This week, I’m trying something new. I recorded an audio of myself reading the newsletter for those who might prefer listening instead of reading. Just for kicks! Let me know what you think. P.S. This is my FIRST crack at doing this, so I am clearly technically not good. Be kind with the kinks and limitations. Enjoy!
My husband was my first and only boyfriend. But he wasn’t the only boy I liked and loved.
B1 was my best friend’s Kuya, elder brother. Only apt to coin him “B1” as I knew I liked him when I was in the first grade. I thought he was certainly handsome then. But what does a first grader do? Was I to profess my undying love and ask him to marry me? Well, no. My lips turned up into a shy smile whenever I saw him. Maybe I even stared. I never disclosed my admiration until today.
Fast forward to a few years later, when our class were sent to watch “Oliver!” the musical at a prestigious, all-boys school, my eyes lit up at the lead actor, B2. I’ve seen and knew this boy, who was the brother of one of my competitors at swim matches. He then moved on to hosting one of the pioneer kids news shows (Yes, there were those then!) And he’s now one of the most recognized faces in the Philippines as his timeless face still graces the television screens on nightly newscast. No, I never confessed my fierce admiration of him. Why would I? I was in the fourth grade!
I hobbled into what Americans call middle school and then high school. While my breasts, hips and period started to show with hormones a raging, my poorer eyesight, confidence wobbled with generous smatter of red, puss filled acne all over my face. I had a couple of more crushes. B3, whose wallet sized graduation photo with a handwritten dedication on the back side I kept in the photo flap of my wallet - the equivalent of the home screen and screen saver on your phone. I also cut out newspaper articles and photos of B4, who was a champion swimmer who made the newspapers every so often. These snippets graced the covers of my notebooks for inspiration like a Hollywood heartthrob - a far fetched and absolutely impossible fantasy- to get me through grueling days of school.
But they were simply that - to be admired from afar.
Until a friend teased that B5 liked me. I shrugged at the idea, but we exchanged phone numbers and ended up talking on the phone almost every day that summer. Until he told me that he actually liked me. I froze, had no clue what to do with these feelings. I thought these were dumped on me out of nowhere, but again, naive me didn’t see the signs. What was even there to see? So I told my sister to tell him, the next time he called, that I wasn’t home. He called and called and called. And my sister parroted the script I told her to say (even though I was right there with her in the room!) until he eventually moved on.
Then I met B6. He gave me his number and told me to call him. So I did. We connected. We talked on the phone everyday. We could talk about everything under the sun. We declared we were each other’s best friend. He wrote me letters and a poem. He gave me flowers. He showered me with gifts. He told me he loved me. But we were best friends, right? I was unsure whether it was a platonic or romantic kind of love.
B7 told me upfront that he liked me and wanted to go a courting. Those days, it was a thing. (Kids, is it still a thing in the Philippines?) He was good-looking, charming, very smart, a little funny and persistent. “You’re too young!” I laughed. B7 was a freshman, while I was a senior about to graduate and start university - that four year gap was an unbridgeable chasm then. Would I even give him a squeak of a chance?
But the truth was, I had my heart set on B6. I was old enough to know I could act on these feelings, that maybe there could be something possible. If only I could tell him how I really felt about him.
This made me think of the Ace of Cups, the beginning of the suit of feelings and relationships. A giant hand appears out of a gray billow. In its palm, a golden chalice with an upside down “M” etched on the curve of its side. Said to be the Holy Grail, Benebell Wen from her tome “Holistic Tarot”, interprets the inverted “M” as the “capitalized Greek letter ‘Mu’, which relates to the Phoenician letter ‘mem’, meaning water.” A white dove dives into the cup with the Eucharistic wafer in its beak. Streams of water overflow into the pond below, lush with lily pads holding lotus flowers in bloom that were nurtured and grew out from the muck of the depths.
When this appears in a reading, it is time to let your cupeth overfloweth. Let all those feelings out of their cage. It is time to share those emotions that have consumed your every waking minute. It is time to take that step to begin feeling - giving and even receiving. For romance seekers, this is a green light to push the pedal to the metal to the relationship one seeks to get going.
A group of friends watched award winning cartel drama movie“Traffic” to pass time. I was a serious movie goer, who respected the darkness and silence that comes when in the theatre with 110% attention on the screen, relishing every frame and line thrown by the actors. Here was this guy who I just met and not spent any time with, B8. He was loud, making obnoxious comments all throughout the movie. I seethed in my seat, annoyed by this person who ruined my experience. I did not get my money’s worth to truly be in the movie. There were no repeats, that was my only chance.
Two summers later, B8 and I were stuck with each other. We were forced to work with each other to make sure all the summer activities of the Catholic youth group we were part of, ran their course. Long drawn out conversations over the phone and a steady stream of text messages. A handful of meetings, ocular inspections that turned into movie “dates” I got to know him better. He was not as annoying as I thought he was. He was actually cute. There was something about him that drew me in.
Then a kiss.
I ruminated about the stigma about being the forward one - against all that I was taught to be “dalagang Pilipina,” embodied by Maria Clara, the controversial character of the novel “Noli Me Tangere” meek and chaste in her ways, letting all gentlemen callers simply woo her, waving undesired attention away with the flick of her delicate hands. Always receive, never chase. But I learned from B6 that withholding all those feelings in the confines of my head and heart did nothing, but cause grief, regret, a constant stream of wondering what might have been.
So I was first to tell B8 that I loved him. That I wanted to be with him. That I knew he and I were special. And now, we’ve been together for two decades and counting.
Each day the surge of feelings about tarot and Vedic astrology, keeps growing, bubbling onto the surface, against all that I was taught, being raised Catholic. My cupeth for tarot and Vedic astrology overfloweth. It cannot be stopped. And perhaps it is time to truly lean in and begin. No grief, regret or wondering what could be.
Disclaimer: I did not get the perspectives of B1-7, so this is a one-sided story. LOL.
What I’m watching:
I recently finished the first seasons of “Severance” and “Little America” on Apple TV+.
As someone who struggled with maintaining a semblance of a balance and separation between work and personal life, the former was both troubling and a reckoning about the corporate workplace. I am looking forward to season 2!
Of course, any immigrant will gravitate to latter, the show developed and produced by husband and wife team, Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon of “The Big Sick” fame. Each episode shares a story of an American immigrant. And regardless of racial and cultural background, I found nuggets of insights and experiences that resonated with my own story here in America.
If you’d like to read more about tarot cards and their meanings, head on over to what I’ve written below:
Major Arcana
Minor Arcana
Wands
Cups
Swords
Pentacles