Let's play 'Pretend'

Give my apo Kai a cloth diaper or a newly washed bimpo, and she can cast all her other toys away. When she learned to tinker with her mother's cellphone, she has been applying all sorts of funny faces on whoever held it. Her grumpa was no sacred exemption. I like how she rendered Rolly Fernandez into a Charlie Chaplin of sorts, herself she depicted as Catgirl. In real life, she dressed up Satchi as Superdog.

Rolly Chaplin

Kai Catgirl

Satchi Superdog

In the beginning of the lockdown, I imagined I was part of the story and cast of The Diary of Anne Frank. There I was, hiding away in an alcove with my red leatherette-bound Mercury Drugstore diary which I would sneak out when everyone else was asleep or busy and where I would write entries to help make mere survival bearable. But the Frank family's enemy was a palpable one--the German Nazis. This one that we have is invisible and just as deadly.

Well, this was my way of coping in the early weeks of the lockdown--to pretend, maybe a way of denial of the harshness of COVID-19. I've taken refuge in the patched up videos of choirs and orchestras and vocal soloists.

I've also begun counting the riches still available to us.

Jamie Tworkowskie named them for us:

Conversations will not be cancelled.
Relationships will not be cancelled.
Love will not be cancelled.
Songs will not be cancelled.
Reading will not be cancelled.
Self-care will not be cancelled.
Hope will not be cancelled.
May we lean into the good stuff that remains.

Despite my family's distance in Baguio, they can still manage to smile for the phone camera and clown around. Only Satchi has, what I imagine to be, a thought bubble that reads, "Bah! These humans!"

Self-care despite COVID-19

My head of black, white and gray hair looks like a nest fit for birds. Any day now when I step out into the garden for my few minutes of sun, I can half expect a mother sparrow to relocate her hungry chicks on top of my head. The image makes me chuckle inside, especially after I saw this illustration by Arli Pagaduan posted by Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan.

Among the first things I will do after April 30, that is, if the enhanced community quarantine isn't extended again, is to get a haircut, a short, summery one, with my stylist, a flamboyant gay named Ruby. I entrust my head of hair to him/her alone and nobody else.

My sisters have been volunteering to trim my hair and lessen the volume (thus lessening the body heat I feel inside), but I've stubbornly refused their offer. Baka madisgrasya pa, and Ruby will be left to do major damage control.

Allow me this bit of vanity even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. I found an old hairband, probably belonging to my late mother, and I've used it to tame my hair, push back the unruly bangs that threaten to cover my eyes as I stoop over this keyboard to finish my entry to the #LockdownDiaries series.

I'm sure many others have their own to-do list after the lockdown is lifted. A lot will be going to salons, I betcha, to get that overall feeling of well-being again. I dare not work on my cuticles myself--I'll leave that to the manicurist who's going to get a generous tip from yours truly. No, I'm not getting a facial--am not into that yet. I'm your basic scrub-your-face-with-soap-and-water type. But a radical haircut does sound good. That is enough.

Masked

There's a story behind this all-cotton face mask sewn for me by Aya Justiniani of Aya's Store. I needed such masks for my then repeated trips to the Medical City for the rehab of my new knee until the physical therapy sessions were suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Still, I thought the family should invest in masks should we need to go out, eventually. The items available in the drugstores or supermarkets were the disposable, not eco-friendly, kind.

Under what Dr. Melendre Araos now calls "the new normal," masks will be part of our outfits, whether we like it or not. And for immuno-compromised individuals like myself who has to live with hypertension and diabetes, there's no arguing anymore about what's comfy and what's not.

Amy Tan, in her FB author's page, showed how stylish masks can be made to look even for someone in her late 60s.

And then I saw Aya's wares in Facebook. She was making and selling them for Pph25 each for the adult size, Php15 for the kid's. My sisters and I decided to commission her to sew 52 masks, some for shipping to Iloilo.

We received our orders yesterday, thanks to a quick online banking transfer and Lalamove PH Delivery. Aya carefully and lovingly folded her paninda in individualized plastic resealable packs. The packs can be recycled later to contain maybe one's fancy earrings or necklaces to protect them from dust.

When I showed my mask, one of six varieties in my collection, Martin Masadao had the capital idea of also bringing his retazos to some old gentlemen tailors in San Andres, Manila, to give them business during a difficult period. When Jennifer Patricia A. Cariño saw mine, she said friends in Baguio have also taken up sewing these things. Let's keep the sewing going.

