dead baby, abandoned her after giving birth--

or is it "giving death"?

My own family was in strong competition a few years back. When my dad died tragically, treated like an animal, while my mum couldn't even go to her own husband's funeral, and we, their kids, had to fend for ourselves...

So you could say I planned my visit well to the funeral home: it was during noontime, and like I predicted, my relatives were still out, soundly sleeping in my uncle's house, and I only had to meet my cousin's (now totally orphaned) daughter. Still, I hated scenes like this. Not that I do not care for my cousin, or that I do not mourn her, but it's just that I hate the sight of death, this very solid scene designed with a white coffin, wreaths, monoblock chairs, a guest book, candles lit and blinding bulbs burning all day and all night long. And seeing my cousin like she was already a skeleton, I could see her wrinkled skin sagging from the bone of her arm. She was just about my age. One could not recognise that she was the same fine, pretty lady in the framed portrait on top of the coffin glass. She was my most beautiful cousin. And perhaps that's why I never visited her in the hospital, never in the four months that she was sick, dying ever so slowly. Because I wanted to only remember the beautiful flower that she was when we were younger.

Her name was Hyacinth.

And so, you could further say that I hate being confronted by death. I'd rather all my siblings and cousins have unplanned pregnancies, and then births, every month, every week if they must, but not this call of mourning. I would not want to see my relatives again, if it'd only be on funerals.

But I love the coffee served, and the biscuits from the big tin box. Classic. Later that day, during the wake, another cousin would teach me how to play tong-it, and I'd win three out of the six rounds.

Piso-piso game it was.
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(The beginnings of my) Cruel Summer

by E Wong



And so this doesn’t appear to be the bright sunshiny summer I wished it would be—for me. My brother had just lost his job, hence our expenses at home will definitely be tighter. We had already cut our internet connection months ago; I think we have to give up the cable subscription, too. Our cat had given birth to three kittens, and our dog will be giving birth soon. It'll be so heartbreaking to give up—give away—some of our pets eventually. Then even more ill-timed is the need to transfer to another house in the province next month, just one block away, anyway, but the moving and the costs it will entail is huge headache already.

There’s also some “domestic uncertainty” back here in our apartment in Manila, and I really wish things will turn out fine for my dear housemates. My own “certainty” depends on it. Then, my mother had her recent checkup for diabetes, and she is advised of stricter monitoring, thus there’ll be more medications than what she is already on. Worse news is one I just learned this morning: my cousin, who barely made it after her tragic pregnancy “poisoned” by her severe goiter, is back in the ICU, and now the doctors and the family are on the verge of giving up…

This is how my summer appears to be: gloomy despite all this sun. I am keeping the optimism, of course, but I’m really sad, and scared, about how things will turn out. Well, for one, I’m glad that my personal life—the affairs of the heart—has just wrapped up its last consuming chapter. Yes, I am moving on. It was a great experience, but one which has to conclude now. I'm glad I will not be writing so much about heartbreak and unrequited love soon. And I’m glad I ended it with a creative, thesis-like thing, like a student’s final paper deserving a 1.0. Which brings to mind… oh no, I guess I have to postpone (again) my going back to school, given these predicaments…

And my summer plans most likely will remain plans. The Vigan or Baguio trip, the annual beach getaway, the concert I wanted to attend. And the writing “retreat” I’ve been looking forward to. I guess I’ll be spending the rest of the summer just at home, in the hospital, and in the office. I don’t think I’ll have time left to write poetry, or to do some art, which I just recently got back into. That is really sad. I don’t even have the energy to edit and polish this blog post. Here comes the stream of consciousness… Here comes the inevitable ellipses… and the grunts... hmpf... aargh... and the shouts… aaahhh… aaahhh…

So I guess I may not be blogging as often as I want to, and my Facebook addiction will have to be greatly tempered as well. Because summer seems to be extra tough this time. Because I have just lost my licence for procrastination. Now I have to move, move, move! Because I will have to face life once again… in the face! We’ve been through much more difficult times before, that kind of drama which you’d only see in the movies or in MMK, (God I don’t even want to recall them!), but now, why am I so scared of the days ahead? Because I fear poverty striking us again? Because I don't want any more deaths in my family, amongst my relatives? Anyone dying, for that matter!

But so strange it is that when things go awfully rough, it seems easier to accept tragedy or tribulation in the rainy days. Is it because, as the cliched metaphor goes, the rain washes away our tears? Whilst summer, this time of the year, means being happy and youthful and festive, and we should be singing now, dancing now, and having some summer lovin’? Because in this season of sun, we’re supposed to celebrate the dryness of our eyes, we should bask in the utter brightness of our ephemeral lives?

I wish I knew the answer. I wish life would be easier. I hope things will still be sunshiny for me, for everyone… O summer, please don’t be so cruel to me now. You’re my favorite season, you know that. Shine on me, O sweet sun. Shine on me now—

just don’t get me burnt.

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How I Met Dog No. 5

Hush, puppy!

