Approaching Paradise: Manila Memories Submerged in Seattle
i struggle as i search in vain for paradise lost
a confusing wave of endless conversation
merging and molding, molding and moaning
assimilating and obscuring
after melting in that great black pot
filled with the stars like the ones i used to see in your eyes
filled with the stripes like the ones that used to shelter
only the imprisoned
only the unfortunate whose words became liquid and spilled out of their mouths
onto my paper as i, an impressionable youth, absorbed them all until i came to
the conclusion that i only had to hear what i wanted to hear even though you
pleaded with me to listen to the undistinguishable sounds made by the praying
chanters - no, wait - chanting prayers holding their heads and rocking slowly
to themselves while the ragged homeless sleep undisturbed in the church at
Baclaran where i go to buy scapulars because my friends asked me for
pasalubongs and i being eager to please readily agreed because i could spare a
mere ten pesos apiece
i reminisce on this as i think about the cancellation of A.S.A.P. my
Filipino variety show that linked me to the islands every Saturday at 12
midnight and whenever i watched it i felt sick to my stomach as my heart told
me i want to go home i want to go home
but my brain contradicted you were just there in the summer and when
you were there you still complained of wanting to go home
you wanted to go home
well here you are and now you want back to the tropics
back to your jungle roots
back to another type of paradise
lost
and this is your home my mind said to me as i could not establish
what it was that i wanted it was either the red, white, and blue of an American
flag or the red, white, and blue of a Filipino one
when i'm here i want there when i'm there i want here there is no place
with the best of both worlds tied in a knot of contradiction when a beggar
stands outside the car window carrying the type of baby for which you see Sally
Struthers ask for donations...on channel 7...only twelve cents a day...
i am sorry
how can i help you
i am sorry...
which is the same feeling i got when that lady came up to my
father downtown and asked for fifty cents for coffee so she could sit in a
Denny's all night because she was cold but what do you do when the same evening
there is an exposé on Hard Copy or was it Inside Edition about this
professional panhandler who has put three daughters through college and who has
a house bigger than ours for waking up every morning at eight and sitting on a
street corner holding out a paper cup to passers-by or when my tita says that
we might not want to give very much money to the old lady with the emaciated
cheeks and skin hanging off her bones because she could have possibly rented
that baby for the day in order to incite more pity and therefore collect more
pera...it's all about those BeNjAmInS baby...which is what Puff Daddy told us
right when he got famous right when all those people were worshiping him as a
god and i bought his CD not because i liked it but because i figured it would
add prestige to my collection and i kept thinking that i should at least try to
sell it or something seeing as how i never listened to it but at least i got it
in Manila so i saved a few bucks on total cost...
and i'll bet you an eternity that our paradise was not mine
not even yours just a tropical island jungle paradise which happy couples look
at in a myriad of travel brochures but they choose instead to go to Acapulco or
Jamaica because those places don't induce as much guilt...but i want to stay
here because i drink coffee and love the rain though coffee has been compacted
for my convenience into corner stands and giant bookstores where the employees
all smile the same manufactured grin as they ask how i am doing today even when
i know that they don't really care whether or not i've just had the most
entirely terrible horrible no good very bad day of my life and i wonder why
they have nametags when no customer ever seems to call them by their first
names...sort of like those salesgirls in Manila who appear out of nowhere and
surround you like circling vultures waiting to devour their next victim...i
mean customer...and they follow you around for seemingly no reason...which
leads me to wonder if they work on commission...it's just as well, i suppose.
and now they have a chain of Starbucks Cafés in Makati and we would pass them
and i would feel empty inside waiting for August 22nd to come so i could climb
aboard and fly back to the city where Starbucks and grunge and i was born...and
as i think of grunge i remember a time when a girl from Kansas asked me why i
didn't wear flannel shirts and carry a picture of Kurt Cobain in my
wallet...and i told her that grunge died in '94 along with Nirvana's lead
singer and i was only eleven years old, not mature enough to appreciate the
angst expressed in HERE WE ARE NOW...ENTERTAIN US...which was the only Nirvana
song i ever knew aniwaize.
