FRUITS OF MY LIFE

A friend of mine sent me a quote from For I Have Tasted the Fruit.  A poem?  An essay?  What was it from?   The line captivated me so I decided to write taking off from that line.

They were small.   When they were just ripening they were crisp, sweet, almost cloying.  It was a joy to jump and try to pick them from our neighbor's wild tree. I don't know if they were ratiles or aratiles, the signature fruit of my childhood, reminding me of the fights between the neighbor's children and me, making faces, sticking out tongues at each other for no reason in particular except ordinary childish hatred, which we haven't gotten over till now.  It’s a strong childhood memory.

Down the road two houses away lived my grandmother's youngest sister and her tall dapper husband.   They were my alternative parents – a complete set.  He made up for my father, who was killed by the Japanese. She made up for my mother, who was always working or teaching.  They had no children so I became their little girl.   I loved them so much and they loved me without question.  To this day when I think about dying I think I would like to be buried in the niche with them so we can be close forever.

They had a tall starapple tree with the sweetest fruit.   Under their big trees they had chili plants, which I played with once when I was small. I got the sap into my eyes and cried and cried until my tears washed the hot painful sap away. Starapples and ratiles – those were the fruits of my childhood.

Then I remember luscious plums and pears and marrons glaces, sugar-coated chestnuts, my favorite candied fruit in Switzerland, where I went for a brief time before I came home to roost. I wanted to go to the United States for college but my mother would look blankly at me. One night I overheard her tell a friend she did not want to send me to a proper college because I was smart and she knew that if I did then I would never marry. Oh so, she wants me to marry, I thought. I promptly got married at 18.

When I think about marriage, I think it is a strange cluster of fruits. In the beginning they are delicious, then slowly as the husband takes you for granted they become tasteless, and finally bitter. We get married because we think it's the right thing to do.   Everyone tells us that.  Then immediately we have children, whose wonderful baby days encourage us to have more, until we realize that our husband treats us like furniture and our children, as they grow, put us through some terribly difficult times. I did not enjoy being married.   I often think about the whole marriage business and realize that I enjoyed most falling in love and being desired.   Be a mistress, one of my gay friends advises, amidst a lot of laughter.  I think he might be right.  A mistress is desired longer than a wife.  But anyway all the falling in love and romance end so why bother to think about it?

Motherhood is the most difficult thing I have done.  I adored my children when they were babies, took care of them myself.  But when they hit puberty, at least one of them drove me up the wall.  She still does.  I am afraid she might do so forever.  However, in the end I enjoy my children and their children I enjoy even more.  If it were a fruit, what would motherhood be to me?  Atis, I think, sweet and thick sop but with just as many seeds.  I love eating atis and put up with the inconvenience of the seeds.

My children have grown up.  Their children are grown up too.  I am alone at last but more than being alone, I am free at last. I am no longer forced to eat this fruit or that, no longer compelled to swallow what I do not like. I am free to be me, to do what I like and enjoy it.  To me my writing classes are Atlanta’s peaches.  I love those fruits, their velvety peel.  You bite when they are just about to turn overripe and the juice runs down your chin. This is the joy I get whenever I conduct a writing class, where I share my knowledge and watch my students turn into better writers as they learn to add creativity to their craft.

Another fruit I love is the makopa so deliciously crisp and fresh, like making costume jewelry. I enjoy making those.  They fill up my time, no more emptiness in my days.

I guess you could represent my life as a basket full of fruit made up of my wide assortment of friends – my classmates from the days of yore, my friends from my writing classes, my more recent masteral classmates, my friends who worked with me.  Included in the basket are my cousins from both sides.  My children, of course, my classmates from jewelry class.  My Sunday breakfast group, the most recent – and most intellectual -- group I’ve joined.  And my two closest friends who don’t know each other, Emily, and Lisa, who lives in San Francisco but comes home often to visit.

The basket is tied with a bright red ribbon that doesn’t fade and never disappears.  That is the ribbon of laughter that ties us all together, that characterizes our friendship and our joy in each other’s company.  I hope it lasts forever but I know it won’t.  We are growing old.  We will stay together until it’s time to say good-bye, happy that together we have tasted the fruits and enjoyed them all as best as we could.

