love in the time of cholera

I have just finished reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez' 'Love In The Time of Cholera.' It is the story of Florentino Ariza, who fell in love with Fermina Daza when they were young. Fermina got disillusioned after a few years of carrying a love affair that consisted mainly of letters exchanged through telegraph offices. She went on to live her life, married a rich man, had kids, and loved her husband till he died. Florentino Ariza continued loving her, and while he vowed to wait for Fermina Daza, he had 622 affairs which he meticulously documented (excluding the one-night-stands). Fermina's illustrious husband died an undignified death by falling off a ladder while trying to catch a problematic parrot, and Florentino comes back on the first night of Fermina's widowhood to proclaim (once again) his everlasting love.

It was funny and touching, meticulously written, and never tedious. It is the simplest story, of a love that withstood all possible tests of fate and time, and yet the characters were extraordinary. You could laugh and be aroused at how the virgin Fermina spent her first wedding night, you could commiserate with Florentino and his chronic constipation, you could marvel at the love of Transito Ariza for her son.

The first time I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez was in my sophomore high school year, when I found my cousin's copy of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.' I had to make notes to remember which character is the child of whom, and still, sixteen years later when I bought my own copy and read it again, I am overwhelmed by the complexity of it all.

How I'd love to be able to write like that. But reading it, and knowing the pleasure that there are millions of books out there, is enough joy.

a little about love

I had lunch with Susan today. And in the course of a one-hour discussion which included food, raising children, ballroom dancing, and shoes, we tackled how to make husbands feel loved.

When they fight, she gives massages and sponge baths to make up. She is anxious not to make him angry, because she says she holds him in such high respect. They talk a lot, cuddle a lot. And she says she often tells him she loves him, because there might come a time when the chance to say that will be gone.

I do not know Susan well and I don't know her husband at all. But what strikes me is their willingness to take the present, now, to enjoy each other fully. Sometimes, in a marriage, one or the other is too selfish to share himself. It's 'Why should I give first?' It's 'What do you expect? He is not the hugging type, so there's no sense doing it when he doesn't hug me back.' 'Why should I spend time cooking breakfast for her when she has stopped doing that for me a long time ago?'

It's sad when we expect too much. But it's sadder when we don't do enough just because we think the other person deserves only a little of what we can give. Love, like most things in this world, is better if we give it wholeheartedly, with passion, with abandon, with an open heart. You savor it because you have the chance to give it and not because you feel like you deserve to receive something equally abundant. And it's not in things like using up your savings to help her buy that dream car, or giving up a career to stay home and have the kid. It's in little things like caring enough to know when he needs new socks, or boiling the water for coffee when you wake up a few minutes earlier than she does.

It's in little things like a massage after a hard day in the office, or a sponge bath when you're done fighting and you've made up. That's love.

one rainy day

This morning I was quite pissed off. I woke up to a light rain, which means that my husband will not be able to bring me and my daughter to school in the motorcycle. Because it was a cold morning, we were slow in taking breakfast and doing our morning rituals, and soon enough we were running late. And as is customary on rainy mornings, my husband does not even want to get up from bed.

So off we trudged, my daughter and I, in our hooded jackets and a single umbrella. We had to walk through wet grass to get to the road, and she started to complain that her boots would get muddy. The tricycle would take us no farther than the subdivision gate because traffic on the highway is bad most mornings (which is why the motorcycle is a convenient school service). From the gate is is faster to walk about two blocks to get to the school, than ride a jeepney stuck in traffic.

Then I remembered that I left my office drawer key in the house, and it has become too troublesome to go back for it.

My daughter's backpack is very heavy. It has wheels, but since I am too tall to drag it behind me, it will give me a heck of a backache. I carried it on my back, slung my office bag on one shoulder, opened the umbrella, and we got ready to walk. I am now really quite pissed off.

Then my daughter looked up and saw the rainbow. She squealed in delight. It was a complete rainbow, a wide arc in the brightening sky, and the colors were lovely. And as we walked to school it was in the sky on our right, and we talked about why they are called rainbows and what's at the end of it. Soon we were laughing a little, stepping over the puddles, and talking about what's good to eat for dinner later. By the time we reached the school gate, the rainbow is almost gone.

I looked at all the people riding in the jeepneys, thinking they could all be pissed off about the rainy morning and the traffic, and they did not see the rainbow. I thought about the key I left and my husband still lounging over breakfast while we were rushing for school.

And I thought that if we hadn't been walking to school, we would have missed the rainbow. We are always in a hurry to do something else that the most beautiful things go by unnoticed. Like rainbows, a child's laughter, a little love shared on a walk to school.