when blogging becomes a refuge

i just felt like blogging today, after coming from Bacolod City where I had spent my first few years of childhood. It was an idyllic city then, as my family and I lives in a place full of flowering trees and plants which I used to water every morning, with my urine poured into it as fertilizer. afterwards, my brothers and i would sail a small banca at the back of our house, go out through a small containment of water which opens out into the seashore and where we would pick seashells and other ocean habitues like crablets and shrimps. the air was clean and fresh, which probably strengthened our lungs to survive smoking, pollution and emotional stresses.



going with my sister and brother was reliving those years of nature escapes which also deepened our imagination. I remember sitting on a rocking chair in a louvre-type window of our house, and listening to "Malaguena" played on the piano by someone from a house owned by a hacendero or landlord or landlady across ours. In between our houses were bamboo shoots emitting rickety sounds which made me feel being in a fantasy-land full of ghost stories.



but the musical piece stuck in my mind and i bought a score later on for my personal study later on.



Aged 7 or 8 years old then, every four o'clock in the afternoon, I used to play the piano, reaching up to the twilight hours where the sunrays would shine upon the musical sheets like golden hands of God, illuminating the passages for me to continue playing and playing classical music arranged for a child's hands.



my teacher was Eva Llorca then who gave me the rudiments of piano-playing in a very discipline way so that I was able to develop a unique initiative to study music with and without a teacher. yes, because later on, enrolling in one became quite tedious. my last succeeding teacher was not as studious as she was in teaching me. A graduate of chemistry, she ventured in piano teaching rather sloppily and I could sense that by the way she had destroyed the wooden finish of the piano cover with her pencil striking it to beat as I was playing. It was only after my sister had cautioned her that she stopped doing it.



but if she was a real scientist, or even artist, she should have already noticed the ugly scratches of her pencilhead on the cover. also, when i finished the second grade John Thompson, she wrote in blue ballpen my name and then misspelled it. Ugh. for a young mind as mine, it was a great disaster. At that time, i needed to idolize someone nearly perfect especially in terms of spelling the names of their students. Or I guess, Ms. Llorca presented to me a very good image of a really disciplined piano tutor. anyway, until now, i still play the piano, ouido or with a score.

so when I visited 90-year old Mama J. in her house, I played her favorites as well as mine. She came out to greet me in the sala and really felt very much reinvigorated. Then I played "all of me" a song which her husband and the family really loved and sang whenever someone would be in front of the piano. She could still remember the words, too and so she sang with us.

Bacolod is truly a place for artistic inspiration. My own nephew, now a famous painter in the States and here in the country, created his one-man show paintings in the heart of one of the towns. shall I mention his name? others might say I am riding on his popularity. But he is famous for his expressionistic searing style. By the way, he will be home again this Nov or December. Aside from these examples, the Masscara Festival is one testimony to that artistry which the late Ely Santiago started. There ought to be a monument for him, by the way for having institutionalized such a festival.

Then of course, the Showroom of the Association of Negros Producers attest to the varied talents of Negrenses. I wish I were a resident so that I could also participate in the exhibitions. Not exactly because MetroManila is a hard nut to crack in terms of getting popular as an artist, but rather as a way of feeling collectively connected with our roots.