BY GILDA Cordero-Fernando Second servings of love IT MUST be that time of life: I feel like having a dog again. Like a child going through its stuffed-toy phase, I findmyself thinking, within deliberate earshot of Vergel, how nice it would be if we had a dog, even if I very well know we can’t have one; for one thing, our condo does not allow pets, and moving is out of the question. Still I go on and on about it, and a dog person himself, Vergel not only indulges me but shares in the excitement of choosing, dreamily, from among the breeds, even reading up on them. That’s as much fun as we can have over the prospect. Oh, not really.We in fact got ourselves not one but two poodles, both pink—at Toys ’R’ Us. They were cutely frisky,moving back and forth nervously, yelping, on batteries. But one after the other, they were hijacked by two granddaughters, Mona and Mavis, who, at age 7, are themselves too young to have live pets. We’re thus left with the consolation of an old teddy bear. It has seen better days and sits in our closet, but still ready to be re-commissioned at any time. It has had to be retired after taking one spin too many in the washing machine, losing its cuddly feel and looks. But it should do for old time’s sake. Sometimes, in my recurring daydream, I also picture aweekend farm, tended, though, not by me but by a full-time crew. Even in fantasies, I do not do things Iwouldn’t in real life. I, in fact, go around prospecting, but, unlikewith my other fantasies, Vergel is careful not to give even the slightest impression he’swith me on this one. Not only does he know me well enough, but we’ve also seen enough friends who bought and sold such dream farms after losing interest or energy or capacity, but,most practically, losing the company of friends who used to come along weekends formahjong. Passion It seems that for us the time for such things is past, not just because we are changing, but life itself, indeed, everything around us, is. Still I can’t seem to helpmyself longing to hug something else beyond grandchildren or grow things that bear flowers or fruits, something to lose myself in—a passion of sorts, a second serving of love, if you like. I have learned in my long years to recognize love even in the guise of longing for something or someone missed. Once this is recognized as love, how quickly the emptiness disappears. Fantasies are not mere capricious whim; I see them as signs there’s still a lot of love from where it comes.Watching animals, children and nature can get me all choked up, perfect for inspiring a cause, or a mission. Fr. Tito Caluag, in his Sunday column and at my birthday Mass on Saturday, spoke of our life’s mission—the reason we were born and why certain things happen to us. It should be easy enough for us seniors, who domore pondering than actually doing, to recognize it, and if we’re keen enough we find out that it’s what we’ve actually been doing and that it only requires being done purposefully and conscientiously. Sometimes, we don’t even have to be so ambitious; by what we are and what we do, indeed, by just being happily around, we are able to inspire others toward the higher good. I was deeply consoled by Father Tito’s generous definition of “mission,” because if I hadn’t known that, as late in the day as it is, I’d have panicked Imight not have had one. But I do sit meditatively, and in the quiet of my thoughts look at my own life and discover the good that’s happened to me as well as through me. Many times I findmyself smiling, giggling even, sometimes without knowing exactly why. Life is, indeed, hilarious at this age, full of private jokes, fully recognizable or not, that come tomind unbidden but, oh, so welcome. Much of the hilarity, I now suspect, comes from a sense of fulfilledmission, by the grace of Godmore than my own efforts. Vergel is not at all perturbed by my fits of private laughter; his own nanay, if she wasn’t singing, would be giggling by herself, too. He just smiles back, perhaps recalling her familiar happy habits or suspecting I’m sneaking off again to our farm to smell the flowers. Conchita C. Razon MY CHAIR ROCKS Chit Roces-Santos NOT QUITE THERE Do

Seeing the bigger picture, realizing how everything in your life was planned by a Higher Force from the very beginning, understanding how the cookie crumbles, how every piece fits, oh, so perfectly, is probably the biggest bonus of growing old. You know all the different reasons why you became you.

