The barefoot piano contessa

She is now called the family's Cecile Likod because of the low-cut dress she wore (just the back). With apologies to the great Cecile Licad, the pianist in our family, Bianca Ysabel Lolarga Susi, recently earned the moniker "C. Likod," a witty invention of her older sister Marga. Bianca, Binky to me when she was a baby (her mother was our Pinky), now Bianx for short, just finished her recital in her family's Antipolo home yesterday with an audience of cheering relatives and family friends.

For love of music and in their desire to continue Bianca's musical education, Marga and her Susi cousins embarked on a fund-raising project: a recital in the family abode with home-baked goodies served afterwards. I missed the tertulia because of some Baguio commitments.

Times being the way they are, sometimes piano lessons or any extra-curricular activity that has to do with the arts are considered a luxury. But they shouldn't be perceived that way. To me the arts are what makes a nation great so they should be a national priority. Children and youth who show a passion for music and the arts should be given the support they need.

Anyway, I think Bianx is assured of lessons for the next couple of months. Her immediate family thanks the donors and the others who made pledges.

Meanwhile, here are photos taken by my youngest sister Gigi of Bianx in rehearsal and in performance.

10. Ten. Sampu

Not nine and a half or three fourths but 10 exactly on the 28th of April. That's my niece Bianca Ysabel Lolarga Susi. She requested us to come in black and white outfits which had some of us scratching our heads and thinking aloud, "Isn't that a more suitable theme color for a teen or a debutante's party?" She had always declared pink as her favorite color, I suppose because her nanay, my fourth sister, is named Pinky, and pink is the color scheme of the girls' room at their place.

She's supposed to be a happy B, but maybe the humidity made it hard for her to keep her smile.

Three's a charm (from left): Tita Ida Fernandez holding Max, Bianca flashing her sweet smile

 We obliged although this aging aunt was about to dress up (more accurately, dress down)  in her comfiest cotton "daster," the national dress of Filipino women at this sweltering time of the year and say something to the effect that my skin is dark but my soul is white (hmmm, it must be the other way around).

Black and white and colors all over: Mamita Gigi Lolarga, Max Susi, Bianca, Grandma Suzy Lolarga and Tita Ida

And so the family members from Pasig drove off to the foothills of Antipolo towards sundown when the air had cooled to help turn Bianca a happy 10. Pinky prepared a mix and match of food Italian (baked mac of a sort that proved un-photogenic because it reminded me of vermiculture), American (ice cream on cones, lobster thermidor) and Filipino (tilapia fried to a crisp, eggplant and mango salad, Bianca's favorite puto).

Pinky's eggplant salad with cubed sour mangoes, onions, tomatoes and a dash of pepper

The fish points north to show it is best paired with the salad. We like tilapia prepared the heart-choking way: deep fried!

The lobster thermidor went very fast, tucked safely where they should be. No further explanation needed there, considering the love that went into its preparation. Thanks again, Pinky.

The do-it-yourself princess in the family, Marga, with the assistance of Jaja Jorge (our future niece-in-law), did the birthday greeting and other paper cut-outs for the wall while the aunts cooled themselves in Paolo's room which is equipped with an AC.

She put her right foot up, I put my right foot up, we didn't do the hokey pokey, but we compared bunions.

When you're in an AC-cooled room, you think up of all sort of things to fill up your waiting time while waiting for Pinky's announcement of chow time. Bianca and I compared our right foot; I wanted to check if she had inherited from my Mommy's side that trademark bunion. She may be slowly growing one because she's not too comfortable in closed shoes.

Her niece Machiko, a girl who carries the nickname Max (we, at least this grand-aunt, want her to grow into a strong fighter, a woman warrior, not a simpering whiner or wailer) played with the grannies who answered to assorted honorifics like Mamita, Grandma and Booboo. Talk of confusing a child.

Our dear dear niece who likes Elise.

 There were four generations in that house this last Saturday night, including the matriarchs Mama Mermaid (Nene Lolarga, our mom) and Lola Ines (mom of Bianca's tatay Rod).

One candle, usually reserved for brownouts, was enough to mark a milestone. Instead of a cake, half a gallon of strawberry ice cream did the trick. Carla Arriola (second from right) can be counted on to be audacious choral mistress.

 The Susi cousins sang the loudest off-key birthday song in recent memory.

The elders were most appreciative when Bianca played her piano pieces, "Fur Elise" and a melody, "Someone Like You,"  popularized by the singer Adele.

Lola Ines Susi takes five.

I roved around the house with a digicam and renewed acquaintance with old works that I had given Pinky's family. They now hang in their living room and kitchen like this mixed media of hand-stitched flowers set against a a field of orange (acrylic on canvas) done when I was a freshman fine arts student. The piece was part of a group show at Renaissance Gallery in '05.

Embroidering on canvas, that's what a former fine arts student does when her draftsmanship sucks. Detail of four feet by four feet work below.

If you must ask what brought about the embroidery, my answer: a batik house dress I used to flounce around in.This work still exists, but the house dress has either been  given away or cut up and turned into rags.

And the Pasig peeps went home tired but....

Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Grand dame reading

For young reader Bianca Ysabel Lolarga Susi who turned 10 years old today

Of the hundreds of pictures that our grandmother, Telesfora Cariño Lolarga, arranged in her scrapbooks that have survived changes of residence, this one retrieved from one of her vintage suitcases stored in another Baguio house is a favorite.

