Love is the thing in life
April 29, 2007 | 12:00am
When I was fetched late from school, often I would while away the time in the classroom by either reading or writing on the blackboard. (Who knew back then that it would be a rehearsal for the life I’m leading now?)
What was it I would write on the blackboard? Normally, I would make my own quotations. These were easy to write because they would only contain one or two lines, and they seemed to capture quickly and succinctly what seemed to be "the truth" to me. I had a big, black diary that came from an uncle who worked at Insular Life, and after I had filled the blackboard with these original quotations, I would write them down in this diary. I wish I could remember some of these quotations, and I am saddened by the fact that the diary no longer exists.
However, there is one quote that remains. It remains with me because, later on, I took the time to make letter cutouts in the form of this very short quotation and tape it to my desktop. I had undertaken this activity because all my father’s secretaries  he had three, and why he had three is certainly a story worth telling someday  used to pepper their desks with pictures, sweet sayings and then later cover it all up with plastic wrap. The emotion wrapped up in all that activity resonated in my extremely young soul and I wished to copy it. The quotation is this: "Love is the thing in life."
An interior life is precious and all this activity of writing things down, naming them, concretizing them in cutout form, pasting and taping and wrapping was certainly an act of identification. How awful, then, that when this was all done, my family took one look at this desk of mine and started to make fun of it.
I go back to this story in my mind’s eye and I can no longer recall what I felt. From where I am, it doesn’t feel like it was anger. It feels more like incredulity, as if I couldn’t believe that they didn’t know that this was the secret to all of life.
We envy children because of their youth. But I think we envy them more because they live life with the knowledge of truth more intimately.
As I write this, I am in Zambales with my 10-year-old boy. Two of my siblings live here now: Coke, who is founder and artistic director of Casa San Miguel; and Plet, the painter. We live on a mango farm and here sits Casa, the arts center, my sister’s house and me, in my old mother’s house.
Our days are predictable, and this is more or less the point of this exercise. Predictability is the key to a stress-free life with a special child. We wake up at 7a.m. and have breakfast together. He swims from 8 to 10 while I read or write. He listens to music until lunchtime. We have lunch together with my sister and her husband. In the early afternoon, he is allowed to watch one video. At around 3 p.m., he swims again. At 4 p.m., we take a walk to the beach or if he prefers to swing in the garden, I do my yoga. We have dinner at 6:15 p.m. before the sun has even descended completely. We watch another video together and he sleeps at 8:30 p.m. while I continue to read and write. Proper reading and writing is easier to do without the summer heat bearing down on me.
This week, something new arrived. Mark, the son of one of the carpenters on the farm, came to visit his father.
He is the same age as my son, and there is relief for all. His father was happy that he is the same age as my son so they can play together, and he can go about his carpentry without having to worry about his son. My son’s therapist was happy because someone else can absorb the stress of entertaining him. Mark was happy because he has become part of the predictability of my son’s life. My son was happy that he has someone he can be with who is not a grownup.
The relief turns into a strategic nightmare, however, when the idea of social class begins to be at play. We discuss the protocol of where Mark should eat. Should he eat with us or with the rest of the carpenters? And if he were to eat with us, would he be sitting at the table with us? He wants to watch TV with my son and he asks why he cannot have his own choice and why he can only watch what my son wants to watch. His therapist is at a loss on how to respond to this query. At lunch, Mark doesn’t like the food and I don’t know how to respond. He takes food from our pantry and from across the room his father fidgets, uncomfortable. I pass him an easy smile and we both know in that smile that things will be okay because this friendship will not last. Now the two of them want to have a sleepover and his father and I look at each other and wait for each other’s signals on whether this is okay or not.
These thoughts and ideas are part of the grownups’ lives. These are problems made by grownups because we have been raised a certain way and there is no need to make judgments about the way we are raised. In that famous song from South Pacific, the lieutenant sings "You’ve got to be taught" certain things. And these social games we play are part and parcel of things "we were taught." What is most frightening is the silence that accompanies this game. We all evaluate and shift our preconceived notions of people to accommodate new situations that come to us.
But to these two 10-year-olds, these questions have not yet touched their interior lives. Judgments based on educational background, accomplishment, family membership or employment have no bearing on friendship. They look at the grownups and wonder what all the hemming and hawing is about. They don’t know it yet, but they are silently also being taught about their boundaries.
But for now, the beauty of summer is all that matters. How lucky for them that the grownups have no choice but to settle things between themselves. They swim together and the highlight is to jump and submerge themselves at the same time and look at each other under the water. The sheer pleasure of the other is crystal clear. They know with every fiber of their being this is the secret to all of life: love is the thing in life  love for the summer, for the water, for the friendship, for life itself  the pursuit of it, the finding of it, and the doing of it. The world of grownups is not yet theirs.
My creative writing summer class has begun. Enrolled officially with me are 10 students of varying ages and interests. I have an 85-year-old grandmother and a 21-year-old senior student. In between is a hodgepodge of writers with interesting stories to tell. The first thing I told them upon hearing their stories is that finding a topic will certainly not be a problem.
