Post-Holiday Blues

The last of the guests had been seen off, and the madness that spilled over to the living room is now a manageable mess. The street is back to being quietly normal, the dogs are no longer jumpy and the fridge is groaning with calories and cholesterol. I will deal with the leftovers tomorrow. Tonight I will allow myself to wallow in post-holiday blues.

I guess this is the downside to being--and staying--home: people are always saying goodbye. There are early-morning goodbyes, when cars that used to crowd the curb disappear into the mist after one last blowing of the horn. They won't return until the next long holiday; sometimes not even then.

There are hasty goodbyes said at terminals, amid last calls for boarding and the excitement of arriving passengers. Whatever catching up is crammed in the hour-long drive to the airport. For my daughter and her cousins, the catching up will have to be done much later, when they are old enough not to squabble over toys, over the attention of the grandparents, over invasion of private spaces. When they are old enough to understand the concept of family.

The house is all quiet now. It will be so until somebody comes home again. I longed for this kind of quiet when the next-door neighbor belted out "Tragedy" from the videoke machine at 2 a.m. a lifetime ago. I wished for quiet when there was a houseful of whining and wailing toddlers. When firecrackers set off the baying of four dogs and the annoying whimper of six puppies.

It will be another long stretch before family and friends visit what they used to call home. It won't be long before I settle into the new year. Life will be back to normal tomorrow, and I won't have time for the blues.

Tonight, though, I wish it isn't this quiet. Oh well...

Fear of Shaking

Over the extended weekend a latent fear resurfaced: the fear of earthquakes. You see, last Friday, while I was lazing on the bed and dreaming up plans for the three-day break, there was this sudden jolt. And then the earth started shaking.

It wasn't like one of those little tremors that we attribute to Mount Mayon or to Bulusan. Minor quakes we have learned to live with. Instead, it was quite strong, the way the quake in Baguio was strong. (A dear friend lost an uncle in that quake, an uncle who, a week before, gave me a Midnight Oil album. For five or so years, I'd always get sick every time I'd go up north.)

Anyway, last Friday's quake had me immediately eyeing the beams for cracks. Finding none, I fed on my neurosis and thought of a thousand what ifs. What if there are hidden cracks? What if the roof caved in on us? What if this happened when the little girl is all alone in the room? What if...

We cancelled the weekend trip to the beach and to the mall in Legazpi amid fears of tidal waves and volcanic eruptions. You can never really tell in these parts: the earthquake on Friday registered 5 on the Richter scale in Sorsogon; 6 in Legazpi. Besides, motherhood has made me more cautious. More paranoid.

Similar quakes--albeit less shaky--were felt on Monday and, again, just minutes ago. Scary, really, the way they strike in seeming regularity. I don't know, but this growing fear of quakes has me shaking.

Go Team!

At first I wondered what I was doing up on the bleachers, lost in a sea of pink shirts and pink balloons. I was certainly here "for compliance," I thought, as I stewed in the gym.

Then the pep squad competition started. And before I knew it, I was on my feet, egging on the Pink Team and booing the rest. Call it mob culture, but it really, really felt good to shout, to cheer, to jeer even.



The last time I shouted myself hoarse was close to 20 years ago, during the Varsitarian's Vakvakan sa Vaguio. Between then and now, I was happy to coast along, to laugh hard, to live it up, to love. But never to let loose.

For six days, during the intercolor sportsfest that had the corniest of themes, I was part of a team. A fiercely competitive team, if I may say so. I almost signed up for the obstacle course, but soon realized that I'm (probably) not as limber anymore. And that I'd be running against girls and boys who are reflections of my 20-year-old self.

I may shout "Go Team!" until my vocal chords give in. But I don't think I can outrun anyone. Not until I get my steroid boost anyway...

Yaktot Strikes Again

A cousin used to call me Yaktot. I won't try to explain how I got the "tot" part of the nickname, but the "yak" is due largely to my propensity for crying. Oh how I would cry at the slightest fall, or at the faintest hint of childish oppression! Or at hair that wouldn't curl the way I wanted it to. A few jeers from my sisters and my Molave Street friends, and I would run home crying.

Probably because I'd shed a tad too many tears, I stopped being Yaktot in college. I'd cry every now and then--out of anger perhaps, or out of frustration. But rarely out of sadness, or loss. I was heartbroken when a younger cousin died, but I didn't cry the way most people do at funerals. I was realy, really sad when it was time to leave the Varsi people, but I don't remember crying during the farewell bonfire in Baguio. Heck, I didn't even cry at love stories gone awry!

And then, without warning, the tears came back. At a friend's wedding this morning, I just felt the need to activate my tear ducts. There I was, outside the reception hall, waiting for the trail of pictorials to end, when IT hit me. Maybe it's the picture of happiness, or the promise of enduring love. Or maybe it's the way the wedding singer sang Misty.

Whatever it is, I am grateful for the tears. It made me feel so alive. So very part of it all.

Clicked

Mang Diego, he who mastered the art of saying "smile," "ready, one, two, three" and "say cheese," passed away yesterday morning. He was the official photographer of Colegio de la Milagrosa, and from the time I was in nursery to the time I left for high school, he captured my then so-called life in albumfuls of black-and-whites.

He was the invisible hand behind birthday and Christmas parties, school programs, field demonstrations and class pictures. He captured--to my eternal embarrassment--my leave-me-alone scowl in my sixth-grade annual. In the same way that he captured the many Kodak moments of every Milagrosinian.

Mang Diego was an institution,a regular fixture in the CM grounds. Even when he was already slowed down by diabetes and by age, he would find an excuse to be near his beloved "school."

Barring the years that he would deliver his precious black-and-whites to our house, I was never really close to Mang Diego. Not having seen him for the longest time, I pictured him still as the sprightly retratista of my youth.

I guess I never really thought that my childhood heroes would die...

Missing KC

Finally connected with my friend KC after five years or so of silence. Back in college, when it was okay to wear angst on your sleeves, we were really close. We rode the bus together, we shared secret fears, we even shed a tear or two.

Things simmered down after college. I wrote, KC tried to figure out the corporate jungle. I drifted, KC got married. I lived the single life, KC started a family. Sure, there were the reunions and the chance encounters and the standing invitations. But other than the not-so-regular meetings, which did anything but thread the already loosening ties, we were pretty much on our own. In the business of making our own separate businesses, we lost track of each other.

Until last night. Funny how a few minutes of online chat can make a difference. As if the intermittent years never were, as if we were back in Governor Forbes, talking about everything and nothing while waiting for the bus. And funny, too, how we seem to have retained different versions of the same event. KC, for example, remembers the movie. I remember the beer. KC remembers Project 6. I remember West Avenue.

For all the confusion over the "us" of ages ago, one thing remains clear: that we did--and do--miss each other and our friendship.

So here's to you, KC, and to me. To the way we were, and the way we will be.