After almost six months, I finally had myself a home service. It felt great. I don’t know about the manicurist, but it must not have been too bad, either; she even complimented me on my long-unserviced nails.

She was Annabel’s regular manicurist at the nail salon, until the pandemic hit. As soon as the lockdown eased, she started giving home service. One morning, after our newly resumed aqua-aerobics at her home, Annabel let me avail myself of the arrangement.

It’s one of those pleasures that, as modest as they are, somehow affect a woman’s quality of my life. As it turned out, it was the least of my worries; I survived six months without it. But now that it’s available again, well …

I must confess I started the beauty habit later than most of my friends; I was already a mother of four, just recently back from the States, where it was a luxury, almost unheard of, especially for a young mom and housewife, who hardly had time even if she could scrape up enough money for it. I splurged on a good haircut instead, while everybody else—including some male friends (women are more particular)—had to get theirs from me. In exchange for the responsibility, I gave the service for free.

Old neighborhood

Back home, we lived in a neighborhood of mostly old friends. I knew better than to offer my free haircuts, but even more things were shared. Our boys car-pooled to La Salle, our girls to Assumption. We housewives exchanged recipes and shopping tips, went to the same costureras, and bought our afternoon taho and balut from the same vendors, called into the village by the gate guards on our instructions.

Every Friday we shared the dance instructor (DI) Brammy, who taught us at Letty’s house, in the air-conditioned basement with a wall of mirrors, like a real dance studio. Brammy danced in front to be followed. That was many years before the personal DIs and public dancing places, which I never saw. I still remember a favorite dancing song—“I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden … ,” so it went. This was in the early ’70s.

Back then, once a week, like clockwork, we also shared a manicurista, Cording, who came to our homes. I saw her raise her two children and put them through school. After a daughter finished college, my own daughter, then working for a Korean company, got her hired, and she continued working there even after my daughter had left. Soon Cording was also home-servicing my daughter, now a mother.

I kept track of missed friends through Cording. In fact, she still came to our small condominium unit in Makati, where we had transferred at turn of the millennium, but soon stopped and retired; by then her son had risen to a managerial position at a restaurant and his wife had some business going on the side, and her daughter had married well and stopped working herself.

Health routine

I still believe in good professional haircuts, anyway; that’s all I have done once a month at the salon. I color my own hair at home. The pandemic kept me from a haircut for three months, and I thought it might have been the ideal time to let my hair stay white.

Trouble is, it didn’t turn to silver fast enough; it went to different shades of brown, red and finally orange—like Trump’s, which looks tremendous on him, if he may say so himself, but which did it for me! I got a professional cut from Angelo, who regularly home-services whom but Annabel, again. I also resumed coloring my hair, which I will do until my rich stock of Clairol is gone.

The only other health routine we have not been able to resume yet is our weekly hour-long massage. I’m back to my aqua exercise, and Vergel is playing tennis again—he has graduated from hitting against the wall in the squash court of his neighborhood club by himself to practicing with a trainer to playing some doubles.

COVID-19 (the new coronavirus disease) may have eased in our neighborhood, but apparently not elsewhere or overall. The general count of cases has been going up; in fact, we’ve been consistently tops in the region.

Anyway, I’d like to pretend, not unreasonably, of course, that, by slowly resuming my exercise, beauty routines, and a few other such activities, I can have a semblance of my old life back.

What’s sorely missing are the other people in my life. I long to have meals with my children and my grandchildren, cousins and friends. We’ve been keeping everybody safe by staying away from each other. It’s really the only thing we can do until the Department of Health and the military task force against the pandemic get their act together, and this government focuses on the health and economic issues, instead of attacking the press, civil society and other critics.