I sent my daughter text asking her if she wanted tickets to the Noli Me Tangere musical. She responded that she had a strange bout of flu and she felt like a grandmother. I texted back, smiling broadly though she could not see me, saying I felt like I was 30. My spirit feels young even if my body is obviously old, even if my knees hurt when I get up. I remember once being 48 and very tired. I told my mother, “When I am tired I walk like Lola, body slightly stooped, feet dragging.” Now I am turning 67 and I feel like I’m in my 30s. What silliness is this?
What is this business of aging? I often ask myself that question this time of year. August. The Ghost Month, according to the Chinese. My birthday month. This month is always rainy and stormy, particularly so this year. This year, I feel the world is changing radically. Nature is asserting itself. Volcanoes are erupting. Tsunami is sweeping cars, trains, boats, airplanes, and nuclear power plants together. We have very many little earthquakes around here, meaning that we are headed perhaps for a big one. Heat waves are afflicting parts of the United States. Drought and famine have struck Somalia. There are so many crises in the world — some natural, others political, others economic — and yet people don’t see that they imply change of massive proportions.
My life, too, has changed in the past year. My cousin was buying a jewelry company. She offered me a job. I was to replace the old owner. I accepted immediately, thinking it would give me something to do. The sale did not push through. Instead I have turned into a jewelry designer somewhat perplexed because I love jewelry, but the ones I produce are not attractive to the market I’m supposed to sell to. Their taste is very traditional. My pieces are sophisticated. So I must find my own way to satisfy the market assigned to me.
This change is refreshing to me. It gives me something to do after retirement. Every morning, I have to rise, bathe, and get dressed. I have an office to go to, things I have to do, rituals I have to follow. Are they the same as my rituals of say three years ago? No, they are different. Then I could wake up any time, get somewhat organized, go visit my mother or get ready to teach writing in the afternoon, or paint for a watercolor exhibit. There was always something to do, always something different. I always welcome the difference.
Iwould hate living the same life forever. I cannot imagine being married to the same man, living in the same home, never experiencing major change. That is not the life for me. I love my life — full of upheavals, living in big houses and small ones, in the Philippines then suddenly in San Francisco, in Calamba then in Parañaque, Quezon City, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Makati. Where haven’t I lived? It seems to me I have lived everywhere, adjusted to different neighborhoods, and every move has enriched me. Not literally but my memories, my life, my soul. That’s what change has done to me. It has made me grow.
A young woman sends me text. She didn’t know I was a jewelry designer, she says. I did not know either, but I surprisingly became one. She also likes to design jewelry. Might I give her some advice? Just do it! That’s all I want to say. Life is about daring. You want to do something? Do it. Trust yourself enough. I don’t even design. I sit down among my beads and start making. If I hear a voice that criticizes my work, I go back a few steps and look at it. It looks good to me, I say, so don’t talk anymore. Believe in yourself and tell your critics to go somewhere, maybe to hell. Life has taught me that not everybody can love you. You cannot love everybody either so that’s fair. Just make sure you like your work. There are hundreds of others who will like it, too. Build enough self-confidence to dare.
Some people think the world divides into two groups — artists, who are eccentric and non-artists who are normal. I think that is not true. I think the world is made up of people, some more whole than others. One of my writing students was a finance officer. She ended up writing beautiful poetry. I think my writing classes turned her into a whole person. She discovered her creative part and drew it into her ordinary life. Everybody has a creative side. All you have to do is learn to open it up and incorporate it into your ordinary life, then be confident about yourself. I can teach you to do that one day, after these storms pass, when the rain stops, when the lackadaisical moods they bring, moods that I enjoy immensely, also end.
So I am one year older but one year richer in experience. I watch with silent amusement people who do not know as much as I do, who do not enjoy life as much as I do. Never mind, I want to coo, one day you will be as old — and as rich in memories — as I. Only I am luckier. I got there first.
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