Drawing blood

Rolly and I fasted for eight to nine hours last night in preparation for our bi-annual blood works (ideally, it should be quarterly, but with the pandemic still on an uncontrolled scale, we minimize our leaving the house). I told the medical technologist attending to us that it is hard to find a presenting vein on either of my arms. After three tries, she asked if I didn't mind if she drew blood from the back of my left hand which I closed into a fist. I nodded my permission and did not flinch when the needle went in.

Strawberry soda on the foreground

Tinapang bangus with egg and red rice

Spicy bangus with fried egg on a separate platito

Interiors of Cafe By The Ruins In my mind was where Rolly and I would eat a hearty breakfast after our procedure. I ticked off eateries that were open at past 7 a.m. He was determined we would eat at Cafe By The Ruins on Chuntug Street. We were the first customers. Somehow recognizing us, the waiter waved us in and didn't oblige us anymore to fill out the contact tracing forms. We grieved over the removal of the beef tapa from the menu. I think the meat comes all the way from Mt. Data. Or did I imagine that? Next best choice was the bangus--he chose the tinapang bangus with sunny side up egg while I had the spicy bangus with a well-done fried egg. Siempre, may strawberry soda rin for me, a lover of strawberries. Midway through our meal, dine-in guests, a group of tourists, we supposed, strode in in their holiday shorts and casual get-up. They numbered 12 in all, and I fretted on my seat about social distancing. But this protocol was observed. While I sipped my coffee, he slipped out of the cafe and went to the public market nearby to buy our food supply: his favorite calf's liver for steak and hasa-hasa for paksiw. When we were on our way home, Rolly and I compared our bangus. I said mine wasn't spicy enough. It would have required me biting into the red and green chilies to taste the sting. He said his bangus lacked a smoky favor, but he cleaned up his plate, leaving only the skin of the fish. A good day to celebrate the nation's wobbly independence!

Geraldine Maayo in Baguio

Announcement from the truest bookshop in our favorite city, Mt Cloud at Casa Vallejo, upper Session Road, Baguio:


You are cordially invited to the Baguio launch of Geraldine Maayo's latest collection of short fiction, The Boys in the Boarding House. Two of the stories in the book, including the title story, are set in Baguio City, where Ms. Maayo lived and worked as a teacher at the University of the Philippines from 1976 to 1982.

Ms. Maayo will be visiting here this month to be reunited with friends and former colleagues and students. On Nov. 16, Saturday, at 2:30 p.m. in Mt. Cloud Bookshop, she will give a short talk and will sign copies of her book. Coffee will be served courtesy of Elizabeth Lolarga, with cookies from Cafe By the Ruins.

As is always in Mt Cloud Bookshop, everyone is welcome!

The 'bestest' times of my life

...in my current incarnation are when I get to hold, or get a chance to see, or mingle with, the big, middle and little lights of my life. Whatever my flaws in this lifetime, and they are many, I know I have been blessed over and over, under and sideways because I have a family, because I am a wife, because I am a mother, a grandmother, a daughter, a sister to all in this family of humankind.

Call it aging, call it post-menopausal pause that enables contemplation--perhaps I find myself in this mindset these days because I feel the windows of time, of space, of patience, slowly shutting. This gives me one more chance to set things right, or center, or left again.

The center will hold.

Images in their sequence:

1. Stuff a lola wants to hear someday

2. Rolly Fern (seated right) watches Kai/Butones dance onstage while everyone awaits the start of a program for the 12 Outstanding Senior Citizens of the Baguio-Benguet area. Beside Rolly is Kidlat de Guia carrying his few months old son and representing his father Kidlat Tahimik

3. Rolly relaxing by the bread display of Cafe by the Ruins

4. Butones and her Mamay Kimi

5. Butones with her aunt Ida who she sometimes addresses as "Ate"

6. The gurlz

7. The Lollikins of Pasig, Quezon City, Antipolo and Calgary with family matriarch Nene Lolarga seated in the middle row (in bright orange, the color of service)

8. Look forward, ever forward, angel of ours!

25 years of feeding a city’s body and soul | Vera Files

25 years of feeding a city’s body and soul | Vera Files

Book launch, Manila leg

Baguio gal Baboo Mondoñedo will have a Makati launch of her book following yesterday's successful festivity at Cafe by the Ruins.

