DESPITE my great love, my puppies died anyway.
Oh, Madre Dolorosa!
Oh, Virgin Mother Mary at the foot cross.
Oh, pain.
Oh, memory of losing my husband.
***
Thankfully, there are other Christmas things to do.
There’s a trip to Antique to award Ritchie Pagunsan his Peter’s Prize medallion for Cultural Dissemination before he leaves again for New York.
The trip to Antique sounded like an afterthought in the beginning.
Would Ritchie have time to even meet me before Christmas?
Can we gather his friends and family for a little ceremony?
***
It turned out, Alex Delos Santos, previous Peter’s Prize winner for Literary Studies (but more cultural scholarship than just literary studies, honestly) and his Karay-a Folklore Society was convening the Brainyrayan 3.0.
Brainyrayan is a gathering of mostly Antiqueños to show that there’s more to Binirayan Festival than just performance shows and foodfest.
Can I have a 5-minute interruption of their time to award an outstanding Antiqueño in the field of culture and literature?
***
Alex (and, I suppose, his group) said yes.
So I went to Sibalom, Antique.
Brainyrayan 3.0 was convened at the University of Antique Hostel, or something like that.
Which is in the beautiful town of Sibalom, next to capital town San Jose.
It was a beautiful space, with all the bamboo stuff exhibited.
The event was also live-streamed on Facebook.
***
There was nostalgic music by Bernie Salcedo, and lectures/presentations by Chuck Dela Cruz (“Post-Paeng Notes on Antique’s Sustainable Development, Urban Planning and Disaster Risks Reduction thru Historical and Cultural Lens”), and Edbert Jay Cabrillos (“Linguistic Speculations on the Legends of Panay”).
There were Ritchie, Fr. Luis Ysulat, Jonathan de Gracia, some IP teachers, some UA and public school teachers, even students!
Oh, and Vice Governor Edgar Denosta was in attendance!
There were Lin-ay kang Antique Karla Butiong, Lin-ay kang Hamtic Rejane Gonzales, some writers, some writer-friends, writer-fans, and those others who were not and became so after our handshake.
Attending online were famous Antiqueña writers Ellen Tordesillas and Ma. Milagros Lachica.
***
The Brainyrayan was fun and enlightening.
There’s a little pressure for me to host a Brainyrayan in the near future.
After all, if it can be conducted online, it can be mobile.
And The Peter Solis Nery Foundation is always batting for inclusivity and expansion.
Brainyrayan in Iloilo? That’s a precious idea!
***
But my trip to Antique wouldn’t be so complete without seeing my friend Marlene Liao.
One of the strong women I love in this life.
While on the bus to San Jose, I asked Marlene if she was available for coffee.
She invited me over to her Xela Boutique Hotel for breakfast.
Beautiful and elegant hotel in San Jose, perhaps in the whole Antique. Classy!
And I met Marlene’s beautiful and talented sisters who became fast friends.
Or, at the very least, joyful and fun-loving breakfast companions.
***
You ask me what does it profit a man to be a Palanca winner, and to be a Palanca Hall of Famer?
Firstly, for me, it confirms the superlative and singular determiner “the” as in The Peter Solis Nery.
As in #ThePSN.
It’s a shortcut for how outstanding a person I am.
How worthy to be invited to the family breakfast table of visiting balikbayans who have found much success abroad.
***
Marlene is so lovingly funny.
Over breakfast, she asked me three times to be seated at the center table.
I guess so I can somehow be the center of attention.
(With a friend like that, why would I want to go somewhere else?
Why would I pass by San Jose, and not meet her for coffee?)
***
But I have a way of making my presence known.
To earn my breakfast, I read my Fur Daddy Poems.
Poems saying my puppies died are a little of a downer for Christmas, but they were appreciated by my audience because they rang true, they sang true.
What can I say?
I am an essential poet because I write poems that are necessary for us to connect with the truth of life./PN