During our first class together, we talked about their expectations from the workshop, and I gave my own expectations as well. In the second class, we’re going to be discussing how to get creative. If you still want to join a writing workshop, I’m opening a second class beginning June 16. I am also opening a "Reading the Classics" class. If you’ve wanted to read the big books but want to do it with other people (and fight about it with other people), this might be a class for you.
E-mail me at Rica.Santos@gmail.com for queries regarding these classes.
What was it I would write on the blackboard? Normally, I would make my own quotations. These were easy to write because they would only contain one or two lines, and they seemed to capture quickly and succinctly what seemed to be "the truth" to me. I had a big, black diary that came from an uncle who worked at Insular Life, and after I had filled the blackboard with these original quotations, I would write them down in this diary. I wish I could remember some of these quotations, and I am saddened by the fact that the diary no longer exists.
However, there is one quote that remains. It remains with me because, later on, I took the time to make letter cutouts in the form of this very short quotation and tape it to my desktop. I had undertaken this activity because all my father’s secretaries  he had three, and why he had three is certainly a story worth telling someday  used to pepper their desks with pictures, sweet sayings and then later cover it all up with plastic wrap. The emotion wrapped up in all that activity resonated in my extremely young soul and I wished to copy it. The quotation is this: "Love is the thing in life."
An interior life is precious and all this activity of writing things down, naming them, concretizing them in cutout form, pasting and taping and wrapping was certainly an act of identification. How awful, then, that when this was all done, my family took one look at this desk of mine and started to make fun of it.
I go back to this story in my mind’s eye and I can no longer recall what I felt. From where I am, it doesn’t feel like it was anger. It feels more like incredulity, as if I couldn’t believe that they didn’t know that this was the secret to all of life.
As I write this, I am in Zambales with my 10-year-old boy. Two of my siblings live here now: Coke, who is founder and artistic director of Casa San Miguel; and Plet, the painter. We live on a mango farm and here sits Casa, the arts center, my sister’s house and me, in my old mother’s house.
Our days are predictable, and this is more or less the point of this exercise. Predictability is the key to a stress-free life with a special child. We wake up at 7a.m. and have breakfast together. He swims from 8 to 10 while I read or write. He listens to music until lunchtime. We have lunch together with my sister and her husband. In the early afternoon, he is allowed to watch one video. At around 3 p.m., he swims again. At 4 p.m., we take a walk to the beach or if he prefers to swing in the garden, I do my yoga. We have dinner at 6:15 p.m. before the sun has even descended completely. We watch another video together and he sleeps at 8:30 p.m. while I continue to read and write. Proper reading and writing is easier to do without the summer heat bearing down on me.
This week, something new arrived. Mark, the son of one of the carpenters on the farm, came to visit his father.
He is the same age as my son, and there is relief for all. His father was happy that he is the same age as my son so they can play together, and he can go about his carpentry without having to worry about his son. My son’s therapist was happy because someone else can absorb the stress of entertaining him. Mark was happy because he has become part of the predictability of my son’s life. My son was happy that he has someone he can be with who is not a grownup.
The relief turns into a strategic nightmare, however, when the idea of social class begins to be at play. We discuss the protocol of where Mark should eat. Should he eat with us or with the rest of the carpenters? And if he were to eat with us, would he be sitting at the table with us? He wants to watch TV with my son and he asks why he cannot have his own choice and why he can only watch what my son wants to watch. His therapist is at a loss on how to respond to this query. At lunch, Mark doesn’t like the food and I don’t know how to respond. He takes food from our pantry and from across the room his father fidgets, uncomfortable. I pass him an easy smile and we both know in that smile that things will be okay because this friendship will not last. Now the two of them want to have a sleepover and his father and I look at each other and wait for each other’s signals on whether this is okay or not.
These thoughts and ideas are part of the grownups’ lives. These are problems made by grownups because we have been raised a certain way and there is no need to make judgments about the way we are raised. In that famous song from South Pacific, the lieutenant sings "You’ve got to be taught" certain things. And these social games we play are part and parcel of things "we were taught." What is most frightening is the silence that accompanies this game. We all evaluate and shift our preconceived notions of people to accommodate new situations that come to us.
But to these two 10-year-olds, these questions have not yet touched their interior lives. Judgments based on educational background, accomplishment, family membership or employment have no bearing on friendship. They look at the grownups and wonder what all the hemming and hawing is about. They don’t know it yet, but they are silently also being taught about their boundaries.
But for now, the beauty of summer is all that matters. How lucky for them that the grownups have no choice but to settle things between themselves. They swim together and the highlight is to jump and submerge themselves at the same time and look at each other under the water. The sheer pleasure of the other is crystal clear. They know with every fiber of their being this is the secret to all of life: love is the thing in life  love for the summer, for the water, for the friendship, for life itself  the pursuit of it, the finding of it, and the doing of it. The world of grownups is not yet theirs.
During our first class together, we talked about their expectations from the workshop, and I gave my own expectations as well. In the second class, we’re going to be discussing how to get creative. If you still want to join a writing workshop, I’m opening a second class beginning June 16. I am also opening a "Reading the Classics" class. If you’ve wanted to read the big books but want to do it with other people (and fight about it with other people), this might be a class for you.
E-mail me at Rica.Santos@gmail.com for queries regarding these classes.
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