A Sweet Harvest

A comfortable breeze brushes through us as we walk through dried mud and narrow foot trails. We move through hundreds of banana plants heavy with fruit, the scent of ripe Durian and an afternote of light cinnamon-y sweetness. A beautiful white cow looks up as we pass. Twenty minutes and we hear it,the once weird but now accepted sign that we are near. The hearty oinks of the neighbor’s big fat pig , the air turning sweet with the delectably spicy scent of the trees.

We go through the process of checking the trees. Most are still green but some are ready for picking, exquisitely ripe in shades of orange and burnt sienna. We open the beautiful pods, our first crops, and savor the sweet tangy flesh that is often neglected. The beans are dried and fermented, ground and processed into disks of dark bitter richness from which all sorts of indulgences have been fashioned.

This cycle of harvesting and enriching the soil reminds me of my childhood. Being ten and happy, atop my grandfather’s carabao as we cross the shallow waters of the river to the farm. These are my happiest memories . Away from the city, I turn exuberant climbing trees and wandering through farms and ricefields, riding a mighty horned animal, guided by a loving Tata (grandfather) who lets me accompany him as he goes about checking his crops, teaching me how to choose which corn is ripe enough to be picked, letting me pick the vegetables, and sometimes after a downpour, the two of us picking small bite-sized crabs from the river at the edge of his farm.

I felt freer to be out in the fields climbing duhat trees. I was happy just to be in the province, stuffing myself with duhat (plums) and siniguelas, accompanying my grandmother to the Sunday market to have my weekly special treat of Ilocos Empanada and our town’s own concoction of halo-halo (gulaman, kamote, mango, banana in coconut cream). Life was so bare, so unadorned with the noise of televisions ( we listened to radio dramas at night or watch programs at the Town Plaza) that it feels so much like paradise compared to the routine of school, school buses and televisions that marked my normal existence in the city.

Growing up, the love for working the land receded as I ran around the wide, open spaces of my dreams. But somehow, fate intervenes, and this cacao farm brought me back the sensibilities, the gratitude for farming. It is a way of life I cannot fully live, but the weekends are just enough to strengthen my appreciation for the unbearable lightness of living simply. The weekends at the farm, of counting trees, counting crops, calculating and auditing the expenses and profits, because farming is after all a serious business, these are things most people my age do not really think of, running a farm at 31? But slowly slowly I am coming home to the joys I once loved as a child, enjoying the pleasure of resting our tired feet and partaking of simple snacks and walking around all muddied but giddy.

We talk about going further and taking it to the next level. There's the love for baking, and my willingness to learn, research and even apprentice, maybe these can be used. With my uncle’s skills, his workers’ dedication in producing good crops year after year, and my father’s enthusiasm to go further, maybe we can make this work. It is admittedly a grand plan to extend this love for our crops and for our tableas to our new goal of developing our own line of Cacao products and open a to bean-to-bar operation, but we have faith in the power of our dreams, and with the earth's kindness to continue gifting us with seasons of sweet harvest.

We. The Leaving.

In June, the three of us met again after a year of silence. I remember how we asked a friend of mine, X, to "soul read" her via phone. We remember how X remarked something about an impending sadness, a dark stage, something about leaving. At midnight we dropped her at her new, spanking condo and stayed for five hours blabbing.

It's how it is with old chums, those you meet before you even knew what you want, before learning the ropes of putting up fake fronts of confidence. And so we dawdled. Somehow, the talk got to frustrations about the government. Her youngest brother just graduated from the military and was in the hills of Mindanao on the frontlines fighting the MILF. She was defiant about the stories her brother was telling her. Leaks, stories around the military, how the corrupt higher-ups sell military issued arms to the enemy.

Imagine being killed by the same weapons issued to kill the enemy. Imagine being so low in the ranks that you can see and hear but not say or do anything. Imagine, we wondered, imagine how anyone would choose to leave UP to train for such a thankless job. But it was her brother's calling, he says it's what he wants, nothing else. And we consoled ourselves with the hope that in ten, twenty years maybe he'll rise up enough to do something to change the system.

A month ago, the whole insidious trade of arming the allies broke out. It is now known all over the world as the Maguindanao Massacre. Fifty seven people dead, and millions of dollars worth of military guns, bullets, arms found. And the insidious and dirty arms dealing and power sharing between the military and the political sheiks, all sanctioned by the government, were splashed about for the whole world to feast on.

Oh but we forgot something, we forgot that it's not only the wars that are compromised, it's not only guns that are traded. One day, not more than a month ago, a military plane so old, it should have been junked five years ago, exploded in mid-air. It was labelled an "accident", a totally preventable one if only people cared enough to be competent. A crash, five people: four young lieutenants, a general, and a junk of a plane.

No, he did not die fighting, though, I wonder, would that have been more valiant? Somewhere in the hills of Mindanao, somewhere up, an impending sadness formed, his leaving.

