Love Letters to Himaya: April

April 2, 2016

Dear Himaya,

You’re a month and a week old now baby. Yay! We’ve come a long way I must say. I remember when we started it was tough. I was absent for the first 8 days of your life because I was hospitalized after giving birth to you. I will tell you about it in detail next time. And then the week when I got home, I would only be allowed to carry you while sitting down because my wound from the operation was still healing. So for around two weeks, it was your lola mothering you most of the time. It was because of that that I would sometimes doubt my mothering skills. I felt that I was gone too long and you’ve moved on with your life and I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep up. Very much like the story of our breastfeeding (which is another story I will try to tell you in detail next time as well).

So the weeks went by and you’ve grown and I honestly didn’t know you as well as I know you now. Although I still don’t know you perfectly. Knowing you will probably take a lifetime so I will be grateful for every single moment I get to learn more about you.

Back in those first couple of weeks I would be scared when my mother leaves. I’d be afraid I wouldn’t know what to do as she does when you cry. I’d be afraid what I’m doing wasn’t right. Because what is right? Sometimes what’s right is you just want to be held when you cry incessantly while I mistakenly think you’re asking for milk. You’ve taught me that along with many other things.

You’ve taught me to discover regions of myself I didn’t think existed. I am a very impatient girl and I like to be in control. But you’ve put my patience to test like no other to the point that I’ve surrendered to patience itself. You have driven me to tears at times with your incessant crying that I would end up calling the angels for help – beseeching your guardian angel to comfort you.

Your father and I would take turns comforting each other. He’s the most patient man I’ve ever known but you were the one who broke his limits. Unbeknownst to you, you have conquered your father. And I would laugh at him because of his love-hate relationship with you. I told him once that you are teaching him to love a woman the way I’ve always insisted for him to love me. For him to keep on finding out what I want without me having to tell him. Because you are a baby, you can’t tell him exactly what you want and so he needs to keep on finding out how to make you stop from crying.

We kept on fighting about that for so many years, you know; because he would always insist that I tell him what I want because he would never guess but I want it otherwise and insist that he should know by now what I want because we’ve been together for a long time already. But he wins because he says I’m so fickle-minded and he cannot guess with such inconsistencies like mine. He’s right, though; and so I’ve learned long since to just be direct and demand for what I want instead of just sulking or crying in a corner. But this isn’t a time for lessons on love between a boy and a girl. Let’s just get back to this when you’re 16, alright?

Now back to the things you’ve taught me. You’ve taught me to give most of myself without anything in return except for opportunities to plant kisses on your cheek or on your head or to watch you sleep and feel such profound love while looking at you.

Whatever it is that I’m doing stops when you need to ___. You supply the words: pee, poop, be cleaned, be fed, be carried, be comforted, be lulled to sleep, be nappy-changed, be given my full attention, etc. Indeed I was right when I said back when I was still pregnant that once you’re born, I won’t even be mine because I’ll be all yours.

You’ve taught me to smile at and be thankful for the littlest of things; like when you get surprised and both eyes would be wide open at your own fart; or when you burp so loudly after you’ve been fed; or at your silence while being cleaned after you’ve pooped; or when you seem to smile at me or smile in your sleep; or sleep so comfortably in my arms; or stop crying once I’ve held you; and so many other daily things that I might not even remember to write about because changing your nappy or feeding you has to come first.

I thank you for choosing me to be your mother in this life, my love. Although I must admit that I have so many questions right now. From higher self to higher self I want to ask mainly why you chose to come in the physical form you have come in. When I was six months pregnant with you, we found out from the ultrasound about your physical deformity: you have cleft lip and palate. And as weak as it may seem of me, I was in denial at first. I was hoping the lip will still close.

I felt afraid that the world might judge you because of how you look. I suddenly felt the weight of the responsibility especially the question on feeding you and worrying whether I’d be able to breastfeed you. I was scared that I might not know how to mother you. But it was in those dark moments that I found the beams of love shine through us. Your father and I vowed to love you no matter what. To care for you and provide what’s best for you in the best possible way that we can. It was love I held on to while I waited for you to be born. And that love I held on to was the very same love I felt the first time you were laid in my arms.

And then reality. There was no doubt about my love for you but there were practical things to think about. First of all, we were confronted by the fact that you’ve been separated from me for 8 days because of my postpartum condition. While I was in the hospital, I could imagine my dreams of letting you latch on me and breastfeeding you slowly going down the drain. You had to move on with your life while I was recuperating in the hospital. Your first breastmilk was from the woman who gave birth before me in the same maternity clinic. Afterwards, you’ve been fed with donated milk from breastfeeding mothers through the help of latchers in Davao. I learned from my parents that they’ve been advised to use a syringe to feed you. But a lot of milk gets wasted and I was scared you might choke from it. So I suggested to use a dropper and the feeding got so much better.

