Non-Overlapping Magisteria

Jonas does not believe that he should have to choose between his work and Alice. They are two completely different aspects of his life.

Image from nupe.co.uk

 

You are being pussy-whipped bro, James, his friend from work remarked.

But Gabrielle, another colleague, had a different opinion. What do you expect her to do Jonas? Wait for you to come home everyday and massage your feet after your day at work?

Honestly, Gabrielle’s suggestion is preferable to having Alice 8000 miles away; and him flying back and forth from one side of the globe to another just for them to be together for a few days out of every year.

Women are put into this world to wait on men, James further opined. You have to up your game, and show her that she is not the only pus – sorry – girl in the world.

Let it be put into record that James’s statements were made in the context of him inviting Jonas to join a “boy’s night out” which consists of a visit to a KTV along Quezon Avenue and a really cool spa in Makati where the therapists provide “extra service.”

Jonas was seriously mulling James’s invitation.

Gabrielle intruded on his thoughts because she was concerned that Jonas did not have the correct priorities. Gabrielle is a happily-married mother of two, and she is as worried about Jonas’s erratic lovelife the way she is worried about her own son’s scrapes in the playground.

She is now saying: When you are in your deathbed, you will not wish that you had put in more time in saving our rainforests. What you will regret is that you have not spent more time with the woman you love most in the world.

Gaby, with all due respect, you are not in your deathbed, so I don’t think you are in a position to say what people in their deathbeds are thinking.

Jonas, I may not be in my deathbed, but my father currently is in his. And that was exactly what he told me.

An Agnostic Attends Christmas Mass

(now)

It is 6 in the morning; there is a slight drizzle of rain and the world is as cold as the North Pole. I drag myself from bed; in the same spirit as Jonas, when he dragged me to a Simbang Gabi just like this oh so many years ago.

***

The charming Aglipayan church where Alice groggily listened to a now-forgotten sermon about faith. One cannot blame Alice for being distracted and not paying attention to the priest. All throughout the service, her boyfriend was tracing indecipherable messages on her palm.

(then)

The church was small but it was strung with Christmas lights and there were homemade decors inside, making the peeling walls look almost charming. A confession: most times, when I am inside a church or attending mass,  I imagine myself doing a Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”

Most times. But this time, Jonas insisted; so I went (agnostic that I am) to hear the early morning tradition called “Simbang Gabi”.

My earliest memories of going to mass were associated with funerals. When I was 5, my grandmother insisted that I accompany her to the funeral service of her friend; the casket was open and I was deathly afraid the corpse would rise up ala “The Walking Dead” and eat me. When I was 10, my grandfather died and after the church service, before the procession to the cemetery, my mother told me to kiss lolo‘s hand if I didn’t want his ghost to haunt me. Then my mother died. I was 12 and I was alone beside my mother’s casket because my father who was then still an illegal alien in the US would not come home.

After that brouhaha at church during my mother’s funeral service, I stopped believing in god. Thereafter, my forays to “His house” were made to please others and not because of any religious conviction on my part.

So I was inside a church, with a man I just fucked a week ago. How cool was that.

“Do you think these people would be here if their neighbors had stayed at home?” I whispered.

Jonas squeezed my hand, “Alice, honey, it’s 4 am. Tomorrow will be Christmas. You don’t need to prove something every single hour of everyday.”

***

(now)

I sent this letter specifically because I know it will never be read:

Dear Jonas, I don’t expect you to write back. Knowing how you never log on to any of the social media accounts I’ve badgered you to sign up for, I also don’t expect you to read this. Which is good. As I can consider this a diary or something. Words I have unthinkingly sent out into the void. To pass away time. And hopefully to get rid of this disconcerting loneliness amidst a sea of activities.

Everyone seems to be in a hurry around here. And they all get to their appointments on time! The campus is beautiful and the leaves do really turn yellow in the fall. I can’t wait for December and see what snow looks like. I am enjoying my classes. There are a lot of readings and the teachers really expect a lot from us.

I have never seen what autumn looked like before. It’s beautiful. The leaves turn into shades of yellow and brown and the sunset seem bigger and more extravagant.

I miss you.