LISTENING

People think I'm a good person because I listen more than I talk. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's just that it serves me well, to listen and learn. I live for stories, for the meanings and metaphors behind our varied lives.

I don't believe in fairy tales. There's always conflict in every chapter, a turning point, a defining moment, the tension in our personal dramas. And somehow, it matters to me to find something there, in your voice, in the story you have to tell, find something that connects us both. That variation of hope, how we rise beyond the tragic, how laughter come unexpectedly, how our loves, losses, passions and personal dreams are so individual yet we run through lives with nothing but the need to connect with kindred souls, those who'll see what we see, and listen to what we say.

I listen, you listen, we make time for coffee and conversations, for reading this blog and the others because we're searching for that commonality that defines and binds us. You should know by now, how reading this or skipping through my blabber is a choice.:-)

In The Cafe by L.G.

I was writing an entry of sorts along the lines of this poem. Talking about myself (isn’t that expected for a self-serving blog like this?) and how I often feel I could adjust to people’s temperament without meaning to. I always felt it was an innate quality to our nature, how we nurture these different personas, and know instinctively how to switch from one to the other. But anyhow, I read the poem below. It’s a recent piece by my favorite poet. And what I could not write as honestly and as beautifully, she fashioned into this. Will she ever be less than brilliant?

IN THE CAFE by Louise Gluck


It's natural to be tired of earth.
When you've been dead this long, you'll probably be tired of heaven.
You do what you can do in a place
but after awhile you exhaust that place,
so you long for rescue.
My friend falls in love a little too easily.
Every year or so a new girl—
If they have children he doesn't mind—
he can fall in love with children also.
So the rest of us get sour and he stays the same,
full of adventure, always making new discoveries.
But he hates moving, so the women have to come from here, or near here.
Every month or so, we meet for coffee.
In summer, we'll walk around the meadow, sometimes as far as the mountain.
Even when he suffers, he's thriving, happy in his body.
It's partly the women, of course, but not that only.

He moves into their houses, learns to like the movies they like.
It's not an act—he really does learn,
the way someone goes to cooking school and learns to cook.
He sees everything with their eyes.
He becomes not what they are but what they could be
if they weren't trapped in their characters.
For him, this new self of his is liberating because it's invented—
he absorbs the fundamental needs in which their souls are rooted,
he experiences as his own the rituals and preferences these give rise to—
but as he lives with each woman, he inhabits each version of himself
fully, because it isn't compromised by the normal shame and anxiety.
When he leaves, the women are devastated.
Finally they met a man who answered all their needs—
there was nothing they couldn't tell him.
When they meet him now, he's a cipher—
the person they knew didn't exist anymore.
He came into existence when they met,
he vanished when it ended, when he walked away.
After a few years, they get over him.
They tell their new boyfriends how amazing it was,
like living with another woman, but without the spite, the envy,
and with a man's strength, a man's clarity of mind.
And the men tolerate this, they even smile.
They stroke the woman's hair—
they know this man doesn't exist; it's hard for them to feel competitive.
You couldn't ask, though, for a better friend,
a more subtle observer. When we talk, he's candid and open,
he's kept the intensity we all had when we were young.
He talks openly of fear, of the qualities he detests in himself.
And he's generous—he knows how I am just by looking.
If I'm frustrated or angry, he'll listen for hours,
not because he's forcing himself, because he's interested.
I guess that's how he is with the women.
But the friends he never leaves—
With them, he's trying to stand outside his life, to see it clearly—
Today he wants to sit; there's a lot to say,
too much for the meadow. He wants to be face to face,
talking to someone he's known forever.

He's on the verge of a new life.
His eyes glow, he isn't interested in the coffee.
Even though it's sunset, for him
the sun is rising again, and the fields are flushed with dawn light,
rose colored and tentative.
He's himself in these moments, not pieces of the women
he's slept with. He enters their lives as you enter a dream,
without volition, and he lives there as you live in a dream,
however long it lasts. And in the morning, you remember
nothing of the dream at all, nothing at all.

Pretty Today

We all have these days. When we wake up and we just feel it in our bones. The groove is good.

I look in the mirror, and I still look the same-- brown hair, some excess pounds in the wrong places, and my skin bronzed and patchy but there's a sparkle in my eyes, a charm to the curve of my lips, and a cute lilt to my nose. The archs of brows rise into confidence. Ah, I feel truly pretty today! I look the same, and yet there's something, that feeling that you can take on the world with a smile and a dazzle in the eye.

Nights

A night like this, when the air is damp after the rain, and all our tasks are done, we sit by the garden. Watch the resident frog jump about and keep still. The giant and ancient bullfrog who jumps out of the earth on nights like this, propping out into the middle of our conversation, only a foot away from where I am sitting then plays dead. It makes me smile. Even frogs are hungry for attention, so last night, after a couple of years of seeing his green, amphibious form I finally gave him what he needs. A name. The bull frog is now Prince. And no I have no immediate need to kiss him.

