Not A Day Passes

that I don't think about the people from 5 and Up. I don't know why today, particularly, the memories seem to wash over me tsunami-like.

I'm staring at my monitor in this cold, impersonal office and suddenly a face appears in my head. It's of no one in particular, yet it's strangely and comfortingly familiar. It's one face of many, like a hundred thousand expressions of emotion compacted into one face you recognize and instantly love.

It's the look on the faces RJ and Ray when they come bounding into the office, happy to see you after a whole week has gone by. It's the face of Justine in a hearty guffaw in the middle of Rome. It's Giggles's a-ha moment. Enzo's concerned look when you exhibit a moment of weakness, Jessica's look of delight at the prospect of another shopping spree, Jolly's half-serious, half-amused look when an interviewee would talk down to him. It's Oly's animated, eyebrows moving up and down in the smug, "ain't-i-smart" look. It's Melvin's eyes when he's come up with a great one-liner to crack. It's Josh's gentle grin in the middle of a noisy mob. It's Patek's romantic eyelashes against the Melbourne sunset. Chiyomi's compassionate smile, Kai's bright thinking eyes, Krianne's daydreaming look, Frances's look of anticipation when arriving at a new place.



It's a hundred thousand expressions of friendship and trust, growing and leaving. I see this face in different places. Sometimes it's a previously-visited place, other times it's totally new and alien. But I see them all there, right there, and it doesn't matter suddenly if it's a place I've visited a million times before or for the first time. Somehow there's something I look forward to.

Everyday, there's something that reminds me of what someone said---after all these years! I remember Eva's quiet conversation with me when I broke up with my boyfriend. It still touches me sometimes and makes me tear. like,now! "You know the pain is going to end, all you really want to know is, when?" Sometimes a picture or mere mention of Mindanao makes me reminisce about my three-week soujourn to Mt. Apo with JayO. That was life changing for both of us. "Nakakainggit ang pagka-simple ng buhay nila," he said of our beloved Bagobos. "Tinatanaw kita sa grocery. Kinakabahan akong mag-isa kang lumabas!" he exclaimed when we were stuck in a hotel in the middle of Muslim-insurgent Cotabato. Or the way he sang any song with a swardspeak accent.

I remember Marj's heart-felt, quiet "thank you Data" when I was able to make their trip to Bolinao "possible". I can recreate, with the finest detail the moments when Abbie revealed, 'ah, kasi Dates, tumawag si Nessa para sabihing...nanalo ng Best Children's Show in Asia ang 5 and Up WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Also Agay's tentative revelation of "Dates, kami na kasi ni Jason" (she's going to kill me) and how I fell on the floor in excitement for her. I won't forget Jing's enthusiastic greetings of "Halllooooooooo!" everytime she came to work. I remember how Tin was the only one who hugged me when I felt the whole team was against me. I remember Tops's "thank you, thank you talaga. Grabe!" when he became part of the team.


I also clearly remember how Giselle and I were hooting and squealing as the cold waters of the river in Palawan below and around us. I remember how we laughed ourselves silly over how wet we got but also how closely we came to being swept by the tides. That was 6 hours' walk through rocks, vegetation, kaingin-ed villages, malaria-infested swamps, sparsely-populated Batac villages. But it was one of the best long walks I've ever had.

I remember most the voices of the people who taught me, and taught me well. I remember when Grce praised my first ever shorty: "Malinis na ang pagkasulat at pati yung edit. Yehey!" In front of the whole team. I remember Auey's firm tips on shooting and editing a story: "always run behind the cameraman. put all your audio on 1. you can make that montage tighter." But also I remember how she sighed, while driving through UP and around Sunken, "Ah, trees! This is the closest I can come to Central Park." She had just come from New York, after months of studying to be multi-media magician. I remember thinking: I want to be
able to say that someday.

Yas and I had many many conversations, both verbally and written. We exchanged lots of letters of encouragement and support. Both reluctant leaders, we quailed at the supervisory tasks set before us. She was the first to take it on, then me, and I tried to learn from being her second-in-command. I liked being that. It was always great to work with her because she was excited about all her ideas, and most of all, BELIEVED they would come true. It's always energizing to work with someone like that. "I'm recommending you for SP, Data," she told me one evening before a dinner with the 5 and Up gang. I was elated and frightened at the
same time and suddenly felt like a small, small child. She seemed to feel my apprehension, and said later in a letter, "I have confidence in you and what you can do for the team. I've seen how much the team has grown You are doing a great job! I believe in you."