Yours, Alice

We imagine Alice on her laptop; she is dreaming of Jonas who is also dreaming of her. The worldwideweb is a conduit of their dreams. Image from http://www.canstockphoto.com

But, yesterday, I received a Facebook message from someone who never opens his Facebook.

The truth is, I had never expected (never, never, ever) to see my Inbox to contain anything like this:

Dear Alice,

I am glad to hear that you are enjoying your studies. I am currently in a hiatus from our project in Davao and has been staying here in Laguna for the past couple of months.

Why would you think that I won’t write back? I wish now that I could have sent you off with more graciousness than I did — I am sorry for being such a bore at the airport — but you do know that I love you. And I have told you that so many times.

I am trying to do the Facebook thing, but you know my attitude about social media. It’s an invasion of individual privacy by multinational companies that claim to have our best interests at heart.

I can imagine you rolling your eyes at me again.

Marianne is getting married next month and she misses you too. Anton and she will go to California for their honeymoon. I know you’re in the East Coast and California is on the other side of the US, but maybe you can find some way to contact each other and catch up.

Alice, my love, our country has just been devastated by the strongest typhoon in the history of the world. A lot of people have lost their lives, their families, things and persons they care about. For many of them, the loss is final and irrevocable.

As cliché as it may sound, life is a fragile blessing, love even more so. I will go on loving you for as long as my heart remains beating.

Yours, Jonas

When Jonas mentioned “the strongest typhoon in the history of the world”, he was not exaggerating. He was referring to the innumerable loss that Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) wrought on their country. Photo from manilatimes.net

***

So can anyone blame me if I am now present in a scantily attended service inside a Catholic Church named after a saint who was, once upon a time, beheaded by a king of England?

Lost

Raffy: Bakit ka nagpaiwan?

Lea: Bakit umalis ka kahit naiwan ako? Dahil malakas  ka at malakas ako. At iba ang gusto mong gawin sa gusto ko. Nawala ka sa akin pero kung sumunod  ako sa iyo noon ang nawala sa akin ay ang sarili ko. Magiging masaya ka ba sa isang babaeng walang sarili? Hindi na sya siya magandang asawa kapag ganoon.

(Raffy: Why didn’t you go with me?

Lea: Why did you leave? Because we were both strong and we wanted different things. You left, I lost you. But if I had gone with you, I would have lost myself. Would you be happy with a woman who doesn’t own herself? She would not have been a good wife for you.)

   From: “Bata Bata Paano Ka Ginawa” (translation mine)

Award winning Tagalog novel by Lualhati Bautista.

It also had its own movie which starred Vilma Santos,

an actress who became a politician, a typical career path for Filipinos.

***

(Alice’s POV)

I miss Jonas.

It is April but I feel chilly which, according to Kim, is weird because everyone in New York just adore this weather. Maybe, she said, I am cold intolerant.

I just woke up and the one-room loft  we share is empty. Kim’s bed is already made up; she went out early to make rounds.

I am alone save for my thoughts and these … memories … of him, who else?

I know, I know … this was my choice. I chose to go.  I chose to leave him hanging there with his ring and his good intentions and his heart which, according to Marianne, I have broken into smithereens.

So I am the bitch. Fine. I admit it. You can unfriend me on Facebook, Marianne; I messed up royally.

But … I also had to do this. I had to get out of that country which is slowly suffocating and killing me. I had to escape from my work where I haven’t been happy for a long time. I wanted this — this opportunity to learn so much more than I would ever have a chance to know had I stayed in Manila. I would never have forgiven myself if I didn’t take this chance.

Jonas, don’t you understand? I love you. With all that I am. But I also love me. If I had stayed with you, I would have lost myself. And would you be happy  with a woman who does not own herself?

I feel cold. So I wrap Kim’s sweater tighter around me, and curl like a child on the lone sofa in the living room. I listen to the Chinese foodstore owner haggling with a customer downstairs, the smell of fermented shrimp paste wafts up my nostrils. Smells of home have never made me feel sadder.

Alice wonders at how clean and beautiful everything is in New York. She would have enjoyed being here, in the center of the world, if only she didn’t feel so shitty about what she left behind. Central Park in April. Picture from Wikipedia.