On the Play List of this blog is a site called Awesome People Reading devoted to authors and celebrities doing just  that--reading hard copy (scripts, letters, magazines, pamphlets, newspapers and books, of course).

Lola's gesture of reading (she must have been in her 30s here in the original family home on Pepin street, Sampaloc, Manila, since then sold and demolished) is typically her, a woman who was both solitary and social.

Sometime between the years 1992 and early 1997, I bought Suzanne Juhaz's Reading from the Heart: Reading, Literature and the Search for True Love (Penguin Books, 1994). The title jumped out of a bin of yellowing titles in a Baguio bookstore (Nini and Pancho Lapuz's late lamented Legato) when I was full-time mother to two daughters, part-time freelancer and all-the-time reader. In the lulls when the kids were in school or I was waiting for a kettle to boil or the coffee to drip or giving up on the idea of doing the day's house cleaning and dusting, books were my refuge, haven of rest, escape and enduring passion. As they are today.

These days, I go into debt because of book purchases I cannot curtail. My priorities are all skewed, family members like to reprimand me.

And after I'm done with the last page, it's time to hand the title over to the next similar spirited reader or add it to a bundle of read books for turnover to a group that Prof. Delfin Tolentino Jr. put up in the 1990s--the Friends of the UP Baguio Library, friends who love the printed word enough to want to share their "loot."

I am reminded of the group because two nights ago, Rita Ledesma, fellow First Draft member, turned over to me two big and heavy bags of book for the University donated by her former grade school classmate, Pinky Farolan, another passionate reader. Thank you, Pinky and Rita--these books, once brought up to Baguio, will fill the hours of some incoming students there in the new semester. No frigate like a book, indeed.

Meanwhile, some lines from Ms. Juhasz's prologue describe how reading makes the real world tolerable. These lines explain why the people I read about, whether in fiction or non-fiction, have always been more real to me than the ones I live and have to deal with:

"Talking about books with other people is a delight, which may be one reason why I made it my profession. It complements those many hours spent alone with a book. And yet, reading isn't exactly solitary, either. I'm alone in the room when I read, but not in my mind. And maybe that's the key, because the society of the book--its world that I can enter, as well as the deeply intimate and always developing relationship with the author as the book incarnates her--keeps me from being lonely. I am lonelier in the real world situation I've just described--when no one seems to understand who I am--than by myself reading, when I feel that the book recognizes me, and I recognize myself because of the book."

That said, let me now get on with what supports my addiction--meeting a writing deadline.

The April Borns

birthday poems for Butones Fernandez & Bianca Ysabel Susi 

written to Mahler's Adagietto from his 5th Symphony in C sharp minor

march marches out

with a loud stomping

of the pachyderm's feet

the wails of the mournful

the lifting of night

welcome now

the hours of morning

the promise of ice cream

a stifled scream over

a child's mess

an outburst of giggles

echoing through a

valley of green

welcome now

the perplexed look on

a little one

while new shoes in

the hue of tenderness

are fitted on her

for her first step

followed by two

three  four

a hundred  a thousand

as calendar pages

are cast off

welcome now

the harp  the violins

that sear the heart

as white lilies

turn purplish

in the easter  sun

--Babeth Lolarga

Photos of Bianca and Butones by Gigi Lolarga and Kimi Fernandez

Her Name Is Bianca , and She's 7

Below is a composition by my seven-year-old niece Bianca, daughter of my sixth sibling Pinky and her husband Rod. Bianca was seen by my daughters this week typing away on this very laptop where I am composing this blog.

She's on Facebook because she likes the games there (Pet Society being one), but her Internet access is timed and for a limited period only. Why? Because she is a schoolgirl, a child and must enjoy the outdoors on sunny days like today.

She's also listed as a public figure in FB at the rate she appears in my blog and my daughters', nephews' and nieces' Multiply and FB accounts. Ida, my youngest and a child development and education grad of Miriam College, is of the opinion that Bianca's fan page should be shut down. We haven't figured out who is the fan page's administrator. But if it were me, no way. We'll watch Bianca grow through the years that way.

This aunt almost failed to mention that Bianca is serious with her piano lessons, and she agreed to escort me to the Cecile Licad concert in September at the Cultural Center. On condition that she and I take a long siesta before the evening performance/s.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrreeeee's Bianca in her own write:

My name is Bianca Ysabel. I live at 45 Oriole st., Francisville subd.,
Antipolo City.

My mother’s name is Genevieve.
My father’s name is Rodolfo.
My brother’s name is Juan Paolo.
And my sister’s name is Margarita.

My birthday is on April 28.
I was born in the year 2002.
My birthday day is on a Tuesday.

I study at Assumption Antipolo.
My best friends are Lianna Margarita Manlutac and
Marian Juliet Manrique.

My lolas’ names are Mama Mermaid and Lola Ines.
My lolos’ names are Lolo Endong and Lolo Daddy.
My titas’ names are Tita Babeth, Tita Embeng, Tita Suzy, Tita Gigi, Nanay Mely and Tita Carol.
My titos’ names are Tito Junic, Tito Dennis , Tito Eric, Tatay Boyboy and Tito Sonny.
My cousin ninang is Ate Kimi and my cousin ninong is Kuya Carlo.

My cousins are Kuya Christian, Ate May, Kuya Rex, Ate Sara, Kuya Justin, Kuya Daniel,
Kuya Ted, Ate Ida, Ate Carla, Ate Monet and last cousin Kuya Marc.

My niece and nephews are Paopao, Myah, Miko and Marcus.

I love you all, my families and friends.