There is always that one person who sets
the foundation that comes with growing up. Mine had been one who gives basic
life hacks as well as outrageous superstitious beliefs, in addition to a whole
bunch of advice that affects how I view the spectrum of colors that was the
world. Don’t get me wrong, I love many people. I love my mom. I love my
grandmother. I love the many women who came in and out of the doors of my
childhood in my growing years. I love the mothers of the mothers, the mothers
who mother people, and the fathers who stand as mothers. I am at awe on how they
seem emit the sense that they had all the experiences of the world at the palm
of their hands. 126
But sometimes it takes one idle comment for
us to reassess how we look at things and reconstruct our entire view of life
entirely.
My grandmother was one who believed in a
lot of things. Growing up in your typical regular urban household, skepticism
was one trait I’ve learned to harness. There was that belief on breaking a
glass would cause 7 years of bad luck (as such I would have been cursed for
life with all the glasses I’ve unintentionally murdered). Nor would sweeping
the floor at night could also be a magnet for bad luck. I couldn’t be
considered one for superstitious beliefs. What I did believed before I
dismissed it as nonsensical, was sleeping with your wet hair may cause
blindness –I never really found any proof that it would be so. Taking a bath
while on your period would drain you of blood – I believed I was anemic for
some time until I learned about how the thing works.
Stereotypes had always been involved with
child-rearing. Child-rearing begets Life Hacks. Home is where the basics of those
are created out of the need to be efficient. I was taught that wonderful art of
efficiency in the kitchen, in the living room, in cleaning, and everywhere else
where it could be applied.
Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t come with
strangers. Don’t accept money (or candy, or anything) from strangers. Don’t
stare at strangers. Don’t go near strange animals – or dogs collared and tied
up. Pretty much anything about avoiding strangers had been laid down as a
standard law in our household. I don’t have any qualms on following those – but
as I grow up, I realized that strangers would always have an integral part in
my day to day living. Writing stories requires strangers to exist in being.
Simply existing in the world requires strangers to meet. Get acquainted with.
Get married to. Stuff like that.
I believed in kissing under mistletoe. I believed
that there were reindeer whose noses had been red. I believed in Santa Claus –
and that he flies and owns elves. I grew up with the belief that the
Philippines could have snow over time. I was dumbfounded when I realized mommy
wasn’t having an affair with Santa Claus when they were kissing under the
mistletoe (the fact could remain true, however, Santa Claus was NOT daddy in
disguise). A lot of those beliefs had not been corrected properly and the facts
were haphazardly thrown in my direction. These are just facts that were simple
enough to be discarded yet have that great of an impact when broken down for
thorough analysis. I would have saved some of the shock had I asked the
all-knowing people of my past rather than wait until it grew roots and devastate
my sense of belief.
To all the mothers who tried so hard to
equip us to be able to walk on the realities of life. There were no failures if
and when we’ll turn out to be the world’s greatest criminal or the most
brilliant of the brilliants. The failures would sprout from our inability to
assess and evaluate. What they have laid are the foundations where we could trace
the roots of our wisdom – that wisdom that would aid in sifting through the
grains of knowledge in our daily living. That the mothers who knows best may actually
being biased, that their knowledge was solely dependent on how they wanted us
to grow – how we could cope with the world on our own feet.
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This was a column published with the same name on our school paper:
The Work. Broadsheet (October - December issue, 2015)
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