Dream: A dead stranger

I've been having vivid dreams lately. Some of them, I forgot to remember, but one stayed with me because what woke me up was Dolphy's funeral, which was a huge part of the dream.

The dream was a little dark. Let me type it here before I forget.

One of my friends, Marchie, had befriended a stranger. He was in his late forties, a mysterious but pleasant man who had a tired and weathered look about him. Marchie introduced him to me and my best friend Sherwil, and we started talking about nice places to visit in the city. He was Filipino, but he said he hadn't been around Manila much.

We were making plans with him outside my office building when an unmarked police car came to pick him up. We were then told that he was under the witness protection program, and it was finally time for him to testify against a controversial and powerful criminal. I could tell he didn't want to go, but he entered the car, a picture of surrender.

Somehow I knew I'd never see him again, and part of me wondered if I should be more disturbed even if I really had just met him. I wondered how Marchie felt, since he was her friend. I also wondered if I should feel bad for Marchie, because she was my friend.

As the police car was getting ready to go, we suddenly heard a loud crashing sound from the corner. There were no screams or any succeeding commotion, just that one loud crashing sound, but I went to check anyway.

I saw a group of uniformed policemen and traffic enforcers huddled near a big truck, in front of which a dead man lay face on the ground. He had obviously been hit, and for a moment nobody moved to check for identification, leaving him a dead stranger.

The truck driver was saying something about Dolphy's funeral. Somehow, I also knew that the dead man had been trying to get to a TV to catch the funeral.

I called Sherwil to tell her what had happened, and we talked about how Dolphy's funeral was just about to start. We wondered if the comedian's death had descended like a Pacquiao fight upon the nation. Perhaps people were rushing to say goodbye to the comedian, perhaps his passing had somehow interfered with everyone's usual programming that people weren't paying their usual amount of attention to their everyday things?

Then somehow I knew there would be a series of explosions that would wipe all of us off the face of the earth. I was still talking on the phone when we heard the first boom from a distance. I saw thick, black smoke curling up in the horizon. Then I heard a second boom, this time nearer. I must have heard two or three more --

-- and then I was awake, discovering that I had left the TV on and it was showing TV5's live coverage of Dolphy's funeral. His family and friends had just released several doves to the tune of Rent's "Seasons of Love." I think it was the sounds of the doves being released that became explosions in my dream.

***

Death has been on my mind lately. I think it's because I now know three young people who I've seen at their most exuberant best who passed away unexpectedly, and this, coupled with the passing of many of my generation's icons, has left me looking at my own mortality.

***

I wouldn't call myself a fan of Dolphy, but he was much a part of my life, thanks in part to limited free TV channel options and a household that only had one TV. I grew up on John En Marsha and, later, saw my sister grow up on Home Along Da Riles. 

I was sad when he was dying, and I was surprised that I cried when I heard he had died.

I took pictures of his star on Eastwood City's Walk of Fame.


Dolphy's star the day after he died.





Dolphy's star up close.

I'm not sure who put this picture there.
Eastwood City people?

Good things come to those who see good

I am such a lucky, lucky girl. The past two weeks, I've been blessed to receive beautiful things:

• a free ticket to the sold out Rock of Ages
• an extra ticket to the sold out Rock of Ages so I got to bring a friend, who is a big Mig Ayesa fan
• a set of colored PaperMate pens
• a Swatch watch that I won in a raffle
• a pack of Vietnamese coffee
• a free ticket to God of Carnage
• another free ticket to God of Carnage so I got to bring a friend, who is a big Lea Salonga fan
• a tin of Lucban, Quezon broas

Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

Keep 'em coming, Universe, and I'll keep on giving back!

Declaration

In the personal leadership seminar I took, we had personal declarations, words we said that would propel us. I've gone through several -- it changes as we grow -- and now I have this: I joyfully create my dream life.

It's a bold one, and it scares me sometimes. But I chose to use the word "create" to remind myself that my life is built by the choices I make. I shape my life, and I am responsible for all that's good and bad about it.

Create. If I had a tattoo, I'd have that word on me. I think I exist to create -- order out of chaos, beautiful things out of words, relationships out of people, experiences out of places and things.

I write this now to follow the previous entry on something ugly I had created and now choose to uncreate. To borrow from one of my favorite lines in the Bible, I only want to think on whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely.

