Whose Wedding Is This Anyway?

Via Filipina 2007 No. 10
Whose Wedding Is This Anyway?
By Niña Terol


The difficult part about announcing your engagement is that people—whether close to you or those you’ve just met—suddenly turn into Advice Freaks and feel like they either have the knowledge or the license, or both, to tell you what to do.

Early this morning, after a very successful comeback gig at Mezze (Greenbelt 2, Makati), Paul introduced me to folks he’s known from way back but have lost touch with over the years. From the moment he uttered the introductory phrase “my fiancée,” all eyes turned on us—spotlights glaring brightly—lips curved upwards into Cheshire cat-smiles, and the usual congratulatory remarks came… followed by, “About weddings, let me just tell you…”

Now, Paul and I haven’t really made our wedding the subject of such open conversation—we haven’t even formally announced it to our families yet!—that it felt strange to be suddenly getting all sorts of questions and unsolicited wedding advice from people we barely know. There was one (obviously drunk) guy who asked, “Why do you need to save up for the wedding?” (okay, smart guy, will YOU pay for the food and drinks?) and who belabored the point that “weddings are for the bride and the bride’s family… It’s about compromise… It’s about compromise” There was one (nice) lady who told us the story of how she didn’t like how she looked in her wedding photos because the make-up artist and the photographer were just “gifts” of some of her parents’ friends, but that, at the end of the day, she was just happy to have gotten married to her husband. There was another guy who toasted to “happy compromises.” And then there was dear ol’ Dr. Stix who said that he “preferred the ‘F-word’ over the ‘M-word’.”

It was such a surreal conversation that I found myself spacing out at a certain point and just thinking about what I want for my own ceremony. After all, if it really were “for the bride and the bride’s family,” then they should ask me first about how I see it… right?

Yes, I agree—to a certain extent—that weddings are not just for the couple, but also for everyone who has been a witness to their relationship, such as family and friends. And, yes, I agree wholly that a wedding is both a spiritual exercise and a physical communion, and should therefore be solemn and meaningful. However, one thing that I don’t agree with at all is the notion that we ought to have a traditional Church wedding, if only to please our parents. Paul and I have agreed on at the onset—and will be very firm about in its execution—is that we will have a solemn, spiritual ceremony free of any kind of “religious programming.” In short: sorry folks, no Catholic ceremony.

And, if you ask me (and please do!), these are the main ingredients for a wedding that’s “truly us”:

• A setting where the sun, sea, and sky merge during a glorious sunset (a beach wedding is an obvious choice, although it could be expensive)
• Bright, lively colors that celebrate life and love (I am NOT wearing all-white!)
• Family and friends enjoying good food in generous portions, and dancing to a fusion of Latin, Bossa Nova, tribal, and electronica tunes
• No “titos” or “titas” whom you won’t recognize when you look back at your wedding photos a year later
  

I’m writing about this here in Via Filipina, instead of in my other blogs, A Spoonful of Sugar or Life Cravings, because I’m realizing that this wedding plays a big role in my coming home to Self. In planning for this wedding and defining its parameters, I am also defining elements of my life and drawing certain lines that I do not wish to be crossed. Through this wedding, Paul and I will be making a statement about who we are as individuals—whom we’ve discovered ourselves to be—who we’ve become as a couple, and what kind of family and community we will be building in the future. We will be celebrating the values that have bound us tightly in this relationship. We will be making our own declaration of our commitment to each other and to our future family. Our families and friends will always be there to guide and support us, but, ultimately, this is a journey that we will have to take using our own feet.

So, yes, I do (and will) mind getting unsolicited advice from people who don’t know our history and how far we’ve come to reach this point in our lives. And I do mind being forced to consider “options” that are meaningless to our personal and communal histories. And, the next time anyone wants to talk about their own wedding experiences, they should stop pretending that they’re doing it for my sake (especially if they don’t even know me that well). If I want any sort of advice, I will do the asking.

