New Orleans

It was exactly the same as I envisioned it in 1899 when I was just thirteen years old. It looked familiar yet so difficult to understand. Just like how I felt when I first met him. Just like how I felt when I was introduced to that kind of music. It was magic. It was love. And it was exactly what I felt when I set my eyes on that place. That place called New Orleans.

Ahh, I remembered it clearly. He was an American soldier from Louisiana who was sent to the Philippines in 1898. He was nineteen, I was thirteen. We met. We exchanged stories both sad and happy. I liked the happy stories. Especially those about his place, New Orleans. Mostly about the music in that place. That ragtime music. And that Ernest Hogan. I was mesmerized. I was hooked and I fell in love.

My happiness lasted only for three months, you see. Just like my Jose, he met a brutal death. That was because he was just an ordinary soldier? I did not know the answer. "Am I that unlucky in love?" I even asked myself. But I was only thirteen then. I just knew that I was in love. I really did not know if he really felt the same. Maybe for him, my Allan, I was just his little sister. But no! I was not a sister. I was a best friend, actually a girl friend. And I did love him with all my heart. Believe me. Just like the way I felt for my dear Jose.

That was why when I heard that American guy talking to my little girl in red, and when I heard him talking about New Orleans, this place, my Allan came to my mind. Maybe by visiting his birthplace, I would feel safe and secure. Maybe I would feel loved. I was right. I felt loved. I felt at home with my Allan.

I floated around. I really liked to walk, but floating my young body was easier. I felt powerful. I felt confident. All because I had an answer. My love was reciprocated. Allan did love me. The place and the music confirmed it to me. There was no doubt about that.

The sight of the French Quarter near many hotels gave me an instant recognition. There were blocks of townhouses and cottages standing side-by-side. There were a lot of people moving at all hours of the day and night in the city's center. And the food, how I liked those spicy food. The jazz music is pulsating everywhere I turn to.

As days passed by, I learnt more about New Orleans. Here:

Like the early American settlements along Massachusetts Bay and Chesapeake Bay on the Atlantic coast, New Orleans served as a distinctive cultural gateway to North America, where peoples from Europe and Africa initially intertwined their lives and customs with those of the native inhabitants of the New World. The resulting way of life differed dramatically from the culture that was spawned in the English colonies of North America. The New Orleans Creole population (those with ancestry rooted in the city's colonial era) ensured not only that English was not the prevailing language, but also that Protestantism was scorned, public education unheralded, and democratic government untried.

Isolation helped to nourish the differences. From its founding in 1718 until the early 19th century, New Orleans remained far removed from the patterns of living in early Massachusetts or Virginia. Established a century after those seminal Anglo-Saxon places, it remained for the next hundred years an outpost of the French and Spanish empires until Napoleon sold it to the United States with the rest of the Louisiana purchase in 1803.

Even though steamboats and sailing ships quickly connected French Louisiana to the rest of the country, New Orleans jealously guarded its own way of life. True, it became Dixie's chief cotton and slave market, but it always remained a strange province in the American South. American newcomers from the South as well as the North recoiled when they encountered the prevailing French language of the city, its dominant Catholicism, its bawdy sensual delights, or its proud free black and slave inhabitants — in short, its deeply rooted Creole or native population and their peculiar traditions. Rapid influxes of non-southern population compounded the peculiarity of its Creole past. Until the mid-19th century, a greater number of migrants arrived in the boomtown from northern states such as New York and Pennsylvania than from the Old South. And to complicate its social makeup further, more foreign immigrants than Americans came to take up residence in the city almost until the beginning of the 20th century.

