bed of roses

I heard an old song on the radio on my way to work this morning. It was Jon Bon Jovi’s Bed of Roses. (Well, it isn’t really that old, but these times the number one song changes every week, and gone were the days when you could remember a song with a year.)

I had to smile, because I remembered that song being played in the dances in my hometown, when I was maybe sixteen. The dances happened about four times a year: on Valentine’s Day, during the town fiesta, Halloween, and before New Year. The dances were usually sponsored by the Senior Citizens, those grand old ladies who collect the tickets at the hall entrance, sell nuts and candies, and watch like hawks over the gyrating teenagers on the floor. The dance hall was usually the covered basketball court in the town plaza, with loudspeakers set up on all four corners and glittering disco balls strung on wire along the ceiling. They would play four or five dance tunes to “rock with,” and the lights would flash, and then a couple of love songs for the “sweet” part, where the lights would be dimmed. It was sufficiently dark to pull your dancing partner a bit closer during the love songs, but not too dark that the watching grandmothers would see if you actually tried to kiss.

Those small-town dances were occasions for the teenagers to officially mingle, when the boys-turning-to-young-men who were away at college in Manila could come home and see which of their friends’ little sisters actually grew up pretty, and those little rituals of courtship could be done in a relaxed, friendly manner. In those dances a girl could refuse to dance a sweet song with you, and you knew she was turning you down, but you could still keep your face in front of your gang and say no big deal. That was lots better than suffering through the formal “ligaw” one evening in the girl’s living room, with the girl’s grandmother glowering from the kitchen, and you couldn’t say anything better than “Isn’t the moon beautiful tonight?” In little towns, when you court a girl, not only her whole family knows, they have also investigated your ancestry, and her girlfriends would have listed down all the misdemeanors you have done since preschool.

In those dances, you were allowed to run a little bit wild (but remember the watching grandmothers). You could step out a while and freshen up in some friend’s house, drink spiked punch or a bottle of beer shared three ways, then come back to dance the night away. And it was like being Cinderella. The party would be tapering off by one a.m., and the wise ones would leave before their grandmothers could appear at the edges of the dance floor, toting flashlights. It was total embarrassment to hear an announcement like this over the loudspeakers:

“Could Jane please come to the door? Her grandmother would like to go home now.”

I remember that after those dances, my sister and I would stay out awhile with friends, boys allowed, outside our gate. We’d sit there, slightly drunk, playing the guitar, playing cards, eating junk food, exchanging stories, letting all that good dancing energy ebb away before we parted. My own grandmother knew, and understood that such things were necessary if you wanted to stay sane in a house with teenagers who wouldn't stay exactly innocent.

At sixteen you didn’t care about Fidel Ramos or Bill Clinton being president, or that the exchange rate is 27 pesos to a dollar, or that Mayon Volcano erupted. You cared that Jurassic Park was a big hit, and that your mother did not allow you to watch Schindler’s List (but you watched it anyway and was properly sickened), and that Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You will be dedicated to your current boyfriend, if you had one. And on the radio, there’s Aerosmith and Radiohead and Ace of Base and Cranberries and Jon Bon Jovi.

“I wanna lay you down on a bed of roses… for tonight I sleep on a bed of nails…”

You remember a song like that blaring from the loudspeakers of your old hometown’s dance hall on a summer night, and you so young with your high school crushes and rose petals pressed between your diaries, you finding out that the boy who you didn’t dare believe likes you actually likes you, you slightly drunk with spiked punch and good friends and happiness… Oh, baby, you can almost believe that love lasts forever.

story: the lucky wife

Kate woke up and realized that she had fallen asleep on the armchair. Some sound had woken her, and she realized that it came from the other room. Violet probably had a dream.

She opened the child’s bedroom and found Anna, the live-in nanny, already up and patting the child, making shushing sounds. She knelt beside the bed, smoothing the hair back from Violet's face, trying to soothe her. But Violet, half awake, scooted away from her touch, squeezing into the nanny's side. She felt a stab of resentment and, for a moment, wanted to pull the whimpering child by her feet back to her.