There's so much to remember with Ian. There's no just one thing to pinpoint but whole seasons to recall. There was a season of discovery when she was mentor and I was apprentice. "Red files are raw files, yellow files are edited or aired video." There was the season of nurturing, when I was learning to do things on my own and feeling the reality of working in Probe---and working all day and overnight through my birthday! "What do you want us to get you for your birthday, Data?" she asked on the morning of my 23rd birthday, while in front of the editing machine. I said I wanted a hashbrown. She and Yas got me three. And a sausage muffin.

There was a season of changes. Ian almost got married but had to let go. Then she fell in love but the guy was too far away---that made her really sad. I was going through changes too and Ian was there to listen. There was a time of stationery mania and cross stitching and The Lord of The Rings in the dead of night. And my first email account. "Point of no return, Data," she warned when I was done filling out my online application form. And she hit the submit button. From then on, I was hooked!

At the climax of the season of changes, there was the season of growing and leaving. Ian left too, but she was always there. And I was always with her. We lead different lives but also go through similar days and somehow meet somewhere and there's never nothing to say or do. To this day we link to each other and to the many others who touched our lives in similar ways. She taught me how to keep doing what you love doing, and showed me many alternative ways of doing so: joining a sport, learning a craft, writing your thoughts and feelings. "Okay lang yun if they're all written down in different places," she told me once. "The important thing is, you captured them."

So I guess it's ok to have all my memories scattered in many different places and spaces in time. It's all right to remember so many different people in one suspended moment in time that will represent the years that made you whole. Nevermind if we've scattered bits and pieces of ourselves in each other and taken all these to totally different, yet somehow parallel universes. The important thing is, we created those memories all those years ago and we're together when even just one person remembers a word whispered or a gentle smile given in an expression of love and trust, and a friendship that we knew instinctively would never end.

The important thing is, there is someone who remembers. And not a day passes I'm thankful that I do.

MILESTONE!

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dataptolentino/5164407/">the reception area, under a canopy of flowering vines
Originally uploaded by Data P. Tolentino.

This is serendipity at its most beautiful. I can't believe how difficult and yet so easy it was to get here.

Imagine, what were the odds of us coming across those pictures in a two-year old magazine, disregard it, go searching all over the metropolis for the perfect place, get disappointing results, only to return to those photos as a last resort?

At first I didn't want to consider it, thinking a destination wedding would be very expensive and out-of-the-way. But after Bubba and I reassessed our priorities, we decided to take a chance, and that chance paid off!

The beautiful discovery was Marina's Garden, just off the Mendez junction in Tagaytay. It was a perfect garden setting, with fountains and flower beds, rock gardens and herb paths...like something out of a European wedding magazine! The bathroom was a real riot: it was a door in a wall, and when you went in, you'd see the inidoro and sink in the middle of a tropical rain forest!
the toilet in the rainforest

The beatiful flower-lined paths were peppered with whimsical sculptures, like cats about to plunge into a pond and turtles and rabbits playing tic tac toe. There was a gazebo where i knew the reception program will be. There were canopies where we'd dine. And most of all there was sweet, gentle, caring Tita Marina.

She invited us to lunch and fed us til we couldn't even groan in protest. The food was great! The inihaw na liempo and chicken, the ginataang hipon with veggies, and the cheesecake...all these were so familiar-tasting. And why? Because she used to own Full House in Katipunan! Oh, wonderful, unforgettable, choc-full of memories Full House! I wanted to jump for joy! It all fit! And it all felt so good! Suddenly I felt comfortable with this whole place, with the sweet lady sitting in front of me, in the middle of her gorgeous garden. I could see myself walking barefoot on the grass, the guests milling about, talking, laughing. I felt it was finally happening. All that was needed now was the perfect church.

We had checked Caleruega on a previous trip and found it gorgeous. But far. Lourdes seemed too old and worn. I was aware there was a Chapel on the Hill on the way to Caleruega, but I hadn't checked it out the last time. Tita Marina encouraged us to go see it, and so we did. I was arguing in my mind if we should drive all the way up there because i felt it was too far, but Tita Marina and Dianne (a make-up artist and friend of Tita Marina) said it was only 15 minutes away.

So we checked it out. And what did we find? The perfect church. It's small and intimate and beautiful, the very way we want it! For its backdrop, it has the Batulao mountains and Taal Lake. The only thing to do when you see it is sigh.

Two birds with one stone in a weekend. If that isn't a blessing, I don't know what is! And even if I was soooo tired and feeling sick, I felt so enthusiastic and so excited about planning the wedding all over again. Now that I've found such perfect venues, I think I can count on every little thing to follow to be just as perfect!

- 1

Haha! Today I celebrate my -1 wedding annivarsary. In 365 days, I will walk down the aisle.

Gosh! It's real, isn't it?

