A Day in Three Acts: Another Biographical Sketch

Act One: 7AM. It was going to be anything but an ordinary day. From the moment she woke up, she knew that, today, things were going to be set in motion that would change the course of her life forever. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was making her feel that way, but she knew it—every cell in her body knew it—just as she knew when she bumped into an old friend, four years ago, that he was going to be her future.

And now the future seems to be here. Already. So soon.

She got out of bed and reached for the maroon ball skirt and ivory-and-pearl Filipiniana top that she had chosen for this occasion. She had been to the Palace a number of times already, had been introduced to the President and shaken her hand (or kissed her on the cheek) on more than one occasion, but this time felt different. She dressed more slowly than usual, almost in a trance-like state, pondering on the possibilities of her future.

Three hours later, she was ascending the Palace’s red-carpeted stairs by the arm of the man whom she has seen through many faces and phases. He was wearing his favorite barong and a black felt hat, looking like a Spanish don from over a century past. He was cool and confident, looking and feeling more and more like the man he was always supposed to have been. They walked in contemplative silence, but between them an intensely animated conversation was taking place. Today—this experience—was new, but it felt strangely familiar…

* * * * *

Act Two: 4PM. It was just a couple of hours ago that she had left the home of one of the country’s most recognizable acronyms, smiling at faces whose names she had been reading about in the papers, but now she was riding a jeepney instead of the comfortable and heavily secured van that had been her transport this morning. Certainly, being in an air-conditioned vehicle while navigating Metro Manila traffic was more enjoyable—or more pleasant, at the very least—but there was something liberating about her being here—an anonymous face mingling with the rest of Philippine anonymity.

She has always been a pedestrian, preferring public transport and Makati’s covered walkways to driving and maintaining her own car. She had asked him about this once—if he would still allow her to ride the trains or take the bus a few years hence—and he gave her a look that said, “Obviously, my dear, you already know the answer to that.” So right now, at this very moment, while she still could, she wanted to enjoy the intoxicating fumes of Metro Manila and the rough, bumpy motions of the original pimped ride.

* * * * *

Act Three: 1AM. There was something about theater that fascinated her; she had written extensively about it for all of her high school term papers and was one of her school’s resident thespians during those days of adolescent wandering. Now she had gone through another costume change, another character shift, lounging in one of the city’s newest and hippest clubs in a trapeze mini-dress and silver stilettos that showed off what people always told her were “great legs.” There, on the faux-leather seat on which she stretched “those legs”, she tried to play the part of the party-loving urbanite while sipping her glass of vodka and watching her man unleash primal energy on his drums.

Of all the roles that she had to play, this was her most challenging one. For sure, she loved dressing the part and pretending that all that mattered to her for that moment were the music, the lights, and the vibe. But deep inside, a little voice was reminding her of her duties, her social obligations, and the larger roles for which she had to prepare herself. This isn’t your world, it was telling her. Enjoy it if you must now, but you know that this isn’t for you. Look—you can’t even dance freely because, no matter how much you want to feel it, this isn’t where you’re most at home.

And it was right, this little voice. No matter how much she wanted to enjoy the sights, the sounds, and the sensations of the urban nightlife, no matter how much she wanted to act the part and dress as if she were starring in her own fashion spread, deep inside her all she really would like to do is walk the streets like everybody else… and walk the red carpet in her Filipiniana dress just once in a while.

Paella for Dad

Today is Dad's birthday.

I slept at Mom's place last night, waking up early today to cook Dad his favorite dish, paella. I'm not invited to his birthday lunch, and God knows if he'll even take a bite of what I've prepared for him, but I just knew that I had to do this. After all, the paella during my birthday was cooked in his honor; it's only right that I cook him a special batch on his special day.

Why I'm doing this, I don't know. It hit me last night that I could've just bought him a cake, or something else (I don't know what--my sister and I realized that we don't know Dad too well to know what to give him), but something inside of me is still seeking the old man's approval. He probably won't even like my version, as it's very experimental and not the least bit traditional. But I don't know; I just feel that I have to do this anyway.

I even told him, in my birthday letter to him, that I feel in many ways like that paella: it's experimental, it's got its own twist to it, it's spicier, it's far from the original, but it still IS paella. It may be a fresh and adventurous type, but it's still from the paella family. We still are part of one family. And, Dad, the traditional Spanish arroz valenciana that he is, is still who I'm paying homage to by doing this.

The upside is that I also cooked another batch here for Mom's place, and I can't wait for my brother to wake up so that we can dig in! Cheater me, I saved most of the tutong for us... but I cooked so I get to choose, right? =)

*Sigh* I poured as much love as I could into that dish. I hope that, later, if and when my dad takes his first bite of my own specialty, he will feel the love that I'm trying to send him.

