“If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we’ve destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don’t you think that we might see each other once or twice?” Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingstone Seagul
‘Wanted privacy’ in page-a-writer for every word at stake describes rented city spaces in this personal essay figuring out meanings from a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle.
I lived in eight houses for my total of fifteen years of working in Manila. In each of those house my motto was, “A tenant you are, therefore, to the rules of the house, you shall submit.” This meant that I tried my best to relate harmoniously with the residents and I observed house regulations. Some ‘landlord’ implemented curfews and locked the gate at ten PM! Others did not allow ‘tenants’ to cook in the house. Strict landlords screened every visitor and did not allow relatives to stay overnight. Stringent ones set a specific quota for the number of clothes one can iron at one time. Others scheduled bathroom hours to conserve water. Yet in spite of the inevitable dos and don’ts, I never experienced any problem with the rules of each rented place. What I struggled with had always been the lack of private space.
No Privacy In a Room without a View
When I had my two-month training in my first job, Acquaintances from my college days Rona and Gil (not their real names) allowed me to live in their spare room. The room didn’t have windows so the lights were on even during the day. It was also already occupied by a male friend from college. This friend kindly transferred to the spare mattress so I could sleep on the only bed in that room. Since we were a man and a woman in one room, I kept the door slightly open at night, comforted by the ray of light coming from the window in the sala. Claustrophobia was my phony excuse whenever he asked me why I didn’t like to close the door. I remember sleeping always fully clothed in that room. My roommate was all right, but I remember that I always felt defensive, guarded and constricted whenever he was around. In that room I slept very little.
Walking on Eggshells in a Bed Space
After passing my probation on my first job, I rented a bed space in Mindanao Avenue. My sister and I decided to live together, she on the upper deck, and I below. We were forbidden to cook inside the premises so we bought our food from the nearest turo-turo. Inside the 4 X 2 room space, sparkling mirror and sparkling floor warned against any spillage. Ate Minda, the owner who freely came in and out of the room blurted out invectives any time a ring of soda stamped itself on the dresser. I believe that Ants avoided that place for sheer fear of her restive broom. In such a pristine, clean and narrow space, a private suite complete with king-size bed and bathtub wobbled in my imagination. For a respite, during dead hours at work, when doctors would be either asleep or occupied (I was a medical representative), I would stall in and around Farmer’s plaza or browse all the classics at National Book Store. I killed time, feeling the expanse of Cubao, until my heels burned. All that time, Ate Minda would be sweeping every speck of dust in our little room.
Misunderstanding in a Boarding House
I didn’t last long in my first job, but when I came back to Manila, I rented a boarding house near my new place of work. Just behind the building where I worked, the apartment unit I found had an extra room for a boarder. I first thought that Cora, shared the rent with her best friend Susan (not their real names), and they occupied the other room. So I thought that we were a total of three women in that apartment unit. But I had not lived there for a month when one day, Susan barged into “my room” with her pillows, blankets, bags, shoes, and clothes.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s not yet the end of the month, but he’s already here.”
“Who’s He?”
“Cora’s boyfriend.”
“But doesn’t he have a house?” I persisted.
“This is his other house. He pays the rent.”
So much for my privacy
Model Siblings in an Apartment
The next house tried to leave me a lesson on sibling relations, but I didn’t learn the lesson. By then, my sister already had her first job and she was a liberal, as opposed to me, a conservative. Our dreams were telling of the direction we were about to take. She wanted to get rich, and I wanted to be a writer. Meanwhile, Rita (not her real name) and her siblings were living in complete harmony. My sister and I rented the other room, which was big for two. Rita and the rest of her four sisters shared the other room. One of Rita’s sisters washed the sibling’s clothes, the other went to the market and cooked; Rita worked in the office where I was also working, while the other younger sisters were studying. While my sister and I were fighting over who was going to wash the dishes, our rent partners functioned as effective support to each other. In contrast, my sister and I could not stop our senseless fights and petty squabbles.
Wanted Privacy in a Shared Room
Eventually, my go-getter sister had to rent her own room. So I needed a smaller place for myself. Just around the corner I found a house owned by a middle-aged woman with a child. Ate Mayette (not her real name) told me that the present boarder, Christy, was leaving for Canada. Christy rebelled against Ate Mayette’s decision to rent me the same room while she was yet there. The first time I came home from work, Christy had already installed a plastic curtain in the middle of the room, and moved all her things in her corner. As a consequence, I couldn’t turn the lights on when she was already in bed. I couldn’t turn my electric fan on because she was already using the only outlet in the room. I couldn’t use the upper deck so I couldn’t open the windows, I couldn’t read, and she wouldn’t talk to me. Later, I found out her dilemma. An engineer, she couldn’t get a job in Canada because she was over qualified. So she had to fake all her papers in order to be accepted as a domestic helper. It didn’t help our relationship when I refused to become accessory to her plans of lying to her agent
Ate Mayette’s husband was unfaithful and he had stopped sending dollars. So she decided to get more boarders, and I moved to the bigger room. My roommates were sisters. They were fanatic basketball fans. They had a fourteen-inch TV, which they squeezed into a corner of our room. Every night of the PBA season, they jumped, and shrieked and swooned over their basketball heroes – on their king sized bed. Yes, they brought their own bed, while I occupied the lower deck of Christy’s double deck, using the top deck for miscellaneous. By now Christy was gone. And our former room was occupied by four bed spacers. In the bigger room, my new torturers seemed like wild birds when they cheered their idols wildly in kapampangan. I couldn’t separate the praise from the curse in their language. In that situation, I chose to be completely deaf in order to be able to sleep.
