Above: Sunrise at the boulevard, 8 May 2008.
A week has passed since I arrived in this city, whose name, Dumaguete—as I learned from a co-fellow in the 47th National Writer’s Workshop—comes from the Visayan word dumaguit, meaning “to hold captive” or “to catch” (especially a fish).
I’ve certainly caught so many things in the seven days I’ve been here. Ideas, which satisfy the philosopher in me. Experiences: of other minds, of a place, of a way of life. A cold. And just before I switched hostels this morning, a female spirit that inhabited my room. I caught her sense of being so lost, as though she were a foreigner, alone, not just in the place where she was but more importantly, inside her own consciousness. Maybe I sensed her because she could’ve been my doppelganger, in another world when she lived and we were both frustrated writers. I couldn’t sleep well for several nights, and yesterday morning I finally realized that I’d had it; I was moving. Her gray mood had osmosed into my being, so much so that I felt as though I were between worlds—neither here nor there. Neither in Avalon nor in Camelot, but exiled in the mists.
Right: In my old room, where the mumu is. After I told him the story, a friend teased me about “imputing an ontological basis” to my experiences. Actually, I never thought I would speak this kind of language, which some people use to refer to their experience of the supernatural. I remember Ma’am Marj once saying that in a certain retreat house, spirits had knocked on her door at night, begging her to write their poems. And Josh, one of my co-fellows, matter-of-factly shared that he once saw a white lady cross the aisle in an auditorium. The activities of the psyche are too rich, too communal, that we need a word like mumu (courtesy of my friends from the Philosophy Department) to refer to them. But I know that my words had made my ghost more real, and also that in a way, she has always been a part of me. Below: My current lodgings. My room is in the top row, center.
Thankfully though, this weekend feels ghost-less. I may have acclimated to the place. I make SMS announcements to the effect that I have become an island person, that I already want to live here. It’s so different from Manila, where my career is, supposedly. I walk around in just a shirt and jogging pants or shorts, hair loose, a fine sheen of sweat on my makeup-less face. I often get up early to try to catch the sunrise at the boulevard, though I always miss it. I end up just appreciating the morning, soaked in sea breeze and a mild light filtering from the gray sky. I love that I can walk around this place—across the Silliman campus, around the cafés and bars, along the boulevard—feeling safe, feeling... found. What should I have expected? After all, Dumaguete is the literary home of Filipino writers, the southern ones especially. People are laidback here, respectful, genuinely kind. There are no leers even when I walk around in shorts. No raising of eyebrows even when I’m in the throes of my ingrained kaartehan: just indulgent smiles. No tense rushing to get to wherever, no jostling at the local mall. This is a place where time slows down, and even perhaps, aging. A friend who had grown up here told me to look out for the dolphins, for they would remind me of what it’s like to be a child again. Here, I’m steeped in a certain outlook where creativity inevitably gestates, finally blooming in conversation among like minds. Oh, the people I have met! Below: Photos taken while I was walking around the city. (1) The boulevard at night; (2) at a bar, listening to a lovely rendition of Tom Petty's "Free Falling"; (3) the boulevard at noon; (4) early morning, low tide; (5) man collecting algae; (6) youths on a boat; (7) et in Arcadia ego.
As a teacher and pilosopo, I live for stimulating discussions. Last year though, my energy started flagging in the classroom, not so much because of the dearth of good students to work with—I had many of them—as because of the dearth of something as basic as inspiration. I’m happy to say that over the past few months, I’ve found my love for the love of wisdom again; love is bringing me back to philosophy. In my head, just underneath the level of words, is a so-far unwritten poem about the velocity of this love. It is teaching me to venture outward, after years of going inward. Previously, I was stuck in a place where solitude, for so long my friend, had become annoying. Even my joining the workshop, I think, is part of this outward movement. In a sense, I am doing this not so much for the writing per se, but for love—in its amorphous permutations, but always springing from the particular experience of an Other, that which is not the self. And I think of this meeting between poet and muse in terms of soul mate love, for it is essentially a matter of the soul. Below: At Silliman University. (1) The entrance to the campus; (2) campus map; (3) on the campus grounds, with a view of the port; (4) Katipunan Hall, where most of our sessions are held; (5) the SU library; (6) the SU church.
