Setting myself free

Since my mother passed away I have been — what is the correct word? — restless? Balisa in Filipino. I don’t know if I’m happy or sad. I know I am not grief-stricken, though I also know perhaps I should be, but I am not yet. First, my house was royally messed up because I could not fix it. My mother’s clothes were strewn into piles around my living room and I could not attend to them. Then over time, little by little, I got around to looking through them, determining what was worth saving and what was worth giving away. Now I am down to two pairs of pants that are big for me but fit me anyway, whose length I want to meddle with but I do not have the time. Or maybe I do not have the courage.

Anyway, I decided to redo my whole apartment. Everything — from the front door to my terrace — was completely redone. I decided to exchange my desk — a dining table inherited from my daughter — with my dining room table. I had my driver and my houseman do it. They had a hard time. I did not realize my dining table was so heavy. “It took four men to put it together,” Arnel, my houseman, said. That sort of shrunk me. Now my bedroom looks woodier, also older. It looks like me.

Now I realize my old chair is too low and it has gotten old, too. It’s broken, I see. I can’t raise it up or lower it anymore. So number one on my list — a new desk chair, more modern, more swivel-y, more adjustable. Then I must find a way of organizing all these computer wires that cross the top of my wooden desk like thin, plain snakes. They look so messy but how does one do that? There’s the challenge. I must find a way of doing that neatly so the modem, the scanner and the printer look better organized.

Having done a big job, I let my men take a little rest. Then I had them move two of my antique shelves — both need tremendous sorting out and fixing — onto my strip of back porch. “Can you bring them closer together?” I asked, into the esthetics of things. “Ma’am, we have to leave the drain free. It connects to the terrace,” Arnel said, reminding me that it will rain again and if another Ondoy comes those shelves will be drenched. But it doesn’t scare me. They can die in the rain. Two things are going for me now. One, it’s supposed to be El Niño. That means rain will not be so damaging. Two, these shelves are old and I want to get rid of them. I am going to sort them out then sell them. Today, I want my house turned almost minimalist.

As if I could manage that with all my useless things, most of which I want to throw away but can’t because they might be important — folders of speeches I’ve made, articles I’ve written, so much trash from my past that someday may be valuable to someone I don’t know. I just want to throw them all away or maybe I can put them in plastic chests, then they will be safe from the rain and I can still sell my antique cabinets. I will not let the weather worry me.

Now I don’t know what to do with all the pictures and their frames. I would also love to throw them out. I simply want a clean house. But you should see my coffee table. It is full of candleholders with candles. Candleholders received from my daughters, my friends, my neighbors, I can’t just throw them away. I love them. Then there are the fake pears inherited from my daughter and clear glass fruit I’m addicted to, and have accumulated over the years, standing or sitting side by side. I don’t know what it is about me that gets enchanted by crystal apples, pears, mangoes, even star fruit (balimbing). I must be going through my bal days – balisa, balimbing and balde (pail) — to clean up all the dust I am also uncovering.

Why am I doing this? What pushes me to redo my life entirely? I know it has something to do with my mother’s passing and with other things in my life that also seem to be passing. I know I have been wanting, writing about, begging for a new, different life. One that doesn’t look and feel like my old life. Maybe I really have to begin with this redo of my apartment to get into a whole new mood. Maybe I have been in my chrysalis a long time and am now getting ready to emerge as a majestic butterfly who will live not for three days but for three years in an environment that truly belongs to her. Maybe when my butterfly emerges she will truly be free.

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