My Book of Love

Via Filipina 2007 No. 9

My Book of Love (Part 1)

by Niña Terol

In Something More, Sarah Ban Breathnach writes about "the Book of Love," an illustrated discovery journal that, she says, "reveals your passions on every page." It is a scrapbook-like collection of images, words, phrases, drawings, mementos, and practically anything--anything that may be cut-and-pasted, that is--that reveals your innermost dreams, desires, questions, and visions.

I've always been a scrapbooker, a cut-and-paste kind of girl. In one previous blog entry, I wrote about my Vision Wall and the "vision art" that I used to make at different points in my life. Miss Breathnach's illustrated discovery journal seems to be the same, albeit with some slight differences in the process.

I shall write more about how such a journal works, but, today being Valentine's Day, the Day of Love, I shall commit a loving act to and for myself by beginning my own Book of Love. Paul's out, the morning and the house are all mine--I'm letting myself run free!

Happy Day of Love, dear friends. =)

*Photo courtesy of Microsoft Word clipart.

Our Roles, Our Selves

Via Filipina 2007 No. 8
Our Roles, Our Selves
By Niña Terol

(Written: Sunday, 11 February 2007)

This is my first time in a long time to be home alone on a Sunday morning, and I love it. Weekdays are for work and for chores; evenings and weekends are for Paul. It is only on Sundays when I feel like I have the RIGHT to say: “Sorry, honey, this is MY day for MYSELF.”

And so it is.

Isn’t it funny how we women often need an excuse to claim a day as ours? When our men want some “me time” for themselves, they often just click on the boob tube, settle themselves comfortably on a couch or on the bed, and become oblivious to the world around them. Like the TVs and the gadgets that are so critical to their existence, men can switch themselves on and off. One minute he’s watching the news, the next minute you’re discussing global warming and saving the world. One minute you’re watching TV, the next minute you’re making out. One minute he’s asking you a question, the next minute he doesn’t hear you because he’s so engrossed in the boxing match in front of him. It’s so easy for them to compartmentalize the different elements of their lives—and hop from one silo to the next.

I don’t think it can ever be that way for us.

I, for one, am an avid multi-tasker, who surfs the Net while listening to music while heating water for the bath while simmering the soup in the stove while drafting an article for a magazine or for my blog. All at once, I am homemaker, cook, writer, and myself. There is no compartmentalizing my day—or myself, for that matter—because I am everything all the time, everywhere I go.

Some people may perceive this as unhealthy, but, for me, it’s borne of a realization that I cannot disassociate myself from the roles that I play. I am wholly my roles, just as my roles are wholly a part of me—although I am sure that I am not just my roles. It’s just that I can never ignore them, or pretend for one second that I didn’t have them. Wherever I go, I am daughter, sister, aunt, fiancée, business partner, colleague, friend, and so on, rolled into one neat package. As the years go by, I will be adding more roles to that list, and there will be no turning back.

I’ve been reading a collection of essays by women writers titled, The Writer on Her Work, and there I came across the journal entries of a writer and poet named Michelle Murray. Throughout the mini-anthology you could see and feel the pain that she suffered while trying very hard to balance her roles. She was deeply in love with her husband, deeply devoted to her kids—and yet she loved her work more deeply than anything else, and there were times when she resented those whom she loved because it kept her from her writing.

One of her entries, dated October 24, 1960, was very empathic—a soul crying out in silent desperation:

Joanne {Greenburg, author of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden} asks, “are you fulfilled?”—without writing, that is. No, no—although, like her, I wish I could be, for everything would be simplified. My euphoria of the past six weeks has given way to restlessness and irritation as I fight, in vain, for a few free hours of silence for my work. The children remain marvelous, I am still committed to hearth and home—but, damn it, that is not all, not enough. I need time to discipline my spirit away from visions of material delight as I think of my new house, and time for reading, thinking and writing would relieve the necessity of making these visions carry so much of the burden of my imagination.

It is the writer’s curse, I think, to be so deeply passionate about the written word and the worlds around which it revolves, for I, too have often felt the need to get away from everything and everyone just to devote some time to writing. Notice that I used the word “devote”—as many writers do, because writing is not something that you just “do.” It is something that you pour yourself into; in a way, you need to empty yourself out into your work because that is what good writing entails. The moment you disengage yourself from your work, it becomes stale and meaningless.

