Snacks from Days Gone By

I'm just back from dinner at a Thai place in Chicago where we had some excellent food: basil rice noodles with beef, stir fried seafood with crispy flat noodles, green chicken curry and some awesome smoothies with tapioca balls. Gosh, I haven't had these in ages. The dinner conversation turned to fishballs and that just reminded me of the snack food vendors that would set up shop outside my elementary school in the Philippines. Here's the delicious assortment that awaited us once we stepped outside the gates:

1. Fishball vendor with wok filled in hot oil, two jars of dipping sauces (one hot and spicy, the other sweet and sour).

2. Man hawking green mangoes and bagoong (fish/shrimp paste) or just plain rock salt. Sometimes, he also had singkamas (jicama).

3. "Dirty" ice cream vendor with the following flavors: mango, ube (purple yam), macapuno (young coconut), and the all time favorite: cheese (with real cheese bits).

Heaven help you if your parents found out that you actually bought and consumed something from these people. But did that stop any of of us? Of course not.

Swimming Stories

I learned to swim in my aunt's pool in Germany. She and my uncle have the most awesome house. Pool and sauna in the basement, huge backyard, lovely big fireplace, welcoming and warm dining room. I must have been five or six when I first got into the deep, deep water. Little water wings kept me afloat while my dad hovered nearby. They lived about a 45 minute drive from our townhouse in Hamburg so after a long weekend day visiting them and my cousins, my parents would bundle my brother and me up in our jammies, stick us in the car and head home. We'd be out cold by the time we hit the Autobahn. Years later, when I returned to visit them, I was so surprised at the size and depth of the pool. Somehow, it had shrunk and gotten shallower. But the water was still lovely.

Since those early days in Germany, I've always loved the water. Living in the Philippines, I fell in love with the ocean. The sound of it, the salty smell and taste, the certain heaviness that gets in the air on a hot, humid day, the cooling sensation of diving beneath the surface and the sting that you get when you open your eyes underwater just to see what's down there. Snorkeling has always been fun, drifting with the current, spying on the fish and the corals. Maybe someday I'll still get around to learning how to scuba dive. The couple of times that I've been on intro dives have been awesome. None of the claustrophobia that could have come but, instead, this elation at entering a formely forbidden and foreboding world. I don't think that I'll ever travel into outer space but I can imagine diving into the ocean and having a look around.

I haven't been swimming in the ocean in three and a half years. The Pacific Ocean here in Northern CA is just too cold! I guess I'm spoiled. But today, I got in a swimming pool and swam laps. It was a scorching day - 94 degrees outside. Getting into the cool of the pool at noon was absolutely delightful. Of course, I headed for the slowest lane out there and still found myself gasping for breath. Twenty minutes and I was done for. Everyone else in the pool was still busily churning away, steady as metronomes, lap after lap after lap. But that was just fine by me. I'd gotten some exercise, reassured myself that I did, after all, still know a couple of strokes and wallowed just a little bit in the feeling of buoyancy that you get in the water.

Next time, I'll need to figure out how to keep from bumping into the lane divider.

Holy Week

It's just another week at work. Yet I get this niggling feeling that it shouldn't be.

When I was growing up in Manila, Holy Week was a time to its own. Nobody worked from Wednesday onwards and, if you were outside of your house, you were in a church. Not at the movies, not in a restaurant or the mall. In a country where Catholicism rules, there was nothing else to do. Even if you did decide to go to the movies, all you'd catch was "The Ten Commandments", "Quo Vadis" or some other biblical themed tale. Television? Let's see, you could choose from The Living Rosary, Jesus of Nazareth or perhaps something from Father Peyton. Do you sense a theme?

For my family, Maundy Thursday was the day for Stations of the Cross. Good Friday was for Bisita Iglesia - visiting seven churches in a row, praying seven Our Fathers, seven Hail Marys and seven Glory Bes at each one. There would also be the 'pabasa' at the house down the street, a reading of the Lord's Passion done in a sing-song droning type voice. Black Saturday? Pretty much a hang around the house day where you could read about all the people who spent the previous day flogging themselves and getting crucified. (Yes, you read right.) And Easter? Now that was a celebration! A gloriously decorated church, music to lift your soul followed by a big extended family gathering with food, food, food.

Fast forward to moving the US. No holidays during Holy Week. Good Friday is just another day. Easter? Well, that's really been taken over by the Easter Bunny and colored plastic eggs.

It's just not the same.

Lately, I've been questioning my relationship with the Church. But, you know what? Come Sunday, you'll find me and my family at Mass. It's the biggest celebration, bigger than Christmas. Just like back home, there will be joyous music, beautiful flowers, white garments and a jam-packed church. We'll be there early so that we can snag a parking spot. I'll remember my kiddie distraction kit. For all my questioning, I just can't bear to miss Easter Mass and all that it signifies. It will be just like the old days, even if it's only for one hour.

Cheap Travel

Sometimes, all I have to do is close my eyes.

A whiff of Coppertone and I'm on the beach, listening to the crash of the waves, digging my toes into the white sand, feeling a little breeze lifting the hair from my neck.

An old Tears for Fears song and I'm in high school, trying to figure out how on earth I'm going to get that cute guy I've been admiring from afar to notice me and what I'm going to do should that ever happen.

The taste of leche flan and I'm at my Lola's house, listening to her voice and it's saying, 'Have you gotten enough to eat?'. Polvoron and I'm in her kitchen while my aunt explains to me how to make them just the right way.

Sometimes, these trips take me by surprise. One minute I'm here, the next, I've traveled back in time, hopped a plane and been whisked thousands of miles away in just a few seconds. Then, the song is over, the aroma and the taste fade away and I'm right back where I started. Some things remain: that feeling of nostalgia, a touch of homesickness, and the smile on my face.

Excuse me while I go close my eyes again.