This is my experience, but I have a good hunch that this happens in general in the Philippines. In the provinces, in rural areas, the writing life is but a mystery. If one lives it privately, one will avoid hearing weird impressions from observers. But when one lives it in public—as I sometimes do—one should expect weird impressions.
I don’t need to go far to hear it. My mother and father seems to have no clue what on earth am I doing with my life. They don’t ask. Perhaps they are afraid of something they don’t understand or they are unsure what exactly to ask.
Whenever I visit Pangasinan, I always spend about an hour or more sitting under Tito Eddie’s kubo and writing mg morning pages. A few months ago, Tito Danny, who recently returned to live alone in a house he built by himself near Tito Eddie’s house, passed by me as I was writing. He said, “Matalinon talaga yay kaanakan ko,” and went his way.
I find this weird because when there was nothing intelligent about what I was doing when he passed by. I was just writing a couple of broken sentences that didn’t mean a lot. And what if I was just listing something down? I have a feeling that when you are in the province, seeing someone alone, with a pen, and a journal, writing down, this signifies intelligence (unless, of course, you are a notable crazy head).
Tito Danny met Papa later that day and he told him the same thing, “Mataltalino may anak mo. Wadman ed silong na alolong mansusulat.” But what my father replied was what really convinced me of my thesis that I will later divulge. He said, “Andi. Mantatrabaho labat iman.”
Taken in face value, my father was right. I was working. Writing on a journal, pouring my soul. This is work. It is my main job. I do editing (my profession) on the side just so I have money every month so that I could free myself for most of the month and write. But I know my father. He equates everything I do to work as in the work that earns me money. He doesn’t have a clue that I can be going outdoors writing on my diary and not be working.
This total inability to think outside the economic framework of monetary exchange—this is what I find interesting. It is a reflection that the writing life in the Philippines is still elitist and therefore is mysterious to most people in the rural areas. Bookstores are almost nonexistent. Local magazines are non-existent in some provinces like Pangasinan. And even places like Baguio where they exist, only a select few frequent them. I know because I’ve seen the statistics. Almost no one is reading in the Philippines—particularly among the lower middle and lower classes. If no one reads, thene it is difficult to even be a writer in the Philippines.
But even the non-writing part of being a writer is weird for some. I am a writer who walks. I use walking to enrich my writing by taking a break from thinking and just being, using the natural world to prompt my thinking and writing. Since I have several walking spots far from home, I usually ride my bike to the start of these trails, get off, and walk with my bike trailing beside me. People find this weird. Some will stop and ask me if I have a flat tire. Some would even go further and ask why—what am I doing, me weird bird.
The worst experience I had regarding this was with an old 60-year-old man who thought that I was suicidal or drunk. “You seem to be in deep thought,” he said. “Are you okay? You are walking too slowly. Come with me and let’s have a drink.” I politely declined and answered all his questions sharply to show that I wasn’t drunk.
The writing life is a mystery even for writers themselves. But you’ll never know how much it is a mystery to other Filipinos until you live in the province and live the writing life in public.