Foreign French continued to arrive as well as Spaniards and Cubans. Café du Monde at Jackson Square was Spanish in its origins, not French. The largest waves of immigrants came from Ireland and Germany. In certain neighborhoods, their descendants' dialects would make visitors feel that they were back in the depression neighborhoods of Brooklyn or the southside of Chicago. From 1820 to 1870, the Irish and Germans made New Orleans one of the main immigrant ports in the nation, second only to New York and far ahead of Boston, Philadelphia or Baltimore. New Orleans also was the first city in America to host a significant settlement of Italians, Greeks, Croatians and Filipinos. Just before the opening of the 20th century, thousands of Sicilians came into New Orleans to add to the complexity of its population and enrich its culture. Since many of these immigrants came from Catholic Mediterranean countries, they helped to increase the cultural divide with the settled ways of southern Protestants. North Louisianians find this city as strange as anyone from Iowa, Tennessee, Vermont or Georgia.

These variant patterns describe the black as well as the white population of the city. During the 18th century, Africans came to the city directly from West Africa. The majority passed neither through the West Indies nor the American South. They developed complicated relations with both the Indian and European populations. Their descendants born in the colony were also called Creoles. The Spanish rulers (1765-1802) reached out to the black population for support against the French settlers; in doing so, they allowed many to buy their own freedom. These free black settlers along with Creole slaves formed the earliest black urban settlement in North America. Black American immigrants found them to be quite exotic, for the black Creoles were Catholic, French or Creole speakers, and accustomed to an entirely different lifestyle. Immigrants also augmented the ranks of the city's black population when thousands of Haitians fled to New Orleans from that troubled island's revolutions long before Americans confronted its refugees in the late 20th century.

The native Creole population and the American newcomers resolved some of their conflicts by living in different areas of the city. Eventually, the Americans concentrated their numbers in new uptown (upriver of Canal Street) neighborhoods. For a certain period (1836-1852), they even ran separate municipal governments to avoid severe political, economic and cultural clashes. Evidence of this early cleavage still survives in the city's oldest quarters. A ride on a St. Charles streetcar will take a visitor away from the exotic French Quarter (the original downtown old city or Vieux Carré of the Creoles), initially through a business district more like that of the rest of America, and then through neighborhoods such as the lower and upper Garden Districts that look a little like Charleston or Savannah. Further still, through the University district, neighborhoods emerge filled with Victorian homes once common in American cities. Because the highest ground in this largely below sea level city runs along the natural levees of the city, the streetcar takes its riders on a passage through historical eras and their evolving architectural taste. Indeed, one of the city's nicknames, the Crescent City, came from the pattern of its growth along the river, which made a large bend through the delta starting at the original French settlement and moving out to the once separate town of Carrollton. The streetcar, the oldest surviving trolley in the United States, was constructed to connect those two 19th century settlements.

Similarly, a bus ride along Magazine Street would show the diversity of ethnic shops, just as a ride up Esplanade Avenue would reveal the evolving tastes and habits of the city's Creole population. And, of course, a stroll through any of the unique cemeteries, called "the Cities of the Dead," vividly show the multiplicity of names, birthplaces and languages of the various peoples who made up the population of the Crescent City.

Finally, New Orleans' peculiar ways need more explanation than a variant colonial past and a wildly diverse population. After all, California once belonged to Mexico, and today it draws more domestic and foreign transplants than any other place in the nation. Yet visitors seldom consider it "foreign." Quite to the contrary, California has come to define what is quintessentially American. On the other hand, New Orleans has remained an American province with a variant way of life. What is most intriguing about the city is its ability to fashion a public culture that transcends all of its varied peoples. They are more than a mosaic of identities, instead, they have to share a new cultural identity. Neither race nor nationality excludes any group from this common ground. What the city's denizens celebrate is less the Old World cultures of their ancestors and more the new way of life that evolved in New Orleans. The food, the festival, the music are shared pleasures, because somehow a novel ethnicity, born of the New World, has emerged in New Orleans. Creole cuisine, jazz and other forms of local music, Mardi Gras — all these famous attributes of the city give New Orleans a powerful sense of identity.

