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kaispen · 7 years

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Fresh Start, BFFs, the Lunar New Year 2018, My Fourth Take on Meet Me in St. Gallen

February 17, 2018

I’ve found myself smiling more often these days.

It must be from clarifying my principles these days, solidifying the lodestar that leads me to my new life, my fresh start.

I spent the Lunar New Year satisfyingly.

First, I had lunch with a friend, E, who, in the course of our friendship (of more than ten years), had risen to a high-ranking position in the four-thousand student strong university he has worked in for the past twenty years. His salary grade had risen four fold, his influence larger. But he wants to go back to his passion, where the real action is: classroom teaching.

In mid-afternoon, I went uptown to meet a friend whose niece was engaged in a Virtual Assistant online job. Two months from now, I will have been on leave, but will still need to earn a living. F, the niece, accommodated my request. After years, my mind finally accommodated the process of an SEO’s job. Just as we finished, BFF joined me in my friend’s house.

My friend’s elder sister, the lady of the house, held us captive by her animated, passionate storytelling of the mishaps of house construction in an upscale subdivision – the one we were visiting: the price padding of the engineer (a cousin whom she helped finish college), the deplorable paint job, the substandard water closets and lavatories (which looked as large as those in local ship cabins). She reenacted her rage in stage play proportions, it was hard not to follow. If it hadn’t been for the mommy duties of bff, we would have stayed till God knows what time.

At sundown, my best friend dropped me off at the uptown mall where I had my progressive eyeglasses checked. After ten months, my glasses had scratches on its surface, so I asked what my next best option was. Separate reading and distance glasses. Reading glasses were the priority. She had frames on sale, Php900 frame + lens. I told her I’d come back. At the ground floor, I found myself reading glasses worth Php300 and brought those home.

After I checked on my son, my friend, L, and I decided at the spur of the moment to hang out. Movie or whatever. Sin Island, I said. She’d wanted to watch Fifty Shades of Grey to which I was averse. Sin Island has better reviews. It has sex, but the movie sounds more intelligent than the dumbing damning Fifty Shades. In the end, we ended up at the hotel with our friends who had gotten married three days before. We had a riot recalling our maddening party days – how my marriage ended with that famous scuffle at the bar wherein my best friends had their starring roles. L’s crazy seven years with her unfaithful husband. Our bride friend relived her escapades which her husband listened to bemusedly. I had just learned that night that the bride and L had the craziest times (before bff and I joined their group).

A story: So L, and the newly wed bride, R, and their other friend, M, were regulars at the happening club in the early 2000’s. They were popular chicks who didn’t go to clubs to snag guys, but simply to drink and get drunk. They were natural partygoer magnets whose table was always a bus stop of hi’s, hello’s from acquaintances and admirers. One time, a younger guy they named D, a cousin of yet another friend, swung by their table. R & M were busy drinking and eating crispy pata while L just drank and ended up chatting with the new guy, D. Before everyone even knew it, L bit D in the chest! Bewildered, flattered and physically in pain, D showed his bruised chest where L had bit him to R & M.

The next week at ladies’ night, L, M, and R were at the same club again. Shortly after they’d settled down to their table to get drunk, D arrived with his basketball posse. D told his team that the hot girl who had given him his battle scar was sure to be in that place. Boy, was she ready to hump, he told his team smugly.

“So where’s the hot girl who’s so onto you?” asked the leader of their team, a tall, imposing man who was eyeing the area. “Over their, boss,” said D, pointing to my friends’ table.

“Fuck, that’s my sister!”

We all bawled over with laughter!

Yesterday was a refreshingly fun day.

Today was better.

My day started going to bff’s office to accompany her to the hospital, hoping to get her eyes checked by a glaucoma specialist.

While waiting for her to finish a conference with her client, I browsed some business starter articles.

I glowed when she and her client emerged into the receiving area. It turned out she was talking to my high school crush, now an aging heartthrob whose career as a playboy has seen better days.

“That voice!” I gushed when he’d gone out. “My goodness, the original Jerry Yan has aged well!”

At two hospitals, the doctors were not in. We went off to have lunch of greens and fish along the main thoroughfare of our city. Our conversation revolved around my immediate plans while going to one specific topic to another, but always back to my plans.

It felt good talking to a friend who didn’t need much explanation over where I have been in life. And even better that she was supportive without being patronizing. Bff has hardly been patronizing.

“Remember when you already had your son, but I was still single and free? That time when you said I could do anything I wanted? It’s you who’s at that place right now. Fresh start. And I am excited for you.”

Fresh start, she wrote on the restaurant’s place mat using her Pilot Prera Fountain Pen.

In mid afternoon, I introduced her to the blind masseuse I went to for a head and shoulder massage. She had wanted to have a massage the day before, but her husband invited her to go shopping on the mall wide sale. Her headache worried her. I told her to have her eyes checked, thus the decision to go doctor-hunting this morning. But since there were no doctors, she had an almost satisfying appointment with the masseuse. It would have been perfect if not for the lack of minutes or the comfort of her bed at home.