Interestingly enough, my virtual mentor, Sarah Ban Breathnach, quotes some lines from the same book in an entry in her book, Something More, titled “Women’s Work”. This time, however, she presents a different take on this delicate tug-of-war between women writers (or women in general), their work, and the roles that we play:

In a collection of essays called The Writer on Her Work, Anne Tyler reveals how difficult it is to create around family life. Writing is her frame of reference, as it is mine [and mine!], but the same principle applies to any work we do. Once March a character arrived in her consciousness as she was painting the downstairs hall. She knew that if she “sat down and organized this character on paper, a novel would grow around him. But it was March and the children’s spring vacation began the next day, so I waited.” By July she was finally able to start. But even with the inevitable tug-of-war that daily life brings, the struggle and the stumbling toward Something More with children growing up around you brings hidden gifts. “It seems to me that since I’ve had children I’ve grown richer and deeper,” Anne Tyler confesses. “They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.”

This “having more of a self to speak from”, I think, is what makes me eager to embrace my various roles and to welcome the years ahead of me. In the past three years, as I’ve settled into the roles of writer, entrepreneur, partner, and homemaker, I’ve found that much of my growth and the maturity of my writing stems from the depth of my experiences. You see, unlike accountants or doctors or even lawyers, we writers cannot really work outside of ourselves; we cannot pull knowledge from outside a book and apply it to our professions. More often than not, our lives and our professions are woven so intimately that we cannot tell one from the other. We can only write what we know, and we can only write what we believe in.

As I embrace more of life’s complexities and unearth joyful simplicities from them, I know that I will be a better writer. And I know that I will be a better person.

This isn’t to say that I’m sure things will turn out perfectly, for nothing ever does. This is a declaration of my commitment to be wholly myself no matter where I am or what I am doing. My roles and my responsibilities may change over time, but nothing will change the fact that I am many things to many people, and I have accepted the fact that part of my Life’s Work is taking care of the people I love.

To end, let me borrow another passage from Miss Breathnach:

All mothers with responsibilities outside the home—Helen [a woman she had just written about], you, and I—have felt that terrible pull between our jobs and our children every day. The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke calls the challenge that confronts us the work of understanding. “Somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work.” Acknowledging it openly is the first step toward making courageous choices. That’s why it’s important, when we select role models in life and work, to remember that we’re all human, even women who seem to “do it all.” The truth is, no one can do it all at the same time, and we all know that. So why not start calling women who appear to have achieved a balance between the various demands on them our reality models, keeping in mind that even they don’t walk the balance beams perfectly every day. It’s just that, when they fall, they get back up and try again.

Little Choices (Part Two)

Via Filipina 2007 No. 7
Little Choices (Part Two)
By Niña Terol

Sometimes I can’t help being a take-charge kind of person; I’ve been “programmed” to be on top of things wherever I was—to anticipate all sort of challenges and be prepared to solve them—ever since I was very young. Now that I’m older and occupying more positions of responsibility than just “eldest daughter” or “ate”, I feel the effects of this kind of programming even more. I see and feel even more reasons to plan ahead, to have Plans B and C all the time, to anticipate challenges, to worry about a lot of different things—to stress myself out. (And then I justify it by saying or thinking, “But it’s what I have to do!”)

But, NO—getting stressed out is NOT what I have to do. Yes, I have to manage more things, consider more things, take care of more people… But I can do it without sacrificing my health or my sanity. So where I used to be ultra obsessive-compulsive, such as in household chores, or in ironing, or in the general order around the house, I’ve learned to let go. A little.

Take household chores, for instance. When it came to keeping house, I used to be a Bree or a Charlotte—always worrying about how everything looked, always wanting every piece to be in place, always focusing more on aesthetics rather than on functionality. Because of that, it became important to me to be always on top of the household chores, whether I was supervising the household help or doing it by myself. When I was still living with my mom and brother, “stress release” meant ironing bed sheets—just for kicks.

