A reprint of a column I wrote on my Dad's death anniversary
Why I never mourned for Magsaysay
March 16, 1997
Tomorrow is the 40th death anniversary of my father, Jess Paredes Jr. He perished with around 20 others in an airplane crash on Mount Manuggal in Cebu.
The nation was devastated by that tragedy which took the life of President Ramon Magsaysay, but I didn’t know it. After all, my family was going through its own agony. Also our neighborhood in Cubao got a triple whammy; besides my Dad, his friend Secretary Hernandez, who lived several blocks away, was in that plane. So was Senator Lopez, who lived on Lantana and whose daughter Sonia was a friend of my sister and my cousins.
When I said goodbye to my Dad on March 16, he was getting into Secretary Hernandez’s limousine to go to the airport where they would catch the Mr. Pinatubo, RM’s plane, and ride with the President to Cebu. Magsaysay was to deliver three commencement addresses in Cebu City and my Dad wrote two of them. The President had asked my Dad to come and hear him deliver the speeches—and who could say no to the President?
My Dad was overworked, he had stretched himself thin working as executive secretary of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, teaching at two law schools, doing two radio programs, and running errands for the Archbishop of Manila. And then he was a part of the President’s circle, close enough to be given an assignment as one of RM’s ghost writers.
He had a hacking cough that wouldn’t go away. He worked late into the night, his typewriter clickety-clacking in the silence of our large new house. He hardly had time for himself and here he was taking off for Cebu just to hear the President deliver some speeches. “Never mind,” he told my Mom. “We may take the presidential yacht on the way home. Then, I’ll be able to rest.”
So when we heard about the crash of the presidential plane, my Mother clung to the hope that my Dad had heeded his own need to relax and opted to take the slow boat to Manila.
In the afternoon of March 17, I learned that the word “confirmed” meant something other than a state of having received the second sacrament. It’s confirmed, my uncle said. Jess is dead. The wreckage of the plane had been found. There was only one survivor, a newsman named Nestor Mata.
My father’s remains were brought to our house where he lay in state for a couple of days. He had a fine bronze coffin, very heavy, and covered with a Philippine flag. We were told that the coffin was originally meant for the President’s remains. However, an even fancier coffin arrived from the United States and my father was next in line for the top-of-the-line items, behind the senators, congressmen, Cabinet secretaries, generals and colonels who had perished with the President. So he ended up with second best. Not bad for a man who had no title other than “Attorney”.
The coffin was sealed so it was easy for a 10-year old to deny that her father was in there. At the time, it just felt like he was taking an awfully long time to come home.
After the coffin came, the flowers followed. Wreaths with ribbons bearing the names of the rich and famous overflowed from the living room to the garage, to the terrace and the garden. I gaped at the people who crowded into our home—senators and congressmen, priests and nuns, radio people, movie people, stage people, my brothers’ classmates and teachers from the Ateneo, and hundreds of relatives. I remember seeing Diosdado Macapagal who had been our neighbour in Laura Street in San Juan, Raul Manglapus who had played the organ at my parent’s wedding some 19 yeas before, Emmanuel Pelaez, Ambrosio Padilla and Soc Rodrigo. There were other important persons who came but a 10-year-old could only be impressed by the most prominent faces.
Letters, cards, checks poured in from everywhere. I figured we must have gotten famous overnight because the mailman delivered a card to our house in Cubao addressed to Mrs. Jess Paredes Jr, Manila, Philippines.
On the day of the burial, we wheeled my Dad’s coffin up Boston Street and down Lantana, to Immaculate Conception Church where a mass was held. Then we motored to a cemetery in Manila where I was shocked to find a non-descript hole in the wall awaiting his elegant coffin.
I remember a crush of people in a small space, a bunch of red roses and a bag of soil being passed from hand to hand to be placed in the niche with my Dad’s remains. The roses were a remembrance from his wife and 10 children; the soil was a part of the Jesuit cemetery in Novaliches where my father had said he wanted to be buried. Since Novaliches was only for Jesuits, the fathers did the next best thing and gave him a piece of Novaliches.
