Dear Lolo,
I woke up this morning with the urge to paint. I rounded up my brushes-- the expensive Japanese ones I saved up for in high school-- and I laid out a fresh page of linen paper on the floor. I filled a paper cup with water and dipped the brushes in. I watched as the bristles came to life. I opened an old tube of acrylic paint, sky blue, cerulean blue, the color of the sky the last time I saw you, but all the paint had dried.
I regret not bringing home your paint set and your assortment of long and short-handled brushes amidst charcoal pencils, kneadable erasers, rulers, and tissue paper to blot out excess color. The wooden box with the leather latch that carried your collection doubled as a makeshift easel; it was too heavy for me to carry home. Lola kept the box. Maybe it is better hidden in her closet so the next time she rummages for a dress, she will think of you.
(My sisters will probably make good use of your paint set, too. They have school projects lined up and both of them have taken art classes some summers ago. I think they might have used your watercolors for the Christmas cards they sent me, pink and orange and very merry vivid blue.)
The holidays were different without them: Mama and Papa and the little ones. It was a momentous year for us; moving to the States in such a hurry, and finding a new house, building a new home, finding new jobs and finding more family. It was the year we all learned that distance was a solid thing, and you could hold it, and it could hurt you. We learned that distance was immeasurable during your death.
But it was not a bad year.
I got to travel and felt what it was like to be "on the road." Cebu, Sorsogon and Aklan here. Union City, Fremont, Berkeley and San Francisco there. And then Kunming, China later on. Those times I was in transit, there was displacement and there was placelessness-- there was always the new knowledge of home.
Last year, I also established that I could become financially stable on my own. The product manager position at the telecommunications company left me with more than enough to spare even after I quit. My stint at the sandwich shop in the States afforded me trips to art exhibits, book sales and other wild retail adventures. Upon coming home without a job (and sadly, without a graduate school degree because it wasn't time, it simply wasn't time), I survived on freelance writing for a newspaper and a film company. The current job in politics pays double all that.
And oh, Ondoy happened. The ordeal of swimming through floodwater mirrored metaphysical events that marked the rest of the year. I struggled to save memories, I fought for purpose, I sought for meaning in the midst of unease and disillusionment. I flailed and I floated. I swam through floodwater, and I am still swimming through all that the storm left behind.
(I will skip a lot of parts, the most painful parts that deserve only secrecy and severance. But you know those stories, Lolo. I tell you everything now.)
Last year was about loss but it was also about love.
I want the love you have, Lolo. The love that transcends the deathliest distance.
To love and its un-death,
Camille
P.S.: You would have turned eighty last January 2. It was the first New Year without the baked scallops for you. But they tell me you were there that night when the stereo in the living room started playing your favorite songs without anybody touching the radio. They raised their wine glasses as they listened to Mozart in stunned, beloved silence.
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hopeful
cold
tired
sore
confused
anxious
okay
trying to be hopeful