House chores

1. Buy new bedsheets and pillowcases

2. Clean out the refrigerator

3. Organize closet

4. Shine and polish black shoes, launder sneakers

5. Give Poofy and Funny a bath

6.Get a haircut (or the beautiful gay person at the beauty parlor says -- get a hairstyle)

7. Read more Albert Camus; borrow DVD of My Sassy Girl

8. Clean out the turtle tank

9. Organize the CDS, DVDs and tapes

10. Clear the roof of dead leaves and fallen twigs.

Often I make lists like this one to remind me that I still have a life that can be called normal despite how abnormal world outside is. The perpetual departure of life and light at the hands of senseless death and darkness. Nothing has ever been 'normal' for me since I became an activist. (Hindi tutoo ang mga Benetton ads. Ang mga nagpa-party 24-7 ay hindi laging masaya. Hindi lahat ng nakapag-aral ay matalino o alam ang talagang nangyayari sa mundo.Iba ang relihiyon sa pananampalataya, paniniwala, at paglilingkod sa diyos. )The picture of normality my parents tried to paint for me when I was child has long faded, and I can only remember it during moments of genuine quiet and peaceful solitude.

There is nothing normal in walking down a street with a box of doughnuts in your hand while there, slumped on the pavement, back against the grimy wall of the building is a starving family of three -- stick-thin father, a mother with sunken cheeks, a wailing baby with a bloated stomach (worms?), all wearing many-times washed, threadbare clothes.

There is nothing normal in being able to go watch movies and eating BBQ popcorn and drinking soda from a can while outside the theater there are children dodging cars and trucks, offering to wash windshields or begging for a coin or two, or selling sampaguita garlands.

Or maybe I mistake 'normal' for 'ordinary' and 'right.'

So many things around me -- demolition of the houses of the urban poor, inadequate, expensive health care, excessive taxes -- are not right. How can this be normal? Am I suppose to accept the small and massive injustices the government commits daily against the Filipino people as normal? How can this be right?

I'm leaving for Santiago City in Isabela tonight, to visit my father's grave (as well as my grandfather's). I wish I could talk to my father one more time so I'll be able to thank him (and my mom) for trying so hard to raise me 'right' and 'normal.'  The best things I credit my parents for are two things (1) they raised me and my sister with open, demonstrative affection; and (2) they taught us not to turn away from the things that upset us or the things that make us doubt our belief in what is right. (The weaknesses I possess now are strictly my fault. I absolve my parents of all blame.)

I'm also grateful to my father for teaching me to be proud of a clean, shiny floor as much as of a good term paper.

Some of the things that most people would probably find banal, boring or annoying I find interesting. Because it's a deviation from my usual activities (dealing with darkness, death and despair is what I call it). Like cleaning up,for instance. Now that I have my own house, I have to fight my sloth and pick up and clean and dust and sweep and mop. The house has the smell of soggy, stinky dog, but little by little I'm getting rid of it (baking soda, charcoal and Lysol).

The other day I cleaned out the bathroom. The drain was clogged with hair and muck, and I poured muriatic acid into the drain and on the tiles and choked back my panic when smoke started rising. One shouldn't breathe acid fumes, so  I had a handkerchief covering my nose and the entire lower half of my face. I looked a bandit holding a toilet brush. It was nothing short of amazing to me when the tiles turned white and the drain burbled free.

What I really want to do is to tear down  the wall dividing the living room from the one of the bedrooms, and paint everything with a new coat of white with green trim. Or maybe pumpkin and brown. Or something. I'd also get a dozen mousetraps, tracking powder and bait and ONCE AND FOR ALL KILL ALL THE FREAKING RODENTS THAT RUN AROUND WHEN I TURN THE LIGHTS OUT AT NIGHT!!!

(I hate rats. My love for animals ends when it comes to rats. They. Are. Nasty. Things.)

House chores distract me for hours on end -- getting groceries (milk, tuna tins, soap, garbage bags, fruit), taking the dirty clothes to the laundry, wiping down the kitchen, waxing the floor. I like being distracted, and for a while I forget what's going on outside. Housework is the best kind of escape - better than reading or writing even.

If I could learn a new skill, it would be most definitely carpentry. I want to build bookshelves and cupboards and bar stools. Next to the pen (or the computer keyboard), my favorite implements are the hammer and the saw. I also frequent hardware stores and look longingly at the high-power drills and rotary blades and sanders and factory-standard glue-guns (This is how my mother and I bond -- we go to True Value or Handyman and check out the inventory. She's addicted to hardware stores, but she can't even use a screwdriver. She's good at applying solignum to wood to keep the termites out).

In the meantime, while I'm still not a carpenter, I will continue to wield my pen, tap away at my keyboard. When I'm not cleaning the house or going after the mice and cockroaches, I'm part of the Movement trying to go after bigger pests, bloodsucking monsters worse than rabid rats.

Tinatanong nila lagi -- "Ano ba talaga ang gusto ng mga nagra-rali na yan?! Nanggugulo lang sila? Wala ba silang mga pamilya? Umuwi na lang sila sa mga bahay nila at mag-alaga ng anak!"

What does this particular rallyist want? Simple.

I want a society where every family can sit together Saturday mornings and plan what they're going to buy at the mall or the supermarket; make lists of supplies they'll need for the coming week; or lists of the chores they have to do.

I want a society where all families have their own houses (not hovels, not boxes, not karitons) and all the kids have their own comfortable rooms each (and  there's a community playground with see-saws, swings and jungle bars).

I want a society where  pictures of families sitting down to Sunday dinner or Saturday brunch are not just in the magazine ads but in the photo albums of every family - the dinners and lunches a regular event (umuusok ang malaking mangkok ng nilagang baka o sinigang na baboy. isang bandehadong puno ng chop suey. maputi at mabango ang bagong sinaing. may malaking pitsel ng dalandan juice. mga hiwa ng pakwan, melon o mangga bilang panghimagas. ).

I want a society where all Filipino households have a videoke machine or Magic Sing microphone each.

There's nothing normal in how Philippine society currently works, in the way it's laid out, in the  statistics that come out in the papers (even in the reports manipulated by the government). It's simply not right that the huge majority have so little, and a small minority have most of everything.

1. Get a new mop

2. Get a new broom

3.Buy a pack of napthalene balls

4.Save up for a handheld vacuum cleaner

5. Donate old books and magazines

6.Learn to cook omellette

7.Buy a new pitcher (bigger than the last one Funny broke)

8. Get a new ice tray (with fun shapes like stars and hearts instead of plain cubes)

9.Put pictures in frames or photo albums

10. Throw out wilted watercress.#

Comments

[Sarah]

Hi Ayna!bibigyan mo ako ng permiso na i-print ang blog entry mo na ito at isama sa reading list ko para sa susunod na semestre? there is no better way to introduce students to radical sociology than having read this wonderful essay of yours.

ang ideya ko ng "domestic bliss" ay ang pagkukudkod ng banyo at ng mga dumikit na stains ng stove. it's been months since i last scrubbed the floor, pero na-inspire ako.