Death is always a shock. It’s always a mystery to me why it has to be so. Doesn’t matter whether it’s something I’ve anticipated or something sudden. When it comes, a bit of me seems to chip off.

Today, I received info that a colleague had died. Tragically. Two days ago.

Hers felt inconsequential at first. After all, she wasn’t anyone I knew well. She was just one of those anonymous faces I sometimes bump into around the workplace.

Still, it began to dawn on me that another one of us had left. Significantly, she died not of disease or from getting caught in a heft of twisted steel. She died because she had decided to end it.

She chose height. Twelve floors of it.

She left behind a journal in which she talked about her vivacious nature. Of her life in the fast lane, of partying nearly almost diurnally, of driving home at dawn the next day. She wasn’t always keen at pursuing law. Her destiny, she said, lies somewhere else. However, like most kids with comfortable upbringing, she had difficulty ascertaining where—or what. And like most kids in the uppercrust, she was born with a spoonful of expectations. Both her parents are lawyers and it seems, from the moment she stepped into college, she was meant to follow her parents’ footpath.

She too had high expectations of herself. She thought of herself as smart and was “allergic” to failures. Imagine her devastation when she flunked her first try. She said she was lost. Torn between starting over and striking another pitch. In the end, she chose to retake and when she passed, she was relieved (instead of being happy).

From there, she began to delude herself. I can sense as I read her article that she had convinced—albeit feebly—that lawyering was her calling. That she was going to be happy with it. That she could truly make a noble difference with it—like “assisting the poor”.

But lawyering isn’t substitute for lost fun (especially if it isn’t what you truly want—I had to learn this the hard way). And it’s the worst sort of profession to hope amusement from. It’s a sober profession, very unlike the courtroom drama we are accustomed to seeing on TV. You come to court in your 5 thousand peso pina barong with matching Italian wingtips only to be told that the counsel for the opposing party has diarrhea and can’t show up for oral argument. Case postponed for next year.

Hers was worse, I think, because she wasn’t even performing what was expected of her as a lawyer (or a lawyer born from specially talented lawyer-parents). She wasn’t reviewing cases or arguing her client’s cause in court. She was her father’s personal secretary. She answered calls, wrote down his schedule, looked benign, stayed seated unless called, arrived and left with him every single day.

How else then can a partyphiliac managed to stay decently entertained with a job as monotonous as playing her father’s stooge?

I guess, it's especially difficult for active people such as her. People who have an exceptionally  high energy for late-night partying are theorized to have the deepest pit underneath (And I was right. She was diagnosed wiith bipolar disorder).  Lawyering for sure, is far too small a wedge to fill the void, no matter how successful or how grandly you’ve made it to be.

Her passing was the quintessential lesson in life. She parallels mine (and a number of others), save the part of incessant party-going because I am not as emotionally needy or as empty as she perhaps was. But like her, I assumed someone else's life. Took the path that I was told was for me, and, in spite of nagging trepidation, walked on it because I was naturally obedient, and good and too scared to be insolent.

At some point I imagined that we've both arrived at a certain point in life where picking the right choices was as crucial as walking across a heavy traffic. Had plenty of regrets along the way and quite a few times, fell into depression as a painful consequence thereof.  

I can only imagine the emotional bouts she must've had shortly before plunging into her demise. I can see her weighing herself on the ledge, balancing between staying still and catching a glimpse of her "own" traffic down below. It was bustling and honking with so much life. Speeding and breezing merrily into wherever. 

How very unlike hers. 

I never wanted to be a designer. No.

I was 2 and the best guess one could make of my interests at that time was that I was going to grown up a painter. Or a photographer.

Everyday was an enthusiastic trip to my mom’s classroom where I’d sit fascinated by the picture she chose to cover her table with. It was a life-like depiction of a tiger hunching for a kill. The Bengali was barely noticeable in the shrubbery, but I could sense--so thrillingly--that some antelope or deer was going to get killed that day. On some other day, it would be a young wildebeest or a hapless zebra that strayed far from the herd.

