That's how you know

"...Be glad there’s one place in the world where everybody knows your name, And they’re always glad you came; You want to go where people know, People are all the same; You want to go where everybody knows your name..." —Theme from the TV show "Cheers"

Christmas seemed to have raced with its own date getting there and getting gone faster than you could sing, "Deck the halls with boughs of hol—..." — and it’s past Valentine’s Day. When I saw friends with ashes on their forehead last Wednesday, I panicked. The next Christmas might be just around the corner soon enough. I haven’t wrapped nor sent the gifts I got for my friends since November. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen nor been with my best buddies from school since almost a year before — and before that, almost a year, too. I remember in high school Mylene and I, every day, would walk back to their home just a few blocks away from the campus. We would hang out in her room. She’d turn the radio on. I’d be on her bed with my legs and feet up against the wall and she would be going through her hair looking for the coarse strands and pull them out one by one. We’d talk about school and schoolmates, family, the boys from the underground brother classes from Ateneo and La Salle. Often we would move from one story to another and we’d find one topic that just gets us going — laughing so long and so hard we’d have to consciously concentrate on stopping to survive. It would be the silliest thing. Many of those times I honestly believed I could actually die laughing. Other times we’d spend a whole afternoon just thinking and being quiet. I have several of those types of friends from way back — the ones who could end my sentences for me. And this past Christmas I was, yet again, reminded how I’ve been so undeserving of their loyalty.

They don’t usually call. They think I’m always too busy. They’re right. So I do the calling when, in a brief moment of lucidity from the world’s madness, I remember to text, "Hey, let’s have dinner and catch up soon." Mylene would respond, "How are you?" And I believe she means to know exactly how I am. I call. Faster than I can exchange pleasantries I give her a litany of irritants, issues, whining, whining... Then I have to get down for my next appointment. We end up saying, "Hey let’s have dinner and catch up soon." And then we don’t — until a few months later. And when we do see each other? Give us more than an hour and we’re going through our hair again looking for coarse strands to pull out. These are my friends. That’s how you know.

Haven’t you tried to find the word for it? Haven’t you tried to figure it out and write the formula in your notebook? It’s one of life’s practical tricks — like following arrows in an unfamiliar place pointing to where the party is. If you don’t pay attention you miss out. Then get desperately lost. When you pay enough attention it’s like that movie with the autistic kid and Bruce Willis. The boy looks at a maze of letters and, give him a minute, he figures out some top secret code. Most of the time it’s a moment of education and discovery. You start out taking it all for granted not knowing you had it all the time. Hopefully, soon enough, you notice a pattern. And, for most times, it’s a reliable hypothesis.

How do you define love? As Eskimos have 56 terms for snow because it is such an important and basic part of their lives in the cold, Canadian poet Margaret Atwood asks, shouldn’t we have at least as many terms for love? Wedding vows, marriage contracts and even pre-nuptial agreements have tried to define the word and even set parameters for it. In the end, after one failed relationship after another; in between the fights, the disappointments, the frustrations — you figure it’s just how you catch him looking at you that defines it best. Oprah Winfrey was interviewing country music superstars Faith Hill and her husband Tim MacGraw. Oprah asked a mushy, motherhood question, like, "What did you see in her?" Either of the couple couldn’t and didn’t answer the question, actually. Oprah caught something the audience probably missed and said, "I can see how your face lit up and your eyes say it all... That’s how you know, that’s how you know..."

My immediate staff has each been with me at least five to 10 years. Some of the guys in the shows I produce and anchor for have been with me, up and down, for 15 to 20 years. I tell you, the worst thing about the job is the people. Sometimes I think it’s a choice between being canonized as a saint for patience or landing in jail and end up a convict for abandoning all virtue. But, hey, the best thing about the work? Also the people.

In more than 20 years in the business many times I’m convinced I’ve seen it all, dealt with all kinds. But the caricatures of betrayal don’t become caricatures for nothing. Many of those overused plots of "never quite knowing who’ll turn on you next" — like in that last movie you watched — I’ve seen too many of in real life, too, I tell you. I’ve been stabbed front and back, come back from the dead so many times I should officially be nicknamed Lazarus.

A girlfriend of mine is an executive in a huge company. At 35, a single woman and a senior vice president within 15 years you might say she’s paid her dues, earned her stripes and been to hell and back. She thought she’d seen it all, too, until a merger saw her having to put up with a boss who wanted his way with her and, when she went for a co-worker instead (because, well, at least he wasn’t married and was much less of an a—) she found herself in an unfathomable situation. My friend had to give up her position for an upstart and be laterally transferred to an office near the office emergency fire exit. It’s pretty funny it happened to be like that. She joked about many times wanting to set the building on fire herself. She thought the worst was over when, to her horror, she finds out one of her ace assistants had unceremoniously transferred office to be with the newcomer who took her place. Another staff — the one she plucked out of some obscure, dead-end job for a great break years back — was applying with the new boss. The third and last of her staff was the one she had the least relationship with. "I’m not sure if I’ll be good enough to be the one to stay for you", her staff told her, "they’re asking me to join them, too. But if you’ll have me I believe I owe this job to you and I’d like to stay with you." To one man give a million bucks and it doesn’t keep him from turning on you later. To a loyal man lend him a hundred when it matters and he’s yours forever. That’s how you know. Unfortunately, the ability to discern comes with the price of experience and a whole lot of painful lessons.

Otherwise, it’s just about being keenly aware of what really works for you. Much like faith, I suppose. The religion depends on what keeps someone strong, inspired and believing.

It’s inescapable. For many of us, believing becomes more and more difficult as we get older and as we know more and more about how things work. All sorts of doubts. We doubt someone’s love, sincerity, friendship or loyalty. We doubt whether it is all worth it. I doubt, too.

Life in broadcast — in the public eye with people placing you up there while waiting for a chance to pull you down, in a huge corporate setup, being only as good as your last performance and stressfully looking forward to rest on weekends — you tend to wonder sometimes. It’s funny how vacations are supposed to recharge you to get better and ready for the next battle. Haven’t you thought that the more you see blue waters and green landscapes you have less and less reason to want to go back to the barracks? But each day, every day, I begrudgingly put on my makeup, pick out my wardrobe, give out instructions, cram on the research material, have someone whisper the latest and most useless gossip in your ear, and fret there isn’t enough production material for a show. Too many times it happens, my staff will confess, I threaten to just pack up and leave.

And then — I’m on-air. And it’s just me and the audience. And it’s something familiar, it’s something that fits. Between the microphone and me — it’s a rush. You get to tell it as it is from your eyes. It’s important. Or you make them laugh, smile, think, wonder, inspired. After an hour of dishing it out the way I’d like to believe I was meant to do, the way I trained 20 or so years to do — it’s like giving birth each and every time. The labor makes you utter what any lady shouldn’t. And when it’s done it’s just sheer joy. You see the fruits of labor and, especially when it’s a good show, it’s a good day. And more often than not I’m convinced it’s a good life. That’s how I know.

(E-mail the author at korina_abs@yahoo.com)