But she sighed, and stood up, and fussed around the room, while Violet gradually fell asleep tucked under Anna’s arm. She checked if Violet had enough bottles for the night. But of course. Anna had them all ready when she put the child to bed. She kissed the top of her daughter's head and left.

She went back to their bedroom. Mike has not come up yet. He watches the late-evening news to relax before going to bed. Sometimes he’d crawl in beside her at 2 a.m. Sometimes he spends the night in the living room. She picked up the book she had dropped when she dozed, and put in in the pile on the nighttable. She noticed that her shelves are already overflowing.

She had floor to ceiling bookshelves along one whole wall of the bedroom. She reads inspirational books, historical novels, horror, mystery, science fiction, erotica, humorous books, and those weepy love stories. She has books on emotional intelligence, black magic, corporate leadership, child psychology, and the anatomy of an F1 fighter plane. She wondered how long had those books been her bedfellows. She wondered, briefly, whether her books were the reason her husband preferred to unwind in front of the TV, whether all these evidences of forced intellectuality were too overwhelming. Then she went to bed.

The alarm woke her up at five, same as always. She went down to the kitchen and put on the coffee. She’d wake Mike up at five-twenty. She checked the refrigerator and saw that there were three small microwave dishes in there, prepared by Anna the night before. One of them had meatloaf. She took that one out for Miranda’s lunch bag.

Miranda came down at five-thirty, as Mike was having coffee. She went straight to the bathroom.

She packed Miranda's lunch and checked her schoolbooks. She gave Mike a final once-over, checking wallet, phone, and keys.

Miranda came out combing her long hair.
“Do you want me to do your hair, honey?” she asked.
“No, Mom. I’ll leave it down.”
“I could braid it.”
“I’ll just put it up in a ponytail when it dries,” Miranda said. Her tone suggested that she did not want a discussion about her hair. Miranda was ten. She had asked to have brown highlights in her hair. Kate had refused; Mike had said yes. That was last week. Miranda now has highlights in her hair and would not allow Kate to fix her hair in the morning.

Mike gave her a look that she could not read, then bent to kiss her on the lips and Miranda on the forehead.

“Bye, honey. I’ll see you tonight,” he told Miranda.
“No, you won’t. Violet and I will be asleep when you get home,” Miranda said.
“Well, okay. Maybe I’ll see you tonight.”
Miranda shrugged.

Kate did the breakfast dishes and went back to the bedroom, looking at her wall of books. Anna and Violet would not come down until seven.

She had been the envy of her friends when she married Mike. He was an up-and-coming lawyer, and his family was old money. Her mother was so puffed up with pride at the 500-guest hotel wedding that you'd think she was the bride. They had their own townhouse, two little cars, a maid who comes twice a week to do the cleaning and pick up the laundry, and of course, Anna.

When Miranda was born, she told Mike that she would like to take care of the child herself. He said, "Let's see, love," and a week later, her mother-in-law sent Anna, the trusted nanny. When Miranda was three, she told Mike that she would like to get a job. Mike said, "Let's see, love." He introduced her to his friends' wives, and they made her a member of some giggling women's club, and they exchanged recipes and raised potted plants and gossiped and shopped together. When Miranda was eight, she again mentioned that maybe she could work. Mike said, "Let's see, love," then got her pregnant with Violet.

Her mother-in-law named her children, hired the decorator for the house, took her shopping for the designer clothes she had to wear on family functions and Mike's dinners with other lawyers. Mike had all the house bills on automatic debit arrangement, made the pediatrician's appointments, paid her credit cards.

She went to the salon every second week to have her nails done, attended her children's school performances, did the Christmas shopping. Yes, she was the envy of her friends.

She looked at her books and sat there, thinking, for a long time.

In the morning she woke up a little earlier, and when the coffee was ready she woke Mike—on the sofa—with a sound kiss on the cheek. When he was ready to leave she kissed him again, firmly on the lips, and he looked surprised, but pleased. He gave her a little wink and said, “Tonight?” She smiled.

She also gave Miranda a kiss when the school service came.

“Be good, honey,” she said, and let her hand linger on her daughter’s hair.
Miranda, in one of her rare good moods, smiled. “I am, Mom.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I love you.”
Miranda looked at her. Then she said, “I love you too, Mom.”

