Viaje del Sol*, Version Franco-Phil

February 2008

It was the only real road trip that we ever had together when she was living in Manila. It would have been nice if we were able to do more. This is re-living that drive on a cloudy, windy day in a clunky, good old, red car as we hit the road to the south of Luzon. She taught me how to drive in that piece of beauty. Too bad she sold it when she went back to France. She swears a lot, I think more than anyone I know, yet she's one of the nicest, sweetest gal and its partly because of that. I was with her when she got arrested by a faux police in the corner of Roxas Boulevard and Vito Cruz (violation: not in the right lane) who asked to just settle it with some hefty "loose change" for merienda. She gave in, helpless, but not after a fit of beautiful profanities. I was at the front passanger seat watching this frustratingly funny drama unfold. She had at least three of those unpleasant "encounters with the corrupt kind" during her two year stay. She left Manila because of those, and because of pollution, and of other kinds of disenchantment. Sadly, this was not to be the city for her, and she was not the girl for this city. But I'm glad she was here. I will never forget the first time she came to my office asking for some Filipino dancing lessons.  She not only found a teacher (the lessons didn't last anyway), but also a friend. And that she can have for keeps. We shared many other things; she saw me and I saw her.

This is for you Delphine, Mademoiselle Bulle, to provoke more road trips to come.

***

En route...

Lawa ng Sampaloc, Lac Sampaloc
San Pablo, Laguna

Kusina Salud
Tiaong, Quezon...

Off the beaten path:
Alaminos, Laguna

Delphine et moi...

A bientot!

* "Viaje del Sol" is the name of of a well-curated travel route suggestion that takes you to interesting and tasteful locations that blend delights in culture, art and gastronomy in the south of Luzon, mostly in the province of Quezon, some in Laguna and Batangas. For more information, visit their website, http://www.viajedelsol.org/index.htm

UNEARTHING: Womynist Bones and Sexuality*

http://unearthingexhibit.com/


Buried under the dark crevices of our time’s hegemonies are yet tender fossils – muted, maimed, and mutilated – muffled in their screaming silence, cocooned within the gravels of subjugated worldings. But not for long…

Ten womyn womynists piece together a fearless, undulated bellowing; an eloquent kind of unearthing, to unravel bones of feminine beauty and pain, to reconstitute their place in time and space, both real and virtual. To unearth is to reveal quieted identities in a more gaping dimension to which their osseous seeds could be nourished into fertile germs – progenitors, potent and sexual so that the once faint diffusion of voices could reverberate into a piercing chorus, lyric and erotic, vivid and provocative.

This spirited collective choreography gathers in a wall’s span and in a sweeping gaze a cross-section of ideas that could somehow begin to articulate, but not to frame, the womyn’s emancipation into the breathing space of expression, unstruggling, ungasping and basking in the free air.

In their concoction of old and new media, the ten artists may have come from different milieus and cultivate different modes of artistic engagement. Yet they speak in unison as they spark this provocation to take a focal look at the feminine from her periphery. Through the poignant womynly expression, Benay Reyes bares a subtle, primordial injustice that seems to have haunted the womyn during the expanse of HIStory. She invites us to go back, look back and re-align our gaze at HERstory. Ligaya Domingo and Maan de Loyola project contrasting styles of abstractions to show a single theme: societal imbalance, the longing for human rights and social justice. AJ Tolentino makes use of both arcane myths and mass-produced pop cultural hegemonies to position the womyn in both the ancient and the current. Tif Guevara and Ivy Universe Baldoza works with every conceivable medium and form to attack the feminist subject, creating rich juxtapositions of metaphors pertaining to the feminine’s “universe” of concepts. Joan de Leon Hoffman paints it dark and real to intimate what to her are her womynist realities. Lydia Cabasco ventures into 3D spaciality through installation and collaborates with Tif Guevara as they render subliminal connections between art and the subconscious. They draw inspiration from myths and the archetype of the “skeleton woman” to explore the cycle of life, death and life. Aza Camps and Rimaq Palma complete this initial performance of unearthing with works challenged and stirred by the womyn’s sexual politics.

