Green Into Gold

As we drove home from Plainsboro in New Jersey, from my daughter's place, I finally noticed that the trees have already turned orange.  The two weeks that I was home from surgery they must have reached their most beautiful transition.  I really didn't feel any regret whatsoever, though, that I wasn't out to witness it. There will be  more autumns to come.  Green leaves will turn to yellow, orange or gold, then they will leave the branches bare for winter's snow.
I remember my first autumn leaves.  We were in Tokyo on the way to Mt. Fuji.  The orange leaves of trees excited me no end.  I plucked a yellow-orange leaf and tucked it in between my address book, a perfect souvenir of the autumn that I experienced.  But when I got home in Manila and looked to show off my autumn leaf, I saw it had crumbled.
I wish I still got excited about things the same way.
But then I have to go back being ignorant, or naive, or innocent.
You gain some, you lose some.

The Deveras Clan - HAMORAON

The oldest Deveras I know about was my Lolo Pulo,  Apolonio Deveras,  married to my Lola Biyay whose real first name I can't recall now.  Was it Genoveva or Pelagia?  Ah, my memory fails me,  I  have to ask my Kuya or Ate or some of the older cousins in Camarines Sur.  Or wait until a sudden flash of light dazzles my mind into remembering.

Lolo Pulo must have been an adventurer.  In the early 1900s he took his family to a remote hilly and coastal stretch of land which bordered a part of Ragay Gulf and claimed a big part of it as their own.  It was all virgin forest.  And with blood, sweat and maybe some tears they cleared the trees and wild vegetation with sharp sundangs (bolos) and their bare hands by cutting and burning (kaingin).  Once cleared the land was ready for planting.  The level part was planted with rice while upland and other areas including what were called homesteads (awarded by the government) were reserved for coconuts and abaca.  They built their homes by the sea.

All these he accomplished with his grown sons Felipe (Tio Ipe) and Epifanio (Tio Panio) and maybe the younger ones Roman (my father) and Leon (Tio Eon).  Leon was an anak-sa-labas or born of another mother.   He and Roman were almost the same age.  There was also one female, the eldest, Tecla by name, our Tiya Lilay, my Ninang, my godmother.  Then there were the loyal sidekicks - Tikyo (Eutiquio Berenia), an aeta (aborigine), and Mariano Salinas.  Aetas look like blacks, with dark complexions and kinky hair but shorter in stature.  Mariano was a handsome man but blind in one eye, my Lolo Pulo accidentally hooked it while they were fishing when Mang Mariano was still young.  Up to now their descendants look up to the family.

It is not possible to relate the story of the Deveras family without relating side by side the nostalgia that is Hamoraon.  The land cleared was part of the town of Minalabac and known as Hamuraon or Hamoraon or Hamurawon, from the hamurawon trees that abound in the area, also known as Molave in tagalog, the national tree of the country.  Apolonio divided the claimed land from mountain to sea in five parcels,  for Leon in the rightmost when facing the sea, then Felipe's, Epifanio's, Roman's and Apolonio's.  The leftmost which was bordered by the punta or the point was given to Tecla.

(to be continued)

My Hair

Should I dye my hair now?  It's not yet 26 or is it 28 shampoos but I look bald already especially at the back  from the top.  I use the not so permanent kind which washes away after several shampooings.  Dark Blonde.  Somewhat light golden brown,  it will not look too contrasted as it does with darker colors when the white roots start showing up.

I look at me in photos of long ago, even photos of a few years back.  Where did all my hair go?  What is left  is very thin, very fine and very limp hair that I cannot even style.  I blame it on my diabetes meds.  Or maybe the Metoprolol, for my hypertension or the Losartan, 100 mg of which may be too much already.  A little over a year ago, I was just taking a quater of all medications.  I  have always associated the jump to my starting my insulin injections.

