The Secret’s in the Pause

Anne Frances Sangil

“Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.”
—Aphra Behn

There is much to be said about understanding something in hindsight, especially if the hindsight is almost three decades in the making. What can I say? While I was a sensitive teenager, I was not very perceptive at all, especially about things that would demand a lot of processing on my part. Processing leads to thinking, thinking leads to headache, and headache leads to a lot of consumed carbohydrates—as one attempts to desperately cure all pains, whether real or imagined. After all these years, though, I think I have finally connected the dots between an idea percolating in my head for the first quarter of my life and a reality that I find myself living for the better part of my journey as an educator.

Many years ago, I attended a craft lecture about poetry at the University where I was pursuing my Bachelor’s degree. It fell on Valentine’s Day, if you can believe it. Wanting a brief respite from the madness of my course projects, as well as a temporary escape from the red-littered hallways, I decided to drop by the seminar room, perhaps hoping that the event would somehow inspire me to write better scripts for my Introduction to Film class, or at the very least, teach me some tricks on composing proper dialogues for my characters. As a Communication Arts major, I struggled with my cinematic storytelling and needed help from anyone who could be bothered. As I sat there waiting for the lecture to begin, one of the student organizers approached me and asked, “Are you a poet?” I replied, “No.” “A fictionist, then? Or a dramatist?” Still, my answer was “no” to both. “So why are you here?” she asked me, a little haughtily. I didn’t want to give her my struggling student slash storyteller spiel, so I said, “I was just interested, that’s all.” The organizer (whose name, I later found out, was also ‘Frances.’ I mean, what are the chances?) then looked at the audience and said, “Hey everyone, she’s here because she’s just interested! How many of you can say the same thing?” I didn’t know what she was playing at but putting me on the spot was not exactly something I considered a good icebreaker. I just smiled in reply, but my thought bubble blinked in neon, “Just leave me be, Frances. I don’t need your condescending act.” I was a prickly young kid back then; excuse me.

As I listened to the hour-long lecture, I realized I was way over my head. I was not a Literature major, and the concepts discussed were too much for my aperture-addled brain. I remember calculating mentally, “Should I shoot this Ariston Estrada seminar room with an F/4 or an F/2.8 with a speed of 1/60 second, or is that too low?” I don’t belong here, I thought. The ideas were impenetrable to me, and the figurative language everyone seemed to share was baffling. The poet- facilitator excitedly shared her knowledge about the craft, telling us passionately how to use words effectively and ingeniously. At the same time, I sat in the back row, thinking about shutter speeds and storyboards and how to level up my drawing skills from its pitiful doodle style (I refer to this as my “Early Stick Period”) to something more visually adequate. It was a mistake even to consider that poetry could serve me well, for knowing the basics would at least give me some idea about how to tell my stories better or help me materialize the worlds I’ve imagined. Long before that day, poetry was already alien to me. I could never understand how anyone could get anything out of what I considered a mess of words. “Give me stories, then let’s talk films!” I remember telling friends whenever we got around to talking about literature. And since I was not friends with any wannabe poet or with anyone outside of my specialization, for that matter, my prejudice about poetry was never set right. That is, until halfway through the lecture.

During the Q&A segment of the lecture, Frances (the patronizing one) asked the poet about the day’s theme, “How does one write about something one is not familiar with, for example, love?” While the audience laughed at the mawkishness of the question, the poet grabbed a piece of chalk and quietly wrote on the board, “Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.—Aphra Behn.” She waited for the laughter to die down and, with careful thought, began unraveling the words on the board. I remember her saying that writing about love need not be inflated or full of the usual bells and whistles, a version we have been familiar with thanks to the Mexican telenovelas we regularly watch on the small screen or even read in those sappy romance novels (lots of pearl-clutching and perpetually heaving bosoms if you ask me). Writing about love demands silence, a certain quietude that compel the writer to reflect on its significance and value that makes it worthy of words. Foremost, writing about love is a personal activity that must give pleasure first to its writer and, upon completion, to the reader. The facilitator’s unpacking of the Behn quote gave me pause. How can you keep a secret that gives you so much pleasure? Isn’t that selfishness? It boggled my mind. And what ultimately baked my noodle is the idea that the very rationale of a pleasurable thing depends on it being kept a secret. That the moment it is made known, it loses its cardinal merit. For isn’t love meant to be pleasurable, its pursuit the very core of our happiness?