I'm not saying a mask will completely shield you from the notorious virus. But with life's full promise still awaiting us after the lockdown, it's best not to take risks so we can sing, like Shirley Horn or Gou de Jesus, when we emerge from the quarantine: "So here's to life / And every joy it brings / So here's to life / To dreamers and their dreams."

The reluctant kitchen helper

Perhaps in the next life I'll aspire to be like writer Fran Lebowitz, described by The New Yorker as "the patron saint of staying at home and doing nothing. She is famously averse to working, and famously resistant to technology; she has no cell phone or computer."

After years of being on the work treadmill, I've slid into semi-retirement with joyful relief, looking forward to my monthly SSS pension--not much but enough to treat myself and loved ones to a special meal. In my broken cell phone are the numbers of favorite restaurants, especially takeaway places. Until the malls open and I can find a technician to save my SIM, I am phone-less. I can be reached through email and FB messenger.

Lebowitz doesn't suffer from writer's block but what she calls "writer's blockade." Like her, I hate to cook, let alone help prepare while someone else cooks.

Two days ago, my sister disturbed my reading to ask me to help her grate some carrots. It took me 15 minutes to rise from my chair and walk in slow motion to the door leading out of the bedroom and onto the kitchen. By the time I got there, the request changed to if I could separate the uncooked lumpia wrappers one by one. I told myself this could be a chance for a meditative exercise, and it was.

Our cutie

Sukiyaki by CHAYA Baguio

Toddler feeding herself

Sushi madness

Last night, my foodie apo messaged me on FB, inquiring what we had for brekkie, lunch and dinner. I answered straightaway: brekkie, champorado with milk donated by the barangay; lunch, lumpiang Shanghai; and dinner, salmon sinigang.

"Awwww," she responded. I realized those were all her favorites, prepared for her lovingly by doting grumpa Rolly Fernandez and her mother Kimi. Second realization was how blessed we were to have three filling meals a day as the quarantine continues to enhance hunger pangs among the majority.

I'm not promising a changed me who will suddenly embrace kitchen chores. But I vow to always have a clean plate after meals.

Photos show a younger Kai at our favorite Japanese restaurant, CHAYA Baguio, where we love the sukiyaki and sushi, where we cap our meals with matcha ice cream.

Here's to more unlocking of the pleasures of the palate while time is on our side.

Balancing act

I thought I'd put this old photograph here to remind me how woebegone this Wednesday has been. I couldn't dream up a topic I could passably write about.

My inner censor has been working double time, cancelling such subjects as My Mother's Paksiw na Pata, an ode to Mom's meat dish redolent with banana blossoms, laurel leaves and black pepper, with a thick soy-based sauce (censor said it's Holy Week, a time of fasting from red meat, and a rich dish may be offensive to those who are hungry); the unfinished bottle of eau de toilette, lavender scent, from friend Chit Santos (I couldn't possibly dress up, only to realize I have nowhere to go and thus dabbing the behinds of my ears and the base of my neck with lavender was out of the question); mastering the pressing of the snooze button which Bruno Lancelot Lolarga has done by napping in the morning, in the afternoon, then enjoying a full night's sleep, except for peeing time around midnight (see, El President, you are not alone, but Bruno is more handsome than you'll ever aspire to be even if you smoothen the pores on your nose).

Those are the subjects I ticked off mentally as I went about my day. But I did a Bruno--going on snooze mode at 10 a.m., then at 2 p.m. again until a compulsion to record my day impelled me to turn on the computer and attempt something.

I responded to the posts of friends like Pablo Tariman whose short tribute to Kerima Polotan triggered a memory of what might have been an encounter on the phone with the lady. Turns out I was speaking to her secretary, not The Kerima herself. But for many years I deluded myself into imagining it was the legendary writer whose voice I heard on the other end of the phone, inviting me over to pick up my contributor's fees. The fees were my first from a national publication, and I spent all the money on pocketbooks at the old PECO (Philippine Education Company) bookstore in downtown Manila.

If anything, this limbering exercise, a prelude to real writing, is a reminder for me to do more actual physical exercises--the mind loves a walk. Look at Elmer A. Ordoñez, the literary critic, novelist, essayist, who comes back from his evening walks with a Facebook status that reads like a haiku or a tanka. I imagine him with a mandarin painter beside him rendering the images of tagak and frolicking calf into a haiga to deepen the meaning further of the FB status.

My grandchild's pose states, yes, balance there, Booboo (her pet name for me). More walks, more sunshine to get the adrenaline running anew.

