All-girls’ timeout
Lobo, Batangas has proved, indeed, an ideal place for an all-girls’ timeout. It was my first time in a long time to be away, out of town, without my husband, Vergel, for three days and two nights.
I was in the company of Mariel, Lorna, Peng, Edna and Karina, six of the eight surviving members of First Draft, a writing group of 10 women including Gilda Cordero Fernando, who herself handpicked the other members, in early 2000. Two couldn’t make it—maid-less Mellie was swamped with housework, and Babeth with editing work and late preparations for a trip to visit her children and grandchildren in the United States.
First Draft went on for 10 years, meeting monthly, with each member, including Gilda herself, bringing a written assignment for mutual critiquing. In truth, the rest of us all waited for Gilda’s verdict. In her presence we were all students, not only of writing, but of art and culture, of personal relationships, of life in general.
For this outing, we eagerly accepted an invitation from Mariel to her place, given at a lunch at her condominium home celebrating the launch of our book, “First Draft,” a collection of selections from our work. We all had felt bitin, needing more time together to bond, reminisce, catch up and celebrate our friendship. Not one to rest on our laurels, we thought we could plot our next move while we waited for the copies of our book from a new run, promised for July.
That book certainly took a long time birthing, what with the loss of Gilda, then Rita, and the pandemic. Indeed, with those sad circumstances and our added years, life was forever changed.
Enduring friendship
The oldest in the group, I had two stents planted in my heart. Peng had been showing early signs of dementia. Mariel and Lorna had lost their husbands. Babeth was due for a heart check herself—thankfully, she passed it. Mellie had lost a daughter to cancer. Karina, a longtime widow, was facing new challenges in her career in publishing. Edna, a retiree from the academia, had a more active conscription into the family business.
Despite all these, and the long physical separation from one another, the First Draft friendship has endured, sustained by commemorations, like Gilda’s birth and death anniversary every year—her memory still holds us together. Last month we finally launched our book, actually a mere drop in the bucket from our output of a decade, and Lobo was the reinvigorating second wind.
We had fresh fish and vegetables from the Batangas market prepared in different ways. There were sweet fruits for every meal, brought by Peng and daughter Oya. We had fresh buko juice at daytime and sangria and wine, with nuts, nachos dipped in salsa, as we lounged watching the sunset. We talked about everything. It would not be the first time we opened up to one another, but it was a most uninhibited one.
We ended the day with a massage in our rooms. I needed to get used to sleeping alone in a big bed with no one to talk to—others slept in twos to a room. But it did not take too long for me to drift off to sleep, happily groggy and relaxed.
In the late-afternoon breeze, the sun-warmed waters of Batangas Bay was a treat. I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all in my short-sleeved rash guard and shorts. The beach was pebbly, but aqua shoes dealt with it. Everyone else wore a bathing suit or what passed for it. Submerged chest-deep, we held hands in a circle and sang old songs. I shared some aqua aerobic exercises with them.
When there were only three of us left in the water, on our last day, as not unusual among old girlfriends, spontaneous intimacies never before brought up were shared. Ah, how liberating to be able to let some of the sad and painful feelings escape into the breeze and be carried away and become hopefully forever lost at sea. INQ
