Nevergirl’s

It’s that stretch of road just past the Caltex Station. It suddenly goes up a couple of meters then dips down, leaving you giddy and breathless for the smallest split of a second. In that second, I swear, it doesn’t matter how fast or slow or often I drive past that point. Each time it happens, I always think “This must be what it’d feel like for God to swing me up in his arms.”

That is, if there is a God who swings errant little children up his arms.

“You romanticize everything,” the man said when I told him how this bend in the road makes me feel.

He has been telling me this in the 11 years we’ve been together. I remember the last time I slept underneath the stars. It was my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. We all decided to sleep by the beach. Of course, we didn’t but what we did do is spend hours underneath the sky, with blankets covering our legs and the laughter of cousins we hadn’t seen in years enveloping us in a bear hug. Just before my cousins talked me into a noisy, dirty round of 1-2-3 Pass, I wrote him a letter.

“The last time I slept underneath the stars, I remember, I was in love.

Even now, all I have to do is close my eyes and I’d be there again: 20 years old and so certain in my happiness I’m sure my face glowed like the stars above me.”

I don’t know if I need to romanticize less or more. What I do know is that sometimes, when it’s least expected especially, I get that moment—quick as silver, short as time, that barest semi-colon of air—when everything seems possible just because I think it is so.

Maybe it is.

Because I’m sick, and homesick, and sad, and tired; I shall borrow a tragedy.

(A premise)

Why are you afraid to leave, dearest girl?

If you are doing it to keep yourself, go on. Leave.

Take everything with you: photos, furniture, the trinkets in the drawer, the kids if you have them (the pets, if you don’t), the  bear rug by the fireplace, all of the china, the books by the shelves, the lone painting by the door. Leave the walls bare, the cupboards empty.

This is what will happen after you go: he will forget you.

It will not happen right away, not for a while, not while your fingers are still warm on the doorknob. But it will happen. He will forget you.

He will forget you, slowly but precisely.

He will forget your name, your smell,  your face, the feel of your skin, how tiny your hand feels clasped in his, the ring he placed on your finger, the color of your hair, the quiet sigh you make as you wake, how you met, why, and where, the bed, the toothbrush, the towel. Everything that knew your name, everything that touched your skin—he will remove them all, forget them all…but it’s alright, darling. Let him. Let him forget you. Let him forget you, slowly and precisely. When you go, everything should go too. It is the only way to be kind.

(Dear relatives, calm down. This is fiction, okay? No one’s leaving; no one’s getting left.)

The last time I slept underneath the stars, I remember, I was in love.

The moon looked like it had been spun out of stories and silver; and the sky was so clear I felt I could look up, fall into it, and slip unnoticed among the stars. I was young, and happy, and in love, and my world at that moment whirled around the big blue sky above me and the boy I was writing love letters to.

Even now, all I have to do is close my eyes and I’d be there again: 20 years old and so certain in my happiness I’m sure my face glowed like the stars above me.

(Achinette Villamor, Feb. 5, 2008)

I have a confession – and it’s one that I could lose friends for. As Mariel puts it, I’m baduy – they’ve come to accept that as a given – but I’ve no business crowing about it to the world. After all, she is my best friend; that, by association alone, makes her baduy, too. Nonetheless, I really need to get this off my chest because it’s 3:29 in the morning and I’m sitting here overflowing – simply overflowing - with love for Queen.

I love Queen – that is my confession. I’ve loved them since I was 10 and I loved them so much I had the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody memorized long before I learned the wordings of the Holy Spirit School hymn, which we had to sing every Monday and Friday in school. So what if Freddie Mercury died of Aids or that he openly admitted that he adores Liza Minelli and Cabaret? That doesn’t make him any less of an artist. If anything, it makes him even more of an artist. After all, the rock music industry is notoriously homophobic. For someone like Freddie to make it big in a testosterone-heavy arena is proof that – to borrow from Rizal – “genius knows no country, genius sprouts everywhere, genius is like light, air, the patrimony of everybody, cosmopolitan like space, like life, like God.”

Freddie was born Indian. Before there was a Freddie Mercury, there was a Farrokh Bulsara – and for Bulsara to conquer the music industry the way he did is sure evidence that sometimes, talent triumphs over clever packaging. Freddie had no machismo, no good looks, no bad boy image to sell. In fact, Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballe even said that the difference between Freddie and practically all other rock stars was that they sold their image while he sold his voice. He had to; there was nothing else he could do better or be more passionate about than making music.

Ironically, the man who is considered one of the greatest rock singers of all time never had formal voice training. I’m not sure if he had any training in songwriting, too, but with or without training, that guy sure writes well! He wrote complex harmonies and intricate melodies, used a wide range of genres, and utilized just about all types of key signatures. He was a singer, writer, musician, and performer and I would have given just about anything to see him perform live. I would have loved his flamboyance, his eccentricity, his ability to excite an indifferent audience and hold them in the palm of his hand. I would have loved the way he stuck out from other musicians like a sore thumb.

You see, I have always had the highest respect for people who dared to be different – and Freddie wasn’t only different, he was wonderfully odd, too. He took his music to the edge, drove his creativity further than the rest, and wore tights. He had gaps in his teeth and looks like he had swallowed a golf ball each time he sang. He was also – in his own words – as gay as a daffodil. How could anyone not love a man like that? And because I can’t NOT love him, I’m leaving you with one of my favorite Queen tracks, the song that best expresses what I’m feeling right now – at 3:29 in the morning. And no, I don’t mean that part about feeling like a sex machine ready to reload.