Sunrise, sunset-

Since finding each other on FaceBook, my friend Elaine and I kept up with our life’s milestones. She told me last year that her first born son, Andrew was planning to get married and they would be pleased if I could be one of his “wedding sponsors,” and would I be willing to say something about the blankie.

My friend Elaine and I met moons ago while she was a young staff member at the Philippine Embassy. We both lived in the same apartment building and we became close friends. She was more established than I was; she drove a brand-new Monte Carlo, she wore suits, cooked good food; and we shared our secrets. Elaine never judged my choices and I never doubted hers, including dumping a guy she dated who ran away with one of her friends.

She got married and soon announced the coming of her baby. I decided to crochet a baby blanket for her. I offer that I was and still am absolutey horrific in sewing, embroidery, or any such thing. When I was in grade school, I had to sew a blouse in Home Economics, and it ended up with the sleeves sewn closed on the arm holes. Then I tried my hand in cloth basket weaving; my work looked like a beret more than a basket.

Then, I had a coworker who was crocheting this beautiful blanket so I thought I should do the same thing. Laura showed me how easy it was to crochet so I bought some yarn and Elaine’s baby was my one and only victim. However, Elaine loved me enough to appreciate my handiwork. My recollection was that it might have been pink and blue or just blue but I remember making it and excitedly presenting it to Elaine’s baby. It was small and plain.

Andrew, the baby, loved my work. It was literally, his security blanket. Elaine told me that they would drive back to their house if they forgot the blankie while on their way to a vacation destination. Andrew would not stop crying until he has his blankie. Then Elaine had a second son and her family moved to Florida. We lost contact. I stayed in Washington and in fact had my own family.

A couple of years ago, back in the day when Facebook was not yet in my vocabulary, I used a legal search engine to look for Elaine. I wanted so much to know how she was doing. I wanted her to know that I fared well. I wanted her to be happy for me as I know she would and I wanted to know about her and her husband, her boys and her mother. I wrote a letter asking if she might be the person I knew.

Soon after, I got an email from her then we spoke on the phone; we made plans to see each other soon. Unfortunately, we have had so many conflicting schedules so the extent of our “reunion” was limited to the emails we exchanged. She has retired from the company she worked for so many years, she is enjoying Florida, she and her husband are doing fine, the boys are grown-ups, her mother has since passed away.

In the course of our conversation, we talked about our children and then she asked me if I remember Andrew’s blankie. She told me that Andrew took it anywhere he went, including when he went to college. She said she was sure the only time he put it away was when he started dating; that Andrew considered it his lucky charm. I was so touched knowing that my godson held on to my gift.

Elaine subsequently called me and told me that when she and her husband visited Andrew in the West Coast, she told him that she found his godmother, the one who made the blankie. She said his face lit up and that indeed he still has the blankie, neatly folded and kept safe in his closet, holes and all. He told her this is his lucky blanket. I was silenced.

I could not have imagined that someone would hold onto something as ordinary as a baby blanket made from yarn, a handiwork of two left hands. But my godson held on to it, not just as his security blanket as a baby but as his lucky amulet growing up. I also did not expect how choked I was with emotion as I listened to his mother relating how Andrew particularly felt about it.

That blanket symbolized the time when I could not offer anything of value to my friend. It also recalled well-cherished memories of years when I found a true friend. I am going to attend my godson’s wedding this summer. I am attempting but not promising to succeed in making a blanket for his future first-born.

Habla Castellano?

I was surfing the Internet one day a couple of months ago, looking for some useful tips I could use in teaching my ESOL class. In one website, someone posted a need for a tutor in Spanish. Out of curiosity, I responded that I could help out. Yesterday, I received an email asking if I were still willing to teach and how much I would charge. The student is a young Filipino coed at the Ateneo de Manila University and her struggle is with the future perfect tense. That would be the “I will arrive there after he shall have (arrived).” Llegare y habra llegado. Who speaks that way anymore in Spanish? You simply say it just like that “Voy a llegar despues de llegar de el. Say it in the simplest way. It will be too complicated to construct the future conjugation in the first part of a compound sentence and the past participle on the second part. Unless you are going to write a thesis, hola? Hello. Or you want to speak “high Spanish.” Where and to whom? That is the question.

Much like the discovery I made when I arrived in the US, the spoken American English is different from the written. “I’m gonna go if I was feeling it.” This sentence is redundant and the subjunctive tense is missing, and it is painful to hear; yet, it is arguably, understood. Dig?

