CLASS '89 HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

WE were one in singing “Farewell” a ballad (a favorite graduation song during our time) by Bagets star Raymond Lauchengco, and befittingly, we said goodbye to our beloved high school, our teachers, BFFs, and the rest of our schoolmates.

For the Class of '89 of Narvacan National Central High School, it was the end of our young lives filled with emotions and excitements, our seatmates, groupmates, crushes, the JS proms, extra-curricular activities, and the music we played during school programs. The friendships that officially began four years earlier marked its end, and times ahead of us would test our commitment to stay in touch after graduation.

Right after high school we went separate ways. While most of our classmates in Acacia section trooped to Manila or Baguio for college, I stayed in Ilocos with Romano Peralta, Gilda Damayo, Mayrene Pintado, Joan Cauton, Jerry Cabanit and Carolina Filarca; we enrolled and finished college at the University of Northern Philippines in Vigan.

A LETTER TO MOTHER

Dear Inang,

I’m sorry this comes late for Mother’s Day. During that day, I couldn’t write a single note for you. I tried, but all I could remember was that morning in the kitchen a month before.

It was the most poignant scene, the one I could easily remember; though at that time, I didn’t realize its effect on me. And I think of it now, like a reader flipping through pages of an old photo album, turning back to that event in just one glance.

It was the morning I arrived with my brother and two sisters from the hospital in San Fernando. Tatang, whom we fetched with a hired ambulance, was lying lifeless, now half covered with blanket on the wooden bed at the sala. While everyone around me was crying and groaning, I was frozen from where I stood. And my heart was in ecstatic pain.

5 YEARS OF FACEBOOKING

IT was December 22, 2008 when I opened my Facebook account, upon the invitation of Arlyn, a classmate in law school, or more than four years after Mark Zuckerberg and some classmates first introduced this online social networking service to their fellow Harvard students.  

A day after my name and ID photo cropped up in blue and white corner of the cyberspace, my cousin Danny Cadorna, whom I haven't seen since he left for Japan in 1994, sent me my first ever friend request. Then another relative, a friend, a former classmate, a coworker, and even a stranger wanted me to be in their list of friends.

They are saying that most of the people who know how to use a computer and Internet have a profile on Facebook. No wonder, in just a short span, more relatives, friends, classmates, coworkers and even strangers occupied my notifications for a friend request, and even a game request, a join-a-group request and a “like” request to whatever that page is.

GRIEF RECOVERY FICTIONS

READING books is helping me a lot to cope with grief. After my wife died, I kept on consuming books obsessively, in an attempt to have anything that would fill in the time where I could possibly think about my loss. Keeping myself busy days after my bereavement was a pain reliever. I was loneliest when I was not reading.

I read mostly fiction, and there was a time during this period that I scoured bookstore shelves and e-books lists for any helpful grief books, hoping that they would give me wisdom to help me better understand my experience, and that they could speak to me on a personal level in the quiet solitude of my darkest days. A kind of a lifeline to carry around.

But I got no success, or perhaps I didn’t search well. I’m not the religious type of a person, and I’m not so much into reading inspirational books, though I have read a few of them.

ON REWRITING

‘I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.’ ~ James Michener

REWRITING makes the difference between good writing and poor writing. James Michener and other great writers had given us some good reminders on the importance of rewriting. So whenever I felt dissatisfied with my writing style or couldn’t finish a story or an article, their advice on rewriting comes to me like fresh air into my humid desk.

Now every time I open my document, I would edit here and there and try to take note of things I want to change. But if there's no progress at all, then I rewrite and, when necessary, change almost everything in the document. As one author says, it is perfectly okay to write garbage, as long as you edit brilliantly.

It’s a big advantage living when easy-to-use computers and word processing software are readily available to every writer, and they have simplified immensely my rewriting task. I couldn’t imagine how much Michener labored with his typewriter and painstakingly writing and rewriting long notes to complete drafts for his manuscripts before releasing the final version to his publisher. According to Michener, he went very slowly and needed constant revision in writing his best-selling historical fiction Hawaii. He had to type about three million words to only trim down to about half a million in the final version for another round of draft writing.

SUMMER CINQUAINS

i crossed 

the valley bridge;

found and lost her again,

and left the summers of my heart

behind.

that was

a bright full day;

saw her, gone forever,

and threw my own sweet monsoon dreams

away.

the next bridge...

some other place,

other space, how and where?

i'll just cross the next one when i--

get there.

THE resort in Gozaga town in Cagayan is aptly called STR or Sirok ti Rangtay (Under the Bridge). You have to pass under the bridge to reach the bank where a picnic area and a newly built hotel-type rooms for overnight visitors are found.  

LIFE IS A GINEBRA GAME-WINNING PLAY

“DAD, can we watch this Ginebra game again in Araneta next week?” my teenage son Nathaniel asked me one night. I was working on my laptop for my article to a local literary magazine. He knew I don’t like to be disturbed when I was doing that in my room but, hey, it’s about basketball. And I love basketball.

Nathaniel is as crazy as some boys of his age about the sports. He loves to play hustle games with his neighbor friends at an uncovered court in our subdivision, trying the best way he can to play like his idol Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics. And he is also a fan of Philippine basketball, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and even the collegiate leagues.

His love for the game heightened when his aunt bought him his own basketball, and I think it was in the same year when I brought him to a PBA rookie draft at Robinson’s Place in Ermita, Manila and he got the chance to meet in person some of his favorite PBA players. I’m sure he enjoyed the experience so much that in the rookie draft the following year, he went by himself (I had a busy schedule at work then) to the same venue and watched how some of his favorite collegiate playmakers, such as Calvin Abueva and Chris Tiu, were drafted to the professional league.