Creative Nonfiction by Jhoanna Lynn Cruz Essay

On our premier(prenominal) Valentine as a couple, he gave me a bowl of white nondescript flowers. They had a distinctly saccharine al atomic number 53 faint scent. I had never been a fan of Valentines Day nor of love standardised a red, red rose but that day, I became a believer.He t grizzly me they were papaya blossoms from his stimulates garden. At that moment, I k in the raw I would one day marry him. We had perplexed dating muchover three months ago, but I knew I would be Maria to his Leon. Why, he level(p) had a unripeneder br different the aforesaid(prenominal) age as Baldo And even though they didnt live in Nagreb hatful nor owned a carabao, the town of Itogon, Benguet was remote enough for me. I impart unceasingly enjoyed tenet the Arguilla horizontal surface for its subversive take on the role that ones family plays in a marriage but having been born and raised in Pasay city, I had no idea what papaya blossoms disembodied spirited like.I imagined that my new feller had read the tosh in his Philippine literature class and meant for me to agnise his gift as an entirelyusion. In fact, I imagined we would defy societal norms and probe that love conquers any. Instead of a theme intelligenceg, our relationship had a story to live up to. It was a disaster waiting to happen. In the story, Leon brings his city-girl wife, Maria, internal to meet his p arents for the first clip. His surly father orchestrates several tests of Marias suitability through Leons younger br separate Baldo, who is quickly win over by her papaya blossom scent.The first clock time I met his parents was on the conjoin day of his eldest brother. By so, we had been seeing for separately one other discreetly for seven months, somehow knowing that no one would approve of our relationship. In the midst of the beating of gongs and best desirees, his Kankanaey father merely when wanted to know 2 things ab turn out me where I was from and what language I spoke. I gave the wrong answer on both points. I was a Manilena and I couldnt speak Ilocano yet, having only recently moved to Baguio city to rebuild my liveliness after becoming disillusioned with the institution that had once nurtured my desire to excel.But no love lost, I was only their paroles gayyem (friend), after all. It didnt help that I was wearing a leopard print spaghetti-strapped dress, which exposed the tattoo on my back. I reasoned that the Cordillera burnish has a long tradition of body art so they should deem the significance of mine. None of us knew at that time that I was already carrying a half-Igorot child in my womb (which, I imagined, somehow make me an accept fitted quarter-Igorot for the nonce). Against better judgment, we trenchant to get married.We were under the influence of hormones, of pregnancy, of the Catholic church, of Manuel Arguilla. We would have gotten a quickie secret marry if he were old enough, or I, wais enough but by law we compulsory his parents consent. Which they ref employ to give. For short expert reasons. They could have said, You shouldnt marry because he is too young (and you are ten course of instructions older). Or You shouldnt marry because he is liquid studying (and you were even his teacher). Or You shouldnt marry because he has a calling (and you are snatching him from God).But instead his stick said, We cant give you permission because his brother had just gotten married. In the morality of the Cordilleras, if siblings marry in spite of appearance the same year, one of the marriages bequeath fail. The community will blame us if we sanction you to marry. So I called my mother, who promptly came to my rescue, compose them a demand letter based on a illusion If your child were the woman in this situation, you would rush to marry them Im sure she was so eager to get me married off because she knew it was a fluke.What was about ridiculous (though I refused to see it at that time), was that I was a self-proclaimed lesbian feminist. Despite all the tragic relationships I had had with women, I still believed that it was worth fighting for the right of a woman to love some other woman. What business did I have getting married to a really young man? And for all the wrong reasons. Must have been oxytocin overdose sponsored by the baby in my womb. Or a quicksilver(a) alignment exerting mysterious forces on my consciousness. Or, gasp fill in Whatever it was, it came to pass.My mother didnt have to bring my grandfathers rifle. But I had to do it all on my own filing the license, finding the figure, buying the rings, reserving a restaurant, paying for everything. It was a good thing his parents didnt allow us to tell some(prenominal)body round the marriage that way I didnt have to invite anyone which lessened my expenses. I had to understand that they had spent all their savings for his brothers recent wedding, where they had butchered eight pigs for a traditionalistic I gorot wedding feast. And after all, lest we forget, we were getting married against their will.But hey, thither they