Five years later, my mother brought us to the cemetery to exhume my father’s grave and transfer his remains to the basement of our parish church. Several men pried the black marble nameplate and pulled out the bronze coffin. They lifted the cover and my siblings and I saw its contents for the firs time: a fatigue-colored body bag. My mother unzipped the bag and a fine dust rose with the breeze.
My father’s remains were a mixture of bones, a pocket watch, a half burned wallet, and a gun. The worldly goods were not his, but my mother said she recognized his teeth among the bones. My siblings and I picked up the pieces and put them in a white box which we brought to the crypt for a second burial.
When the crash happened in 1957, the entire country mourned for Magsaysay. But not me. All I knew was my father would not be coming home to the new house he built us in Cubao. I would never again hear his hearty laughter, or feel his tight hugs. The center of my life was gone.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Reunion
Reunion (Manila, Feb 3-15, 2010)
February 20, 2010
I'd been thinking about it for a while, since my oldest brother, Jesse turned 70 and our family breached a new decade. Raffy, the youngest of us ten siblings, was already in his fifties. No doubt about it, our family was aging. In recent years, my brothers - Gabby and Jim and Babsy -- decided to stop dyeing their hair, revealing to the entire world the reality that in the clan, we have naturally premature grey hair, something we have lived with since our thirties. Today, only Lory and I are the hold-outs who continue to conceal the grey. My excuse is, my daughter Gogi won't allow me to look so old. Lory says she has to consult her daughter Cristina, if she should or shouldn't let the grey out.
The point is, we had to accept the fact that were getting old. So, early last year, after Ducky celebrated his 70th birthday with another wild but incomplete family party, I wrote a serious letter to my siblings asking them to consider a reunion in the near future. It is time, I told them, to get together. We are now as old or even older than our parents were when we thought they were old. And wouldn't it be nice for the ten of us to be together, complete, in one place before time took its toll and started taking us one by one?
The response was immediate. Yes, let's do it, everyone said. We set it for February 2010, which was when the US contingent of Babsy, Tictac and Aping, and Jim, who resides in Australia, said would be convenient. There was some hemming and hawing from Aping who, protesting the violence and corruption in the country,which he read about in the Internet everyday from his home in Florida, said he was not inclined to risk his and his wife's safety by coming home to the Philippines. Although he kept his options open, in the end, Aping really couldn't come home after his beloved Mary suffered a series of small strokes and needed his undivided attention. Our double first cousins Lita and Ginger said they would join us from Switzerland.
In October, we began to talk about what we would do for the reunion. We knew we would have a big fat Misa-Paredes party with lots of singing, ribbing, corny jokes and family stories. Gabby offered an overnight trip to the beach, and Ducky readily said he'd take care of the bus to take us there. We also talked about visiting Mom and Dad's niche at the Immaculate Conception church in our old neighborhood in Cubao, and the Bantayog memorial where Mom's name is enshrined on a granite wall, along with other heroes of martial law -- nuns, priests, businessmen, politicians, activists and NPA members who fought the Marcos dictatorship.
What else could we do to fill two weeks of our siblings' visit? We needn't have worried. From February 3 to 15, 2010, our days and nights were filled with the camaraderie of the nine siblings who made it and Lita (Ginger didn't make it), our spouses and children, who genuinely like each other. From the first day we were together, first in Jim's house where Babsy and Ivan stayed, and then in Lory's guest condo on C. Salvador where Tiki and Doug were billeted, the laughter was loud and contagious, the singing intoxicating. The jokes were alternately hilarious and excretable. The stories we told and retold were predictable but precious; the ribbing was endless. Jesse danced the ballet, and Raffy did his patented version of Tom Jones' Delilah. We were off to a good start. And the love was truly palpable.
It is amazing how small mistakes we made as children -- like Gabby reaching the top of the steep stairs of our house on Sta. Mesa and sighing 'I are tired', or Jim trying to speak Spanish and saying 'Que te pasa biscuit' to ask that a plate of biscuits be passed to him at table -- are never forgotten. What is even more amazing is that such merciless ribbing about those mistakes, which used to draw annoyance, tears and even anger when we were kids, is now taken so good-naturedly,if not grace.
