After Making Love, You Hear Footsteps*

dawa garo mayo man; huna nindo lang

pirming igwang nagdadangadang. Ika

handal tibaad an saimong kasaruan,

sabi mong haloy nang nawara, basang

na sanang magbutwa; siya man masundan

daa kan ilusyon na an sugid haloy niya

nang itinalbong, alagad ngonyan saiya

tibaad nag-iidong-idong.

Sa laog kain saindong kwarto garo igwang

nakahiriling saindo. Sa saindong pinapaiplian

garo man sana dai kamo nalilipudan. Pagmati nindo

pirmi kamong linalamag kan kun anong duwang kalag.

Dai man daw basang na sana sinda nindong binarayaan

ta nganing sa kada saro kamo magpasiram-siram?

Sa saindang kasuyaan, dae ninda aram

kun sain maduman. Yaraon sinda bisan diin

kamo magduman. Sa saindang kasusupgan,

dai ninda kamo tinatantanan. Mga kalag sindang

dai nagkamirisahan. Ara-aldaw ninda kamong

sisingilon kan saindang kamurawayan.

*Dispensa ki Galway Kinnell

Pagkámainamígo

Atâ bako nang magasto, kadakula pa kan balyo. Dai man daa kaipuhan na sincero an saimong pagbugno: an dikit na pagbabalatkayo iyo an minapaandar sa makinarya kan komunidad tang mga tawo. Kun kalabanan, pinapahiling o pinapamatî ta sa iban nga muya ukon uyam kita sa íla, mayo kitang kinalaín sa mga kabataan sa day care center na tibaad pirmi sanang nagdidiringkílan nagkukurulugan naghihiribían kawasâ mga pusngak pa bayâ. Kaipuhan ta an minsan na pagsagin-sagin—ukon sa ibang pagtaram, pagpugol kan satong sadiri. Dai ta paglingawan an kasayúran sang una nga an sarong kutsarang tanggúli bako an sarong galon nin suka an minapadulok sa ligwan, na nagiging tabuán. Kun mainamígo kang marhay, tibaad an makidamay saimo gamáy. Alagad dikít sanang tiempong indî ka manîno, mayong tawong madulok saímo.

 

Sinurublian sa Hiligaynon

pagbugno, pagtîno

kalabanan, kadaklan na beses

nga, na

iban, iba

ukon, o

sa íla, sainda

kabataan, kaakían

kasayuran, kasabihan

sang una, kan enot na panahon

gamáy, dikit

indi, dai

 

Susog sa “Friendliness” na yaon sa Worldly Virtues: A Catalogue of Reflections ni Johannes A. Gaertner. New York: Viking Penguin, 1990, 101.

Suddenly, last summer

Back then, we had a hundred and one ways to spend summer, if only to while away the absence of friends in April or survive the heat of May.

Once we set up a table borrowed from the grade school library to serve as our table tennis court. Not long after, the table tennis table burned in the whole days with my brothers all bent on mastering the newfound skill of ramming down a small ball into the brown board so the opponent goes off the court with the ball clueless where the ball went or wherever he himself went.

Not long after, the table tennis pastime became an addiction that Mother saw there was problem with it—we were glued to each other’s “performance” as if all we had to do was to prepare for some “tournament”.

I wonder whether the table tennis “tournament” materialized. Perhaps Mother said the school library already needed the table sooner than the first enrolment week in June. So I think the table tennis table had to go as we also had to prepare to go back to school—but not our newfound acumen for precision or skill for timing which we learned from each other or together. Talk of quality time in those days.

"...I have felt for many years that if I had children and a television set I would insist on putting an empty box next to the set; for every hour my children watched television they would have to spend an hour creating their own play with the empty box…

We would go visit our cousins downtown to watch the nightly feature on our aunt’s Betamax movie (ware) house. But the nightly feature was more of a bore because we watched films with the rest of the barangay who paid for their nightly entertainment of Bruce Lee films and Ramon Revilla flicks. What I looked forward were the times we would rather spend time for ourselves after or before watching a film on their Betamax set.

Once, my younger cousins and I watched Gary Valenciano’s Di Bale Na Lang perhaps a hundred times in a short time, say, a week or a month. The elder cousins always watched the same tape, so watch the same single film we younger cousins did, too—twice, five times, ten times, perhaps indeed a hundred times, now and then telling the same story to ourselves, laughing at the same funny scenes for a number of times and memorizing the actors’ lines in the long run.

It was not that our cousins had no other tape to watch. But that was how we chose to entertain and please ourselves. Imagine watching the same show through the days of the week—or sometimes many times a day. We perhaps internalized some of the characters from the flick that we even eventually behaved like them in our own persons. Characters which we, through the years, would later become.

