Category: Nonfiction

Turning Eighty

Nonfiction by | May 8, 2011

A warm surge of love and gratitude wells up from my being as I realize that these rejoicing and celebration are happening on my behalf. Never have I been the center of such attention. Never in my wild imaginings have I received tribute so salutary that I can hardly believe it is for me. Thank you, dear sisters mine! As you spoke about this wonderful character to this captive audience, revealing her wisdom, integrity, and goodness, I could not believe such an ideal creature could exist! Well, apparently, she does! And she is me! And I am she! I want to believe this. Really, I do! Let this be the magic moment when it all comes true!

Continue reading Turning Eighty

Pugay Kamay!

Nonfiction by | April 24, 2011

Minsan naitatanong ko sa sarili ko at sa Diyos: May dapat ba akong ipagpasalamat sa buhay?

Teka, meron nga ba?

Kung sa bawat sikat ng araw sa umaga, ang dapat mong isipin ay kung paano ka kikita at mabubuhay. Na kahit anong paghihirap mo ay parang pinaglalaruan ka lang ng tadhana ng buhay. Na sa lahat ng hirap na iyong dinanas mula pa pagkabata ay wala man lamang ginhawang natamo. Nagtagumpay ka nga, pero sobrang pagtitiis naman!

Continue reading Pugay Kamay!

How Not to Exercise in the Morning

Nonfiction by | April 3, 2011

How Not to Exercise in the MorningWorking at home and basically having my back side literally glued to the computer chair for more than eighteen hours a day is not only detrimental to my sanity, but it also makes those little figures on the scale increase rapidly. Of course, the word “little” here is relative—and so is “sanity.” It has come to a point where I have to cheerily greet, praise loudly, and then apologize to the weighing scale before I get on it, hoping that the machine would reciprocate my effusive demeanor by shaving off one, two, or preferably 150 pounds. After weeks and weeks of doing this and getting nothing but an escalating series of results, I have come to one conclusion: the darn thing was broken.

Then my clothes started getting tight again. Certain pieces of undergarments began to pop at the seams. I was glad enough to blame the shrinkage on the new laundry soap I was using.

Continue reading How Not to Exercise in the Morning

Because Krip Yuson Is Just Too Cool To Approach

Nonfiction by | March 27, 2011

When I first heard that Alfred ” Krip” Yuson would be attending the 3rd Taboan Writers Festival, I knew I just had to meet him. Undeniable as this urge may have been, it was also unexplainable and that made it rather awkward. I needed an excuse for going up to him. And then it came: Mr. Cimafranca, our Creative Writing teacher told us that our midterm examination would be to “attach” ourselves to one of the Delegates in the Festival and write about him or her.

I first encountered the Krip Yuson brand when I read a haiku he wrote that appeared in our Literature book. I was in first year college, and though I had been writing earlier than that, that was my first exposure to the Philippine literary scene. The haiku went:

Is Galman the one?
or are there two, maybe three?
each day, brief to grief.

That haiku fascinated me even though I didn’t understand it. When I dug into its background, I couldn’t help reading about the poet as well.

Continue reading Because Krip Yuson Is Just Too Cool To Approach

Kalingkawasan, Katitikan, Katilingban: Ang lamdaman sa akong dagang

Nonfiction by | March 20, 2011

PASIUNA
Sa nagpurol pa ko, gimatuto kos akong mga ginikanan sa pagpangayog katahoran kang bisan kinsa nga akong ikahibalag sa dalan. Busa sugo sa maayong pamatasan, Maayong palis kanatong tanan.

Sa matag tapok-tapok, anaa gayod ang hudyaka. Ug mas lanog ang dahunog sa hudyaka kon mga alagad na sa arte ang magkatapok. Bililhon ang matag gutlo sa kalibotan sa mga alagad sa arte. Panagsa ra ang bakante. Kanunay silang nagpulaw sa pagsulat og balak, sugilanon, nobela. Busa kon sila na ang magkatapok, wa gyoy pugong-pugong. Ug salamat sa komite nga gitahasan niini nga panagtapok sa ilang pagdapit kanako isip delegado ning maong Taboan.

Karong hapona, akong ipaambit kaninyo ang akong kasinatian samtang nagsubay sa dalan sa akong dagang.

Continue reading Kalingkawasan, Katitikan, Katilingban: Ang lamdaman sa akong dagang

Ang Taboan Writers Festival 2011 at ang manunulat na Higaonon/lumad

Nonfiction by | March 13, 2011

Ang Taboan Writers Festival 2011 ang pangalawang pagkakataon kung saan narinig ang naratibong Higaonon/lumad sa isang uri ng pagtitipong may pambansang malawakang saklaw. Ang pakikibahagi ko sa ganoong uri ng pagtitipon ay bahagi ng panimulang artikulasyon ng Higaonon/lumad, sa larangan ng panitikan, sa naratibong kaakibat ng kanyang pag-iral sa panig na ito ng sansinukob.

Isang magandang pagsalubong ng taon ang pagbibigay-diin sa panitikang lumad sa Taboan 2011 nitong nakaraang Pebrero 10-12. Tinitingnan ko ito bilang isang palatandaan na kahit pa sa gitna ng lahat na di kanais-nais na nangyari at nangyayari sa mga tribung lumad, hindi mababalaho sa ganoong kalagayan ang pakikisangkot ng lumad sa paghuhubog ng pambansang naratibo. Bagaman sa aktuwal na kumperensiya’y iisa lamang yata akong kumatawan sa panitikang lumad.

Continue reading Ang Taboan Writers Festival 2011 at ang manunulat na Higaonon/lumad

Language and Literature: Imagination’s Way

Nonfiction by | March 5, 2011

  1. Any written work is text. “Text” is from Latin texere, textus, “to weave.” So then, to write is to weave language anew, and all we read and unravel is a word-weave, a text-tale.

The text is not so much written in a historical language, like English or Tagalog, as wrought from language. For the writer, the language is not a given. In every instance of writing, language is re-woven, reinvented, because the writer must find his own path through the wilderness of language. Our thoughts and feeling without our words are like brambles – the underbrush of the human psyche, dream and intuition.

To write is to breathe life into language. For the words of any language are single and bereft in the dead sea of the language’s dictionary. No meaningfulness arises from there, from that dead sea, because the meanings of words do not arise from themselves, but from lives lived. The words come to life only when writer or reader light them up with their imagination – then, and only then, are the words brought into interplay in some order by which a thought or feeling, a human experience, is endowed with a definite form. From there – that form made up wholly of elected words, that configuration of a human experience constructed with words – a meaningfulness arises, from reader to reader, from critic to critic, each one drawing imaginatively from his/her experience of the world in his/her own community of a shared ideology.

Continue reading Language and Literature: Imagination’s Way

Our Love Story

Nonfiction by | January 30, 2011

If you really wanted to hear about it, you will probably want to know where I was born, what the entirety of my not-so-lousy childhood was, and all that crap. But you do not, and that’s good. Besides, I am not going to write my autobiography or whatever, like I am going to die soon. Duh. I am going to tell you about the whole madman process of how I learned English. And hey, looking back, it seems you can compare English to a guy, or heck, maybe a boyfriend. The kind you want to hug and choke at the same time.

Where I want to start telling you all this stuff is when we first met. I was still very young (I was in preschool that time). At that time, it really did not matter to me who he was or what he was; I did not need to know him yet, at least at that point. So, for all intents and purposes at that time, we were just acquaintances. Our teachers wanted me to get to know English better, and use it more often, but it wasn’t a requirement just yet.

And if it is not a requirement, would any kid do it if she did not like it anyway?

Continue reading Our Love Story