Now that Paul and I are building a home together, I’m realizing that it’s not just good—it’s IMPERATIVE—to learn to let some things go. If I wanted to keep the house looking exactly the way I wanted it to (read: like from the pages of a home décor magazine), then I’d be spending more time tidying up and organizing things than bonding with my beloved. At the end of the day, I’d rather cultivate and strengthen my relationship with my partner than strengthen my home decorating skills. (I’ll just find a way to get rich and hire someone to do it for me. *Wink*) There are just some days and situations when the things you used to get to antsy about aren’t worth the trouble anymore.

This has also meant one very important aspect of my relationship with Paul: empowering him with his own set of household chores—the ones that he enjoys doing. In this day and age of blurred gender roles, it’s no longer important to let the woman stay at home and do the housework while the man goes off to work; it’s more important, I think, to share the responsibility of building your home, raising your family, and nurturing your relationship.

Since I’ve discovered that Paul enjoys doing the groceries and the shopping, and enjoys cooking even more, then I’ve given him free reign (pretty much) over the kitchen. His responsibilities include: preparing the grocery list, doing the shopping, cooking most of our meals, and (when applicable) serving breakfast in bed. (Hahaha!) We’ve even translated these chores into something like a reality TV show, where we decide what the “secret ingredient” of the week will be, and he will stock up on that and make all sorts of yummy experimental dishes and concoctions with it. It works because he is able to release his creative side in the kitchen, have fun doing it, and know that he is doing something that makes me feel good.

The same goes for me: I take on the chores that I feel better doing, such as washing the dishes, organizing the clothes, sweeping and tidying up, and keeping our place (relatively) neat and organized. It makes me feel in control of what’s important to me, but it doesn’t bog me down and leave me tired and irritated.

Ultimately, letting the Universe (and others) take over isn’t about losing control: it’s about prioritizing our needs and wants, and choosing which battles to fight. We can’t do everything, and Heaven knows we can’t do everything extremely well, so we’ve got to learn to trust the Universe and other people to pitch in when we need to.

In doing this, I’ve learned that I can enjoy my life and retain my sanity without having my bedsheets ironed out to perfection. More importantly, I’ve learned that my partner is a responsible and loving man who enjoys playing his role in our little Domestic Kingdom and doesn’t feel emasculated by being the Household Chef. It definitely makes me feel like I can have my cake and eat it, too!

*Free clip art courtesy of Papemelroti

Little Choices (Part One)

Via Filipina 2007 No. 6
Little Choices (Part One)
By Niña Terol


There truly is a lot to be said about the little things in life. It is often the little things—a smile, a snide remark, a person pushing you from the MRT line—that can make or break your day, just as it is the little choices that we make everyday—to eat dinner with the family, to stay up all night before a big deadline, to beat the red light—that can define the quality of our lives.

In recent weeks, I have rediscovered the joy of embracing the little things, and of using them to feel a sense of balance, deeper gratitude, and—to a certain extent—serenity in my everyday life.

Commuting versus cabbing it

I used to take the cab to work every day when I was still working in Ortigas. It cost a lot (around Php300-320 a day), but I figured that I’d be “saving” a lot more because I could use the cab time to make calls, send messages, catch up on my to-do list for the day, and get to work without smelling like Metro Manila traffic. That line of reasoning worked in the morning, when I’d really be able accomplish a lot while in the cab on the way to work; but, at night, when I’d have to endure really long waiting lines, cabbies who refused to drive all the way to Leveriza, or horrible pre-Christmas traffic, that’s when it seemed to do me more harm than good.

In those days, getting home was a struggle, but trying to be pleasant and loving to my beloved for the rest of the night was an even greater challenge. By the time I’d get home, the dinner that Paul so thoughtfully prepared would already have gotten cold (and which I wouldn’t eat anyway, because I’d already have eaten a pre-commute snack to tide me over), I’d be irritated and crabby as hell, and the only thing I’d want to do is sleep—when what he’d want to do is catch up, talk, snuggle, and watch an evening movie before we retire to bed.

