I Know It’s Late And This Is Not My Thing

Happy Mother’s day to my Mama.

When I was three, she bought me a lot of fairytale books. They had colorful pictures and big letters which I couldn’t read, but I was still fascinated by them even though I barely understood what they were about. These books eventually led me to believe that princesses have to be unbelievably gutsy creatures to survive until the "and they lived happily ever after" cut. I learned to believe that if I am going to be anyone in life, I have to have conviction along with the stubborness to stand by it.

When I was four my mother enrolled me in voice training in a small studio located in Harrison Plaza, along Vito Cruz. We came there every Saturday and my teacher taught me how to sing like Lea Salonga. Probably the first serious song I’ve ever learned is "Bakit Labis Kitang Mahal" and I have never forgotten it. After a few weeks, Papa bought me a small Sony karaoke set for kids, and I used to sing Lea Salonga songs under the mango tree in my Lola’s house with the red-and-yellow plastic mic. Learning how to sing made me appreciate music more and made me realize that I can do it.

When I was six my mother gave me watercolors, oil pastels, color pencils, and a large sketch pad for Christmas. Those were some of the most memorable gifts that I have ever recieved in my life. I spent hours and hours just drawing and coloring that I have filled several sketch pads through the years. I can’t say I’m good at it, but I love colors and I love to paint them on anything.

When I was nine my mother bought me my first ever pocketbook for my birthday. It was called "Afternoon of the Elves" and it is the most important book that I have ever read, not because it’s a literary masterpiece but because it taught me not to judge books by their covers—literally. I thought the book had a lot of elves and magic going around, to my dismay. It was about two little girls, one blond and rich, and the other black-haired and dirt poor. The black-haired girl tricked the blond girl into giving her food and money by saying that elves lived in her backyard. The story taught me that life is gritty and mean, but there’s always something more to it, another facet perhaps, and it’s all just a matter of perspective.

When I was fourteen my mother bought me a guitar. It was a Lumanog. I still have it, although it’s pretty useless since it was bloated beyond repair by the last flash flood. With that old guitar, I wrote a lot of songs about my heartbreaks and petty little problems. No one taught me how to play it; I learned from a five-page tutorial contained in our sophomore Physical Education text book. I can still remember golden afternoons with that guitar just learning how to strum and string along words.  

My mother is not my confidant when it comes to problems of the heart or of the mind. I think that she is too narrow-minded to understand who I really am so I have never bothered to explain. Ironically enough though, she is the main reason why I am who I am. She encouraged everything I ever did in my life and left me alone to make of it as I may. It shows how much she trusts my judgement and philosophy, although she barely understands them.

I love her for that.