But the day was hardly over.

After I’d dropped by to check on my son, bff and I resumed our day.

Because her husband was going to sleep over at the province, she decided to watch Meet Me in St Gallen with me (my fourth viewing).

I went along with her as she finished her Saturday tasks of closing up her law office for the weekend, releasing the payroll to the men who were working on their house construction (this is why my friend’s sister the day before was even more relevant, because bff and husband were having theirs built, too), and then off to the movies. Along the way, we chatted about many things: her marriage, business, our insecurities, people we knew, loved, hated, our children, our escapades in the past.

“This is a good movie to watch if we were in our twenties,” bff said on the first episode of the movie. “Yeah,” I replied, “this is for people who haven’t tasted the bitterness of heartbreak.”

“Sometimes, he’s gwapo,” she’d say of Carlo Aquino, the leading man, “sometimes, so-so.” “To me, he is sooo gwapo,” I whispered my declaration.

On the second episode, she said, “Celeste is to me, as J is to Jesse.” We squealed quietly as I didn’t see that coming. J is her eternal college crush, Salvador del Mundo’s friend. “My god and my husband is not here tonight!” she fake-grumbled when Jesse pulled Celeste for a kiss.

We would laugh as other viewers would make spot on quips, rude as commenting in movie houses was. Eventually, we subsided into taking in the serious scenes that would tie the movie together.

Towards the end of the movie, after Celeste told Jesse that she had a boyfriend, the two were just walking along the snow covered path, Celeste picked her phone up, and we, the audience were tight chested and in tears, someone from a row above us whispered audibly, “Her boyfriend is dead.” Bff and I stifled our hearty laughs through our heartache and tears.

And then the movie ended.

“Reality kills romance.” That is bff’s famous FB comment concluding what she made up about Sharon and Gabby’s small screen McDo ad, that part 2 of the real/reel life lovers reunion would be computing the latter’s arrears in child support for their daughter KC.

Trust and thank bff for taking us for a smooth landing from Cloud 9.

This is the context to which I analyzed Meet Me in St. Gallen with bff.

It is sheer poetry, the movie, I maintained. It is unrealistic, said bff. Because no one would pull off what Celeste did to Jesse in their first meeting. Yes, it was sassy, I agreed, and people like my younger self, would have wanted to emulate. “You’re a stalker!” But reality is, no self-respecting guy would pursue such a cuckoo, if cute, but cuckoo nonetheless approach from a girl. And in real life, the girl, too, would have had other recourses if she did suspect that the guy was a stalker.

But they were in their early twenties and they were in a film. So, yup, it worked out.

Next, we both agreed that we had grown old and crossed over to the dark side, not agreeing to Celeste and Jesse’s decision of sharing that night four years later. Yes, it happens in real life on a regular basis, but no, we didn’t agree that they had to do it.

Besides, Celeste was too good to be true, holding her sassy tongue when “Mahal’s” name blinked while Jesse’s phone rang. In reality, we would have given Jesse a piece of our mind the morning after. And yes, Celeste would have been capable of that, given her cheeky nature.

But the film showed sheer poetry in the wordless minutes when beautiful body language and eye contact danced to the languid melody of “The Morning After”. Celeste is the humanized ideal version of ourselves. The tragic heroine who cried in silence as her torn lover left her to face the aftermath of that morning after.

Indeed, Celeste made Jesse her ideal man. It is hard to marry the ideal man lest he fall short of her expectations. The farting, the bad odors, irritating habits and unforgivable quirks. Reality kills romance. “Good thing I have low expectations of my husband,” bff declared. “Yes, because either you discard the situation or find a way to live with yourself and him,” I added. “This is why I’m single and ‘Because This is My First Life’ is such a good series.”

“But still, that guy above us wanted to kill Celeste’s boyfriend,” we burst out laughing. “I still want them to end up together,” I’m not sure if I said that aloud of just thought about it (why do you think I watched it a fourth time?).

“As much as critics compare it to the ‘Before’ trilogy, in my opinion, St. Gallen is incomparable. I found the intellectual talk in the ‘Before’ trilogy contrived. Here in St. Gallen, the movie spoke to the audience about things that matter – “

“Yes, it has layers, it has depth.”

“Indeed! It talks about life, about love. About things that matter to people. Destiny, choices,”

“And they are so beautiful, the two of them. And Carlo Aquino looks like J.”

“I want to make an oeuvre as beautiful and magical as that.”

“Make a book out of the love letters sent to you.”

Our conversation turned to Amy Tan’s books. We would have talked into the night if bff’s babies weren’t waiting. It was time to call it a night at nine p.m.

After a lighthearted chat with my son, I said a thanksgiving rosary for the wonderful lunar new year. Fresh start. I’m feeling hopeful.

My lodestar verbalized, on the way to being solidified. I’ll write that in another post, I hope.

I had to write these events down before my bedtime shower. Good night.

#fresh start #meet me in st. gallen #bffs #happy days

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