Longing for tender caresses, these painful yet beautiful “bones” resuscitate in these walls, their nursery beds; with the intimate light as their sun and your thoughtful gaze as their consummate lovers, sensually stroking with the eye, afflicting and loving.

In indigenous lore, women priestesses danced and stomped the earth’s virginal orifices amidst sacred chants and prayers, to awaken the soil and welcome the seeds that soon may grow into life. Now, bones become seeds of intention. Such skeletal undertakings begin the nurturing process of interrogation to amplify the actualities of the womyn, unearthed.

Behold, here unfolds a resurrection.

http://unearthingexhibit.com/

* I wrote this curatorial note around Febraury 2010 for an exhibition of the same title held at the PhilamLife Auditorium, UN Avenue, Ermita. It was upon the kind request of my friend Joy or Ligaya, who was also one of the 10 participating womyn artists. For more of Ligaya, visit her blog at http://ligayadomingo.blogspot.com/

Sketching a Late Bloomer

My earliest recollection of anything was when I was four. I was lying sideways at the old and dusty Persian carpet in our living room, crying. It was late at night and my dad hasn't come home yet. I vaguely remember now if he ever did. The next scene, as if fast forwarded from a VCR happened a few months later. A big moving-truck stood in front of our house in San Pedro, Laguna, my childhood's first of many houses. Mom eventually left my dad, taking all three children with her to another town. We rented a small apartment in Malinta where we stayed for a little over a month, which to me at that time, felt like forever. Then I had my first plane trip to Virac, Catanduanes, my mother's province, where we would stay for more than two years. By the time I was 13, I've been to six different schools and seven different houses. My younger brother and I juggled between mom's and dad's turf, who already had a new family with my stepmom and my half sister. We were like tennis balls being tossed from one side to another each summer. A new student almost every year, I somehow succeeded in acquiring a best friend in every school, so it was always sad when it was time to say good bye. Somehow, I had the idea that I was smart, but I always failed to make it to honor roll, because new students dont usually count. I took home medals in quiz bees and writing contests instead.

When I was nine, I bought a world map for our history class. It was the first time I fell in love with anything. I couldnt put it down, and after a few weeks, I had already memorized all the countries and their capital cities. The year was 1992, and if you ask me, I also knew the presidents in almost all countries during that year: Najibullah of Afghanistan, Sali Berisha of Albania etc...

To be cont'd

A Tale of Full Circle, a.k.a. "Sleeper Bus"

I slept with George Orwell and woke up with Michael Jackson. And it was all in a bus ride…

Tuesday evening. I took an "air-con" to Ayala EDSA from Market!Market!, Fort Boni: its the Global Bus! – one of the few splices of first-world luxury in this city, a mere ten-peso tour of Manila's fastest growing urbanity amidst condos, international banks, and "high streets"; not to mention the hig-fenced village along McKinley. It was 6pm, height of the rushing rush hour. A reporter droned from the bus TV but I chose to ignore her. As if thats entirely possible. I'm not so gaga anymore about the news, and whenever I'm able catch it in circumstances where I have no control (such as this one), I usually get depressed because I always hear them "bad", and from the bits I'm catching now, it's the same old letdown. Calculating the usual sluggish traffic, and the probable stops the bus will have to make along the way, I decided to take a little nap. I held a book in hand and had planned to read it but exhaustion seemed to run all over my joints and nerves that seemed to go up to the lids of my eyes. So I tucked the Orwell paperback away. Finding out whether he actually shot that elephant ran amok in Burma will have to be in a few precious minutes later. I leaned on the glass window, lights blurred fast, and before I think about a nice word to describe the texture of the window where my right cheek touched, blank…

I woke up. What a pleasant nap! I thought. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes, but a nap in a nice comfortable bus like this one is as good as it gets - one of the cheapest thrills you can snatch from this bustling city. I turned again to the window to see the posh and well-lit Embassy club across the street. The bus was not moving at all and I was still in Fort Boni. Damn! Could the traffic be this bad?