It is a live culture. If visitors make an effort, they can find a vibrant urban folk culture still producing new forms and practitioners. There are the neighborhood restaurants opened by bold creative chefs, the autumnal brass band parades in central city neighborhoods, the young lions of jazz now dominating the local scene as well as the world beyond, and the recently created Jazz & Heritage Festival. All these recent developments testify to the remarkable power of the city's culture to absorb new influences and fashion delights that continue to amaze not only much of the world, but also the inhabitants of New Orleans themselves.(http://www.neworleansonline.com/)

"Oh! How I love the place. I better stay here forever. But wait. How's my little girl in red? I am very sorry. Though I feel for her, my love for Allan is much stronger. I'm sorry."

So I stayed in New Orleans. The very purpose of my existence, all forgotten. That was 1968. I was 82 years old. Only, I was an infant spirit.

Satchmo

I did not really know how I got there. What I remember was that I was thinking how I could see my little girl in red. Remember, I promised her I would come back for her. A vision of a parade suddenly flashed my mind. So I concentrated further, trying to see what was happening. To my disbelief, I felt myself getting very light, moving fast towards that direction. I was so fast. I was flying and I landed there in an instant. It was a school.

She was there! I saw her with my two eyes. I walked towards her. But then she started to move. She ran towards that White man while the music was being played. An American man. She said goodbye. I got confused. I lost my balance. I fell down. I was not that strong yet. Ahhh, I forgot I was young, a young spirit.

I got no choice but to just listen to what they were saying to each other. I heard the man saying that he would go back to New Orleans. Yes, in America. He said he just visited as a volunteer but his main job was as a musician playing with Sachmo. You know Sachmo for sure, as he was actually Louis Armstrong, the great trumpet player whose hit was What A Wonderful World.

I knew Sachmo, believe me. He was born in 1901, the year when I got married to Gideon when I was sixteen years old. In 1925, he bacame famous as he formed the band called "Hot Five". How I liked his music then and till now. I confess, when I woke up from my slumber, I did not realize that it was his voice, it was him singing that song. At age 66, he was still good and well-known.

So that American would play music with Satchmo? How I wish I could see him in person. It would be nice to see him personally in New orleans. What an idea. Why not?

What's this? It was just a thinking. Oh my! Am I that powerful? Why I'm here in New Orleans already? It was just an idea, a wish and it happened at once.

Oh my God! I forgot my little girl in red. Forgive me girl. Forgive me. I'll come back to you in due time.

So I sat on a chair in a corner. I closed my eyes. I felt better. Satchmo's raspy singing voice made me feel wonderful. It was like home.

What A Wonderful World

I woke up with a light pain on my head. I had a feeling that I slept for a very long time. I really could not tell how I slept for long, not for long hours, not for long days, but for years. Yes, I could tell you that I slept for years. Would you believe if I tell you that I slept for eight long years? Amazing, right? But that's the truth.

I could still remember that early morning when I saw that young pretty face of a girl. She was so familiar. She looked like me when I was ten years old. She went near my bedside and cried softly when she learnt that I already died. That was 1961. "Punyeta! I was only sleeping. Why they did not believe me then?"

Back to that little girl in red. She said she did not know that we were related. While sobbing, she whispered that she had hoped and longed for a love, a love that I might had given her. But I was so tired. I whispered in her ear that I would just take a nap and later in the day I would talk to her and hug her. My eyes were so heavy . I closed my eyes. I whispered to her again. I told her I would come back. I would come back, I promised her. "I would come back little girl."

Then I just woke up. I came back.Just like that. I looked around. All the things I set my eyes to were different from before. I saw my son so I called him. I shout out as loud as I could. No answer. Nothing. Why?

A scene flashed on my mind. It was so clear now. The cemetery. They buried me. They thought I was dead. They buried me alive, Oh my God! Where would I go from here?

