I don’t know if I should be upset but I have recurring dreams about or set in our old house where I grew up. It was a small house in an area that J would have called ghetto. But it was a place where I learned how to deal with people from all walks of life. My father was obsessed with home ownership as he grew up materially/financially insecure. Home ownership was something my parents worked at even though they were struggling PhD students/candidates, assistant professors working on their tenure, putting four children though private school. So that was they all could afford–a small house in a neighborhood that you had to access through an esquinita (street corner turning into an alley). But as early as 1984 they were already working on building a bigger house right inside the university so they knew we won’t have to stay there that long.
Anyway, for the past few weeks or months, I had vague dreams set in that place or a similar-looking place. I cannot remember what exactly those dreams were but I knew by feeling it was set there or it was about it.
It was sort of…comforting. It was familiar, it was like being in a womb. After waking up, I have some kind of feeling similar to what I feel when I hear the song “These Dreams” by Heart.
I don’t know…maybe I’m looking for some kind of comfort because I’m just a fraud. I pretend and put up a front that I am brave and a strong single mother and I get things together but in reality I’m just scared and insecure. Maybe I just want to feel protected. Maybe I’m just tired being strong.
This is also probably why Kimchi keeps on sleeping near me or with me. It’s familiar, it’s comforting. It’s like being in a womb. She can just let go because she knows she is protected.
I was working today when I found Kimchi tucked in between my comforter, sleeping soundly, like everything is alright in the world. I don’t know how she managed to get herself wrapped around my sheets but there she is, savoring the smell of her human mommy. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I love hams (jamón in Spanish or hamon in Tagalog spelling). Not the canned kind; it’s the one that people had painstakingly cured for some months. Every Christmas since the Spanish colonial period, well-to-do Filipinos make jamón as the centerpiece of the noche buena (“evening of goodness”, which is Christmas Eve), kinda like the turkey for the American thanksgiving. It is served after the misa de gallo (Catholic midnight mass) and the whole family (or rather the extended family) would gather in the comedor (“dining room).
This tradition has been passed down to us and I remember there were lean times when we were kids and didn’t have the jamón and my lolo (abuelo in Spanish; grandfather) would just cook his legendary American Southern fried chicken (he used to be a cook in the US in the 1920s or 30s). I would only taste jamón during Christmas that’s why I’m so fond of it. It evokes Christmases in Batangas, where my parents are from, and later on Christmases spent in my hometown after my grandparents had passed. Jamón reminded me of the times I would go home from Manila for Christmas and go AWOL after Dec 16 and only reappear in our office after Jan 2. I would make ham sandwiches to take to my room while I reread the entire Lord of the Rings book set, including Silmarillion and The Hobbit for a week or less.
Not all jamóns are created equal. The Filipino hamon is the sweet kind given the Filipinos’ propensity for sweet food. It’s cured in wet brine with other spices. Then it is brushed and baked or boiled in azucar or brown sugar (especially in sugar plantation areas of Central Philippines or Western Visayas) or pineapple juice. I heard some people smoke it.
Meanwhile, my mom’s favorite is the Chinese ham. She told me of her good memories of when they were young, my lolo would bring home a whole hind leg of pork that he cured in salt and some spices and dried for months. And he would hang it over the stove to be smoked and he would cut small pieces of it for them to eat slowly. For this type of ham, I think I like the local Chinese ham by Majestic and Excelente. I remember bringing home one entire leg of ham and my mother enjoyed every bite of it.
But the best one, which Jeffrey Steingarten even waxed lyrical about, is the jamón Iberico. After I gorged myself with it with some red and white wine and tapas in one Aboitiz party (where I think all the Spanish families of the Philippines congregated for one night), I have concluded it is the best tasting ham there is. And the most expensive.
The most expensive ham (Jamon Iberico de bellota) since a leg of this costs USD 4,500. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Jamon Iberico has some salt to it but it is faint. It is cut very thinly, almost paper-like, for you to taste its gentle but complex flavor. Other people may mistake it for prosciutto but the latter is too salty. Jamon Iberico can stand on its own without cheese and toast when you’re drinking wine before dinner.