'Stepping Stones' off the press, to be launched in Baguio

Baboo Mondoñedo's new "baby", Stepping Stones, a collection of personal essays published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, will be launched March 3 at the Cafe by the Ruins on Chuntug street, Baguio City. Below this is the foreword the blogger wrote for the book. 

      The author           Photo courtesy of Philippine Daily Inquirer

 Baboo sent a copy over at my mom's house yesterday, and even if I wasn't its author, I was bowled over as though I was. She signed it with this message: "A million thanks for the encouragement to see a dream come true. This project has brought joy in remembering." After I read that, I went inside the empty girls' room I share with my sister and did a brief dance with the book in my hands. Women are that way.

My own remembering of the title is it was the name of the workshop that Baguio's Merci Javier Dulawan and Grace Subido had thought of for a Baguio Writers Group project that took in people in midlife or those who've retired and were wanting to leave something for their children and grandchildren. It didn't necessarily had to be a book, it could just be an essay, to explain to a younger generation that the golden person before them, who they may find eccentric or old-fashioned, had a life, had a childhood, had a youth, knew love and its complications, went through losses and somehow emerged intact from the grinder of life. Ooops! Too much (I can see the eyebrows of the pedagogue in Grace going up). 

The initial Stepping Stones workshop had that purpose. Little did we know that inside Baboo, who was one of the participants, was a nascent author. Speaking for myself who sat in the secretariat of that workshop and went though the exercises in a "just for fun" spirit, I am so gladdened by the "product" from that small gathering. And I'm sure all of Baguio is, a Baguio that Baboo, the writer, painter and cafe part-owner, has adopted and called home and helped shape into one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Walking with Baboo Through the Edge

What makes this long stroll with Baboo that stretched over two years and meandered through real and imaginary forests worth one's time and attention is the certainty in that this woman will lead her companions to a clearing filled with sunlight.

Those who've known her from her early years as a sheltered girl up to the point when she was an epitome of glamour as a Pitoy Moreno fashion model may think hers has been a privileged life befitting her class, with creature comforts handed over without a struggle. Her development after those years puts a lie to that first impression of ritzy gloss.

Although the pieces in Baboo's first book are deceptively short and may seem "easy reading", the readable prose comes with an early warning. The telling of her story and the decision to share it with others, given other writers' self-protective instinct to draw the line where private life ends and public persona begins, came with much wrestling within. There were times when she almost buckled when her inner critic sensed this piece would hurt, that piece may displease. Those were the times she was tempted to withdraw troubling pieces and just store them in her files.

She, however, is aware that for her voice to be heard, she has to put the God or the Devil in the details. She has excavated deeply like a seasoned archeologist buried memories of heartbreak, pain, hurt, recovery, starting life afresh. This awareness that comes with years of meditative practice has enabled her to see that disclosure will connect her with readers. And so her voice here is bolder compared to the one she uses in her popular column in a community paper in Baguio.

This is Baboo's book of her life lessons learned. She may, at certain self-mocking moments, think of that life as insignificant, a proverbial drop in a bigger ocean. It is not; it is in fact unique and familiar at the same time. To use a popular term, "it resonates" with the reader who has traipsed on stepping stones like hers that move from dark and doubt to shafts of enlightenment, from innocent girl effaced by experience to grandmother enjoying her years of grace. Would that all women and men enjoy a harvest time in life's cycle as full and fulfilled as hers.

