Paradise rediscovered

What is paradise to you? To my classmates and me it is a place around three hours from Manila, nestled by a broad river on one side, and mountain slopes on the other. It has wonderful old trees standing haughtily but looking down on you kindly. There is a small waterfall, a creek full of every lotus variety imaginable, a little red bridge. It was the most beautiful place in the Philippines, I thought, and it belonged to one of our high school classmates who kicked off the week by inviting our class to lunch.

She has a lovely, cozy Thai style-house and she served us a delicious Thai lunch. After lunch we sat around in a circle, different sizes, different personalities and told our life stories but we left out the crises. Why did we do that? Did we not want to talk about the hard times? No. We were all uniformly over them. We had been tried, tested then finally graduated with honors. Now most of us hovering around age 67, were all happily free. That sense of freedom, of liberation, added a lovely lilt to our laughter.

At this age, what does one feel is most important in life? To me, the most important thing is laughter. I just really want to laugh until I die, maybe because I choke laughing. At the end of that day six of us famous gigglers piled into a van and laughed together all the way home.

“Hey,” Lydia, now a widow, said, “Nena is arriving and she’s attending dinner with her husband. We should find more husbands to join us so they can talk to him.”

“How many do you want?” I asked flippantly. “I can bring three.”

“Okay,” Lydia said, “bring three.” Then they all laughed. They must have known I was joking. I, the finally unmarried one, the one who lived alone and didn’t know available men, now had to come up with three.

When I got home and could recharge my cell phone I found the first man. He was the widower of a classmate who had been asking me about reunions. Actually I have never met him but when I invited him, he said he would come. I invited another fellow who texts me but he made up a lot of excuses, so I said, forget it. Then I invited a third new friend and to my delight, he said yes! Two out of three ain’t bad. We were ready for Thursday’s dinner.

On Monday at around midnight, Nena arrived. On Tuesday morning Nena and her husband Barry, Lydia, Ronnie and I headed for the Pintô Art Museum in Antipolo. The museum is owned by Dr. Joven Cuanang, a highly respected neurologist, who owns many galleries in the Philippines. Actually I remembered coming here a long time ago, before it was turned into a museum. Here is another breathtakingly beautiful place closer to Manila. In front is the gallery for current exhibits. Then you walk around the beautifully landscaped grounds, running into antique wrought iron beds being used as garden couches, white wrought iron furniture, statues lying among the plants or meditating under a tree. There is a wonderful serenity to this place.

Go down and enter the museum full of magnificent big paintings, most of them too heavy for my taste, though there were a few that I liked. We were escorted by Andy Orencio and his brother Jim, who is the museum’s manager. What I liked most was the architecture, so natural, like the buildings had just risen around the big rocks that were there. These are simple, unpretentious buildings, but they are truly beautiful. I am glad Lydia brought us over to see it. Right now it doesn’t have a restaurant but I heard that Bizu will be opening there soon. I must recommend that you go visit this museum. Barry, Nena’s husband, loved every part of it.

Why are we traveling and seeing beautiful places? Is there an occasion? Once upon a time, 58 years ago, my mother brought me to Maryknoll College Grade School in Pennsylvania, now Leon Guinto Street. There I made friends with my classmates, who I am seeing now. We graduated grade school in 1957, the year President Ramon Magsaysay’s airplane crashed in Cebu. We went on to high school in Diliman, across the creek from the Ateneo. High school is the best time of our lives. We are innocent but dying to shed the innocence. We are happy over the simplest things. We love laughter. In 1961, we graduated from high school. That was 50 years ago. This year our class is getting together to celebrate knowing each other for all this time.

Last Thursday, we had a dinner to celebrate each other. If you couldn’t make it then because you didn’t want to come, please come tonight. There is a Mass at the Miriam College (formerly Maryknoll) at 3 p.m. and a show at the Miriam Auditorium at 5 p.m. where we will show our video featuring old class pictures. Then we are invited to have dinner with the president of Miriam College. Come and try to catch up, classmates. Join us. This is a really fun group.

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