[update] there's something she would like to say;
Anna [listen]
Antje Duvekot
Anna stares out of the window
It's her eighty-fifth spring
She tries to concentrate on something
Her face is strained and she's confused
At the walls in this room
And all the strangers standing around her chair
They brought her photographs in frames
They are using her name
But she just smiles politely at their embrace
And Anna introduces herself again
A man picks up her hand
And says, "Anna, look, the spring has come"
And your carousel is waiting
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
And Anna tries to form a thought
But at the end she's forgotten where she started from
There's something she would like to say
But the words in her head seem to have got away
Can Anna come out and play
And over all that is inside
A curtain is closing in her deep brown eyes
Well it's like someone's built a wall
And through the very last cracks
Anna extends her hand and a little girl calls
"Please don't let me fall,"
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
Well there's so much you must have witnessed
As the whole world changed, child
At the onset of the Jazz Age
And it was long before Elvis
And rock-and-roll
They told you, "There will be music,
You just wait."
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
What do you think of it all
As you are so small
Under your blanket here in this hospital
I love you
Tell your bones not to let go
But your heart is beating slowly now
The spring has come
But one small leaf was falling, falling
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
I've been rethinking how I formulate the meaning of "family" to me. Is it the people I'm related to through shared genetics, or maybe it's just the people who come into my life, leave a mark in my heart like when you go into those places where they ask you to sign your hi's and hello's on a bulletin board. Maybe for me, it's more the latter because I like thinking that family should put a smile on my face. Maybe I'm just being naive.
My godfather, Tito (Ninong?) Edwin came by the house on Sunday night. He brought his wife, my Tita Edel with him as well as their two younger kids, Tintin and Ian. Tito and Tita have been friends with my parents for a long time, Tito and Dad more so since they have more than a truckload of stories to share whenever you get them started.
I remember, Tito Edwin stayed at our house for a couple of days last year, just to spend time with Dad, catching up and such. I remember laughing the most. A lot. A whole lot. So hard that my sides hurt. I think it was the longest I've ever hung out with my parents at the dinner table.
Mom homesong said that Dad tends to be more light-hearted when Tito Edwin's around. Though I've only last year as a point of reference I can't help but agree the truth of that. My ninong is a total clown, I say that with much fondness.
There was a lot of laughing Sunday night, so much that I forgot about why I'd been sad and angry the days before, though I suppose "troubled" is a more apt description since angry and sad sound so extreme written down. But I'll talk about that in a bit.
I can't single out one best moment in those few hours hanging out in the living room. Maybe it was just the way everything felt so normal, which isn't usually the case when we have guests over. When my friends used to stay over, we'd always cloister ourselves up in my room.
If it was my Airdance girls, it'd be stuff like marathorning stuff Bleach or Ouran, dipping fingers into Mom's hot fudge minues the cake. If it was Sis isiseden, it'd be her and me on the mattress set on the floor drinking Bailey's while talking stuff over, laughing here and there and being serious.
When Dani and I used to still talk, it would be us talking about training and hockey and dreams until our eyes closed. One time that Kam slpwlkngdreamer was over, it was her asking me what it was like to kiss someone, since she'd never kissed anyone before. Thinking back on it now, we feel so young in my memories. It's weird, almost.
But Sunday was everyone downstairs the house actually felt full, which rarely happens, even on Christmas since we're all so used to giving space to the other. Here we were all tripping all over each other, my dog barking for attention, the laptop moving from the computer table to the coffee table since Tita Edel and Tintin and Ian wanted to hear my music. There was Mom showing off my debut photo album and that scrapbook I made for my SocialPsychology class, and me promptly supplying the stories behind pictures and the analysis. Lots of catching up that didn't really feel like catching up.
