Memoir

Carmie Ortego

The first time I heard her words, it might have been Sir Mike Villas reading lines from the Mandarawak poem at a school function, “The finer the weave,/ the more powerful is she.” I would remember those lines because that was perhaps the first time I got an inkling of how incantatory poems can be, especially an Evasco poem.

About a year after that, in 2011, Sir Mike organized a one-day poetry workshop with Ma’am Marj as a panelist. I took diligent notes during the lecture and workshop, but the best part for me was when she would intone some lines of poetry in the middle of a comment. I’m sure we all sat transfixed when she recited Khalil Gibran’s “On Love” that way, entirely from memory. How very fluid and pure it was, just like breathing. Her voice was cool and soothing as a cascade. When the culminating program came, I was glad Sir Mike gave me “Animasola” to read. I felt so connected to the poem that the words flowed out of me, trance-like. Three days later, we would meet again during my first literary workshop in Calbayog. I was heartened because she liked the gnomic poem I submitted, calling it successful. The other comments somehow didn’t matter as much. I have always carried that comment with me, and now that I’m teaching my HUMSS students about creative writing and creative nonfiction, I always take care to see the seed of good writing they have, much like she did with mine.

In March 2013, I had a Matrix-like dream, perhaps brought about by the binge-watching I did. Ma’am Marj was the guest of honor of some sort, and after her talk, a few “agents” approached her and tried to take her from us. I was one of her escorts then, so we battled against them. I was losing the fight with the last and best agent, so we struck a bargain for her safety. He demanded my limbs and other body parts, so I gave them away. But when he asked for my memory, I immediately said no and fought with him to death. I didn’t know who won the fight because I woke up after that, but when I emailed Ma’am Marj about it, she told me about having chest pains the night I had the dream and thanked me for being a guardian spirit. Later, I would dream of whales and speaking in German, and we would talk about the dreams and what they might have meant, especially the ones in color.

When Yolanda happened, Ma’am Marj sent us a care package with Jo Shapcott’s Tender Taxes. When preparing for my graduate studies application, Ma’am Marj recommended me for the MFA program and the scholarship. And before that, in the in-between times, our morning exchanges of the poetic images we saw upon waking would buoy me up while I wrestled with Cebu traffic daily. I’m sure that between the two of us, it’s she who is the guardian spirit.

Sundays at her house in Hagdang Bato are always breathers for the soul. The rides from Las Piñas to Mandaluyong were few and far between, but they were adventures on their own. Each time, I went home through a different route. There was a time I missed the drop-off point and was around the PUP Sta. Mesa area before I decided to ride another bus to SM Manila. Though there was no designated lane to cross, I walked briskly with other pedestrians to the other side of the street where the van to Las Piñas was. All this while experiencing the beginnings of dysmenorrhea. It was a full moon too. Ms. May Ann lent me her black leggings, which I still use when I have my period. I never realized I even liked wearing leggings until that day.

Part of the thrill of each visit to her is discovering what kind of new stuff I might be introduced to safely with such good company. Once, because I was so engrossed in the conversation, I didn’t even notice that the Manille Liqueur de Calamansi we drank contained 27.5% alcohol. We did have hazelnut coffee afterward, but since I wasn’t used to liqueur or alcohol, I felt itchy during the bus and jeepney rides and only found out that I had red spots all over my body when I arrived home. Thankfully, the marks faded after a good night’s sleep, and I was able to go to school the next day.

These visits are, as Ma’am Marj says, rituals of living. And I love them because I get to sit at the table with others, especially women, and celebrate kinships across generations. It’s a restorative life force that always enriches me with every encounter. I do not think it a coincidence that the first ten years I have begun writing is also the first ten years I have known her.

When she first showed us her ash-gray hair as it was, I was thrilled. There it was, one more proof of how cool she is as a human being. I thought this is what it’s like to live gracefully, despite, and perhaps because of, the years that are added unto us. Thank you, guardian spirit, witch-mother, for showing us the way.

Carmie Ortego is a native of Talalora, Samar. She is teaching in the senior high school of National University-MOA in Pasay City and is taking her MFA degree at De La Salle University. She is now more than 500 miles away from home. She intends to go back to writing, so she went away; she writes so she can find home.