Life of Abandon

Ron, Carol and I with Sally (Quezon City, 1966)

 Chapter Two: Tadpoles into Frogs

    After the rains, there were always so many puddles. We lived in a new development, in a newly built house that my little sister, older brother, our parents, our mom’s sister and our grandparents lived in with us. Our parents were just starting out but they both made good money since they were in the medical field.

     Behind our house were open fields. These were what was left of the property of the convent. You could still run into a nun on her way to catch a jeepney to the market. They were very quiet and many times they were too shy to look up to say hello.

     Today, we saw them far away, walking here and there around the convent. We glanced at them briefly as we ran in the mud and jumped in the puddles. “Your momma won’t like you coming back so dirty.” Sally, our maid said. “I will have to hose you down outside before you go tracking mud in the house.”

     I looked down at my orangey brown legs and realized for the first time that we were indeed covered in mud. “We can take baths before we eat.” I told her. My sister made a face. She was six months old and she didn’t like taking baths. How did she even get muddy? Sally carried her everywhere.

     My older brother, Ronnie and I were busy catching tadpoles. Some we scooped up in our hands, others we found already in the water we filled our buckets with. He had more tadpoles than me. I think he must have stolen some of mine.

     “Sally, no helping her!” my brother instructed from a deep puddle that came up to his hips.

     “She can help me if she wants to.” I called back hoping that would encourage her to pick up more for me.

     “It looks like more rain.” Sally said as she grabbed my bucket and started to head home. I knew this meant the downpour was minutes away. After getting stuck in the monsoon last time, I wasn’t going it risk it again. I took the bucket from her hand so that she had a better grip on my sister. Carol must had anticipated the storm because she started to fidget and whine. Ron scooped up five more tadpoles, grabbed his bucket and started to run. “Beat you home!” he yelled to me over his shoulder. He had a headstart.

     “Not fair!” I said back. I shoved my bucket’s handle into Sally’s hand and ran as fast as I could. Even as his bucket sloshed back and forth with water pouring out, he beat me.

     When we were stripping off our clothes, Ronnie asked, “How many tadpoles?” He shook his head as I reached for the soap, ‘no soap, no soap’, his expression said. This would be a quick bath. “I got 36!” I declared proudly. “Hmm.” He pointed with his lips and nodded his head toward his bucket. “82.” I pouted. Not fair, not fair, was what I thought. Life with Ron was not fair. He was stronger, smarter, more agile. He was better at everything. It was no wonder that our parents thought he was so wonderful. The sun rose and fell at his command. Charlemaine – that’s who he was. As adults, I would find a book about a rooster who thought that he made the sun rise. That was Ron. He would have been equally devasted to learn that in his case as well, it was not true.

     Sally handed us towels, she wondered if we were clean enough for our mother. She had to wrestle the soap from my sister’s grasp. Carol didn’t have Ronnie dictating her actions so she was able to handle the soap. Only Carol wanted to eat the soap, not clean her feet and that’s what Sally was trying to prevent her from doing.

* * *

     After this monsoon, we are supposed to go see our other grandparents. They live in a village not far from here. This is our father’s family’s village. Just about everyone there are our relatives. We love it there.

     But today and the next few days, we will be stuck inside. Our maids get so irritable during monsoon season. We stay inside most days and the three of us are a handful, or so I have heard them say. Our mother likes for the maids to keep everything looking nice and that’s nearly impossible to do when there are three children under school-age.

     “Hoy, Cecile!” Moninang gestured with her hand for me to ‘come here.’ She wanted me to put a dress on. It was almost time for dinner. “Ouh” she smelled my hair. “You smell like worms.” “Tadpoles.” I corrected her. “Ey, does not matter. You stinky.” She pinched her nose with her pointer and thumb. “Don’t go too close to your mother or father. Especially your father. He’s allergic.” “To tadpoles?” I asked outloud, doubting her. “Yes, iha. He’s allergic to tadpoles, don’t you know? He gets all red-eyed, dripy nose, itch, itch.” As she grabbed me and began to scratch me up and down through my dress. “Stop! Stop!” I giggled. “Do you even know what tadpoles are?” “Oh, yessss!” she said indignantly. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know tadpoles. I know all about them and your dadda, he’s allergic!” With that, she patted me on the bottom and sent me to brush my hair.