She knocked on Violet's door.
“Who!” said Violet.
Anna was tying the child's hair in ribbons. Violet saw her mother and skipped to the door, trying to climb her leg.
“Down!” said Violet, meaning she wanted to be picked up. Kate hoisted her up, smelled her baby-sweet hair, kissed her plump cheek, and hugged her tight.
"Anna!" said Violet, and squirmed out of her embrace.

Kate went to the bedroom, got a bag, and packed three days' clothes and some toiletries. She took all the credit cards out of her wallet and placed them in Mike's sock drawer. She took all the cash in the room, but left her jewelry in their boxes. She looked at her books, but took nothing. She thought she might write a letter, but did nothing. She thought she might call someone, her mother perhaps, but she left her mobile phone on the night table. She thought there would be tears, but there was none.

Anna was feeding Violet her breakfast in the kitchen. She gave them a wave and went out the front door.

Kate did not look back.

the valentine hangover

Three days after Valentine, the prices of flowers have gone down. Most of those lovely bouquets in office desks (to impress the officemates) and in living rooms (to impress the neighbors) have wilted and gone to trash. Jilted suitors wonder why they bought a dozen long-stemmed roses at 600 pesos on Monday, when on Wednesday the same dozen costs 150 pesos, and regretfully think of all the beers they could have bought. And pretty sixteen-year-olds would have a half dozen additions to their collection-- teddy bears clutching little pink hearts printed with sugary sentiments like ‘You’re in my heart!’

I refused to write this on Valentine’s Day because it’s pretty much sensationalized anyway, and it’s so… juvenile to moan about how much love there is on that day. But then I was going to write about Valentine flowers.

When I was in college, Valentine’s Day was characterized by dozens of flower vendors along the streets of University Belt. And in the afternoon, when most of the classes ended, the sidewalks would be thronged with young men clutching flowers, some of them hidden in brown paper bags (the flowers, not the men), some of them proudly holding a bouquet, waiting for their girlfriends or girlfriends-to-be to emerge from the university gates. The girls would come out, freshly powdered, and take their flowers, then allow the boys to peck their cheeks and carry their books. The ones who got bigger bunches of flowers would of course walk prouder, and they’d look around to see who noticed. And the unlucky ones who had neither suitors nor boyfriends would try to slink past those damned blushing girls.

I was one of the unlucky ones. I didn’t really mind, and I wouldn’t buy myself a rose just so I wouldn’t go home empty-handed.

Then I had this professor in a Psychology class who had what I thought was a brilliant idea. We were discussing things like self-esteem and complexes and group dynamics, and his class fell on Valentine’s Day. He made us bring three red roses to class. Then we gave one rose to the person you’d like to know better, one rose to the one you liked most, and one rose to the one you liked least. And since you weren’t supposed to tell whether you liked the person or not, we ended up assuming the rose we received was for being liked most. I remember that there wasn’t a person in class who was not holding at least two roses at the end of the exercise. I also remembered that there were quite a few loveteams that were made on that class.

And the roses felt good. And I thought I understood the roses on Valentine’s Day. They reaffirmed all the good feelings associated with love. You understand your worth, you feel important, you feel desirable, you feel special. At the most basic level, you feel appreciated. And isn’t being appreciated one of the most important emotional needs of a person?

Valentine roses when you were young and beautiful makes happy memories when you’re middle-aged. But I don’t think that we unlucky ones became nymphomaniacs or something like that just because we did not receive roses on Valentine’s Day in college. For whatever it’s worth, I think it made us appreciate love as we grew older, in forms more subtle and more complex than roses.

I think some of us planted our own gardens and beautified our own souls, instead of waiting for men to give us flowers. I think some of us became wonderful women, and some of us gave our all for love.

And well, of course, some of us bought ourselves chocolates.

lunch today

Today I have lots of paperwork, it's very hot outside, and I have no errands to run. So I had lunch at the cafeteria by myself.

I got a big bowl of Vietnamese noodles, which has large chunks of fried tofu, halved tomatoes, spring onions, shrimp and crab fat. Yummy. I also got a fruit cup for 20 pesos, which has watermelon, papaya, mango, pineapple, and orange slices.

