Closing remarks at the 6th NVM Gonzalez Short Story Awards, Nov. 27, 2005

Imagine a TV news broadcast depicting a disaster and images of people rummaging through the
heap of twisted metal cabinets,
charred furniture,
solitary house posts like sooted, muted witnesses to someone’s carelessness,
the pall of smouldering heaps of leftover food
repasts perhaps from a previous wedding,
the blank stare of a madonna carving
its former veil now a shawl of blistered squares of burned wood,

a mighty gong
sits silenced by the edge of a former dining set, the seats now empty metal hoops tossled about in no obvious manner,

You never imagine that it could be you. You poke through the rubble with a blackened stick, a former cane perhaps and find—

A book, the dust cover fused into a single page

A familiar drawing of a man sitting in his haunches shaping a bamboo pole,
Behind him a home of nipa and bamboo sitting proudly atop an ash-covered loam.

You never imagine if could be you ? the child of that ash-covered loam, a loam of wonderful memories, pleasant friendships and camaraderie, bitter rivalries and even betrayal and then, fruitful struggles;

It is you smelling that frightening mix of pungent, soggy seared dust that only reminds you of nothing-else — but fire.

In this 1st week since the fire, I have to think that there is a deeper meaning to this, other the obvious material lost. Rest assured though that Mom is OK, a bit easily rattled but otherwise holding up well. The 6th Award event is getting underway.

It would be I imagine a poignant event but perhaps be more meaningful from the previous
others because from here on, without the historiography of NVM’s documents, the probable source of his writing canon, what emerges will be pure fiction, pure creativity. Without the burden of the past, writers should take the greater risk of inventing new life, new aspirations and hope. A new Season of Grace.

I would like to close by reading this passage from Russell Leong of UCLA, a long time poet-friend and colleague of NVM and author of the film” A Story Yet to be Told”. His words on NVM’s house being ravaged:

“It is 4:00 AM in the morning, and I’m trying to listen to NVM.

I am wondering what NVM would be thinking if he were alive. I just dont know. I dont know if he’d assign some religious meaning to this destruction, or not. Somehow, I cannot see him crying. Or for very long. I can see him shrugging his shoulders, and putting his hand in Narita’s. And perhaps saying something like:

Ah, the volcano has erupted and spared no-one. The God of Fire has reached our abode, [Naring] Mama. None of us is immune, not even me. My words will, like the phoenix, rise out of the embers. You watch. But don’t sit there and just wait.

Only you, my readers, only my readers will make my words rise.

Immortality is too much to ask. I only ask that you read my words, again and again. Now they are light, as Italo Calvino once said, words should be light, without burden, without the superfluous.

So there, you have nothing left but my words to confirm my experience, my life.
So there, my words are not set in stone, or carved in wood or written on papyrus.
My words are now fire: They are one with God who giveth and taketh away.”

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Again, we can never thank you all more than enough. Like what Jimmy said, NVM has a million friends, literally and figuratively, and many of you are in that million.

We have to specially thanks Tita Geling and her children. Lola UP, as Selma’s children fondly call, her opened up her home as a refuge and eased us slowly from the pain of this momentary misfortune.

Thanks for your thoughts.