     A few weeks later, after the monsoons and come and gone and we had forgotten all about the tadpoles we caught and captured in the buckets, we noticed a multitudinal number of frogs on our patio. Hopping everywhere, my brother and I tried to catch them. Laughing at their antics, I noticed several hopping from my bucket!

     “Oh no!” I squealed. “My tadpoles, my tadpoles!”

     Ron, not knowing what I was going on about ran over toward me and we both stared into the now nearly empty bucket. Some tadpoles were indeed dead, which is what I had feared. But the rest, I surmised in my 4-year-old brain, were eated by the dreadful frogs that were happily congregating on our patio after feasting on our little legless friends. “Shoo! Shoo! Bad frogs, bad frogs!” I leapt into action. It would be years before I realized those tadpoles were the very frogs I was so disgusted with.

     Moninang ran our mother’s house even after our parents left for the United States and well after we children joined them. She helped raise our cousins as well and only left our family to care for her own nine children.

My birthday (Ron, L) and Moninang serving ice cream.

     When my mother returned to the Philippines for a visit some 15 years later, Moninang made the long expensive trip from her province back to Quezon City to pay her respects and catch up. She longed for pictures of my siblings and me. We never did see her again, but we knew exactly who she was when we’d look at the photo albums. She, Sally, a young boy named Boy, would always be a big part of our memories of the Philippines.

     As I recall the scene, I wonder if she did know that tadpoles turned into frogs and if our father really was allergic to them? I guess I will never know.

Dadda, Carol, Ron, Boy and me on an outing

Have you read the NYTimes article by David Brooks entitled "The Moral Bucket List"? At first, I wanted to object. But then I read on.

And by the time he reaches his conclusion, I realize he's talking to me. That's what happened. I didn't set out to "do good". I lived my life and during the course of events, I found something that suited me. I found my purpose. How difficult was it? He maps it out quite cycincally.

And when he concludes, I automatically filled in and changed his final paragraph so that the conclusion perfectly described my life:
"The Writer doesn’t build her life by being better than others, but by being better than she used to be. Unexpectedly, there are transcendent moments of deep tranquillity. For most of their lives their inner and outer ambitions are strong and in balance. But eventually, at moments of rare joy, career ambitions pause, the ego rests, the Writer looks out at a picnic or dinner or a valley and is overwhelmed by a feeling of limitless gratitude, and an acceptance of the fact that life has treated her much better than she deserves.

Those are the Writers we want to be."

And he's absolutely right. "Those are the people we want to be."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html?WT.mc_id=2015-Q2-KWP-AUD_DEV-0401-0630&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVAPRIL&kwp_0=14375&kwp_4=97091&kwp_1=138508&_r=0

Chapter One

     

     The rain fell heavily. Monsoon had come.

     I ran for the house, but when I got there the doors were shut and bolted to keep the winds from blowing them open.

     I pounded on the door. No one could hear me. The sound from my four-year-old fists were no match for the strength of the violent storm.

     Looking around, I wondered where to go to find shelter. There! Across the patio was the shed. The door was blown open. I could go there.

     Hand-over-hand, I pulled myself along the fencing to the flimsy building. It housed garden furniture, some tools, and feed. I managed to get in and push the door shut. I piled some bags of manure against it. I hoped that would help keep it closed.

     I’d never really been in here before. I wasn’t allowed. There were things that could hurt me, like the machete, the clippers, a hoe. But it was safer here than out there, that’s for sure.

     I was soaking wet and starting to feel the wind blow. I started to shiver. Was I cold or scared? Probably both. The last monsoon I remembered went on for a few days. The winds and rain weren’t constant but it was enough to cut our electricity which meant no lights at night, no radio and no telephones. And even when it was over, the roads were flooded so we couldn’t leave our house.

     I didn’t want to stay here for days. I wished I had gone in when my mom told me to. They were preoccupied and didn’t notice I hadn’t followed them inside. I was busy playing with my doll. And now, I’m stuck outside. At least, I do still have her to play with.