Those days (and nights) were horrible. I remember picking tiny fights with him just to let me go to sleep already, and he’d tease me that, as soon as the moon went up, I’d transform from sweet, loving Nines into a werewolf, a monster. I knew that there was some truth to what he was saying, and I felt bad for making him feel as if it were a nightmare to spend time with him. My wake-up call came one night when he said, “If I don’t stay up all night with you, then tell me whom else I should stay up all night with?” THAT signaled to me that something had to be done.

Well, aside from the fact that I resigned from that company (which I partly owned) because of so many other factors), I also resolved to just commute (walk, take the train, take the bus, take whatever will get me home soonest) to wherever, whenever I could. Now that I am not at the mercy of nasty cabbies, who demand more of my hard-earned money than they truly deserve, I feel more in control of my time, more at peace with my activities, and more able to balance my professional responsibilities with my domestic duties.

Indeed, once you’ve tried coming home (from Shangri-la Mall to my place on Leveriza) on only Php37, instead of Php150, there’s no turning back.

South Beach some more

Aside from getting overly stressed and highly strung out, I also gained a lot of weight while I was employed. From weighing only 100 to 105 lbs early last year, I weighed in at around 115 lbs during the Christmas season—my weight in freshman year in college, right after I had just lost my high school-grown baby fat (which brought me to my all-time high of 135 lbs, at 13 years old). I had sworn to never ever go back to that time, to that weight (unless I were pregnant and eating properly for my child), and so I was shocked, appalled, and depressed to see those familiar numbers on the weighing scale.

Of course, the weighing scale wasn’t to blame. After all, I spent six months of last year working in an office where the staple food store was Mini-Stop (with its yummy deep-fried fried chicken meal, that’s cooked by letting the chicken parts SWIM in lard), where I bought Starbucks drinks to reward myself and my team, and where brownies, pastries, and all sorts of goodies were passed around all day long. It didn’t help that I started selling the baked goodies that my former partner’s wife was making—and they were damn good goodies. Paul and I would always order two extra boxes out of my orders, and we would easily gorge on a box of brownies in one sitting.

We tried to box to bring ourselves back to health, but we would also always buy barbecue from the neighborhood barbecue stand after our workout. And, get this, we didn’t just order a couple of sticks of barbecue—we’d order at least 10 sticks of pork barbecue, at least 10 sticks of tenga (barbecued pork ears), and at least 5 sticks of crisp, toasted balat (barbecued pork skin) almost every night. OF COURSE I shouldn’t have wondered where all that heft came from!

So now, just a few weeks to go before my friend She-Ann’s wedding, and a couple of months to go before two more weddings (my friend Jamie’s and my sister-in-law-to-be Nicole’s), I’m back on the South Beach Diet. No sugars, no fruits, no carbs for the first two weeks, and A LOT of clear, healthy soups, green leafy vegetables, and healthy meats even beyond that. I’m also drinking A LOT of water now, and I’m also trying to intensify my boxing workout. I’ve realized that, this time around, it REALLY isn’t just about weight loss; it’s about becoming a healthier person inside so that I can enjoy a better quality of life and achieve the work-life balance that’s so crucial at this point in my life.

*Free clip art courtesy of Papemelroti

Something More

Via Filipina 2007 No. 5
Something More
By Niña Terol


In the book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, inspirational author Sarah Ban Breathnach writes about women’s journey to authenticity through six principles: gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty, and joy. She offers an inspirational quote and writing for each day of the year, providing women with an opportunity to sit down, be still, read a passage, and meditate for a bit either before beginning her frenzied day, or before winding down and going to bed. Since I first encountered the book over 10 years ago, it’s been a constant companion in my never-ending adventures and on the road the Being.

Now I’m reading one of Ms. Breathnach’s other books, Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self. An excerpt of the synthesis printed at the back of the book reads:

Uncovering your authentic self with be challenging—but exhilarating. Assisting your personal “dig” will be hints and prompts from the lives of both celebrated and unknown women. These, in tandem with Sarah’s own insights, will help you unravel your own mystery and recover the joy that has been missing from your life. Along the way, you will experience small but exquisite epiphanies that will help you come to terms with your past choices and reveal exciting new opportunities that lead to your destiny.