For once, I didn't feel shy and felt more like the way I always wish I was: comfortable, extroverted and animated. Maybe it's the energy that positive people bring into my life, maybe it's because I didn't have to overthink or worry about what they would think of me because coming down, hair dripping from my evening bath, I was greeted with smiles and hugs and immediately drawn into talking and sharing that even moving to sit at the piano to play my songs felt natural and not at all like I was begging for scraps of attention. I guess it's a little sad, to realize that most of the time I think I'm imposing when I share. But moving back to topic;
Ian took a video of me singing and playing "Control" and then Tintin and I ended up babbling about music and the stuff that we do now that we're the age that we are. I told her about work, about school, that I want to teach. I told her about the artists I want to share with her, like Vienna and she asked a lot of questions. I'm going to encourage her to go see Vienna if ever she plays in Georgia, where they live. I'm sure she'll enjoy it.
Mom told me over chat yesterday that Tintin's apparently usually quiet and reserved around new people which surprised me because we got along so well. To think, the last time the parents say she and I saw each other we were six or five. It's kind of funny how things work out the way they do. I've already decided that I'm going to keep in touch with her. We agreed on that before they left to head back to the place they were staying.
I'm hoping that they get the chance to visit again. It doesn't matter if it's next year or much, much later. Email and Facebook and the internet makes it easy to keep in touch during the in-between. I have to agree with Mom though when she says that it's a bit sad that they live so far away because it was really nice to have them over.
I still have the image of Ian and Punch playing on the couch. It was great. Also, Neal showed him the monsters turtles. It just felt normal, for once. Which is all I ever really wanted for myself, really.
I was about ten or eleven or twelve when one of my aunts told me that if I was going to have fried chicken, and red meat at that, that I should just skip on rice.
Writing it down now, I feel almost angry for the memory of the little girl who spent most of her time thinking she was fat just because she wasn't as skinny as everybody else. It's pretty pointless wishing that I hadn't thought that way before, especially when I look at the photographs Mom packs away because I wasn't fat at all. I was tall and had a bit of baby fat, but I looked normal. Pretty even. I didn't used to think so. I always looked at the mirror and thought that something was missing, something was wrong.
I have a problem, or at least I sort of view it as a problem now even though that probably shouldn't be the case. I care a little too much about what people think, I sometimes catch myself bending over backwards to win approval as if the approval of others would make me love myself more.
It doesn't work. It's only left me confused on days when I don't know whether to be proud of who I've become or to be frustrated that I'm never, ever where I want to be; or at least, where I think I want to be.
I never had an eating disorder, but at thirteen I did crash diet on instant noodles thinking cutting out meat would make me shrink. It was hard because I was hungry a lot, and I didn't understand how those with eating disorders could stand feeling that empty feeling in their stomachs. I read a lot about that sort of stuff, I never told anyone. I put two and two together that if you did you'd be sent to a specialist or a hospital and my parents only ever wanted me to have a normal childhood I couldn't put them through that.
Besides, I was always too scared to stick my tongue down my throat, though I can remember one vague instance when I tried, just to see what the big deal was. It made my eyes hurt and I couldn't get rid of the image of my nail cutting wounding the inside of my mouth so I stopped. Now, whenever I gag because I try not to swallow toothpaste when I brush my teeth, I get a fleeting image of looking in the mirror of a bathroom in CCP wondering why I couldn't be as tiny or as pretty as my cousins.
I lost my temper last, last week. And stupid me, I never know how to ask for help that I sort of took out my frustration at Kam. I think the thing that scared me the most was that I'd have an anxiety attack while still on the damn jeepney taking me down Taft and I'd embarrass myself by bursting into tears infront of total strangers.
I don't know what the Filipino predisposition for telling their fellows "tumaba ka" (you got fat) is. It borders on tactlessness. It's outright rude, but we tolerate it and I've actually seen firsthand instances wherein parents or aunts nitpick on the weight of little girls because little girls should be perfect and tiny and should grow up to be beautiful with suitors falling all over them left and right. If that's not the case, then something's definitely wrong.
There are some officemates who tell me that, and normally I don't mind. When you grow up used to being called fat, you kind of learn to live with it. What got to me though is that I've been feeling sick for awhile now. It's not easy being a former dancer and understanding that yes, you're not in top form because your muscles are actually begging you to lose the extra pounds so you feel light. It's also not easy being a former athlete and knowing that it was your fault for stopping training so suddenly even if it was thesis that you had to focus on.