I started taking Spanish lessons in the USA in the 80’s. I was a mediocre Spanish student in Manila. And I preferred to speak English when I lived in Manila. Anyway, here in the US, I figured it would be fun to say something more than “bien, gracias.”

I was almost kicked out of my first class in Spanish because the professor thought I was just there to improve my grade point average. He observed that I was understanding the Destino “telenovela.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. I understood the nouns but I could not conjugate the verbs. When he found out where I was from, he gave me a look like “Oh now I know…”

Enseguiendo entonces--

On a trip to the Netherlands in the early 2000, I saw a Spanish restaurant and I decided to go in and buy something out of the take out counter “in Spanish.”

I approached, and said, “Hola senior, buenas noches, como esta?” No problemo, as the Gringos would say.

“Hola seniora, como puedo ayudarle?”

This is the honest truth. When you are learning a language, your brain is a walking dictionary of verbs and nouns, and I wanted so much to construct the longest Spanish sentence I could. So I was flipping through the pages of my personal dictionary.

I proceeded to make the biggest, most robust, delicious sandwich in Spanish. So I said:

“Me gustaria tener un bocadillo grande, lo que bastante por dos personas. Este bocadillo debe que tener jamon y queso, lechugas, tomates, cebollas, mayonesa, y tambien podria darme una ensalada de pulpos y un pedazito del pan morena y una botella de bebida…” I was breathless, yearning to say everything for fear of forgetting the words.

And to my horror, the dependiente asked me, “Y cuanto?” How much? I do not know how to measure in Spanish. My brain was doing a fast scan of my inner Spanish rolodex - okay 1/4, jeez, how do you say that-okay “half of the half.”

So I smiled and exclaimed, “Mitad de mitad!”

He smiled back, and said, “Cuarto de libra” “Si senyor, eso es.” Ok, got through that one. “Algo mas?””Ya, nada mas. Creo que tenemos todos.” Wuau! Wow!

He said, “Tenemos aqui.”and I said, “si, aqui estamos.”as I handed him the dinero.

He then asked, “De donde es?”

This was perfect! He’s conversing with me and I was very happy to engage him. “Soy Filipina pero mira, he vivido en Estados Unidos por trenta anios, mas o menos. Y usted senyor, de donde es?”

“Bueno, soy Espaniol pero he vivido en Miami por diez anios.”

JAJAJAJAJA! Both of us laughed, in Spanish. “Miami?! Dios mio, senyor, porque me dejo sufrir? Nos habriamos hablado en Ingles, entonces?” JAJAJAJA

He said, “Yes, but I was having fun listening to you!”

We said our chaos and adios and the que le vaya muy bien. Then I walked back to the other side of the street where my husband was waiting for me. He asked, “What were you buying that it took you this long?” I said, “I bought a lesson in Spanish comedy.”

Epilogue: Every Spanish speaking country has its own set of Spanish Rolodex.

A bocadillo in Spain is a sanduche in Ecuador. But you can still ask them to put mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato in both. While you lisp in Barcelona and Madrid, you can get away without lisping and speaking your “ll” in fluid y sound as well! Vamos a adelantar! O Adelantemos! O “Adelantehmoh” in Central America.

Now let me teach this young Filipina how to speak Spanish ebonics. Chuy!

The Dark Secret -

My high school classmates and I had our first “grand reunion” after more than thirty years. From across the seas we came – from Australia, United States, and varied places in the Philippines. We met at our high-school. Being the pioneers of a science curriculum, we held the bragging rights of being its first graduates. We gave the school a couple of computers and a stand-up piano. They feted us with lunch. The students had a program that featured a student playing the piano, a theatrical performance (which, in my director’s view was good!), and a very touching welcome from the students and the Division of Schools' chief. The chief was our music and arts appreciation and physical science teacher in different grades. She was my first piano teacher as well, and she was not successful in that regard:)

There were fifteen of us in the class. We were called “intellectual snobs” when we were young. The title was an overstatement. Trust me on that one. More truthfully, we were just cocky adolescents who were aware of how smart we were because we thought we were. Let us face it, we ‘knew it all’ at that time. We were cute, we were fluent in English, we knew our Math, and we were the chosen ones. Yeah, right.

