Big Mama comes out

I didn't want to sound self-serving, thus my hesitation in announcing in this space the publication of my third book of poems, Big Mama Sez: Poems Old & New. Fifty-five copies were delivered by my printer, Central Books, in March this year. Some friends asked if there was going to be a book launch or where copies would be available.

I've not grown tired of explaining that it is a gift book, an offering to friends and family who supported me in various ways as the manuscript made its own journey to book form. Yes, I'm in the midst of giving copies away that I now find myself here in Baguio without one. Some 25 remaining copies are stored in Pasig awaiting my return and scheduling of delivery to those concerned.

Big Mama Sez compiles poems written from 1997 (after my second book dangling doll: poems of laughter & desperation came out) to 2013. I noticed how few I wrote from '97 to 2012. In early 2012, I deleted my Facebook account and suddenly I found the time, space, the words to resume composing in verse. A news item, an online article, something said over dinner or casual encounters pushed some buttons that needed pushing. Before long I found myself with enough poems for a volume.

One afternoon, I asked my "prayerers" or "prayer warriors" to help me in my supplication for provisions so I could push through with Project Big Mama Sez. Lo and behold! Not even 20 minutes had passed when a friend committed to cover part of the printing costs. It was the sign I watched out for to indicate that independent publishing was the path to take. My partner Rolly and daughter Kimi added more to the kitty and realized how the book would be a good legacy to the family.

The rest of the requirements fell in place: Gilda Cordero Fernando gave permission for the use of her pregnant flying Darna as cover art; Dr. Elmer Ordoñez wrote an introduction that moved me to tears (because he read the poems objectively and looked at the narrator as persona and not as me); Margie Holmes, defying gravity, found time to write a blurb; Rosario "Chato" Garcellano had a ready afterword.

Crucial to the whole project was the full participation of my designer, Jenny Cariño. She was so easy to work with, gave me sound advice and even chose a highly readable font from a family that is used for the popular Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter books. Purrfect, I purred inside.

The next step: I'm going to turn the book into an e-book, a free book, yes, to make it more widely available, especially to kin and friends abroad. When Jenny is able to free up some time and before my summer vacation ends, we'll work together on the e-book formatting. It'll be my way of saying a big mama "Thank you" to the Universe for sending all that I needed and wanted.

Facing Down the Beast of Depression

With upbeat tunes like “Feels So Good” and “What a Wonderful World” played at the launch of Margarita Go-Singco Holmes’ Down to 1: Depression Stories, a guest wondered aloud if the condition discussed in the book is being trivialized.

Perhaps, that is the program’s point: the beast called depression can be understood and licked. What comes after is a realization that life can be given another chance.

Holmes, a clinical psychologist who has been identified with bestsellers on Filipino sexuality, summed up the condition, with help from her colleagues at the University of the Philippines psychology department, in this spoofy song to the tune of Elvis Presley’s “Suspicion”:

“Every time I wake up, I wonder what my life is good for / Every time I wake up, I wonder why there isn’t more / Why should this be so painful to me, the ex life of the party / Starting to think ‘Oh, what’s the use?’ Am I really hopeless and what’s more, just crazy / Depression torments my heart / Depression tears me apart / Depression, what can I do?”

Karina Bolasco  of Anvil Publishing, the book’s publisher, said it took them 10 years  to put together  Down to 1 as they wanted to show that  far from being “a happy smiling, singing people,” many Filipinos suffer from clinical depression.

But, she added, these Filipinos are “conveniently dismissed as genetically crazy. Have you ever noticed how parents always try to trace the family origins of anybody a son or daughter is likely to marry? First, the place of origin to establish regional traits, then the family of origin, to make sure walang lahing sira-ulo (there is no history of insanity).”

The title refers to a depressed person’s severe feelings of aloneness, even of abandonment–that no friend, partner or any other being could possibly understand what he or she is going through. Three of the 10 storytellers in the book went onstage to describe depression as a “condition too painful to bring on the table.” It is one where one feels “faith vanishing in the desert” and “looking into the abyss and knowing you don’t want to go there.”

Called the FCD 10 (formerly or currently depressed), psychology professor Kay Añonuevo, bankers Roman Azanza and Jeremy Baer, film director Peque Gallaga, writers Alya Honasan and Babeth Lolarga, restaurateur Nina Poblador, TV director Lore Reyes, author Mike Santos and fashion designer Patis Tesoro openly and bravely reveal what it’s like to be, or to have been, depressed.

Some detail their suicide attempts, their medication, what helped and what didn’t in getting them out of the condition that is beyond what Bolasco called “the blues that affect most people in the course of normal life.”

Holmes, who acknowledges suffering from the condition periodically, guides the timorous reader looking for help through a simple test. The score can be interpreted to find out if one is within the mild or severe clinical range of depression.

In her forthright manner, she demolishes commonly held beliefs and myths about suicide. To the quasi myth that “no one but God decides when your time is up ,” she writes, “This is claptrap because many don’t believe in God, even more don’t believe in a God that insists one suffers needlessly.”

Best is her definition of depression: a thief that “takes away your joy, sense of wonder, the taste of your favorite food, even the smell of freshly washed hair…Most painfully, depressions steal you away from yourself. For many, one of the worst things they fear is whether their real selves will ever come back.”

The FCD 10′s first-person tales of surviving depression resonate long after one has put down the book.  Añonuevo states with the force of truth: “While sadness is ordinary, not wanting to live isn’t!”

With admirable candor, the British Baer, Holmes’s husband, talks about the anti-depressant Prozac, how it reduced his libido (down to one from a high of making love 52 times a week) and how he and his doctor arrived at a combination of medications that is satisfactory to him.

Still on the subject of medication, Honasan musters her strength when she hears of people calling her “unstable” because she was on Prozac. She writes, “I don’t hang around them anymore. Experiences like this can teach you a lot about who you should keep in your life.”

Tesoro writes candidly about her addiction to Valium to control her rages and how she overcame it. “I got worse and worse, but when I wanted to throw that pair of scissors, not just to vent but hoping it might hit its mark, I stopped all my medication cold turkey.” Today, if she takes medication, she only has half a pill and has calmed herself through gardening and walking the land.

If anything, Down to 1 assures the suffering that they are not alone.

Originally published by VERA Files
Photo of Dr. Holmes by Anna Leah Sarabia