Memory Lane

I haven't been able to catch family on Skype.

So  I am now missing them more than ever

especially since 

I heard that the Manila flood waters were at it again the other day

(in spite all the digging and public works they had done there),

and that youngest brother is seeing sisters as he travels around the States,

and I had one missed Skype call from Father yesterday morning 

and three missed Skype calls from Eldest Sis last night.

So I am posting these pictures

 (which family would surely understand) 

to send out the message

that I am thinking of them.

Trees for Trains

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” 
― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

They are building the train station here at our suburb in the site of the old Arthur Whitling Park.  The Anzac Day Dawn Service was held at the park on 25 April 2012 for the last time.  Last year, they began the demolition work that started off with the removal of the Anzac Memorial ... then they removed the trees. 

On 07 November 2013, I saw that the small trees had been removed.

I knew that these trees would be next.

There was one last tree on 08 November

 

I knew it would be gone by 09 November

You can still see the last tree ...

... it's gone now.

We attended our first ever Anzac Day Dawn Service in 2009

at the Arthur Whitling Park

when we first landed in Australia.

That site is forever lost.

Tree of Life

I was crossing the street to get to the office this morning

and what do I see?

This Nudie Coconut Water truck.

When I got to the other side of the street,

I pulled out my phone

and took a shot of the truck.

Why?

Because it reminded me of my mom.

(Hi Mom, I miss you!)

One of the earliest things I learned from her about coconuts

is that coconuts are the TREE OF LIFE.
(And we all know that mothers know best, right?)

So if I ever felt like having some buko juice, 

at least I know it is locally available.

Miss My Anorak

When we were very young, we had these blue anoraks.   I loved my anorak so much that it was hidden away in my cabinet for years with its sleeves folded in and the whole thing rolled up and tucked into the hood.  And when I say 'years', I mean 'YEARS' as in my three kids could have worn it at some point in time  had I remembered that it was in my cabinet.  Alas, the kids are too big for that anorak and besides I already donated it before we left the home country (at least I hope I did).  As for me, I don't think I went to enough cold places as a child to merit wearing the anorak because I have little recollection of me wearing my anorak yet in spite that it was a special piece of clothing.

There was a sale at Rivers some time back and they were selling 'puffy jackets' at half price.  It was still Fall at the time and I wasn't really looking to buy a jacket.  However a friend of mine had recently mentioned to me that the secret to keeping warm was not so much the layering as it was the air-tightness of the clothes, and the jacket I happened to pick up was size XS (extra small).  When I tried one on, it was soooo nice and cosy.   (Let's make new anorak-like memories.)


SOLD!   

I usually wear my puffy jacket at home so whenever I catch people on Skype these days (and they see me wearing my new jacket), they would say, "It must be cold there."

Little do they know, the kids love to hug me while I wear the jacket.  They put their arms in between the layer of clothes I am wearing and the jacket I have on top and they go, "Oh, it's nice and warm in there."


These pictures are especially for Z, who mistook MyGirl for me yesterday.  She said we looked like twins.  I had to take a second shot to capture more of the puffy jacket because MyGirl said that if the blogpost was about the puffy jacket then the puffy jacket had to be part of the picture.

Time to Smell the Sampaguitas

I grew up in a house full of books. Reading was hobby, not a chore. The books in our house could probably surpass that of a small library in terms of the selection as well as the number of books to be found.

Over the years, I bought more books for us, mainly cookbooks and religious books for myself and children's books for the kids. To give you an idea of the number of books we had, aside from the three bookcases (in Makati at one point), there were books stashed away in boxes, plastic crates and drawers both in Makati and Cebu Avenue.

When we moved to Australia, our books were among our prized possessions. I remember that as we were packing, I asked the children to segregate the books they wanted to bring and the books they were willing to give away. I ended up with two tall KEEP piles and two or three books in the GIVE AWAY pile.

Much as I would have wanted to take all our books with us, it was physically impossible and financially challenging to do so. In the end, I packed away many and left a lot. We had at least 4 boxes/crates filled with books that were shipped along with our things. (Yeah, yeah, most of them were mine.)

By the time we'd moved into our rental and our shipping boxes arrived, we were fortunate enough to have inherited one bookshelf. I thought I'd be home all day, so the cookbooks and the Sinag-Tala books got the shelf space.

I have been wanting to take an inventory of the books we have in the house because I honestly don't remember which books we brought and which ones we left behind. Last night, I decided to START taking the inventory. I sat down in front of the linen closet with a small laptop and brought out one of the HP boxes of books stored in there. I pulled out books from the box in mini-piles at a time and started an excel file to get my inventory going.

There were about six low stacks of books inside the box (which once held a CPU). I managed to get four stacks into my excel, reaching seventy records. I guess I got distracted because I found something of special interest to me. Of the 70 books I keyed into the inventory, there was only one book in particular that I felt like reading -- Time to Smell the Sampaguitas.

