Category Archives: memories

It seems like there’s no end

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Delta is just getting started. Then here comes Lambda, which researchers say is more worrisome as this seems to be more resistant to existing vaccines right now. The DOH today announced that it’s finally here and the fact that the UP-Philippine Genome Center’s tests are late, that variant could be anywhere now attacking everyone. Even Israel, the most vaccinated country in the world, has acknowledged that their preferred vaccines, BioNT/Pfizer could not hold up against Delta so now they’re having people vaccinated with boosters. How can we even face off Delta and Lambda with Sinovac when most of us only had that choice? Then people are not even rallying, crying foul over the PHP 67bn “lost” by DOH. Most of the vaccines that we have here are donated; we could still not account for the loans that were supposed to buy vaccines.

Everything is so messed up right now.

Last year, I was exaggerating to friends and co-workers that I will only be able to go back to our office in Singapore in 2023. It seems like it’s coming true. I don’t see any ending to this yet.

My kids, meanwhile, are so bored out of their skulls and I can’t blame them for trying out new stunts. The books I ordered from Big Bad Wolf are still stuck at Customs, while the Nancy Drew book I just bought from Carousell would still have to be shipped.

So here’s my daughter, Twin I, sleeping a la Harry Potter in that “secret reading room” (a big closet that seems to have no real purpose). Just because.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m suffering from abdominal cramps and body aches because of my period but I had to get out of the house because we ran out of vegetables. I was half-afraid that I wouldn’t be allowed to go inside UP to buy from the vegetable stall inside the campus. Good thing I was wrong. Being able to get inside the campus and being around trees felt good.

Then I went to buy tea for me and the girls near Bahay ng Alumni, as a treat for being able to go out after 10 days.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

And since I was already up and about, I took the opportunity to have my car washed after weeks, if not months, of letting it get dirty because it was raining non-stop.

Photo by CallMeCreation.com

If the lockdown is lifted by the time I am on leave from work, then I need to attend to the under chassis again and have it checked (just for safety, 16-year-old cars have a looooootttt of wear-and-tear issues). Then have its aircon cleaned. Gee, it sounds exactly like what I did last year when I went on leave, the same month.

Elections

I would also have to reactivate my voter’s ID with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) during my leave because I have skipped several elections as I was working on election days. I probably got delisted.

But this is one election where every single vote would count so I would exert extra effort. Gotta vote out Duterte and his minions.

Speaking of elections, I was invited by the chair of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) to join them at their headquarters on election week. Well, she volunteered me to join them (LOL!). That’s why I have to move my voting precinct from my hometown to QC so it would be feasible for me. PPCRV and the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) have worked with Comelec in the past as the citizen’s arm–as watchdogs–every elections. However, the two of them have become toothless last elections because–I don’t know… They get drowned out by the DDS on social media. I don’t know what happened there–no protests or batting of eyelash when the 7-hour glitch happened that allowed the nincompoop senators to enter the magic 12 and none from the opposition got a place.

Anyway, I had always volunteered for the PPCRV ever since I was legally allowed to vote. I remember then that it was PPCRV-Namfrel, but then somewhere along the way the two groups had a falling out.

Anyway, it was just PPCRV that was left working with the Catholic Church. Why was I working with the Catholic Church? Well our house is literally spitting distance from our parish. It was convenient. On election day, I would be assigned to one remote precinct to oversee the literal counting of votes because I had a car and I can drive. I had with me a physical spreadsheet to record the votes and sent the numbers via text messages (analog phones, yes) to the command center, usually at the parish office next to our house and that’s where my mom was stationed. She usually also volunteered for PPCRV (both of us were given PPCRV shirts to wear on election day so that Comelec officials would allow us to witness vote counting). These are then recorded in the lone computer at the center and then the data are sent to the national command center in Metro Manila. If I remember it right, they had at one time stationed themselves at La Salle Greenhills. Yes, this was pre-automation, when every ballot box could physically be stolen. In rural areas, there were many instances of politicians’ private armies stealing the ballot boxes or ambushing the vehicles that were carrying the ballot boxes to the Comelec center of a province.

