maybe it is this that ties us all to ourselves, to the notion of motherhood, even when we insist that this isn't all that our lives are about. because there is no broken heart like a lost child.
because the relationship you build there isn't a conscious decision, not a matter of choosing this or that person. it's not a question of who's more deserving of your love. it's just a matter of chance and fate. which seems easy, yes i imagine, to women who ride with the wind and run away with wolves. but.
to bear a child is to be pushed and shoved into a vulnerable emotional place, that begins the moment your body changes, the moment you miss your period, the moment you gain the first couple of pounds. your hormones become the convenient excuse for everything. but really, the everything's in your head.
and your heart. because it takes heart to go through nine months of uncertainty -- which is what pregnancy always is. and then another day, or two, for delivery. another week or so to recover. and as you do so, you realize you are tied to the life of another being, and there really is nowhere to go. even if you wanted to, even if you could. you wouldn't. because you're made of things that tell you to stay. to savor. to stay.
and when that child is gone, you're also told that you're made of stronger things. that you might wallow, but what for. that you do feel horrible and miserable, but you must get back to your life, the one you had before the full year of motherhood -- from pregnancy to the end.
the end. is where you realize that your heart will never recover. that a piece of it is lost forever. and that this is the only broken heart that's real and true. there are no replacements, no moving on, no getting up from the fall.
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
1.05.2009
11.30.2008
Woman as woman
Courage is the everyday word for it, but I really prefer valor. It connotes more a willingness, a determination, a battle, rather than just the luck-of-the-draw reaction to circumstance, to everyday.
I remember when I was younger, having a resentment of the most valiant picture of woman as mother. Why the mother? I asked. Never leader, president, soldier, worker, thinker. This is the 21st century and haven't we any gone further than being different from man because of a collection of reproductive organs? Biology, yes, renders the woman inferior every time, all the time: the monthly periods, the dysmenorrhea that renders one invalid, the risk of pregnancy, the question of abortion, career vs. family. Of these things, man has been spared.
And though I am not naive enough now to discount the un-feeling girl, the in-different woman--the one who will, without question, without second thought discount marriage, homemaking, the one who will say yes without hesitation to abortion--perhaps it is our biggest achievement to be able to carry life within us, to bear the weight and the pain, and to live with them always: the pain and the weight of creation, the nurturing, letting go.
Perhaps the ultimate feminism lies in motherhood, despite decades of fight. This might be our single claim to valor: that we choose to face the consequence, become aware of it, and deal with it to the best of our abilities, all the while knowing that we have no choice but to let go. Perhaps this is why all the stories begin like this: Once there was a child.
For my friend Ina, the most valiant of women.
I remember when I was younger, having a resentment of the most valiant picture of woman as mother. Why the mother? I asked. Never leader, president, soldier, worker, thinker. This is the 21st century and haven't we any gone further than being different from man because of a collection of reproductive organs? Biology, yes, renders the woman inferior every time, all the time: the monthly periods, the dysmenorrhea that renders one invalid, the risk of pregnancy, the question of abortion, career vs. family. Of these things, man has been spared.
And though I am not naive enough now to discount the un-feeling girl, the in-different woman--the one who will, without question, without second thought discount marriage, homemaking, the one who will say yes without hesitation to abortion--perhaps it is our biggest achievement to be able to carry life within us, to bear the weight and the pain, and to live with them always: the pain and the weight of creation, the nurturing, letting go.
Perhaps the ultimate feminism lies in motherhood, despite decades of fight. This might be our single claim to valor: that we choose to face the consequence, become aware of it, and deal with it to the best of our abilities, all the while knowing that we have no choice but to let go. Perhaps this is why all the stories begin like this: Once there was a child.
For my friend Ina, the most valiant of women.
11.27.2008
left to the house
for sunshine, who labels herself taong-bahay.
which doesn't do justice to who she really is.
Ang Kapatid na Babae ng Ilustrado
ni Joi Barrios
(para kay Josefa Rizal)
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Ang kanyang kapatid na lalaki,
ang ilustrado,
ay naglakbay patungong Espanya,
patungong Europa,
palibot sa mundo.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Ang kanyang kapatid na lalaki,
ang ilustrado,
ay nagdaos ng mga lihim na pulong,
nagsulat ng mga sanaysay,
nagtatag ng La Liga Filipina.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Walang babaeng naglakbay
para mag-aral ng medisina o batas.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Marahil, nagbuburda ng mga bulaklak sa sala,
gamit ang sariling buhok bilang sinulid.