Nights like this, after the laughter and the advices I’ve spewed to the young ones, I settle here in the vastness of this white space. Taking words and attempting a symmetry of thoughts or at least some coherence.

Sadness is as inevitable as breathing and dying. It pumps in and out of us like blood. But the sadness I sometimes feel, is a sadness that is almost akin to peace.. Or hope. It’s a quiet one, an acceptance of what is not in my life at the moment, and the possibilities of what I have and what I may lose or gain in the times ahead. Loss will always bring with it a certain melancholy, but through time it evolves into a gift. This knowing, this exuberance for living. Loss teaches you that joy is hard-earned, and every opportunity at happiness must be celebrated. That the strands of our lives wound and unwound every single day into permutations of hellos and goodbyes, remembrance and determination.

Something in tonight’s cold reminds me of my first drop into the sea. Without the divemaster to control the gauges, check the air pressure, adjust the depths and balance my buoyancy in the water, I was suddenly, truly alone , 60 feet from the surface, struggling to find a sense of balance as bubbles float and water enters through my panicky mouth. A point comes where the disorienting shock wears off and the fear of drowning leaves. And there I was, finally,wholly aware. There, in the middle of my new blue universe.

Here, you fin with your heart,the sound of waves bouncing off corals and creatures. And you have no recourse but to put all of your mind in the present, not only because here lives an achingly untamed brand of beauty, but because in this world, a little misstep, a few psi off, a few meters more and the water can literally sink you to blackness.

Diving is an act of becoming. You leave all your hubris up in the surface. And as you sink into another you, everything else fades. Except the awareness that in this depth we are merely small fishes swimming through.

Tough Love

Everyone in the house in Davao bows to him, each of his staff at work heaps praises on him (of course maybe part of it is ass-kissing) though what they silently think of him is something nobody would know, but I think most of them have a certain respect for his persona. I am the first to admit that he is a pretty considerate person, someone who makes lightning decisions and brilliantly. If he was my boss, I'd idolize him too and try to learn as much as possible from him.

Only problem is..I'm his daughter, the headstrong, unrepentantly stubborn kind who smirks openly at the dinner table and howls in protest against his opinion or directives. I laugh to his face when I hear him say something wrong and am all too happy to laydown to him my own beliefs and the arguments supporting them but then again that's what he did to us while we were growing up too. Correcting me and my brother swiftly and openly when we spew out mistakes and misinformation.

There is a fine line between love and conflict in our house in Davao. I am the stricter one. And where he chooses to gloss over or give another chance to people, in business and in people we employ, I operate with the rule "One strike and you're out". Which is why, I smirked and gave him the bad eye in full view of my cousins when he told the helper that she'll be given a chance to study a culinary course too if she wants. He replied with the look that says "You're being petty again". And I fought back with silence, cold and unwavering silence. This particular helper was someone I considered almost like a younger relative, but after seeing firsthand the sins she's done while my father is on a trip and I was on watch, she has slid down to my list of "soon to go" people. I almost confronted the bitch except the father, knowing how sharp my tongue is when I am mad, told me that he'll do the talking instead.Which is why I am sour about his plans. One, I don't even think the mermaid will stay on long enough (we even have a sneaking suspicion she's P**gn**t). On sour topics, when he does what he wants (and not what I want) we glare at each other. Or, I glare and he glares back at my assumed pettiness and inconsiderate streak. And I strike back with silence.

Except of course, there are tasks that only I can do - pay out the unexpected repairs and expenses (which I list down and issue for reimbursement later), bake goodies for him and his staff, buy furnitures and things for the house (again for reimbursement), scout for schools for the cousins, inquire and do the legwork for a myriad of things from the best shop to buy PCs to scoping out our competitors and pitching business opportunities for the farms' crops and other stuffs that is inherently part of my duty/right/privilege as the eldest kid. Which is why, sooner or later, my father talks to me. In fairness to my loving father, though we irritate each other with our opposing stand at things (i.e. I'd fire someone but instead he'd give that person another chance/ I hate that at my age he still checks through my closets grrr!) He does try to keep the peace, and knows how to stoop down a bit when I am really pissed off. In all our fights, big and small, I think I only said sorry once. Which, I guess either says a lot with my beliefs or how bitchy I am even to my beloved dad.

Just like today, not an hour after our exchange of glares, the carpenter we hired for a small fix-it at home dropped by and showed him the choices of finishes for the vertical sliders to be installed in the kitchen. And expectedly,the father calls the daughter and asks for her advice( read: the small white flag). The daughter in as cold a voice as possible tells him "Duh, look at the brick pattern on the kitchen counter, there's only one finish that complements this. Isn't it obvious which one we should choose?" He looks over the choices, agrees loudly and went about finalizing the color scheme (which I chose!). End of the day's war. It's pretty easy to mollify me. Just let me win some of the battles. And my father, being my father, knows best how to deal with my brand of tough love. Oh the perk of being the beloved daughter. To be combatant and run along the edges of disrespect and get away with it.