In our group, there are mechanical engineers, registered nurses, physicist, business administrators. We also have a lawyer, PhD, paralegal, massage therapist, horticulturist, medical transcription business owner, entrepreneur, college professor, law enforcement professional, and government executives.

We went outside Manila, to Subic Bay to be precise. We rented two villas and reminisced about our high school days. We laughed at our antics, continued to make fun of our former teachers but were unified in acknowledging the positive influences they had on us. We learned to speak English and Tagalog impeccably during high school; we learned that speed multiplied by distance is velocity (is that right?) We learned that there is such a thing called isocelles triangle (correct?) and that subject and verb must always agree. One cannot say I came from the Philippines. One must say, “I come from the Philippines.” If I am stating where I was from originally, then the present form of the verb ‘to come’ is correct; however, if I just arrived from a trip to Manila then I can say I came from the Philippines. You get the drift.

Anyway, on the night that we all gathered for a big supper that my friends cooked, we decided to reminisce more about our youth. We found out who was dating whom after high-school. One of my classmates, my high school best friend in fact, ended up confronting another about breaking up with her. I was surprised. I did not expect they were a couple after high school. He was baring his heart to her in our presence. “I loved you, truly. In retrospect, I should have married you…” Like a real TV Jerry Springer audience we all said “Oooooooh!” in unison.

But wait! He continued, “But for the fact that you were so obviously trying to tell me that you moved on with your life, we would have been together. We walked past each other by the Manila Cathedral and what did you do? You had to make sure that I saw that you were with Ben! How low was that?” She defended herself, “I wanted you to know that I moved on. How did you think I felt when you said you wanted to find yourself so you dumped me? Right, you found yourself a wife and it was not I you chose!’ We were in the middle of this exciting exchange. No one knew the extent of their love affair. We were transfixed. Imagine two 50-year olds settling a score of thirty years ago?

He stood up from the head of the table, and said, “Listen, what happened after the prom…” I stood up so fast I thought the chair was attached to me as I did. In a loud but firm voice, I said, almost like the high-school days when I wowed judges with my oratorical summation, “You son of a bitch, do not say one more bleeping word.” Whoa, I just said it did I not?

Then Maggie, the 'senior citizen' girlfriend and my high-school best friend stood up next to me, pressing my hand, saying to him, "Shut up! That is a SECRET!” Another elongated ‘Huh?” from the audience. Then, “What secret?”

We three said in unison, “Our secret!” I said, “We are supposed to take it to our graves!” Silence. Then, I started laughing and I looked at Maggie. “Can we tell these idiots?” Laughter. We looked at him and asked, “Can we tell them?” He looked at me and then at Maggie. Then he said, “Tell these idiots then!” Laughter. Then I said, “Okay guys, we kept this secret for too long that I had to live with this shame until I became an adult.

SECRET-
Right after the prom, Meg and I, and Bob and Ed drove to the University of the Philippines and we went to the lover’s lane at the back of the Administration building. We let the boys kiss us on the mouth! The security guard shone a flashlight on us and told us we would have to get married. Get married, for crying out loud! I could not let that happen! We could not let that happen. We were going to be in college in two months; I was going to attend the very same university. I would be leaving for the USA after college, Bob wanted to become an engineer or an accountant, Meg wanted to be a chemist or a manager or an accountant and a professor; and I wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a foreign service officer, a journalist, a teacher, an actress, the list goes on and I did not care what the heck Ed wanted to be. He was a jock and he was not smart. He kissed well in my young summation.

We were crying; we were so completely busted. We were caught in the act. In the Philippines, it was a shameful thing to be kissing your boyfriend in 1971. We were beside ourselves. This could not happen. We just graduated, we were on our way to our future. The boys put their money together and bribed the guard. I hope that guard suffered from gastro intestinal blowout that night! We were all shamed and quiet on our way home and I lived with the awful shame of French kissing that boy. God bless him; wherever he is.

END OF SECRET-

When my son was little he told me, ‘Mommy I know what a French kiss is. It is when your dog licks your face all over!” By this definition, I was not French- kissing anyone that evening!

Among the four of us that evening, we promised each other that it would be our secret until the day we die. Our classmates were looking at us like we still owed them some juicy “enquiry minds” tidbits.