were, on hand to sign the marriage certificate in the sala of the Honorable Judge Fernando Cabato of La Trinidad, Benguet. The ceremony itself was quick but peppered with omens. First, when the court clerk asked for my mother-in-laws name, I told her Constancia because I figured that was where her nickname Connie came from. When I asked my nervous groom, he agreed. When the Judge confirmed the information, Constancia objected because her name is truly Conchita. Judge Cabato made the bailiwick and lectured us almost how important it is non to make errors in a legal document.Then, when it came to my father-in-laws name, the Judge refused to believe that Johnny was his real name. When he asked for the rings, my groom gave him the weensy box, but when the Judge opened it, it was empty. The elderly unspoiled Judge sat down and asked, Is this a prank? It turned ou t that the rings had slipped out of the box and were floating in my grooms pants pocket. When it was time for the wedding kiss, the Judge got even with us. He enounce us preserve and wife and then said, No more kissing, its obvious in that locations a deposit in at that place Then he laughed hearty congratulations.I wonder now how legion(predicate) times he has regaled a party crowd with our story. At the answer in a Chinese restaurant, we occupied only one set table, with only ten guests. The pancit canton was very good. We didnt get any gifts, draw for a framed copy of 1 Corinthians 13 Love is patient, love is kind love does not keep a get down of wrongs It wasnt the wedding of my dreams, but the whole event cost me only Php 2,500. It was as do-it-yourself as DIY could get. That didnt include the cost of the wedding rings, for which I had to sacrifice some of my old gold jewelry.The irony of it escape me at the time but for a modern woman on a budget, there was no room f or finesse. Thus we began our married life full of contention, confusion, and concealment. We couldnt live together immediately nor was I allowed to be seen in their little neighborhood, where everyone knew everyone. A very pregnant stranger ambling up and down the steep Upper Mangga Road would have been a eye-catching mystery. I continued to live alone in my apartment, with my keep up staying weekends, and I pret cease in school that my husband is from Manila.Im not sure anyone actually believed the drama, but I was bathing in first-baby-love, so I couldnt care less. My other Igorot friends assured me that when the baby is born, my in-laws would ultimately accept me as the mother of their grandchild. But as I said, I couldnt care less. I was a Manila girl I truly believed that our marriage would succeed even without his parents approval of me. I was used to flouting norms and not needing anyone. And for his part, my husband argued existentially that we should live by the integr ity of our own little family.You see, he was a Philosophy major under the tutelage of two young Jesuit-educated instructors, who had come to the mountains from Manila to indulge their fantasies about love and training (in that order). We, the migrant teachers, smiled at each other in the College of Human Sciences wordlessly acknowledging each others foolishness ignoring the fact that most of the other native faculty members looked askance at the three of us. When our young lady was born, we distinguishable it was time to move into the family billet. In the innocent presence of the new half-Igorot baby, all would be forgiven.It seemed the most practical thing to do. But I currently agnize how naive we were. We didnt take into account all the new wrongs that could be committed while sharing one household. Before I got married, I had a dog a black mongrel I had named Sapay Koma, which is Ilocano for sana. It is both a wish and a prayer difficult to take into English, unless in context. Koma was my companion throughout the two years I had lived in my dank, quirky apartment the mute witness to the drama and dilemma front my decision to marry. We took him along with us in our move, of course.But the five other dogs in the new household didnt like him all that much and they all raised such a nonstop racket, none of the public could sleep, oddly the newborn baby. The neighbors offered to buy him for Php 500. Igorots like black dogs because the meat is tastier. I was aghast. He was my dog, my loyal friend. If anyone was going to eat him, it should be family. So my husband invited his friends over to put Koma out of his misery. I locked myself in our little bedroom with the baby, while they did it. But notwithstanding the closed windows, I could still smell the burning hair and later, the meat cooking.The putrid scent seemed to stick to my obtrude for days after, accusing me of betrayal. I wept for Koma and for all that was dying in the unload all t he wishes that had no place in my new life. I decided that this was the price for what Filipinos like to call paglagay sa tahimik. It took two hours for the meat to be sensible enough to eat and when we all sat down to dinner, I was rejoicing they didnt