     As I looked out at the blacked sky, driving rain, and felt the fierce winds against the tin roof of the bamboo enclosure, I wished I had listened to my mommy.

     I found an old grain sack and put it around my shoulders. I sat on the cushions piled up against the window. I must have fallen asleep because I don’t remember the time going by, the wind subsiding and the sun coming out. How long had it been? I wasn’t sure.

     But when I did awake and looked out the window, I could see a family of water buffalo making their way down the street. I was transfixed by them. A Momma, a middle sized one and then a tiny baby. I craned my neck to see the baby who was tucked close to the momma’s legs.

     Suddenly, I heard a bang on the door. I jumped with a start!

     My mom managed to push the door open enough to squeeze her body through. “There you are!” she said to me.

     “Look momma, “ I started to say to show her the furry carabao. “They look funny.”

     But she didn’t hear me. “Come here. Get up from there!” She bent down to pull me up onto my feet. “Where have you been? I was worried sick.” She was scolding me. I was startled that she was angry.

     I pointed again to the Caraboa. “Momma.” I began. “Don’t Momma me!” She said as she spanked me. “Don’t you ever do that again! If anything happened to you. I’d kill you!”

From the Beginning - Chapter Three revised

     Our life pre-Botswana was in Cold Spring, NY.

     We moved there when Macallan was only a few months old. Peter didn’t want her growing up in Manhattan and so I agreed to the transplant. Marriage was a matter of trade-offs. This was mine.

     But it would only take me a few months of commuting to realize that I wasn’t willing to have a stranger raise my child. The decision wasn’t easy.  That meant leaving my dream job as an editor at Scholastic because she was in daycare for eleven hours a day.

     Eleven hours where my baby slept, ate and had her diapers changed by someone else. She was often sick from being exposed to so many others and with them, so many germs. She learned things like pulling herself up and around before she learned to walk. One day, she came home with a bloody lip.  The sitter said she hit her mouth on the coffee table when her knees buckled as she ‘cruised’ the room.  But, she added, she couldn’t be sure.

     So, I quit my job at Scholastic in order to be a full-time mom and a freelance writer. Afterall, isn’t that why I became a writer in the first place? I had agreed to my parents’ stipulation that they give my siblings and I a great life and in return they required us to finish college. They would support us through any school we wanted (and could get into) but we had to finish school. They encouraged me to go into journalism because that would allow me to “work” but not keep me away from my children. They were still very old-school, even though my mom was far from domestic and her mother even less so. Growing up American, meant I would have to cook and clean, unlike in the Philippines where there were servants to do that. I needed to know how to make my husband happy. So, my interest in reading and writing lead to their fostering my career in journalism – just as long as I remembered that my place, eventually, would be in the home.

     All of my life I fought against this double standard. I had arguments with my parents, both my mother and father, asking why I had to go to college if they insisted my only option was to be a housewife? Their response was that I would eventually understand. But I didn’t.

     I even spent ten years in therapy trying to decipher the hidden message. My mother hated being a housewife. Resented being thought this was all she was worth and reminded her children that she was the smart one in the family. She did not pursue her medical career because she had met my father and gotten married. From that day on, she was his wife and even as a traditional Filipina, she resented it.

     Something she inadvertently passed onto her daughters. My sister and I were encouraged to pursue our hearts’ desire in terms of schooling. But our brothers were forced into distinguished careers - my older brother was supposed to be a doctor. At some point that ‘wild’ American influence would get the better of all of us and we all rebelled, just as my grandfather had said.

The girls didn’t want to be subjugated. The boys didn’t want to follow in our father’s footsteps.

And here I was, a journalist so that I could be a good mother to my children. And as much as I resisted, I realize today, this was the very best profession for me. This form of expression turned out to be my calling and being a stay at home mom is a blessing. My parents were right in their assumptions. If only I hadn’t resisted for so long. I would have lived a much more grateful life.

     But I digress.

     I gave up MY dream job and my life in Manhattan because my husband didn’t think his kids should be relegated to the concrete jungle. OK. Fine. We lived in Manhattan for many years and because we were new parents and I didn’t want to rock the boat too much, I agreed.

