As life begins to sing

There are changes in my life. They began to creep in last November. Before then my life was fairly quiet and monotonous. I taught twice or thrice a week and there was nothing much in between. Or maybe that’s not quite true. There must have been something but my spirit was not engaged. I was feeling well, yes, but there were threads of listlessness and vagueness and now I realize, maybe, there was no music in my life. One day was much like the next.

Then things slowly began to change. I met Tina Tan who fell in love with my home in Calamba and convinced me to turn it into a restaurant. “I will provide the house,” I said, “but you provide the food.” She agreed. Now we have a lovely, expensive restaurant in Calamba, an hour away from Makati. It is open only on weekends and only for lunch. It seats only 20 people or maybe 30 if you are willing to sit some in an un-airconditioned area or maybe even more if you are willing to make people sit in the garden.

The restaurant, Lily Pad, is on the expensive side — P1,000 per person for everything from appetizers to coffee — but we have to identify our market that way. We want people who will love the house to come. We want people of our age and taste to come. They all can afford that. Now all my Saturdays belong to Lily Pad, and sometimes Sundays, too. This makes my Saturdays fun. I wake up in the morning, get dressed humming. My life is singing again.

Also I have work during all the downtimes of the day. I sit and transcribe my notes. I interview on Thursdays. It is a wonderful project. I wish I could tell you about it but I can’t, not now. When it is finished then I will write about it here.

Speaking of Thursdays and Fridays, the Friends of Jung are holding their annual basic course called “Exploration of the Self” on Thursday, Feb. 5, and Friday, Feb. 6, again at the Ateneo in Rockwell. And again the following week. This is a wonderful course that promises a wonderful time. I have taken it at least thrice and I still enjoy it. (Call 0921-460-9529 for more information or to arrange for your enrollment. Do not call me.)

Wednesdays for me are free, spent having lunch with friends. I need to be out of my apartment on this day because that’s the day my cleaning man comes. It is also the first day of work for my driver, whose days off mirror mine — Monday and Tuesday, when my car is off the road. Sometimes I go to the supermarket to buy my supplies — adult diapers for my mother take up most of my budget; little things for my home. Every once in a while I make a trip to Rockwell or the Old Swiss Inn to buy cookies for my mother. That is our ritual. I visit her and feed her cookies.

Friday is the day I have set aside for visiting my mother at the Noli Center in Quezon City. It is far and I spend my trip there gathering up the nerve to survive the visit. I have said many times: Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease. While my mother has grown physically strong, she is getting more and more physically hostile. She now hardly talks and when she does I cannot understand her. She likes to pinch and scratch me or take my hand, turn it around in circles, slowly tightening her grip until it hurts.

Friday is my day for sorrowful music. Visiting her always demolishes me, makes me go home depressed. I like to spend the day alone, making necklaces with my anting-antings, coming to terms with the sadness my mother’s visit always brings.

Sunday I get up at six. It feels like the middle of the night in this season. My driver arrives at seven and we set up at the Legazpi Village market. I begin to have fun with my tent mates Sunny Garcia, who comes in at around the same time, and later with Raymond and Lina Ongcal, and lately Edwin and Tanya. I have other buddies around and we all chatter and laugh. Sunday is lightness itself. This market has grown more successful in the one year I have been there. It has much more food and many dry goods stalls. I have bought clothes and jewelry there.

My life has a pattern now and it is joyful, sort of like an opera with fun tunes and lonely ones. Nevertheless my life sings these days and I am genuinely and profoundly grateful.

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