Raihana K. Lamalan
Every time na mag-sine ako, I always bring my mini blanket with me.
Sa among kultura, we call it malong—my cousin used to call it “lulababay”, something that doesn’t have a direct translation; but it means something along the lines of a mother’s warmth that brings you comfort. Malong is widely known for our traditional clothing and dances, but technically, we also have malong where we use it for sleep. We pull the end of our malong, step in the center to wear it like a tube skirt until it reaches our chest or shoulder or depending on our liking, then wrap ourselves in it. We almost look like we’re vermiculated—but at least it feels like a warm hug from our mother, or grandmother. My cousin, she further explained how her lulababay has its own unique and specific texture compared to other malong we carry in our bed. The chill seeps in her skin yet there’s an impeccable warmth that soothes her to sleep.
It feels like home.
Dada, my father, once stitched from one end of our malong to another. As someone who’s taller in our household, Dada feared that I might catch a cold, so he often kept my feet warm—hence, lengthening the blanket. But since the fabric was too soft, and the scent too familiar—no matter how desperate he tried to wash it away he couldn’t resist the haunting familiarity lingering around him, I wasn’t surprised when he took the malong for himself. I thought that maybe he missed his old home before us—maybe his Ina, too. I can see how he longs for her, the way he melts down when we run out of bigas, or buys the whole ice drop (as what he calls the ice candy) from a manlalako that reminded him of his father, a principal who also vended ice drop during his childhood. I can smell the child in him; it’s rotting, writhing in agony as he hugs his new favorite malong around him, longing for a parent’s love.
Dada used to say na pinaglihi ako sa depresyon.
Because when Mama was pregnant with me, their Ama lay among our ancestors. She hated dogs and cats—and anything that came down with rabies—which was the cause of Ama Lukés’ death; something I resented about her when growing up. I was a child who nurtured the simple things around me and it broke my heart knowing I couldn’t shelter them all. To think that the model I should look up to was a complete opposite of who I am and who I’m going to be was… disappointing. It all rooted back to when Dada said I was “born under a cloud of depression,” because after Ama Lukés passed away, less than six months later, her Ina passed on too. In a way, it seems to me that the first thing I inherited from Mama was her deep, aching longing beyond her fingertips.
Dada mentioned that no amount of bulawan would make her happy. I find it almost impossible, because Mama will be happy to receive gifts from her husband (as any woman raised in a rural area would be). Having to grew up in around the Red Sea, I knew gold wasn’t impossible to buy as a gift—but with our financial struggles, her pregnancy with me, and the recent loss of her parents, these burdens became overwhelming for her. It was under these circumstances that Dada said I was an unplanned child, almost the unwanted one. And I couldn’t blame him. I was too difficult during my teenage years as to why he suddenly blurted that out. He once told me that no one could possibly fathom the way I am—that I am not meant for weak hands. Each pulse a verse, each would wound a different line, and I beat in language that no weak minds can utter.
As time goes by, I’m in awe of how mama never gave up.
Instead, she would wrap herself in malong and think of it as her Ina’s embrace, her Ama’s comfort. She would wipe her tears on it; the same way I muffled the sound of my silent sobs nowadays. The piece of fabric that held together assures her their presence despite being worlds apart from each other. And it makes me wonder, as to how I’m able to understand what she was going through. I long for our parents’ presence though they are right beside me, preparing our meals or reckoning our budget for tomorrow’s allowance. It sickens me. To watch them inhabit the life that owes them more. Then, guilt consumes me; I reckon my childhood that watches them doing the math all over again, the same picture I’m witnessing today. At that age, I couldn’t name the feeling—but now I recognize it as grief. Maybe I was pinaglihi sa sama ng loob, I was born with my Mama’s vulnerability, her fear of losing, her longingness. I was born with my Mama’s wistful sentimental yearning, sometimes it eats me alive—wondering whether it’s a gift or a curse.
In the same line, my cousin is on her malong’s five hundred and ninth sew. She said, her lulababay is on the brink of scraps—in fact, it’s almost beyond repair, “sukong-suko na nga,” she quotes. For some reason, her malong is dripped in memory, it was her handomanan from her Ina Lukés that was passed down to her, so she keeps it close to her even if it has a five hundred ninth jagged tear all over the seam.
Because it does feel like home.
So, I always bring my malong with me every time I watch cinema and, the thing is, I hate being inside the theater. It’s frustrating when you don’t hold the power to take a pause and search for the symbol’s implication, or to replay the scene because the humor was outrageous, or when you realize the importance of easter eggs from previous movies, series, and theories. It feels silly, whimsical even. These two unrelated rituals carry the same architecture of memory. The cinema is a dark room that suspends the world, it helps me escape for the next 2 hours from my lifelong painstaking responsibilities. Malong is threaded to pull my family into that silence. It’s a reminder that despite the moments for entertainment, there’s a story beneath my skin that still wants to be held. Cinema helps me forget, but the malong brings me back to who I am.
The movie was playing before me but the scene wouldn’t register in my mind, all I could hear was my Mama’s silence. My Dada’s stitching. The ache I inherited from them. There was a pang of guilt as I held my malong closer to me, lifted my feet from the ground and kissed my knees as it reached my chin. It’s nostalgic. Pagdamdam gani, ana sila. They passed me the baton I carry from my mother’s fears and my father’s grief, and all the quiet things they never said, but stitched into me anyway.