I wasn’t able to volunteer during the 2016 presidential elections because I was already working for my current company, which doesn’t care for our national elections, so it was supposed to be business as usual for me. Ditto during the 2019 elections, plus I couldn’t leave J stranded at home so that is that.

Now let’s see how next year’s elections would be. Myla told me I would be stationed at the national HQ because she needs journalists there. Or so her pitch to me was that. I can’t remember now what she said.

Come to think of it, I had always volunteered for so many causes that I don’t remember how I am able to accomplish other things. I’m all over the place.

When will this end?

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They have already multiplied, as of the latest story I read. Soon we will be overwhelmed again by Delta and God knows how long the lockdowns will be again. Indonesia and Thailand are overrun now by this variant. Our inoculation rate is low and we have run out of vaccines here in Metro Manila.

I’m tired.

Saturday bento. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I only got out of my room to make bento. Then I slept the day away. I think I’m sick or hormones are out of whack again (hello premenstrual syndrome!) and I’m aching all over. I promised the girls we would be riding our bikes in an hour but I’m sooooo 🤒

Kimchi lying on top my laptop. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

My cats are driving me nuts. They meow like they’re dying if they get shut out of my room. Then they do the zoomies around my small room while I try to sleep. They follow me to the bathroom. They sit or lay on my table when I work. Or underneath my table. On my chair. On my chair’s headrest while I work.

I should buy cat leashes so we can take them for walks so that they can expend more energy instead of zooming all over the apartment.

Today marks the 7th month since I died. Or the old me died.

It is hard.

Climbing out of that dark pit of grief, anger, and self-pity is soul-crushing during a pandemic. You are left with your thoughts for days on end. You can’t see you friends or distract yourself by traveling or just going about your normal business such as working at Makati CBD.

Oh they said, “You’re still young, you can find someone else.”

The thing is I don’t think I can trust someone again. I don’t think I can go all through that pain again.

I have children, you see. No one would love and accept them except for me, as proven by this experience. I don’t want them to experience the kind of rejection that I experienced from J. I didn’t tell them that J didn’t like them that’s why he left, among other issues. He left when they were in my hometown with my mom. When they came back, Tito J was already gone. No goodbye whatsoever. He left like a thief in the night, like a typhoon that passed us by.

Those 7 months were hard. As I said here before, those were the hardest months I had since my dad died. I tried my darned best to keep my head above water because I had two human beings depending on me for survival so I had to survive too. I needed to save myself before I could save others.

I’m better now. I’m a bit proud of myself for not making an ass of myself infront of him during my darkest hours. Of not asking him to change his mind and come back. Of groveling at his feet.

But the grief is there, it never goes away. I just have to be a bigger person so that ball of grief won’t hit my inner walls that often.

Seven months. Back then I didn’t even know how I would survive the month. My only goal then was to survive the day. Take it one day at a time. I couldn’t picture myself in seven months but here I am, frayed but still intact. Still finding my way out, trying to find myself. Still figuring out what’s the best way forward.

But maybe this is the way forward. I don’t know. I mean, I have a general idea of what I want but the details are not clear. I had been with my current company for seven years, the longest I had been with any employer. I am feeling the seven-year itch but I’m not sure if this is the best time to jump given the difficult economic circumstances. But my doors are open and I’m already looking around. If the right opportunity and timing is right, it will land on my lap. As God has always done.

If only Youtube was accessible then…

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My father would have been spending his final days drinking all these concerts. He would have been watching the lost clips of The Beatles, Everly Brothers and Simon and Garfunkel. He would have been discovering NPR Tiny Desk Concerts. He would be watching Sting’s versatility with the guitars and listening to his voice that doesn’t seem to age.

He would have been watching with me live concerts that were inaccessible to us before Youtube came along. Youtube was founded a few months before he died in 2005. Internet speed then was barely 512kbps; the videos would have been forever buffering. That would have pissed him off.