I scanned the passengers. Many are still standing but something seemed amiss. The young man sitting beside me earlier with a cutesy little girl (sister) with him was no longer there. It was replaced by another young lad wearing an oversized t-shirt and carrying a paperbag. The news was no longer droning from the TV, replaced instead, by a screeching Michael Jackson, wearing his signature glitttery golden bikini superhero suit on top of his "bitin" black leather pants. It's debatable whether he was actually singing or convulsing a pop hit, one of those hit East European concerts. But its uncontestable how he commanded such a mysterious attraction from millions of people (I'm an exception). To think that some scream their lungs out until they faint. I wonder what symphonic harmony is forged between Michael's frenetic screech and his fan's fanatic screams.

And then it hits me. Wait a minute?! I'm on the wrong side of the road! The bus is going back to Market!Market! Need I say more? Fort Boni - Ayala - Fort Boni. It's made a full circle, and I'm still there - same bus, different TV program, different seatmate, different direction - by now clueless and slightly amused with this sort of abrupt "awakening". I reached for the book and pretended to read. Suddenly it is now my most reliable cover from not looking bewildered and stupefied. Thank God nobody seemed to notice. I don't think they will, as Michael Jackson made sure of that. True enough, everyone's eyes except for mine and the driver's were glued to the King of Pop and his uhm, "moves".

So I relaxed, and pretended to be having my own sense of purpose: to read this important English essay. But before I learned of the poor elephant's fate, I remembered - to ease the pain of embarassment - to text a person, to share about my little round trip "pilgrimage" in Fort Boni, Global City. The bus reached Marktet!Market! (again) This time I decided not take the next bus and opt for the jeep instead. I might fall asleep again. Blame it on the inviting seat cushions, and my apathy to pay attention to the news.

A little more than 10 minutes later, I reached Ayala...for the second time.

The elephant died. Orwell shot him so that he could save his own face, and in just 30 minutes, the poor beast had been reduced to meat, feasted by the thousands of Burmese who cheered for its demise. What a wonderful allusion to my day. Saving faces seem to be one of the humanest of human nature. At about the same time that the Burmese gorged on Dumbo, I reached home. Flushed…and still dreamingly restless. I lay in my bed where, with a funny little sense of déjà vu, I slept, yet again.

Moon Rumblings

Just a little prose, poem or in between,
Or listen of what my frothy rhyme could mean
Seeping deep from my chest, into your intimate distance
Embellished praises to the breast of your romance
Pale nights now sing and are no longer dim
Heart and soul dance as if of a vivid dream
Gripped gently by the soul of your embrace that lingers
A warming cloak that could survive heaving winters
Because you neither are just ghost that memories can sap
Rather a living being, warm in both nearness and gap
I have spent the past moons in naked pain
Except now, I deviate...
Leaving behind yesterday's harsh, cold rain.

(Sukhothai, 2008. Photo taken M.Boulanger)

Mark Twain smiles at how kindred pilgrims meet amongst journeys,
As a penguin swoons to have witnessed the eyes’ first kiss
To sing of what trysts unfolded, I borrow an eagle’s rhyme,
Humming vivid spices of “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…”
Inside the wide, soft luminescence, you crooned at me and the stars
Echoing drones that heal;
Undressing wounds to reveal such lovely scars.
Becoming places turn into places becoming
Over beds of trails and tracks and footprints of spring
Under searing suns and the shadows of crisp moons
Lustful waters, solemn spires and ruins in red dunes
All such worlds play a part in these new trails of sojourn
Navigating your fragile soul amidst places that we born
Grant that fortunes endow yet another mile’s escape
Each garden path will I traverse,
Re-tracing your heart’s wistful shape.

 (Sukhothai, 2008. Photo taken M.B)

A Bittersweet Ode to Love

Slowly, I drowned in the music you played in my ear as i read the warmest words of love that I wouldnt yet grasp nor deserve. But the music will be played on and the words be accepted with the utmost gratitude and honor. Its always an honor to be loved, and to be loved this way, through poignant harmony of music and words that makes for a tender stroke - which never fails to capture the heart. But whatever whistle of kindness or compassion that you saw in me doesnt even level to your song, to the pinching caress of your sweet love. Thank you dear, for the privilege of being loved. I may not be able to return such richness to you today, but I pray that somebody nobler, kinder and wiser should catch you on your blissful fall. There must be one out there, otherwise, love's such a bittersweet tragedy. The future veneers itself from the naked eye. Yet friends we will always become!

