On a recent walk at Bayard Cutting Arboretum, I relished in the glory of spring. Yellow daffodils, red rhododendrons and, my favorite, tulips of all colors, are in full bloom. While admiring the fresh new leaves sprouting on a Japanese Katsura tree, it dawned on me how appropriate that we celebrate Mother’s Day this time of year as mother nature delivers new life all around us.
In the Philippines, where I grew up, flowers bloom year-round due to its tropical climate, particularly perennials like Bougainvillea, Hibiscus, and the fragrant Jasmine orSampaguita—the national flower.
My mother is a Filipina named Remedios, or as I call her, Mama Medy. The eldest of six children, my mom has always been a strict disciplinarian who practiced tough love.
Our piano was a shiny thing of beauty kept dust-free by a cloth cover, and a can of Pledge wood cleaner had it positively polished with that trademark scent.
Mama gave strict instructions that we could only touch, nay approach the instrument, only if we went for piano lessons. My two older brothers were more into basketball and barely gave the piano a second glance, but for me it was the beginning of a lifelong love for music and entertainment.
For the next five years, I would walk a mile to my piano teacher’s house, three times a week for one-hour lessons. I carried my piano books and sheet music, all painstakingly wrapped in clear plastic by mama, in a soft brief case. My piano teacher was a widow named Mrs. Collado who worked as an accountant at a veterinary clinic (succinctly named Dog and Cat Hospital) by day, and gave lessons from her living room at night. She lived with a maid and two fluffy white miniature poodles. My older cousin Edwin was her part-time driver and he made the introductions. Always elegantly dressed, Mrs. Collado was a terrifying woman when I made mistakes. She would hit my fingers and shift them onto the right keys using one of those foot-long pens which left ink marks on the back of my hands. After lessons, I was forbidden to get my hands wet—to preserve my nimble fingers—this, of course, exempted me from a lot of dishwashing chores at home, where a dishwasher most certainly did not exist.
There were days I detested piano lessons and bemoaned having to miss playing with my friends after school or watching my favorite cartoons on TV.
But mama always knew better, and playing the piano was an excellent outlet for my theatrical sensibilities. My music was a mix of ballads, religious and traditional Filipino music. Eventually, my younger sister Priya also took lessons and it was fun when we would play four-hands on the keys. Hearing us on the piano was the one thing I knew that would always bring joy to mama.
Our family frequently hosted dinner parties and I would usually be the main entertainment for guests and visiting relatives. On those evenings, there was a lot of preparations and we all helped out. The good dishes from the China glass cabinet had to be hand washed, white lace curtains were put up, and our hardwood floors were waxed and scrubbed with dried coconut husks until they gleamed. We had an excellent full-time cook named Amy who would serve me my dinner early so that when the guests arrived, I would be ready. In the same vein as Nina Simone, I could be a little diva sometimes. In the middle of a song, I would abruptly stop playing and walk away from the piano if I felt no one was paying proper attention. With the audience chastised, mama would coax me from the kitchen and only then would I resume.
In the ‘90s, before the internet, mama would record my piano playing on cassette tapes and send them to her parents who had immigrated to Seattle, Wash. Those were tough recording sessions that demanded precision, and I was required to fill both sides of the tape with my grandparent’s favorite Philippine folk songs and my grandma Victoria’s favorite song, “Sampaguita.” To ensure the best sound quality, mama would have Amy alternately hold the microphone behind the piano and under the keyboard while working the portable recorder. My brothers were stationed at the door and front gate the whole time during recordings. No one in the house was allowed to make any unnecessary noise and I had to restart a song every time I made a mistake. Mama was a taskmaster and she always got us to deliver. Many years later, I learned from my cousins in Seattle that my grandparents cherished those tapes and played them incessantly, much to their chagrin.
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