prologue to soaps

the creek across wackwack

I came from a very huge family in Antique. I remember my mother trying to make our family tree from the Abiera-Salazar side and it never looked like a tree when it was laid out. It was a fifteen-page family forest. And that was just half of my mother's family starting from my great great grandfather.

My closest friends would know our story. For lack of topic, I would start the litany of my mother's family's stories and we will end up until the wee hours of the morning. Theirs can give Isabel Allende a run for her money.

Our nuclear family is becoming interesting everyday as well. My parents as the quiet couple, make it Lucita Soriano and Chinggoy Alonzo living in a bario and my two sisters as the struggling to succeed Sharon Cuneta and Maricel Soriano. My baby brother as the young Mulach. With my father's siblings as Bella Floreses, Odette Khans and Max Alvarados (mind you, they are twice the size of both girls individually). And as days go by, the soap gets more complicated and at times hilarious and absurd. Each charcter has their own stories continually playing. A lot of times, way tangent to the main plot yet goes back to it sooner or later which is still-- the family.

A lot of us are living in soap operas and a lot of times, ours is more exciting than what we see on TV. Then we find ourselves in situations and crises and coping with those does not necessarily require musical scoring (just like Lamangan's masterpieces) yet as we do hear the music in our minds. The drama behind each scene is something that we either want to avoid or milk. I really don't know if I do want to milk mine now. But sure I hear the music.

Lani singing I'm Losing You from Baz Lhurmann's Something for Everybody.