It is an exciting, soothing, affirming, and emboldening book all at the same time—and I encourage those of you who can get your hands on Ms. Breathnach’s books to do so. (They’re pretty pricey in the regular bookstores, but Book Sale has them for just around Php200-300, hardbound!) Anyway, I would like to begin this week’s adventures in writing with three excerpts from her chapter on “Starting Over”.

The Sacred Adventure
(taken from Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self, pp. 37-38)

“An adventure is a transgression you don’t regret” ~ Kate Wheeler

The search for Something More is a sacred adventure, one that will provide you with all the amusing anecdotes, profound turning points, and provocative choices you’ll ever need to be able to live this life without regrets. “True adventures start with desire, an inclination to enter the unknown,” the travel writer Kate Wheeler tells us. “In hopes of finding what? More of yourself, or of the world? Yes…”

Are you with me? If you are, you’ve got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old—whatever “the old” means for you—old issues, old guilt, old patterns, old responses, old resentments, old rivalries. We no longer have the luxury of wallowing in what’s held us back; this is the emotional baggage we’re supposed to be getting rid of this time around.

This is the choice standing between your dream of living authentically and its coming true. This is the choice that is not optional if you want to discover your Something More. Both authenticity and adventure require a point of departure, the willingness to shed what’s safe and predictable in order to embrace the new—people, places, predicaments, pleasures, and passions. Your new, authentic life.

A Tale of Two Lives
(taken from Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self, p. 38)

“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live. Now.” ~ Joan Baez

Do you remember the scene in the movie The Natural, when Robert Redford is lying in a hospital bed, sick, discouraged, and about to give up? It’s the play-offs, and he’s not playing because he’s been poisoned by the woman he loved. Glenn Close, his childhood sweetheart, comes to visit him. Bob’s feeling pretty sorry for himself. The doctor has told him that he can’t ever play baseball again or it will kill him. But baseball, or more specifically, the pursuit of a career in the major leagues, is the only life he knows; he’s thirty-nine and he’s just made it to the top. Everything is riding on the next game, and he’s afraid if he doesn’t play, his life is over. And he’s right. His life is over. His life, that is, as he’s known it up until now.

But Glenn knows better. Knows there’s Something More because she’s living it. “I believe we have two lives,” she tells him. “The life we learn with, and the life we live after that.”

So how do we get to this second life?


Starting Over
(taken from Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self, pp. 39-40)

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planner, do as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~ Joseph Campbell

“On this narrow planet, we have the only choice between two unknown worlds,” the French writer Colette instructs us. “One of them tempts us—ah! What a dream to live in that!—the other stifles us.”

Take a deep breath.

What if I told you that one year from today, you could be living your dreams, but (there’s always a “but”) it would mean that every day between now and then you would have to choose your destiny; in other words, that there are at least 365 choices standing between your dream and its coming true?

That’s all. Just 365 choices.

Hey, where’d everybody go? Before you flee, I didn’t say they had to be big choices. Parting-of-the-Red-Sea choices. Mt.-Everest choices. Before-and-After choices.

Little choices count, too. In fact, little ones can often be more life-altering than big ones. Little ones, such as Oh God, I’m just too tired to argue about this tonight, so you choose to swallow your anger, walk away in silence, throw in a load of laundry, tune out with a sitcom, eat a pint of ice cream, drink a bottle of wine, or track down your high school sweetheart just to see how he’s doing after twenty-five years.

Trust me, tiny choices—day in, day out—shape your destiny as much as deciding to run away to be an elephant girl with the circus rather than turn fifty. “True life is lived when tiny choices are made,” Leo Tolstoy believed. “Tiny choices mean tiny changes. But it is only with infinitesimal change, changes so small no one else even realizes you’re making them, that you have any hope for transformation.”

*PHOTOS BY PAUL ZIALCITA