The Kasambahay by My Side
In the course of about two years, I had dysfunctional solitude. Decidedly, the only way out was a new boarding place. My next landlady, Mamang, was about seventy plus or so years old. She lived with her adopted daughter’s family in the house at the center that was part of a U-shaped compound. On the right was her son’s family abode, on the left was her daughter’s space. The house was a 1960s model, with a garage and a terrace. My new room was at a semi-basement in Mamang’s house, near the servant’s quarters. The maid provided me with a table, a bookshelf, and a bed with drawers. That room had only a screen door because it wasn’t supposed to be occupied like a real room. Right outside, it was like a highway where all of Mamang’s relatives passed whenever they wanted to cross over to the other side.
When I looked out my window, there was Marilyn, the servant in the attached servant’s quarters. She was the eldest among her nine siblings. Back in her home in Leyte, everybody depended on her salary as a house help in Manila. Marilyn became a friend since we didn’t have a wall between us. She kept some left over food for me and opened the door when I came home late. She sometimes murmured about house chores and didn’t mind that I was hearing them. I never closed my window for fear of hurting her feelings. I never complained about the transparent screen door either. I could hide no secret from all the residents of that compound
Wanted Privacy for 90s Girls in Spacious Dorm
Right in that same area, a dorm was being built by a Balikbayan from the States. I had an artist friend who wanted to move in to a new place because her dorm mate’s mother was beginning to get suspicious about their relationship. We both eventually moved in to this Balikbayan’s dorm. Three of the four rooms on the second floor of that house could accommodate a total of eight girls. On the first floor, three rooms could house eight more boarders. There were four bathrooms, a huge wash area, a spacious kitchen and a big terrace for parties. The place was okay for individualistic singles like me. My friend and I were able to occupy separate rooms because we were among the first boarders.
Later, the landlord took in other women. All of us, women, bonded easily since we moved at close range. Our doors were useless to prevent the private stories from walking up and down the house and entering the rooms. Among the stories of the women in that house, mine is the plotless one. But the band singer’s, the mute’s, the mistress’, the adulteress’s, the flirt’s, the GRO’s, the artist’s, the gossip’s, the jobless’, and the landlord’s live-in partner’s stories – their tales could be a most interesting collection of vignettes of women of the nineties.
Curtained and Partitioned without Privacy
My last room was not a room. To make a partition in the dirty kitchen, I lined up a table, bookshelf, washing machine, and vinyl closet on my left side, and then installed a wire where a curtain served as door. Over my head I hung batik curtains to cover the old cement wall designed with holes that looked out to the laundry area. It also served a decorative function. Across the foot of my bed I re-arranged an old cabinet so it would cover the holes that looked out to the main house. On my right was the concrete wall where on the other side is the stove and sink area. When it rained, I wore a jacket and doubled my blanket. To protect myself from mosquitoes, I slept with a mosquito net. To shield me from prying eyes, I used a very thick curtain. I always heard frogs outside, and watching lizards became my constant diversion.
In fact, that room was a most provincial one; as a result, I felt completely at home in it. My constant companions were the helper, her daughter, and her grandson – Bryan. Bryan was a lovechild. From eight AM to five PM, his mother, Carol, packed biscuits in a factory while Grandma took care of the house. In my two years of stay in that house, with no walls nor doors around all my personal belongings, I never lost a single precious item. The only private belongings that my housemates always touched were my dirty clothes. Carol would always take them out of my washing machine to wash them by hand, so she could have additional cash for her son’s upkeep.
This Privately Owned House was not yet a Home
When I finally bought a house, I lived in it for two years – alone. At last I had my much coveted privacy. But ironically I didn’t really enjoy it. At first, I cherished the peace and quiet that was so conducive to writing. But after a long while, I got bored writing about wild flowers and unruly grass and prowling cats and fading rice fields. I missed the noise, the murmurs, the shouts, the smiles, the laughters.
Looking back, I remember that the people I lived with were at many times more vulnerable than I was. They did not intrude in my privacy, instead, I barged into theirs.