Suffice it to say I left the seminar room with a heavy head. I was trying to compute the new equation presented to me: love + secrecy = pleasure. This contradicts the other life equation we have all heard—that joy is multiplied when shared. Sharing is caring, or so they say. Does this mean that if we subtract secrecy from love and replace it with candor, we are left not with pleasure but with pain? Or does this revised equation simply sum up to a certain neutrality, neither pleasurable nor painful? What we have is one that is merely, just an aggregate of neither here nor there. In that case, the pursuit of this concept called love becomes futile. Why even bother?

But oh, I bothered. I wanted to understand the pleasure Behn spoke of and the secrecy it demands. I didn’t want to give up on words, too. There must be a correlation between all those variables, and I was eager to connect the dots. And so graduate school became my new path, and masochist Frances (that’s me, the prickly one) just had to pursue Literature. The path to understanding Behn’s words is through more words, right? Poetry can’t be that inscrutable, right?

Right.

This idea of pleasure in secrecy lodged itself in my brain, quite snugly, if I may add, in the years that followed. While I did meet so many other poets and fictionists (some alive, but mostly dead) in my studies, and they have all made efforts to make me appreciate literature a little better, the notion of keeping something pleasurable a secret remained a mystery. I never fully grasped what it meant, though it left an indelible impression—enough for me to go back to it once in a while as part of my constant processing. It was my Gordian knot, and while it presented many difficulties, it was also highly seductive. I did not dare talk to anyone about it, fearing that their solution to my mental gymnastics would be so simple and unremarkable that it would ruin the idea living rent-free in my head. I did not want to give up trying to solve this problem, but I also did not want it solved for me by others who did not invest the proper time and energy the same way I did. The irony was not lost on me, of course. By keeping it a secret, this little puzzle has offered me a version of pleasure I can only enjoy by myself.

The years transformed into decades, and while a satisfactory answer to my little problem remained elusive, I now find myself living at a time when untying the proverbial knot would prove to be more challenging than ever. I realized I am currently living in the age of ME. Social media has led me (us?) to a not-so-silent, not-so-secretive avenue toward self-actualization. It is the Age of Exhibitionism, the Era of Performative Identities. Thanks to digital technology, everyone seems to think letting people know what they had for lunch is newsworthy. Or that telling people your cousin’s nephew’s sister’s neighbor’s dog went into labor and “Would anyone want to buy a new puppy? PM for details” is a normal proposition. Or that updating your relationship status and eventually digitally announcing your engagement (with a matching bejeweled finger for the camera) has become de rigueur in shoutouts appearing on our screens, with the number of likes and heart reactions validating your shared pleasure.

Suddenly, the world has become too small and too loud. Does it really give us pleasure to be so connected in such a fashion? This exponential connectivity, of being virtually present at all times, has led to a curation of what used to be private for public consumption. The objective is to be seen and to be heard. Even common parlance has followed suit. To be “lit” is now social media jargon for being excellent.

On the other hand, to “throw some shade” in your direction means you are at the receiving end of something awful. Lit is good, shade is bad. Hence, to be seen and receive all the bright attention is preferable, while to be in the dark and remain hidden and unseen is undesirable. So now I find myself asking, “How can I continue processing pleasure in secrecy if the norm is greater openness and public sharing and resharing at will, with going viral being the new end goal? Is it time for me to cast aside Aphra Behn’s words and not concern myself any further with thoughts of concealed pleasure?” With everybody abusing the heart reaction emoji button triggered no doubt by clamors for “SMSL!” (Show Me Some Love), it seems love is no longer a private pursuit meant to be enjoyed in secret.

