On Laura Esquivel and My Meals

“On Laura Esquivel and My Meals”

“You are no Laura Esquivel!”

I told the young woman in the mirror. Like scenes from a movie, I saw the petite woman prepared meals that punctuated events of her life.

“You are like Tita in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate.” I heard myself whisper to the woman again. Saying this opened some dusty boxes of memories I have long pushed under the rag. Memories, both happy and painful came rushing like stemmed water

Dinegdeng nga saluyot. ( Okra leaves stew)

 How can I forget the first time I cooked dinengdeng nga saluyot leaves and bamboo shoot?

“Osang, you need to go to the market tonight and buy dinner,” mother requested that stormy August night. 

“Must I, mother?” was my sarcastic reply.   The memory of that fateful night remains till now- and it still crushes me. My mother suffered cardiac arrest and was rushed to the hospital and passed away shortly after that.

That was the beginning of my growing up earlier than usual. I had to learn the ropes of life vis-à-vis the sudden lost. Barely thirteen, I had to grow up fast. And growing up fast meant learning the ropes in the kitchen and feeding my siblings then. Whereas Tita cooked Christmas rolls for her beloved Pedro, I had to experiment on my embotido   (pork meatloaf) for my family. Whereas she prepared champandongo for a niece’s baptism, I had to do ‘pacham ala almondigas”. Or  simply “pachambang almondigas.”  Her “beans with Chile Tezcucana-style” had a counterpart with my bituelas with pork pata ( white beans with pork ham). Her cream fritters were my maruya (banana fritters).

Just like Tita, who was submissive and did not know any better but gradually became courageous in expressing her inner fire, I too, had freed myself from the shackles of submissiveness and domestic violence. Like the proverbial Phoenix, I rose from the ashes and pick up the pieces of my life. And turned on a new leaf. Turning on a new leaf means loving myself more, knowing the real me, searching deep within me for the fire that kept me aflame during the hard hungry years.

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we cannot strike them all by ourselves. We need oxygen and a candle to help ignite it. The oxygen would come from the breath of a person you love; the candle would be any kind of food, music, caress, word or sound that engenders the explosion that lights the matches. For a moment, we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it. Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live.”

John, one of the characters, succinctly worded the hope and the rekindling of the flame that seemed to fade away in Tita’s lonely life. He also gave me one of life’s universal truths. That is, we all have to discover what will set off the fire in us- the explosions in order to live- since the combustion occurs only when the right person ignites it and this person nourishes our soul. If we do not find out in the nick of time what will ignite the powder keg in us, we lost all reasons to live. Just like a box of matches that dampens with disuse, not a single match will ever be lighted. The fire in me is lighted- the fire to keep on learning in order to be a more effective teacher, the fire to be more loving to my better half, and the fire to be a better sibling. I guess I am luckier than Tita because I have found the one who ignited my fire without extinguishing my life.

“You are no Laura Esquivel…. Or aren’t you?” I asked again at the woman in the mirror. This time, I saw her smile. The years are in her face. But it also showed wisdom beyond her years.