Marriage of true minds

In what wedding have you ever, as a guest, received a book authored by the fresh conspirators in connubial bliss? And not just anything between covers, mind you, but a special chapbook with outstanding poetry from the bride and scintillating prose from the groom?

Well, just like recently watching the Wimbledon Finals 2009 unfold to mark Roger Federer’s 15th grand slam title, or viewing the Michael Jackson Memorial rites with Stevie Wonder blindly essaying I Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer, I was privy to history two Saturdays ago when Anna Maria Katigbak, better known as Mookie, and Angelo Amado Lacuesta, or Sarge, exchanged “I do’s” and had the literati among the wedding guests hailing them as the Brangelina of Philippine literature. 

The 72-page chapbook published by Anvil is titled How I Met Your Mother: Selected and New Writing, and brings together five short stories and ten poems. The brief bio notes have it:

“Mookie Katigbak finished her BA at the Ateneo de Manila University and her MFA at the New School University, New York. She has won Palanca and Philippines Free Press awards for her poetry. The Proxy Eros, her first collection of poems, was published by Anvil in 2008.

“Angelo R. Lacuesta has won Palanca, Philippine Graphic and NVM Gonzalez Awards for his short stories. His first collection, Life Before X and Other Stories, (University of the Philippines Press), won the Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Award and the National Book Award in 2000. His second collection, White Elephants: Stories (Anvil), won the National Book Award in 2005. His third collection, Flames and Other Stories (Anvil), was published in 2009.”

Here’s one of Mookie’s poems in the wedding gift anthology, titled “Quiver”: 

“Speed of neither wind nor ripple,/ neither hawk nor dove; she darted/ quick across the woods through blister’s/ roots, and hyacinths, the river’s blue/ narcissus—// gleamed like a pair of scissors/ clipping silk. And with what haste/ did I proceed, imploring limb and bone/ to make the light as we sped trackless// through the night, and I flagged behind./ Gave her the lead by small leagues,/ and watched her quicken when the miles/ between us vanished by degrees.// Now the light within me slows, quivers/ somewhere into color. I know her/ like a heft in the blood, like an arrow/ that arrives with a sudden red notion.// And wherever you go, I am to follow.”

And here’s an excerpt from Sarge’s “Letter from an Old Man”:

“There are a few — we few, we happy few — who like to dream big and imagine what a great thing it would be to have her fly through 18 hours and two layovers just to see you in the middle of nowhere. You panic because you can’t find her at the arrival lobby. It turns out that she’s been in the bathroom doing those things girls do after 11 hours in an airplane seat. You see her after two months of just seeing her in a three-inch-wide square on a computer screen and you’re amazed at how good she smells, how small she still seems.

“’What’s twenty minutes when we waited two months?’ she says. ‘And I’m the girl, remember?

“That’s OK. I’m the old man. I get to be the ornery, obstinate one. I get to put my legs up — ‘higher than my heart’ — my mother advises— while you get water from the kitchen. I get to sit in the café reading Time magazine while you look for the right shade of plum.

“... It’s tough keeping up. I’m quick with the emoticons and I’ve even taught you an acronym or three. LOL. Here’s another one: WTSIWYG. Right out of the WordPerfect eighties — what you see is what you get. Saved you the googling, so you owe me one: I’ll have the one-piece chicken and an extra rice... and make that softdrink a diet. Yes, I’m a rebel that way. I’m saying that with a smiley with a semicolon.

“But the toughest time I have is when you tell me it’s not all about me all the time. You think I’m listening because it makes sense. I’m only listening because you call me sweetheart.”

It was Maytime of 1992, I recall, when Sarge Lacuesta, Dean Alfar and Mailin Paterno were among the fellows at the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop. And they were the most promising of the batch, earning plaudits from Dad Doc Ed and Mom Edith Tiempo for their manuscripts.

I had particularly fond hopes for Sarge, as I had known him as a kid when his dad, “Mads” Lacuesta, the mad one with the mad cackle, would ask me over to their place at Xavierville for beers and shoptalk on film scripting. Mads became a prizewinning scriptwriter, at one point giving up his lucrative corporate practice with a Makati firm so he could concentrate on the assignments given him by direk Ishmael Bernal — such as Makati Girls.    

And so it was easy to remind Mads of this, one night when with a mock-somber, half-mad grin he practically accused me of subverting his dad-dreams for his oldest son, who was supposed to pursue Medicine until he got to that summer crossroads in Dumaguete, and chose to turn into a creative writer.

That Sarge would prove his career choice right by amassing awards for short fiction and authoring prize-worthy collections only became bittersweet because his dad left us rather early.

At the church, and at Whitespace for the reception, Sarge’s mom Lolly, now tending to a farm in Davao, would remind me of those early days with Mads, and express over and over how she missed him so, especially when she saw the old barkada together, as on that night. 

In turn, Mookie was one of the first highly promising, would-be poets in an Ateneo workshop class, in 2001 I think. I still remember a poem of hers set in Michigan that was all there in terms of language verve, with tone and diction alternating between delicate and hard-edged. I encouraged her rather rashly, maybe even too harshly one time when I said she seemed to lack the discipline, and that she had to keep producing more poems other than the few she had eked out for a couple of years.

She helped out in a coffeetable book of interviews and feature portraits of executive “paragons,” and also assisted in ministering to an international delegation of poets getting together in Manila for a poetry conference in 2002.

She also joined the Dumaguete workshop, gaining Mom Edith’s blessings. Then she was off to New York for her MFA, and next thing I knew, those delicate/tough poems that appeared to be her métier came along by the dozens. And she started winning awards, and authoring her first collection, much to my elation. 

Now here they were, Mookie and Sarge, ushered in to church by a marching band with pennants waving: “Viva Sarge! Viva Mookie!”  Similarly, the reception was a blast. Gilda Cordero Fernando took hold of the elusive Lourd de Vera and pried him away from the single malt whisky table (courtesy of the astute benedict) for a boogie marathon. Of course Greg Brillantes wouldn’t allow the distance to being an android prevent him from showing off his own heavy-metal dance steps, with Karina Bolasco as his first partner. Lord Jim Abad, fresh from his Roman triumph, joined la dolce vita on the dance floor.

Butch Perez, Charlson Ong and I were left to hold the fort and guard the whisky table, lest Marj Evasco, Beni Santos and Mariel Francisco take aim and wash down chef Margarita Fores’ fruit centerpieces with our precious Balvenie, Talisker, and 18-year-old Yamazaki golden brews.

Tikoy Aguiluz and Briccio Santos had their daughters Anima and Bianca for dancing partners, albeit Tikoy’s lovely wife Minky eventually cut in. Which was what Charlson couldn’t do onstage, much as he had set his sights on the mic for a jam-along. But the band put together by Lourd was too good with their Beatles and ’80s numbers to blow off the stage, so that Il Divo Ong in barong had to content himself with admiring the large cutout pastillas wrappers adorning the venue’s ceiling. 

 Younger writers Luis Katigbak, Yvette Tan, Daryll Delgado, William Ragamat, Carl Joe Javier and Carlomar Daoana mixed it up with National Artist Bien Lumbera and better half Shayne. Yet another author, Tony Samson, surveyed the proceedings with a look of bemused discernment. 

Thankfully, there were no video recollections on how the new partners had grown up and met and began a romance; we all knew that already: through words. Like the ones they share in their wonderful gift of remembrance for everyone who joined them in their first sosyal night together as man and wife — in a marriage made in literary heaven.