what’s with writing workshops?

“Writing workshops did me a lot of good, but it has also done a lot of harm. Cold formality in my writing is a ghost that continues to haunt me.” Timothy Montes
oOo

Lent was spent revising my stories for the March 31 deadline of IYAS Creative Writing Workshop which runs from 25 April to 1 May 2005 at the Balay Kalinungan of the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City.

Writing workshop is a cerebral intercourse with loads of sado-masochism thrown in. But why do we keep on coming back for more? Is it for the chance of meeting aspiring writers to establish and expand networks? Or is it for the opportunity of standing on the shoulders of literary giants? Or the chance of visiting a place on partial subsidy?

Thus far I have a 50% batting average: got accepted by Iligan, rejected by UP-Mindanao; got thrown out by La Salle-Bacolod, taken in by Dumaguete. In that order!

Until now I still have this feeling that I was accepted in Iligan in 2001 simply because Christine Godinez-Ortega, the workshop directress, must’ve found my name familiar, she and I being occasional essayists for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I submitted “The Memories I Keep” which I wrote in just four days after I accidentally stumbled into Iligan’s press release a week before deadline. It was the first “story” I wrote that heaven knows I now wish I hadn’t.

“Is this a story or an essay?” chorused most of the Iligan panelists and fellows. Chari Lucero recited some lines in “The Memories I Keep” like they were parts of a declamation piece, saying afterwards that my story could win hands down in the Worst Purple Prose Contest in the US. She even went on to ask me, rather quite sarcastically, if she be allowed to submit it herself! Then to my rescue Jaime An-Lim said: “But if anything, I like the title.” Bwahaha-huhuhuhu!

A year later, Merlie Alunan, who was made to write the critique-cum-introduction to the workshop’s output in book form, said that my story-essay-whatever “was a finely controlled narration….” Go figure!

I must’ve learned nothing from Iligan because the stories I submitted to UP-Mindanao that same year had more POVs than there were eyes on a pineapple and with shifts more jarring than its husk.

In 2004 I applied for both the IYAS and the Dumaguete Writing Workshops, submitting the same stories of course. With IYAS, I didn’t lose sleep after knowing that it had awarded only three slots for English fiction and that I was up against Kit Kwe and Peter Mayshelle. But the cynical me had a Hwaaaaaaaaat? moment after I was told I made it to Dumaguete. There must be a mistake somewhere, I said. Me and THE Dumaguete Writing Workshop? Oh my GU-lay, DE-licious!

As everybody knows, I lasted only for a week in Dumaguete that two of my three stories remained untouched by the panelists and fellows. While I told them that I was going home to vote to prevent FPJ from winning, I’d rather keep to myself the real reasons why I didn’t return. Having done that, I wonder if I can be called a Dumaguete fellow.

Dumaguete was really a waste because I could have learned more from Edith Tiempo, Krip Yuson, Cesar Aquino, Jimmy Abad, Butch Perez et al.

At the bienvenida dinner hosted by Dr. Edith Tiempo at her wonderful Montemar residence overlooking Dumaguete and Cebu, Atty. Yee asked me how my “Manti-anak” fared earlier that day. This was after he introduced himself, saying my name aloud and adding “in-the-flesh!”

“Dead on arrival,” I said. Actually Edith Tiempo called it a fable that she “quite enjoyed.”

“Never mind, your two other stories are good,” he said, wiping daintily the spotless china with the equally spotless napkin.

I nearly choked, “Com’on, you’re patronizing me.”

“Why should I?” he said, then raising his left brow higher than Montemar’s altitude, “Bakit? Kilala ba kita?”

Toink!

Dumaguete then, Bacolod now. Actually my sole target this year is to gun for UP-Mindanao in October. But then Dr. Gloria G. Fuentes, IYAS workshop directress, emailed me and five others (last year’s rejects?) to try again. Is this some kind of hint or what?