Maybe that's why I'm feeling a bit sick. Hehe. Maybe the future is travelling back to remind me of how I'd feel next year. Or maybe it's telling me to NOT feel like this next year: a warning to enjoy myself and relax and have fun with my wedding preparations. To enjoy the last year of my life as a single woman before I take on a new role.

yadda yadda yadda

I'll be sharing the day with four other w@wies. What are the odds, eh? And we're turning out to be friends! Just when I thought my circle of friends would get smaller with marriage, I'm finding it is possible to stretch a little further and reach out, and great a larger circle of like-minded beings.

Hey Grace, Nette, and Angie: here's to us and many, many years of happy and sexational married life!

Sigh

Missed class again today. It's funny because I may get so brain dead here at the office, but I'd rather stay here than go to school. Eventhough it's quite interesting. Sometimes.

Hay.

I'm actually quite confused. I want to study but sometimes I find it such a chore. There are times when I discover so many cool things, but then most of the time I knew these items already. I wanted to study because I wanted to keep my feet wet, and at least one food in the media. But then I'm in IT and marketing, and I wonder, where does it all come together? And how?

Then I think about how tiring work is, and how sometimes I feel I shouldn't be here. And I want to give up. Then something happens that makes me think, hey! I can do this. I'm good! But also burned-out. And I just want to go home. But I'd rather stay here in the office and chat and surf the web. Or attend to wedding preps. All that rather than trudge home tired and depressed. Sometimes I wonder, where IS home?

I want to do pretty projects and stuff that keeps my hands busy, but sometimes I worry that doing this doesn't really a career make. I worry that it won't keep me alive. I worry.

And I worry too much. Sigh. I know. I should just jump. I am a rabbit after all. And rabbits, when they jump or hop or leap, will always land squarely on their two big hind feet.

I'm a size 8 1/2.

A Most Brilliant Star

Tala came to me on a Tuesday night, after a long day at work.

It was late, and Bubba took me home after a dinner with Gema. Hers were stories of utter betrayal and abuse by her (now) ex-boyfriend, and I sat and listened to all of it, feeling her anger and pain but not really knowing what to do with it. It was an awful thing to go through. Hopefully no one I know will ever have to go through this. I hope it's the last time this happens to her.

And so Bubba and I set off for home, feeling drained and myself increasingly depressed because I was going back to a place that was sucking away all my strength and good feeling. But as we pulled away from UP, he gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers! And the evening seemed less heavy.

We drove, and when we got to my house, he stayed a while longer, making a big fuss of me keeping away the prototype ring I lent him. We were shuffling all around the house, around the room, tidying up, and he kept asking questions regarding the lore of rings: where should you wear it? what happens when you have the wedding band? etc. Finally half an hour later, he announces he's about to leave.

He kisses me on the forehead and says, "di ako pinapansin," and he chuckled. I looked up from the magazine I was browsing and gave him a hug and apologized. He said, that's okay, and will please put that ring away---the prototype was sitting on a stack magazines and books. So I picked it up, and walked to my dresser where its box was. As I picked up the box, I noticed another ring inside it. I held my breath, blinked my eyes, and I was sure that it was a prettier, more elegant ring.

I opened it and there she was: Tala was shining her multi-faceted smile at me. Bubba put the ring on my finger and hugged me, and he asked "Do you like it?" I said, "It's perfect!"

When will I be home again?

I feel like I'm breathing in cold, thick, black air. It creeps through my blood and finds its way into my heart, clouds it up slowly suffocates it.

That's how it is, I guess, when the person who gave you life starts taking it away a little at a time. On the surface things carry on as if nothing is wrong, but beneath it is a palpable silence. Everyone's unspoken thoughts about recent events simmer just below the thin glassy surface. The agony is in the waiting when all of this will break.

It hurts, especially since I was expecting everyone would be happy about the wonderful turn of events in my life. Instead, there is an awkward peace. Someone will be holding back just when another is ready to let go, and neither will give in to the other.

When will we be ready? When will love and trust and peace and compassion be ours again? When will we start being a family again? I don't want to wake up again tomorrow and see a cardboard version of the home I used to know. I don't want to plant a made-up kiss and give a half-hearted greeting of hello or goodbye to someone who doesn't want to communicate with me.

In fact I don't want to go back "home". It's not what it is anymore. And I don't know if it will ever be home again.

There's something about Mama

She's not the way she used to be. I know because it's been manifesting itsel physically: she's thin, she's puyat, she always looks tired. She always looks sad. I can also feel it emotionally. She seems cold and withdrawn. She's usually quiet and seems to be looking far away all the time. But then there are the angry, violent outbursts for no reason. She'll shout and she'll swear. She has no patience. She has no trust for anything anybody is doing.