Our love for music came from my father. People always told me that he went around town with a guitar strapped to him. He was part of a “combo”, or in today’s language, a band. One of the reasons why my mother went nuts over him. When we were growing up, we were always surrounded by music. I remember he and my brother made some huge DIY wooden speakers (which looked like the cahon (beatbox used in acoustic performances). They put together our sound system that involved amplifiers, microphones, and cords. Meters and meters of cords. Tape decks. He justified the expense by saying that I kept on joining singing contests that’s why we needed those (LOL!).

One time when we were in high school, at the height of alt-pop rock and grunge, my younger sister learned the guitar. She asked if she could have one. That afternoon my father came home with a guitar on his back. He just needed an excuse to buy himself a new guitar because he smashed the last one we had. All first three children had piano lessons but I was the only one who stuck with it for a couple of years. We three girls played in a rondalla (originally from medieval Spain) in elementary school. My younger sister and I played the 14-string bandurria while my older sister played the guitar. I can also play the 12-string octavina. Playing those were brutal on my fingers that I had very thick callouses for years. Tuning these things every time we played was a pain. 14 strings! And almost every other week the number “0” string would snap and I often had to go to the store and stock up. Because of that I learned to string these instruments. I can string a guitar! I also learned how to tune strings by ear without those electronic devices that most people use nowadays.

So when my girls picked up the ukelele, it was easy for me to learn it (in just one night) and I know how tune it (hello Youtube!).

I was always at the piano when I still lived there. My neighbors suffered whenever I learned a piece by oido (Spanish for “by ear”) because I would repeat and repeat the song until I got it right. I have little patience for learning a song by reading notes because published transcriptions came too late and I wanted to learn the latest song that caught my ear as soon as possible. Learning the power chords was invaluable. I have yet to master the diminished and augmented chords but I no longer have the time and patience.

When I left my parents’ home, I lost my access to a piano. It was only in 2016-ish i was able to buy myself a Roland keyboard as I promised myself I would. Now my problem is timing because I have neighbors and I have to be conscious of their working/waking hours…

I wish Youtube existed then for my father. He would have been like me now, drowning in concerts.

We weren’t able to ride our bikes yesterday because it rained hard but we were back on the saddle this late afternoon because I was already unproductive.

Lonely bench. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Stray cats around Vinsons Hall. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Ordering macha and milktea near Bahay ng Alumni. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
We stopped by the Carillon Tower to drink our tea before riding back home. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I won’t be able to bike tomorrow since I would be doing some grocery shopping. My freezer is already empty.

Back again

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National Science Complex. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I was writing this piece that has been in writing purgatory for weeks… and glanced at the watch above my speaker that said it was already 4:00 pm but I still haven’t had lunch.

Then daughter asked if we could go biking. I glanced at my flabby tummy and as much as I want to lie down and rest my exploding head, I acquiesced that I needed the exercise.

By past 5 pm we were already on our saddles. We first cycled our way through almost all the streets in our village. By 6 pm-ish (I think), we biked our way into UP through one of the side gates and went to the National Science Complex.

Taking a water break. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I missed this place. There’s still this twitch inside my gut, somewhere deep down, as this place holds bittersweet memories. But I’m better now, I think. For now. When we stopped by the benches, I took in the view and I felt… I don’t know, probably a mix of nostalgia and wistfulness. There’s a perfect word that embodies those feelings but it escapes me now.

I’ve come to love this place since it’s secluded and peaceful. And it’s where we found our kitties.

Free to run. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

There was also a family there with little kids with their bikes but that was it. We had the place to ourselves. I laid on one of the concrete benches there and stared at the sky that was already turning orange grey. I listened to the chirping birds flitting from one branch to another. Then the cicadas took over, signalling to us that we should be heading back home.

We had a good exercise; we got home at 7 pm. ✅ calories burned ✅ fresh air ✅ a way to get out of the house without having to be near another human being.

We’re going back there on weekend and we may bring snacks and we’ll see if we can lay down on the grass or the benches and stare up at the clear sky.

Comfort music

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This was a difficult week. I struggled with work, almost threw in the towel and quit. I am still three paragraphs into the story I was writing the entire week. There was a little writing here and there after some interviews but basically my brain was dry. I was trying to wring out some creativity from my body but I yielded nothing. Nothing. I resorted to writing on my notebook everything I needed to do per hour just to get me through the day or else I would be stuck.