At the big fat Misa-Paredes party on Feb 6, Lory wrote a number of such gems on placards and held them up for us to identify in a game called, 'Who said this?'. It brought the house down and it started our rollicking ride through the past which included singing the many songs we grew up with; stories about Dad and Mom; our uncles, aunts and cousins; about Inay and Tolindoy; Camacho and Johnny Paa, to name a few; memories of our childhood in Laura, C. de Jesus, Sta Mesa and Boston; and those wonderful weekends in Muntinglupa and summers in Bislig. Ilocano phrases we used to hear from Inay, thrown in by Cris and Sally Bermont with the right gutteral intonation, brought floods of laughter and more stories...
Lory even planned a surprise by importing Anit and Ibyang from Banggued and
asking Sally Mendiola and Aling Pitang's daughter Divina to come to the party. And Jesse came with his own surprise -- Doy's daughter Nancy, whom he brought in from Batangas to join us. I truly missed Inay and Nuna, and my Bobet, who had cooked many wonderful meals for family gatherings in my home. They were probably there too, in spirit. There were copious tears and lots of pictures and videos taken of what turned out to be the grandest reunion our family has ever had.
What a party it was. We were so tightly bound in the same time warp that a few notes strummed by Jim on the guitar or played by Joey on the piano had us singing the same song, in harmony, and even dancing around the table. I didn't want the evening to end. But as it turned out, that was only the beginning on what would be the most joyous two weeks of our lives.
The visit to our parents' grave and to Bantayog were sober, even tearful. But it brought home the realization that we are what we are because we were born of such exceptional parents who loved each other and each of their children, not to mention their country, deeply. They also loved life, laughter and music, which are their priceless legacies to us and our children.
To be sure, we siblings have not always been this close. We've had our share of fights, misunderstandings and pikonan. Our family has had our heartaches. In fact, we've been through the wringer, having to deal with losses, break-ups, separations and long-drawn out tampuhans. But here we are -- in our fifties, sixties and seventies -- whole and complete. We do not always agree on everything -- don't get us started on politics -- but we are a stronger, more loving unit today than when we were kids. Thank you, Dad and Mom, for making us a family, then and until now.
On Tuesday morning, Feb 9, a large bus hired by Ducky came for us for our trip to Gabby and Marianne's beach house in Nasugbu, Batangas. It was a siblings and spouses only affair, but Gabby's son John and daughter Michelle were 'required' to attend. In that fabulous Mediterranean setting, we dined on the patio under beach umbrellas, swam in a pool under ancient trees, had wine and cheese by the ocean at sunset, and sang to our hearts' content every chance we had. Couples doubled up in the bedrooms but Lory and I, who were both partner-less, slept on an inflatable mattress on the porch, al fresco, under a black sky ablaze with stars and planets.
It was difficult to think of wanting to be anywhere else with any other group of people. Here, in the company of my brothers and sisters, I felt our parents' warm embrace, a very large group hug. They were surely there with us in Gabby's paradise. And with God in his heaven, all was right with my world.
There were small quiet lunches and dinners among some of us, and biscoti baking lessons for Patring and Gogi from Babsy. Gogi and I took Tiki and Doug on a ferry ride down what Tiki called "her Pasig River" and toured Fort Santiago on foot. And, Tiki, Doug, Lory, Greg, Lita, and Gina went to watch the APO show. And Babsy and managed to have mini-reunions with old friends and classmates. We all needed the downtime. I, for one, would have burst from the fun of the company.
In the weekend, Babsy and Ivan left for Eugene and Snoogie returned to Medina. After watching Jim perform with the APO on Saturday night, Gina went back to Davao and Lita flew home to Switzerland. On Monday evening, Tiki and Doug flew to Hawaii en route to San Diego. The party was over.
My nest felt empty, but my heart was full. I couldn't complain. Besides,I needed to catch up on my sleep.
The reunion exceeded all my expectations. There are so many memories, old and new, to process, keep, share and write about. The photos and videos are on CDs, and on Facebook and Multiply. But mostly, they are safely tucked in my heart, which is a better place than my mind, which could go any time.
I don't know when we can pull off another reunion like this. Next time, I hope Aping and Mary can join us. (Maybe by then, Lory and I would have gotten the courage to let our hair grow grey.) But, for sure, this reunion, incomplete as we were, has been the most joyous and love-filled we've ever had.
