A Polaroid of a Girl's Unattended Thoughts Yvette P. Rejuso   © Copyright 2024 by Yvette P. Rejuso

Photo courtesy of the author.

It was the middle of December, the most appropriate date, they say, for all children to go out every single night. Perhaps, not all of them. Most of the time, I sat in silence by the window and observed the small group of children at our front door, singing Christmas carols. Tonight, there were five of them. Two of them were holding their breath and any minute now would burst into laughter, and the three, I assume who possess alluring voices, were singing their heart out as if they had rent and bills to pay this week. I began to wonder, ‘What is it like to be singing outside the house of a stranger? Will I get under their skin? Bummed out? Delighted?

“Yvette, go get twenty pesos in my wallet.”, my father said while watching television. My father had been living with an avoidance personality, his only strategy was to not entertain people. It’s not like he has a phobia or disorder when socializing, he was just embarrassed to meet people inside our house.

“Sure Pa!” I yelled back. I rushed to the door and opened it. I was faced with eyes shimmering with enthusiasm, a bit shy, but eager to receive something. For consecutive years, my father had been elected as a local government official. Without a doubt, it changed everything for us. Including, people’s impression that we always have money to lend. However, tonight, for me, was different. I was faced with children. To tell the truth, children, who have faced the consequence of adolescent pregnancy, and often neglected which was pretty common in our barangay. So far as I am concerned, it was long been, an unsolved problem.

My eyes wandered outside the dark, it was starting to drizzle, and the breeze was blasting cold air. ‘Poor children’, I thought. I reached out to the pocket of my shorts, hoping for some coins. I pulled out my hand, fortunately, I had two ten-peso coins and added them to Father’s bill. I lent it to them and smiled.

“Merry Christmas, please be safe.”, I said. “Thank you! Thank you, you are so kind. Merry Christmas, Ate Yvette.”, they said and ran off outside our gate. ‘Ate’, meant like an older sister. I was not that old, was I? Droplet after droplet, minutes passed, and I found myself in a good mood. I hope that no matter how small, and insignificant my coins were, would help those younger children to buy things they like this holiday season.

I leaned against the wall and picked up the book I had been reading for two days. A little classy and stern for an eleven-year-old girl, I know. When most of the children were going on about buying toys, either a Barbie doll or a toy gun, I wished to see snow. Not moving, I read the romance book set in winter, exploring the pleasant patches of small white iced crystals, a perfect day for the leading characters to embrace each other.

The next day, I asked Mother, cooking in the kitchen, if there was a chance of snowing.

“You’re crazy. We are in the Philippines, it is impossible to snow here.”, my brother said and laughed hysterically. He was amused by the fact that I did not know this information. But I knew, I was just desperately hoping.

“I thought you were at the top of your class?” He added. While he was shamelessly mocking me in the dining room, I decided to take my liberty not to talk to him for a week. I might appear to be okay, but I wasn’t. I was fixated and fascinated with the idea of snowing. Only if I was a girl who grew fondly of tight-lipped blonde figures, I would not feel too disheartened.

‘There’s something beautiful about the idea of walking on the first snow- so gentle, pure, peaceful.’

‘Or maybe it was all due to beguiling picturesque hands of the skilled author?’

‘Or maybe I do not know everything at all, even so, after reading a book?’

‘But books convey languages and lives of people which reading one is almost like catching a glimpse of what life is all about.’

These little absurd thoughts, I was born so, as to be constantly a war with myself. How I, in no doubt, carry the language of a school girl but occasionally desire to live the life of adults. I wish to study in a cute Cafe, but also to own the shop. I aspire to lose control and be excused but also to live a little fancy. I dreamed of hiding from the light but also picking daisies on the way to my own house. I wanted to be vaguely uncomfortable with a job, but also spend most of my days sticking a lollipop in my mouth. I wanted to paint my walls pink but stared at a beige wall with a classic painting hanging while holding my wine. Almost as I love myself dearly, I happen to loathe the parts I have. I was aware that I was young but I held myself as if I ought to have the habits of an independent woman living across the woods and fields glowing green in the light of sunshine, picking apples while holding Hanya Yanagihara’s book, ‘A Little Life’.

Such thoughts could kill me.

Not only that, I was engrossed with the idea of putting away wildfires but losing myself in the way. Under the habit of reading, I was secretly hoping I could be more knowledgeable than my classmates. I was young but my secrets should lie buried 20 feet below the people I am close with.

Oftentimes, I look back at my eight-year-old self. Thinking of my first day in class.

“How about you? What’s your name?”, a teacher asked me while everyone in the classroom was looking at us.

“My name is Yvette Rejuso.”, I answered shortly. A girl whose eyes wander across the gardens of Switzerland, sweet and widely open, which some shadows of delicate, wispy, feathery, and hair-like pretty clouds passively move. A girl who feels confined in a classroom, a life for people who only ought to submit in a capitalist world.

“Tell us more about your hobbies.”, the teacher inquired more. I stayed silent and did not answer her. Was thinking of a hobby?

But right now, when the meal is over and everyone at the table gets up. Every morning, the moment we all woke up, we had to clean, cook, organize, fold, and do the laundry. I have not yet escaped a morning without working. However, it did not come close to what I see as distressful. Cleaning was my favorite hobby to do. It was the only perfect time I could be enlightened about the things I had done and not yet done as I reflected. No one, in the house would disturb me as I mop the floor. For only it was the only time I would not be deemed differently cause all parts of my life I was.

“You’ve got too much attitude.”

“Why don’t you smile a bit? You would grow wrinkles with that irritated face.”

“How did you get so good at solving math problems? It is too complicated.”

“Why do you always try to look good? Your face won’t change.”

“You sound mature for your age.”

“You always read and read.”

“You are always alone.”

“For a child, you are talented. I bet you’ll be successful in the future.”

Maybe, just maybe. Have you guessed that I was just a child who bore overwhelming thoughts and lacked a little warmth? In a society, where adults live a lying life while children lie asleep. I was in between, doing just anything, and behind closed doors hoping that snow could diminish the emotions I bear. I was a confused eleven-year-old girl who slipped freely. In her story, everything that was laid upon her beginnings is objects of curiosity and absence one could find in an abandoned garden.

“Yvette, come, let’s eat.”, my mother said.

“Yes, ma. I’ll finish this first.”, I replied smiling at her.

“Hurry, stop that.”, father insisted. I stared at the table. They all looked at me.

I paused for a moment. I focused my mind, not on my thoughts but upon my hands which seemed to be covered with dust from all the cleaning I had done. Maybe, for now, I was a daughter.