--Elizabeth Lolarga

Baguio City

March 9, 2012

Brookside bibi & famille say thanks for the follow

"To be strong yet vulnerable--this is how we live on this earth. A big embrace."--New Year SMS from poet Marj Evasco 

Blood was no typo on your part
For in your words I recognize a life force
Where I find
The solace
That these days collect
Like impossible raindrops
In the frozen snow
Outside the window of this
My winter's discontent.

--Jorge V. Ledesma, writing from his Colorado isolation

With a bib tucked in her shirt, the blogger is ready for another Yuletide repast.

On our favorite couch by the Christmas tree at Mario's

Blurry photo of Lolarga-Fernandez family with house guests Sinag de Leon and Raya Amado. Sinag's son Dakila couldn't keep still and decided to play with Kai's toy car.

At the beginning of this year, I must say that our happily dysfunctional family has managed to stay intact through the decades. 

 

Has it been that long since Rolly and I decided to hitch our lives to a star and gamble (it does seem like a roll of the dice), take a chance on what Simone de Beauvoir called "an obscene institution"?  This year just past, I learned something new--that your chances of coming out a winner from a casino range from 30 to 40 per cent.

Ida Fernandez with her Tatay and her niece Kai holding the figurine of a lighted angel

Chit Roces and Vergel Santos, colleagues in writing and journalism, drop by for coffee and chat.

Hmmm. Call us Mr. and Mrs. Lucky Us then! And many a time it was our kids, Kimi and Ida, and now our granddaughter, who have helped keep the union intact. Add to that, the fellowship of friends and an extended family of children and grandchildren of our own co-parents.

In a country where Christmas is celebrated the longest, the Lolarga and Fernandez families wish to thank those who've stayed with us. The blogger, channeling Meryl Streep, also thanks her 21 ++ followers who saw her through her ups and downs, enjoyed the roller-coaster of life with her and screamed along with her, with arms and hands held high, as the ride swooped down.

Here's to more and more of the same!

Shall we dance after this meal at that Baguio classic, Cafe by the Ruins?

Source of topmost photo: "Here's the Thing," an online column by Ben Patterson

Photos taken by Suzy and Babeth Lolarga, Rolly Fernandez and an anonymous waiter 

Cats in My Fruit Salad

i see them, poised like sphinxes , outside our gate,
slinking soundlessly away as the car approaches.
on sunny mornings, one of them curls
on my orange armchair,
reluctant to leave as i plead:
please, i'd like to enjoy the sun, too,
& read the sunday papers.

with the nonchalance a high-wire artist
can never match, the creature rises languorously
& walks towards the edge of the road.

the world as we know it
may end covered by ice or melted by fire
while roaches take dominion over what's left of it.
or i can come undone, play russian roulette & break my head into cubist fragments.

but oh, in my brave new world
apples tumble in space,
strawberries expand to the size of benches,
mangoes turn from ripe yellow to sour green.

at this perplexing state of things the cats turn up
their noses & lick with their pink-pink tongues
my intact mound of chilled fruit salad.


--Babeth Lolarga

first published in Philippines Free Press, July 18, 2009
photos of paintings exhibited by the author in a solo show at Cafe by the Ruins in February 2009

Lemon Chiffon Cake Moment

My Baguio moments are simply that--moments to savor when it’s time to take the bus for wherever, usually to Metro Manila where a pile of work awaits.

So when my neurologist, Edmundo Saniel, pronounced me well but in need of a break to stop two weeks of off-and-on migraine attacks, all it took were a few minutes of packing a bag and sending a sick leave notice to my school supervisor and I was off before you could say, "Biyaheng Baguio."

And my first moments there were spent chomping down a grilled burger at the Hill Station which is turning a year old in March. It is a local success in terms of adaptive re-use of a heritage building. The lighting inside the restaurant is soft so it doesn't trigger a dull, throbbing headache. While awaiting my order, I went down to Mt. Cloud and was gladly "robbed" of a few hundreds of pesos for books and stationery (I reserved some more for another visit).

