You are what you write

My career as a writer has been defined by my journey as a woman. Let me show you how.

I started in advertising as a chic gym rat with long permed hair who wore Esprit and Anne Klein jeans in every color. I wrote product claims for brands like Lux, Sunsilk and Creamsilk and lines for celebrities like Sharon Cuneta, Kuh Ledesma, Kris Aquino, and international hairstylists Allen Edwards and Tovar. 

A few years later, I had gotten married and had a child. Giddy with the joys of motherhood, I plunged deep into kurot sa puso moments for Kodak, Gerber, Ovaltine, Tang, Cheez Wiz, Kraft Cheese, and fun and games with Chippy, Jack n Jill Pretzels, Piattos and a whole bunch of snacks. 

Motherhood sucks you in, and it's all up to you if you'll end up either a hip mama or a hip manang. Somehow, I got caught in between, and so while I dabbled in the techi-ness of Dream Satellite, Samsung, Nextel, iAcademy, StarWorld and American Eye Center, I also hit the kusina with Payless Instant Noodles, 555 Carne Norte, Angel Condensada and Blue Bay Sardines, plus the labahan with Budget Bareta and Winrox Bleach.

Hitting midlife and limping past it a few years later, the connection seems totally lost, the concept suddenly off-strat. 

This is because during the past year, I have written, or am now in the process of writing for: Monark-CAT Heavy Equipment, the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), the Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP), Shell, Quezon Power Ltd., Saggitarius Mines, the Department of Energy and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Sometimes it's brainless but at times it's a struggle – for insights, for familiarity, for words.

Did I cross the gender boundary unknowingly... while I was texting on my cellphone or updating my blog? Did I get a testosterone transfusion? How did I become macho overnight?

Discussing this realization with a friend over Yahoo Messenger this morning, I asked, "Did I become flexible or desperate?" He said he was sure I had grown flexible or else I would be writing for taho instead. But hey, I can do that! 

On my first month on my first job, my boss said, "to be a good writer, one should NOT have a style," I didn't believe her then but now I know that she did know what she was talking about. Even if it seems I'd need a lifetime of learning not to have a style.  

Calamansi Therapy

Calamansi Nip, that's how my Mom called it about two decades ago – long before eager entrepreneurs started bottling them commercially and calling them Calamansi Concentrate. But these bottled wannabes on supermarket shelves were either bitter, laden with preservatives or were too watered down to capture the real, the pure, the unique flavor so distinct to calamansi.

Of course to me, they were no way near what good old Mom used to make – instant, no-squeeze calamansi joy you just mixed with water by the tablespoonful. Naturally, it would entail hours of hard work at first – squeezing mounds of ripe and juicy calamansi fruits in the peak of ripeness, doubling its volume with the exact amount of sugar, stirring patiently until no visible sugar has settled at the bottom and then waiting a day to remove the bitter residue that has formed on top of the mixture. Simple, yes. Sweet, absolutely.

The rewards last for many weeks after that. When the craving arises, all you'd have to do is pour a dollop onto a glass, add cold water plus a handful of ice cubes to enjoy a refreshing and tingly beverage. Or on a cold and coughy morning like today, one or two spoonfuls stirred into a cup of hot water will warm you like a hug. Better yet, have a warm potful by your side. 

Calming my day, soothing my throat, warming my heart with memories of my mother... this is my comfort drink. What's yours?

Our little Thai boys

Twice a year, two little boys leave their spacious new home in Bangkok to hypnotize and entrance what can be called, in their miniscule standards, a box office crowd: two grandparents, eight aunts & uncles and ten cousins. Lovingly called the Choknut Boys, shortcut for their tongue twister of a surname, they are the children of my husband's youngest sister and her Thai husband. 

As the boys babble in what must be tri-lingual baby talk (ThaiTagLish?), everyone is on the alert for a possible bump, an insect bite, a whine, a whimper. As the two tiniest leaves in the family tree, they are likely to be our babies for a very long time.   

Food for thought

The books are piling up, like cans of Spam on a pantry shelf, waiting to be devoured all at once, or nibbled bit by bit. It's a growing stack of food lit old and new, a bit thin yet worth a buffet spread to a now occasional reader like me. 