I cried and cried. I was weak. Then I felt something. I felt an energy was being pumped on my body little by little. I was regaining strength. So I walked towards the living room. I saw the calendar, 1968. Confirmed. I slept for eight years with no body to go back to. How sad. I wished to die again.

For days I moved around the house wandering in nowhere. With no definite plan in mind, nothing to do. Nothing to say. Until I heard the song being played on the radio. Nice music. Nice voice. I listened further. I digested the wordings. What a wonderful world. Why not, I told myself. I should be positive. I should wait. Wait for the right time. Accept what God had planned for me.

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

Songwriters: Thiele, Robert; Weiss, George David

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom for me and you

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white

The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces of people going by

I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do

They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow

They'll learn much more than I'll never know

And I think to myself what a wonderful world

Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces of people going by

I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do

They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow

They'll learn much more than I'll never know

And I think to myself what a wonderful world

Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world

Yes, my little girl. This could be a wonderful world. We would meet again. I promise. I promise.

Mi Ultimo Adios

I was young. I was ten years old, so they said. Deep inside me, I know I was older. I was a lady, a lady in bloom. Surely, if Jose would see me in person, he would kneel on his knees and would ask for my hands in marriage. At ten years old, I knew I could be a good wife.

I did not know that I would just be an aspiring lady for Jose. For in that fateful year of 1896, when I was ten years old, Jose was executed. Oh my God! I was not even able to see him in person. I was not even able to tell him how much I did love him. he already died. Died in the hands of those cruel people.

To console myself, I memorized the poem he wrote. And for years and years I recited my Jose's last poem. Even to my death bed.

Mi Ultimo Adiós

by DR. JOSE RIZAL

Adios, Patria adorada, region del sol querida,

Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido Eden!

A darte voy alegre la triste mustia vida,

Y fuera más brillante más fresca, más florida,

Tambien por tí la diera, la diera por tu bien.

En campos de batalla, luchando con delirio

Otros te dan sus vidas sin dudas, sin pesar;

El sitio nada importa, ciprés, laurel ó lirio,

Cadalso ó campo abierto, combate ó cruel martirio,

Lo mismo es si lo piden la patria y el hogar.

Yo muero cuando veo que el cielo se colora

Y al fin anuncia el día trás lóbrego capuz;

Si grana necesitas para teñir tu aurora,

Vierte la sangre mía, derrámala en buen hora

Y dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz.

Mis sueños cuando apenas muchacho adolescente,

Mis sueños cuando joven ya lleno de vigor,

Fueron el verte un día, joya del mar de oriente

Secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente

,Sin ceño, sin arrugas, sin manchas de rubor.

Ensueño de mi vida, mi ardiente vivo anhelo,

Salud te grita el alma que pronto va á partir!

Salud! ah que es hermoso caer por darte vuelo,

Morir por darte vida, morir bajo tu cielo,

Y en tu encantada tierra la eternidad dormir.

Si sobre mi sepulcro vieres brotar un dia

Entre la espesa yerba sencilla, humilde flor,

Acércala a tus labios y besa al alma mía,

Y sienta yo en mi frente bajo la tumba fría

De tu ternura el soplo, de tu hálito el calor.

Deja á la luna verme con luz tranquila y suave;

Deja que el alba envíe su resplandor fugaz,

Deja gemir al viento con su murmullo grave,

Y si desciende y posa sobre mi cruz un ave

Deja que el ave entone su cantico de paz.

Deja que el sol ardiendo las lluvias evapore

Y al cielo tornen puras con mi clamor en pos,

Deja que un sér amigo mi fin temprano llore

Y en las serenas tardes cuando por mi alguien ore

Ora tambien, Oh Patria, por mi descanso á Dios!

Ora por todos cuantos murieron sin ventura,

Por cuantos padecieron tormentos sin igual,

Por nuestras pobres madres que gimen su amargura;

Por huérfanos y viudas, por presos en tortura

Y ora por tí que veas tu redencion final.