February 20, 2010
I'd been thinking about it for a while, since my oldest brother, Jesse turned 70 and our family breached a new decade. Raffy, the youngest of us ten siblings, was already in his fifties. No doubt about it, our family was aging. In recent years, my brothers - Gabby and Jim and Babsy -- decided to stop dyeing their hair, revealing to the entire world the reality that in the clan, we have naturally premature grey hair, something we have lived with since our thirties. Today, only Lory and I are the hold-outs who continue to conceal the grey. My excuse is, my daughter Gogi won't allow me to look so old. Lory says she has to consult her daughter Cristina, if she should or shouldn't let the grey out.
The point is, we had to accept the fact that were getting old. So, early last year, after Ducky celebrated his 70th birthday with another wild but incomplete family party, I wrote a serious letter to my siblings asking them to consider a reunion in the near future. It is time, I told them, to get together. We are now as old or even older than our parents were when we thought they were old. And wouldn't it be nice for the ten of us to be together, complete, in one place before time took its toll and started taking us one by one?
The response was immediate. Yes, let's do it, everyone said. We set it for February 2010, which was when the US contingent of Babsy, Tictac and Aping, and Jim, who resides in Australia, said would be convenient. There was some hemming and hawing from Aping who, protesting the violence and corruption in the country,which he read about in the Internet everyday from his home in Florida, said he was not inclined to risk his and his wife's safety by coming home to the Philippines. Although he kept his options open, in the end, Aping really couldn't come home after his beloved Mary suffered a series of small strokes and needed his undivided attention. Our double first cousins Lita and Ginger said they would join us from Switzerland.
In October, we began to talk about what we would do for the reunion. We knew we would have a big fat Misa-Paredes party with lots of singing, ribbing, corny jokes and family stories. Gabby offered an overnight trip to the beach, and Ducky readily said he'd take care of the bus to take us there. We also talked about visiting Mom and Dad's niche at the Immaculate Conception church in our old neighborhood in Cubao, and the Bantayog memorial where Mom's name is enshrined on a granite wall, along with other heroes of martial law -- nuns, priests, businessmen, politicians, activists and NPA members who fought the Marcos dictatorship.
What else could we do to fill two weeks of our siblings' visit? We needn't have worried. From February 3 to 15, 2010, our days and nights were filled with the camaraderie of the nine siblings who made it and Lita (Ginger didn't make it), our spouses and children, who genuinely like each other. From the first day we were together, first in Jim's house where Babsy and Ivan stayed, and then in Lory's guest condo on C. Salvador where Tiki and Doug were billeted, the laughter was loud and contagious, the singing intoxicating. The jokes were alternately hilarious and excretable. The stories we told and retold were predictable but precious; the ribbing was endless. Jesse danced the ballet, and Raffy did his patented version of Tom Jones' Delilah. We were off to a good start. And the love was truly palpable.
It is amazing how small mistakes we made as children -- like Gabby reaching the top of the steep stairs of our house on Sta. Mesa and sighing 'I are tired', or Jim trying to speak Spanish and saying 'Que te pasa biscuit' to ask that a plate of biscuits be passed to him at table -- are never forgotten. What is even more amazing is that such merciless ribbing about those mistakes, which used to draw annoyance, tears and even anger when we were kids, is now taken so good-naturedly,if not grace.
At the big fat Misa-Paredes party on Feb 6, Lory wrote a number of such gems on placards and held them up for us to identify in a game called, 'Who said this?'. It brought the house down and it started our rollicking ride through the past which included singing the many songs we grew up with; stories about Dad and Mom; our uncles, aunts and cousins; about Inay and Tolindoy; Camacho and Johnny Paa, to name a few; memories of our childhood in Laura, C. de Jesus, Sta Mesa and Boston; and those wonderful weekends in Muntinglupa and summers in Bislig. Ilocano phrases we used to hear from Inay, thrown in by Cris and Sally Bermont with the right gutteral intonation, brought floods of laughter and more stories...