Marahil, nagluluto ng masarap na putahe sa kusina,
nagpapakulo ng tuwalya ng baka at dugo ng baboy.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Ngunit marahil, nang inanyayahan nila siyang
lumahok sa himagsikan
hiniwa niya ang kanyang balat
at sinulat ang kanyang pangalan
nang pulang-pula.
from: Minatamis at Iba Pang Tula ng Pag-ibig. Anvil Publishing, 1998.
which doesn't do justice to who she really is.
Ang Kapatid na Babae ng Ilustrado
ni Joi Barrios
(para kay Josefa Rizal)
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Ang kanyang kapatid na lalaki,
ang ilustrado,
ay naglakbay patungong Espanya,
patungong Europa,
palibot sa mundo.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Ang kanyang kapatid na lalaki,
ang ilustrado,
ay nagdaos ng mga lihim na pulong,
nagsulat ng mga sanaysay,
nagtatag ng La Liga Filipina.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Walang babaeng naglakbay
para mag-aral ng medisina o batas.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Marahil, nagbuburda ng mga bulaklak sa sala,
gamit ang sariling buhok bilang sinulid.
Marahil, nagluluto ng masarap na putahe sa kusina,
nagpapakulo ng tuwalya ng baka at dugo ng baboy.
Siya'y taong-bahay.
Ngunit marahil, nang inanyayahan nila siyang
lumahok sa himagsikan
hiniwa niya ang kanyang balat
at sinulat ang kanyang pangalan
nang pulang-pula.
from: Minatamis at Iba Pang Tula ng Pag-ibig. Anvil Publishing, 1998.
barefoot loving
for ning, who always told me that what she wants to be is barefoot and pregnant.
because really, barefoot doesn't quite say nakapaa.
Pagbati sa Pagsinta
ni Joi Barrios
Nakatindig kong babatiin and pagsinta.
Hindi nakahimlay at nahihimbing
na kailangang gisingin ng halik,
hindi nakaupo't naghihintay
na para bang ang kanyang pagdating
ang kabuuan ng buhay,
hindi nakatingkayad o lumilipad
na nakikipaglaro sa hangin at pangarap.
Nakatayo ako't sumasayad
ang paa sa lupa,
pagka't lagi't lagi,
nakayapak ako kung umibig.
from: Minatamis at Iba Pang Tula ng Pag-ibig. Anvil Publishing, 2008.
because really, barefoot doesn't quite say nakapaa.
Pagbati sa Pagsinta
ni Joi Barrios
Nakatindig kong babatiin and pagsinta.
Hindi nakahimlay at nahihimbing
na kailangang gisingin ng halik,
hindi nakaupo't naghihintay
na para bang ang kanyang pagdating
ang kabuuan ng buhay,
hindi nakatingkayad o lumilipad
na nakikipaglaro sa hangin at pangarap.
Nakatayo ako't sumasayad
ang paa sa lupa,
pagka't lagi't lagi,
nakayapak ako kung umibig.
from: Minatamis at Iba Pang Tula ng Pag-ibig. Anvil Publishing, 2008.
11.22.2008
on arch enemies
who of course are women, too. though we would like to imagine them to be men. but really, whether we admit it or not, we are made to love certain men to bits, even when they're but figments of our imaginations, even when none of it is real. (and we know he isn't real because in our heads, our man is john lloyd cruz. or derek ramsey. or, sige na nga, jon avila.)
and yet feminism teaches us that we are sisters by virtue of being the same. regardless of which feminist we read, we are told to a certain extent about sisterhood. about empathy and sympathy and taking up other women's causes. we take these causes up because we are the educated, the lucky, the one's in the right places of consciousness and power. and to a certain extent, this is easy.
