Suddenly last Saturday...

... days before "Maring" caused a sea of devastation, old married couple Fe ("Peng") and Manny Arriola found themselves belatedly feted at a surprise party marking their milestones: her 70th, his 75th birthdays, their 45th year of togetherness.

Their daughters Oya and Ina must be congratulated again for pulling the whole thing off, leaving the couple clueless every step of the way. As late as July, their Tita Gilda (Cordero Fernando) advised Oya to at least give Peng a day's notice--the humane thing because Gilda had witnessed a surprise birthday party that really caught the usually impeccably dressed celebrator by surprise. The birthday gal was without makeup,  wearing her slippers and the Filipino woman's national dress, the daster.

The Arriola sisters kept the secret tight among at least 100 people who turned up at the Corinthian Gardens Clubhouse's east hall Aug. 17. Thanks to the cell phone, the coordinates--where Peng and Manny were at the moment--were telegraphed until the waiters dimmed the lights while the couple climbed down the steps towards the hall, expecting to pick up Ina for a dinner out. A straight-faced son-in-law led the way (later, he said he was tempted to dress down like Manny in tee shirt and shorts just to increase his credibility as bait). By this time, the guests were cackling at the sight of Manny in his get-up, down to his tsinelas. 'Twas like the daster incident, only this time a man was caught off-guard.

To whoops of "Happy birthday!", the couple strode in as the lights came on. The look on their faces was irreplaceable. When the excitement settled down a bit, Ina announced, "Now we can eat!"

Peng Arriola with Oya on her left wearing  a dress crocheted by her mom that fitted her thin frame to a T.

Manny gladly receives one of many kisses from women friends.

Peng hugs back her former classmates from St. Theresa's College.

Journalist Vergel Santos (left) heckles Manny, "Anong ginanaga mo dito?", sounding like a bouncer about to bar an intruder for not following an exclusive club's dress code.

Manny covers his  mouth, aghast at seeing fellow retired adman JJ Calero (in pink stripes). Vergel continues to ask, "Anong ginagawa mo dito?"

Yes, Manny, your words have come back to haunt you. Vergel sketches his pal and the missus.

Peng seen through the eyes of Vergel (those are his fingers showing)

Manny

The quick sketches serve as apres-dessert entertainment for those sharing this table: Chito and Mariel Francisco and Edna Zapanta Manlapaz.

Over dinner, there was a chance to read the aphorisms of Manny and the husband-wife exchanges that glued their marriage for 45 years. These were pried from the memory of Manny by Ina in the guise of her needing ice-breakers for a seminar she'd conduct. Here are some of those that decorated each table and put a smile on our faces:


"Nabalitaan mo ba yung may colon cancer na inoperahan para putulan ang colon? Semi colon na sya ngayon."

***

PENG (to a dinner guest): Some say I can't truly be a feminist because I'm happily married.

MANNY: Hmmm. Baka ako puede.

 ***

Habang nagmamaneho si Manny...

PENG: O, kaliwa ka dyan...Dito ka sa may kanan..Naman, ang mga tumatawid!...Tumabi ka...Naku, bakit tayo hinuhuli ng pulis?!

MANNY: Palagay ko backseat driving without a license.

***

SONNY: Manny, bakit tumataba  ka?

MANNY: Madalas kasi magluto si Peng ngayon, eh.

SONNY: Masarap magluto si Peng!

MANNY: Hindi. Madalas ako ngayon kumain sa labas.

***

"Old age is hereditary. And terminal."

***

"Heard about the man who told his wife that, like wine, a man gets better with age? He now lives in his cellar." 

This caricature by Manny Vailoces, reputedly the top graphic artist in the country, according to Adobo (magazine of the advertising industry), captures the chemistry between Peng and Manny. Chemistry? Let's just call it by its true name--love.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Joy T. Dayrit, whole and entire

"Gifted" is an understatement in describing the scope of Joy T. Dayrit's works. She was a writer of short stories and poetry, a painter, a children's art teacher and friend to many writers and artists. She was an admirable woman for whom a disability was no cause for diminishing her zest for life.

The Ateneo Library of Women's Writings (ALIWW) and the Ateneo de Manila University Press launched Light, her selected stories, in a slim, elegantly designed book in a color brighter than celadon green. 

Portrait of Joy Dayrit by Elaine Nuvas

 Edna Zapanta Manlapaz, book editor and ALIWW founder, remembered Josephine Teodoro Dayrit, who used the professional name "Joy T. Dayrit," as a meticulous writer who would submit to the latter's class several drafts of the same work in graduate school. Manlapaz would be stumped to look for what was outstandingly new about it. She'd read the latest draft line by line until she discovered that an adjective was deleted, and that discovery would make Dayrit smile.

The writer-painter's chair and cane served as subject for a series of paintings.

This meticulousness informed even her art. A fine example is the series "My Chair/30 Times" wherein she painted 30 versions of her chair and cane as subject. Somehow, it reminded one of Wallace Stevens's famous poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

 As Manlapaz said, it was quintessentially Dayrit to do repetitions with variations (the hallmark of a distinct style), perhaps with an eye to perfection. It also proves that anything can feed the imagination of a disciplined writer and painter which Dayrit was.

Quite telling in her story "A Quiet Infidelity" is how a persevering priest and a successful accountant, once childhood sweethearts, tame their ardor with just a chaste kiss exchanged between them.

In "Roda," the title character chides friend Greg for working hard to make a name for himself in a business office, for always being hurried and not setting aside time to relax and to enjoy his friends' company. This story serves as postlude to an earlier one where Roda's life is cut short by a sudden illness and Greg appears as one of the mourners.

