A Pinay Abroad by Lala Fernando-Reyes
Pietro E Reyes, III
A Pinay Abroad
Lala Fernando-Reyes
October 14, 1996
I suppose that those of us who choose to live and work abroad do so out of
idealism. "Distance fuels fantasy;" we are lured by dreams of a paradise
that is not just around the corner. I was a provisional emigre in Holland,
and then in Hawaii, and am still one now in New York. My husband, Pietro,
was assigned in 1982 to be the manager of the Philippine National Bank in
those places. Having uprooted myself from a career in the Philippine
government, I was suddenly transplanted to a land where I knew neither the
language nor anyone in it. Thus started a series of journeys which up to
the present has never failed to amaze me in its richness and capacity to
surprise.
In the beginning, I made up my mind to avert the danger of becoming merely
a drifter. After all, I was in a foreign land not by my choice, but
because my husband's career demanded it. Not that I complained, because
wanderlust had been ingrained in me ever since my childhood when my
peripatetic father took his family abroad on a yearly basis. He probably
believed, as Bruce Chatwin did, that: "(t)he act of journeying contributes
towards a sense of physical and mental well-being, while the monotony of
prolonged settlement or regular work weaves patterns in the brain that
engender fatigue and a sense of personal inadequacy."
In true Pinay spirit, I set out to conquer language barriers, education
problems, and expensive expatriate accommodation. Not easy tasks, for
having landed in the Netherlands on a frigid December morning, the winter
was cold and lonely beyond imagining, and the fact that we were isolated in
a tiny suburb made things infinitely worse. Thank God that I was aided
immensely by a three-year old daughter who was always ready to embrace
adventure, and who forgave my daily bouts of depression during the first
six months. We moved closer to the city, and gradually, as my hesitant
Dutch became more coherent, I dared to break the ice with complete
strangers in the cobbled streets around the Damrak, in the little grocery
stores, and in the halls of the University of Amsterdam. With Pietro
constantly occupied with his bank, Kathy went to Dutch school, and I joined
foreign societies, took French and cooking classes, traipsed over tram
tracks, gazed at gables, attended concerts, and scrutinized Rembrandt,
Vermeer and Van Gogh. I became entranced by the city, and not wanting to
live in the fringes of a foreign society, I withstood the temptation to
pick at and taste only what was familiar or digestible. I learned what
anyone who lives abroad for a longish time does, that each collision of
cultures breeds a new knowledge, and, ideally, a new understanding.
When I arrived in Honolulu three years later, I fell into the languid, easy
living of the Islands with its amiable, hospitable people. Pietro found a
house for us literally nestled between the mountains on one side and the
ocean on the other. With the flawless blue sky overhead and gentle breezes
regularly caressing my face, I felt I was truly in Paradise. I found work
as Director of a Learning Center for children and adults, and relished the
opportunity to design instruction programs for both gifted and slow
learners. There were many more of our countrymen in Hawaii, and with
several former schoolmates, we formed the Philippine American Society of
University Women, which had as one of its lofty goals the "upliftment" of
Filipinos both in Hawaii and the Philippines. The eight of us dove into
schemes like forming Filipino youth clubs in the less privileged sections
of Honolulu, staging wildly successful Filipino fashion, musical and food
shows in the Hawaiian Museum, and arranging forums in the University of
Hawaii and on TV regarding the predicament of the Filipina domestic helpers
and hotel employees.
Four years in Honolulu spoiled me for New York, but this magnificent, cold
city of concrete, glass, and steel has grown on me so that I can now say
that there is no other place I can call home. Like Joan Didion, in
"Goodbye to All That," I fell in love with New York: "I do not mean 'love'
in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you
love the first person who ever touches you and never love anyone quite that
way again. I remember walking across 62nd Street one twilight that first
spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late
to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and
stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out of the West and
reached the mirage."
Here in New York, and especially in a high-powered law firm, I have to
resist being a cog in the machine and try not to earn my way from one
moment to the next. This kind of discipline has made me tough, without
losing sight of the fact that the toughest quality can sometimes be
gentleness. Even though New York is famous for its rudeness, there are
kindly strangers here who can later on turn into genuine confidantes. And
the friends one makes in a city known for its artifice and sham are friends
for life. The city offers so much in terms of books, art, music, dance,
theater, learning, and food, but it is durable friends who have sustained
me all these years and have taught me the most essential things.
My daughter is eighteen now and is just as adventurous, if not more so; and
Pietro has at last discovered that spending time with family is more
important than career. Our lives are simpler now, and more peaceful.
Where we live in Upper Montclair, the voices are softer, the air is softer,
and in my garden, there is a bush that sends out a scent sad and sweet
enough to break the heart. Little pleasures, or call it cheap thrills, but
paradise, as Pico Iyer remarked, "may ultimately be more in the eye of the
beholder than the heart of the beheld. . . . Perhaps the search for
paradise may really come down to nothing more than a search for a paradise
within." Thus, wherever one is, one can carve a life in which there are
ample moments of clear, bright, sufficient, joy.
Copyright, All Rights Reserved. Lala Fernando-Reyes, October 14, 1996
