I can dream, can’t I?
When she was in her mid-life, her 30s, my mother, who was widowed at 22, of course, went out on dates. Sometimes she would take me along. Usually her dates were pretty boring for me because I would sit alone at the table while she and her date danced. Then one night we went to the Bulakena night club, which was across the side street from Bulakena restaurant.
OK, what is Bulakena? It was one of the restaurants of my time. It competed with Max’s fried chicken. I think they served chicken with honey. It had a little more class than Max’s. As they became more successful they added a nightclub.
Now what is a nightclub? A nightclub is the predecessor of the disco. Now I think there are clubs with horrendous loud music and atrocious flashing lights. In the ’50s to the ’60s we had nightclubs, always dark with candles on the tables. There was always nice dance music provided by an orchestra and there was always a torch singer who would sing what we called torch songs. What are torch songs? They are songs about love, heartbreak, loss, no screaming like they do now, just soft whispery tunes, my mother’s type of music, which I have grown to love much more than the music of my era.
One night when I was around 10 years old my mom went on a date to Bulakena and brought me along. There I saw the torch singer, Carmen Soriano, perform. She was beautiful and I liked the way she sang. She was wearing a skintight black lace dress with a low neckline and sequins. She looked so sexy and she sang sexily. While my mother and her date danced, I sat mesmerized thinking — I want to be like her when I grow up.
But it was not to be. I got married at 18, went to work at 24. Worked through till I was 57 then I had a stroke. It took me six years to get my old personality back, to teach writing, to learn how to make jewelry, to knit and sew again. One day I realized I was old, I had no more dreams, I was just waiting to die.
Then one of my friends sang. I loved his voice. I asked him where he studied singing. He recommended Papo Pardo, a friend of ours, the son of Tess Cordero Pardo, who was a friend of mine who passed away young. “He teaches?” I exclaimed. “Give me his number.”
And there began the dream. I will learn how to sing. I give myself two years to develop my voice. Then I will have a show at a nightclub where I will wear a sexy gown and sing torch songs from the heart. Why not? Eartha Kitt was singing onstage in Paris in her 80s. I can debut at 74.
So now I am busy planning this show. Starting in May I will start exercising to get my body in shape for my act. Maybe I’ll get into some sexy shape again. Once I was very sexy but I let go.
My father’s older sister, Flor, was a nightclub singer. She played the piano and sang. She was very pretty and very sexy and she had four husbands. The last time I saw her she told me she thought I was the one who had inherited her daring. So now I shall dare but not without careful preparation.
One of my childhood friends from the Ateneo sent an email to all his friends saying that to fight getting older they had to learn how to play a musical instrument. This was widely circulated to all his friends. I answered him only, told him of my plans to debut as a nightclub singer at the ripe old age of 74. Will you come and bring all your Atenean friends with you and clap for me? He said, Of course, but you have to find a place big enough to accommodate all of us and our wheelchairs because we’re all septuagenarians.
I must confess I love having this dream. It has given my life new meaning. I look forward to my singing classes. I go to YouTube, look for the songs I like, watch so many singers sing it, choose the one whose style I like best and learn. One of these days I have to sit and figure out my repertoire. Then suddenly I think, what if I die before I can do a show?
It doesn’t matter. What matters is that now I am preparing and it gives me many things to do. After all, what’s the cliché? It’s not the destination that matters, it’s the trip!
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