Agenda for the day. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

To make me feel better, I sing after work. On Wednesday I wasted 2 hours just singing along Youtube. Whatever took my fancy. I needed to let it all out.

Tonight I fell into the rabbit hole of memories, of music I listened to growing up. Tears for Fears figured so prominently in my life in the 1980s because my brother played them constantly. The lone stereo, amplifier, and big speakers were in his room. We had to share it. I didn’t have a say in the music played then. So I drowned in New Wave music (which didn’t become as popular in the US compared to Europe), Tear for Fears, Fra Lippo Lippi, and the local band The Dawn.

We had an exercise in one of my communication courses in college where I had to be a disc jockey for an hour in our campus radio. I had to write the script, song lineup, make sure that the equipment was working before I went on air, research in our college’s music library for my spiels. I picked Tears for Fears to feature in my show. I didn’t care that it was already 1996-1997. Britney and the Spice Girls were rising. Monica and Brandy were battling it out in the airwaves. And yet here I was going retro, stepping 10 years back.

I missed their first and only concert here in Manila (because I was in Cebu at that time, baking under the sun in a lovely beach in Bantayan Island).

I am now being comforted by Roland Orzabal’s solid voice and Curt Smith’s brilliant song writing. Songs from The Big Chair and The Hurting were good albums but I think the best song they have written was Woman in Chains (about a woman’s freedom from an abusive relationship) from the album Seeds of Love.

I love concerts. When I was in high school and college I saved money to watch whatever concert I could afford. But when I started working, time was my enemy. I watched concerts when I had the time, which was in short supply especially when I had the girls.

I remember after one quarterly press conference with Meralco some years ago, Chairman Manny Pangilinan asked us reporters casually who do we want to see Smart Communications bring to the country. Without batting an eyelash I shouted, “U2! Sir, I would take a leave of absence on the day U2 will have their concert here so I can prepare!” He asked, “Really? You think many will watch?” I replied, “Sir, you have no idea about the number of people who would pay an arm and leg for their concert here. Although they are notoriously hard to book. You can entice Bono to one of your CSRs to pull his do-good strings so they will come.”

Seemed like MVP had seriously thought about it. So several years later in December 2019 it was finally happening. Sponsored by Smart. I didn’t go; I really can’t remember the specific reason why but I think it had something to do with J. I think it was because I was saving money at that time because I was supporting him so I didn’t want to spend so much on frivolous things. We were planning to go abroad together (I was scheduled to fly to HK in Feb, SG after that and SKorea in May for the ADB annual meeting) because he needed to be out of the country every 60 days. And U2 is not cheap; the most affordable seat was already equivalent to a plane ticket to Korea.

On the day of the concert, I remember it was pretty late, PLDT called and told me they had some tickets left and they were giving it to me for free. I looked at the time, it was almost 7 pm. The concert was supposed to start at 9 pm. I was tempted but it was such a risk driving late to Philippine Arena in Bulacan and friends told me there were no parking spaces left. Or no parking space to begin with.

I had to let it go. It was for the best. It was just U2. J was more important.

I skipped many concerts throughout the years. Alanis. Cranberries. Gin Blossoms. Because life happened. Because I had children and it was hard to get away during those days. Before I had the girls, I also didn’t have the time because I was putting to bed every night (even on sacred days like New Year’s eve) the business page of the newspaper I worked for. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But there were concerts that I had to watch, no matter what it took. The Eraserheads original reunion concert at BGC when there were zero skyscapers there back then. It was the time Ely Buendia collapsed backstage in between sets. Turned out his blood vessel had collapsed.

I also watched GooGoo Dolls by my lonesome. Because I had to–I waited for them for 20 years. That was the time I realized I needed to get out of my marriage because I was already watching live rock concerts by myself.

Now I spend hours watching and listening to concerts on Youtube. But of course, it can’t replace live music. One day, concerts will come back and I would be braver by that time, brave enough to watch concerts alone.

