In te Domine speravi. (TRP chapitre trois)

In you I have hoped!

So we were wrong. But, to be totally and brutally sincere, though I did feel a bit of regret... I was never, not even for a moment, sad that it turns out that we lost this year's TRP. There are bigger, more important things in this world than winning TRP, and one of them is the building of character to be good, valiant people who can take disappointments well and who can be detached from their feelings.

Tandaan natin kung sino talaga ang bida, 2014, and then we won't be sad anymore. :)

Tao rin pala, chapitre deux

This photo is of one of my favorite reredos in the whole wide world. It belongs to a humble little chapel somewhere in San Juan, in a small conference center that holds a special meaning for me. In that little oratory I learned what I was made for, and I'll never forget it. Over the break, when I was there, I sat constantly in the first row of pews for no other reason than to keep looking at the reredo and to imagine myself part of the scene. Whenever I was distracted during prayer I would wrench myself back by imagining that I was the one holding up the Baby Jesus' head. (I mean if you think about it, I don't think an infant this young should have been able to hold his head up so tensely yet.) You move me, my Lord, broken beneath the rod--but I also like to see you as an infant, because, like a saint once said, I can fool myself into thinking that you need me.

So what does this image of the Blessed Virgin Mary have to do with the Tao Rin Pala? Moments before we went backstage for our performance in the chorale competition, I realized that we hadn't prayed as a class, something we used always to do before any Big Thing. I mouthed this to Dane, our conductor, who mouthed back something to the effect of "I know--wait!" But the prayer didn't happen, because we had to go in right away. So backstage, I squared my shoulders and said a Memorare. In fact I said all the memorares I could fit into that brief period while class 2015 was finishing their song. Part of me was amazed at my daring. You know that rhyme--when she was good, she was very, very good; when she was bad, she was very very bad? Well, this week, I was very very bad indeed. No presence of God, no interior recollection, no spirit of penance--and so much ego, so much bad behavior and lack of charity and all-around kasungitan.

And here I was, on a Very Important Night, asking with all temerity for a favor: that we might win. It seems a very conceited thing to ask. In fact, the better, humbler, more loving plea would be: Lord, through the interecession of the Blessed Virgin, please help us to do our best but to accept Your Will whatever it may be! But I also know that, like a child asking her father for the moon, a father (or a mother) will love you for asking for even the most ridiculous things, because he knows you trust him enough to ask.

Of course there was some quick rectifying to be done moments before we crept on stage--Lord, scratch that; whether we win or not, I'll be happy because for a Christian, there is no reason to be sad!--but my point is that the Memorare is one prayer that comes spontaneously, and that it has never, ever failed me. All it takes is a sincere act of will and a looking back to that beautiful reredo, and all sadness, all fear evaporates. I prayed to win, sure; but I prayed for a good disposition too, which was more important.

Mama, I entrusted TRP to you (and I'm sure some of my classmates did too). And we won, and that victory is yours too. Let it be my (and Dane's) small rose for you, during this novena to your Immaculate Conception, and thank you, Mama, for hearing me, despite how terrible I've been to you and to my father.



For me, Mama, ikaw ang bida!

Tao rin pala!

The happiest times of my whole week are when we get together in the SSWC and sit down (or kneel down or lean against the wall or whatever) and practice our TRP song. Time just flies by and before you know it, it's seven o'clock and you have to go home. But those two hours are glorious. I love singing now as much as I did when I was this small:


(I know I don't look much like her. But I do know that little kid in the sailor dress could rock Basia's "Time and Tide" like there was no tomorrow.)

And I'm always happiest when singing. Which is why, when I discovered I had a laryngeal nodule in November 2008, I was devastated. The doctors--now my teachers--were cautious. I convinced myself that I could still recover, that it could spontaneously regress. Well, it didn't. And what followed was a year that was like being in a long, dark tunnel with no light at the end. It wasn't merely the vanity of having a talent taken away from you, but the sharp sting of having to find another way to express yourself, and to know that things that had once been easy are now impossible.

My speech therapist said that an operation was out of the question, because to wound my vocal cords to take out the nodule would be harming my voice even more. So I despaired. Goodbye, dreams of live performances! Good-bye, Tahilan Christmas carolling and singing in the June 26 choir. Good-bye, performing for birthdays, and good-bye, singing to Sondheimian musicals in the shower ("We DO NOT beloooooong to-GE-ther...."). But then, in late 2009, we broached the idea of an operation with my long-suffering ENT doctor, and he agreed and set-up an appointment for the last week of 2009. (This webpage has a cool video on the kind of operation performed on me; it's called a micro-direct laryngoscopy with micro-flap mass excision).

And after not speaking for three weeks... there it was. I woke up the day after my doctor told me it was okay to speak, and I started singing songs from Jason Robert Brown's "Songs for a New World," and there it was. I remember bouncing into Dane's bedroom in Tahilan to wake her up for mass, so happy and ecstatic that I could sing again. Sometimes God giveth, and He taketh away--then He giveth it back!

And this is why, dear TRP, I'm giving you my all this year. Last year I was morose and couldn't even be bothered to memorize the piece, and I took offence at the well-meaning advice of this classmate of mine when she'd give me pointers on how to sing (My ego was swimming in a soup of indignation: You're teaching me how to sing? How dare you?), and mostly it was a terrible experience. But now, this year, I can actually sing, and I'll never take that for granted again. Maybe one day I'll join a choir again--who knows?--but for now, I just want to say, get ready for us, college of Medicine, 'cause you ain't seen nothing yet.