The Woman I Know

I know a woman and I know she is beautiful. She dons up make up on special occasions but I’ve come to admire her in her house dresses, which were normally in the shades of orange, yellow or red, always floral, cut low, with a single strap on each side revealing her neck. Her arms hung limp on her side. Her hands show no signs of a life-long craft on cooking, baking or anything that took place in the kitchen and of anything that consisted of a measure of butter, flour, eggs, spices, flames and a heart that can withstand what a body can’t, sometimes. She also owns a pair of feet that took on a rhythm upon the slightest hint of a tune, be it a swing, a boogie, reggae, fox trot, tango or whatever dances one is doomed to face in the art of Ballroom Dancing. She’s exposed to the daily tyrannies of life but believes that one can be oblivious to all these with an Aretha Franklin song at full blast on the stereo to drown out the chaos that resembled itself like an unwelcomed guest in the living room.  I have come to admire and seek the simplicity of life through the familiar comforts of the past with every track by The Carpenters, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, The Platters, Gypsy Kings and all other crooners that sang of love and loss yet set her in better spirits. She owns a voice I know I will recognize even in a far off corner, underwater or outer space that’s because it is the very timbre I would fall asleep to when she is engaged on the phone till the late hours of the night and I with my head slumped on her back, listening to the hum of her entrails, and the rise and fall of her voice, would be lost in a dream. 

As a woman grows old, she uncovers herself bit by bit. She sheds off a skin and reveals a part of herself, hidden like an age-old secret be it to charm you or to put you off. This may come unprophecied, but still, you have to admit to yourself that you have no right not to love her. 

I know a woman but she doesn’t know me, yet I want her to know that I am SHE. I am more of her than I am myself. She has lived long enough for me, for us, now it is time that we live strong enough for her. I accept whatever weaknesses she bore for I too am guilty of my imperfections. 

I know a woman and she’ll probably be the only woman I will come to love first and forever. 

 I hope these words will find it's way to you, my Ma. 

Happy Mother's Day Agnes Lanzaderas, nee dela Serna.