Skip to main content

155 INDEPENDENCE DAY


155          INDEPENDENCE DAY



I had lunch with an old friend at Chocolate Kiss on Independence Day. We talked about our relationships and how we, considering our advocacy on women empowerment and environmental coexistence, experienced independence, codependence and interdependence.

 “Alam mo, nakakapagod din. Buong buhay ko, nag-aalaga akong tao.” (You know, it is also tiring. All my life I have been taking care of people.)

“Come to think of it, tama ka. Ganyan din ako.” (you are right. I am like that too.)

“Sana sa next life, tayo rin ang alagaan.” (Hoping in the next life, we are the ones being cared for.)

“Why in the next life? We can make steps to realize this, in this lifetime. And we can pray to God to make this happen.”

“I miss him. It’s been years since I was pampered that way. He knows what I need before I even utter it. Sometimes, even before I think of it.”

“In a way, we are lucky. At least at some point in our lives, we experienced that kind of caring.”

We slowly sliced through the kalbi chim, a South Korean steamed dish made from the center part of ribs of a calf. With each bite, the counterpoint to the wish.

“But to live that way require compromises. You have to ask permission for some things you never asked anyone for and accommodate the eccentricities of the other.”

“And I am used to being alone in my bed that I would not know how to share it.”

“Yes, especially you. You have the habit of isolating yourself when you are writing and can hardly tolerate another presence.”

“A friend of mine is happily married living in a house with a room they share together, and two separate rooms if they desire to be alone. Before that, they live in two different houses. In two different countries. Hahaha.”

I sipped my brewed coffee and nibbled on the blueberry cheese cake. She looked at her chocolate cake and smiled.

“I miss him, but that is sooo past. I remember the moments, although they get blurry with time. There is no carnal desire, just this warm feeling of being vulnerable and comfortable with his presence.”

“Ahh, ganyan lang yan, after a while, you go back to wanting your independence back.”

From where we sat, we could overhear and glimpse someone at the gathering of Tindig Pilipinas, thundering a rhetorical question, exhorting for an answer, with his fist in the air.

“May kalayaan nga ba?” (Is there really independence?)









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

168 ESTABLISHING “FACTS”

168           ESTABLISHING “FACTS” In 1997, during his professorial lecture at the City College of Manila, Ambeth Ocampo, former Chairperson of the National Historical Commission (NHCP) said "Personally, I think this controversy like that of the site of the first mass -- Limasawa, Leyte or Masao, Butuan -- belongs in the basura (trash). But then, textbooks and quiz shows require definite answers. People want "facts" not lessons or perspectives."   Vicente Calibo de Jesus, a relentless researcher on the subject of the first “mass” disagrees. He said, “A historian has a moral obligation to Truth, and an ethical responsibility to his readers, domestic and global.” There is also a claim that the first “mass” was actually in Bolinao, Pangasinan celebrated in 1324 by Odoric of Pordenone, OFM, also known as Odorico Mattiussi or Mattiuzzi, an Italian late-medieval Franciscan friar and missionary explorer, predating the  mass ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Armi

Published by  Sunday Punch Dagupan Pangasinan   July 23, 2019 Armi By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo It is not clear to me how I first met Armi Bangsal. I had this impression that she was introduced by Enoch Tan, but I could be wrong. Maybe she was introduced to me by another friend, Josefina (Josie) Lolarga. I have a clearer memory of how I met another friend, Fe Mangahas, from a timeline she remembers, which became the basis of my recall of the occasion. However, the clarity of our memory recedes over time, and with it, modifications of the stories, and so I think there may be an earlier event where we had met, which escaped her memory. Armi and I stayed close friends up to this day, seeing each other occasionally, sometimes only during Christmas and her birthday, and mourning the passing of other friends. I saw her more often during the last few years, because of the meetings scheduled by the Pangasinan Historical and Cultural Commission in Lingayen, where she res...
Post a Comment
Read more