From each imagining to the next was an outbreak of possibilities, of sounds and loud noises. Of roars and open flesh. Instant shock for the little animal, and ultimately a day's worth of fill for the great maned predator.

You could say that I was a very self-involved child. I wonder at this time whether other kids were as ridiculously imaginative as I once was. Young as I was, I was already rearing for a life spent capturing images in paper, or in fabric or in film. I thought, what beauty it must be to experience life as it moves, as it unfolds, as it makes for the final sprint  in such natural precision.  

All these at the age of 2.

Then I was 13. It was the first month following my illness which I thought I could never survive. My Tita, a dressmaker, came to me and showed me an article on Readers Digest about a designer named Yves Saint Laurent.

I knew nothing of fashion or of designers that rule it. Saint Laurent, was... love at the moment of introduction.

So suddenly, in a single stroke of circumstance, life took a shift. I remember mouthing his name incessantly for the rest of the day.

That evening, I began to sketch dresses in sync with the memory of his clothes. There was his trapeze dresses which he became famous for. I modified that and landed with my first design. A halter dress with straps clasp around the chest area with a metal plate. It was pleated with a deep back.

My cousin wore it to our prom that same year.

Ideas came pouring in as if some sleuce gate had just been busted open. I had on sketch pouf sleeves with full skirts, sheered blouses and bustier in gold and blue, thigh-high slits and lames, trenches that cascade into the ground, gradation of colors on jackets with makeshift capelets, see-throughs and dome skirts. Drawing after drawing. Minute after minute. Night after night.

I sketched without knowing their names, or their cuts. Without an idea what silhouette was or why this trick was called an appliqué.

Soon after, my friends came to me for sketches and design suggestions (P10.00 per design). By the end of the day, I had enough money to buy a whole pizza and a can of soda.

My Tita wondered why some of her students’ designs were so revealing, so exaggerated that she suspected that someone might be behind it (her students eventually admitted that I designed all their prom dresses). When I came to her office some time before the prom, she offered me lectures on symmetry, proportion, color coordination, class and sexiness. All sorts of stuff covering the spaces between the hemline and the neckline.

Before anyone else, she knew who I was. What I should do and believed that I could truly do it. And for that, I sincerely thanked her.

For years, I held on to the idea that I was going to be someone like Saint Laurent. Nothing exceptional really, just a bit of him. A fraction of his legend would suffice.

He began really young. Assuming leadership at Dior at the age of 21. He was soon drafted to the French military during which he was taunted and abused repeatedly.

His life was legendary, and his talent incomparable. But who would’ve known that before launching his own house, he broke down, went mad and was hospitalized for years.

True talent however, is like Bengali. It waits patiently for the right moment, and when cue strikes, it lunges for the precise kill. The result was a dazzling series of first: First tuxe for women, first see-through daywear, first inventive reintroduction of the halter dress, first black model on the catwalk--the list could go on.

I intend to assume this challenge. I’ve been sidetracked for years and years. But this year, I’ve resolved to go back to design school. I’m not sure if I could do it, what with work, and finances and my sisters both going to college all at the same time. And the house needs remodelling.

There is fear and loathing and excitement and thirst and need and dreams clamouring for attention. I’m only one person and at times, oh so feeble in resolve. I could go mad—god forbid—but if I still could, if I still have it, if the world is fair as I know it is, I will rise to the occasion and be the person  I was always destined to be.

Above all, the most exciting of luxuries happen to be in people. Not in fancy beachfronts, or in the sheen of a brand new multi-million dollar yacht (albeit I wouldn't mind having one).

In these times, the luster of people’s indulgence far outshines the values that depreciate as time progresses (diamonds are a bit of an exception). Imagine the insights you gather from these people, the timelessness of their sincerity or the matter-of-factness of their gestures.

