My mother used
to tell me that because I was the youngest and the only girl, I was
the 'apple' of my father's eye. (How politically incorrect my mother
would be these days - why apple, not mango??) I do remember my father
spending a lot of time with me when I was growing up, even taking
me along with him to his English classes at the University of San
Carlos where I would sit in the back of the class. How proud I felt
being in the same room with college students -- and here I was, not
even in kindergarten yet! Even when I got older, sometimes he'd take
me along when he met with his friends. One day he told them about
how a little girl burst into tears in one of my stories, and I'd asked
how to spell the sound of her sobs. I was beginning to write then,
3-page stories, very short skits, and five-line poems that rhymed
(a technique he taught me very early on - get a word like 'cat' and
substitute the first letter with each letter in the alphabet - bat,
fat, hat, etc. until you find the word you want - it was elementary
but I was a kid; it was fun and challenging). He probably thought
I was going to be the poet of the family.
Unfortunately,
I would find writing poetry so intimidating, the sheer precision and
music of it, I knew I would never be able to do it well. All I have
is boundless respect for poets; I find them absolutely awe-inspiring.
We also played this game where I'd read the first few lines of any
poem from a poetry anthology he kept in his library and he'd guess
who the poet was. Well, he never missed. He never got a poet wrong
and he almost always knew the lines to every poem by heart. I found
it so impressive - my father, what a genius! I have the same book
in my library in New York, (the one edited by Louis Untermeyer), and
I laugh every time I remember those games. Of course, he knew who
the poets were. Who doesn't know "Shall I compare thee to a summer's
day?" Or "Something there is that doesn't love a wall"
or " It was many and many a year ago /In a kingdom by the sea…"
In fact, I, myself, know many of these poems by heart. It's no mean
feat if you've loved poetry all your life, read them constantly, and
your own husband is Irish and can recite Yeats at a drop of a hat.
But there's one
memory I will always treasure. I must have been about 7. And yes,
in fact, it was a dark and stormy day. I had nothing to do and of
course, couldn't go outside. My father was in his study and I wandered
in. He must have noticed how bored I was because he stopped what he
was doing and proceeded to give me his full and undivided attention.
There was a big window in the study overlooking a cornfield, and beyond
that, a view of a large bamboo grove next to the river that runs under
the bridge near our house. The winds were very strong, the rains heavy.
My father sat
me on the window sill. He told me to watch the bamboo grove.
The storm was
lashing at it, bamboo swinging madly in the wind. Some of it would
bend over, get crushed, but a few would manage to rise again; others
would stand their ground and then suddenly fall; still others simply
swayed like dancers, following whichever way the wind blew. But you
never knew from one moment to the next which bamboo would fall or
rise. And the action changed rapidly, furiously. And from where we
stood, we could tell the bamboo apart: the tall and proud, the short
and stubby, the young, green shoots. There was the lone pole standing
by itself. Or a whole mass of them, finding safety in numbers. We
gave them names. We picked favorites. Sometimes I'd root for the storm,
he for the bamboo. Then we'd switch sides. It was a battle. It was
war.
It was one of
the most exciting afternoons I ever spent with my father.
Since then, I've
recalled that day numerous times, and as I get older as a woman and
as a playwright, the memory becomes more vivid, taking on more levels
of meaning, rich with metaphor. His sympathy with my boredom, for
example. Putting aside whatever he was doing at that moment to give
me his full attention for the rest of the day. (Was he writing a poem?)
Here was a parent who knew quality time way before baby-boomer parents
would coin the phrase! He died at the age of 51, his early death the
one greatest sorrow in my life. I was 10, which meant he died when
he was still perfect. Years later, coming to New York in the 70's,
I would listen, confounded by tirades from American feminists fulminating
against the imperialist/capitalist/patriarchal system, waging war
against all men. How can I hate men? The first man in my life was
my father. A poet, for god's sake! Even now, I totally like men as
a gender. I have a hard time picking up on their flaws. I know women
who can spot them in a second a mile away. Even now, I still have
this sneaking suspicion that Western feminism came about in highly-industrialized
cultures where the father was mostly ABSENT. (No doubt -- working
his behind off to make sure his women enjoyed the fruits of capitalist
labor.) I tried my best to fit in with all the feminist consciousness-raising,
but I could never keep up the charade. Every time somebody attacked
men, I'd think of my father. Better to stick to equal pay for equal
work.
But more than
being a parent, here was my father, the writer. This was no cliché
moment. There was no preaching about values, victory, loss, survival,
etc. etc. And (thank god) he didn't make the oh so banal Filipinos-pliant-like
the bamboo comparison thing. There was no dogma here, no moral judgments,
no didactic pronouncements. We were simply making up stories and in
that space of a few hours, I experienced the riveting and profound
power of the art of the narrative, telling a story for the sake of
it, the excitement, the unpredictability, the immediacy, the spontaneity.
And the heart of all drama: conflict.
I leave life's
big questions to the audience who no doubt make their own conclusions.
After all, existential insights into the nature of the human condition
are inherent in all great writing. What my father taught me that day
was something much more basic, a way of watching and feeling. What
he taught me was passion. And like the memory of that one green rainy
afternoon, I have never lost it.
**************
(Linda Faigao-Hall is a playwright in New York City. Her current
play, The 7th of October was awarded a National Endowment for the
Arts and a New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Challenge
grants in 2002. It is scheduled for a September production in New
York City. One of her plays, Woman From the Other Side of the World,
produced in New York and Los Angeles, will be shown May 3-April 2
in Sacramento, California. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband
Terence G. Hall and their 16-year old son, Justin. )