I must admit I was not above the usual clatter. I have had my fair share of noisemaking and public displays of identity validation. All the social media squawking was infectious, and I was not immune to it. Like so many others, my life became up for display, with private stories becoming daily updates and virtual check-ins becoming mandatory as proof of life. It was a love affair with social media. Everyone in my loop could read my “Meanwhile, in my class this afternoon. . .” tales of academic survival, and I enjoyed the public engagement as members of my virtual village took turns picking at the stories I shared, like a mournful chorus accentuating every bit of action I narrated. It was an act I willingly participated in. I took pleasure in being seen and heard. I always thought out loud, carrying out day-to-day tasks with an audience in mind. People knew how my day was, read my conversations with strangers during my daily commute (“Meanwhile, at the LRT. . .”), and were constantly updated about the movies and books I consumed. I found satisfaction in sharing the amusing things that happened in my classroom, as well as the quirks of my students that may or may not have irritated me, depending on my mood. Little did I know how the cumulative noise was causing a personal disturbance in my equilibrium. Strange as it may sound, my openness was slowly suffocating me. It felt as if everyone now had a piece of me, and that realization was starting to make me uncomfortable. The thrill is gone.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and everyone was required to practice social distancing in real life, there was a great uptick in social media contact. It was the only way we could simulate a certain proximity with each other. People started sharing how they make Dalgona coffee and/or homemade sourdough bread, as if their quarantine lives depended on it. Then TikTok followed, and learning some new dance craze became as viral as the virus we were all trying to avoid. We had to Zoom our way into our classes and made a habit of asking, “Can you see me?” and “Can you hear me?” every time we had to engage with our students. We had to make sure our identities were still registering, albeit online. We even had to rearrange our room furniture to make sure the camera captured the ideal image we wanted to project. As we hunkered down to avoid infection, our virtual selves stretched farther out on ether. As an educator, I could also see a certain performativity in my students. Their active social profiles have become barometers for engagement, and the onus was on me to know how to maneuver within this calculated social media dance. Teaching during the time of Corona forced me to reassess my pedagogical methods. I could no longer do my usual classroom activities or bank on my bombastic pre-Covid strategies. Furthermore, my new fear was the possibility that I was not revealing enough of myself to my students the same way I used to, pre-pandemic, and that they were not experiencing “the real me,” whatever that means. I felt I had to overcompensate for the virtual me that my shortchanged students were getting, so make that a little louder and a more emphatic “CAN YOU SEE ME? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” just to be absolutely sure.

With the madness closing in on me, I decided to go in the opposite direction and deactivated my social media accounts. It was all too much for me. I dreaded being seen online, and the anxiety of being accessible 24/7 to anyone became a daily struggle. Of course, it was not easy. The withdrawal alone made me feel like a heroin addict hopelessly waiting for the next Twitter or Facebook hit. Friends (at least the most curious ones) also had to look for other avenues to reach out to me to check if I was still alive. My virtual absence made me realize how loud I had become these past few years, and now I am reaping the harvest of the noise I have created. Forced into cyber silence, I shut everyone out and returned to an old acquaintance. Back to Aphra Behn. The physical and digital distance from people allowed me to snuff out the unnecessary noise and hit the pause button, and be still for once.

“Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.”

In my moments of stillness, I found joy in being hidden. The veil I decided to put on myself allowed me to reflect and even reclaim a part of me that was lost to everyone on ether. To be unseen by everyone so that I could better see myself was the one pleasure I could enjoy in secret. My pleasure was in the pause.

My personal hiatus from the virtual noise multiplied my time as well. The necessary detachment of myself from social media gave me time to reflect and ask my usual processing questions once again. It also helped me as a teacher, allowing me to reframe what my students must expect from me and what I should expect from them in return. I have realized that teaching does not have to be loud and spectacular—the pre-Covid sage on the stage mentality I had, or for the teacher to be larger than life. It can be quiet, and in that subdued learning process, I can still be effective as an educator. I no longer have to announce on social media what my students are up to and what they have accomplished for the day just to get my validation from strangers. My old ways look so very trite now, so absurd it is embarrassing.

We all have our coping mechanisms, and shrouding yourself in silence is not for everyone. But we do what we must to not lose ourselves or forget our sense of being. In secret or in the open, in silence or the cacophony of human harmonies, we find our pleasure, our version of joy, or even love.

There is no telling when this global physical distancing and my virtual pause will end. For now, I am just content with my concealed pleasure of reuniting with my old self. No longer prickly, but still on the lookout for possible dots to connect. For continued processing, yes?

Perhaps I owe the other Frances a ‘thank you’ for asking that question many Valentine’s Days ago. If not for her curiosity, the poet-facilitator would not have shared Aphra Behn’s quote, and I probably would not have been bothered at all, bothered to the point of pursuing a particular path toward pleasure. Or maybe it was the poet I should be giving my thanks to. She had the wisdom to invoke Behn at that specific moment, drowning out the loud guffaws from the audience in that seminar room, and in so doing, made me, the quiet girl at the back row, ask questions and has helped me process life’s many curveballs.

Maraming salamat, Marj.

This is me now, still writing my life, even under my version of an invisibility cloak. My writing may not be a sonnet by way of Shakespeare (truthfully, I’d settle for a limerick), and while it is always a work in progress, there is peace in that realization. I can live with that, in several pauses, of course.