One evening during this recent week-long break, my old man asked me to follow at Hill Station where he was having dinner with former colleagues Glenda Gloria, Ed Lingao and photographer Melvin Calderon. He hadn't seen them in more than decade, and not even Facebooking could replace eyeballing and reminiscing aloud about good old days in the old-fashioned newsrooms when reporters like Ed could be mentored directly by the desk person assigned to his copy. Today, newsrooms are not the noisy hubs they once were as all communications are done by cell phone or email.

Glenda and Ed were still around when desk persons like Rolly Fernandez and myself walked around with cricks on our neck (from taking long dictation of reporters' stories filed from the field by phone). They say there is little interaction between copy editors and reporters/correspondents these days, and this is one reason the latter don't improve and commit the same errors over and over. But let's not get into that.

I was quite pleased that evening because Melchor the waiter was by our table. He's an amiable fellow, and Melvin correctly guessed that he was named after one of the Three Kings and his birthday fell on Jan. 6. On both counts Melvin was right. Melchor added the info that his second name is Gaspar. Bingo!

Hill Station's moving spirit Mitos Benitez Yniguez brought out a plate of a dessert that was on try-out stage. By the time I return in March, I hope it's permanently on the dessert menu. It's no other than DARK CHOCOLATE brownies. Yes, no typo there. I emphasized decadently dark chocolate. The swift, trigger-happy photog Melvin made sure that the leftover brownies that go well with Benguet coffee were wrapped in a paper napkin and stashed in his camera bag.

After all that fine dining, I had to return the favor to the old man who had gallantly driven me around town and cooked three big meals on the Sunday when my art tutor Norman Chow, his son Chino and I did the final details on my paintings for next month's Nineveh Art Space show in Santa Cruz, Laguna.

I treated him to a Café by the Ruins lunch yesterday--the works, from soup to dessert. As for myself before I took the journey to Work Land, I just had to have my lemon chiffon cake and eat it, too. Sa muling pagbabalik (kain)!

Top photo by Melvin Calderon shows Glenda, Rolly, the blogger and Ed Lingao after a satisfying dinner.

Lower photo is the stuff of my fantasies: lemon chiffon cake

Food from 4 Foodies

Whenever we get together, we being art teacher Norman Chow, watercolorist-writer Baboo Mondoñedo, baker-theology instructor Toottee Chanco Pacis and me, talk is spiced by food on the table or food imagined. So it comes as no surprise that for our group show, "Produce from the Greenhouse," we are united by the subject of sustenance. We officially open our exhibition of acrylics, watercolors and pastels on Nov. 20, Saturday, at 4 p.m. at Cafe by the Ruins, homing zone of foodies from all over the archipelago. We can't assure that a lechon will be the buffet table's centerpiece, but a jolly good time will most certainly be had by all. 

Poster design by Jennifer Cariño

The Travelling Notebook

Around the time Noynoy Aquino was sworn in as the new Philippine President, a couple of Baguio friends talked about organizing another visual arts and poetry project timed to celebrate our city's 101st charter day. We decided on an open-media exhibit at the Cafe by the Ruins (now that the cafe is under renovation, we hope the exhibit "Explorations" remains when it reopens for the selfish reason that I haven't seen it yet).

Martin Masadao thought of a travelling notebook of handwritten poetry passed from one Baguio poet to another. The plan was to have a slide show of some sort, with projector and all on opening eve so that the poets' calligraphy would be visible to guests instead of passing the notebook from one person to the next. According to Martin, there was some technical snafu so our brave friends ended up reading our poems. The notebook, whose leaves were just a bunch of modest manila paper Martin lovingly bound together with a picture of a Moorish-looking character and setting on the front and back covers, did get passed around and stayed beyond due date with me (over two weeks) while I struggled with the usual mental block. The prospect of sitting down and allowing melancholia to take over me is not attractive, but when Baboo Mondonedo texted that someone was waiting for her turn to write, my adrenaline shot up (always a deadline beater).