I try to diet. I don't eat chips anymore, I take salads and greens, I've taken weight-loss pills. At the end of the way starving myself or attempting a change in my eating habits doesn't work, the meds only made me uncomfortable. I wish I had more time to take dance classes because the gym doesn't work for me, I've tried that first-hand.
Kam tells me all the time that I shouldn't feel like I'm ugly. That she thinks I'm beautiful inside and out and that it's true even if she didn't have to tell me repeatedly. That my smile is enough to light up a room, that people love me left and right. That I'm smart and talented and that I should be proud of who I am because she is, all the time.
On most days, I believe her, in the same way that I believe I'm loved whenever I receive snail mail or hellos on LJ and dA and hugs from friends I haven't seen in awhile or even if I just say them the other day.
And then there are the bad days. Days when I wish there was a way to cleave away all the things I didn't like about myself with a knife, when I catch myself stopping right before an incoming bus, only to pick up the jog to cross the street as not to get run over. Days when I'm unreasonable and frustrated and given to frowning and snapping because I feel annoyed not at the world, but at myself.
And yes, I still worry about what people think. I worry about those who I love loving me less because I have moments of weakness that I can't explain and insecurities so embedded in my psyche and routine they're very difficult to get out of. That I care too much, and that it's become a bad thing.
I'm trying to be better. I really am. I don't want to wonder what happened when I was so-and-so years old anymore and come up with blanks. I don't want to lapse into not remembering things because my mind's decided it's better to block them out than to get bogged down and sick because of emotional stress.
I am trying. I want to get better, be happy. And maybe, someday I will.
For now, I know I have to be strong and recite in my head that there are people who love me and who value me and that even if I have to pretend at first, I can make loving myself real.
Antje Duvekot
Anna stares out of the window
It's her eighty-fifth spring
She tries to concentrate on something
Her face is strained and she's confused
At the walls in this room
And all the strangers standing around her chair
They brought her photographs in frames
They are using her name
But she just smiles politely at their embrace
And Anna introduces herself again
A man picks up her hand
And says, "Anna, look, the spring has come"
And your carousel is waiting
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
And Anna tries to form a thought
But at the end she's forgotten where she started from
There's something she would like to say
But the words in her head seem to have got away
Can Anna come out and play
And over all that is inside
A curtain is closing in her deep brown eyes
Well it's like someone's built a wall
And through the very last cracks
Anna extends her hand and a little girl calls
"Please don't let me fall,"
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
Well there's so much you must have witnessed
As the whole world changed, child
At the onset of the Jazz Age
And it was long before Elvis
And rock-and-roll
They told you, "There will be music,
You just wait."
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
What do you think of it all
As you are so small
Under your blanket here in this hospital
I love you
Tell your bones not to let go
But your heart is beating slowly now
The spring has come
But one small leaf was falling, falling
It's 1925 in New Orleans
You are in your favorite dress
Your brother is at your dad's hand
And you're on your way to the Harborfest
There will be apples on sticks and fish stands
And you'll get to wave at the passing ships
And your daddy will buy you something
At the end
I've been rethinking how I formulate the meaning of "family" to me. Is it the people I'm related to through shared genetics, or maybe it's just the people who come into my life, leave a mark in my heart like when you go into those places where they ask you to sign your hi's and hello's on a bulletin board. Maybe for me, it's more the latter because I like thinking that family should put a smile on my face. Maybe I'm just being naive.
My godfather, Tito (Ninong?) Edwin came by the house on Sunday night. He brought his wife, my Tita Edel with him as well as their two younger kids, Tintin and Ian. Tito and Tita have been friends with my parents for a long time, Tito and Dad more so since they have more than a truckload of stories to share whenever you get them started.