It's easy to get awed in gold-laden autobiographies or at the sight of champagne bottles dotted with diamonds. But they last no longer or sink deper  than school book cliches. Diamonds are forever, true. But you're not. Perhaps, if life was to mean something, one should aspire for others. The stories in their eyes or the fragrance of their speech.
 

Hence, true luxury is in convivial dinner tables with people who matter. On my right, for example, is Barack, sleeves rolled and handing a bowl of tinola to his wife Michelle. Seated opposite him is Suze Orman who tells you that class precedes a 500 dollar Louboutin (agree). To my left, seated next to Fatima Bhutto, is Samantha Brown who is beguiling everyone with tales of her recent trip to the Alps (she slipped, broke her ankle and fell on a tourist who broke three ribs). Fatima on the other hand is busy relishing her kare-kare (a drop dribbles down her chin) and is feeding a spoonful to an eager Tom Ford (“I’m straight you know.”).  Far to my left is Ian Wright who is sharing his gooey dinuguan with Ellen Degeneres.

I’d have wanted Ana Wintour to be there as well, but she had to attend Lagerfeld’s boring soiree at the Ritz. Good thing she sent Gisele Bundchen in her behalf who arrived in time with Alicia Keys. After dinner, the latter indulges the crowd with her soulful, heart-breaking rendition of Never My Love. As she mellows to a halt, you can’t help but notice just how dangerously Frank McCourt’s jaws have dangled to the floor.

The crowd thunders after her. My heart skips and my mirth explodes in distinct red liquid. As if I were a cup brimming with what appears to be vintage wine. Sweetness on the tongue is what it is, as in melted love in a morning’s cup.

It was in fact, rather surprising that my difficulty in school was not having to come through the clumps of school jocks but finding acceptance from fellow students of the same persuasion. I’ve always felt a pariah in their midst, someone of huge but no less annoying significance. Sure there was pleasant, if not forced, civility among us but when it was time to head home, only one would walk the mile stretch with me.  

He was special, in a way that’s entirely platonic but on a plane so vast and innocent, he seemed to me like a toddling child that walked grown-up steps. No one else knew that of him but me, not his family and certainly, not those we thought could understand us best.

The mutuality grew, like first time bloomers in the heat of spring.  We became rather exclusive, too exclusive for our own good, turned out. People, the faculty especially, started to fidget when they spotted us walking from one class to the next, or when walking home from school. Thus, began the suspicion that there was more to it than what we’d like everyone to believe. Like lovers, one pointed out nervously.  

In hindsight, it sure felt suspicious but neither him nor I felt the necessity to explain. We rationalized that people simply weren’t accustomed to seeing two kids of the same sex do almost everything together. It probably would have been different if our interests had more to do with sports or things manly like guzzling or skirtchasing. Ours however, involved activities considered unmuscle-y (for lack of better term) such as art, both being into tinkering with lines and colors, or writing because I was the editor of the school paper while he ran the Filipino version thereof. He was prexy of the school’s dance troupe while I PR-ed for him. We shared mutual love for living room fun such as TV and movies or books and, in school, we sought no one else’s help in formulating the best way to solve an algebraic equation (we both struggled at it).  

If I were Clark Kent he would certainly be Lex Luthor. Our liaison was akin to that: intimate in places, competitive in others. In spite however, of its obvious innocence, people seemed determined to find fault in it, like a misplaced crease, or a suspicious stain. We were cousins, they knew that, but the school had our scheduled changed in the hope of breaking us up and directed the faculty to never accommodate our appeal to be in the same classes together.

But what we had was too pure to just wilt at the first strike of pressure. Hence, we wiggled our way out of that predicament by making it certain we were in the same organizations together. We spread ourselves in as many activities as our time could possibly afford just so we could hang out and pick on people in bare whispers. We’d have occasional adventure trips to his farm and my grandfather’s (he had all sorts of pets while I had chickens, a horse and a dog). We exchanged books and held gatherings for the members of the organizations were in. It truly was geeky, I have to say, something we thought excitingly as cool at that time but would soon fall into something trivial and laughable later in life.

