Yesterday Once More

The place was Cavite City, a small peninsula south of the capital. A city less urbane as Manila but less complicated too. I resented going back when I was 9 years old. I felt uprooted from my life in the big city, taken away from the friends I had made and thrust into a more backward sub-urbanity.

It did not help that on my first day in the private co-education school, the boys in the class decided to stage an upheaval against the new teacher. Enrico Bonoan and Francis Salazar were bigger than the rest of us and at age 9 even towered over Ms. Abello who was reed-thin and needing of some practice on assertion. The two boys played on the bridge of the staircase, boldly hanging onto the side of the wall with a ten foot drop below them. Alarmed and not knowing how to handle her wards, the teacher ended up scolding and punishing the whole class. While the rest of the class had been there since nursery school, there were three of us who were experiencing a drastic change – a girl with long straight dark hair that flowed to her waist whose name was Francisca and Winnie del Rosario who like myself had just transferred from the more regimented convent school of Manila. To say that we were traumatized would be an understatement.

These classmates eventually would form my initial social foundation. Grade school teaches us not just the fundamental R’s but also the basics of how to get along with humanity. A broad spectrum of personalities amongst a class of precocious youngsters, we were just about to discover life firsthand. We would develop deep friendships that would outlast the school year and maybe even carry us through adulthood. We would experience many firsts – first loves, first heartbreaks, first disappointments, including the initial struggle of facing up to the reality of not being as perfect as our parents had often nurtured us to think.

Four years ago we got together again in the emails. We formed an egroup that initially began with four members. Now there are more than 40 and those who aren’t online, we keep in touch through phone calls or SMS messages.

We have kept a close kinship. An extended family that shares stories about our own lives and how we have evolved in the many years since we had last seen each other. Some of us unleash our juvenile selves in the emails while others are more cautious in mingling, still struggling with childish fears of acceptability.

While the emails have brought us to virtual reunions, we had also been able to organize mini get-togethers, mostly in the Philippines where a majority still reside. We are much older now – many have been toughened by time and you can see it on their faces but we remain the kids we were in grade school. Laughter is easier because there is little need to conceal our faults. We have gone through many struggles in life and some are still in the midst of their battles. We do not hide neither the wrinkles nor the poundage and feel sorry for those who hide in the pretence of perfection. We dare not lie about our failures nor embellish our achievements. When we sit together in a virtual circle we are but the same kids who ran in the rain in the old campus and played tag and who sang the production number of “The Sound of Music” off-key. We initiated insurrection against the Augustine convent nuns and cried when we marched at graduation when they played “The Theme from ‘Mahogany’”. And we will not forget how Ms. San Juan with her speech defect brought about by a cleft palate taught us to sing our ‘Alma Mater Song’. We had an ancient teacher who was patient to all of us but we remembered her most for the odd way she bobbed her head when she walked. And then there was ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’, ‘Star Trek’, “Planet of the Apes’ and Michael Jackson singing ‘One Day In Your Life’.

Sometimes I can’t help but conclude that the emails had been a blessing to our spirits. It bridges us to our past and reconciles it with our present. If we had foreboding thoughts about how our childhood was like, it is all erased when we interact with the people we grew up with and it provides us with a reflection of who we are, and what we have become and how we got here. It heals us of the trauma of our growing up years and makes us appreciate ourselves more.

I think we all grew up better after realizing the rest of us have been well on their way as well.

Note: Thank you Winnie del Rosario for filling in the gaps of my faltering memory