I’m submitting “Dreams” and “Choices” anew and I feel they’re now far better than when they were submitted last year. Thanks, in great part, to Faye, my fellow pugante, whose suggestions gushed like the thick sauce of the Scooby burgers we chomped in Dumaguete.

It’s a waiting game from here on.

the cuaresma of my youth

back in the early ‘70s when I was a kid, cuaresma was observed with much solemnity and drama. The latter, of course, was literal because it meant just that---the drama or radio soap opera mostly about Christ’s passion.

Radio then was the ultimate entertainment as this was before television invaded our place. But I never listened to this drama at home even if our Maharani quadrosonic stereo boomed and we had 7Ms bourbon and soda cracker biscuits for snacks because just as the dragon statue would turn real to fulfill the seer’s prophesy that the king’s sole heir would be snatched by a monster that spewed fire, my father would send me to buy Chesterfield. Whew! The hazard of being the youngest in a brood of six!

And so I had to sneak into our poor neighbor and lose myself, along with other children, in a fascinating world purveyed by an Avegon transistor radio that whispered from weak batteries.

Earlier that week, our neighbor had these Eveready batteries alternately boiled and left under the sun for hours. And if the volume still wouldn’t improve, she would wrap them with cigarette foil. Thus my penitence would take the form of piecing together missed dialogues, enduring a cabal of smelly kids and jockeying for that place near the speakers that had Vilma Santos smiling in a face that seemed rounder than a satellite dish.

The solemn part was ensured by Lola Pinang, Mama’s aunt who lived with us until she died a virgin at 69. She would instruct our helpers to hoard enough clean rice, water and firewood as they were not allowed to do manual labor during the Holy Week.

We were not allowed to laugh from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday just as we were banned from playing and drawing lines on sand as we might cut Christ’s body. We had to walk slowly, on tiptoe if need be, as we might shake the house and the whole world and disturb the newly entombed Son of God.

Also we were shunned from using pointed objects to avoid getting cut or wounded because it would take a year to heal, a phenomenon my cousin swore was true.

On Good Friday, we were barred from taking a bath as this was the time when not-like-ours would go bathing in streams and rivers. More chilling was the fact that they could bathe in water stocked in pails and basins without touching it, causing incurable diseases should we have the misfortune of using it.

And Lola Pinang would add that since God was dead and therefore could not make them behave, the devil and all creatures of the netherworld would roam the earth to feed on us. Spooked, we would line up as soon as Jesus died so that she could whip us with pangyawan vine. With its bitter sap on our bodies, she said, we would be spared because the devil and its minions didn’t have a taste for something bitter.

That I stand 5’10” must be the result of Lola Pinang’s making me jump at the stroke of midnight when Jesus walked out of the sepulchre, exactly three days (or so the Bible said) after the guards had made ukay-ukay of His garments. She said the higher I jumped, the taller I’d become. My cousin, who’s now in the States, did the exact opposite because at 10, she was already 5’9”.

Somehow I feel sad that this traditional observance of cuaresma is now dead and buried. But sentimental fool that I am, I look forward to the day when it will be resurrected for all its worth. Meanwhile, I see people on Good Friday go to the beach to swim, dine and wine as sounds blared from their CD players. This makes me wish for all the bizarre things Lola Pinang said about cuaresma to come true, even just for once.

(this is an abridged version of the one published by the Inquirer.)

of gender sensitivity training, pranic healing and meryl streep

Few sleeps ago I attended a gender sensitivity training and discovered two non sequitors: (a) that 25 years ago Meryl Streep was beautiful in a fragile kind of way; and (b) that pranic healing is way too much for an adult with ADHA disorder like me.

All government agencies are mandated to be GAD-compliant, which means, all their workers must attend a gender sensitivity training. Since ours was the last batch, my boss literally had to drag me to the venue which was in another province.

