Really, Diwata‘s toughest reader for me is going to be my mother. Critics, book reviewers, academics, po-biz H8ers got nothing on the fear I felt when I handed my mother her copy of Diwata.

First thing: She is a reader. She will read my book. Indeed, the people in my family are readers. My mother’s friends are also readers; some of them apparently follow my work, and so they will also read Diwata. That’s pretty awesome, especially given what we’re always told about Filipinos being non-readers and non-book buyers. For me, what is at stake is this: I need my mother to know that my work as a poet is an earnest attempt at paying respect to our elders and ancestors. More concretely, I have dedicated my book to my mother’s eldest sister and her father, both of whom are recently deceased, and this gesture really touched her. I want my mother not to be disappointed by what I have written in their memory.

When I was in my early 20′s, I attended UP Diliman for one semester, and I spent more time with my Philippines-based extended family than I’d ever previously. Then I’d hop on Quezon City jeepneys alone, speaking my rudimentary Tagalog, and would see my dad’s city. I’d see on the streets sharp and mischievous young men, cads and playaz, and I’d think of my dad in their place decades earlier. My cousin (who was a college student at UST, which is my dad’s alma mater) and I would joyride at 4 am through Manila, and end up saying “Whussup” to the Rizal monument in Luneta Park. I was so dumb and American that I’d call out the security guards trying to bribe us for merienda money when they’d tell us smoking at the monument was a violation subject to exorbitant fines. Still, I wanted to understand my parents’ home; my dad still calls the Philippines “home,” and I’d taken this for granted until Oscar recently pointed it out to me (indeed, my father mentioning that my father-in-law going to Ecuador was “going home,” brought this to light).

For the first time since I was a small child, I spent time at the house where my mother and her siblings grew up; this is the house in Gattaran, Cagayan, just north of Tuguegarao (Holla! Tuguegarao!). My mother’s father, whom I call Papa, showed me so many old photos, introduced me to so many relatives I didn’t remember, verbally placed them in our extensive family tree, and then he told me that it was my responsibility to remember. Papa was was really keen that way; he recognized that I was the writer and that had to mean something. He was so pleased that I’d come back “home,” that I could experience both the city and the provinces it firsthand.

As my mother flipped through the pages of Diwata, she came across, “A Little Bit About Lola Ilang.” “Oh! It’s Lola Ilang!” she exclaimed. Lola Ilang was my mother’s spinster aunt on my mother’s mother’s side; her name was Manuela Adviento. My memories of her are vague but animated, if such a combination is possible. My interactions with her were probably hilarious, given that she didn’t speak a word of English, and I’d run at the mouth all the time as a kid. Indeed, it is true, as stated in the poem, that when Lola Ilang died, no one knew how old she was, and that towards the end of her life, she herself had forgotten. I had to wonder, God! What else has Lola Ilang forgotten? How can I try to fill in those memories? My mother’s eldest sister, Tita Alice, and my mother herself, find voice in this poem; they told me stories of Lola Ilang smoking her cigarettes backwards, i.e. lit end in mouth, and that my mother tried to do this as well. And burnt her tongue. I filled in all kinds of stuff, remembering what I’ve been told by other older Filipino ladies, about how that tradition may have come about. How does one smoke outside at night and not be seen? How important is this in wartime?

So my way into history, folklore, mythology, has been through my elders’ stories and their encouragement. As my parents have gotten older, they’ve started telling me so many stories, stuff I thought they didn’t bother with anymore. I’d assumed their decades of working the American Dream, buying a home in the suburbs, sending me and my three sisters to college, had supplanted who we are and where we came from as priorities in their lives.

My lesson here was this: don’t assume. Or, don’t assume the pragmatic American Dream stuff has made our stories of us less important or less relevant, or has caused them to forget. I got to a certain point in my relationship with my folks that I actually started asking them questions, and I persisted in asking them questions. Imagine that, huh? Actually being able to talk to my Filipino parents, and have them talk to me as a grown-up. I’d tell them what I vaguely remembered from when I was really young in the Philippines. I was so young, and these memories are so dreamy; the Philippines of my childhood memory and imagination is lush and fabulous, magical. Houses are alive and exercise agency. Goats also have intention. The air in the city so humid and sparkly, swirling thick with ghosts I could almost smell.

This did and did not jibe with the country I saw as a UP Diliman exchange student, taking comparative literature and Philippine anthropology, and with the country I see today. Landfill in Manila Bay and the Mall of Asia, WTF. The Cagayan River behind Papa’s house having changed its course, and now so many relatives blurred together in my head. I’d look at old photographs of people and ask my parents, this man with the cigar, did he live in a nipa hut behind Papa’s house on the way to the river? Who was he? How come the house isn’t there anymore? Where did he go? Why is the river so close to the back of the house? It didn’t used to be like this; am I remembering this right?  Indeed, many of the elders in my family are loving these questions, and volunteering all kinds of narratives. The boys in the provinces were not as forthcoming, and I had to coerce stories out of them.

Certainly, having a book entitled Diwata has led my parents to ask me how much I do know about Philippine mythology, and how much I understand; this makes me a little fearful as well. What if I’ve got it all wrong? What if they don’t appreciate all of my own narrative filling in, and geographic, cultural, and poetic departures from the original stories? Still, they’ve been helpful, especially with translation and explanation of names and terms. I don’t think they see it as my getting it right or wrong. I think they also appreciate that I recognize their stories and their memories as important, and defining, and worthy of being documented, worthy of becoming art.

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