On the year that was

At the end of any time frame, for most of us the year, we find ourselves grasping for images of the time past, hoping to catch patterns and designs that might be discernable from the quilts and tapestries that we’ve woven out of the fabrics of our lives. If none is readily forthcoming, we hastily create one.

Writers tend to be an introspective lot and I turn now to the unforgivable exercise of being self-conscious about this column, it’s content and how it is written.

A colleague during one of those awkward lulls at a social function, when one fills gaps between formal discourse with polite conversation, asked where I find topics to write about in this weekly column. It is just an opinion column, I said, so I really do not do much research about specific facts and figures, nor is it news analysis to clarify various points of view on current events. As an opinion column, it is more suited to stream of consciousness writing.

In a daily paper that serves a small island with a very limited circulation, I address this column to my students and their parents, and colleagues in various professional and civil society endeavors of which I am a part. I do not have a generic Mr./Ms. Public in mind. Instead, I would hold up a specific acquaintance who might have brought a specific concern to my attention, and engage the person in a meditative conversation, the grist of which would be the week’s column.

This may come as a wee bit too reactive for those who expect us to be more aggressive in identifying and addressing relevant and pressing issues of the day. Columnists are after all to be at the cutting edge of thought, their function being to catalyze and generate creative thinking from the literate audience. Or so, we claim. Expected to often sail against the tide, burst a few hallowed balloons, prick comfortable consciences, and shake not a few settled foundations, as I thought I might do at the beginning, I actually find myself more often meandering simply down the listless currents of the river of consciousness. The sails, the rudder and the navigational chart get created in the journey, and not before.

It is a coveted prize to get readers? Feedback of all kinds, particularly those other than the innocuous though friendly “keep on writing.” This year, for opinions expressed about our current national war policies, one suggested that I was courting with treason. Being a naturalized citizen, I was diplomatically dubbed an ingrate. Still, I was amazed at how civil responses were, though when expressing the same thought to a friend, he opined that those who really had strong opposite opinions did not bother to register their thoughts. And that I should be glad. Oh, well.

Opinions on religious matters caught a few off guard, coming back with politely worded responses like, “Did you really have to say that!” Intruding into the sanctity of sacred spaces noticeably created distances between what used to be gregarious friends though happily not enough to forsake common courtesy and regard.

Most of the comments received, however, were in the manner and style of writing. Thank heaven for the excuse of ESL (English as a Second Language), the convenient defense for lapses in grammar, punctuation, sentence construction, and just general composition. I must confess however, that my inherited colonial mindset and vestiges of rural superstition still manage to slip into this column’s composition and get translated into the English idiom.

Let me explain. In English, the passive voice, which is used to emphasize or direct attention to the receiver of an action, is generally discouraged. Filipino thought patterns however, abounds in the passive voice. Externally determined fates and fortunes dominate our destinies. We express ourselves as objects being acted upon rather than subjects initiating actions. Politically, since our lives have been dominated by historical forces managed by an elite few, the passive voice reflects our historical and alleged authentic self-understanding. Deconstructing this propensity, and I am increasingly convinced that culturally, this colonial mindset bedevils the Micronesian worldview as well, must become an imperative among the thoughtful and the futuric. This column’s style sadly though unintentionally leans towards the passive voice. That could use some straightening.

The other substantial feedback is the preponderance of subtlety and indirection. “For some of us, you might have to connect the dots,” was a friend’s admonition. Gestalt is more than just an esoteric German word. It is the complementary virtue of the Teutonic penchant for logical formulation. It underlies the right/left brain distinction, the Mac versus PC debate in the choice of computers. This column tends to be more of a gestalt than a logical thesis, antithesis, and synthesis progression. It tends to be more circuitous than linear, skews the straight route for the scenic one. That obviously has to be rectified for proper balance.

A Malay saying suggests that if you hit someone directly with a stone, you leave him with a lump; if you graze him with the same, you leave him with a wound. A lump subsides and disappears in time; a graze leaves a scar forever. Ergo, an indirect hit last longer. I suspect that my Malay Memes rear their unintended influence into this column’s style often also.

Not unlike encountering an artform, I suggest to feedback-giving readers to continue the exchange and the dialogue, and perhaps, after asking the question: “What did the writer objectively wrote?” They would follow it up with, “What did I read?” And more importantly, end it with, “What came to mind as I was reading?” Answer to the last then becomes one’s own, and we would have moved from the column to the reader’s mind. Leading one to the appropriation of one’s own thoughts, I think, is what I write this column for.

A symbolic gesture to close out this year will visually affect next week’s column. It comes as a response from a reader who happens to know what I look like. She said, “What’s with the picture. You trying to look young?” Well, accompanying this column is my school yearbook picture last year. We have another one this year. We’ll let that front this column in the coming year.

Now, about this past year, one must create a ritual in one’s mind, package the memory in one bundle and consign it to the annals of history. We render it to oblivion, and just let life itself pronounce its own absolution. Fate and fortune is transformed to sheer freedom. Tomorrow appears unconditionally open. We move on.

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Vergara is a Social Studies 6th grade teacher at San Vicente Elementary School and writes a regular column for the Saipan Tribune.