Child of Color (An ode to my cousins, and to the place where it all began)

One of my favorite childhood memories contains an old workshop, some paint, and lots of sawdust. I used to spend a lot of time in my aunt Susan’s house, and, because her husband, Tito Roy was a visual artist, I became exposed to the wonders of oil, acrylic, watercolor, and canvas (and the heady fumes of turpentine) at a very early age. For me back then, Tito Roy’s workshop was a magical place where wonderful things happened.

On one such visit, my elder cousin, Kuya Ian, was hard at work on a piece of wood. He was using an old saw to shape it into something long, then he would ask me and his little brother, Mik, to use sandpaper (liha) to smoothen out the edges. He had a cowboy hat on, and would shout, “Liha! LihaI” in a Lone Ranger-ish manner while working on the wood. Eventually, I realized that we were making a sword—and what a wonderful thing that was, indeed!

A short while later, the sword was completed, and we proceeded to paint it bright red. A bright red sword, and we had made it all on our own!

(It didn’t matter that Kuya and Mik later on used it to scare me all around their house. It was an adventure in artistic creation, and I was a part of it.)

I have many more favorite memories from that household. There were sleepovers when pudgy—okay, fat—little me would squeeze in beside payatot (stick-thin) Mik in his single-sized trundle bed, and both of us would desperately try to get some sleep in our shared space. Now I realize how much of a nightmare it must have been for Mik every time I slept over (“No, Mom! Not her—again!!!”). There were also nights when Kuya and Mik would have Twilight Zone marathons in their eldest sister’s (Ate Rachel’s) room, and they would scare the living daylights out of me with their monstrous re-enactments. They let me play with their Atari, and then later on their Nintendo, and Kuya and Mik’s extensive G.I. Joe collection as well as Ate Rachel’s Barbie townhouse, and they even helped me with my homework and my art projects for school. I was like the fourth sibling in their household, and I loved every minute of every visit there.

Looking back, I also realize that it must have been there where my dreams of becoming an artist first took root.

I remember watching Ate Rachel at work with her plates (she studied interior design), and I marveled at how great she was at blending the colors from her colored pencils and making her drawings look so much like the pictures that I saw in her Japanese interior design magazines. I wanted so much to draw like she did, or at least color my drawings in that same watercolor-y, Japanese-y fashion, but my hands were too heavy, and my pictures always came out looking very stark and bright (hence, my present inclination to the works of Henri Matisse).

I also enjoyed being surrounded by Tito Roy’s paintings. One piece that stands out in my memory is his depiction of a nuclear holocaust, where there was a skeleton (or his version of Death), coming over to a barren home. The elder man on the lower left-hand-side of the painting looks exactly like my grandfather, and I remember looking at that painting and wondering what Lolo might have been worrying about, with that look on his face.

There were many paintings, many things to wonder about, and I resolved, at that early age, to always be surrounded by art and artists, and by the creative journey and discovery that they all represent.

* * * * *

Yesterday brought all of these feelings and realizations back, as I stepped into Tito Roy and Tita Susan’s studio loft in Antipolo, where I had come to shoot the father and sons for an art feature for Mega. The old house where the memories were first made is no longer theirs, but the paintings served as a reminder of the wide-eyed wonder, the childlike awe, the impulse to create that had defined my childhood years. The family dynamic has changed as well; Tito Roy is no longer alone in his artistic pursuits, as both Kuya Ian and Mik have come into their own as visual artists. There are now lots of new paintings, new testaments to the creative wisdom that my uncle and cousins have cultivated within themselves through the years, but the recognizable colors and figures from my childhood were still the ones that I liked best.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have been born into a family such as mine—where freedom of expression is not just taught, but inherited; where curiosity does not kill, but enlivens; where colors and images and words—in whatever form, whether serene or obscene, foul or fair—are not statements of judgement, but are testaments of Being and experience; where you can be whoever you want to be, because you yourself are a gift, and anything and everything that comes with you is a blessing.

I am a child of color. I am a child of lime and purple, of cerulean and fuchsia, of cobalt blue and vermillion, of burnt sienna and emerald, of canary yellow and periwinkle, of gray, black, and white. In my world, colors not only describe; they define. Art is not a luxury, but a cornerstone. In my world, the process of wondering, seeking, wandering, and discovering… is everything.

* * * * *

Catch my feature on Roy, Ian, and Mik Veneracion in the September issue of MEGA Magazine.