This is a very special book. You cannot find this book in any bookstore, anywhere in the world. There is a very limited number of copies of this autobiography. I don't even know how many copies of this book exists. But surely, there are at least ten.

I brought the book along with me today and read it on the bus going home. I loved reading it. It brought a lot of smiles and gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

I marvel at the author's writing style. She describes her life growing up in the farm (Chapter 1). She uses words and phrases which border on poetic. She manages to document her life and express her thoughts and feelings with such clarity and vividness.

She incorporated stories about her family life which were funny and memorable. She wrote about how she and her future husband were reunited after she came home from the States. She gave a run down of her children, all ten of them, adding a sprinkling of stories about each one. She didn't whitewash her history nor her personality. She said it as she saw it. She wrote it as she felt it.

I can't quite figure out when she wrote this book. (Late 1980's or early 1990's perhaps?) I wish I could because then I would be able to tell her exactly how many years it took before one of her dreams came true.

On page 43 of her book when she talks about the family tradition of circulating a birthday list of needs and wants, she writes what hers would be like -- " a chapter of a book" or "a clean room".

I have to mention that "clean" is relative but "a chapter" is tangible. So it is entirely possible that she got her 'clean' room (not the quote location) early on. The dream come true I am talking about here is the 'chapter of the a book'.

I couldn't help but smile because FINALLY, after possibly 20 years of waiting (asking, reminding, prodding, and anything short of bribing), she was able to get the chapters of her dreams as we her children kept our noses to the grindstone and produced a chapter each, as per request.

The sequel of sorts to Time to Smell the Sampaguitas will be Rainbow Run.

Hope you are practicing what you preach, Mother.

Relax. Relax. Smell the sampaguitas.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

When we were young, carefree and unattached (as Mother likes to put it, describing the time when we were all unmarried and living together under one roof), we would ring the bell which hung on my study room table.

The bell itself was essentially just a bell. OK, there was some slight sentimental value to the bell because it was the giveaway at our JS Prom when I was a junior. But that was many, many years and one boyfriend ago.

Going back to ringing the bell. The bell would be rung to gather family members around the altar located in the study room, above Mindy's table, so that we could pray the family rosary together.

As the years passed, sadly this tradition ceased to continue. Father and Mother continue to pray their rosary at night but possibly because Cebu Avenue is practically an empty nest, ringing the bell is no longer part of the routine. People are welcome to join the rosary if they are around but there is no audible call to the occasion.

At our place in Makati, we used to have a bell, too. However, the purpose of the bell was different and it almost always got its job done. The bell was used to get people, mainly the children, to come downstairs for meals or for vitamins. We figured it was better than shouting each child's name to call for eating time.

I liked that bell. I wish I had packed it in our shipping box. It definitely knew how to serve its purpose. Of course any old bell would do if you really thought about it and were not very picky. (And yes, the old fashioned way of going up the stairs and calling the person would also work.) But I suppose I like to keep little bits and pieces of our past life alive. So when I saw a small bell on sale, I picked it up and bought it.

It isn't as fancy as our old 'eating time' bell and cannot be hung like my HS memento. In fact it is just one of those bells that look like something you'd find in school or something the ice cream man (mamang sorbetero) would be using. But I'm pleased with it because it has a nice ring to it and it gets the job done.

The other day, as the rice got cooked and the food was being placed on the table, I told RD to ring the bell.

"Why, Mom," he asked, "we're all here."

"It's to let people know that they should go to the dinner table already. You know how SOME people are," I said purposely, looking at GI as I said it.

RD dutifully rang the bell and it took GI ages to leave his computer and join the rest at table.

See what I mean?

The Last Leaf

I truly love the colours of the autumn leaves. I felt quite sad to see all those beautiful red and orange leaves fall on the ground. It didn't help that the last few days of autumn were dampened by the rain. It was bad enough that the leaves got detached from the branches. But all that rain meant more leaves would fall from the trees then all these fallen leaves would get wet and often end up pasted on the ground.

Back in the Philippines, yes, the leaves would fall, but there always seemed to be more than enough leaves to go around. The trees were almost always green. I cannot really recall seeing a tree lose all its leaves.

The closest thing to experiencing "fall" I can think of would be walking along narra tree lined sidewalk of Ayala Avenue. There would be times when the trees were filled with fragrant yellow flowers. Then soon after, these flowers would be scattered all about on the ground along with the leaves. If you happened to be walking along the street at that time, you could end up walking through a shower of leaves and flowers.

We also have a narra tree in the backyard at Cebu Avenue. I remember Father pointing out that particular tree beside the pelota courtwhen it had regained its foliage. I think he had taken a picture of the tree when the branches were kind of bare and was planning on taking another at that time when the leaves had returned. But somehow the tree never seemed to be stripped of ALL of its leaves.