I had my lids tightly shut as Speaker Aleli mouthed jargons like Economic Marginalization, Political Subordination, Multiple Burden, Gender Stereotyping, Violence Against Women, Personhood Development etc. I only sat up when the speaker said she’d be willing to do pranic healing for those who were interested. But first, she said, they had to view and review Kramer Vs. Kramer, a film pregnant (see? am no sexist!) with gender issues.

I first watched Kramer Vs. Kramer in 1981 (?) when I was a college freshie in Cebu. That far back, the movie was a blur, except for an image of a child, the subject of a custody case, falling from a climbing bar. I had no recollection that it was about a wife who, weary and disgusted with the inequities of family life, cut loose to find adventure and independence.

Now sitting before an LCD screen in a room that had suddenly turned dark, I wondered how could Meryl dominate the film when she was in it only about a third of the time. Dominate, as in, she made her every appearance haunting. (And to think this was before the French Lieutenant’s Woman, the film that forever endeared her to me.) Of course the Pinocchio-nosed Dustin Hoffman was all over the film but still it was Meryl that made a larger impression on me: the tentativeness she showed on the witness stand; the doleful glances she cast at Dustin at the restaurant where he threw wine glasses; the final scene inside the elevator where she asked Dustin, after 18 months of separation, how she looked—all these were testaments to the sheer magnitude of her talent and the utter perfection of her craft.

Watching Kramer Vs. Kramer for the second time left me transfixed. Beautiful in its poignancy, it’s an articulate thesis of letting go not being bitter but sweet.

Now, on to pranic healing. It was 8:30 PM and I was alone with Aleli in her room. She told me that pranic healing is a simple yet powerful and effective no-touch energy healing. It is based on the fundamental principle that the body is a "self-repairing" living entity that possesses the innate ability to heal itself and that the healing process is accelerated by increasing the life force or vital energy on the affected part of the physical body.

For prelims, she let me stand before her as she took out a pendulum (actually her necklace that had a huge pendant). It was supposed to tell me if my chakras or energies were depleted or not by swinging sideways, clockwise or counterclockwise. At once I regretted having told her earlier that I had thyroid cancer because just as she had made a connection between my throat and my sex chakras, the pendulum made the connection too. Hmmmmm. The pendulum went on to tell me that some of my chakras were fine (crown, third eye, solar plexus, navel, basic) while others were depleted (throat, heart and sex!). Throughout all these, I refused to think that her hand had a hand in the pendulum’s motion and that she was a juggler doing a mean trick with her yoyo.

Then she propped me on a monoblock. A pink basin that contained water and salt was set on the floor, by my feet. “This is where I toss aside bad energies, which the salt will purify,” she said. I took off my slippers as told and spread my feet, placed my hands--palms up--on my knees and closed my eyes.

A sense of déjà vu washed over me. Suddenly I was a child having trouble keeping his eyes closed because his mom forced him to sleep in the afternoons of long ago. For two hours the child’s eyes would remain shut, his mind flitting from one thought to another while faking a snore every now and then.

It wasn’t easy for me sitting still. I wanted to slit open my eyes but what if Aleli was making faces at me? Or worse, peering at my nose or my ears? I began to feel uncomfortable and so I prayed for the monoblock to collapse under my weight so that we could have a good laugh and break the sickening inertia, for fellow participants drinking outside to shout for fire, for Aleli to turn mute or for me to fart to the tune of Chupeta. But the gods intervened and nothing of that sort happened.

Ooooommmmm, ooooommmmm, ooooommmmmm, Aleli went, making it all the more hard for me to concentrate because by this time I was already either mentally blogging the experience or revising my stories in time for the deadline of La Salle Bacolod’s summer writing workshop.

When finally it was over after almost two hours, Aleli smiled at me. “You’re now clean of bad energies and cured of your cancer,” she said, matter of factly.

“Thank you.” I felt so tired doing nothing.

“How did you feel the whole time?”

"I felt so light,” I said, but it was not entirely true. Or false.

