Footloose and childfree

I've wanted to write this blog for weeks now but I don't know where to start, and what to write exactly to express what's inside my head. This really started a couple of months ago when my co-workers and I had lunch with one of our service providers. R, a single guy, told us that somebody sold him a newborn baby for P6,500, and he bought the baby! The baby is an 8th child of a poor family and the parents decided to give up the baby. He registered the baby boy as his child, took the baby to his hometown in Bicol and left him in the care of his sister. He sends support each month and visits the baby.

When we returned to the office, my co-workers started to suggest that I adopt a baby instead of lavishing all my love and attention to my dog, Fritz. What's wrong with that? But that night, I thought about it. Would a baby make my life happier, more meaningful, and more purpose-driven?

This is not the first time that I thought about adoption. A few years ago, my sister-in-law called about a college girl who gave birth to a beautiful baby. The girl wanted to give up the baby for adoption…my sis-in-law asked me if I'd be interested. My first instinct was to say yes…but after a few hours, the thought of raising a human being scared me! I'm surrounded with mothers…women at work, my girlfriends, and relatives.

I know what some women would be willing to go through just to have a child. Many women would leave a fulfilling career to be able to conceive. My high school friend went through an emotionally draining and expensive process to get pregnant. A co-worker had 4 miscarriages but she kept on trying until her last and 5th pregnancy where she and her husband spent almost half a million pesos to bring the fetus to full term.

I've been asked many times why I don't have a child. It is difficult sometimes to explain that I remain childless simply because I do not have a husband. I am uncomfortable with a child not having a father---no physical person u can look in the eye, no grave to visit, no photo album to pore over to see where the resemblance is. I think fathers play an important role in the lives of children. If I'd say I've been married 2 times and failed at each marriage---that would be fine, that would be normal. But never to have married is not.

There are married women who even develop certain smugness when they learn that I am not married and childless. When did I get to be a bad person because I never married? How did that happen? Because I was smart enough to walk away from a couple of guys who were pretty good catches, I may add---but in hindsight my instincts were absolutely right---it wouldn't have been a good marriage. When did I get to be damaged goods? So I've been told that I'm too picky, that my standards are impossible, and that I should adopt. Some well-meaning friends and relatives seem to make it their mission to remind me time after time after time that I'd grow old alone without a child. I was told that I don't really need a husband, just a child to take care of me when I am old. They maybe right (that I don't need a husband)…but I believe that bringing a child into this world for the purpose of having somebody to wipe my ass when I’m too old to do it, is a very wrong reason to have a child in the first place. I like babies, especially when I could return them to their parents after a couple of hours. I have encounters with children…they usually run away from me because I enjoy making them cry---by biting their pudgy fingers, tickle them, make scary faces, tell them scary stories, and then make them smile/laugh. I felt "maternal" when my nephews were still babies and a couple of times just recently. In the elevator at SM, a few-month old baby kept on smiling at me even when I was doing nothing. Suddenly, I felt my throat tighten and I had an urge to grab the child from her mother's arms and run away. That would be a sight---Look! A crazy woman kidnapped the baby! In a plane from HK, a boy of about 3 was trying to talk to me. The boy's dad tried to distract him but he kept on talking to me in a language of 3-year olds, and then later, sat on my lap. Well, I had the window seat---I guess, he wanted to see the clouds outside. Kids at the beach, malls, and parks are talking to me---and I don’t know why!

I bumped into a former officemate in the mall one weekend. I never really liked the woman but when she said hello (like we're old friends), I politely said hi. After the usual chika, she asked if I have children. When I said no, she said that she only felt complete when she became a mother---that it totally fulfilled her. I thought it was a blatant attempt to make me feel like I was not worthy because I am not a mother. Considering the source, I didn't take it personally, but looking at her---with dry hair, wrinkled skin, sagging boobs, my guess is, she never had an orgasm in years! OK, that was bitchy.:D

But wouldn’t it be nice if we respect our differences? It’s not that simple that this woman is childless---don’t assume that she’s not capable to nourish, cherish or indulge another human being. I find it amusing, even endearing when a man goes against the grain and does something like cross-stitch, but I know people who are suspicious of a woman who does not wish to nurture. I truly believe that we limit what it means to be a woman if we define womanhood within the narrow confines of motherhood alone. It is often difficult to understand the choices other people make. I can no more understand how my best friend feels about giving birth to her daughter than I can imagine winning a gold medal in the Olympics, performing brain surgery, or walking the streets begging for food. We give birth to ideas, to relationships, to works of art, to hope, to peace, to children, and to each other. I go on, day after day, doing the best I can. And I would like my decisions in life, whatever they may be, to be respected, and my choices considered as valid as anyone else's.

We'll always have Paris...

Bogart’s unforgettable line from the movie, Casablanca, reminds me of the euphoric time of my life…my first trip to Paris two years ago. Though it was a business trip, I spent more time sight-seeing than actually working. Paris is an overwhelming city to visit for the first time. There’s so much to see and experience.

Gzel posted a photo of the Eiffel Tower in her site Mirage as Usual, and I envy her clear shot. My photo of the famous Paris landmark was taken around 1 am while I was lying on the park that hot September night, drinking red wine from a plastic cup. I regret that I was an indifferent ‘photographer’ then. I feasted my eyes on the beauty of people and places I visited then took photos as an afterthought. Moments cannot be recaptured, I realize that now. At least, the great moments I have in Paris are framed in mind.