Lory even planned a surprise by importing Anit and Ibyang from Banggued and
asking Sally Mendiola and Aling Pitang's daughter Divina to come to the party. And Jesse came with his own surprise -- Doy's daughter Nancy, whom he brought in from Batangas to join us. I truly missed Inay and Nuna, and my Bobet, who had cooked many wonderful meals for family gatherings in my home. They were probably there too, in spirit. There were copious tears and lots of pictures and videos taken of what turned out to be the grandest reunion our family has ever had.
What a party it was. We were so tightly bound in the same time warp that a few notes strummed by Jim on the guitar or played by Joey on the piano had us singing the same song, in harmony, and even dancing around the table. I didn't want the evening to end. But as it turned out, that was only the beginning on what would be the most joyous two weeks of our lives.
The visit to our parents' grave and to Bantayog were sober, even tearful. But it brought home the realization that we are what we are because we were born of such exceptional parents who loved each other and each of their children, not to mention their country, deeply. They also loved life, laughter and music, which are their priceless legacies to us and our children.
To be sure, we siblings have not always been this close. We've had our share of fights, misunderstandings and pikonan. Our family has had our heartaches. In fact, we've been through the wringer, having to deal with losses, break-ups, separations and long-drawn out tampuhans. But here we are -- in our fifties, sixties and seventies -- whole and complete. We do not always agree on everything -- don't get us started on politics -- but we are a stronger, more loving unit today than when we were kids. Thank you, Dad and Mom, for making us a family, then and until now.
On Tuesday morning, Feb 9, a large bus hired by Ducky came for us for our trip to Gabby and Marianne's beach house in Nasugbu, Batangas. It was a siblings and spouses only affair, but Gabby's son John and daughter Michelle were 'required' to attend. In that fabulous Mediterranean setting, we dined on the patio under beach umbrellas, swam in a pool under ancient trees, had wine and cheese by the ocean at sunset, and sang to our hearts' content every chance we had. Couples doubled up in the bedrooms but Lory and I, who were both partner-less, slept on an inflatable mattress on the porch, al fresco, under a black sky ablaze with stars and planets.
It was difficult to think of wanting to be anywhere else with any other group of people. Here, in the company of my brothers and sisters, I felt our parents' warm embrace, a very large group hug. They were surely there with us in Gabby's paradise. And with God in his heaven, all was right with my world.
There were small quiet lunches and dinners among some of us, and biscoti baking lessons for Patring and Gogi from Babsy. Gogi and I took Tiki and Doug on a ferry ride down what Tiki called "her Pasig River" and toured Fort Santiago on foot. And, Tiki, Doug, Lory, Greg, Lita, and Gina went to watch the APO show. And Babsy and managed to have mini-reunions with old friends and classmates. We all needed the downtime. I, for one, would have burst from the fun of the company.
In the weekend, Babsy and Ivan left for Eugene and Snoogie returned to Medina. After watching Jim perform with the APO on Saturday night, Gina went back to Davao and Lita flew home to Switzerland. On Monday evening, Tiki and Doug flew to Hawaii en route to San Diego. The party was over.
My nest felt empty, but my heart was full. I couldn't complain. Besides,I needed to catch up on my sleep.
The reunion exceeded all my expectations. There are so many memories, old and new, to process, keep, share and write about. The photos and videos are on CDs, and on Facebook and Multiply. But mostly, they are safely tucked in my heart, which is a better place than my mind, which could go any time.
I don't know when we can pull off another reunion like this. Next time, I hope Aping and Mary can join us. (Maybe by then, Lory and I would have gotten the courage to let our hair grow grey.) But, for sure, this reunion, incomplete as we were, has been the most joyous and love-filled we've ever had.
Why I must write
February 20, 2010
5 AM
I have lost my voice. My writing voice. I have lost my words. I can't seem to find the right words to say what is in my heart and mind. I blame this on my editing work. I am so bent on working on the words of others, I have lost my own capacity to put my own words together and articulate my thoughts. Do I even have original thoughts anymore? And do they really matter?
