FOR
some deeply personal reasons, I left almost all of my work back home
in the Philippines when I flew to New York City on my 38th birthday
in 1998. Poems, fiction, essays, newspaper/magazine articles and
reviews/criticism and column pieces, TV scripts and sequence
treatments, stage plays, grant project drafts, screenplays and
storyboards, drawings and illustrations, ad copies and thoughts, art
photography, paintings (acrylic and mixed media), publications that I
edited/published, organizational brainstorms, comics and graphic
novel sketchbooks, political platform germs, songs and lyrics,
letters and correspondences, community program proposals designed for
legislation, book ideas etc. Boxes and folders of manuscripts,
notebooks, wads of bond papers. Mostly written in English although some of my literary output were in Filipino/Tagalog language (a
few in Spanish and Ilocano provincial dialect).
I
started writing by the time I stepped in First Grade and
professionally writing as newspaper reporter at age 14. Then, it was
non-stop. When I eventually decided to settle here in the US when I
“discovered” Asheville (North Carolina) few years later, I never
made an effort to retrieve my past work—I simply continued churning
out more words and (creative) work.
My
past bodies of work (before I "crashlanded" in America)
were distributed among friends and ex-relationships, family house
closets, file cabinets of organizations that I belonged, media
offices, friends in the countryside, even random people that I met
while working as journalist, community organizer, concert producer,
traveling cultural worker/researcher and artist/musician. Those were
the “unplugged/unwired” years. There were IBM computers, floppy
discs and tape recorders and 16mm and 35mm movie cameras—but saving
or stocking up work in several devices wasn't a general psyche. It's
all hard copies and master tapes. Also, I wasn't very conscious about
filing up my work or my mind was so busy creating more work and
heeding 3 or 4 “day jobs” and loads of community and/or activism
commitments so that a consistent, sustained file system didn't have
room in my busy, erratic, gungho, cramped up head...
A
good friend from my theater days in Manila, Joey B., mentioned that
he kept a copy of my one-act play, “Maputla ang Ulap sa Laot”
(“Clouds are Pale Out in the Sea”). I am sure it was about life
in tiny fishing villages where I spent time as writer/researcher and
grassroots communications teacher when I was in my early 20s or
late-teens. A French friend maintains that I left in her care a crate
of writings—handwritten and typed (on typewriter) or printed via
those “ancient” noisy IBM machines. She reminded me that she has
a copy of a collection of poems, “The Rainbow is Bleeding,"
plus an anthology of essays with an intriguing title, “Not Valid
for Public Consumption, and other words that I shouldn't have said or
written.” Some friends (and ex'es), who are scattered all over the
globe, also informed me that I left them notebooks of doodles and/or
verses, sheaves of handwritten words on loose bond papers and musty
notebooks, prose on personalized cards, lead sheets on music pads,
paintings (acrylic and ink), cassette tapes of demos, words and words
on fancy scrapbooks etc etcetera. I also had this practice of
writing a few words (poetry, prose) on whatever piece of paper that I
could grab and then handing it to whoever was around for keepsake,
like a gift. I am glad that some of those beautiful people kept some
of those little yarns... I write everyday like it's breathing—I
produce work like it's all I do, if I don't do it, I die. So from
NYC/summer of 1998 to this very moment, you could imagine the volume
of hard copies and megabytes of computer space juices and dirt that I
already produced or accumulated—out of my crazy, crazy mind.
I
am a poor fellow at age 55 with five grown-up kids treading their own
paths. I am not sure if I'd be able to leave my kids something on the
line of inheritance or trust, in the form of bank accounts and
properties/assets—although I am still trying. Maybe a grandfather
actually left me a cattle farm somewhere in the Pacific, LOL! Anyhow,
all I got are my work. Work that hopefully will amount to many books,
movies, projects, stuff and whatever they could be used for.
MEANTIME,
I just want to keep on writing and writing and writing--whether these
get published or not. Years ago, I used to pursue most of these while
sharing ideas with colleagues, friends and strangers—in small inner
city cafes and barrio farm fields or oceansides, or workers
picketlines, commuter bus, terminals. My writing process was always
part of my steady, sustained interaction with people. Sadly, I don't
have that “luxury” anymore, around my circumstances and situation
in the US. We are inside this little gizmo called computers and
fiddling around in social media circles. I wish it is easy these days
to just sit down and discuss a screenplay's progression or a poem's
birthing from a coffeecup without sounding rude, condescending,
politically-incorrect, provocateur, or just talky and boring. Every
word that comes out of our mouths is a target for a kind of in-depth
scrutiny for its sense or sensitivity, although this reflex and
response happen at a quicksilver pace. Confused. Attached yet
detached; connected yet disconnected.
I
always say that it was easier to write and create before because it
was easier to be human and alive in those days, almost instinctive—no
matter how physically unpleasing or mentally/emotionally harsh the
times when I produced volumes of work. More importantly, it was
easier to be recognized or validated and confirmed with whatever I
wrote—the work is right there on their hands. These days, I can
write 15 poems in 3 days, but once I saved that on my hard drive,
it's almost forgotten since more words are going to inhabit and crowd
my hard drive and thumb drives, anyway, in the next 12 hours--all
funneled in the internet well. One post is a blink because I will be
posting more in the next minute. But then many years ago, as I
loosely and nonchalantly handed out my work to people, or left them
somewhere, they kept and treasured them. Hence, my soul is saved, my
spirit exists. No Apple app or the most expensive computer gadget
could ever do that. The surest depository or undying bank of human
thoughts is the human heart. It never forgets. That is the only way
how to live forever as a writer--or as a human being.
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