I remember, Tito Edwin stayed at our house for a couple of days last year, just to spend time with Dad, catching up and such. I remember laughing the most. A lot. A whole lot. So hard that my sides hurt. I think it was the longest I've ever hung out with my parents at the dinner table.
Mom homesong said that Dad tends to be more light-hearted when Tito Edwin's around. Though I've only last year as a point of reference I can't help but agree the truth of that. My ninong is a total clown, I say that with much fondness.
There was a lot of laughing Sunday night, so much that I forgot about why I'd been sad and angry the days before, though I suppose "troubled" is a more apt description since angry and sad sound so extreme written down. But I'll talk about that in a bit.
I can't single out one best moment in those few hours hanging out in the living room. Maybe it was just the way everything felt so normal, which isn't usually the case when we have guests over. When my friends used to stay over, we'd always cloister ourselves up in my room.
If it was my Airdance girls, it'd be stuff like marathorning stuff Bleach or Ouran, dipping fingers into Mom's hot fudge minues the cake. If it was Sis isiseden, it'd be her and me on the mattress set on the floor drinking Bailey's while talking stuff over, laughing here and there and being serious.
When Dani and I used to still talk, it would be us talking about training and hockey and dreams until our eyes closed. One time that Kam slpwlkngdreamer was over, it was her asking me what it was like to kiss someone, since she'd never kissed anyone before. Thinking back on it now, we feel so young in my memories. It's weird, almost.
But Sunday was everyone downstairs the house actually felt full, which rarely happens, even on Christmas since we're all so used to giving space to the other. Here we were all tripping all over each other, my dog barking for attention, the laptop moving from the computer table to the coffee table since Tita Edel and Tintin and Ian wanted to hear my music. There was Mom showing off my debut photo album and that scrapbook I made for my SocialPsychology class, and me promptly supplying the stories behind pictures and the analysis. Lots of catching up that didn't really feel like catching up.
For once, I didn't feel shy and felt more like the way I always wish I was: comfortable, extroverted and animated. Maybe it's the energy that positive people bring into my life, maybe it's because I didn't have to overthink or worry about what they would think of me because coming down, hair dripping from my evening bath, I was greeted with smiles and hugs and immediately drawn into talking and sharing that even moving to sit at the piano to play my songs felt natural and not at all like I was begging for scraps of attention. I guess it's a little sad, to realize that most of the time I think I'm imposing when I share. But moving back to topic;
Ian took a video of me singing and playing "Control" and then Tintin and I ended up babbling about music and the stuff that we do now that we're the age that we are. I told her about work, about school, that I want to teach. I told her about the artists I want to share with her, like Vienna and she asked a lot of questions. I'm going to encourage her to go see Vienna if ever she plays in Georgia, where they live. I'm sure she'll enjoy it.
Mom told me over chat yesterday that Tintin's apparently usually quiet and reserved around new people which surprised me because we got along so well. To think, the last time the parents say she and I saw each other we were six or five. It's kind of funny how things work out the way they do. I've already decided that I'm going to keep in touch with her. We agreed on that before they left to head back to the place they were staying.
I'm hoping that they get the chance to visit again. It doesn't matter if it's next year or much, much later. Email and Facebook and the internet makes it easy to keep in touch during the in-between. I have to agree with Mom though when she says that it's a bit sad that they live so far away because it was really nice to have them over.
I still have the image of Ian and Punch playing on the couch. It was great. Also, Neal showed him the monsters turtles. It just felt normal, for once. Which is all I ever really wanted for myself, really.
I was about ten or eleven or twelve when one of my aunts told me that if I was going to have fried chicken, and red meat at that, that I should just skip on rice.
Writing it down now, I feel almost angry for the memory of the little girl who spent most of her time thinking she was fat just because she wasn't as skinny as everybody else. It's pretty pointless wishing that I hadn't thought that way before, especially when I look at the photographs Mom packs away because I wasn't fat at all. I was tall and had a bit of baby fat, but I looked normal. Pretty even. I didn't used to think so. I always looked at the mirror and thought that something was missing, something was wrong.