But insulin doesn't have side effects, everybody  would say.  Maybe it is because I am sensitive.  Maybe the ingredient which allows the Levemir not to be stored anymore in the fridge makes me have this side effect.  I react even to vitamins like Vitamin D or Niacin.  I react even to dogs or cats or trees or forests, this and that.

I think I am also allergic to growing old.

Memory

I want to start writing my book which I will self-publish with Blurb.  I have no intentions or expectations for its being a commercial venture, it will simply be for family.  I try but cannot start on the word section of my daughter's laptop because I am not computer savvy and I don't know how to navigate hers so I will just write in my 'secret' email account, secret because I don't want anybody to read my drafts especially I don't think I am a good writer.
I go to gmail type my username and the password I presumed were the right ones.  Obviously they were not.  I tried different combinations of username and password but to no avail.  I tried to access the right ones through the help option but I don't even know the answer to the basic questions.

My memory is so bad now, I accept I have to write down reminders.
It seems my bad memory is getting in the way of writing my memories.

Childhood Treasures

The feeling is familiar.

I felt this way when as a teen I learned from my father that electricity was coming to Hamoraon, our village by the sea.  The path of the posts and wires would trace the coastline  and that coconut trees along the way would be cut and uprooted.  For a long time I cried in my heart because of this intrusion of the outside world into my childhood paradise.

Then not too long ago the same familiar feeling came back when I learned that a business group was buying the land in Barrio Hamoraon by the big 'sabang'  closest to the 'punta' where they planned to construct a power plant.  I was angry, I was sad,  I had sleepless  nights.  It would mean a wasteful destruction of a most beautiful coast of white pebbles and clear blue waters not to mention a threat to the health of the barrio folk. The governor stopped it, however, but he lost in the last elections.  It is now a 'wait and see' if the plan pushes through.

Now I am having this deep, sinking feeling again.  A mixture of sadness, anger, frustration.  Another cradle of my childhood memories is being threatened.  And since I am half a world away, I don't even know if, as I am writing now,  it is already slowly being destroyed. 

The house has always been a thing of beauty, a one of a kind style in a neighborhood once quiet and peaceful.  Every passerby would admire the chalet with the wide red steps in front and the porch where we children played.  Though much has changed outside, it is the same old house inside where we once spent many of our days.  The main occupants, my old maid aunts, were very strict about the cleanliness and upkeep of the place.  The floor always shiny, the shelves and figurines always dustless.  When I was a child I did my share of the work and it was from my grandmother that I learned many practical things.

I won't ever forget when I was four and I played with my aunts' red nail polish, applied it to my nails then removed the same with acetone using a white embroidered hanky.  I then hid the stained hanky under the bed cover.  I was discovered but nobody got mad, after all I was only four.  I won't forget too when as a grade schooler, both aunts and my uncle would make me recite poetry after dinner when they relaxed in the living room.  The Christmases and the New Year's Eve and Day celebrations, the barbeques on my school supervisor aunt's birthdays, the pre-cemented yard's short grass in clear water when it rains, the frogs kokak-kokak-ing, the many snails climbing up the adobe fence,  the green swing which would have still been there had my sibling possessed even an eighth of my sensibilities.

The walls and ceiling of the interior was art in themselves.  The walls which was originally varnished was now painted with a faux woodgrain finish every panel separated by a chain of wooden half-spheres as mouldings.  The ceiling has recessed lighting.  And my treasures the lovely figurines.  The ceramic yellow duck and old fisherman complete with a fishing pole with a ceramic fish at the end, they are both gone but not from my memory;  the wide eyed puppy which I should have taken already the last time I was there.  The  green prancing horse which actually is a vase which housed waterplants.  There was a Venus statue which was actually a timeteller because from its hand swung a clock.  The clock probably broke but I saved the statue itself.  I don't know what happened to it.