to look at that woman carrying a child in the streets of the city, begging for change. to give the waitress an extra 20 pesos as tip, just because she had smiled, when others wouldn't have. to exchange chismis with the cashier at the grocery, because she had lingered over the showbiz magazine you had bought, and decided to strike up a conversation. we are allowed to imagine that mother who is pregnant with her eleventh child, at a loss, without food, without basic services, and we are allowed to speak for her and fight for the reproductive health bill.
of course more than anything, what we do is cry for all these women. charity after all is the most basic act that we are taught by school and church and television. we are allowed to forget that beneath it is a superiority complex that we've been taught all too well.
what we have yet to be taught though, is how to handle that woman who doesn't need your charity, or sympathy, or empathy. that woman who decides to break your heart, eat you alive, and leave nothing for the birds. she is the one you are in an ongoing contest with, because she is older and you are younger (or vice versa), maybe because she is living the life you thought you would, or you are exactly that person she can only imagine being. this woman can be your closest friend, or that colleague who decides to spread rumors about you. she can be a cousin, an acquaintance, your boss. she can even be your mother.
sometimes, these women are exactly like us -- powerful and educated and intelligent -- and that always makes it more difficult. sometimes though, you know that these women just don't know any better. they are victims of their own miseducation, find power in the imagination of a happily ever after, which in this day and age means materialism and accumulation and commodification of their very own lives. theirs are the lives that pop culture celebrates as independent and perfect and powerful. these images and these women's soundbites create this competition, one that we are part of by virtue of breathing the same air that they do, whether we like it or not.
we aren't taught by feminism how to deal with any of these women and how they are celebrated in our context. we aren't warned about the women who only care for themselves, who have no sense of doing right by other women just because they are women, who don't care that the lives they live -- the successes they have -- happen at the expense of other women.
when we are taught about sisterhood, and sympathy, and empathy, we aren't warned about apathy. the truth is there are women who have no sense of sisterhood. and then there are women like us, who suffer for believing what we've been taught. that sisterhood is a matter of justice.
and yet feminism teaches us that we are sisters by virtue of being the same. regardless of which feminist we read, we are told to a certain extent about sisterhood. about empathy and sympathy and taking up other women's causes. we take these causes up because we are the educated, the lucky, the one's in the right places of consciousness and power. and to a certain extent, this is easy.
to look at that woman carrying a child in the streets of the city, begging for change. to give the waitress an extra 20 pesos as tip, just because she had smiled, when others wouldn't have. to exchange chismis with the cashier at the grocery, because she had lingered over the showbiz magazine you had bought, and decided to strike up a conversation. we are allowed to imagine that mother who is pregnant with her eleventh child, at a loss, without food, without basic services, and we are allowed to speak for her and fight for the reproductive health bill.
of course more than anything, what we do is cry for all these women. charity after all is the most basic act that we are taught by school and church and television. we are allowed to forget that beneath it is a superiority complex that we've been taught all too well.
what we have yet to be taught though, is how to handle that woman who doesn't need your charity, or sympathy, or empathy. that woman who decides to break your heart, eat you alive, and leave nothing for the birds. she is the one you are in an ongoing contest with, because she is older and you are younger (or vice versa), maybe because she is living the life you thought you would, or you are exactly that person she can only imagine being. this woman can be your closest friend, or that colleague who decides to spread rumors about you. she can be a cousin, an acquaintance, your boss. she can even be your mother.
sometimes, these women are exactly like us -- powerful and educated and intelligent -- and that always makes it more difficult. sometimes though, you know that these women just don't know any better. they are victims of their own miseducation, find power in the imagination of a happily ever after, which in this day and age means materialism and accumulation and commodification of their very own lives. theirs are the lives that pop culture celebrates as independent and perfect and powerful. these images and these women's soundbites create this competition, one that we are part of by virtue of breathing the same air that they do, whether we like it or not.
we aren't taught by feminism how to deal with any of these women and how they are celebrated in our context. we aren't warned about the women who only care for themselves, who have no sense of doing right by other women just because they are women, who don't care that the lives they live -- the successes they have -- happen at the expense of other women.
when we are taught about sisterhood, and sympathy, and empathy, we aren't warned about apathy. the truth is there are women who have no sense of sisterhood. and then there are women like us, who suffer for believing what we've been taught. that sisterhood is a matter of justice.
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