On cleaning closets and happy memories

Today, I cleaned out some closets. I found a big pouch in one corner — misty blue linen embroidered in pink with a line drawing of a bikini and personalized with my name. I had forgotten all about it. I peeked inside to see a whole bunch of fishnet stockings, in black and two shades of nude, each folded neatly before being stuffed all together.

Oh, I remember such happy, almost carefree days — the stockings are a blast from a not-so-distant past when I would dance almost every day, both for work (I had a dance show then) and play. I remember glittery costumes, tiny and fringy, that would sway merrily wherever my hips went. There were full skirts that twirled grandly and made me feel like those images on top of old-fashioned music boxes and wedding cakes of old. Once they suspended me on a swing that descended slowly from a very high ceiling in the studio. I was in a white gown that, at some point in the choreography, I would have to take off to reveal gold shorts. It was my birthday, a “working

birthday” as the industry would call it, and the months before that were quite rough here and there; but I recall, there on the swing in my white gown with the short gold shorts under it, how I had this knowing in my gut that the year ahead was going to be good.

I was right! It turned out to be a really great one. I also remember long days and nights of dance rehearsals, most of which would end with all of us gathered around a table, Shakey’s pizza before us. (The production crew knew it was my favorite and my Shakey’s card is precious to me.) The pizza and the stories were enough to make us, sweaty and tired as we all were, really happy. And come showtime, as I waited in the wings and right before going out on stage to perform, I remember how my heart would beat so fast, I was so sure the people in the next building could hear it.

I would be this bundle of nerves, made up to look like a showgirl/Latin dancer, dripping in all things metallic and gold, but what only my executive producer, Nelson, and my backup dancers knew was that I would always feel on the verge of throwing up, a part of me wondering why and how I ended up there, about to do what I was about to do. But then the music would start, and the joy of dancing would set in, and the whole thing would just feel like being on a playground — yes, even with the missteps here and there. And by the time we were all done, I didn’t mind doing it all over again. Because: Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

Once upon a time, before Latin dance, I also did flamenco, and shortly after that, belly dancing. My teacher for the latter was Tita Gina Grey, and her belly dancing classes were always so much fun. Tita Gina, bless her soul, was probably the one to first help me overcome my shyness. Our first class was private, and she taught me to close my eyes and just sway to the music, to throw my hips, to make the torso pliant and fluid. To gyrate and dance as though tracing a Figure 8 using the hips. Soon enough it felt very liberating to be in that space, where every body is beautiful, no matter the shape or age. Richard, around that time, went to Egypt for a shoot and he came home with belly dancing belts for Juliana and myself. Juliana was maybe about five or six then, at that age when she would want to copy whatever I was doing, and so at home, while the evening news was on, we would put on our bikini tops and the belly dancing skirt and we would dance to music we did not quite understand, but felt. Then, huffing and puffing, we would collapse in giggles and find something to eat. At night, I would read her stories from a book, or we would watch cartoons, about Princess Anastasia and Joseph the Dreamer or Barbie Princess. She was the little being beside me and I was just so happy to be her mother and playmate.

Now, she is as tall as I am and I paddle to her room at day’s end to find myself in a whole new world. I love the way she has fixed it; it’s always a bit too cold for me but somehow there in her space, the chill feels just right. Her bed has all these lush blankets that make me feel warm and safe, the way I always did when I crawled up on my mom and dad’s bed as a child. I listen to music that is unfamiliar and beautiful; I ask and she tells me about the artists that sing it. I know the names, but I cannot match them to the songs. I just found out recently that this song I would always hear randomly and really like was Yellow by Coldplay.

When I told her that, she looked at me as though I had just come out of some cave. Maybe I did. LOL. She has all these books with tender titles, and school projects that are colorful and seem like such fun to take on. Anyway, I would snuggle in the bed with her and we would talk about whatever — a lot of which would start with “But Mom, promise you won’t tell…” So we have all these little secrets between us, different I know from the ones she also shares with her daddy. I sometimes sleep in her room when Richard is away, just like before, except that now there is more of her to embrace.

I’ve asked her to update my playlist so that when I feel older than my years and life is too busy or I am a little weary, I can just play her selections and dance, if only for a few minutes, like no one is watching (which is easy to do in my dressing room because, well, no one is watching). I try to copy the way they (kids her age) dance, but I can’t, and I look funny if not downright ridiculous. As a friend once told me, his son informed him that “We don’t clap while grooving.” So we just laugh, and feel a bit ancient for a moment.

Before, all days felt the same. But when you become an adult, you know a weekend so well from a weekday. Because it all builds up to the weekend — that stretch of time when we can exhale, heal, recharge, enough to take on Monday (and all the other weekdays that come with it) yet again. As life finds me now, I do not have the leisure of time to dance to my heart’s content. But I do squeeze in a few classes here and there whenever I can, and I’m thinking of getting a hula-hoop. I had one before and there is this candid photograph of me as a child in our home in Bonifacio St., a beaming smile on my face, a hula-hoop around me, my hands merrily up in the air. I do not know if that photo is still there or if that was part of what the great flood of 1991 washed away.

Today, I cleaned out some closets. And I am so happy to have found that blue fabric pouch, filled as it was with fishnet stockings, as it allowed me to dance through such tender and happy memories.