Overcoming the Drought

RE-POSTING FROM THE ARCHIVE  -



Almost two decades ago, on a cold December night, I drove to Los Angeles, telling my family I was just going to a meeting. In truth, I was going to receive an award from the Jose Rizal Memorial Organization in the U.S. for my essay, "Reaching for World Peace." It was a long drive and a courageous one at that, because I had to do the side streets since I had already stopped doing the freeway. Why the secrecy? I didn't think it should be fussed over. As my son Ruel would say of his own achievements, "No big deal."

I had kept my writing a secret as much as I could, so fearful was I of paling in comparison with my husband,  a mogul in writing even while still on campus where we both met. It would hurt him that I should even feel that way, for he so much would have been supportive. But that's just it--our being so close in affinity would endanger my sense of identity and freedom. As it was, even the title of one of the few stories I had written after marriage was already influenced by our common love for Dylan Thomas: Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

When Ding (as he was known by his close friends) first left for Iowa University on a grant in 1965, I escaped from my loneliness upon being left alone in the Philippines by writing a short story, Go Gentle into that Good Night, published in the Philippines' Weekly Nation Magazine and then winning its Short Story of the Month Contest. It was my maiden name I used and the chairman of the Board of Judges, National Artist N.V.M. Gonzales, thinking that was my married surname, referred to me in his write-up as Mrs. Datuin, having seen me heavy with child when I claimed payment for the published work. (In those times, single mothers were not in vogue, so if you're pregnant, you must be married and if you're married you must be carrying the last name of your husband. I chose to separate my writing identity.)

In his comment on the decision, N.V.M. Gonzales wrote: "The tone and delicate handling of Mrs. Datuin's material are most remarkable especially considering the requirements which her subject calls for. It is for this that her story will be memorable to many readers."

Meeting NVM face to face thirty-two years after, during a parangal party for him in North Hollywood as hosted by Linda Nietes of Casa Linda Bookstore, I introduced myself as an author of a short story he had voted for as Short Story of the Month. His first question was "Have you written since then?" When I answered no, his reaction was, "Why did you stop writing?" How could I explain to him the years of childbearing and child-rearing when my husband, family and earning a living came first and ahead of any creative functioning. Ideas would come out like flashes of lightning when you're in the middle of laundering, cooking, teaching and then you cannot sit down and germinate them. It's like aborting babies that you desperately want to give birth to. Actually, I had written and published two other stories after that: Light to Last (Philippines Free Press), Bury Me in Santo Domingo (Weekend Magazine), and a few magazine articles.

Indulging in art is a selfish occupation: you tend to neglect your mundane obligations, in fact, even your own self. My  husband had admitted to such as though a way of apologizing, which he didn't have to do, as I understood fully well the nature of his occupation. and his need to give that God-given talent to the outside world. I had seen him work clicky-clack on his Hermes typewriter till the wee hours of the morning, and all I could help him with was look after his health and serve tea and sympathy. Though I insisted he needed sleep, he couldn't resist that urge to put into writing those words and ideas that haunted him no end. When he had to submit his works for a literary competition, I took care of arranging the pages, putting them together with fasteners and stacking them in those big brown envelopes, making sure that the real name was in a separate sealed envelope. Authors' names were always anonymous. Receiving that long-awaited letter announcing his having won the competition was a welcome consolation for those long hours of writing.

But I digress too much. All I meant to do was share an excerpt from my essay, "Reaching for World Peace," which I would do for my next post.