Tonsillitis, my old friend

I'm not feeling well today. This bad feeling started over the weekend, when it felt like I was starting to get tonsillitis, an affliction I hadn't enjoyed since childhood.

Before I was ten or so, my tonsils would be inflamed on a regular basis. It got so bad that I would know it was summer when my tonsils were besieged by the familiar fiery sharp, scraping swelling that often had me crying myself to sleep.

Later, as an adult, I would find out during a company physical exam that my tonsils were "abnormally large." This solved two lifelong mysteries: why I had gotten tonsillitis a lot and why I had often had fish-bone getting stuck in my throat.

The discovery also made me think of how long it had been since my tonsils were last inflamed. For some reason, as I entered my teens, tonsillitis became a stranger.

Getting this painful visit now throws me back to the days I had to battle the affliction on a regular basis. My mother was my tonsillitis-fighting champion. I would whine and cry, with the latter making the pain worse, and she would push all manner of cures that didn't involve antibiotics.

She had me eat raw papaya dipped in salt and vinegar, saying the vinegar would kill the bacteria. I didn't like the taste of raw papaya, but the acidic vinegar cleaning my tonsils made sense to me, so I dipped with gusto and ate the papaya, until I learned to ditch the fruit and sip the vinegar instead.

My mother wiped me with water and alcohol when I got feverish. And she had me gargling warm salt water that I all too often ended up swallowing, making me fearful that the bacteria was moving deeper into my body, never to leave -- until I learned in school that stomach juices, like vinegar, are acidic.

What do the tonsils do anyway? This is the explanation I remember: the tonsils block the bacteria; they act like a gate to stop intruders from coming in. If they are inflamed, it means they blocked really harmful bacteria, locking them in battle to prevent a bigger war. That explanation painted me a gruesome but pretty picture, and thinking that way, believing that, made me enjoy the illness more than I would have.

I also remember reading as a child how the human body had some parts left over from evolution, parts that we can now live without. The appendix, for example, and that extra bone we have from what used to be our tails. And yes, the tonsils.

When I found out that my tonsils were "abnormally large," I toyed with the idea of getting a tonsillectomy. I even went as far as checking out tonsillectomy videos on YouTube to prepare myself psychologically. But tonsillitis hadn't bothered me for so long, so I decided I could do without the procedure.

Unfortunately for me, who panics at the sight of a needle, if tonsillitis again becomes a frequent visitor, I might have to reconsider.

For now, however, I'm enjoying the body memories -- how delightful that pain can make me remember so many things -- and making some warm saltwater.

The art of eating ice candy

Last week, after maybe twenty years or so, I tried eating ice candy. It wasn't even the homemade sort; I'd bought it after lunch from a Fruitas kiosk at the Eastwood Mall. The stifling summer heat had suddenly come, and I wanted something cold and refreshing.

It took a few bites before I could tear open the plastic with my teeth, much to the amusement of my friend Eric. Bite it at the sides, he told me at one point, the plastic is weaker there. I found myself thinking, now would be a great time to have a pair of scissors.

This is one of the signs I've turned into an adult: something as simple as tearing open a childhood delight has turned into an elaborate process. I normally pride myself in considering, as much as a right-brained person can, the next few steps forward, but how much joy am I losing now that I can't even eat ice candy without worrying about getting my hands sticky?

Eric said that when he was young his mother pointed out that the plastic containing the ice candy was dirty. I remember my mother saying the same thing, but I also remember not caring. The ice kills the germs, I reasoned out to myself, or, if I get sick, my body can take it. Surely nobody dies of eating ice candy?

What did I know as a child that didn't reach the conclusion of invincibility? Fueled by reason that life could only be good to me, I climbed the village water tank to wait all night for the sunrise. I sprinkled alchohol on the floor and traced it with fire because I enjoyed the beauty of the flames. I drank water from a banana tree trunk because my brothers and I had seen it on TV. I drank ice water and ate ice candy and stuffed the plastic, clean or dirty, in my mouth!

Now the adult in me cringes at the thought of all the germs I've survived and is trying to remember if I'd packed the wet wipes. The child that I was would be sad at how... serious I've become.

Oh, but last week, I slowly relearned the art of eating ice candy! I was reminded that it was not about germs and sticky fingers, that it was about the summer sweet that is my sure reward when I break through the plastic.