A WOMAN'S AFFLICTION

 Maybe two weeks ago I ran into one of my bosom buddies. She and I are really close friends. Eons ago I helped her elope and later helped with the disengagement so we are tied together in knots. We decided to have lunch and before I knew it she was taking me to her doctor that weekend.

Actually I asked her to take me to her doctor who is one of these new medical doctors who have turned alternative or homeopathic. She does not prescribe chemical drugs and she is younger than I so (I hope) I can tell her what to do. First she attaches me to a computer and there we visit my flawed heart, which beats irregularly most of the time. It's inherited from my father's family. She says the front of my heart is good, but the back is not so good. That doesn't bother me. Since my stroke I've had enough time to adjust to that fact: I have a bad heart.

Then we go to that part that's been giving me a problem lately. She examines me and notices that I have quite a few red moles. “Those mean you have hormonal imbalance. You must get an ultrasound” she says.

I plan to ultrasound on Thursday but my cousin Didit invites me to go to a bazaar, lunch then jewelry class. That's sounds like fun. So finally on Friday, without make-up and looking like a limp rag, I go to Makati Medical Center and head for Information. I hand the girl my doctor's slip. “To The Breast Clinic, ma'am. Turn left, take the escalator, then turn right. . .”

I don't want to go to The Breast Clinic, I find myself telling me. So I head for the shop that sells magazines. I see an attractive magazine titled Psychologies. It is a British magazine with an article on ageing. That's how they spell it there. In America they spell it aging. How interesting. I buy it. P750, the young lady says and I gasp. It is expensive but I pay for it anyway, a treat. I carry it upstairs holding it close to my breast.

I enter The Breast Clinic. It is pretty. There is a counter on your left with three young ladies behind. There are plastic seats, similar to airport seats, against the wall. Behind the three young ladies there's a TV set showing chefs and later Kris Aquino. I have to fill up a sheet and even indicate where I have a lump. There I've said it. I have a lump in my breast. Like so many women but I have been in denial for a long time. Maybe I have had it for six months to a year. I don't know but this ultrasound required is driving me up the wall.

I sit and look around. The clinic is really pretty. There are a lot of natural-looking fake flowers. There is something like a plugged-in aromatherapy thing scenting the air. I read my expensive magazine but don't understand anything. I look at the article on ageing/aging and realize it stops at 50. What happens when you're 60? You just disappear from this world? You just die?

Finally they call my name. I am escorted to a small dressing room and given instructions on how to don the ultrasound coat. Then I am told to wait in another waiting room with more fake flowers, aromatherapy and a TV set until I am summoned for my ultrasound.

First there is a verification of my identity. Are you Barbara Cruz Gonzalez with two z's? Yes. Born on August 8, 1944? Yes. I have to put hot ointment on you. Occasionally I gasp – Ouch! Aray! Then she tells me to get dressed and wait at the inside waiting room.

The med tech approaches followed by a doctor. “Are you the friend of Gon and Beang?” The doctor asks.

“Yes,” I say, with trepidation.

“I recognized your name, they are my friends too.” Then she disappears. I am told I can pick up the results on October 5. Okay, I shrug, grasping at indifference but I am not the least indifferent. I am superbly anxious.

On October 3, my friend Emily and I get together. I tell her about my ultrasound. The next day, she texts me. She is at a meeting and meets this doctor who is Gon and Beang's friend. Later that same day the doctor texts me, requests me to return because there are things in my ultrasound she wants to clarify. My anxiety goes up.

I return the next day, this time fully made up and glam. I ask to see her and don't have to wait long. I go through the whole ritual again. Finally in the ultrasound room she comes in and looks again at my lump. “The next step is a biopsy,” she says. “You can either have that surgically or through a needle.” I don't think she realizes the panic that rises in me. “Then you can go to a doctor who will do the surgery if required.” I just look at her. I don't want surgery.

Finally the report is done. I read it but don't understand a thing. I pass by Floating Island and look at the cakes on display. Oh, they have butter cake. I love butter cake. I walk away five steps then turn around. May I have a slice of butter cake? May I eat it now? I go down the stairs, down the escalator eating a slice of butter cake, thinking, I should have bought the whole darn cake. I have a huge lunch followed by about six, no eight, oh well I finished what was left of the oatmeal crisps.