I sat in a long table. Have I told you I enjoy eating alone? It gives me space to think (as if I don't do enough of it) and I get to observe people. Ok, so on my right is a group of women, all Filipinos, who were discussing the suicide of former defense secretary Angelo Reyes. One said it's too bad the secrets have died with him. On my left were two Westerners, who were praising the virtues of the Helsinki airport, because when airports in England would shut down due to extreme cold, Helsinki would still be running smoothly.

By the time I'm halfway through my bowl of noodles, the women's discussion has progressed to the merits of bronze eye shadow and the men were on to the Philippine stock market while they mopped up their pasta. I also noted that the men had slices of chocolate sacher torte for dessert, so I decided I would also buy one to take back to my desk. When I stood up the women were exchanging views on Kris Aquino's opinions on P-Noy's birthday car, a 3rd-hand Porsche.

It has been a very interesting lunch.

I'm back in my workstation by 12:45. The temperature is a constant 22 degrees, which means I'm waiting for the coffee service to show up so I won't fall asleep. Maybe I'll try bronze eye shadow tomorrow morning. And maybe I'll do a profile check on Helsinki, in case I'd land there in the distant future.

the (imaginary) simple life

I just wondered what I would have been had my life been simple. Let's imagine that I had chosen to live in my old hometown when I got married.

My grandmother's house comes free for whoever will decide to live there. There would be no monthly amortizations, but it'd be hell to clean four bedrooms, two terraces, two bathrooms, and a living room with two sala sets and the complete set of ancient carved narra furniture. Very much like a haunted house, and no airconditioning.

I'd wake up in the morning to the crow of roosters, because the back of the compound could house a 2-dozen rooster condominium, and I'm willing to bet my husband would install complete rooster amenities. I think we'd also have an assortment of cats inside the house, dogs by the front gate, and African lovebirds and cockatails in the front terrace. Remember too, the six-foot aquarium in the living room.

I'd dress my two kids for school; my nine-year-old would walk to the public school I had attended as a child, and I would caution her to watch out for tricycles and horses on the way. In that place, farmers on horses still trot the town streets in the morning on their way to the fields. Should the horse poop on the street, the farmer would dismount and neatly scoop the poop up, deposit it in the roadside drainage ditches, and gallop merrily away. The town folks frown on horse and dog poop in their immaculate streets. My two-year-old would be in the local day care center, and I'd chat with the other mothers while I plan what's for lunch.

I have a degree in Psychology, so I'd probably be working in the local cooperative, or in the rural bank, or in the municipal hall. Those are the only places where there are offices. Or I could be the local seamstress, specializing in fancy pillowcases and gowns for senior citizens' ballroom nights. I'm beginning to shudder.

I'm assuming that my husband would have some job of his own, perhaps a store for motorcycle/tricycle parts. And we'd have a ricefield or two to oversee, so we'd have a little income on the side, for when the roof needs repairs, or the dalmatian gets sick. (The dalmatian is, of course, a status symbol.)

I would bring my children to SM Lucena (3 hours away) for the occasional sightseeing, and they'd go to Manila Zoo on field trips (or maybe they do Manila Ocean Park now), and they'd dream of going to Manila for college, while I worry about saving up for their tuition and boarding house expenses. I'd do my vegetable buying on Thursdays, which is traditionally Market Day in town. And occasionally, in the evenings, you'd find me drinking lambanog with my girlfriends while I dispense fashion advice.

And would I be happy? Maybe. But what wouldn't change is the fact that here, in my daily 5-inch-heels and mini-dresses and dreams of an Italian vacation, or there, in the imaginary little-town life where I'll probably wear something nice when I go to church, I'll always want something more. Maybe I'll be a seamstress, but I'll probably want to become barangay captain. Or I'll pester town officials to build a town library.

The funny thing is, I can almost see myself doing just that. I'll probably be just as fine with that simple imaginary life, but I'll almost certainly succeed in making it complicated. (What ricefield? I'll probably wonder why we can't have a greenhouse and grow tulips.)