The oval mirror above the old stereo cabinet, the green dragon designed chinese coffee set, the now antique chocolate 'batidor' and the ceramic mixing bowl, the small heavy palanggana, the antique aparador with the childhood pictures of my lola, my mother and her siblings pasted on the inside of its door,  the old bookcase with the old books, hardcover novelas, the book of trivia, of life in the probinsiya .. this was my first library.  Rebecca, Dragonwyck .. the pages now worn and loose.  

It pains me that these contents will simply be thrown in a bodega carelessly, that the house which was loved and cared for by those who have passed and by their loyal caregiver will simply be turned over to some uncaring souls.   The meek will inherit the earth, is what religion supposedly preaches.  More apt, to me, is 'The stupid inherits the earth.' 'The greedy inherits the earth.'

I Can't Sleep and It's Morning Already

It is almost 4 am, too many thoughts still going in my head, so I say 'hello' to my blog after having left it by its lonesome for almost a year.
First thoughts, how can I have surgery when I can't get my fuckin' blood sugar down?
Do I go back to Januvia? But I am scared of the dangerous side effect, pancreatitis! I also haven't researched why one has to talk to his doctor if one has gallstones, and I sure have some. The surgeon told me to ask for insulin injections already, even just for the surgery. I feel rebellion inside. I have to try get my A1C down some more dietwise, though I have been trying for more than 8 years. Tomorrow I am getting a shipment of 'ampalaya' from a thoughtful friend-gardener-engineer. Let the bitter help control the sweet.
My daughter is here from London for a short vacation. One day short of two weeks. Maybe I am missing her already. Thank God she was already here when the riots broke. I will worry again when she leaves Monday. I worry about her all the time. She has these mood extremes. Though I haven't witnessed any this time. Maybe she has controlled them already. Maybe the pills have been causing them. She has stopped four months ago. She has always been pleasant since she arrived. I worry most about her possible break-up with her boyfriend. After all she has no family in London. I worry how she will handle it just in case. She likes to appear strong and that is what I don't like. I don't like her bottling things inside. They can even cause pimples. Oh cancer-native that I am, always the worrier, maybe they won't break up at all. Go to sleep.
I took my notepad. I list down the dishes I expect on Sunday dinner with her brother and sisters' families. I'll cook dinuguan (tinumis) Mamang-style, my late mother-in-law's specialty, God Bless Her Soul! I'll let her Daddy cook menudo and her sister Pancit Palabok and leche flan. I was thinking of BBQ liempo but lechon oven liempo would be easier to prepare - just throw it in the oven.
In between these thoughts I think of when I am going to paint. When will I be alone with my Art? I have to fix my messy apartment first, but that task is almost an impossibility. I keep postponing it - after I have done this, after I have done that, etc., etc. The paints are almost dry, the brushes stiff. My eyes are blurry without glasses, my fingers beginning to be arthritic.
I think of my teen granddaughters. Am I regretting their having moved to another state? What happened to them? Only five years ago they were still full of life. Now they are zombies with cellphones in hand making sure they don't miss their boyfriends' silly text messages.
They watched a marathon of Jersey Shore in our hotel when we vacationed in California. What? They have become The Situation Mikey Sorrentino and big-boobed mini skirted Snooki Polizzi die-hards? Wake up Son and Daughter-in-law!
The World Economy is scary, the World Peace situation, too, the Philippine drama goes on on TFC and Malacanang. Facebook is taking too much of my time. These yahoogroups' emails are taking much of my time.
I can't sleep !!!

Dream

I dreamt of the sea again, a gloomy one. It was dark and I was planning to swim but the water had ebbed so much it was a whole sea of pebbled beach rather than water. The sea was so shallow it barely reached my ankle. We (my son and husband) walked and saw some fish left behind by the fast ebbing that were struggling to roll themselves back to the water. Ben caught one and opened its mouth and I could see its gills and insides throbbing hard to breath. It looked like salmon. He wanted to take it home for food but I told him we had to help it to the water.

Isn't this a likely scene before a tsunami?
I hope I am just dreaming of the one in Indonesia just past.