Back in September, I submitted a creative non-fiction piece to the University of the Philippines (UP Cebu) Creative Writing Program's first E-Zine.
I genuinely did not expect for it to get accepted but it was. The theme was "Literature of Fragile Environments and it was described as: The story of Covid-19 in Cebu has been mostly a story of numbers. The number of positive cases, number of deaths, number of recoveries, number of days under lockdown, number of quarantine violations, number of job losses. But this numerical approach to COVID-19 does not reveal the suffering experienced by patients, or the shared trauma of their loved ones or the healthcare workers, or the lived experience of the stranded students or jobless city migrants. These experiences, while not an easy story to tell, still need to be told.
My "fragile environment" was what it meant for me to be a systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patient in the midst of a pandemic, and what truths it made me reaffirm in the grand scheme of things.
It's called "What to do with the Time (Left)". I guess it's a bit pretentious with the parenthesis, but I think it really worked for my essay. I was playing around with the themes of time and distance as preparation for another literary anthology I was planning to submit to (I never got to do it). I tackled that in the essay, how the pandemic has made my genuine fear of time running out even worse.
And then I sought to tackle my place as a person with disability (PWD) against the backdrop of the rotten system that was only even more exposed at the onslaught of the virus.
I don't think this is my best essay, honestly, but if you have been reading this blog for a while, I'll let you be the judge.
My essay was also one of the 4 works turned into a podcast, which you can access on Soundcloud by clicking here. It was edited by a good friend who was also the podcast producer. She made me sound less like shit. Haha. I don't fare well reading out scripted texts, honestly. I'm monotonous as hell, and it even became the concept for a Soundcloud series I worked on a while back (but is also now defunct because Insecurity).
Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy that, whoever is reading this. If you prefer to read the essay, I'll place a preview and the link to the CWP E-Zine (it's free) below. Please do check out the other wonderful works as well.
I'm the most objective person I know when it comes to assessing my works, so believe me when I say it really isn't my best. But it is true. And it is genuine. And I hope it will give the reader insight into some of the struggles PWDs have to face, and how a collapsing system is also everyone's disability.
Always,
Claire
----------------------
What to Do with the Time (Left)
A few midnights ago, I watched the film Tune in for Love. Clicking on the movie, I didn’t really know what to expect. I like to read the synopsis of movies beforehand—it’s a way for me to ensure I don’t waste my time—but, with exceptions like this one, I went into it blindfolded.
In those particular days, I was feeling pensive and reflected a lot on my life. I liked the movie. I believe it's the kind of movie that should be watched after midnight, when the world is quiet and dark and serene. When the noise of the world has come down from its heights to allow me this space. Some movies just don't belong in the daytime.
I shared the movie with my partner. He asked what it was, and I said it was a 2019 South Korean film set in the 90s to the early 2000s and that it went on for 2 hours. He asked me why I liked it and I replied it was because time and circumstance kept getting in the way between the two main characters, but they always found each other. Both Mi-soo and Hyun-woo never questioned their instances of separation and they also never questioned their reunions. It was the natural ebb of life for them. Their separation towards the end was almost permanent, until they didn’t allow it to be. They finally realized that staying together was their choice to make.
I didn’t realize how much I talked about stories like that until my partner said, “You really like stories like that, noh?” And I just replied a seemingly nonchalant, “Yeah, something about distance.”
But his comment made me think for a moment. I was diagnosed with lupus, an incurable autoimmune illness, in 2012. I was turning 14. Major changes like that tend to steer the trajectory in which one leads their life. For me, that’s what happened, anyway. So, I told my partner, “It’s my whole thing, I guess. I always want to tell people what I think and what I feel because I’m afraid I may not have the time anymore…and stories like these remind me how transient or how fragile time can be…I have lesser time in the world than most people.”