i struggle as i search for paradise lost
in the midst of rambling mp3s and my sister's laughter i cannot concentrate i
cannot see how do you expect me to listen to you when i cannot even hear myself
let alone remember the pain or learn the history...? you act shocked and gasp
in disbelief when you are informed of my blend of colors but you try to cover
your surprise when all i wanted was to be able to respect you
as i sat in a pew every Sunday morning making paypay with the
fan as the priest preached to me in Taglish which i didn't alwaize understand
because he was too close to the microphone and his words came out muffled like
those of my Chinese grandfather who interrupted my daily silence with phone
calls containing only an inquiry of how i was...that's all...and of course i
couldn't tell him how two months was too long in a place that i loved but was
not my home...not my home...though it has its own benefits i missed my mother i
missed my father i missed my friends i missed being able to walk down the
street and not be stared at as a cultural oddity, a sideshow freak who the
lalakes in Megamall automatically thought was easy because they could tell i
was American...so they'd ask me for my phone number while one of their cohorts
slipped behind and tried to feel me...not like "can y'all feel me..." but you
know...
and it was then that i decided i would never go back to the mall alone.
because inside at four in the morning i'd curl up in my grandfather's chair in
the only airconditioned room in the house at that time of night and write to
release my anger write to release my pain write to release my frustration write
to hide my loneliness from the world
words that i hoped would sustain me until the end of the summer.
words that in no way expressed how ecstatic i felt when i finally understood
that Johnson and Johnson commercial or how grateful i was when my aunt gave me
her tagalog-ingles ingles-tagalog dictionary from the seventh grade or the
satisfaction that came on the night of the father-daughter dance when my dad
asked me what was wrong and i could tell him sasabihin ko sa iyo mamaya po
because i didn't want the girl next to me to understand...and if that's hiding
behind a culture then i am sorry because it was something i needed to do,
though it gave me an odd sense of breaking the laws of life and then needing
someone to post my bail
i am sorry
how can i help me now
i am sorry...
for not knowing exactly who to blame just as you lay the blame
on me i can lay the blame on myself even though i am not sure if it is entirely
my fault or maybe partly yours for giving me the notion that it is a peaches
and cream world and then i come to find out that it is really more like seaweed
and gravel it hits me like a head-on collision which is an impact of full force
that almost hurts physically but not as bad as running around in circles and
slipping and tripping and falling and hearing the snap that came when i broke
my leg and i had to be carried as a helpless baby and i cried and cried because
they couldn't get a hold of my nanay and my daddy was in Hawaii on business and
i felt so lost, so lost...and when they finally gave me the anesthesia i
remember feeling like i was falling onto a bed of clouds and floating down the
hall into a huge sterile white room with a cold metal table and being too
drugged to be scared...to out of it to feel fear...at least not from the
emptiness of medicine. when it rains when i cry the tears fall down and i make
no move to stop the barrage of imagery the figurative language that comes so
easily with every essay but no one ever asks me to write about conflict so i
had to make it up for myself so i could write and do it by hand so you have
more time to think about what comes next in this lifetime
in my search for paradise lost swimming in the
crystal clear blue waters at Matabungkay and the fish swirl around me and i can
see all the way to the bottom of the ocean
all the way to the bottom of the ocean
which is something that could never happen here because the water in our
man-made lakes is so dirty so very dirty but walking around Greenlake when you
are three years old you don't notice the filthy water your only goal is to feed
the ducks for tuppence a bag and if Mary Poppins is practically perfect in
every way why can't i be too like the citizens of Argentina thought of Evita
the opposite of what citizens thought of Imelda the lady with the electric
dancing shoes as i took a tour of Malacañang Palace
i didn't get it
it didn't hit me
i didn't get it
i didn't understand
i wanted to stay there yet i wanted to come home come back to cheeseburgers and
milkshakes from a land of rice and toyu that stinks up the house on a Sunday
morning but tastes uy sarap naman for Sunday dinner.
i struggle as i search for paradise lost not today but tomorrow not
tomorrow but today or was it yesterday when i couldn't figure out what it was
that i was missing as songs ran through a jukebox in my head i just wanted
comfort all i wanted was a peace place
a paradise
where quiet could produce energy
and the energy could change the world
Copyright © February 06, 1999 Angel Artistries. All rights reserved.