Here's one of my three poems that form part of the "collection" whose whereabout is unknown:



Drawing Lesson



this boxed landscape is presented

to you on an eigth of a page of

your yasaka sketchpad.

today marks your sixth lesson.

the instruction: enlarge the landscape

on the rest of the page.



your grip on the chunk of oil pastel

is unsure.

you stare at a representation of the sun,

feel its rays, violent in yellow orange,

singe your lashes,

you hear the rattle of bones beneath

the grass, you watch a spectral

mist coil like a cobra around

the trunks of hapless trees.



in the heaving distance, blackbirds caw

a dirge of warning: stop

romancing the mountain,

reduce the drippy sentiment that

has chained you to summers past

of cousinly camaraderie.



those companions true have scattered

far. what's left is this rectangle.

inside: sunny orb, horizon of hills, grass

fading like your infrequent dreams of mountains.

watercolor shows part of my lola's home in Baguio

Dear Sweet Filthy World

The title of this blog entry is appropriated from a coming artist’s talk of Patricia Eustaquio, an artist I admire from a distance, at the Silverlens Gallery on Pasong Tamo extension, Makati City. The title of her show comes from an Elvis Costello song.


The “A” word (appropriation) is big these days in the art scene. Discussions have filled the cyber highway on just where does copying begin and plagiarism end.


Call this a stream of consciousness sort of exercise, but at 5 a.m. that can only be one’s state of mind.


March is usually called Women’s Month (which again brings to mind a spoof magazine Amadis Ma. Guerrero, old comrade in arts and letters, once got hold of in the pre-martial law ’70s: Imelda’s Monthly). I didn’t realize this month was about to end until I turned on my cell phone upon waking up at my usual time of 5a.m.


Jeez, talk about how time goes by. My observant daughter, a follower of this blog, once asked, “Have you given up your journal for your blog?”


“No,” came my quick answer. I explained how I’ve managed so far to keep both an online journal and a diary where I handwrite all sorts of stuff. The latter is unfiltered, unexpurgated; the blog, well, it’s where I put what is still permissible but otherwise unpublishable (mainly because entries like this one are too personal) in conventional media.


Last week went by so fast that, as I texted another old gal pal asking if I was ready to meet about another book project, rest these days takes the form of trips to the bathroom. I summed up to her my mental checklist of unfinished interview transcriptions, writing and editing assignments apart from two large-scale paintings I was working on when her message came in.


“Yep,” she texted back, “just like you to take on a work load fit for a pack of wild horses. But enjoy!”


The adrenaline rush has kept me going these two weeks that when my phone’s alarm clock went off at 5 a.m. on March 24, Wednesday, my automatic move was to turn over to my left side, forgetting that I was lying on the hardwood bench on someone else’s sala in Munoz, Nueva Ecija. Three hours before I had just emailed my copy of a report on Cecile Licad’s outreach concert there. I fell hard on the marble floor, natch, a rude awakening, literally.


I managed to catch the van in San Jose bound for Baguio. I thought I’d make good time if it left on the dot at six. What I didn’t know was vans like this one that double as public utility vehicles don’t push off until it’s filled to capacity. The long Calvary had begun as I waited. The driver told me to stay put and be patient; the bus to Baguio was not air-conditioned and the trip longer (about five to six hours) with lots of stops. Once on its way, the van could be in Baguio in, oh, an hour and a half, he said.


Well, the van did make it to Baguio in that span of time, but it left Nueva Ecija at half past 10 a.m. by which time I was sticky, filthy and weepy from half-despair, half-exhaustion.


Meanwhile, I kept in touch with my one kith-kin in Baguio (long-suffering partner of almost 26 years) and Baboo Mondonedo and Toottee Chanco Pacis, the women who pinch-hit for me in helping organize a merienda meeting with Sen. Pia Cayetano. The compañera senadora was city-hopping in Northern Luzon to promote breast and cervical cancer awareness and the women’s agenda that has marked her career in the legislature. Trust women to be efficiency experts and not to be shy about introducing themselves to the senator and taking over.