I may be committing a crime here but I ate my jamon Iberico de bellota with rice for today’s brunch (I was so hungry!) I couldn’t drink wine and I had to give some bottles away so I had the jamon with C2 tea (OK, you can nail me to the cross now).
Brunch of jamon Iberico on rice, Korean side dishes and veggie salad.
It was lovely, lovely, lovely.
For dinner tonight, I heated on my tamagoyaki pan some slices of Filipino hamon to make ham sandwiches for dinner and brunch for tomorrow before I drive off to my hometown to spend the Christmas with my family sans the twins.
Speaking of diving off, my car ripped me off again. I had to have my clutch/water pump fan changed and have new blades installed this evening or else my engine would overheat and my compressor would need to work double time. My old clutch fan was already freewheeling, hence, it was no longer efficient and providing cool air for my diesel engine.
Don’t mind the scratch; the deed was done a long time ago. Phoyo by CallMeCreation.com
After I’m done with my tiny house’s construction, my next project will be a new car. A roomy car that can take three folding bikes and a tent.
I have received beer–a lot of it–for Christmas this year. The ironic thing here is I can’t drink anymore (alprazolam + escitalopram + alcohol = intoxication) or else I may end up like Dolores O’Riordan drowning in a bathtub. I have more than a dozen bottles of craft beer (such a shame) and this two dozen beer cans. And a couple more I gave away.
I can’t give this to my brother since he has gout and does not really drink. My sister will get the craft beer as she and her high school friends will have their annual get together on the 30th. I will give this Brew Kettle to my high school friends/talk show co-hosts/ex-band mates. They are laughing at me now because I used to drink a lot with them before and here I am giving away alcohol without partaking. FB Memories reminded me of Dec 20, 2009 and we were in a bar in our hometown and they were serving wicked mixed cocktails in a glass vase and we all drank from the same vase and pitcher. Yes, pitcher. Obviously COVID is yet to be a thing. We were so hammered then.
I partied hard in my younger years. We used to bar hop a lot before and what I loved to do on weekends is to hear rock bands play live in bars. My bestfriends and I (when they still worked here in Manila) went to Xaymaca because some friends played there.
Now my guy high school friends couldn’t imagine me mellowing like this in our 40s, sewing during evenings and weekends 😂
At least I can look back and say, I did all that and still came out decent and somewhat successful. 🤣 We grow up and mature but we are still essentially the same goofy people that we were.
Just had a session with my doctor this evening and i feel like my brain was drilled open and the things that I had been burying were hauled out. The things I keep suppressing burst out like a geyser.
It’s not your fault, she said. Stop whipping yourself. Give your self some credit. Be kind to yourself. He was just the wrong person. It’s not your fault; it’s just you had a lot of love to give–that’s all. You have to love yourself more, she said.
“Did he apologize to you?”
“No, not really. It’s a ‘sorry’ that went along the lines of ‘Sorry, it’s just that.’ But not really apology for hurting me. For using me. For his treatment of me towards the end that sent me over the edge,” I told my doctor. “But I have to reconcile with myself that I will never get that so I deal with it. I have to accept that I won’t get answers. You don’t get closure from someone else; you get your closure from within yourself.”
“What are you doing to get out of your episodes?”
“During lockdowns I couldn’t do anything much. Not even go biking to clear my head. Then I got Covid that further trapped me indoors and in my brain. Now that I can drive, I can see friends from way back. Those who knew me before shit had hit the fan. That’s why I’m going back to my roots; to what I was–to who I really am. To the things that made me like myself. It’s my way of loving myself,” I said.
“Good that you are able to pick yourself up now,” she said.
She then lowered my dosage of the anti-anxiety med, which may have been causing me to get sleepy more than necessary. She asked me if I could already sleep on nights I’m off it (because I now take it once every two nights). I said yes, I think so I can now.
I no longer wake up every hour, I said. Covid was bad; I was asleep 75% of the time but it was good that I made up for the months I haven’t been sleeping. It felt good,” I remarked.
