Each org room had two doors, and each room was shared by at least four organizations. On top of each door lay a sign that listed the names of the orgs. In this particular room, it was AtSca (Ateneo Student Catholic Action), ACLC (Ateneo Christian Life Community), Gabay (made up of Ateneo scholars) and SAWI.
I was an AtSCAn, my best friend Rafa was a CLCer, my classmate in English, Lisa, from Gabay, but no one seemed to know anyone from SAWI. I asked the upperclassmen if they had any idea what it stood for, and who its members were, but no one seemed to know anything about the org. I went out of my way to research on it by visiting the Office of Student Activities, but strangely enough, there was nothing on file, and nothing in anyone’s memory to give me a clue.
I spent many afternoons pondering on that sign by the door. Was it merely a mistake of the shop that made the sign? Was there indeed an org named SAWI that died a natural death? As we were all socially oriented organizations, what could the vision mission of this org possibly be?
After awhile, the irony and comedy and most importantly, the possibility of it hit me. If no one would claim this org, I would claim it for myself. Many of my other friends joined me. One thing bound us together – we were all sawi. We decided that it would stand for Samahan ng mga Atenistang Walang Iniibig. Oh, it was a novel idea and many joined our bandwagon. How wonderful to have discovered a place where we could all be pathetic together!
We sought to legitimize the org by having activities most orgs have. We had a logbook where we were free to write all our sawi-ness. Every Friday, we had meetings and we were all encouraged to share our sob stories of rejection and pain. On Saturdays, dateless, we would meet and have dinner together. On Valentine’s Day, I, Lizette and Celia, top honchos of our org, wore black, braved the traffic and had dinner in Greenhills where we knew we would look funny dateless. Unrequited love was our "area." I stood as leader of this tribe. After all, not only was I responsible for finding this org. I had a beautiful sawi story to boot!
The man who had made me sawi was named Norman. He had pursued me (or so I thought) relentlessly from the day I entered Ateneo. He was the upperclassman who took care of our troop during freshman orientation seminar. We naturally found each other, in my mind, of course. By the end of that first day, when I got home, my mother informed me that a Norman had called for me. It was a sure sign that the connection was something, this time, I had not imagined.
As this was my first college love, many things remain (both real and invented I am certain): An orange jacket that helped me identify him from faraway; red Topsiders that helped me anticipate his arrival; falling leaves in orange and red while walking together; the electric feel of his hairy arm on mine sitting together in Colayco trying to look nonchalant and unperturbed; indulging in games that women and men play that are absolutely useless; telephone calls that seemed unbearable to end; having picnics at the back of the Jesuit residence.
And always, always, the interpretation of motive. A person in love is consumed with the study of motive. While the declaration of love is undeclared, meaning is forever arbitrary and therefore can be fashioned to look like real love. Why else call me at midnight unless he couldn’t stop thinking of me? Why else would he be sungit unless he was jealous I was talking to somebody else? Surely his moves could only mean he loved me...
I had another favorite building, Bellarmine. It is the oldest building on campus and stands alone separated from the newer buildings by a large, but not expansive field. My class here was Filipino from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Like clockwork, at 10 a.m., I would need to pee. I would walk to the end of the hallway and in the bathroom also notice that it was indeed an old building. The sinks were different, wide and curvaceous, like the sinks in my grandmother’s house in the province. But my secret activity was reading graffiti on its wooden doors.
Toilet doors stood as witness to many love affairs gone well, or gone awry. "I love you forever." "Jeb is a shit-head." "Manny loves Erika" "Josie heart (in drawing form) Miguel." I was fascinated by such pronouncements. I could only imagine what it would take to make someone so full of love, or hatred, or pain, full enough to want to grab something from a purse, contemplate breaking the law, go through one’s collection of sentences or phrases, take the time out to carve this weightedness and be reminded of it every single time you pee.
The wooden doors were an invitation to make your sentiments far more permanent. It required a deepening of a sharp instrument. Before I had thought graffiti was a sign of a lack of discipline. Now it was a measure of passion felt. I envied the release the writer must have felt finally deciding to put down something secret on something so public. So, there I was and I could feel the urge to commit to my feeling, to claim it as true. Right at the center of the door, I carved lightly using the tip of my pen in the tiniest letters, "I am in love with Norman."
It was a huge thing to admit to myself. I thought I had fallen in love before, in high school, but this was different. There was no element of secret because by this time I could receive phone calls from boys openly. There was no peer pressure that can be overwhelming when one is from an all girls’ school. I felt grown up (it must have helped that I was not in my ridiculously shapeless uniform) and it felt quite delicious to be thought of as grown up, too. And best of all, he was an upperclassman. Talk about extra pogi points!
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m., I would see what I had written and even when things eventually became ugly and what was once so full of promise became so full of anxiety, that one little sentence remained immovable, permanent and real. At times, I felt like erasing it, or even adding to it, (I take it back! I don’t anymore!) but there was poetry in having it remain and having it remind me that it was something I felt honestly.
There are many twists and turns to this story, many novelistic and fictional moments I will chronicle elsewhere. Suffice it to say that it would all eventually end at my doorstep, with him walking away with another woman, and me kicking the door as I brought them outside.
And what could only count as poetic justice was the fact that a few months later, the Sawi door would welcome a most pleasant surprise – the one true thing I would eventually marry. As he entered the room, wearing a gray shirt and gray Topsiders, my heart whispered: You will marry this man. I was smart enough to listen to such a certain pronouncement. (It was in this room that I first kissed him, too.)
Every semester, I request that I be given a classroom in Bellarmine. Students hate this, as it requires a long walk to get there. But I absolutely love this old building. The acoustics are fantastic and it is never hot in the classroom. Whenever I go in to pee, I am reminded of what I did as a teenager. I make certain to use the same cubicle and I still take time out to read new graffiti. Although mine can no longer be seen, I know it is somewhere on the grain. Last semester, I was dismayed to discover that the toilets had been renovated. The doors were no longer wooden. Even if you could write graffiti, you could no longer carve your words.
A couple of months ago, the Colayco Building was demolished. It seemed almost surreal. My heart refused to accept the fact that the repository of my youth would be destroyed. Even I find this statement corny and yet it is true. Buildings, although concrete, are also spiritual places. What has happened to these sentiments written on doors? What has happened to these chairs, walls, floors, and doors where imprints of human lives were received? As long as there was evidence, I could claim my past was real. Without it, I am left with merely imagination and nostalgia.
Norman remains a good friend, and what happened to us (real or otherwise) is not something we talk about. These days we talk about our children, places to get good furniture, and the impact of the Pope’s death. His arm brushes mine and none of that electricity passes through me. We are now old people. I have often wondered, walking around Ateneo as a teacher, if I had chosen to make my life here because being here is a constant reminder of what it is like to be young. Every place is pregnant with meaning. I walk the halls and hundreds of memories, lead and follow me. I am able to live, somehow, in a form of eternal present tense. Here, I am, always in love, always sawi, always alive.