old blog post >> domestic morning

Man is indeed meant to wake up early. After a three a.m. to twelve noon shift at a call center today, I came home still refreshed and looking for things to tinker, and expend energy on. Sunlight does propel you into a spinning top; darkness invites introspection and meditation.  Off I scrubbed the kitchen sink and wiped clean anything covered with dust from renovation – pots, cement residue on windows, the fridge. The new bathroom was very inviting, too. The bath is always where I express my, err, domesticity best, especially on this new one, the usage history of which I keenly followed through.

I put the Christmas tree up, now an ageing cone with bald patches everywhere. I trimmed it though not satisfactorily yet. But seeing it out, setting the holiday mood, is a welcome improvement. Much like the house renovation we recently had. It’s not perfect, with yet a lot of rough edges, and much has to be done. But the renovation “tilled the soil” for many upcoming improvements. Mama moves around more to do a little cleaning. Her mind’s getting a good number of exercises by the plans she makes about furnishing the rougher, unfinished parts of the house. We have so much to thank Lee for.

My hands have been prune-like from being wet for too long, coarse from the cleaning detergent, but I loved the smell and feel of their domestic accomplishment.

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morbid fantasy

Cure me from the morbid fantasy

of falling and rolling off to the unknown

right when I’m ripe for the picking

 

of sitting beside pilots in cockpits

savoring the turbulence before a crash

 

of leaving before children and old age

make the magic wear off

 

of punctuating an incendiary speech

with a bullet

 

of levitating elsewhere upon

a cloud of cigarette smoke

 

of vanishing after laying

a manuscript to bed

 

of permanent curtain calls

 

of invoking God after the last climax

 

of dying young

and letting the story live on.

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First fall

Come

we comb your

hair anyway, your last

lush frontiers.

Rest

the globe of your

head on my

breast

the memory of yours.

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Putting dreams on hold

We’re turning a little orange with the carrot puree that we have for breakfast everyday and I hope it will become a habit.  It’s convenient and refreshing since I also put in some apples and cucumbers, too. And most recently, the ostracized red bell pepper is also disguised in the puree.

I remember when I was living independently when meal times weren’t under the rigors of schedule. I would eat anytime, sometimes greatly, sometimes never, and the topmost priority is not nutrition but convenience.

Surprisingly, with convenience as the byword, I ate lean and healthy. As much as possible, food shouldn’t require cooking so I’d stock up on wheat bread and cheese, tomatoes and lettuce, spreads like bottled pesto, and fruits. The fruits – bananas, apples, cucumber, mango, whatever — I’d pop into the blender and that’s my lunch. Burp.  I could also come home to an empty cupboard and it wouldn’t matter; Seven-eleven and Ministop are a stone’s throw away.

How I miss those times. The home was just for sleep. I hardly stayed in because there was so much to do, and so many friends calling on you, and so many strangers to meet or peruse.

There were the Salsa Nights on Wednesdays after work, poker on weekends, and our version of the MacLaren’s and Central Perk of TV where we’d hang out by default.  If we were tired of our watering holes, we’d scour the city(s) for something special.

Friends were as restless, each clique with its own interests, and each clique overlapping with another, a network so tangled and festive and present. We didn’t know sleep, we didn’t know curfews on weeknights, but we didn’t know mediocrity at work either.  We ran in heels, tight skirts and high collars.

The only responsibilities I had then were myself and my job. The opportunities were endless and the praises, addictive. But despite all that, I struggled with peace of mind. My mom had been living only with one companion, an aging help, in a gloomy house too big and stubborn for just two elderly women to maintain.

For almost twenty years as a widow, something she had never prepared for nor expected, she raised us, and became mother and father and provider especially to me.  After all these, now is her time to be selfish and never alone.

And so, after so many prayers, I came home. I decided that my dreams could be put on hold because I will have so much time for those in the future, if God wills these.

These days, I am in the middle of my answered prayer. Sometimes when I look far into what could have been, I get sad and discouraged. But always, always, it is during these times when I can feel God most, standing in the middle, standing behind and ahead of us.

“Our wills are ours, we know not how;

Our wills are ours, to make them thine.”

– In Memoriam, Lord Alfred Tennyson

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optimism vs denial, carefree vs careless

For the first time, I cried in frustration in front of my mom today because I feel she’s not taking me seriously. I haven’t cried in front of her since the diagnosis and I swore never to show weakness or sadness or anything that would depress her.

But today, it just blew my top that whatever I share falls on deaf ears. Whatever I suggest — to do a little walk, to have some activity, to sit up and not lie around all day, to stop using deodorant — is dismissed as insignificant that it has to come from the doctor or my brothers so she’d listen.

God, it’s so frustrating and I’m hurt that I’m still treated like the youngest child who doesn’t know anything. I couldn’t stop myself from telling her that I’m emotionally hurt that my efforts are not considered because of many many assumptions about my capability, age and whatnot.

I have spent a huge portion of my pay and my savings for medicines and food that are forgotten and left to rot.  My booked travels abroad this November took a backseat, and I have refused opportunities for exposure and invitations for dinner because I can’t afford to have her miss a dose of her expensive maintenance medicines.  My work has been at a standstill, too, but work now is not my priority anyway.

I have never whined to her about my frustrations until today.

She complained about pricking pain in her armpits where part of the surgery was done. I had her raise her arm so I could have a look. It was quite moist, so I dabbed on it and took a whiff. It was deodorant.

That’s when I burst into tears, rambling about aluminum and lymph nodes and actively knowing the enemy. I had no choice but to throw out every deodorant in the house. I could not understand how one could still be so in denial and careless.  Optimism is not denial. Careless doesn’t mean carefree!

For the first time, I begged that she would take the situation seriously, too,  like how the people around her are moving heaven and earth to make her feel better.

God, such a prima donna post this is. I may be blind to some truths, too, so I pray for patience.

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who says i can’t be an unwed mother?

I’m trying to introduce a new, healthier diet at home and it’s not as easy as I thought. My patient is a salivating meat-eater, picky and overly fancy that she’d usually just eat her vegetables when buttered and cheesy.

At dinner, I brandished a shiny, red capsicum to her from afar and beaming, she asked for a slice. When I handed her the wedge of sweet pepper, she stared at me as if I were some witch trying to poison Snow White.

Am I dealing with a five year old here? No, it’s my 67 year-old mother that I’m starting all these changes for.

From her stories, I could imagine how her childhood and family history have been padded with fat through the years.  Mama tells about her stern mestizo father who had a wick’s temper and a constant request for food that kills. His health had been strafed with the excess salt of binuro and bacalao, homemade meats, and the pork fat and lard that were a standard in frying everything. He died early at 54, but his Iberian lifestyle continues to live on in his daughter.

That, my friend, is my stumbling block, the solid, hardened artery that I have to knead back to health.

I’ve been reading up on food to include in the diet. So far I’ve stocked up on salad staples like cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, and the rejected capsicum.  We don’t run out of fruit now either, but she could only take limited servings as a diabetic.

Oily fish is also recommended but I’ve been scraping supermarkets in vain for affordable cuts of salmon.  When I was in Manila, I could buy small, cheap portions of salmon belly at Robinsons’.  I’m hopeful about K-mart though.

It doesn’t end in the grocery shopping though. Another challenge for me is how to prepare these in ways that would please a discriminating palate.  I do not like to dabble in the kitchen but now I have to.

Now I feel like an unwed mother.

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