Alma Cruz Miclat with a copy of Soul Searchers and Dreamers, Volume 2
Below was my introduction to the author of Soul Searchers and Dreamers, Volume 2, at last night's Zoom book launch-cum-birthday celebration.
Even before she retired from her day job as a business executive, Alma Cruz Miclat has been dallying with words. I first encountered her words, not Mario's, not Maningning’s, the other writers in the family, in the anthology The Writers’ Wives edited by Narita Gonzales. I noted that she was a diary keeper during their long, 15-year exile in China. But Mario, as she wrote it, “did not want me to record anecdotes in my small diary. He was afraid that if found by others, the diary would be misconstrued as notes of a spy, or a class enemy, or a counter-revolutionary.”
Nonetheless, Alma’s essay in that year 2000 collection stood out in my head, especially when she waxed lyrical in describing “the first snow in our life. Snow was not only a most beautiful sight in winter. Its whiteness covered the coal-blacked smokestacks, the dusty red bricks, the withered leafless trees, the pavements sullied by frozen spit.” I came away impressed with the writer’s command of language and her sharp memory.
Since then I have followed her writings in Inquirer and other anthologies the latest of which is To Be in History: Dark Days of Authoritarianism edited by Melba Maggay. I found out that she was the daughter, one of eight children, of an ex-USAFFE medical attendant who became a fisherman after the war and a mother who helped sell fish in the market. Alma wrote in an understatement, “It was not an easy life.” But she came from a generation that valued education as the key to getting out of hardship.
She went to the University of the Philippines where she became an activist and met the love of her life, Mario, whom she married in an underground ceremony where they exchanged bullets instead of wedding rings. O, sino-sino sa atin ang may ganyang bragging rights?
Maraming pinagdaanan sina Alma at Mario. Kasama na ang pag-aaruga ni Alma sa kanyang asawa hanggang bumalik ang kalusugan nito upang mabuo ang pangalawang nobela kasunod sa Secrets of the 18 Mansions.
Tumungtong ngayong araw na ito si Alma sa edad setenta. Mukhang napapanahon na para siya rin ay lumikha ng mahabang istorya. Kaya mo, Alma. Ang tingin ko sa mga maikling ulat mo sa Soul Searchers and Dreamers ay marikit na mga practice pieces para sa mas malaking obrang susunod.
Am I scaring you off on such a happy occasion as tonight? No intention to do that. But my dreams for you, dearest Alma, are as vast as the Great Wall of China that you once traversed. May your 70s be the start of something big!
NOTE:
The book can be ordered through maningningfoundation@gmail.com or 09189057311. Payment for the book can be coursed through BPI Savings Account No. 0326-0448-45; or GCash: Banaue M. 0999-5042898. Delivery charge will be on the buyer.