expect me to partake of the canine feast. Yet I did. I took one mouthful, which I swallowed quickly without chewing, so I wouldnt have to relish the flavors. I may have had the stomach for it, but I didnt have the heart.I only wanted to show them that I respected their culture, even though in fact, I would never belong. Also, I was hoping that this way, Koma would forgive me for having failed him, for offering him as a sacrifice at the communion table of my marriage. This way, we could be truly together. For weeks after, every time I overheard my husband tell Aw, aw to his father, I would shiver at the prospect that we would have dog for dinner again. They had five other dogs, after all. Luckily, it turned out that aw only inwa rdness yes in their language, Kankanaey. Besides, they only butcher dogs on very special occasions.Ordinarily, there was always the savory chicken soup dish, Pinikpikan, which features a similar charred flake aroma and taste. I was quite relieved to learn that his father did not require beating the chicken to death with a stick in the first place cooking, as is customary in the Igorot culture. To this day, I have not been able to care for another dog. I do, however, have another child. By the same man. Accidentally. It happened on Fathers Day, when we thought having sex was a mincing distraction from the confusion that arose from our growing discontent with the marriage.When we found out about the pregnancy, we agreed, albeit reluctantly, that it was Divine Intervention a sign that we should keep trying to only the marriage. It was not just the food that was strange. I couldnt understand why everyday, some relatives would come over and expect to be fed. I had not been raised in an extended family, and even within our nuclear family, we somewhat much kept to ourselves. In my mothers house, we were trained to office through one for you, one for me, then stay out of my notecase of goodies.You can imagine how I felt the day they served my Gardenia whole drinking straw dent to the relatives, who promptly wiped it out, because my peanut butter was delicious. Not that I was organism selfish. Aside from the fact that I didnt have any bread for breakfast the next day and the house being a ten-minute ascension uphill plus ten kilometers to downtown Baguio City, I fumed about not even being introduced to these relatives as the wife of their son. They would introduce my daughter and her yaya, but I remained a phantom of delight flitting about the house. When I confronted my husband about the bread, he explained that n the Igorot culture, everything belongs to the community. So I took a permanent marker and wrote my name on my next loaf of bread.It was a Saussu rean signifier of sorts and it was unforgivable. My father-in-law was a man of few words. In fact, my daughter was already two years old when he decided it was time to recognize my existence and say something to me. In the past, he would use an intermediary (usually my husband) if he wanted to get information from me. It wasnt too difficult because by this time we had already moved to Manila and were living in my mothers house which was another disaster and another story.It was Christmas Eve and we were expenditure the holidays in Baguio City. He was watching a replay of a package match and I was playing with my daughter in the living room. He asked, in Ilocano, Do you have a VCD player at home? I was so shocked I couldnt reply immediately. He repeated the question in Tagalog. It turned out he was self-aggrandizing us the VCD player he had won in a barangay raffle. That night, as the entire family sang their traditional Merry Christmas To You to the happy birthday tune, I fel t I was finally getting a fair receive to prove that I was worthy of being in their cozy family.In our six years together, I can think of more instances in which our separate worlds collided and caused aftershocks in my marriage. But none of it rivaled what I thought was the beat out affront to me. My mother-in-law is Cancerian, like me, so her house is a pictorial art gallery of her children and their achievements. She had a wall with enlarged and framed wedding photos of her children. Through the years, her show grew, and expectedly, I and my husband didnt have a photo on this wall. I figured it was because we had not had a church wedding.In fact, when we told them I was pregnant with our second child, they requested that we hold a church wedding already. They even offered to share the expense. But I preferred to save my money for the birth of the baby. However, given my theater background, I once tried to prevail on _or_ upon my husband to just rent a gown and tuxedo and th en have our wedding photo taken so wed finally get on The marriage ceremony Wall. But he has always been the more sensible half of our couple. One day, though, a new picture was added to the wall. It was a studio photo of his eldest sister, her American husband, and their baby boy.It wasnt The Wedding Wall anymore it was now the Our Children and their Acceptable Spouses wall. It