Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees
In 1982 my mom was turning 23 years old. It was the first time in her life that she took public transportation in the Philippines. I imagine her sitting on the open-air bus surrounded by a tired working-class crowd, her slim body contorted and folded in to protect herself. She didn’t want to be there.
In my mind, I sit myself in one of those seats on the jeepney and watch her from a distance. I see a chicly-dressed young woman with a hint of disdain on her lovely face, unblemished clear mocha-toned skin.
It was a hot day in Manila and the traffic was always to blame. She didn’t like to move slow.
She didn’t have her driver today. A falling out with her mom and stepdad meant she was, for the immediate yet temporary moment, cut off from her privileged comforts.
What she didn’t see around her on that bus was the wealth of people, happy in the simplicities of their day — a young boy reading a Spiderman comic book, a grandmother and her teenage granddaughter arm in arm laughing about a soap opera drama.
The fun was zapped from her eyes even if it showed subtly in her impeccably chosen outfit. It’s as if her hazel irises and matching forest Ferragamo shoes screamed creativity and youth, a freedom she felt was being suffocated in the musty public bus.
I’m almost to my stop now, a 32-year-old me watching my 23-year-old mom with interest and compassion.
I smile recognizing a familiar expression. Running through her mind are mental checklists, scenarios and schemes, the litany of crimes by her parents that she would surely not repeat when she becomes a mother. Crimes like not letting her use the driver, for instance. Emotions graze the corners of her ego and ooze from her subconscious and into the hot Manila air, evaporating.
“You were always on my mind,” Willie Nelson’s soothing tone emanates from the old and decrepit radio, the bus driver wiping sweat off his forehead with his forearm.
“Maybe I didn’t hold you. All those lonely, lonely times. And I guess I never told you. I am so happy that you’re mine”
The bus screeches as the driver pushes on the brakes. I can smell turon, a dessert of egg rolls with banana filling and brown sugar, crunchy from being fried, from a vendor on the street.
She didn’t have much baggage as she disembarked, and I followed her, not knowing the destination.