GI has fond memories of narra trees as well. There were narra trees inside the campus of Don Bosco Makati before they were cut down to make way for the Savio Dome. There is often a hint of sadness when he mentions those trees even if their removal paved the way for a huge covered area within the school campus.

Enough of memory lane for the moment and back to the present... I left the house and headed for the city, I couldn't help but notice that so many of the trees along the way had shed all their leaves. The only consolation was that the knowledge that winter was but a season and soon it will be spring. New life would spring forth and the branches would once again be filled with leaves.

The truth is, when I saw these trees stripped of all their leaves, I couldn't help but feel that the insides of the trees were exposed. It made me think of the sacrament of confession. You know how at the confessional, you bare it all and your essence is brought out in the open. There is a mix of emotions which hinges on sadness and remorse. However after a good confession, there is joy and peace and hope. The YOU which had shed all your layers of sin and falsehood, will soon have a fresh start whereby a new YOU, a better YOU, a happier and more beautiful YOU can emerge; just like the winter trees that have only their branches to show today but as summer arrives these branches will surely be covered by so many new leaves you would hardly recognise the skeleton of a tree that it once was.

I do so look forward to spring.

Christmas Past

I have always, always spent Christmas at Cebu Avenue. This is the first Christmas I have spent away from home. As you know, we are starting anew and now I have a new place to call home. (Or is it 'Now I have to call a new place home'?)

Although we did have a very good Christmas here, I think my mind will always wander back to the Cebu Avenue living room on Christmas mornings. We would wake everyone up at the wee hours of the morning and check out the gifts under the Christmas tree. As children, we never did the Noche Buena thing so waking up at 5:30am was not a big issue. We wanted to be able to open gifts as early as possible and have enough time to take breakfast before catching the 9 am mass.

We used to have piles of gifts under the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree would be in the corner on a Christmas tree skirt with all our names. (Was I the one who practiced my calligraphy and made outlines of our names on the tree skirt? Did we paint it using the Tri-Chem? I don't remember now.) The tree would have been put up some time early December and decorated with an assortment of Christmas ornament gathered through the years. A star would be placed on the top of the tree and the lights would go around. As gifts were received from godparents, family and friends, these were placed under the tree.

On Christmas Eve, family members would place his/her gifts for the others under the tree before going to sleep on Christmas eve. Imagine ten people giving gifts to nine other people. (RD's math tells me that there would be at least ninety gifts under the tree!). Our gifts would often be simple (hair clips or stickers or the like), practical (T-shirts or books), whimsical (puzzles) or fun (toys or games). If bigger gifts were in the Christmas list, siblings would pitch in and split the cost so that the gift could be bought. The wrapper would range from fancy Betsy Clark (either for or from London Eye) to practical Manila Bulletin (signature Slash-M and J). If it were wrapped "innovatively", in all likelihood, Mindy was the giver of the gift (Snap-Wrap has yet to be patented). We would play the Ray Conniff Christmas CD (I have a copy of the CD with me and perhaps this is the first year I have not played it since it is still in its shipping box) and sing along and "... count our blessings instead of sheep." If it was cold on that particular Christmas morning, we would look for the blue mink blanket (which I believe is with Eldest Sis now).

Someone would be in charge of distributing gifts. Names would be called out and piles of gifts would be formed in the living room. When all the gifts had been distributed, we would wake Father and Mother up (if they were not yet awake) and then we would open our gifts. My memory fails me ... I don't know if we opened gifts one by one or if everybody opened their gifts at the same time. All I know is that by the time Mother called us for breakfast, there was wrapping paper and gifts galore all over the floor.

Breakfast would usually include food we had received as Christmas gifts -- ensaymada, ham, apples, oranges, grapes, etc. If we were lucky, we'd have hot chocolate as part of our meal.

Christmas mass would be the 9am mass at Twin Hearts. After which we would be preparing for Christmas lunch. (Yes, more food.)

Christmas lunch was special because relatives we hardly see during the year would make the effort to drop by and have lunch with us. There was always a lot of food because we are quite a big clan and we never really knew who would come. I think Mother's invitation was never really RSVP. It was more "you know where to find us, if you are free for lunch, come on over."

Father's brother would come with his family, usually bringing extra fruits or dessert. Most of the other visitors were Mother's cousins and their families. Sometimes family friends would find their way to the house and join us. We had a particular aunt who would often come home for Christmas from the US. She was always fun to have around. And prior to one of her sons taking up photography, she would be the one pulling out her camera and calling everyone for a group photo. As things turned digital, she was still holding on to her camera with film and manual focus. (I should ask her to scan our family photos over the years. That would be a sight to see.)

This family gathering has dwindled to fewer relatives in the recent years as more of my generation has gotten married. I suppose many have conflicting lunch obligations, some have moved away, others are probably just too tired from the Christmas Eve activities. Regardless of the number of people, if I know Mother, rain or shine she will prepare Christmas lunch and will welcome those who comes over for Christmas lunch with open arms.