While I write for a living, the balance between reading and writing is no longer the way it used to be. But it is the reading that feeds the writing – the source of information, ideas, inspiration. And so a huge part of of my day is spent snacking on blogs, and in the process gaining pounds of knowledge while discovering a world wide web range of flavors I never knew existed before.

Back to the books, I do hope to do more nourishing reading this year. To me, it's eating vicariously: snooping into kitchens, stalking personalities, digesting their words yet avoiding impatso.  

PS. It's my Mom's birthday today... she would have been 79. The third book from the top was a present I gave her a few years before she passed on. 

24k Gold

Yesterday, my in-laws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary - a feat considering their failing health. Extremely hardworking and amazingly devoted to each other, they were firm in wanting to celebrate this milestone. The original plans had to be redrawn though, in deference to my mother in law's recent puzzling illness which made her lose her usual mobility. She was eventually diagnosed with Fibromalgia, which her osteopath explained as similar to Multiple Sclerosis except that it attacks only the muscles and not the brain. Last year, my father in law underwent radiation for his colon cancer. 

Yesterday's plan was to attend mass at the ungodly hour of 6:30 in the morning, and re-convene for lunch. It was an epic day as the mass dissolved into breakfast, faded into lunch, montaged with meryenda and picture taking, and eventually had a dinner finale. In between, my family had to sneak in naps as we stayed up 'til the wee hours of the morning putting together a surprise newsletter for the occasion. Conceptualized only the night before, a core editorial and production team stole old photos, tagged and scanned them, emailed and texted relatives for greetings and messages, wrote their own messages, and did their own share of hard, pressure-filled and panicky work. In the end we filled up five pages and printed about a dozen limited edition copies, with the intention of releasing an updated, more comprehensive version in the coming days.

To visually mark the occasion, we all wore yellow (since gold may not be feasible for all, or at all) and had three sets of family photos, which made up for the two years we didn't have one. 

Below is the front page article I wrote for the Gold Times, my own tribute to my children's only surviving grandparents.

FIL AND ZENY GO FOR THE GOLD

Golden couple Dr. Filomeno a.k.a Totoy and Zenaida a.k.a. Ada celebrates their 50th wedding anniversary with a Thanksgiving mass and a family get-together today, January 3, 2009.

As the saying goes, all that glitters is not gold… and yet their enduring love continues to shine through – 50 years after they said their vows at the National Shrine of St. Anne in Hagonoy, Bulacan. This century-old church is the only one in the Philippines where the relics of Saints Anne and Joaquim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, are venerated.

Fil and Zeny first met in their twenties when a cousin asked Zeny to work as a dentist’s assistant. A twist of fate occurred when the said dentist did not come to work, and instead, the dental board topnotcher from Limay, Bataan was on duty.

It was inevitable that love bloomed among the cavities. In no time, and without sedation or anesthesia, “Doc” was able to extract Zeny’s matamis na oo.

Through the early years of marriage, they continued their respective careers – Fil as a teacher at the University of the East and Zeny as a secretary at her uncle’s law office.

They were immediately blessed with five children whom they sent to Catholic schools as an affirmation of their faith.

Distance never really created a strain in their relationship as Fil’s job took him back north to Bataan, first as company dentist at Planter’s Products, Inc. and in the recent years as Town Administrator of Limay.

Meanwhile, Zeny kept their Quezon City home neat and always bursting with the aroma of home-cooked meals. Every single day was spent doing house chores and attending to the needs and demands of their growing children. She most certainly looked forward to the days when Fil came home by hydrofoil to pick up the rod a.k.a. walis tambo.

Recent illnesses allowed them to use their Senior Citizen’s privileges more often than they’d like. But their state of health only brought them closer as they dutifully and lovingly attend to each other’s needs. And this time, they have their grandchildren to count on – nine boys and three girls between the ages of nine months and thirty two years – each of them a source of pride and joy in their own little way.

Twelve grandchildren plus five children plus five sons- and daughter-in-law plus Fil plus Zeny equals a 24-carat family!