I envy my colleagues who continue to write. When Neni told me that Friday is her writing day, I thought, what a luxury that would be to have a day set aside only to write. I told myself that I am so busy, I don't have the time for such a non-productive (meaning, non-earning) endeavor. But I am, of course, lying to myself. I simply don't have the discipline, the stick-to-it-iveness, that is needed to be a writer. I have found every excuse not to continue writing: Columnists are a dime a dozen. There's too much opinion out there, too much noise that I don't want to add to. No one is interested anymore. Besides, as a member of the government peace panel, I must keep my opinions to myself.
You know what? It's hogwash. I can think of many other reasons not to go back to writing, but I know I'm being a cop-out.
What am I really afraid of? I have to figure that out. I used to do most of my thinking on paper. By writing out my thoughts, I reached certain conclusions. When I wrote, I didn't really know where a paragraph , much less an entire piece, would take me. Writing was part of my thinking, my analytical process. Now that I have stopped writing, have I also stopped thinking deeply about things? I believe so. I have been merely skimming the surface of issues, content with quick fixes, smart-alecky allusions, re-cycled analyses, stolen insights and unbelievable rationalizations. In afraid I've been faking it for a while now, counting on the residual admiration of people I impressed in the past and who carry a nostalgia for my writing, to still be accepted as a 'journalist on leave'. Someday, I tell those who ask me why I no longer write, I will return to the printed page.
This is both a wish and an aspiration that seems to be more and more difficult to achieve, as I fall deeper into editing the work of others. But I must go back. I must re-gain my voice, find my words, re-claim my space -- or wilt on the vine. I must leave my comfort zone -- which has allowed me to earn more than if I merely wrote opinion -- and forge ahead out there, to my original comfort zone where I was unafraid to be poor and to spill my guts out.
Making ends is meet is important. So is peace-making. So far, I have been able to earn enough by keeping silent and pursuing peace. But I realize I don't have to keep silent to achieve peace. In fact, the path to peace is through dialogue, exposure, transparency, openness. Peace cannot be achieved by keeping mum on the important issues. True peace can be reached when these issues have been thoroughly discussed and consensus reached on the next steps. And that is what writing does -- bring up the issues, put some light to them and hopefully, achieve some clarity so that the right decisions are reached. Writing can be peacemaking.
Lord, let me be that instrument of your peace through my writing. Where there is darkness, let me bring light. Through my words, my thoughts, my actions. Or should that read, through Your words, Your thoughts, Your actions -- through me. Make me the instrument that I was before I began to fear poverty and hunger, to need the comfort of a regular paycheck, and to rationalize these needs as a reason to keep my silence when all hell has been breaking loose in my beloved country.
I must write again, or perish.
5 AM
I have lost my voice. My writing voice. I have lost my words. I can't seem to find the right words to say what is in my heart and mind. I blame this on my editing work. I am so bent on working on the words of others, I have lost my own capacity to put my own words together and articulate my thoughts. Do I even have original thoughts anymore? And do they really matter?
I envy my colleagues who continue to write. When Neni told me that Friday is her writing day, I thought, what a luxury that would be to have a day set aside only to write. I told myself that I am so busy, I don't have the time for such a non-productive (meaning, non-earning) endeavor. But I am, of course, lying to myself. I simply don't have the discipline, the stick-to-it-iveness, that is needed to be a writer. I have found every excuse not to continue writing: Columnists are a dime a dozen. There's too much opinion out there, too much noise that I don't want to add to. No one is interested anymore. Besides, as a member of the government peace panel, I must keep my opinions to myself.
You know what? It's hogwash. I can think of many other reasons not to go back to writing, but I know I'm being a cop-out.
What am I really afraid of? I have to figure that out. I used to do most of my thinking on paper. By writing out my thoughts, I reached certain conclusions. When I wrote, I didn't really know where a paragraph , much less an entire piece, would take me. Writing was part of my thinking, my analytical process. Now that I have stopped writing, have I also stopped thinking deeply about things? I believe so. I have been merely skimming the surface of issues, content with quick fixes, smart-alecky allusions, re-cycled analyses, stolen insights and unbelievable rationalizations. In afraid I've been faking it for a while now, counting on the residual admiration of people I impressed in the past and who carry a nostalgia for my writing, to still be accepted as a 'journalist on leave'. Someday, I tell those who ask me why I no longer write, I will return to the printed page.