My old partner, no matter how grouchy he can be, is right on this score: no one is indispensable. I was resigned to just catching the tail-end of a women’s meeting.


By the time the van was about to turn right on Gov. Pack road, I screeched, “Para!” Got down with my luggage, hopped into a cab, got to a dark house (city-wide brownout, wow, perfect timing). But this was one occasion when a curse became a blessing. Brownout meant cold shower. That was what I had. And it couldn’t have been more welcome when one was feeling filthy physically and weepy psychologically, the last from self-imposed pressure.


The women gathered at Café by the Ruins were frank and to the point with their questions just as the senator was with her answers. She hit it off with them so well that she vowed that after the whole hullabaloo on May 10 is over, she’d return for a longer visit.


Carol Brady said after the merienda ended, “This is so refreshing. I’m glad I came. This meeting gives me hope that not all politics is dirty. Please tell Pia I hope and I pray that she continues to hold her own in the Senate.”


Afterwards, the rest of the week went by in a whirl of laughter, tears, colors, paint brushes, meals downed in a hurry, errands and duties in different parts of town from the taking down of paintings at the Baguio-Mt. Provinces Museum at the close of our latest Baguio Aquarelle Society exhibition to interviewing sources for another assignment on sustainable development. At each step, little acts of kindness meant the week could be made tolerable until duties were done away with.


After a dinner of reheated leftovers following an afternoon of painting in the company of my teacher Norman Chow and his son Chino, I did the last of my evening rituals: check my email for any urgent messages that need to be answered.


Lo and behold! Odette from the Population Center Foundation years was there, responding to my invite to a solo show next week.


She wrote, “Thank you for the invite. I hope to see you there! I remember you were just starting your art lessons when we went to Malabang, Lanao Del Sur in . . . does it surprise you that I can't remember when? I distinctly recall you picked a taro leaf from the path and drew it. Did you keep that one? I want that one.

“The lesson you taught me has stayed with me since: Pare everything down to the barest essentials.”

Thanks, too, Odette, I need to relearn that lesson again.


Photo of Patricia Eustaquio's installation by ARJAY BLANCO. Eustaquio's talk is set for April 17 at 3 p.m. at Silverlens Gallery, 2320 Pasong Tamo extension, Makati City.

That’s What Friends Are For

I could almost hear Dionne Warwicke singing that hit while friends Auring Bautista, Vickie Rico-Costina and Chit Roces “opened” the painting exhibition “Cats in My Fruit Salad” at Café by the Ruins Monday.

It also felt like I was alive, listening to eulogies at my own wake.

Here’s Chit’s little speech:

For love of you, Babeth, Vergel and I are here on this grand occasion, when once again, the writer demonstrates she is a painter, too, ignoring the warning from our mentor and our idol, Gilda Cordero Fernando who sent you this message:

Dear Babeth, you are really a good writer so why do you want to be a good painter? It’s bad for the health to be a good painter. Mas okay tayo as we are. You paint an eggplant or an apple as though you created the idea yourself – from the etheric soup, no similarity to reality. Aren’t you glad some people can’t stand us?

Gilda handpicked nine of her writer-friends to form a group called First Draft. Babeth and I are privileged to be part of it. And for over five years now, we have been meeting every other month in each other’s home or a nice restaurant where we enjoy a good meal and read our “homework,” the draft of an essay or something, to one another for friendly critiquing. Babeth makes it a point to come down for our meetings, and so we thought it would be a nice gesture if we all came up for this occasion, but circumstances kept everyone except me from coming – my husband, Vergel, was not hard to convince to come along. But the girls send their greetings:

From Fe (Peng) Arriola: Kudos on your new creative endeavor. May you one day reach the stature when like Gilda you would say ‘Award na naman?

From Mariel Francisco: Mabuhay ka! Your inner and outer beauty, your wit and humor radiate in your art. A big hug!

From Karina Bolasco, sending her message from Tokyo: Congratulations and very good wishes! Continue expressing your poetry in strokes and colors.

