ordinary days

January 20 started out as another one of those ordinary days. I was on the way to work when I suddenly remembered I’d forgotten something. I bossed my brother to turn the car around and head back home so I could get the forgotten item. It was the paper bag with my sports attire in it, which I’d prepared the night before. The faculty sports fest was on again. I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.


Everything went well. The basketball game was very tight. It seemed that our opponents were simply too tall, or too quick, or too lucky. One of them pulled my hair. Good thing I’m not one to take revenge easily - because her hair is far longer than mine - I didn’t pull hers. Instead, I took the winning shot, 34-33. We won. Ha!


The volleyball game began the way the basketball game did. We were terribly under-manned. Still, we fought on. I guess we were just high with the basketball win. We lost the first set and was fighting to get the second when IT happened. The elbow came crashing down quick as lightning SMASH!!! right into my face. I felt my front tooth come loose, my mouth filled with the iron taste of blood. I numbly pushed the tooth back into place with my tongue. Then came the sudden blast of incredible pain. Everything moved ever so slowly after that. I wasn’t even aware of what was happening. All I was aware of was the intense sharpness of the pain and the taste of blood. I don’t remember ever having an outer body experience, but it must be like that, like you’re somewhere distant watching your body being moved like a separate entity.


Rush to the nearest hospital, stitches and things. My lips swelled and ballooned and blackened. But I laughed it off, nonchalantly. This wasn’t really happening, was it? Rush to the dental clinic. More stitches and things, such as steel bars across four teeth, and a huge amount of money lost. Laugh it off, laugh it off. It wasn’t really happening, was it? It was January 20 - an ordinary day.


But too many people are too kind. Somehow, January 20 doesn’t matter anymore. It feels like it happened so long ago, if it ever did. It might have happened to another person, who cannot laugh quite so well. I can laugh freely now, painlessly, if a bit uncomfortably. The days come and go as they always do, ordinary days, like all other ordinary days.

(posted elsewhere 30 Jan 2006)

My B-ball

Perhaps there is no one in the world who loves basketball more than Filipinos do. It is a characteristic. When you want to describe Filipinos as a distinct People, you never forget to mention that they love basketball. It’s so integral to Filipino life that many memorable events in a Filipino’s life would have something to do with the game. I grew up in those times when families stayed together not only by prayer but because every time there’s a good game on, everyone would crowd around the TV bringing with them their dinner, their stories, and their laughter. They’d scream and jeer at the TV as if their favored players could hear them from across the distance bridged by light and electricity. There’s a basketball court at almost every corner of every barangay. Politicians make it a point to have basketball courts built to boost the possibility of winning in the next election. Basketball players become celebrities, and nearly every young man dreams of achieving such lofty height so they could become professional players someday.


I’m no different. I’ve always wanted to learn to play basketball. I never dreamed of being great at it, but simply to gain some measure of skill that would allow me to shoot the ball every once in a while. However, being a girl, I’ve always faced many obstacles to this humble goal of mine. In grade school, all the courts at school were taken by the boys and nothing in heaven or hell could make them give it up for the girls. They’d always say, Mag-volleyball na lang kayo! In high school, I had too many personal issues to grapple with to give any game any serious thought. I retreated more and more into my books and into myself, making my world shrink in reality and expand in fantasy. But I never lost my love for the game. I still watched every good game I could on TV or in school. The vicarious thrill and sweat and burnout of playing somehow was enough, and yet, not nearly enough.


I learned to play in college. A semestral P.E. class called Basketball for Women. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in my LIFE. I certainly was not the best player in the class, but I learned to play and it was all I ever wanted. My team mates and I became inseparable. For the six months we played, we shared our ups and downs, our wins and losses, loves and hates, and we lived as we have never lived before. It was because of the game: its Magic. It can bring people together in the most wondrous of ways. And I, as a woman of my own, never felt so proud that no man around could tell me now to get off the court and let go of the ball because I’m a girl. I can play.


And I know that many other women can play as well as any other man. I’m quite glad that right now, here where I work, they’re letting us have a go at the court. But since I’ve had my prior basketball wish granted, there’s no harm in having one more wish: that a true women’s basketball team will be formed to compete with other women’s basketball teams elsewhere. Because there’s no use in denying the fact that all Filipinos love basketball – including the women. Why confine them to the bleachers? They CAN play; and they WILL play in spite of what anyone has to say about it.

(posted elsewhere 19 Jan 2006)