This is both a wish and an aspiration that seems to be more and more difficult to achieve, as I fall deeper into editing the work of others. But I must go back. I must re-gain my voice, find my words, re-claim my space -- or wilt on the vine. I must leave my comfort zone -- which has allowed me to earn more than if I merely wrote opinion -- and forge ahead out there, to my original comfort zone where I was unafraid to be poor and to spill my guts out.
Making ends is meet is important. So is peace-making. So far, I have been able to earn enough by keeping silent and pursuing peace. But I realize I don't have to keep silent to achieve peace. In fact, the path to peace is through dialogue, exposure, transparency, openness. Peace cannot be achieved by keeping mum on the important issues. True peace can be reached when these issues have been thoroughly discussed and consensus reached on the next steps. And that is what writing does -- bring up the issues, put some light to them and hopefully, achieve some clarity so that the right decisions are reached. Writing can be peacemaking.
Lord, let me be that instrument of your peace through my writing. Where there is darkness, let me bring light. Through my words, my thoughts, my actions. Or should that read, through Your words, Your thoughts, Your actions -- through me. Make me the instrument that I was before I began to fear poverty and hunger, to need the comfort of a regular paycheck, and to rationalize these needs as a reason to keep my silence when all hell has been breaking loose in my beloved country.
I must write again, or perish.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
22 October 2009
Okay. I am finally starting a blog. It's been suggested that I do but I've dilly-dallied. I've actually become lazy about writing, preferring to edit other people's stuff and make them sound good. But while editing has been good for my pocket, I know I have to write for the good of my soul. So today, I decided to start blgging.
I am actually inspired by the movie Julie and Julia where Julie writes a blog about her adventures with a cookbook by Julia Child. It made me want to cook, and to write. Cooking and writing are my two passions. But since it is easier and more accessible to write, I am starting with writing. Hopefully, I am still inspired during the weekend to try some new recipes. Maybe I should write a food column.
I loved being in Sydney where I became the de facto cook in Monica's house, a.k.a. Inday. Edge gave me the run of kitchen, humoring me by getting the ingredients I needed for the dishes I wanted to try. On my first visit, they complained that I spent too much on groceries, buying too many esoteric ingredients that they would never again use after I left. But this time around, they seemed to give in and allowed me to get the spices I needed for Korean Beef Ribs and the salad dressings I love to concoct. Woolies became my favorite tourist spot! Did I tell you that my favorite aisle in a supermarket is where the herbs and spices are?
I realized that Monica has barely opened the Joy of Cooking that I gave her two years ago since the marker was still where I left it during my last visit. She just isn't very much a kitchen person. But she made mom's Icebox Cake like an expert only on the second try, and I persuaded her to make her quiche and her Butter Chicken recipes that we all like. I think she probably only needs an appreciative audience and she will shine as a cook.
On this visit, Monica found her true calling knitting and sewing, which I introduced her to. I bought her knitting needles, yarn, and a sewing machine. And since then, she has knitted a scarf, and sewed a large quilt for Edge, a rug for Jack,the dog, pillow cases for the boys, and a cover for a floor pillow. I am so proud of her. She is a true progeny of my mom, more so than I am. The best thing about our getting into crafts is Diego and Luis are now ardent knitters as well.
To get back to cooking, I like concocting dishes, figuring out why certain dishes taste the way they do, and finding substitutes for rare ingredients. Reading a recipe book is one of my greatest pleasures. And I actually clip recipes from newspapers (on Thusdays for the Star and Inquirer) and make them my own. I can talk about cooking with another ardent cook for hours, and I consider sweating it out in a kitchen as time well spent.
I have invented my putanesca sauce from the memory of flavors I encountered ordering it in many restaurants. I had the audacity to serve it at a dinner at home attended by an Italian-American who said he usually only ate spaghetti when his mother cooked the sauce but he thought my putanesca tasted authentic. I couldn't tell him that my secret ingredient was bottled chili that came from a Chinese grocery in San Juan!
I have earned a reputation for making the best lasagne this part of town, and my pecan pie recipe is unparalleled. My lasagne came from a recipe book and the pecan pie recipe can be found at the back of a package of pecans. But those who have tried to make them have not been able to replicate the flavors that I have put into mine. That's because while I follow the basic lasagne recipe, I like experimenting with herbs and spices. And I think my pecan pie tastes different because of the crust, which I make myself, and the liberties I have taken with the pie's ingredients, I won't tell which onees.