     But if I was going to live in a remote village away from the greatest city on earth, I was going to make the best of it. And so I did. I made good friends and created that  sense of home that I had always wanted. I was involved in several play groups, was an active member of the community, and over the years really made the most of our suburban life. And, we still went into the city. Macallan and, at one time, Markham were models and we would go into the city for go see’s and shoot.

     They were equally comfortable hiking as they were hailing a cab - best of all worlds.

And so, when we told our many friends of our decision to move, they were like, ‘Well, of course!’

    Some people we didn’t know well would respond with, “Wow! You are so brave!” “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” “You’re nuts!” But obviously, they didn’t know us.

Peter, for a time, had worked as a falconer at JFK airport to scare geese off the runways using birds of prey. He also was a certified hard-hat diver and would inspect bridges in and around Manhattan underwater.

     At home, we hatched an egg and raised the chick into a rooster we called Fried. He watched TV with us, crowed went it was time for the kids to go to school and when they would return. He played tag and even engaged with our dog as if they were best friends. Upon leaving for Botswana, we found him a home as a pet for a Peruvian woman in town. Years later, when we returned to the USA to see family, we visited Fried. And you know what? He came right over to us and stood next to the kids as he had done several years before, as if no time had passed.

     We also had an alligator from a Florida farm that we named Osama. On September 10, 2001, we had him ''overnighted' to us with the words, Live Animal imprinted on the sides of the pint-sized box. But then September 11th happened and the world stood still. 
     Our little gator was held for five extra days as the world waited for the dust to settle on NYC. When he finally arrived, he was spitting mad and never quite recovered. He tried his damnedest to kill us, jumping at our hands when we fed him, lunging for us as we walked by his tank, hopping to pop off the top so that he could get free. We had another name for him, originally, but Osama seemed most fitting.

     And then there was Oz. When we had moved out of the city, my husband wanted an English Setter. Can you imagine? I had a toddler and a puppy – both needing to be potty trained.

On a spring day, I put Oz outside on a chain. He had water and food and shade but the lure of the children laughing and playing next door at the school was too much for him. He got lose and ran to where the fun was. He was jumping on the kids and a few were frightened. I got a call and had to drop everything to go retrieve him.

     But that wasn’t nearly as bad as the time I opened the door for the Fed Ex messenger and Oz got lose. We lived off of a very busy street and of course, he ran straight into traffic. Here I was, carrying Macallan in my arms, running as fast as I could down a muddy road, screaming for our dog to “Stop, Oz, stop!” Macallan was crying. I was hysterical and OZ at six-months-old was ecstatic as he ran full speed ahead toward cars traveling 45 mph.

     Just before I got to the road, I put Macallan down and told her to “Stay here.” She didn’t stay. The dog didn’t stop, and I could barely catch my breath.

     Luckily, a driver pulled over and got out of her car. She caught the attention of the other drivers and traffic halted while she caught our dog and brought him to me.

I didn’t even have a leash with me, so there I was, embarrassed, relieved, scared and overwhelmed, bent over, I dragged Oz back up the hill to our home as I carried Macallan in my arms. That was the lowest of our low points.

     After 8 years as part of the family, there was no question he would be going to Africa, too. Even though his airfare was more than ours and the series of shots required were time-sensitive, we knew we wouldn’t be leaving him behind.

     As it turned out, his paperwork would take so long that a fax arrived the day before we were to leave and we hoped customs would accept that in lew of a signed document. As we were boarding the limo for the airport, the nurse from the Vet’s office personally drove the paperwork to us, making Oz’s official documentation legal by a matter of minutes.

     How difficult was that limo ride? My mom, brother, and some friends were at our house to say good-bye. We were too excited to be sad. As our town disappeared from view and we waved good bye to Miss Connie’s Montesorri, the playground, the view of the Hudson River, I felt a surge of gratitude to the many people who made this move such a natural progression. It would be this part of the journey that made me take note of each and every step, misstep, side-step and leap-of-faith that progressed us from one stage of our life to another. How easy it is now to look back and see where we were going all along.  

Living Through the Legacy of Mad Men

We’ve been binge watching the past seven years of Mad Men before the final episodes air in April. With each show, I’m getting madder. The subtle way that Betty stifles her emotions. The entitled way Don subjugates women. The rampant sexism found in the office. While the time is late ‘50’s – ‘60’s, I lived through a variation of it as a child and then again as a twentyish old in the ‘80’s - 90’s to be sure.