Losing your memory

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I had been writing on this blog about wanting to erase memories so it won’t hurt anymore. I wanted to do an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and be done with it, this grief.

On the flip side, there is this immeasurable pain because of losing one’s memories. This article in Washington Post reminded me of the long goodbye that comes with Alzheimer’s disease. My maternal grandma died of it in her 70s. My aunt has it now. Her memories of who she is and where she is come and go like the tide but it is less predictable.

I remember my cousins and I had our summer vacations with my grandparents so they would have someone with them in their home, even for just a few months, since my aunt (one of the twins) living closest to them cannot watch over them 24/7 as she also had a big household to manage. We didn’t know it at that time but my grandma’s AD had already set in when she became Cruella. We thought she was just growing more cantankerous as time went on. It came to a point that she banished my cousins from the house for some small reason that triggered her temper. My cousin and my older sister packed their bags and retreated to my aunt’s house. Later that day or a day after, my grandpa went after them and asked for forgiveness from his grandchildren (!) on behalf of his wife for receiving that kind of treatment. My cousins and sister cried because they couldn’t imagine our weak, old, white-haired grandpa chasing after them and yet he did. It was the only reason they went back–out of love for my grandpa.

Anyway, that was one of the early signs of AD that we didn’t know about. Later on my grandma got worse, to the point that one of my aunts who lived in Chicago had to come home here in the Philippines to take care of them because we couldn’t handle them. This aunt built a giant crib for my grandma because she escaped the house at 2 am to wander. Prior to this aunt taking over, I remember my cousins, sisters and I had to take turns in watching over my grandma at night so she wouldn’t go out of the house while we slept. We devised some booby traps/alarms to wake us up if she did. One time she was brought home with a lot of bruises, maybe she was side-swept by a car or she fell while walking in the darkness because she wanted to go to church at 4 am. There were also shouting matches, but mostly it was her shouting at us angrily. She thought we were some of her enemies from way back when she was young. She no longer had an idea of the time and space she occupied. She was no longer in our reality. She was already transported to the 1930s or 1940s. She was digging up her grudges, throwing at us her axes she had ground for so many years.

She also developed Parkinsons so taking care of her was harder. She was reduced to becoming a baby again, with stuffed toys around her, wetting her bed that we had to put diapers on her, and spent her days staring at the ceiling. Her mind was locked away somewhere we could no longer reach.

And my grandpa, who had loved her “up to the high heavens” as he told us, watched helplessly as the love of his life slowly slipped away and descended into a vortex of memories that were being sucked down into hell. It was a long goodbye for him. One time, because my grandma’s motor skills have gone downhill, she slipped and my grandpa sacrificed himself by catching her to break her fall with his body. He was in his 80s. He broke his hip bones and had to undergo surgery.

My grandma, who raised 13 children and worked for the family as a tradeswoman, was reduced to being like a doll staring at the ceiling at the end of her days. She had no emotions, no understanding of what was happening, no recollection of who she is, no idea of love and happiness. She was like a blank canvas.

It was a long goodbye. You helplessly watch somebody slip away. For someone who is losing her memories, her mental faculties, it’s a long slow death. It’s a snail’s pace to nothingness.

So would I want that for myself? As somebody who wanted to rid herself of memories so that it won’t hurt anymore, I don’t want to descend into that same path my grandma, my maternal aunt, and paternal uncle had gone. I am taking back what I said a few months ago about erasing memories. It’s the memories who make us what we are now. Those memories have broken us and built us to who we are today. And without those, who are we then? Am I still me if I can’t remember my name? Is it still worth living if I no longer know what love and pain are? If I don’t have any memory of being happy and sad? It’s like in the Pixar movie Inside Out, what are we without those marbles of memories? Who are we?

So just like that, I would just have to endure the pain, the hollowness, until I become bigger so the ball of grief inside me would no longer hit my walls frequently. It’s better to have those memories of having loved people who didn’t love me back than not remembering anything, of not having any memories of those in my life. Metaphorically, it’s just like what happened to my grandma, who ended up just staring at the ceiling and had no idea of what is it to be alive.