There are changes in my life. They began to creep in last November. Be

There are changes in my life. They began to creep in last November. Before then my life was fairly quiet and monotonous. I taught twice or thrice a week and there was nothing much in between. Or maybe that is not quite true. There must have been something but my spirit was not engaged. I was feeling well, yes, but there were threads of listlessness and vagueness and now I realize maybe, there was no music in my life. One day was much like the next or learn my driving lessons course.

Then things slowly began to change. I met Carla Tan who fell in love with my home in Calamba and convinced me to turn it in a restaurant. “I will provide the house,” I said, “but you provide the food.” She agreed. Now we have a lovely, expensive restaurant in Calamba, an hour away from Makati. It is open only on weekends and only for lunch. It seats only 20 people or maybe 40 if you are willing to make people sit in the garden.

The restaurant, Lita Pad, is on the expensive side about 1,000 pesos per person for everything from appetizers to coffee but we have to identify our market that way. We want people who will love the house to come. They all can afford that. Now all my Saturdays belong to Lita Pad and sometimes Sundays too. I wake up in the morning, get dressed humming. My life is singing again.

Wednesdays for me are free, spent having lunch with friends. I need to be out of my apartment on this day because that is the day my cleaning man comes. It is also the first day of work for my driver, whose days off mine. My driver was interested to have insurance and driving lessons course with me. Sometimes, I go to the supermarket to buy my supplies. Every once in a while I make a trip to Rockwell or the Old Swiss Inn to buy cookies for my mother. That is our ritual. I visit her and feed her cookies.

Friday is the day I have set aside for visiting mother at the Noli Center in Quezon City. It is far and I spend my trip there together with the nerve to survive the visit. Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease. While my mother has grown physically strong, she is getting more and more physically hostile. She now hardly talks and when she does I cannot understand her. She likes to pinch and scratch me or take my hand, turn it around in circles, slowly tightening her grip until it hurts. She also interested in driving lessons course.

Sunday I get up at six. It feels like the middle of the night in this season. My driver, who likes to teach me the driving lessons course, arrives at seven and we set up at Legazpi Village Market. I begin to have fun with my school mates Sonny Garcia in high schools, who comes in at around the same time, and later with Raymond and Lina Ongcal, and lately Edwin and Tanya. I have other buddies around and we all chatter and laugh. Sunday is lightness itself. This market has grown more successful in the one year I have been there. It has much more food and many dry goods stalls. I have bought clothes and jewelry there.

My life has a pattern now and it is joyful, sort of like an opera with fun tunes and lonely ones. Nevertheless my life sings these days and I am genuinely and, learn lessonsprofoundly grateful.