So my sister and I were on our way to the palengke to buy fish and rice and dog food when from up the dog heavens appeared my Dog No. 5. And he’s no ordinary dog. My newest child is a cute, adorable foundling with very long ears who was eating grass and scouring the garbage for anything that could be eaten. I didn’t want to get him at first since it would have been a form of stealing and that he might bite. Ergo my sister and I walked on, but some divine power tugged at my dog-loving heart, and so apart from the dog food which I intended to buy for my three hungry dogs at home, I also bought a leash so that I could go back to the barren grassland where we spotted the “stray” dog and rescue him.

By the time we returned to the lot, the dog wasn’t there anymore. I felt deep in my bones, though, that he couldn’t have gone too far. So we walked on further and there he was, down the street across the Zagu Pearl Shake store, still digging for food, mud and twigs stuck to his ears and body. I quickly took a handful of Beef Pro Puppy pellets and tossed it to the ground. When I sensed that he’s no biter, I took some more dog food and let him feed off my hand. He was hungry as hell, he must have been out on the streets at least two days. So I slowly tied the leash around his neck and then hailed a tricycle. A part of me felt like I was a kidnapper, but the better, stronger, handsomer part of me dictated that I am saving someone who could die of starvation or disease or end up with drunk people who like eating exotic dishes.

It was when we reached home when I finally remembered the word I’ve been looking for: Dachschund. My uncle said 'hush puppies,' but I corrected him: Dachschund, in my best attempt to sound German. And so my little sister got to learn another spelling bee word. So I fed him more and gave him water, and then came out the soundliest gulps from the Animal Kingdom we’ve ever heard. He was really, awfully starved and thirsty. We could also see and feel his spine and rib bones through his black fur. My mom pitied him so much, especially that it rained so hard last night, where in the world did he stay out?

My three dogs weren’t very welcoming towards him, as expected; there was a long series of smelling and barking and more smelling of each other's snouts and asses. But I know my one-year-old, white Dog No. 3, Tan-tan, will get along fine with him. They’re almost the same size, and I could already foresee a riotous dog play around the house. My Dog No. 4, Tentay, and the only bitch, kept yelping in her soprano voice, but I know pretty soon they’ll be civil housemates. We are yet to introduce him to our big brown Dog No. 1, Bogart, whom we had to keep in our big dog/cat house (what used to be our sari-sari store) lest a barako fight might erupt. We're too familiar about this alpha male complex, and we had to plan their “introduction” well.

Instantly my whole family fell in love with this cute dachshund who is no longer a puppy but has the size of one. I figure he's about two years old, judging from his teeth and his developed man-nipples, but just the same, to us he is a new puppy. We couldn’t carry him yet and hug him because he smells terrible, he had the odour of someone who hasn't bathed for two weeks. But he’s very gentle and lets anyone touch him, unlike most dachshunds who are rather standoffish to strangers. He doesn’t mind our other dogs, too, but there’s just one problem: he keeps barking at our cats!

Everytime I bring home a new dog, my mom would always get nostalgic about Dog No. 2, Princess, our beautiful puppy (mix of Spaniel-Spitz-Beagle) who died of parvo two years ago. Perhaps she was the divine spirit who urged me to rescue this poor long-eared vagabond in search of a home and in need of love. And so there goes the story of how I met Dog No. 5.

So, what name did I give him? Well, after much thought: Zagu.



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ERRATUM: My new dog is not Dachshund, after all. Thanks to Anne V for clarifying it: Zagu is a Basset hound. :-)

Living in a Library

Reading is an activity subsequent to writing--more resigned, more civil, more intellectual. - Jorge Luis Borges

What used to be just a crazy home idea finally happened: my housemate and I sorted and catalogued our books as we moved to the apartment unit nextdoor. And it's not even our books, it's our other housemates.' Well, that's what I get from choosing to live with a UP professor, a UP student, and another bookworm of a friend. And being a former Comparative Literature student myself, this should definitely feel like heaven for me.

So there were more than 400 books logged, and those are just the literary books, because we wanted to keep track of which novels we have at home and eventually make a reading list. We ended up sorting in these categories: novels, poetry/tula, short stories/anthologies, children's lit, young adult lit, Philippine fiction in English, panitikang pilipino, and essays/memoirs. There was a special section for Japanese authors, and of course, we had a separate shelf for our favorite authors: Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and Michael Chabon. And those are just half of the whole collection that my housemates have; the others, un-catalogued, are non-fiction books on sociology, politics, economics, Marxism, feminist and gender studies, cinema, documentary filmmaking, media studies, anthropology, cultural studies, photography, and other fields of interest like sign language and sex. We were so overwhelmed by the humongous collection, and it is so much more difficult now to decide which one to pick and read first.

Although our apartment is usually messy like hell, I love this home of ours, because it makes me feel good, even just the sight and smell of all these books, which I believe must number almost a thousand already. I figure that if I would be able to read them all, I'd be so damn smart and crazy, but intellectual, (in a sexy way) nonetheless.
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