In college, we grew sadly apart. Who knew we’d eventually move in different directions and hang out with different people while doing things on opposite sides of the city. But we both became lawyers--eventually, I'm betting, far from the idyllic lives we hoped we’d have after highschool. We based ourselves in the capital believing in the romantic notion that it’s in the hustle and bustle of it all that we’ll find promise of excitement and satisfaction. When feeling most disdainful, he packs up and turns nomadic—the States, Canada, Singapore, China and Thailand. If I had his wealth, I told him, I’d choose Milan, Paris, Tuscany, Florence and parts of western Europe, like Prague or Vienna.

He said, he’d race me to it. I just smiled, knowing full well he’d beat me to it.

We barely see each other anymore. From time to time, if we aren't the busy bees that we now are, we send each other silly MMS and boring SMS.

The other night, just as he texted me goodnight, I remembered him once saying that when he marries, he’d ask me to be his main man. We were fourteen then, and believe me, even that seemed such a beautiful possibility. I actually said yes.

Americans are often—or actually--creepier than they would like to admit. They can’t stomach balut but they can stomach watching Paris Hilton grow from a grimy sex tape nobody to a nonsensical pictogram for their pre-teen daughters. Outside of family homes, teenagers drink themselves to death and fairly recently, a 15-year old kid killed a hapless person for the sheer “kick” of it.  

For someone like myself whose fanaticism for Americanism spans decades, this proves too outrageous, if not entirely harrowing to take to bed. I distinctly remember how it was back then. It was all about snow-capped pine tress and people having fun by skiing down a steep slope. There were fur coats and ironically, Alaskan brown bears foraging a camper’s picnic basket. What I’m saying is America was or used to be the beacon of western niceties and all things cool. Even entertainment was cool, regardless of gunfight and incessant blasting because all that was centered on saving lives, preserving it, something that circumstances call "necessary." In fact, it was mostly McGyver inventing a makeshift incubator in less than 30 seconds, or a black chopper called Airwolf that settled skirmishes in—yes you guessed it—less than 30 seconds. There too was the occasional showing of giant rats attacking people, but they were poorly made facsimile of the real rodent such that initial fright was eventually replaced with giggling by the time the third commercial arrives.

But now, less than 20 years later, American entertainment has shifted considerably, so shamelessly, it not only shocks, it actually feels ehem immoral. Americans now have plastic surgery on cam, as gory as that might sound including all sorts of “reality TV” imaginable. I remember Temptation Island (where couples did what I thought was the yuckiest of things--my was I wrong. My friends digged it more than Ally McBeal), Big Brother and The Bachelor. Watching the latter was particularly painful. I mean, doesn’t anybody believe in romance anymore? Must all things be done, accomplished on national TV where people can partake on one's proclivities? What does it all accomplish? Whatever happened to good old spontaneity where love is as unexpected as a nice jacket among badly tailored raincoats? 

Apparently it got old. 

Of course there are the rare few that take boldly on the wholesome side of it like, I don’t know, The Biggest Looser, or Survivor Micronesia (I always say, it’s not real Survivor unless it’s held in Basilan). But people are easily get tired of it, seeing that its drama pales in comparison to its more lurid counterparts. 

Yes, vacuous drama as opposed to intelligent conversations or say, ideas that truly matter. Discussions ba absent hardcore punditry. It remains a mystery how people found irreverent sensation in things appalling than things intelligent. I remember reading a story just the other day about straight A kids being bullied and shamed to seclusion by their teachers who favored those with good looks as opposed to those showing great potential. Mysterious indeed because in reality, we don't rely on the blonde bimbos for immediate redemption (we rely on them for sex, but that's an entirely another matter). We take our hefty causes to the whiz kids who are expected solve all of world's  problems including those that make lives a bit happier--like inventing sillicone pads for breasts implants. 

to be continued.....