When Roger’s daughter refuses to have a lavish wedding that sends Mona into near tears, I lived through that. We invited over 400 strangers to our wedding so that my mom could show off. It was a thing back then. Showing off for your friends. Equating the wedding to your wealth and stature. I lived through that.

When Trudy whines to buy an apartment, then, is near hysterical when she can’t conceive, I was that. And all because of social norms that my parents inflicted on us. I remember insisting we buy a condo in Hoboken, pretty much because my father thought paying rent was a waste of money. Yup, I was Peter Campbell’s cringe-worthy social climber. Ugh.

I’m pretty shocked by how little progress women have made since the ‘60’s. Today, 55 years later, even at jobs dominated by women, we are still paid less then men. In publishing, most women I knew started out as receptionists and executive assistants. I was flippantly told by the Executive Director at a large publishing house where I worked for years that I wouldn’t be promoted to Editor because, and I paraphrase, “I was just going to go off and have babies every couple of years…” I probably could have sued him, but I didn’t. I should have gotten mad and argued with him, but I didn’t. I lived through it and sit here today and wonder why I had to live through it and why it goes on today.

There are a lot of very nuanced plot progressions in Mad Men that makes the show so brilliant. Probably more so for those of us who have lived through it. Like the shocking and yet hilarious way that Don chucks his beer bottle in the public park and the way they just threw the napkins off the blanket and left them all over the freshly mowed and manicured lawn. As if it would somehow magically disappear.

My parents didn’t drink but you know damn well if they had, they would have been just like the Drapers where Don instructs the daughter to mull the fruit at the bottom of the Old Fashioned as she makes drinks for their dinner guests. So funny because it was true. I lived that.

But what makes me mad is that I continue to relive these stirred and shaken feelings over and over again. It’s not the ‘60’s, and today’s inequalities are being addressed in public forums and not just undressed in bedrooms away from the eyes and ears of the impressionable children.

And still, I want to make a point to my husband that he shouldn’t have flirted in the office. I had gone to two separate workplaces and the first thing one of the women blurts out to me in each place was, “Oh the things I could tell you about your husband!” What the fuck is that supposed to mean? This was pertaining to a job he held in NJ and then again several years later in Florida.

And you can be damn sure, I felt the slap across my face the same way Betty did when the crass comedian told her something similar for the first time. And funny, she responded the same way I did (or should I say it the other way around?). We both got really drunk and threw up.

And there’s Don. Asleep in the couch and Betty comes up to him with very little emotion, actually, for such a serious accusation. She wakes him and asks him, “How can you do that to someone you supposedly love? “ Of course, she didn’t confront him when she found out. She waited nearly a week, I think. And the provocation wasn’t another woman, but her choice of beverage. Betty takes offense not at his affair, but that he was laughing at her, that she was so predictable that his latest ad campaign had lured her in, unwittingly. She says, “You embarrassed me.” And he has no idea what she’s talking about. When he does figure it out, he denies it. Because in Don Draper’s world and in mine, men work hard at jobs that tear them down which makes them feel entitled to seek attention outside of their homes. Because, like it was during my dad’s day, the men in my generation had only my dad and Don Draper as role models. They had a work-life – where they were the hunters. And they had the home-life where they joined the gatherers. Dogging around was part of their job. It validated them as men and while they’re out there in the world, they’re entitled to that. Afterall, it was their job.

Women, on the other hand, like the women of Sterling Cooper, were paid for their time at work. They sacrificed self-esteem, self-worth for what little power they earned in the workplace. No matter what, as with me and Peter, he would make the money. I would always, always make ½ what he did.

I loved my job. As an editor in a family-owned children’s publishing house, my community was supportive, for the most part. I knew my work had positive social value and I appreciated the steady climb of my career. I had planned to work even after I had children, but that wouldn’t be the case. Peter didn’t want his kids growing up in Manhattan. Not enough green space.

