Tag Archives: essay

radikalchick.lit

What We Know Of Darkness*

Is what we know of the certainty of light. As in the impulse to unite on shared battles, the ones so crucial they survive the passage of time, are embraced across generations, as it was brought to bear on that moment 75 years ago, when the Philippine flag flew highest in the air for the first time.

Is what we know of our capacity to create light. Despite, or because of fear. Spreading photocopied stories on the real state of the nation; supporting a free press that bites incessantly, draws blood unfailingly; living off a lush grapevine of narratives passed surreptitiously at gatherings. Until the voices grew louder to the point of paralysis: a boycott of wants, needs, cravings—all sacrifice, maybe rebellion—aimed squarely at the corrupt and wealthy. We practiced and won on civil disobedience 35 years ago, a citizenry discovering its collective power.

Is what we know of carrying a torch. For revolutions that we fashion ourselves. Bright enough to overthrow a dictator, or unseat a President, or take back our freedoms. (more…)

radikalchick.lit

december 3: count

“7 years old.”

It surprised her how easily that rolled off her tongue, like the truth that it is, like the lie that it is. The unsaid is her sanity. It seems careless to risk a nervous breakdown with strangers.

Besides, the lie is only in the telling, not in what is told. She is seven years old this year.

She would be. She would have been.

She could have been?

She might have been.

She would have been.

The tension in these tenses is in the silence she carries as she walks to the back of the bus, finds a seat, and stares out the window at this strange city. The question had been so simple.

How old is your daughter? The stranger asked.

“7 years old,” she said. Painless. Emotionless. Motionless on that bus, oceans away from seven years ago.

radikalchick.lit

on Lola Nena*

IV.

At eight years old, my task was to read to my Lola, then blinded by cataract and cancer. Articles from the two newspapers and the monthly Newsweek Magazine that Lolo subscribed to were already chosen early in the morning, long before I was due back from school at noon. Lolo, having read some of these articles by the time I arrive for my task, would doze off as I read to Lola. Meanwhile, Lola would be attentive to my mistakes in pronunciation and enunciation, and try to explain what it was that made reading certain words difficult, in between reacting to the opinions of the day’s columnists. (more…)

radikalchick.lit

the street of my childhood

is victory avenue, quezon city. where a big house still is, owned by family but barely, a space i haven’t seen in years, a street i haven’t even gone into in as long.

but on that street where i grew up, my notion(s) of the world began to be formed. between the padlocked gate, and the poverty beyond it; the old beetle that we played around and not within, and the huge garden that Lola loved; between the death of a rock star and my own cousin found hit and almost dead by one of our trusted impoverished neighbors beyond that padlocked gate; between who we were there, within family and the strangest kind of love, and what we became when we left, with all our things, a time that i remember clearly.

i would later find out that in fact the move was about the daring to strike out elsewhere, on our own as a nuclear family.

seeing this street of my childhood as i was getting P200 pesos worth of gas, because that’s all my wallet had; coming from many things and emotions of the past two years, but literally from five hours of volunteer work in a public school in one of those streets i will forget soon enough; worrying periodically about money and consistently refusing to worry; with much love, too much in fact, for the world; in between celebrating a birth and a death in the three and a half months of every year since 2008.

this street, a full two decades after, has to be serendipitous.

as it is a challenge, showing me what i want, what i need to do, where i must go, and how it shall be done. as it is about the past, even more so about the future. and the now of knowing to see the possibilities of daring.

that street is exactly where i’m at.

radikalchick.lit

in process: travel with no man

speaking literally, in the sense that you carry your own bags, with no real options for help, no man to take pity, at least no man that’s yours. and this is the story of you, having a boy all the time, since you were in college to post-grad, working as teacher, living alone. there was always a boy.

and you do this on purpose of course, calling all your men, boys.

because that’s how they become, you find. they become such in the course of time, because you have the temerity to stay in relationships even when there were signs that told you to go, leave, walk away while you can. but alwaysyou see it through to what are generally painful ends, thinking it right that you do so, there is no other way,  you are proven wrong not soon enough.

and you struggle with your heavy bags and pray to the heavens that you’re going in the right direction to your bed and breakfast. you get to your room and find it unkempt, the last customer just left, the one who’s responsible missing. you get to the Eiffel tower by pressing on, you get there hungry, and with blisters on your feet, you chide yourself for these mistakes, no one else is at fault. you are always at fault.

you are in the Metro and it’s dingy and smelly, yet you need it to find your way, so you deal with its smell and chew some gum, light a cigarette. you plod on with a confidence that’s mistaken for certainty, you always know your way, you’re the one who knows what to do.

you shuffle through too many Metro stations, you walk through long unfamiliar streets. with blistered feet, you take some photos, plenty of them bad, some of them good. you have no conversation save for what’s in your head, and in there it is plenty and dynamic and brilliant, you wonder who can get it.

you wonder where you are. except that you’re here, where it’s clear what you’re up against and where you need to go. this is more than you’ve known of yourself since you’ve had a man. you should know to take this one as a sign.