A pandemic dream

In this dream I am living in a bahay kubo that only has a roof and a floor. No walls, except for four bamboo posts. A strong wind hurls the house, like what you see happening in movies about twisters and tornadoes. As the house tumbles in the air that takes it higher and higher, I cling to one of the posts and cry out for my mother to help me, to save me. In my mind, I am aware she is dead, but nonetheless she appears, and like an angel, sets down my house on the ground again. Dream ends there.

In the article "Why Are My Dreams So Vivid Right Now?" in the April 2, 2020, issue of The Cut, writer Alice Robb interviews psychologist Deirdre Barrett who says, "“Changing one’s routine dramatically often leads to more dream recall.”

View from a window of the Peninsula Manila

Insomniac photographing her own image

I don't think I have to lie on a psychiatrist's couch or consult a psychologist to interpret my own dream. I know the house stands for myself, secure in the thought of a floor (groundedness?) and ceiling (brains? thoughts? literally higher self?) to shelter my body and soul, but open everywhere--perhaps I bare myself too much, huh? Being carried off by a twister is the opposite of being locked down and imprisoned in one's abode so there I am, unexpectedly freed from prison.

I call on a higher being, an intercessor to be my safety net. And indeed, someone familiar appears--Mommy--and she puts my house, myself down on our backyard, amongst the fruit-bearing trees.

A month of Sundays

"It feels like a lot of Sundays! And isn't that nice. (sort of) (not really) STILL MUCH TO DO- but yay, alive." ~ Gang Badoy Capati in her FB status

When I got out of bed, I had to declare to my siblings who were still in various states of sleep and semi-wakefulness, "It's Sunday!" I felt that I had to tell them as though the fact had to be declared loudly after our near-languish in this eternity of days that has the stupor of Sundays, that we shouldn't be in a great hurry to waken.

With daylight flooding the room, we had to get up even before eight, stand up, prepare brekkie (tuna salad with bread so it also felt like a Lenten Friday), talk again about the invisible war the world is waging against COVID-19, where to get a piece of palm to commemorate Palm Sunday.

I suggested a banana leaf since we had banana plants a-plenty. The suggestion was laughed off the table. I returned to sipping my Sunquick juice and munching my tuna sandwich and thinking how I'd creatively "waste" my day.

I skipped exercising and headed straight to my "office" space to check on my mail, deluding myself that there were still urgent messages that needed a response from me. But there was nothing but forwarded mail about staying healthy during this period. Nothing that I hadn't read in various permutations in other people's FB status. We're already being told to be wary of such generalized attribution of sources as "According to a Viber source I belong to" or "A doctor I know shared this. Please copy and paste."

Thank goodness for sites like Interlude and ParisReview.Org wherein I could bone up on the lives of my favorite artists like Maria João Pires, the Portuguese pianist and masterful interpreter of Mozart and Schumann, and Vita Sackville West who we shouldn't simply remember for her relationship with Virginia Woolf or the fabulous garden she tended. Sackville West was an author in her own right--by age 18 she had written eight novels and five plays.

But let me not get ahead of her narrative. The site I mentioned can be visited here:
https://www.theparisreview.org/…/the-fabulous-forgotten-li…/

As for Pires, you can follow what I want for my funeral music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

And you can sail my mortal remains down Bohol's Loboc River in a barge with palmeras covering my coffin. Photo gives a small glimpse of the river through the interstices of a palm.

Ahh, such Sunday thoughts and dreams when one is not sufficiently caffeinated!

Still life in Bohol

Pablo Tariman thinks I must've descended from the line of Francisco Dogohoy, he who waged the longest revolt in Philippine history. It comes from my attraction to the province of Bohol. I've visited neighboring Cebu just as many times, but there's nothing like the appeal of people and landscape of Bohol.

I've always envied poet Marjorie Evasco because she has this province to go home to again and again. On our last trip there with Rolly Fernandez in 2014, she brought us to the house restored by aesthete Ino Manalo.

Something clicked in my mind that I brought out my digicam and shot picture after picture. Everywhere I turned there was something worth preserving in digital memory.

The enhanced community quarantine permitted me time to go over these files. What was on my mind as I took them? Perhaps the wish that one day I'd show them to my painting tutor, Norman Chow, with the thought that he'd guide me through a series of works in acrylic on paper canvas. It was never to be. Norman died in 2018.

I don't know about the fate of Ino's house--if I can ever "go home" there again one day. Meantime, I'm left with these images.