In any case, though I rarely lack for thoughtful conversations at La Salle, I was astounded by the high level of discourse that we regularly achieve in the workshop. I’ve never been in a discussion with this many scintillating people, never had such powerful mental orgasms. Also, the young fictionists and poets in my batch are amazing. Two of them are from La Salle: one a philosophy major and my former student; the other a Palanca-winning playwright. They’re only in their early twenties, and they’re already producing cutting-edge work. I can’t help but think of our workshop literally as history in the making, for in a way, we can say that this annual convocation of writers in Dumaguete is historic. The late Edilberto Tiempo and his wife, National Artist for Literature Edith Tiempo, had founded it in 1962. Having received their Ph.D.’s from Iowa University under the tutelage of Paul Engle, they brought to Silliman the writer’s workshop culture. Since then, many Filipino writers have learned their craft in Dumaguete, including César Ruiz Aquino, Wilfrido Nolledo, Merlie Alunan, Marjorie Evasco, Alfred Yuson, Ernesto Superal Yee, Susan Lara, Dinah Roma, and Maningning Miclat, among others. I get the sense that I am making friends with writers who will become famous one day. Below: (1) My ID; (2) session at the President's veranda; (3) at the alumni office with Jordan, Igor, and Marge; (4-5) session at the Spanish Heritage building; (6) kainan; (7) poets Igor, Lawrence, and Jordan outside Cafe Antonio; (8) me in my dress on the night of the Governor's Dinner; (9) the fellows with Mom Edith; (10) kainan ulit; (11 & 12) group shots.
Over the past week, we’ve listened to Edith Tiempo herself; her daughter, the Iowa-based Rowena Torrevillas; and poets Myrna Peña-Reyes, César Ruiz Aquino, and Butch Macansantos. They begin with their respective readings of somebody’s creative piece, drawing out associations that may have eluded even the writer himself or herself. Then the other fellows offer their own opinions, and finally the author reacts to everything that has been said. We usually take an hour to discuss a poem, a short story, or an essay. So far, two of my own poems had already been workshopped, the first one being “The House of Logic.” It was actually the piece that opened the discussion on our very first day, with “Mom Edith” presiding.
She began by saying that the poem had a very sound concept, but that I had to avoid simply stating the idea, so that the poem would earn its ending. Indeed, it seems to be a more or less universal opinion that I am coming from the country of prose. I had the concept; my mistake was to begin from it, at the expense of the language. Perhaps it’s due to my academic training. Sometimes I fear that I’ve developed a hopelessly hybrid mind, one that is neither wholly philosophical nor wholly poetic. When I need to think in images, I resort to arguments, and vice versa! Anyway, I’m glad to hear this critique of my craft, so I can work on it. I do want to learn to think imaginatively without sacrificing the precision of logic. I think there is a way to do that, but one must begin by finding a rare and tenuous completion within the self—so that the outside world will be whole as well.
Speaking of wholeness, I loved Rowena’s reading of my poem. She said that it was the story of a relationship between the emotive and the rational aspects of the self. The two characters—the “I” and the “you”—were in search of each other. Though they are actually two people, her interpretation of them as aspects of the same person wouldn’t be entirely incorrect. In a relationship, a new self may emerge from a kind of dialectic between two forever separate identities. The project of love then becomes the annihilation of dichotomies, such as self/other, feminine/masculine, emotion/reason, intuition/logic, etc.
Incidentally, I’ve been a fan of Rowena since I came across her writings in my Creative Nonfiction class last term. It was amazing to have met her in person, and to listen to her erudite reading of our works. As my co-fellow Igor observed, when she speaks, it’s as though she were already writing literary criticism—her words are that precise. Below: (1) With Rowena after a session; (2) Rowena signing her books, which belong to the DLSU library (until now... just kidding!); (3) with Rowena during the Governor’s Dinner; (4-6) some photos from the 1970’s that my co-fellows and I came across at the library archives at Silliman, showing Rowena as a beauty queen and as a young woman, with her then-campus sweetheart and now husband, Lemuel Torrevillas.
I remember Ma’am Marj once saying that the writer has to be wiser than the one who had lived through the experience. So when we write, we have to be one step ahead of ourselves. Writing then becomes an invitation for reflection. It demands the same courage that moves the philosopher to (re-)construct, endlessly, the world we are living in. Discussions about our works show us how to improve our craft, but also—on an existential level—how to be braver, more empathetic, more patient with and appreciative of life’s paradoxes. In short, how to be wiser. For ultimately, we are what we write.