was their version of the Saussurean signifier. The cognitive content was gilded and clear to me and to other people who came to visit. I wonder now why it so weighed to me to be on that wall. I guess I felt that after all those years, we had been punished enough for defying the culture. Maybe I actually believed in 1 Corinthians 13. Or perhaps I also needed to be reassured that I was indeed happily married. I confronted my husband about it and demanded that he finally stand up for me and our family.And he did he wrote his parents a letter that made his mother cry and beat her breast. We each tried to e xplain our sides, finally coming to terms with the bitter past. They told me that they are simple folk and didnt mean to ostracize me that when they agreed to the marriage, they accept me as part of the family, no matter what. I believed them. I told them I was never going to be the woman they had probably wanted for their son but that I am a perfectly good woman, most of the time. We tried to make amends. Our family picture was up on the wall within three days.Our kids were quite pleased. But it was too late. By then, my husband and I had been grappling with our own issues for the past five years. He had gotten tired of my transgressions and want solace with his friends. After coming home late from another well-chosen Hour with them, I screamed at him, What happy hour? Nobody is allowed to be happy in this house It was then we both finally realized that we had to face the truth about our marriage. By the time his parents were willing to break down over in our journey as a fami ly, we had given up on ours.Most couples find breaking up hard to do. It was particularly hard for us because we had to convince his parents that it was not their fault. On the other hand, I had to deal with the fact that maybe my marriage did fail because of the curse of the credulity sukob sa taon that maybe we were wrong to insist on our choice. Yet on good days, I am pretty sure it was a perfectly no fault divorce, if there ever was one. Kapag minamalas ka sa isang lugar, itawid mo ng dagat goes the Filipino proverb. maybe the salt in the sea would prevent the bad luck from pursuance you.So today I live with my two Igorot children in Davao City fondly called the promised land. Everyone is astounded when they learn that I had moved even though I knew only one person here who didnt even promise me anything. I just wanted a chance to start over. When we moved into this house, it had a small nipa hut in the backyard. The kids enjoyed staying there during the sweltering hot Da vao afternoons, specially when their Daddy called them on the phone. But it was nearly falling apart and was host to a colony of termites that had actually begun to use up the house as well.My generous landlady soon decided it was time to rake down the structure. When I got home one day, it was gone. All that was left was a dry and empty space in the yard yet everything looked brighter too. We confounded the payag but soon the grass crept into the emptiness and we began to enjoy playing Frisbee in the space that opened up. It was a Derridean denouement of sorts. Last year, we spent our first Christmas without any family obligations. It was liberating not to have to buy any gifts for nephews, cousins, in-laws. All the obtain I did was for my children.I was determined to establish my own Christmas tradition with them. I wanted to show them we were happy. I wanted them to grow up never having to sing Merry Christmas To You ever again. I decided to cook paella for noche buena as if my life depended on it. I thought it was simply a matter of dumping all the ingredients in the pan and letting it cook like the aftermath of a failed marriage. The recipe was so difficult I ended up crying hysterically, asking myself over and over, what have I through with(p)? My kids embraced me and said, Nanay, stop crying na. But I couldnt. It seemed as if it was the first time I had let myself cry over what I had lost.I notice though, that the kids did not cry. Embarrassed with myself, I picked myself up from the river of snot that was my bed and consummate what I had set out to do as I always have. It even looked and tasted like paella, despite the burnt bottom. But next year well just order take-out from Sr. Pedro (Lechon Manok). That night, my mother-in-law sent me a text message saying they are always praying for us to get back together, especially for the childrens sake.I do not know how to comfort her, except to keep saying that we had all done the best we could at the time that we are always trying to do the right thing that despite what happened, or perhaps because of it, we will always be a family. Of a kind. We are, after all, inextricably linked by a timeless story and sapay koma. Each of us in this story nurtures a secret wish to have done things differently to have been kinder, more understanding of each others quirks and shortcomings. But it takes less energy to wish it forward. Sapay koma naimbag ti biag yo dita to hope that your life there is good.