When I got home from the hospital, we tried all sorts of things. I even tried to make you latch on me. And latch you did! You tried to feed but my milk supply was too low for your current need. You would end up crying from frustration and so we would go back to the dropper and feed you with donated breastmilk. One father from Tuburan also lent us his younger daughter’s bottle feeder. And when we introduced it to you, I was amazed at how good you can actually suckle. But then we had to stop using it because your palate was beginning to swell from all the sucking. So again we went back to the dropper. I was suspecting it might cause gas pains but while we didn’t have other options, it had to do.

One of my friends mentioned that there’s a special feeding bottle for cleft babies in SM. So I asked your father to look for it while I searched the internet for information about feeding cleft babies. I learned from all the reading that it is the most common physical deformity among newborn babies in the US and is also the most correctable. There is no one sure cause but there may be many factors such as genetics. It can be inherited. And breastfeeding is challenging because like in your case, the cleft is a bit wide and might widen some more if you suckle at the breast. Meanwhile, there were a lot of information on feeding methods; there’s even information on how to find or make improvised suitable feeding bottles.

We ended up settling for the feeding bottle with elongated teat which your father thankfully was able to find and buy from SM. It was difficult to use it at first and there would be times when we would revert to the dropper when feeding gets difficult. Your father and I argued about it a few times because he’d rather use the dropper while I prefer the bottle with elongated teat. I argued that you won’t learn how to feed on that bottle if he keeps on using the dropper and that using the latter might just be for his own convenience but not for your own learning. In the end he gave in and we all tried – including your lola – to feed you using the yellow bottle (I’d like to call it). 1 month forward and you can feed so well on the yellow bottle already. And I am honestly very proud of you.

I’ve read that babies are intelligent creatures and they know what to do to survive. You’ve shown me that; such as when you put your tongue up to kind of close the gap between your lips. I believe you do this to prevent unnecessary stuff to get inside your mouth. Your father thinks you might be doing it for comfort. In both cases, I am glad to know that you know what to do because I would never know. These are things you don’t learn from books but experiences teach so well. Indeed I continue to be amazed with what you’re able to do even at your condition. I thank you for inspiring me.

We learn each day, my love, and we cope. And I thank God that we do. Although I still have questions, but I have more faith in higher purpose. I choose to have faith in your higher purpose – this prevents me from questioning my family’s genetic makeup: why of all cousins from your generation, it was you who got the deformity and why of all cousins from my generation, it was me who had to be the gene carrier. Forgive me, my love, for this weakness. But do know that I respect you for choosing to come in this physical form and I look forward to the message you wish to tell the world and to the time when you fulfill the mission you came on earth for.

There are procedures you have to go through such as the nasoalveolar molding that the corrective surgeon suggested, then the operation to close the lip, operation for the palate, speech therapy, braces, and so on, as you get older. I pray for you to be strong and I pray for strength as well so we will be able to carry you through all of these times.

I’d like you to know that I believe in your strength. You show me every day how strong you are. You take after me for being defiant but you’ve molded it into your own fierceness ready to take on the world.

We have a long journey ahead of us, my love, and like the song your father and I would keep singing in the hospital, the end is truly not in sight yet. But I have hope in the stars, in your smiles, and in little moments of love that we share every day.

I love you, Himaya!

Mama

I received a message from my will exercise for the day (which is drawing). It goes:

Your hands are beautiful and what your hands are doing is growing leaves – nagalabong, nagalabong (flourishing, flourishing).

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So much has happened today. I finished writing another morning circle – the third set I’ve written for Tuburan so far. It’s technically the fourth set we’re about to use for the circle time of the kids in the class but the first one wasn’t written by me but gathered from the song books that we have translated into Bisaya (our mother tongue) with melodies applied to the songs by me and a co-nurturer.

I was very excited and inspired to write it and while I was writing, I was imagining, singing, dancing, and moving while recording in-between to make sure I won’t forget the melodies to the songs I’ve written. The next step then, is to master the lyrics, the sequence, and the movements and it will be ready for use by Monday of the following week.

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It was my friend E’s first time to eat samgyeopsal today and I was more than glad to spend time with her and my other sister girlfriends on a holiday. As usual, we eat a lot and laugh a lot and talk about many things as we always do when we’re together.

E and J helped me realize today that the questions I had one night while I was talking to J was leading me towards the reason why I feel like I cannot/am not yet completely committing myself to Tuburan.

I realized that getting myself in Tuburan was like having an unexpected baby in the middle of being so driven in a career. The career had to be sidetracked because the baby needs me. I felt that I was asking those questions about love and commitment and full service about my work because my personal plans (especially the wedding) have been sidetracked by everything that my Tuburan work demands from me. I think this is a wake-up call to be honest especially to the people involved about how I feel. I need to set a striking balance between what I’m doing at present and what I’m planning to start for the future. They are equally important and I have to take care of both of them to not lose any one over the other.