And so, we moved to a beautiful but remote area, an hour and a half commute each way for me. I loved my job. This was all I had ever wanted since I was in second grade. But that meant being away from my daughter for 11 hours a day. Someone else would be raising her. How could I do that? How do you juggle your career, your family, your marriage?

For me, I gave up on me. I made do with freelance that, by the way, is far harder then going to work 8 hours a day. Deadlines were insane and so my family suffered regardless of my not having to go to work every day. Because to meet that 6 week deadline for a book to be completed, I had to put the kids in daycare, have my parents watch them, work on weekends and evenings, stressed out and spread too thin, I never did anything well. It broke me. But I lived through it.  Much like the countless women on Mad Men and around the world lived through their own set of sacrifices in order to maintain their home and their marriage.

Just look at my mom. She was a great student with much promise. But, she met my dad and it was up to her to support him in his career. Becoming a doctor was about as good as it got in the Philippines. If she stood behind him, she would be there when he was the head of the pack. And he was, and she did. And I lived through that.

She also gave up everyone she loved and everything she knew in order to progress his career. They had the opportunity to move their family to the United States in the ‘60’s. That would cinch their fate and the fate of their children. It was a huge sacrifice for a woman who had servants, was from well-respected family, and was surrounded by loved ones. But this would ensure his success, and so he went, and she went with him.

The sacrifice was also in leaving their children. My older brother, my younger sister and I stayed behind until they could find and set up a home. Then, they would send for us. Two weeks or months tops. But our grandfather didn’t want us to grow up American. They had decadent ways. He refused to accompany us to the States. My brother was only four, I was three and my sister was not even one.

One year and countless heartaches later, we arrived and grew up American – good and bad…We arrived in 1967, which is where the demise of Don Draper starts to unfold.

* * *

Jon Hamm’s facial expressions are so telling – the mark of a truly great actor. And who doesn’t believe that January Jones is really that cold and vacuous? That’s how good she is! All of the characters go through multiple manifestations over the seasons and during each episode.

And we’re like that right? We can watch period pieces like Mad Men and remember the way things were. The set-up of a perfectly decorated home only to find out that it’s locale was best known for it’s maximum security prison and with the change of name, came the influx of growing families fleeing the city for an idealic life in the suburb – the Madison Avenue Ad Man gets taken by his own creation. Funny.

And we remember the ads they talk about too and remember how much we relied on the new medium, television, to bring us what life was supposed to be, how we were supposed to live it and I can remember distinctly when life came in techni-color.

And like the characters, one thing I realized during the harrowing awareness of life imitating art, I was thrust right back into the same feelings I had back then. Back when Peter and I were first married and my parents still dictated how I should behave. I remembered the commercials for Spic and Span and Playtex, who I tried to meet their standard of cleanliness and beauty. Blah blah blah…

But it’s not real and it’s not life. It’s 55 years ago and things have changed. While I can vividly recall how I felt when I learned of Peter's flirtations; it was much like Betty's confusion and devastatation upon learning of Don's philandering. I can relive that hurt again and again. But it’s not happening today. We lived through it and we moved on.

I can feel those feelings but they’re not happening now. Quite frankly, I’m watching these episodes, but even they aren’t happening now. We’re rewatching them so that we’re on top of the final season’s final episodes. We’re going over them again because we forgot some plot twists and want to be current when the new episodes air, so we don’t miss anything, so that we understand what is going on now.

And that’s the significance of this for me. I’m reliving, recapping, rewatching rethinking what happened over the years so that I don’t miss anything today. The price I pay for documenting our life together is rehashing the bad with the good.

But there's something else I just realized. My husband is just one generation away from Mad Men. As I said before, he and I only had those mad men and women as our role models. But our children, they’re going to have us. And Peter and I have taken careful notes and have lived in radically different ways and worked hard to recognize the shortfalls of the Dons and Bettys before us. Our children can look at the time that this show takes place and say, ‘OMG! I’m so glad women don’t have to wear such those clothes; that men aren't so clean shaven; that we all know how bad smoking is; and how we need to buckle our children (and dogs) in car seats; and that women are smart and can contribute intellectually to a conversation, a household budget, and serve as world leaders! And on and on and so forth…

I’m glad I lived through so much of this madness so that my children can live without it.