Y cuando en noche oscura se envuelva el cementerio

Y solos sólo muertos queden velando allí,

No turbes su reposo, no turbes el misterio

Tal vez acordes oigas de citara ó salterio,

Soy yo, querida Patria, yo que te canto á ti.

Y cuando ya mi tumba de todos olvidada

No tenga cruz ni piedra que marquen su lugar,

Deja que la are el hombre, la esparza con la azada,

Y mis cenizas antes que vuelvan á la nada,

El polvo de tu alfombra que vayan á formar.

Entonces nada importa me pongas en olvido,

Tu atmósfera, tu espacio, tus valles cruzaré,

Vibrante y limpia nota seré para tu oido,

Aroma, luz, colores, rumor, canto, gemido

Constante repitiendo la esencia de mi fé.

Mi Patria idolatrada, dolor de mis dolores,

Querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adios.

Ahi te dejo todo, mis padres, mis amores.

Voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores,

Donde la fé no mata, donde el que reyna es Dios.

Adios, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mía,

Amigos de la infancia en el perdido hogar,

Dad gracias que descanso del fatigoso día;

Adios, dulce extrangera, mi amiga, mi alegria,

Adios, queridos séres morir es descansar.

My Early Life

I was born in 1886, the year when Jose Rizal published the anti-Spanish novel The Lost Eden or Noli Me Tangere. That was why I heard whispers and conversations about independence from Spain as I grew up. Of course with pure Spanish blood running their veins, my parents wanted the Spanish rule to continue. They called themselves peninsulares as both of them were born in Spain. Sometimes, I even heard stories of my parents mouthing bad words on the insulares. Insulares are full blooded Spaniards who were born in the Philippines. Imagine that! They were both Spaniards but they did not like each other. That made me so confused. I did not like that idea. I was a rebel. A rebel at heart.

My "Mama" taught me to read at a very young age of four. At the age of five, I got hold of the Noli. I was taken. How I wish I could meet that Jose in person. I knew he was a very intelligent man. I like intelligent men. So I thought that time that I really like him. Correction. I don't like him.I love him. I told myself that someday I would meet him and asked him to marry me. That was not impossible then. I tell you, I was the most beautiful girl in town.

I cried a bucket when Jose was executed in Bagumbayan when I was ten years old. That was 1896. Oh, how I hate those crazy Spaniards. I hate them! I hate them to the bones. Surely, I would never ever forgive them till the end of time.

When I turned sixteen in 1902, I was asked to marry Gideon, who just came from his studies in Spain. Like me, he was born in the Philippines. And like me he was also an insulares. And you know what, like Jose, he was such a handsome man. I fell in love with him the first time I met him. It was love at first sight. I told my parents that I would marry only if we would settle in Laguna, the province where my beloved Jose was born. They agreed. Thank God. They agreed. I was ecstatic.

And my beautiful life began.

Photos

"Confirmed. The house is in bad shape. Oh, not bad shape actually, it is in ruin. Those are the photos."

"What happened to the lovely house? The house built from sacrifices, from sweat and blood?"

True, a photo tells a thousand words. A thousand words I wish to tell you all since the beginning. But I am only a house. How can I tell you my deepest emotions? How can I tell you how hurt I am.

Yes, I am only a house. But I cuddled and embraced the family especially the girls with all my heart. I cried with them. I laughed with them. I dreamt with them. I witnessed their pain, their joy and love for each other.

They appreciated my presence during their sad days and happy days. They made me important though I am only a house. So, I gave them my love in return. A love that will go on forever and ever. I may be in ruin. But I tell you, my memories will not die. My being will live for eternity.

Correct! I am alive. I am a being trapped in a ruin house. I am capable of loving. So hear me. Hear me, please. Listen to my story. I am the house in Thirteenth Street.

Do forget the photos. Those are not me. Just listen. I am the house in Thirteenth Street.

Bare my soul!