Nap time. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Just like today, I was joined by my cats during my after lunch sleep. I always get sleepy by midday. Because of this I will just take my anti-anxiety med once every three days.
But my anti-depressant will still be there during my entire 12-month therapy. Hopefully I won’t have triggers by then. I wish the things that hurt me and had killed me over and over will just be a bad dream.
This was our livestream set-up last night. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So we had our livestream last night that lasted 2.5 hrs. People were telling us this was our most enjoyable episode to date, with jamming sessions in between questions during our in-person and Zoom interviews. One of the interviewees was live from Texas. I had an amazing guitarist, while one of the co-hosts played the keyboard and I was singing and manning the Zoom meeting that was livestreamed as well. Other co-hosts also provided backing vocals or main vocals as needed. I played the tambourine-like percussion instrument in one song. Everything was spontaneous–and that was the most fun part.
The “studio”, which was a porch/wood workshop of one of our high school classmates/co-hosts, was messy but it didn’t show much in the livestream, but we gotta do something about it soon.
We had so much fun that I left the studio at 12:30 am and got home in Qc at around 1:45 am. I had black brewed coffee to keep me alert on the road and maintained my speed at 80kmph, except when overtaking.
Before the livestream, I visited my mom and brought her purple flowers, drilled some stuff in the upstairs bathroom of the main house and added a new shower head. Then visited one of high school friends who was back in the country and gave her more of my hand-made masks and some for her kids.
One of things that I needed to do during this visit was to get my old watercolors/pencil/charcoal drawings to hang in my room.
I resisted the urge to fill this gallery wall because I need some white space to let the room breathe. Photo by CallMeCreation.com“Mommy, your drawing is nice but King Charles II is ugly,” Twin A said. Photo by CallMeCreation.comMy hand-sewn curtains provided a nice contrast to the modern black framesof the pictures. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThis watercolor painting is a reminder. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
As I wrote on an Instagram post:
I used to paint and draw in high school. I found these in my room in xxx (hometown) and framed them to grace my room here in QC to remind me of who I was before I lost myself in ugliness and sadness. I have found that girl again, even though she’s xx heavier now, she’s still the same old creative person, richer in experiences. (By the pond, watercolor, CallMeCreation 1994).
I was 18 years old here against the ruins of the Old Chemistry building that was gutted by fire when I was in elementary school. I always lugged my film SLR camera around campus during this time after I took photography for one semester. I processed and printed this b&w photo in our college’s darkroom. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I found this girl. The girl who balanced football, theater, school, her Greek-letter organization, and social life. She is her own person. Her heart was yet to be broken and become jaded in this photo.
I have to confront these feelings again that I try to bury because whenever I get triggered, I go through the cycle again of being at the bottom and then struggle climbing my way up from that dark hole.
As a reply to all the things I wrote on this same date last year: NO, he does not miss me, he does not regret it and I just disappeared (no fading away). That’s it. That day I was writing about has never come and it will never come.
Confront these feelings. Don’t run away from it, don’t hide. It’s for my own good. There will come a time that I won’t get triggered anymore. That it won’t hurt anymore. That it’s not my fault and he wasn’t just a nice person. He was a coward for not telling it to my face and resorted to just breaking up with me on the phone, didn’t even give me that dignity after all the things I’ve done for him.
I have to confront these feelings head on.
I have to admit that writing yesterday’s entry got me triggered again. I stayed in bed the entire morning and I finally pushed my butt to get on my seat to work after lunch. My shrink was right, my trigger is anything connected to my feelings about him. It bogs me down. It’s not stress about work that keeps me from writing–it’s this trauma.
My kids are preteens now. They’re starting to get pimples and their bodies have started to change. They have grown so much that the top of their heads would soon reach mine. And yet, a part of them are still children. Like how they jumped up and down my bed, damaging a part of my new bed frame.
At the welding shop. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So I had that part of the frame welded and reinforced at a shop near our old house. Now my bed no longer creaks, thank goodness.
I have a towel hanger that has collapsed already. I’ll bring it to this shop for reinforcement.