One of my greatest pleasures, aside from cooking, is experincing the cooking of close friends like Poch Lozano, Alan Robles and George Francisco -- male foodies all. Besides the excellent cuisine, the company is always great, and the conversation can't be beat. Send me a man who cooks!
Actually, I enjoy the adventure of cooking, presenting dishes, and feeding my guests more than the eating. And I always leave room for dessert. Now all this talk about food is making me hungry.
Okay. I am finally starting a blog. It's been suggested that I do but I've dilly-dallied. I've actually become lazy about writing, preferring to edit other people's stuff and make them sound good. But while editing has been good for my pocket, I know I have to write for the good of my soul. So today, I decided to start blgging.
I am actually inspired by the movie Julie and Julia where Julie writes a blog about her adventures with a cookbook by Julia Child. It made me want to cook, and to write. Cooking and writing are my two passions. But since it is easier and more accessible to write, I am starting with writing. Hopefully, I am still inspired during the weekend to try some new recipes. Maybe I should write a food column.
I loved being in Sydney where I became the de facto cook in Monica's house, a.k.a. Inday. Edge gave me the run of kitchen, humoring me by getting the ingredients I needed for the dishes I wanted to try. On my first visit, they complained that I spent too much on groceries, buying too many esoteric ingredients that they would never again use after I left. But this time around, they seemed to give in and allowed me to get the spices I needed for Korean Beef Ribs and the salad dressings I love to concoct. Woolies became my favorite tourist spot! Did I tell you that my favorite aisle in a supermarket is where the herbs and spices are?
I realized that Monica has barely opened the Joy of Cooking that I gave her two years ago since the marker was still where I left it during my last visit. She just isn't very much a kitchen person. But she made mom's Icebox Cake like an expert only on the second try, and I persuaded her to make her quiche and her Butter Chicken recipes that we all like. I think she probably only needs an appreciative audience and she will shine as a cook.
On this visit, Monica found her true calling knitting and sewing, which I introduced her to. I bought her knitting needles, yarn, and a sewing machine. And since then, she has knitted a scarf, and sewed a large quilt for Edge, a rug for Jack,the dog, pillow cases for the boys, and a cover for a floor pillow. I am so proud of her. She is a true progeny of my mom, more so than I am. The best thing about our getting into crafts is Diego and Luis are now ardent knitters as well.
To get back to cooking, I like concocting dishes, figuring out why certain dishes taste the way they do, and finding substitutes for rare ingredients. Reading a recipe book is one of my greatest pleasures. And I actually clip recipes from newspapers (on Thusdays for the Star and Inquirer) and make them my own. I can talk about cooking with another ardent cook for hours, and I consider sweating it out in a kitchen as time well spent.
I have invented my putanesca sauce from the memory of flavors I encountered ordering it in many restaurants. I had the audacity to serve it at a dinner at home attended by an Italian-American who said he usually only ate spaghetti when his mother cooked the sauce but he thought my putanesca tasted authentic. I couldn't tell him that my secret ingredient was bottled chili that came from a Chinese grocery in San Juan!
I have earned a reputation for making the best lasagne this part of town, and my pecan pie recipe is unparalleled. My lasagne came from a recipe book and the pecan pie recipe can be found at the back of a package of pecans. But those who have tried to make them have not been able to replicate the flavors that I have put into mine. That's because while I follow the basic lasagne recipe, I like experimenting with herbs and spices. And I think my pecan pie tastes different because of the crust, which I make myself, and the liberties I have taken with the pie's ingredients, I won't tell which onees.
One of my greatest pleasures, aside from cooking, is experincing the cooking of close friends like Poch Lozano, Alan Robles and George Francisco -- male foodies all. Besides the excellent cuisine, the company is always great, and the conversation can't be beat. Send me a man who cooks!
Actually, I enjoy the adventure of cooking, presenting dishes, and feeding my guests more than the eating. And I always leave room for dessert. Now all this talk about food is making me hungry.
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