Feeling the small town blues

Wrote this eons ago, for my mom.

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My mama came from a small town somewhere in Laguna. She grew up in Paete. Whenever I mention this is my mother’s hometown, I find that folks are generally familiar with the place. Most people know of it as a place rich in the arts, woodcarving, paper mache and lanzones. My college friends knew it as part of the syllabus in Humanities class. My ex-husband even went to Paete on a school field trip with a gf way before we’ve met. As I was growing up in Manila, I hoped that people were excited when I talked about Paete. I’d like them to imagine it to be an exotic, far-flung place. Because for me, that’s what Paete is: something out of the ordinary.

The town was brought into my consciousness when I was about five years old. I knew it to be “the place where we go to during Holy Week.” My mom would pack three days worth of clothes and we’d ride in my lola’s red Fierra, take the long route through Rizal, stop for a leak after Tanay, and squeal in delight as we reached the outskirts of the town. Just then my lola, God bless her, would hush-hush us into silence and proudly declare, “Ba-i! Kaiingay ninyo’y, naghihirap ang Diy-os!”

That made me realize Paete meant solemnity. It meant looking reverently at the three white crosses atop the mountain, waiting for it to light up as dusk falls, while wondering why they put it there in the first place. It meant watching the Cenakulo, while trying to hold back your laughter, because the man who’s supposedly nailed on the cross thought the show was over and had already jumped off of it.

Yes, that small town is all about the processions and pilgrimages. Paete is about visiting the family owning the Señor, the Dead Christ, to get the tiny swatch of cloth perfumed with blessed oils, so that the sweet smelling cloth can stay in your purse for a year’s worth of blessings. It’s about the two churches where the imahens of the Aglipays are larger than the Romanos, and where, one church’s procession stops midway, so that the other may pass the narrower streets. It meant awaiting the Salubong in Gitnang Bayan where Veronica opens her kerchief to reveal the Three Faces of Christ; and, helping out while the Mater Dolorosa, the Sorrowing Mother, is being dressed in her regal black for the Good Friday procession.

Oh, but that is not to say that Paete wasn’t fun at all. It is a major happening in my childhood. As soon as school closed, I looked forward to those four days during Holy Week where I can catch up with favorite cousins for one year’s worth of stories. And they were happy childhood memories: I found novelty in their palamig and walastik, enjoyed the cool Caliraya breeze, woke up early to go jogging in Wawa. But my most favorite of all, are the taka.

On Easter morning, we would go around town to say goodbye to our relatives, but not without them insisting that we pick out paper mache dolls dressed in baro’t saya, its painted black hair in a bun. My sister and I would go through the numerous dusty boxes, picking out the ones that had the best-painted faces and the brightest colors. After we had picked out the dolls we really liked, two shiny red paper horses are already waiting at the door, ready to come home with us. These unique toys would survive us till the end of the summer vacation, which is just about their life span anyway, and by June, the memories of Paete would have been tucked away as we get ready for the new school year ahead.

We stopped the Holy Week tradition when our youngest sister was born. My mama deemed her too young for the ride, and there’s to be no crying about it. For years after she came, we observed Holy Week in what suddenly seemed to be the boring Manila style: four long days of The Ten Commandments and Jesus Christ Superstar on TV. I was already in high school when mama decided that my “baby sister” was old enough for the trip, and when she announced this, I felt I had outgrown the excitement of going there.

But, was I wrong. I found out that as I got older, Paete had better things to offer.

For starters, the local pool two towns away became our hangout–my cousins and I all trooped there, minus the adults! We would take a jeepney ride early in the morning, have the entire resort to ourselves and go home just when the sun has set. We always had a hard time getting a ride back, but it was a good excuse for being home late. Then, there’d be our night trips, when we’d have midnight snacks at Tita’s, a local panciteria. We’d then walk around the town till one in the morning, where unlike in Manila, you’re not scared to be still out on the streets. We’d hang around in cousin’s houses playing pusoy dos, singing songs, playing the guitar. There was also a time we had a dare and walked to the cemetery in the middle of the night and just sat there till we got scared.

Throughout my college years, Paete became more of a regular weekend thing. There was Holy Week, Salibanda, Pista, Todos los Santos, or any old day that my mama had a reason to be there. We became more than Manileñas taking a vacation. We had the punto as if we were really Paetenians, felt at home there. Cousins became best friends, and cousin’s friends became our barkada, too. For a few more years it went on, but then we started growing up.

I married early and had to stop going there, though my mama and sibs still went there regularly. Then again, my sisters told me that one or two cousins have gotten married too and couldn’t join the night trips anymore. Some cousins went to live abroad, while another was staying in Manila because she’s enrolled for the summer. As I’ve said, we all started growing up.

When my son turned three, we took him to Paete for the Holy Week. It being his first trip, we took him along wherever we went. I got him Lala chocolates at the corner store in Gitnang Bayan, treated him at the ice cream house, ate pancit at Tita’s. We saw the Señor, the Mater Dolorosa, and the imahens displayed by families on their verandas. The only time we left him behind was when we went up the mountain to view the three white crosses up close, which was also a first time for me. When I gave birth to my daughter over one summer, we promised to go the following year, but we weren’t able to. I’ve always thought about “going home,” as we’ve always called it, to spend another memorable Holy Week there.

Writing about the times I spent in Paete is quite something, and no matter how brief those times were, they were always worth reminiscing. I know that’s the reason why mama writes a lot about it too these days. She spent most of her teenage years there, and we often hear about what a riot it has been. I guess the same thing can be said of everyone who breathed the place some time in his or her life. We owe a lot to Paete, we all owe a lot to this small town somewhere in Laguna.

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Pictured: Taka at 98B Alabama