Molting

I WELCOMED the New Year in solitude.

The year 2007 came in the guise of a minor "thud" one humdrum night. I slept through most of it, rousing occasionally amid the muffled sounds of firecrackers from outside. Some time during the night, I decided to watch a movie while devouring one whole pizza and a couple of "floss" breads I had bought earlier.

Of course, I cannot recall the title of the movie now. It may have been some chick flick or a breathtaking romance I've seen far too many times and whose "happy ending lines" I have already memorized. Yet to keep the cheer of that lonely night, I remained fixed on the small screen watching hero and heroine kiss like it was for the very first time. It promised to be the highlight of my New Year's Eve.

The film's soundtrack struggled to contend with New Year's own musical score of syncopated etudes of "five stars" and other noisy firecrackers. The explosions gradually intensified as the night wore on, until it peaked, as usual, around midnight and died down by two in the morning. No clanking of calderos that night, no silly jumping in the air in superstitious yearning to add a few more inches to my height (I could have but I was too lazy that night), and no overrated TV countdowns and painful "Auld lang syne" to bear as I, alone in what used to be a charming 1950s art deco apartment in Ermita, relished how I yawned, lazed and slept, alone in utter contentment with the seeming triviality of how my New Year unraveled.

I had planned to go home that night. I even bought champagne a few days earlier and had it sent to our house in Laguna, where I was supposed to spend the New Year. Just like in the previous years, I intended to repeat the same tradition of drinking sparkling avec mon famille. Even my sister, who had stayed away from us for many years, decided to show up and join us for the season. Subtly rebellious as I know she was, she preferred staying with my mom in the province to avoid "family affairs."

But I never went home that night; I decided not to. Dad must have felt let down realizing that his hijos and hijas wouldn't all be present for the New Year cheer after all. Well, I wouldn't really call it a cheer, especially when I reminisce about the past few years. We almost never got to eat our media noche dinner the last time I was present. I thought everybody dozed off, except for me, and dad went home some 10 minutes before midnight, amid the increasing sounds of firecrackers, breathing a faint scent of alcohol under his nostrils.

It was one of those days, although he did manage to save that night from becoming a total humdrum. He woke up the sleepyheads to join us in lighting the fireworks and we sat for dinner afterwards in photo-finish fashion.

I wondered for a moment how the night went this time, without me. At that thought, I felt a slight pang of sadness. "At least they had champagne"--the idea came as if to give myself a reassuring consolation for my intentional physical absence.

As another new year approaches, I look back to that night in Ermita and see it now as sort of a thematic conversion that brought about interesting twists and truths for me in 2007. Uneventful as it was, my one night of solitude signaled the stirrings of a new personal outlook. It made me react to things quite spontaneously and sometimes in reckless abandon. Call it a molting of a snake's old skin, but my casual decision to be alone that night turned my year into one great adventure. I experienced not only a great deal of pleasure but also a great deal of pain. I felt abundant love but also agonized over stinging losses. I met new people of different colors whose lives splashed passionate hues in mine like a Joya. I built up expectations, only to be thwarted most of the time. So I re-molted, and reduced my expectations. I loved with the conscious effort of not possessing those whom I loved because I learned that freedom means to love without possession.

I jumped at every chance, while still missing out on a lot of hints. However scared of heights I was, I braved falls. I conquered places I've never been before, leaving my indelible soul in each of my travels.

I find it amazing as I reflect now that life never runs out of surprises if we expect only one thing from it: the unexpected.

I don't regret a single thing. I've "been to me" more than in any other year. It all began in 2007, ironically, sparked by what seemed like an uneventful New Year's Eve.

*** Published in Phil. Daily Inquirer's Youngblood Column, January 1, 2008

See main article in INQUIRER

Turning Point

My life turned when I decided to dance. My two left feet moved clumsily as I tried my first few steps and I realized I wasn’t breathing at all, my neck and shoulders stiff out of minding the dance too much. I was busy thinking how to finish the move that I forgot to dance. But that’s how it began.