I am a great hugger, so my friends tell me. They like to be hugged by me. Give me a lesson in embracing, Sister Celia said. Analyze my hug, said Gabby B. a hundred years ago. When did you learn to hug and why? asked my friend Tita. Indeed, how did I become a great hugger when I did not like being hugged by my mother and a few others? Why did I resist my mother’s embrace? She was a kind person but our lives were in perpetual battle and the few times she would want to hug me you’d think that would melt our differences?

No! Because my mother’s was an emotionally needy hug (maybe that was my fault, too, since I was so disapproving of her). When she embraced me I felt it was a stranglehold. Like a drowning person trying to keep afloat, something like that. But this is not the story of our griefs but an analysis of how I became a hugging expert (or so Sister Celia said).

A cousin gave me that same strangulated feeling. Oh, this cousin really loved me, just like my mother. But when she hugged me, she hugged so tight I just couldn’t breathe. Maybe she needed my energy so badly. I felt she was sucking the life out of me without meaning to.
Riddle

I have solved the riddle and it is this. I embrace because I craved to be embraced, all my life, since I was a kid. But I also had enough experience of uncomfortable hugs, needy hugs and garrote hugs, to know that it isn’t the way people like to be embraced. If I wanted a steady supply of hugs, I had to learn how to do it better.

Just the right type of energy exchange: Give of yourself warmly and fully, but take only what the other wants to give. Much like a handshake, a hug should neither be too tight nor too loose, too long nor too brief.

Of course we are not talking here about the disconnected, disinterested hug, nor of the malicious hug of a dirty old man. And not at all of the romantic love hug which is a different category altogether, which is a no-holds-barred, hit-the-hay exchange between two consenting adults. In other words, hugging, as in all things we do, must be a conscious act, sensitive to the message it gives and the message we receive.

It was from my friend Odette that I learned the generic hug, warm but not possessive, special but not particular. And the people she loved seemed to be all waiting to be hugged by her. Now the painter Bencab is known by all the women in art circles as the greatest generic hugger of all time. If the women had to fall in line for Bencab’s hug, the queue would probably stretch several blocks. Bencab sort of melts, his body just a nice snake around you, a nonstrangling, nonpossessing, nonvenomous snake without a vertebra—you huggies out there know what I mean.

Once my other painter friend Onib (now dead, so how can he dispute this?) said, how come when you hug Bencab back it doesn’t look the same when you hug me back? Because, I said, when Bencab hugs he gives his everything, but there’s nothing personal about it. When you hug me you’re so anxious it might be the wrong hug. You just don’t give your all, like you’re uncomfortable or afraid the party might get the wrong impression. Or maybe you just don’t have enough experience and I’m a good hugger so I know. So I told Onib, why don’t you just ask Bencab to give you a couple of lessons? Onib got so turned off by that he never hugged me again.

‘Beso-beso’

Oh, my interest in art hugging probably began when I was ordered to go beso-beso every aunt and uncle in sight. I hated beso-beso because it was so superficial, and in the case of some people who couldn’t care less about me and vice versa, so fake. Sometimes your beso lands on an eyebrow, or the chin, because they’re looking around and really not paying attention or what.

Sometimes a distant uncle is a DOM and when you grow to puberty you put your foot down on beso-beso with a yucky relative like that. Respect yourself and others. You don’t really have to hug everybody. Good huggers are also experts at deflecting people they don’t want to hug.

It’s as nice to hug females as males, all three sexes, as a matter of fact. Somewhat like the genderless hug of athletes when they win or lose a tough game. I even hug our maids and they have stayed and stayed and stayed. The vaster your hugging experience and the older you get, the more people you get to embrace. Because now it’s all right for you to hug everybody—oops, not everybody. But the wives are not afraid of you anymore, and the women, including those wives, come for some of your hugs, too, that’s how you get your daily fix.

If you’re generic hugging some old friend’s husband and the wife comes around, you take her in, too, and have this group hug. Collective hugs are great besides saving time.

Now here comes that old lummox I knew in college. If he tries to hug me I’ll kick his balls in.