The idiots were first quiet, then:

“That’s it?” They wer now laughing uncontrollably. “That is your dark secret? “ “Well, it happened in the dark, did it not?”, I quipped. Then they said, “What were you doing with that boy anyway?” “HAHAHAHA, you downgraded big time!” It was my turn to laugh. Yes, I said, that was what was worse! That I got kissed by him. I said, “Okay guys, now it is out of our chests, okay, you cannot blackmail us anymore!” Then Maggie cut it short “Now that you know the secret, now you know why I am so hurt by him dumping me!” So we tried to tell her, “You were sixteen at that time. You moved on, you now have your kids, a good life.” And he was distraught by her “pain” that he continued to defend himself, “I am so sorry. I regret it. We were so young. I wanted to see what else was out there…” “What was out there was my broken heart and you never tried to get back together with me!” We did not know what to say. Some of the “girls” said, “Hey, come on that was like during the Spanish inquisition!” We laughed but Maggie and Bob did not.

We decided to get out of the villa and we all sat under the stars. Someone started to sing and we all joined in, singing the songs of our youth, we were teary eyed. In between songs, we reiterated how blessed we have become from our youth to the present. We became the people we wanted to be- proud, self-sufficient, educated, successful parents, and professionals. We stated how much we cared for one another; that we would come through for each other. Through it all, Maggie was pensive. Bob was quiet for a long time. We continued to sing. The next day, we continued our exploration of the Subic area. Everything seemed back to normal.

That was five years ago. Maggie subsequently told me that it was very difficult for her to deal with he break-up. He was her first love. She got married to escape physical abuse at home. She loved Bob sincerely and never could get over the speculation of how it could have been if they did not break up. I told her that she needed to have closure. She said she did. They met after the reunion and tried to rekindle whatever was there but it fizzled. As it should. They were both married to other people.

We still keep in contact with one another. I was on vacation with Maggie on a beach resort in the Visayas two summers ago. I kept reminding her that our “dark” secret is out – it should not be a chain to keep her captive to a memory of so long ago. And that kiss, Filipinos have a saying, “Makukuha yan sa paligo.” (A hot shower will take care of that.) In fact, it has always been a point of reference in my life. When things are not going so well, I think of how I escaped the consequence of that long ago lip-locking episode of my youth. That I can keep a secret for those many years speak to how I value a pledge I have made and to find out that the others did the same. That was reassuring. Until our big mouths could not hold it in anymore!

Post script to the secret-

When we all started to take a walk around the community, Bob spoke. "What was with you two? I was not going to tell the secret." "Well what were you going to say, you started talking about what happened after the prom?" "That I intended to go to the same college Maggie was going to so that we could be together but my Father wanted me in another university. I thought you two crazies were ready to kill me." Oooops.

I still have other “secrets” but they are not as idiotically verboten as that secret during that sultry evening, when the cicadas were abuzz and the sampaguitas in full bloom were heady with youthful inquisitiveness and rebellion. My other secrets are as colorful as high definition TV. They are as vibrant and lively as TrueTV. I will let you in on some of them if you stay tuned once in a while, but others are so special, I will not reveal them in this lifetime;-).

As my friend Chutney would tell me, "Mooney, you and I, we will go to hell together. The coolest of our friends will all be there." I say, "AMEN!"

I would rather be mowing than smoking it-

When my son was little, my job was to act as the litmus paper for the movies or shows he wanted to see. We had a rule that if I deem the show/movie to contain mature themes, then he would have to wait until he was of age to see it. I remember one time when I had to rush to the movies to see X-men. I was rooting for it to be acceptable because he wanted so much to see it.

When I got to the movies, I realized that I had so little cash in my wallet (not unusual) that I only had enough to pay for my ticket and a child size soda and popcorn. The counter staff was looking at me with pity. I must have looked pathetic in my nice suit and without cash and I would not use a credit card for the darn popcorn. They were urging me to supersize but I refused, which made me look even more pathetic. I deemed X-men to be age appropriate; he and I went to see it together but I had to cover his eyes during the trailer. He kept saying, “I love you, Mommy.”

A summer ago, we took my son to the Netherlands. While there, he had certain ideas that my husband and I expected but could not encourage. I noticed that son was melancholy for the first two days of our stay, he said, “I cannot believe you took me here and I could not do whatever…” I told him, “Your Dad and I wanted you to see this city and tour the other cities outside Amsterdam. What is your problem?” I knew the problem. So despite our struggle with the issue, we told him one afternoon that he was free to do as he liked. He went around the corner and came back all stupid but happy. He said he was at the coffee house for a couple of hours. He was gone only an hour. He promptly went to sleep and I swear he ate the whole breakfast spread minus the tables and the chairs the next morning.