I was on my third year into my Philippine Arts degree and we needed to apply as interns to companies relevant to our studies. I didn’t want to do the usual rounds to museums and arts organizations so I decided to do my internship in a church. Not that I intended to be converted to a new religion, no, I just wanted something new. So I found myself translating a T’boli Tud Bulul epic, one of my initial assignments as researcher for KALOOB Philippine Music and Dance Ministry, a cultural NGO based inside a Christian church in Manila. Quite some culture the church had I observed at first. During the month of May (same time as my internship) they celebrated a Pistang Kristiano. For me it was something unheard of for a “Protestant” church. I always thought they leaned more heavily on the Western mode of doing things. One outstanding highlight about their pistas and their worship I noticed was the dancing. It was everywhere. It exuded life, energy, it had vibrancy. Every Sunday during the church’s worship, a dance group would lead the congregation to spirited dancing. My feet wanted to abandon its rootedness to the floor and just go on dancing but I kept on restraining myself. I wasn’t used to it yet, being raised going to a Catholic church where they do the whole praising God ritual sans the dance.

I went even more aghast when I first saw them perform Philippine dance traditions. I was especially mystified when I saw them render dances from Mindanao. One special scene stuck until now to memory, a female dancing solo wearing metallic extensions attached to her fingernails. The dance (now I know is called paunjalay, from the Yakans) lacked the technically difficult routines that one usually finds in ballet or jazz yet it was the most hypnotically moving dance I’ve ever seen. Her slender body moved ever so gracefully, and without effort, and the movement flowed like fluid from one point to another.

So I didn’t mind too much when one early evening, after finishing my days work, I lingered to watch one of the group’s regular dance rehearsals. And just almost as casually, one or two of the dancers, coaxed me into trying it myself. So there I was in the dance floor, shoulders hunched, my hands stiff and my body sweating profusely, panting after just a few counts, unconscious of the fact that right there and then, I just rewrote my destiny.

Five years later, my shoulders still hunch from time to time, when I don’t watch it, but the dance floor became my alter-universe and the dancer I see now in the mirror my alter-ego. If there’s one thing that this decision taught me, it was to just dance with the music and go with the flow, for most of the time, we really don’t know where we’re supposed to go. But there’s always music to listen to, and the dance floor where you can chassé your way to your heart, and back to yourself.

Summer

It ends for me...yet it is still hot.
Rainy day has began...but no drop of drizzle has yet to fall.

As my elegy to summer, let me define it:

- a time when I went to a carnival
- and took a roller coaster ride
- not keen to fear or falling
- hopeful of bliss and... of falling

- a place where i met a lot of people
- who stirred me up and brought me down
- only to find no land beneath me
- only air to suggest I was flying

- a season for dreams and realities
- a whirlwind of lurid heat and colors
- giddying, dizzying, frenetic
- life and love in a spin

- a door to the roller coaster
- that eventually stops, slowly but surely
- you go out of the same door
- ends up in the same place...

- but you see, it will never be.

this...as I await the first drop of rain...

When a Place Becomes

It amazes me (to the point of confusion) how one day, a certain place is nothing but an unsignificant spot in the universe, nothing but a mere scenery of everyday...and then, the day (or weeks) after, the same spot becomes a monument of life, or at least a reminder of an extremely happy moment, one of the few unexpected episodes when the word LIFE lives up to its name. If giving signifance to a place (and/or time) is a crime, then memory is its culprit.

I sit on the train or on a bus, staring blankly nowhere, or everywhere, then boom! It hits you. You reach a certain place, and see a certain spot, a certain billboard, or eating place, or a bench, or a pillar...and you remember (memory), LIFE happened here...

What happens next? It could be two things..
One, you reminisce and thank your lucky stars that you can still make new ones because the memory is still a part of NOW.

or Two, you reminisce and...a pang of sadness befalls you, because the memory is also the past..
.. and the only solace for sadness, is that the future hasnt happened yet, and that the bus, or train where i stare nowhere or everywhere moves on to the next stop.