"…We need to take up activities that truly engage us with ourselves and others—music, painting, poetry, dance, massage, cooking, hiking in nature—not to pursue prizes or with a mentality of judgment but rather as we would approach prayer itself, for that is what these actions are—acts of meditation and art as meditation."

In the year, we would climb the kaimito and santol trees even before they started dropping fruits on our open yard. Or we would fly airplanes made from scratch papers after our studies were over. 

When it rained, we would make paper boats and roll them into the small river that flowed from the foot of the hill where our house stood. Or where today it still stands.

These days I find myself standing still, taken aback by days of old, helplessly enchanted by the empty spaces that these and other such memories always create in the mind. After so many years, the colors are as vivid, the air as fresh as with childhood. Everyone then, regardless of where we went or what we did, seemed uncomplicated. It was as if every single thing was in place. Then, we did not bother so much where and when and how we would want to be. If at all, then, we were always happy and free.

Aftertastes

Some years ago, I came to Iloilo for a number of reasons. Yet, none of them is the fact that I would have to enjoy, among others, the food in this part of our country.

Rather overrated for their many “firsts,” the Ilonggo are food-loving people; and may I say, they are food-eating people. The Ilonggo just don’t love the food; they also eat with gusto, which is not very much different from the culture of the people in Bicol where I grew up.

Through the years, I must say I have come to love Iloilo food. In fact, my palate has not craved for more, because some Ilonggo dishes only remind me of those I have also tasted savored & relished back home.

Bakareta

I first ate bakareta in 2005, when a fellow high school teacher suggested after our morning classes that we order it for our lunch from a lutong bahay in Magsaysay Village in La Paz. I found it was not different from our very own inadobong baka. After all, bakareta is the combined form of baka and kaldereta, both terms and dishes we also have in Bicol.

I always enjoy bakareta’s tender beef and gravy, which I suppose should not be too much. One day, when my father-in-law put just pepper into the tenderest beef he must have bought from Super (Iloilo’s largest public market), I could only utter ohhs ahhs & mouthfuls of praises. Holy cow. The treat was unforgettable.

Laswa

Around the same year, I was introduced to láswa (soft a in the second syllable), a sticky hodgepodge of okra, kalabasa, beans and some leafy vegetables like saluyot or (if budget permits, pasayan or shrimps and dayok, or small shrimps). While the viscous dish is because of the okra, I relish the soft squash and the nutritious tastelessness of the leaves that this dish offers. 

Every time I eat laswa, I think of my liver my heart & my lungs being able to breathe rejuvenate & renew after I have eaten tons of peanuts or indulged in lechon or fastfoodstuff (Stuff is the right word for all fast food since they just stuff you with salt sugar & spice and other hardly soluble ingredients). I am grateful with laswa because I become aware how the leaves roots & fiber would help absorb douse or wash down the oil salt & sweets accumulated in my system.

For the supply of greens, Bikolanos would put ugbos kamote (young camote leaves), okra, or other tender leafy vegetables over the simmering rice. Or we cook them in other ways. While Bikolanos have no laswa, with its exact ingredients and cooking procedure, we enjoy kettlefuls of vegetables which are best cooked with small fish or smaller chunks of meat in ohhsome coconut milk (gutâ) or else. Besides the regular sili or labuyo, I wonder where else we would get the gusto for everything without the gutâ?

Paksiw

In the 1980s, my mother used to ask me to buy paksiw from Tiya Deling who owned a nearby carinderia. A classic bestseller in those days, the Bikol paksiw is virtually sinigang na baboy with lubás leaves that flavor and douse off the porky smell of the pork. But one day in Iloilo, I was surprised when a friend ordered paksiw and was given some small fish onioned peppered & soaked in langgaw, their homemade vinegar. There, I found out that Iloilo’s paksiw is Bicol’sinón-on, where ginger or garlic is used to douse the fishy smell of the fish. I sip inon-on’s gravy that is langgaw that comes in any paksiw treat as long as it is not onioned. We hardly used onions for inon-on (these two words are almost anagrams); otherwise, it would really smell different. Or inonions.

In Bicol, ginger or lâya best douses the smell of any fish, except perhaps pági or patíng, with which bigger aromatic leaves like lubas (libas) or ibâ (kamias) are cooked. Whenever I am treated to paksiw or whenever I cook inón-on myself, I make sure there is more gravy or vinegar. If not, I set aside something from the dish which I could fry later. Sure, once I cook it in little oil, the small fish soaked cooked & intimated in langgaw would become crunchy mouthful of stories to tell.