La Basilique du Sacre Coeur de Montmartre

a street in Paris
Arc de Triomphe, where I watched the sunset at 8 pm

Nike of Samothrace at the Louvre

outside Musee du Louvre


Michaelangelo's The Dying Slave


Venus de Milo


A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ~Eudora Welty

Sleepless

I am the kind of friend you can call at 3 am because more often than not, I would still be awake, reading and listening to music. I have a friend who suffers from transient insomnia so we chat on the phone once in a while in the small hours of morning. But when I called him around 2:30 am on Saturday, he told me to get out of bed and clean the bathroom. Drink milk. Count sheep. Play with Fritz. Or get back to bed and have an orgasm!

The latter was not a bad idea…but when I started reading ‘Istanbul’ (by Orhan Pamuk), I forgot his advice. By 4 am, I started noticing fine cracks on the wall. The wall beside my bed. The wall right beside my bed that I spend so many sleepless nights staring at. Through the years, I’ve developed a very special intimacy with my wall. Ours is an intimacy by circumstance. When I have long passed the point of resisting and in a peaceful state of surrender, I give up to its cozy closeness and undemanding company.

But there are instances when the serenity of our companionship is broken. I imagine Fritz being devoured by garapata so I'd go downstairs to check on him, scan the kitchen walls for crawling, creepy insects that might attack my dog. Or I would smell something burning. Or hear roaches somewhere near my bedroom door. Or listen to the callings of cats in heat. Then I’d fall asleep before sunrise.

Oh, I have not seen the sunrise in many, many years. The last sunrise that left an impression on me was the one I saw from the deck of a ship in 1990 on my way home to Negros. I don’t sleep on ships---worried of an underwater volcano that might erupt while I’m asleep, boulder of rocks the ship might bump into and other crazy things only a neurotic can concoct. It was a magnificent sunrise by the way, with hues of silver, purple, pink, orange and red. That reminds of a scene in a movie, 'Interview with a Vampire'---Louis (Brad Pitt) watching his last sunrise before becoming a vampire. Like Louis, I'm longing to see the sunrise again—when, I don’t know.

My sister would say in jest that she sleeps like a baby because she has a clear conscience. While I don’t claim to have crystal clear conscience, I attribute my sleeplessness to thinking too much, beautiful music, great literary works and the moon.

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed. ~Ambrose Bierce

Mga Kwentong Bata

A friend from Davao, Geejay Arriola, asked me to preview the songs in their new cd, Mga Kwentong Bata. This new cd is an impressive collection of 12 original tracks reminiscent of lullabies of old, and songs of empowerment and wonder of children. Click here to listen to the songs.

Geejay is a member of an organization called Mebuyan Peace Project. This organization is a group of 18 women arts and development workers based in Mindanao. These women have worked individually or as members of other organizations in various peacemaking and theatremaking projects for at least 10 years. They are also members of Kaliwat Theatre Collective (Davao), Kulturang Atin Foundation (Davao), Sining Kambayoka Ensemble (Marawi), EDCADS (Butuan), Sining Kabpapagariya (Gen. Santos), Kathara Dance Theatre Collective (Davao), Kariala Etniko (Iligan), and Seventh Heaven (Davao).

On May 18 2001, the women of these music and theater groups gathered and gave birth to Mebuyan Peace Project—a theatre and musical storytelling group. The idea is to produce artistic performances that will respond to women's and children's concerns in relation to the issues of personal, domestic, community, regional, and global peace.

Mebuyan also aims to help develop artists and peacebuilders through trainings and workshops in—creative writing—child rights—children's theatre— improvisational theatre— cultural action—dance and movement—environmental awareness—gender in development—global education—music and voice—music writing—organizational development—peacemaking—storytelling—theatre (acting, directing, playwriting, production design, lights design)—theatre in education—visual arts.

The group also hopes to encourage and popularize women's arts and theatre through storytelling, music, and theater performances, and to popularize women's and children's issues through workshops and performances.

"Our mat is a world"
where arts is the norm rather than a specialty.
where there are no sounds of war and greed, only sounds of music and laughter.
where men and women are given equal opportunities.
where every woman and child knows no hate nor fear.
where every home is the safest and most peaceful place on earth.
where arguments end in songs, not in fistfights.
where cultural diversity is celebrated, not wiped out.

Geejay will let me know as soon as the group has selected their outlets in Manila. To know more about Mebuyan Peace Project, check out their website at http://www.mebuyanpeaceproject.org/women.htm .

Pregnant with possibilities

I like the phrase and the sound of it. Pregnant with possibilities is what I’d like to be in the Year of the Rat. In my mind, there’s a picture of a psychedelic butete burping letters from its mouth --- P O S S I B I L I T I E S. Each letter bubbles on the surface of the water and turns into gorgeous men parading on the beach. I am the only person on the beach---judge and jury of this parade. It's Raining Men is playing in my iPod. :D

Kidding aside, I approach the New Year armed with lessons learned this past year and inspired by possibilities. There have been a great many things that happened to me in 2007, but I had blunders as well as things that I tried but fell short. In 2008 onwards, I’d like to focus on life's possibilities and develop a kind of optimistic hunger to try something new.

This year, I would like to be fearless in many areas of my life, make mistakes, take chances again…been a cautious observer for so long. At the back of my mind, there’s the fear of failure, disappointment, pain---but if I’ve learned something all these years, it’s ‘what won’t kill you makes you stronger.’

Life in a rat race is getting dull and exasperating, not to mention brain-numbing. I’d like to take it slow this time, take nothing for granted---‘suck the marrow from the bones of life’.

“To be a better person” has been my personal slogan for so long. I’d like to stop getting better, and start appreciating what I am. I’d like to give in to a little temptation once in a while, stop trying to make everything rational. I’d like to doubt again in order to test my convictions.

Yes, I’d like to live deliberately from now on…it’s about time!

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. ~Lily Tomlin