I wondered – should I write about this? Women always find lumps in their breasts and men always have prostate problems. I guess we all have problems with the organs we have two of. Anyway, is that tamarind candy I see? I love tamarind candy... please. . . no surgery.

SUCH SWEET SORROW

Tuesday was stormy and dark in my flat. All I wanted to do was sit and knit but the TV had no channels. My eyes wandered to my CD tower, standing there, ignored for years. Why don't I listen to music, I thought. Suddenly the CD Camelot jumped at me. Memories came rushing. My friends Carmen, Linda and I would sit on my bed watching the Betamax tape of that movie. We wept rivers of tears, blew our noses on glaciers of tissue. We wept over loves mishandled and lost that we could never really cry over. We wept over stress at work. We wept over everything that ever hurt us. We needed to cry and Camelot was the film that set our tears flowing.

As the music played the movie danced in my mind. Richard Harris played King Arthur walking restlessly over his approaching wedding. He runs into Guenevere, played by Vanessa Redgrave, his future bride, feeling the same anxiety. They fall tenderly in love. He sings, “Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot for happy ever-aftering that's known as Camelot.” Theirs was a pre-arranged marriage. They were royalty after all.

So they get married and lived happily ever after but realistically only for a while. King Arthur begins to assemble his Knights of the Round Table. In rides Sir Lancelot of France. There seems to be an attraction between him and Guenevere but they spin into denial first. She begins to miss the simple joys of maidenhood. I think she approaches her mid-life crisis. A woman in her 30s tends to go into a tailspin over her life. She begins to flirt with the other Knights and he turns around and goes on knighthood missions. He disappears for around two years.

Guenevere stays with King Arthur. I suspect she gets bored. The marriage has settled both of them. She yearns for what most women want forever – more attention, more affection, actually more romance – but that seems impossible since they have been married more than seven years now. Finally Lancelot returns and when they see each othe, they fall passionately in love. I think they were both in the throes of a super mid-life crisis. He sings If Ever I Would Leave You to her. That song always takes my breath away.

At around the same time Mordred, a grown-up love son of King Arthur from a youthful involvement, shows up and begins to weave intrigue within, affecting the Knights of the Round Table. Lancelot and Guenevere have their first tryst. Mordred walks in on them and all hell breaks loose. Guenevere is accused of treason and according to King Arthur's laws she must be burned at the stake. Arthur returns from a night he has strayed into a forest searching for Merlin and finds himself forced to order Guenevere's burning, even if he doesn't want to do it. He prays that Lancelot come and pick her up.

Lancelot does come and successfully picks her up but King Arthur, being king, is forced to declare war on Lancelot. In the early hours of the morning before the war starts Arthur, looking stressed and dishevelled, is approached by a boy who has come to Camelot aspiring to be one of the Knights of the Round Table. King Arthur takes him aside and sings to him, “Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” And there this beautiful movie ends.

As the wind roars and lashes at the leaves outside I want to weep once again. Carmen has been dead twenty years, burned in a fire with her whole family. I miss her still. When she died a friend who worked with me said I had desolate eyes. That's how sorry I was over her death. Now I believe I will see her again. Somewhere she stands waiting to welcome me with open arms. Linda has migrated and I miss her too. We had good times together.

I remember I used to tell them I liked the song that Arthur and Guenevere sang when they were trying to solve their problems. What Do the Simple Folk Do? Guenevere sang as she wondered what other people did when they were blue. Arthur tried to cheer her up by saying sometimes they whistle or sing or dance. The two of them try each but fail to lift their spirits. Finally he says, they wonder what the royals do. There was for me much sorrow in that song. It reminded me of times when my relationships were floundering and we were looking for solutions to our unhappiness and failing. Yes, we failed.

I guess that's the story of love. It begins with so much innocent attraction, then beauty, then madness. So much sweet connection, so much ripping sorrow until you have no choice but to accept the pain caused by the tearing and somehow learn how to mend and finally just to remember. Then it occurs to me. There is so much similarity between love and parting. Parting is such sweet sorrow, was it Shakespeare who said that? And loving is such sweet remembered sorrow as well.