I met Glecie on my way home from Dudut’s place

Now, who are they? College friends. Theater peers. This morning, I had an instant reunion with Elo, Edwin and Dudut. You don’t know their names but they are not going to be erased in my memory, together with the following: boy, becca, ate evelyn, opet, (I saw him: he's so huge, and his son is handsome) axel, dolly, bong, glecie, vangie, Roselyn, Christie, yumi, ronnie, ineng, ruel. Glecie told me Yumi’s husband died in an accident last February, and that Yumi’s two offspring are in UP (“matatalino anak ni Yumi”), and that they are better looking than Yumi (naughty glecie), and that Roselyn is in Italy, and that Vangie and her four kids and husband, after living for a long while somewhere in the middle east are now back home. All these information when I bumped into Glecie on my way home from Dudut’s place. What about Glecie? She said she needs to get slimmer. (In my opinion she looks great!)

Glecie is somebody who loved the song “Love Me” back in college when we were always rehearsing for a play or having a theater workshop. Her best friends, Yumi ("mayumi" in Tagalog means soft-spoken, but Yumi just seemed like she was soft-spoken. In reality, well... Glecie knows more), Roselyn (who spoke very slowly) , Vangie (the cute and small), and Christy (and her ever chaotic love life) get together on a regular basis. Once, I saw Vangie at the mall with her four children in tow. She’s still small and cute and she immediately talked about Roselyn, who was working in Italy and sending money to her husband and children back here. She said Roselyn’s daughters are so beautiful (and adds, "but of course, just like their mom!")

We had very good times in that theater group which we called Tanghalang Dalwa-Singko. (sorry, with all my training, I can’t translate this. Can you?) Boy or Tanggol (his real name is Magtanggol) I think was the one who named our little theater group since he was the one who more or less founded it. Right now, he’s working with Bill Gates in the Microsoft world, taking care of it’s finances (I’m now sure which part of the world). That guy, he’s always been the intellectual guru, the witty guide, a frustrated journalist, nevertheless, a brilliant accountant, or so I heard. We all flocked toward him. I haven’t seen him for ages! Anyway, Ronnie, the Lawyer, now the influential administration man in the provincial capitol has constant communication with him. (Talk about men in the seat of power and influence.) Together with Ate Evelyn, Boy planned this little theater group that was a direct product (I think) of their workshop with PETA in the late seventies and early eighties. Ate Evelyn is now a dedicated professor of humanities at a university here, and she was, from the very start, however petite, our matriarch figure. However, she refused to become TDS adviser now that the group maintains its presence in the university where we all graduated. Dudut forgot to text her today. Dudut is vacationing from Australia with her Australian husband, and she asked Edwin, now the busy architect with a cute son and a cute daughter, to help her fix her mother’s garden. We had breakfast in the kubo in this garden which was newly bought as a main fixture in that garden. Edwin was talking about his job and how he enjoyed it, and then Elo passed by and joined our little tete-a-tete. He said he’s going home to Nasugbu, to his wife and two babies. But first, he told Edwin, he’s got some plants for sale and would Edwin like to visit them. We had longganisa and egg and hotdog with fried rice and coffee as we talked about another classmate back in high school

Amazing how memories suddenly rush in upon seeing the faces of these friends. Back then, I can remember us, being often together, in our jeans and tees and rubber shoes, day and night, and especially on weekends. When I saw some of them today, I immediately felt a kind of kinship that caused me to become more transparent and uninhibited. Even with Glecie, it came very natural to joke about “yumi” having a handsome husband (how did she do that?), and kids lovelier than herself (we used to do this to Yumi, too, in college.) Of course, I can only offer condolence to Yumi now that she had lost her husband. I hope that she can find solace and comfort among friends, these same group of friends.

Meanwhile, after the spontaneous reunion, we have all gone back to our hopefully good and productive lives. Those theater experience and relationships have trained all of us to be confident in our uniqueness and individuality. And seeing them now, I'm proud that they are where they are. Really, suddenly, I miss most of them.