TALE WORTH THE THREAD
By: Iris P. Concepcion
Unbeknownst to many people who had known me through my writings, I was never tutored by my parents.
Burning the midnight oil to me was exposing my nostrils to the gasoline-fueled light (lampara), made from a consumed Lady's Choice sandwich spread. The daily activity of the family then was to clean our noses each time we wake up and see who had the blackest repository of ashed wastage out of the man-made light. My parents, however, did litter the house with English books and magazines and made sure that encyclopedias and world almanac grace the humble living room. You enter the rooms and books are scattered. Under the beds, inside the ghostly middle attic, words are king in this abode. The choice was glaring lushfully at that young age of wonderment.
You either pick up and read the whole caboodle of print cache or use them to store your dried fish.
I chose to read them and never looked back.
My parents never dictated upon me which routes to take in my formative learning. Public schooled in elementary, I had nonetheless accumulated quite a fancy fleet of vocabulary from my parents who pepper their conversations with payroll words like plantilla and memorandum. They did not withhold the images of Life pictures from me. I was not told to stay put in the house and clean the dishes. I was not raised to become unwary of people and become a bigot with feudal-lordism tendencies. It was inculcated by a father who learned the tongues of the tribes there. He wore their clothes as a show of respect to them.
This snippet comes into full fruition as I have interacted with children here in Thailand who are caricatures of myself when I was five. They, too, are given choices but unlike me, they are pampered enough to be tutored by people who are after their productive welfare.
I am quite astonished by their well-managed temper outbursts, the facility by which they parry with the adults and how, like precise clockworks, they manage to teach the old ones the art of self-effacement.
I could not help but compare my own childhood learning with theirs. I need not buy comic books then; my father can draw the Sesame Street characters better than the original ones. I acquired a taste for Burt Bacharach at age seven as my parents insisted on buying vinyl records everytime they do their market chores. Similar to their word sprays inside the house, you must choose which music you should listen to. They never shove these down my throat. Either you listen to the Radiowealth stereo or kick its gigantic speakers for being bulky.
I chose to listen to the music and not kick the gigantic speakers. Perhaps, this environment allowed me to become Kennedian, democratic and charismatic without meaning to.
This liberality of inculcation stops when it comes to worship obligation. Sundays were homilies and Chippy snacks and grilled pork. My parents took the rod and did not spare me from reminders that the duty to God is reserved on Sundays.
Since both are now gone, my million forebears who now stand as my parents, taught me the reverse of the quite shelled and modest life. I was having a communion with my brain last night and laughed when I had realized that these authoritative figures now expect me to enter a space in cubic centimeters without boots, a knife, a twinkling tendril, knee-caps and expect me to come out unscathed when faced with vultures. The conversation goes along this way:
Me: "Where, then, are we going?"
Surrogate Parents (SP): " Wonderland."
Me and SP trek the unmentionable roads.
Me: "But this looks like splendid s#it".
Without speaking much, being the true Apache Indians and Native Americans that they are, they direct me to a plane.
Me: "Where does it fly?"
SP: "Listen to the pilot."
Pilot: "Dis is yer kapten spiking, we arayb Pakistan in an hour in roler koster."
SP: (Survey the daughter if she is trembling and felt victorious that she is enjoying the free crank).
Me: (Survey the parents if they are clowns. They are taking pictures of the daughter's stalkers and hecklers and waited for them to barf, yell and faint).
SP: "That's your burger. Eat it."
Me: "Ah, this is Wonderland."
Sometimes, I need to get reminded not to get used to bumpy roads and stale food and crappy clothes to jolt me out of my delusion that I could get things in life for free if I do a good deed.
I wish for my parents to come out alive and tell the SP's: "Reminder to the navigating surrogates: Do not bring our daughter to the woods and expect her to wilt. We gave her books but we could not give her adventure. We thank you for taking care of her and for feeding her to the wild boors. At least she can now bake a butter cake even without a butter. Do not make her bored. She throws a tantrum when bored. Again, we thank you citizens for being good people, in action and in words."