Spirit

It was in 1996 when I wrote my article "Mother to an Ayta" (please see my blog). A few days later I got a telegram (uso pa noon). It came all the way from Baguio from a bigtime professor of mine. Bigtime because she had a PhD, she graduated from UP Diliman and had a fellowship in the USA to finish her postgraduate studies. And if you're in class, you had better listen well because she does not only have the "authority" to teach Political Science. She's also not the high school teacher stereotype who "spanks." She's also married to an American (I think he comes from a farming family) who teaches Political Science in UP Baguio then.

One time she assigned us to describe the Philippine electoral process. I'm not sure if I was able to research this in our school library, but I came up with an answer by copying (plagiarizing, actually. ooops!). My History teacher told me then that we had the same type of government like the USA so I presumed we had the same electoral process. My professor asked me to come and see her. Of course I never did. I was guilty. So you could just imagine how I felt holding a telegram that came from her 6 years after graduating. My... But you know what that telegram said?

"Write whenever the spirit moves you." She read "Mother to an Ayta." And she guessed it was me who wrote it though my surname then was already different because I got married already.

I'm writing about this Spirit, not because I believe in spirits. I'm not even the church-goer type. I'm writing because I was reminded by Barbra Streisand ( in a DVD-concert- which I watched over the weekend). I have not tracked down Streisand's love life. But I was touched by her singing "Now that I'm around you" - so soulfully to his son, minus the father who was not in the audience with them.

And I was reminded of how it is to be a woman and a single parent. This is a difficult situation to be in, but at the same time it is liberating. Why? Because you get to discover more your own spirit, you nurture it, you make it soar so high and you linger there. But you never lose your feet on the ground because there's the kids to feed, clothe and give good education to.

And not many women have discovered this. Many of us, women, have subsumed our roles for the sake of children, husband, family and society. And it's really unfair. For how can this world be happier if half of its population live in fear? in desperation? I hope many of us are liberated, by our spirits.... in time.

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