Of Celebrations: A Mid-Quarantine Review
For a few weeks when the quarantine started, our collective visions of the city were apocalyptic. Flinching at someone coughing by the side of the road, the helpless panic of withdrawing remaining cash in the bank, the race to buy, even hoard, our necessities—skipping from shopping markets to convenience stores to little family-owned marts. We prepared ourselves for disaster—the eventual capsizing of structures that maintained order in our lives—but did not anticipate how we would instead initiate ourselves to the complicated minutiae of indoor living.
Those of us safely in our homes are at the extremities. We mourn over birthdays, weddings, and graduations postponed as our starving countrymen line up for government provision or put their lives on the line to prioritize the recovery of those infected. We watch the news to have material to either appraise or denounce government officials and use as dining table fodder. And if that fails to give relief, we hold daily 9 P.M. rosaries led by overpious mothers. It’s not lost on me that our own contribution to this fight comes with privilege—that the only demand asked of us is to remain in the confines of our own homes.
There is a certain theory of the evolution of language that states that it was because of our species’ domestication that ushered in the arrival and use of complex language. At this time, we are domesticated creatures, forced to commandeer a new structure to our lives inside our households and weigh in on the restorative quality of routine or non-routine, wary all of the days will culminate to a singular, crushing sameness.
Some may argue that we now have the space and time to pay attention to the people in our lives even more—especially for those cooped up with their families, partners, or friends-turned-roommates or roommates-turned-friends. But all of us, to some degree, are coping with the loss of not only the celebrations but the intimacy that comes with gatherings and the significance of space to facilitate what is—or could sometimes unexpectedly become—some of the most memorable moments of our lives. It is here that I realize that the language of celebration is best and has conventionally been understood through the showing-up, the flavor and ease of being in the company of time-honored friendships and conversations that naturally offshoot to deeper or more comical arcs.
I can’t help but remember my 20th birthday celebration. It was at Tomatito, a Spanish restaurant in Bonifacio High Street. In between bites of Bombas de Hamon and squid-ink paella, the snap crackle pop of easy laughter and the feeling of burgeoning connection buoyed me to a place of pure gratitude. Strangers a few hours ago from different times of my life came together and were now rubbing shoulder-to-shoulder, engaging in side conversations and sharing meal starters. I was fuzzy from the Chardonnay. Afterwards, we joined Chihuahua’s salsa night. We danced with strangers, melded and moved our hands and bodies apart, twisted and turned to romantic horn arrangements. We hugged and exchanged kisses at the end of night.
Fever dreams like this have disappeared and rightfully so. With metal gates pulled down on the city bars and restaurants that make up the ecosystem of city life, we are all looking for ways to maintain a sense of celebration, or perhaps, vitality. We continue to improvise, or more appropriately, adapt. We do what we can do to survive. Our language is evolving to bend towards the constraints of our present living, in which the markings of social celebrations have become luxuries. For my niece’s 1st birthday last March, my sister-in-law, in a display of motherly resourcefulness, created tropical-themed decorations out of felt paper and taped DIY paper lanterns to the roof of our two-bedroom apartment. We ordered strawberry cake from the last remaining bakery open in the city, marvelling at the sheer inventiveness of an object we considered obsolete. The sight of my niece with pink icing all over her mouth felt like the warmth of birthday candles on my face. A few weeks later, she walked her first steps and all of us grown-ups in the room stomped our feet together coaxing her to continue.
During mother’s day, she received a bouquet of bright red roses from my brother. It was delivered to our doorstep days later than the actual day. She cut out an old water container to create a make-shift vase and displayed it against our living room window, the sunlight coating the roses with an unfettered shimmer resembling glitter. A few days later, eager to preserve a dying rose, she heeded the advice of a Youtuber to soak it in hot water and cried when that didn’t work.
Both out in the world and inside my home here in Manila, I have witnessed many firsts and attempts at delaying the natural atrophy of things. In this house, there exists, in teeming quantity, gestures of celebration. As the circumscribed space that we occupy shrinks, I see the enduring spirit that characterizes us in hyperfocus—conducting C.P.R. on a dying rose, applause for a baby’s first steps and the reverberation of stomping feet.
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Image Credit: Dagny Tepper