Getting over Clunker

I called her Clunker. I guess she took offense. I would if I were an old laptop and my even older owner called me Clunker. She was five years old and people I took her to told me, "You must change her," but it isn’t that easy to change an alter ego. You may call her names but you have attachment, history, all sorts of intimate things between you. She was the repository of my Free Cell scores, testimony to the times I felt stuck or could not sleep.

I had a premonition that she was not well. The cards in the computer solitaire games I am addicted to wouldn’t fly up enthusiastically any more. They wavered, fluttered upwards weakly. That morning I had typed in a paragraph of my column but the letters struggled to appear on screen ever so slowly at least three sentences behind. Then suddenly the screen went black. No click, no shudder, Clunker just died before my eyes. Without Clunker my three readers out there would be without my column as I realized that I could no longer write, much less edit 800-1,000 words longhand, did not own a typewriter anymore and could not write a column at a cybercafe. The idea of doing that felt like I was being asked to bathe in public.

Anyway, so off Clunker went to be diagnosed. The good news is there’s nothing seriously wrong with her, only her electricals - the convertor and the battery pack. Like her owner, poor Clunker has energy problems. The bad news is, because she is an old model, it will take at least 30 days to replace her parts. This proves my other point. I’ve been trying to tell the elusive men in my life all my life that we older models are difficult to replace. Still they went off with young ones. I guess easily replaceable parts are important to them. The metaphor ends there and yes, I am sourgraping. This is what Clunker withdrawal does to me.

Clunker’s loss and the other techno glitches that have visited me since remind me of the refrain of a romantic song: Who can explain it? Who can tell you why? Fools give you reasons, wise men never try. Some enchanted evening... My astrologically-inclined friends and relatives tell me that Clunker behaved that way and my new nameless machine is acting up because Mercury is retrograde. I am now willing to blame all the mystery, misery and madness I’ve endured on Mercury messing with me. That is as good a reason as any.

Grief breaks our habits and leads us to new places. When Clunker died I could not longer escape into my computer games. I could not do my work. I was forced into a different mode. I read, did crafts, planned Christmas and went to bazaars. One Sunday morning, my daughter Panjee sent me a text: Want to go to a bazaar? By some blessing I was in the vicinity. Before we knew it we were off on a mother-daughter date, something we hadn’t done since we moved to the opposite ends of the metropolis.

Bazaars are a new trip for me. I realize it’s a bit late in the day but remember I went to office for 30 years. It’s only now that I have time to explore, poke around, still taking the pulse of the market and the consumer. What’s doing well? I ask my professional friends. "Food and inexpensive feel-good products like beauty salons and spas," they say. That pretty much is what you find at bazaars these days: Baubles, bangles, beads, food, and aromatherapy stuff or small pretty things. Baubles, food and low-priced exotic or trendy clothing are the stalls that do brisk business. This tells us that consumers are looking for and spending on small pleasures that give their spirits a little lift. They stop to admire and inquire about expensive items, but they move on. At bazaars we realize that we are still facing hard times. We need to overcome the depression these times bring and we do it modestly settling for small lifts rather than big treats. This economic slowdown has been with us too long.

As early as now I would like to invite you to a different kind of bazaar, off the road in a subdivision that’s nestled on a plateau between Mount Makiling and Laguna de Bay. Maria Makiling Greenheights will hold a one-day bazaar on Sunday, October 13, from 8 a.m. till you drop. It will be different because, well, for one thing, where is Maria Makiling Greenheights? Just take the South Expressway to the Calamba exit. From there take the shortcut to Los Baños that bypasses Calamba crossing. There will be directional signs at the Shell station on that road. There will be exotic plants, country accessories, whirligigs, food, Laguna arts and crafts and if you’re lucky, a few bayawak may go shopping with you. It will be a small country fair in a charming little subdivision just waiting to be discovered. You might want to shop there. You may even want to live there.

Check it out. It’s part of my therapy, one of the things I got involved in when Clunker took offense and died on me.

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