There are no highly dramatic, emotionally draining and tear-jerking scenes. Dayrit's prose is clean and spare that one is almost tempted to call it "Hemingwayesque". But that would make her turn in her grave for in one of her journals, she bristled at a comment made by National Artist Nick Joaquin who during a meeting with women writers, said aloud how they could write if they were pregnant or busy raising small children.

This is where ALIWW's mission comes in: restoring Dayrit to her place in the literary canon. After all, she won literary prizes from the Palanca Memorial Awards and Focus Philippines literary content apart from her stories passing the astute editorial eye of Joaquin himself and getting published in the pre-martial law Philippines Free Press.

Her reflection on a new typewriter ribbon

At the ALIWW exhibit that pays tribute to the writer-painter, the space is made out like Dayrit's private office and library. On the walls are paintings large and small, especially selected by her dear friend Roberto Chabet, the esteemed father of Philippine contemporary art. The look of her desk is recreated with a word bank (a wooden box) near her electric typewriter which, one assumes, she utilized to get what's known as "writing prompts" to get her started.

Good friends: Roberto Chabet clowns around while Dayrit smiles, unaware.

 Her eyeglasses are there, as though she had just taken them off to stand up, stretch, step out to take a snack or go to the toilet, leaving a sheet of newsprint paper fed in the typewriter with a playful reflection on what it's like to have a dual-colored typewriter ribbon. It reads: "My new typewriter ribbon is black and red. I had wanted only black, but that was out of stock. So black and red it is. If you go with the flow, it could be fun."

Mobiles for children's enjoyment

 This fun-loving side of her is reflected in the colorful mobiles hanging from the inside of an open antique closet. These heart-shaped mobiles painted back to back were meant for her grand-nephews and grand-nieces to play with.

Underneath the glass-topped tables are photos of Dayrit from childhood to adulthood. In almost all of them is her bright, brave smile, even as she was being fitted with leg braces. Manlapaz quoted the late Kerima Polotan who once told sculptor Julie Lluch, "When Joy enters a room, she lights it up."

Some of her box paintings and her favorite books, including The Little Prince

 In her journals, Dayrit wondered what her true calling was: writer or painter? One day, she quit agonizing when she realized that she was happy being both, that she did not need to fragment herself, that words and images were what defined her.

The ALIWW exhibit, which runs till Aug. 31, has been visited by droves of freshmen since the schoolyear started. It bodes well. Dayrit's writings and art are alive.--Text and photos by Elizabeth Lolarga

First published by Vera Files/Yahoo Philippines, July 13, 2012

Ruing My Zipping All Over Town Days

I woke up Thursday morning last week with a runny nose and a heavy head. I recognized the symptoms: the common cold has again set in, and its commonness, to mean regularity in visit, has shown cracks in my imagined invincible shield.

In Baguio, this minor discomfort is easily licked by an old family "recipe" shared by Padma Perez: a healing foot bath that calls for lots of lemon juice squeezed into a pail and mixed with pounded ginger. Pour hot water. Add drops of lavender oil (optional). Then soak your feet until water cools (depends on how hot you can stand it). While soaking, wrap yourself with a blanket. After the soak (or when the water cools), dry your feet, and go to sleep.

Simple but hard to duplicate in Manila where I step out of the shower, towel my body dry, then quickly begin to feel the beads of sweat forming on my forehead and around my neck.

A cold is inconvenient because it has become expensive to treat, and my doctor is perplexed why it has become a regular visitor in my life. She has ruled out dengue or a viral cause. She listens to my lungs, pronounces them clear so pneumonia is ruled out,too,but she's not taking chances so yesterday, she sent me down the lab for my second x-ray this year.Ohh, all that radiation, and it doesn't show on my face.

A cold is inconvenient because I wind up breaking appointments due to body malaise and weakness. Worse part is when I cancel plans in my cultural calendar of sorts. I like sharing in my friends' triumphs, watching them get acknowledged as another book is published or a life's career recognized.

Wednesday I watched an emotional Mario Miclat go up before the mike at the Shang to thank his family and circle of friends who saw him through the writing of his novel, Secret of the Eighteen Mansions. Although classified as historical fiction, it raises the curtain on the weaknesses and mistakes of the Maoist underground movement and reveals the top Party members' frailties. Many characters are thinly disguised, including the Chairman who goes by the initials AG (short for his nom de guerre Amado Guerrero, no doubt). Many friends feared for Mario's safety and the Chaiman's capacity to exact vengeance as they read pages of his draft but cheered him to go on as the time was ripe for these revelations. Now if AG makes patol to a work of fiction, he's even more deluded than we think.

Thursday was Edna Zapanta Manlapaz's turn to be feted. A beloved teacher at the Ateneo, she is one of two professors (the other being Soledad Reyes) who had the vision to see the need for and value of archival space for women writers' documents(expanded to include visual artists later) through the university's Library of Women's Writings.

Tuesday before that, Edna had hosted our bi-monthly First Draft dinner meeting at her La Vista Home. I was uncharacteristically late as I had just motored from Makati where another batch of girlfriends parted after a long, gossipy lunch. Gilda Fernando threatened in her text to finish all the sugar-free desserts if I didn't show up.

Edna always knows how to prepare an elegant table and a good spread from lemon coolers to just desserts. I missed Rita Ledesma's reading of her essay, accompanied by Lorna Kalaw Tirol's singing of song phrases from the manuscript. But Lorna was prepared for an encore to cap the evening. When she asked us what song we wanted to hear, Fe Arriola piped up, "Alfie."

And so the theme from the movie "Alfie" was in my head to console me on the afternoon I missed the festscrift for Edna. As sure as I believe, there's a heaven above, and this cold will be whipped before I miss out on any more vital cultural fare.

Photo by the blogger shows Lorna Kalaw Tirol (right) and other members of First Draft, Fe Arriola, Mariel Francisco and Karina Bolasco.