I have a problem, or at least I sort of view it as a problem now even though that probably shouldn't be the case. I care a little too much about what people think, I sometimes catch myself bending over backwards to win approval as if the approval of others would make me love myself more.
It doesn't work. It's only left me confused on days when I don't know whether to be proud of who I've become or to be frustrated that I'm never, ever where I want to be; or at least, where I think I want to be.
I never had an eating disorder, but at thirteen I did crash diet on instant noodles thinking cutting out meat would make me shrink. It was hard because I was hungry a lot, and I didn't understand how those with eating disorders could stand feeling that empty feeling in their stomachs. I read a lot about that sort of stuff, I never told anyone. I put two and two together that if you did you'd be sent to a specialist or a hospital and my parents only ever wanted me to have a normal childhood I couldn't put them through that.
Besides, I was always too scared to stick my tongue down my throat, though I can remember one vague instance when I tried, just to see what the big deal was. It made my eyes hurt and I couldn't get rid of the image of my nail cutting wounding the inside of my mouth so I stopped. Now, whenever I gag because I try not to swallow toothpaste when I brush my teeth, I get a fleeting image of looking in the mirror of a bathroom in CCP wondering why I couldn't be as tiny or as pretty as my cousins.
I lost my temper last, last week. And stupid me, I never know how to ask for help that I sort of took out my frustration at Kam. I think the thing that scared me the most was that I'd have an anxiety attack while still on the damn jeepney taking me down Taft and I'd embarrass myself by bursting into tears infront of total strangers.
I don't know what the Filipino predisposition for telling their fellows "tumaba ka" (you got fat) is. It borders on tactlessness. It's outright rude, but we tolerate it and I've actually seen firsthand instances wherein parents or aunts nitpick on the weight of little girls because little girls should be perfect and tiny and should grow up to be beautiful with suitors falling all over them left and right. If that's not the case, then something's definitely wrong.
There are some officemates who tell me that, and normally I don't mind. When you grow up used to being called fat, you kind of learn to live with it. What got to me though is that I've been feeling sick for awhile now. It's not easy being a former dancer and understanding that yes, you're not in top form because your muscles are actually begging you to lose the extra pounds so you feel light. It's also not easy being a former athlete and knowing that it was your fault for stopping training so suddenly even if it was thesis that you had to focus on.
I try to diet. I don't eat chips anymore, I take salads and greens, I've taken weight-loss pills. At the end of the way starving myself or attempting a change in my eating habits doesn't work, the meds only made me uncomfortable. I wish I had more time to take dance classes because the gym doesn't work for me, I've tried that first-hand.
Kam tells me all the time that I shouldn't feel like I'm ugly. That she thinks I'm beautiful inside and out and that it's true even if she didn't have to tell me repeatedly. That my smile is enough to light up a room, that people love me left and right. That I'm smart and talented and that I should be proud of who I am because she is, all the time.
On most days, I believe her, in the same way that I believe I'm loved whenever I receive snail mail or hellos on LJ and dA and hugs from friends I haven't seen in awhile or even if I just say them the other day.
And then there are the bad days. Days when I wish there was a way to cleave away all the things I didn't like about myself with a knife, when I catch myself stopping right before an incoming bus, only to pick up the jog to cross the street as not to get run over. Days when I'm unreasonable and frustrated and given to frowning and snapping because I feel annoyed not at the world, but at myself.
And yes, I still worry about what people think. I worry about those who I love loving me less because I have moments of weakness that I can't explain and insecurities so embedded in my psyche and routine they're very difficult to get out of. That I care too much, and that it's become a bad thing.
I'm trying to be better. I really am. I don't want to wonder what happened when I was so-and-so years old anymore and come up with blanks. I don't want to lapse into not remembering things because my mind's decided it's better to block them out than to get bogged down and sick because of emotional stress.
I am trying. I want to get better, be happy. And maybe, someday I will.
For now, I know I have to be strong and recite in my head that there are people who love me and who value me and that even if I have to pretend at first, I can make loving myself real.