Here is the lowdown. I wanted to be a litmus paper once again so I asked my husband if I could also go to a coffee house. My husband, always accommodating my craziness agreed to research the city and found a perfect place for me to smoke. Okay, so let us cut the crap and let me tell you – I had a trip from hell.

Husband (HB) and I got seated at a very comfortable full- sized sofa. The place was dim but there were rare decorations. HB ordered some drinks and then left momentarily. When he came back, he was holding the joint. I wanted to get the show on the road. What was the big deal?

I had no problem smoking it. After about four puffs, the world started spinning. I could hear all the chatter around me. I could understand Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English, and French. I could hear everyone talking in Dolby sound, and understood them all! I could hear the music and furthermore, I could see the musical notes, like they were on a big screen for me to see. They were spiraling, G-Clef, Base Clef, C, E, F, flats, sharps - they were coming out of a white grand piano and the notes were in gold floating into this creamy background. I could hear the saxophone and see it opening up to bare the musical notes. I would narrate when I could what I was seeing. HB would say “Really? Wow!” Then there was a giant cake opening up like power-point and as it opens up, musical notes would come out of it. I saw mouthfuls of teeth grinning, skewered in Popsicle sticks, dancing like a chorus line. I could see a shadow of a cart being pulled with a silhouette of a giant rabbit. HB would again say, “Wow! You are having such an awesome trip!” No! It was so weird that I told him that I was about to die. I asked him not to let me die. Not there. Not like that. I confessed my sin to whoever saint was available to help me at that moment and promise not do it again. OMG, I implored, "Let me live through this mess. I am a good person and I am really just a regular working mom. I am just a stupid mom at this moment. " OMG, what would my son think when he learns I died from smoking a stupid 7-Euro joint? Wait, there is a giant slice of cake passing by---

Then, I worried about my jewelry; I was convinced they would be stolen from me. But I was also aware of the time; I kept looking at my watch and then I would “pass out.” I kept wondering if I took my allergy medicine and in fact I opened my backpack to get it. I was in between sanity and total madness. It was awful.

Later on, after what I thought was eternity, I did not die. My husband was holding me close and told me “What a waste! Geez, people pay for the kind of trip you had and you were totally, stupidly wasted.” He said he thought I was sweaty and I was having a panic attack and I would not disagree. It was not worth the time, all 30 minutes of it. It was a “bad trip.”

HB said, “You know, next time, I should be the one to try it and you can sit there and babysit me like I did you.” He affectionately told me that I was a total loser! We went back to the hotel quietly where I experienced such blissful sleep. This was better than watching the Dog Whisperer or American Greed, or Forensics File. Dude, it was just total blackout. And I kept saying "I love you!" to my HB. Let us face it, he did not let me die!

I woke up the next day and went down to have breakfast. I ate the bread, fruits, yogurt, more bread, more fruits, more yogurt. I ate everything minus the tables, chairs, and tablecloths. When my son came down for breakfast and nodded at me, I just looked at him like he does to me with the defensive “What, I have not done anything” stance.

Later, he said, "Mom, why don’t you and I go to Babah together and we can do the wax museum later?" “Are you out of your mind? I am too old for the kind of foolishness you want to do? No!” “I will treat you, Mom!” “You know what, I am scared for you. You will find yourself without your wallet and passport, without your IPod and your Blackberry. You will be homeless in Amsterdam and I would not know about it?” He could not deal with the drama so instead he went to the museum with us. Then we gave a stern warning: What happened here stays here. You will be in college in a few months. You do it, you are in breach of your contract with us; you lose the chance of going to college; you go to jail. This is non-negotiable. We did not raise a pothead. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Now cheer up! Really.

Here is the deal. My son is not interested in being my FB friend; he is not interested in some old lady’s blog. So let us keep it between you and me.

I am living with a secret and I dread the day, when one day, in the next ten years, he would come to me, and say, “Hey Mom, remember when we were in Amsterdam for my high school graduation? Did you get high?” I would ask, “What made you say that?” “Because the only thing you did not eat that one morning was the tablecloth and the table and chairs!” I will give him one of those bite-my-lip cannot really smile and say, “Peace!” I will then LMAO. But only when he is not looking.