rhapsodies
Manila, 4 November—All Soul’s Day long weekend often meant going home to tend to our mother’s grave. Nothing looks as lonely as an unadorned grave on All Souls’ Day, so we make it a point to put flowers and candles on mom’s tombstone and say hi, no matter how brief, all five of us remaining. We were there again this year, our 21st year. The cemetery was packed as expected, finding parking was a nightmare, but as always, our mother’s grave was a necessary source of quiet.
Auntie was particularly pleased to show us her latest round of house renovations. We’re rarely all home, and without us to pester them, my parents have been mostly obsessed about rearranging the house. My dad, for instance, has never really stayed put, post-retirement; he’s always tinkering with something around the house, and it worries me sometimes, thinking about him getting up on ladders and hammering things together at his age. He does it anyway, despite much reminder and protest, and over this long weekend I saw the many improvements they’ve made to the ceiling and the shelves, etc. (“Look at these, he put wheels on all the shelves!” said Auntie, much to my horror because they were rather huge shelves!)
All that redecorating and rearranging reminded me a bit about Hill House, buuuut I stopped that thought right away because there was no way I was going to associate that house with the house I grew up in. End of.
Anyway—as with all childhood homes, everything just gets a tad bit smaller every year. This is expectedly most apparent to my brother, who is seemingly still growing. To illustrate: He helped hang the curtains without having to step on a stool, because he has Ent genes that I seemed to have missed. So unfair LOL.
In any case—my parents seem hell-bent to keep transforming the house. Auntie says she cleared the living room to make way for the Christmas tree—so I guess that's something to look forward to for the next time we're all home.
As a fitting ending to this season of remembrance, I'd like to share something I found on Twitter about grief:
"It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love, and, like love, grief is non-negotiable... Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas, essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity."
Gorgeous, isn’t it?
MOVIE REC: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
This was such a glorious watch. I've always been a fan of concerts—people singing together always makes me so weepy, so naturally I was weepy throughout this film, which follows the rise and fall and rise again of rock icon and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, played by the amazing Rami Malek(who is definitely in the running for all sorts of awards because of his stellar performance here.) It was great to know more about an icon who's truly larger-than-life the way Freddie Mercury was, and to somehow know how it felt like to be part of a Queen concert. Hot take: I like this better than A Star is Born. Rami Malek and Lady Gaga should have just made a movie together, tbh. (Extra reading: Bohemian Rhapsody and the complicated issue of queer representation in film via Them)
Watch this: Queen in Live Aid 1985
My favorite part of Bohemian Rhapsody is the ending, which was based on Queen's live performance at Live Aid in 1985. Thanks to technology, I can now watch this concert segment, that actually aired when I was just barely a year old.