From Lorna Kalaw Tirol: I am endlessly amazed by the diversity and breadth of your talents and your generosity in sharing them with others less gifted.

From Rita Ledesma: Babeth, writer-painter, what a great artist you have become! Congratulations!

From Edna Z. Manlapaz: Go, Girl, go!

We would all have been here. We would have stayed at Edna’s condo. We even had visions of a pajama party and lots of fun, although most likely matutulog lang tayong lahat.

Babeth is second to Gilda as the most published in the Inquirer, although I probably have more articles submitted but still waiting for precious deserved space.

I usually read Babeth’s articles to my editor-husband. Invariably he points out to me her eye for detail, how she has put in all the elements of a good story, how she doesn’t say more than she needs to, and then concludes, ”Nag-reporter kasi si Babeth.”

So why do writers like you and Gilda and, for that matter, Vergel, who himself sketches and caricatures, digress from writing. But looking at your art, I see that you are still telling a story – “Nagkukwento pa rin kayo” – but what comes through is your sense of humor and your almost irreverent view of life, more subjective and personal. You have been set free from the disciplines of writing.

I have asked Vergel, and he says, simply, without attaching any philosophy to it, ”Because some of us can”.

Well, Babeth, you have shown us you definitely can, and just did. Congratulations!

Photo by EV ESPIRITU

Posy of Poinsettias

The petals of the Christmas flowers are falling at a fast rate. But when they were at their reddest, they silently compelled me to paint them. And paint I did late last year and the year before. A number of works in acrylic had been given away as presents. I still have a stash, and my painting teacher Norman Chow and partner Rolly Fernandez selected the ones fit for a solo exhibition, mainly still lifes, at the Cafe by the Ruins. I also did a series on cats. Hence, the title "Cats in My Fruit Salad."

So here's a sneak peak. Show opens on March 16 at 5:30 p.m. and runs for a month. Puwede bang bumati? Thank you, Fifi Perez and Jenny Carino, for your help. Photo by ELMER KRISTIAN DAUIGOY

Chant for Cafe

In late March this year, Su Llamado put together a mini-art festival to celebrate the 20th anniversary of what is now a Baguio landmark--Cafe by the Ruins on Chuntug Street. As part of the fest, the Baguio Writers Group held an after-dinner poetry reading. Members Jenny Carino read a Pablo Neruda ode to the tomato, Nonnette Bennett celebrated the short life of one of the cafe's partners, Christine Arvisu, visual artist Rishab strummed the guitar and sang his own composition, Desiree Caluza praised vegetables, Baboo Mondonedo read a piece about another cafe habitue, Santiago Bose, who had passed on. This was my contribution.

How many times have I sat here alone, ordered from a short list of favorites—the chewy turon, a glass of lemonade, no sugar, a cup of coffee, a pot of tea? And, when feeling acutely bereft, a bowl of the gooiest champorado to warm a fretful belly?

When there is nothing going on in the refrigerator at home, except for cooling bottles of water, I come here to stock up on loaves of camote bread and vials of decadent liver pate and live on them for as long as I stubbornly refuse to step on the kitchen.

This is where I bring out-of-towners, visitors from foreign shores who never leave disappointed. Always they praise the freshness of the day’s menu, the creative take on an old or familiar staple.

Revelations, confessions, disclosures come easy when hunger is sated. After tucking a plateful of Tofu Pouches, how can I say “No” to a request for a tour around the city? If I had eaten an uninspired comida china, I would have reason to refuse.

So here’s to the café of our affections.

May you never lose your intimate size.
May you never become a chain or franchise.
May you never be replaced by a more pragmatic bank, a real estate office or a nest of condominiums.
May poets, troubadours and similar wayfarers never overstay their welcome.

May the rich Cordillera soil continue to yield the greens you are famous for.
May your roof defy months of monsoon.
May you be highland Philippines’ perennial pleaser of palates, salve of souls.