She wanted to shake my hand but I was already holding the basin on my way out; so she patted me on the back instead.

As the door closed, I felt so relieved. And that was when I laughed, guiltily.

the lighter side of having the Big C

I have the Big C. But this is not about my on the spot realization of how transient life is nor is this about a quick makeover of my priorities and attitude in the face of a dreaded disease. I’m saving all that for my own version of “A Purpose Driven Life.”

Just because my friends tell me I have a great sense of humor doesn’t mean I can’t allow myself a few days of depression, cancer being its super mom. But surprisingly, I found out that depression is not for me. In fact, I was more depressed of not being depressed.

Okay, let me correct that. Not in the way others and I expected it to be. Maybe because my doctor said mine is not a terminal case; that it’s a “friendly” cancer. But still, who needs cancer for a friend?

I haven’t been hospitalized in all of my 30 plus summers such that when I was told to undergo thyroidectomy, I panicked. Going under the knife I can live with but catheter gives me the shakes. When I asked my doctor if I would be fitted with one, he deadpanned: “Only if your genitals are lodged in your throat.” Uh-okay.

Six weeks after my operation, I went back to Cebu for radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment. The amiable Dr. Bles Pono told me it was the most appropriate treatment for my thyroid condition. Most of the radiation would be absorbed by my thyroid gland and would decrease the function of the thyroid cells and inhibit their ability to grow. The RAI would remain in my body only temporarily and would be reduced with time. But to eliminate the possibility of radiation exposure to others, I had to be isolated for seven days.

At the briefing, I asked doc’s secretary for suggestions on what to do during my sequestration. She said I had three picks: slip into a coma; do time travel by self-hypnosis; or self destruct and do a phoenix after a week. My friends suggested reading books, writing an article, cross-stitching and yoga. The last one made me blink. If I had the gift for inaction and concentration of a tethered horse to do yoga, then I’d be this generation’s oldest living catatonic.

The thought of turning recluse for a week heightened my natural proclivity to pig out on food. If someone had only seen me seconds before I was admitted, he would think I was opening a convenience store, what with all those bottled water, tetra-packed juice, bakery products, chocolates and other chitcherias, to say nothing of toiletries.

After taking the RAI capsule on the very same day it was flown in from London (it’s imported and has a 24-hour shelf life!), I went straight to purgatory. No visitor was allowed; nurses were not to take my blood pressure, heart rate and all. With intercom and cable TV as my only links to the outside world, I turned into a monk. And that was when I knew that boredom is the family name of RAI treatment.

Let me digress just this once. The RAI treatment is very expensive, costing me a month and a half of my salary for that single capsule alone, such that when I checked out of the hospital, I felt how a piggy bank feels when a child empties it of his savings.

My room of 7mx5m was cramped with a bed, a table, a chair, a built in cabinet, a 3mx2m toilet and bathroom and a TV set that was perched close to the ceiling. It must have been management’s way of discouraging patients from squirreling it away and/or regulating its use because after a few minutes, I sure got a stiff neck from all that looking up that I had to turn it off.

I could have easily turned into a bed-potato (no couch there) and vegetate but I had a great task at hand: flush radiation off my system! I had a narrow latitude though because radiation leaves the body only through urine, saliva and sweat. Now, pray tell: how many gallons of the prescribed distilled water can I gulp for me to take a hundred leaks an hour? How do I sweat myself dry inside an aircon room? And what other ways to dribble saliva besides chewing gums?

With heightened creativity, I discovered many ways to jog and stick chewed out gums under my cot, making them look like rivets.

On my first day, after tuning in to HBO and shutting off the aircon (which made my room costly in the first place!), I started to jog and pumped sweat while Nicolas Cage pumped lead into his enemies. In the evening, with the TV running a persistent high fever from continued use which was my way of compensating for my having to pay the aircon even if it was off most of the time, I was practically living my worst nightmare as I jogged down imaginary Elm Street. The next day, as sounds blared from MTV, I jogged in the raw, unmindful of lascivious stares from Madonna, Britney and J Lo.

