It is Thursday morning, 4 a.m. I am writing my column at home on my dying laptop. My deadline is Wednesday night, though usually I write on Tuesday night and send it then. But this week has been different. I have been fixing my apartment, making it more attractive. I have set up a jewelry-making table in my bedroom, moved my computer into a corner near my bed. I have been fixing, fixing, fixing on weekends yet I feel that I might have outgrown my place. I have too little closet space, enough space for me but no space for guests. Since two of my children live abroad, I think I should at least have a guest room where they can stay when they come to visit. I think all this makes me restless, has been rousing me at 4 a.m. Or maybe that’s part of being over 60, getting up so early and falling asleep so early, too.
Have you noticed the traffic lately? It takes hours to get from one point to another. Why? Is it Christmas shopping? Everywhere you go the décor and the music assault you. Christmas carols blast at the supermarket, getting on my nerves, sending me out of there quickly. On the floor below ours at work there is an office that had Halloween decorations on its front door before Halloween and a Christmas tree inside as early as October. What happened to the old schedules?
First it’s Halloween, Oct. 31, and in this country it carries over into All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Then there’s Thanksgiving, a feast I learned to appreciate when I lived in the States where it is a major weekend. Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. You kill yourself roasting a turkey, which takes hours to do and which you do yourself — no maids. Then you rest the next day and eat leftovers. In fact, you eat leftovers all weekend. Then you shop because all the malls and department stores have Thanksgiving sales to clear their stocks for Christmas.
After Thanksgiving you have a bit of rest until December comes along and you wait, breathless, until close to the 15th when you know you should begin to decorate your home. You buy a fresh tree. Here, when I was small, we would always have a Baguio pine. It filled the house with its fragrance, a scent that means Christmas to me. Since those pines were outlawed, Christmas has sort of died for me. Now it’s one more season to live through. I just give away money to my grandchildren and Christmas is over.
This year I find myself engrossed making jewelry, a thrill for me who has just learned it. At the office and at home on weekdays and weekends I sit at my table trying to think: What shall I make? What are today’s looks? Will that sell at White Space?
What is White Space? For me it’s an adventure. White Space is a big warehouse on Pasong Tamo Extension that is in the process of redefining itself as an alternative shopping and partying site. When I was selling in the Legaspi Sunday market, which has grown so much lately, Mara Pardo de Tavera and Monique Villonco invited me to join White Space. I did. But then it was just beginning; it was trying to be successful. Since then I think it has had much success.
First I got an invitation to a special sale of Crocs and Toys ‘R’ Us. I thought of going but forgot, which tells me I wasn’t very interested in the products on sale. Not my age group. Even my grandchildren are grown up. Then later today I am invited to a celebration for Wyngard Tracy, who passed away a few days ago. Wyngard and I were co-moms to my two musical children, Panjee and Gino. I loved Wyn. He was a wonderful, warm, funny person. This proves to me that White Space can also be used for receptions, maybe weddings, graduations, and post-funeral events.
White Space is precisely that — space. On the first and third Sundays of November and December it turns into a bazaar. There you can go for a delicious Sunday lunch for only P250, including your soft drink. Lunch is sold at the foyer and you have three or four different cuisines prepared by Gaita Fores, who also has Café Bola and a deli at the back. I should have gone to check out the deli the last Sunday I was there but I had no time.
Then you can buy anything. There’s lots of jewelry — all types, all prices. There are wonderful handbags, from eco-bags, which you use for shopping, to glamorous handbags for yourself or for others. There are wonderful ethnic fabrics from Abra and beautiful shawls that look somewhat like piña to me. There are wooden bowls with silver insets, delicious pastries, toys and kits, potato chips and cashew brittle. There are thingies for the home, tie-dyed T-shirts to give away as gifts. There are even organic vegetables that you can bring home to cook. And it is air-conditioned.
Where is White Space? It’s on Pasong Tamo Extension, on the left side of EDSA if you’re coming from Quezon City. You turn left there and keep going straight, past Mercury Drug on your right, then a Chinese school, whose name I’ve forgotten. Right next to that you will see White Space. It has a name over the entrance but it is sort of set back from the street. Across it is the Mead Johnson building. Not difficult to find. The bazaars are every first and third Sundays until Christmas from around lunch to 6 p.m.
Come. Give yourself something new to do and discover a place you might want to rent for next year’s Christmas party. It is a great White Space.
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