Para Isabel

The 20th of March, decreed in some calendars as International Day of Happiness, opened for me at almost 3 a.m., the time of deepest slumber for a lot of people. I thought I was just hungry because I had skipped dinner last night.

My restlessness led me to turn on the computer and to my chagrin, I saw the face of the Leader in a pre-dawn press conference announcing stricter LGU compliance of presidential directives.

I couldn't return to the peace of sleep as I heard this Rambling Man (Ernesto V. Enrique's most apt description of him) go on so I visited the author Isabel Allende's website. I found two photos of her, as a young writer with ciggy in hand and face averted from her typewriter. It reminded me of a younger me when I was all angst and anxiety over the paucity of my writerly output.

A young Isabel Allende at her typewriter

Isabel, see how familiar I am with her, has 23 books so far to her name. I have read eight of them, Paula being my favorite followed by Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses. In comparison to my idol, I have written just four books, Catholic and Emancipated (personal essays), The First Eye, dangling doll: poems of laughter & desperation and Big Mama Sez: Poems Old & New, the last three in limited editions of 200 copies or less. I have a fifth manuscript (also poetry), Moon Hanging Low Over My Window, awaiting publication when things finally go back to some kind of normal.

But the Numero Uno fan of Isabel in the family is my husband Rolly Fernandez. At our long stop at The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles in November last year, he loaded up his shopping cart with all of Isabel's books that he had not yet read. And because of the prodigious-ness of the author, he piled up softbound and hardbound copies alike. That's the bibliomaniac in the family at work.

The second photo of Isabel also reminded me of an older me--less uptight, less self-focused, still introverted but capable of throwing open my arms to embrace a new day. Remember that this Chilean author knew what it was like to live under an authoritarian regime that killed her uncle and godfather, the democratically elected Salvador Allende.

Allende today

Now I am the one who's rambling. Her injunction to "write what should not be forgotten" is what is keeping me busy and buzzing these days despite the lockdown that has prevented my physical movements. In the recent past, my work as a freelance journalist enabled me to freely seek out sources for stories or events to cover. I have started this, my own version of the #LockdownDiaries.

Ahhh, on this day set aside for happiness, I salute you, Isabel, for your great capacity for joy despite irreversible losses of loved ones in your life. We should emulate someone like her.