Given the room’s dimension and maze-like configuration, it was a bit restrictive but still I jogged the way of the ants. You know, doing it on all fours. But then I got this scary notion that a stroke of paranormal bad luck might actually turn me into one. Not that I have qualms turning into an ant (it doesn’t get cancer, right?) but being Baygon-sprayed to death is for me not exactly a cool way to call it quits.

I tried almost everything, all in the name of profuse sweating. From push-ups (I was not up to it!) to doing body contortions (too risky for my freshly sewn-up neck!) to crawling over and under my bed (my flabs got in the way!).

Looking back now, I don’t have the faintest idea how I survived the longest, most solitary week of my life. Except that I counted each passing day in terms of hospital billing.

I went home to my province without touching the pile of bestsellers I brought with me. And with enough foodstuff left, I threw three separate children’s parties.

After all those post-RAI scans, I was given a clean bill of health together with a list of do’s and don’t’s. But with cancer, you have to leave everything to God because you’ll never know what will happen next. Meanwhile, I can’t help feeling amused each time people ask me if I’m a terminal case because hello, aren’t we all coming to pass?

(note: six years after this was written, i'm still around. thank God for that!)

a promdi’s tutuban nightmare

For a promdi like me, Manila will always be an outlandish territory, navigable only by asking questions from people busy enough to give you a wink. But kind was the hotel guard who told me, when asked about the LRT station nearest Tutuban, to get off at Doroteo Jose.

That settled, I went on a pilgrimage to the mecca of inveterate barats. And since the LRT’s PA system was off that day, I had to widen my eyes to the size of electric fans to read the station signage every time the train stopped. When finally I climbed down the Doroteo Jose station, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be my day.

First there was slight drizzle; second, the sidewalk was thickly lined with people whose eyes, like mine, sparkled with bargain prospects. Forty-five minutes later and 500 meters away from my original location, I was still prowling for a ride. And because it was easier to make Troy Montero admit to having an all male sex video than to get a ride, I, together with million other bargain freaks, decided to “walk with faith in my heart” all the way to Tutuban.

Lesson Number One: alight at either Bambang or Carriedo where, for the same fare, it’s easier to get a jeepney ride to Tutuban.

By the time I reached the railroad tracks, my legs were already on low bat. But Tutuban’s frenetic rhythm and bursting colors, the billowing smoke and assorted smell, and the babel of humans and machine had me instantly recharged. When I entered the Tutuban building, I almost fainted because there was simply too many people.

I tried to get ahead but I was hostage to the flow of human traffic. And just like them I just drifted along, but many times I had to make sure whether the person beside or in front of me was not a mannequin on the lam. I was particularly irked by a mother on whose hip a child clung, steadily wailing like he had sirens for lungs. When the mother looked that way, I popped a sedative into the child’s mouth like it was a vending machine.

Lesson Number Two: Don’t bring children because they could asphyxiate or cry their tonsils out from discomfort.

Dizzy, I took refuge at the National Bookstore but found it as crowded. Why do people go to the Philippine’s haggling capital just to visit the National Bookstore where prices are fixed and the same elsewhere? In the few times that I had successfully inched my way to a stall, I didn’t like what I saw. The prices were low, yes, but product quality was poor; and most signature brands were misspelled.

After zombie-walking for over three hours, I went home with nothing to show for my ordeal but a pair of yo-yo I bought at the sidewalk where I drew blood haggling. But what greater ordeal was there than to find out that the same yo-yo cost less at Uniwide?

Tutuban must have ingrained itself in the shoppers’ psyche because it creeps with people from all walks and stripes, making shopping not only a stretch but death defying because you could die from stroke or fatigue. Not to mention what this promdi belatedly realized that what you see in Tutuban is not necessarily what you get. Like the yo-yo he bought with much regret!