Embracing the coffee-colored skin

If I had been vain with my skin I would have quitted my Tuburan work. I have become so tanned that I think of my skin now as the color of light coffee. That’s a no-no for girls who wish to become as fair and as rosy as snow white. Well, I never really dreamed of becoming snow white in my lifetime. It’s not one of the wishes I grew into. My family never raised me to be so.

I have aunts who have very natural translucent skin, even my mother is very fair – it’s in their genes. But my parents are like milk and chocolate so when I was born, I was more of coffee-skinned taking after my father with a bit of milk from my mother. There was a time when I was in high school that I would be insecure about my color because according to TV, fairer skin makes you more beautiful. I also remembered that when I used to live in the more urbanized part of Davao in my grade school days, my classmates remember me to be fair and so I ask myself wherever the fair-skinned V had gone.

I realized that when my family moved to a lesser industrialized part of Davao, I outgrew my fair skin as a young child. My skin turned into mocha which is probably because I was closer to the sun. My friends and I would go to one classmate’s house and pick fruits to eat. Or sometimes, a friend and I would walk under the heat of the sun after our class and go to Mintal jeepney terminal to wait for her crush’s car to pass by before we go home and eat kinilaw in their house. I also remembered dancing about Creation under the early morning sun in front of a crowd in a municipal hall of the baranggay where our school belonged. These are just some of the few things that made me closer to the sun.

And thus the coffee or mocha color. Which has become browner ever since I became one of the nurturers of Tuburan. Which means to me now that to be browner is to be closer to the sun – closer to who I truly am and what I deeply aspire for, closer to the true nature and depth of my beauty as a human being.

I am very delighted that writing about horror vacui in relation to music has driven my friend who follows my blog from another platform to write me a letter in her blog in answer to what I wrote about in the horror vacui entry. My heart is warm all over. Thank you soul sister! <3

Horror Vacui and the Need for Noise

I thought once: I don’t really care what kind of music you listen to because if I take myself for an example, I listen to almost everything: rock, pop, alternative, country, Japanese and Korean, classical, new age and new wave, or combinations and ones I may have forgotten to mention. What freaks me out is the loudness – turning the volume up at decibels of sound that makes the earth beneath me shake or makes my heart go have a cardiac arrest even if I have no history of heart ailments.

It’s very difficult to have insensitive neighbors who listen to very loud music. They, perhaps, think that the world, music, and volume are theirs to abuse. If it wasn’t a crime to cast them into fire, I would have burned them down already just to shut them off. Whenever they turn up whatever it is they’re listening to at its most abusive volume, I curse and swear they would fuck off and stop masturbating in public. That’s how it felt for me, listening to their music in its most abusive volume is like them masturbating in public because I feel that listening to music is personal – something that needs to be enjoyed alone or in low volume, like when you hush-hush over secrets or tiptoe during midnight on your way to bed.

Meanwhile, this makes me think of a lesson in school about art. I remember vividly the terms horror vacui. As I remember how I understood it, horror vacui is the fear of being alone or in terms of art, the fear of leaving an empty space. So if you’re going to observe Filipino art pieces, you’ll find that some of them leave no space without color, figure, image, or object. Every space of the canvass is filled, literally.

I think now of horror vacui in terms of the noise that many Filipinos make a lot of. My parents, especially my father, are the closest examples to home of those needing noise. Right from when I wake up, I can hear the radio already on. Although it’s not exactly too loud, it’s still distracting to me that many times, I would get up the bed just to turn the volume low. I have nothing against songs on the radio except that when it’s early in the morning, I want to hear the birds, the chickens, and the day that is beginning to wake up as I do. It’s also alright for me to listen to music on the radio as long as the volume is also turned down low.

Sometimes I hate it that people don’t understand my need for silence or the absence of noise coming from or made by humans and/or technology. But I also realized that people who have the need for noise might hate me as much, too, for claiming so. I just fear for the loud ones – the too-loud ones, because to me it seems that they’re not only breaking their eardrums when they listen to too much noise; they might not know how to listen to their inner selves anymore because they have drowned themselves in technological noises they have surrounded themselves with. For me, this is just another form of horror vacui.

However, it is also important to note that the loudest of noises come from within such as unresolved feelings and issues, undiscovered selves, scars and memories. I understand that listening to silence, to nature, and to your inner self can bring out the purest of pains. Although I pity myself when I get lesser chance to enjoy listening to silence, nature, and the natural beauty of all forms of music without the loudness, I also pity those who have the need for too much noise. Perhaps their inner voices and purest of pains are becoming louder and louder by the day that they need the loudest of volumes to drown out the voices and drown out the pain.