This is what happened last Saturday, my siblings recounted to me last night, while I was out. My titas came for a visit because it was Monique's birthday. They brought food for cooking when previously the family was just expecting to order out. So all the siblings jumped in to help prepare and help out in the kitchen but Mama was bustling around, criticizing everyone's work, shouting at the top of her voice that everything was so disorderly and wrong, nit-picking at everything, calling them "walang silbi" while the titas were there. It was as if she was venting, taking out her anger about something and someone else on them.

It's been like this for some time now. She always feels like she's being taken for granted. She feels like she's so kawawa and not understood. She feels alone. I don't understand why she feels this way, when in fact we try to reach out to her and ask her how she is. I personally do that. But sometimes when I do, I feel that she gets offended. When I ask her about her work and how she is, she says she's rather not talk about it. She keeps quiet and shuts me out.

Her reason: she doesn't want to bother me further with her problems. But isn't that what a family does? Share. Everything. And by sharing, we find some wisdom in simple suggestions. Or relief by simply telling other people. But she doesn't want that. She keeps it to herself, and she suffers with it. I think this is another manifestation of her can't let go attitude. She won't delegate.

I personally feel she doesn't want to listen to our suggstions. :( I don't know why--maybe it's because she thinks she should be in control? I think she thinks we think she's lost control, and therefore has lost authority. That we don't need her. In fact, she blurted out yesterday morning that we're all taking her for granted. She said it like it was a fact. And that remark has really been bothering me.

I wonder now if she's depressed. She's exhibiting almost the same symptoms I was showing when I was depressed. But I don't know how to approach it. I don't know how to tell her that without offending her further. I've been thinking about talking to her, and having somebody there who was a third party, someone from outside. But I don't know whom to talk to.

Maybe I should tell the sibs about my thoughts. Maybe they'll have some suggestions. I actually dread going home there now. It's like the whole place is zapping my energy. In fact, it doesn't feel like home so much anymore.

A Luncheon in February

February 2006, that is. We went a-hunting for our wedding reception venue yesterday and we covered a lot of ground! I had shortlisted a coupls of venues that would keep with my idea of a garden setting. So first on our list was the Orchidarium in Manila.


photo by data
It was even prettier in the daytime than in the evening. I was here once, on a dinner date with Bubba, and we liked it then. We like it even more with the sun streaming through the trees and gardens. Plus the food at Lush Life, it's official caterer, was very good. We got a good look at the potential set up: there was a wedding happening in the late afternoon and chairs were being set up already. Bubba and I waited til 12, the time of our reception next year, just to simulate how it would look and feel.

The verdict: it would be hot! There were some gentle gales blowing, but predominantly, it would be sunny-warm, and so we would need tents. The ground where the event would be held was cemented, which meant heat would get absorbed into the pavement. If it rained (which i hope will not come to pass), the guests would huddle under the tents or they could run into the restaurant nearby, which, unfortunately was big enough for 60-70 people. One of my concerns was the bathrooms: there were none in the open-air venue, of course. Guests would have to enter the resto or the admin affice to take a pee or retouch. Worse, the bathroom was only big enough for one person. And when I had to use it, I couldn't find the light switch, and peed in the darkness.

photo by data

In all, we'd be spending a whopping P51,500 for venue arrangements alone. Flowers and styling not included. Food not included. However their buffet menus were quite affordable: their most sosy menu was just P700, and the food mentioned was delectable.

photo by data

Then we went to Makati to check out the Courtyard. Quite a disappointment: it was simply an elevated block of cement behind the library. There was a reception being set up here, too, and at least we got to see how it was possible to transform the place. We inquired regarding the prices for venue rental and they were cheaper than the Orchidarium by about 60%. Plus, if we decided to get caterers not in their list of preferred suppliers, we wouldn't have to pay any corkage fee (unlike Orchidarium, which required 12%of the gross cost).

The verdict: cheap, accessible, but not really the venue of my dreams. This would be pretty at night with the Makati lights twinkling, and votive candle flame dancing in the breeze. But in the daytime, at high noon? I don't think so.

Next we crossed over to the Manila Peninsula. We visited their Conservatory, and right away, Bubba and I felt good here. It seated 150-165 people and it had large glass windows that allowed the sunlight to stream in. The place looked cozy and intimate enough, and I liked the fact the place was in a controlled environment, allowing us to decorate it well. Bathrooms were accessible, and the food was good (well, we had churros, chocolate, coffee and a cheese cake).

The verdict: Number one on our list. I guess, if i can't have a real garden wedding reception, I could simulate one. And at least the Pen is a good place to do that. There are a lot of amenities as well, and we can even assure everyone they'd be comfortable.

Hah! There. We'll be checking out the Mandarin this week. We'll see which one catches our fancy more, and which fits our budget nicely. :) Hopefully we finally get to book a venue this week.