Singing to Her Umbrella

November 10, 2010

This morning Emelie and I were doing laundry. It had been nearly a week since the last time, and our clothes, including the ones from Gab and Derick, were piling up. I was using the bucket, filling it in the bathroom and carrying it out to the porch so I could watch the passersby while I pumped my arms up and down in my version of a washing machine agitator. Emelie used the plastic pan at the kitchen sink, rubbing the clothes together in typical Filipino style, which involves grabbing two fists full of cloth and giving them a Dutch rub; stopping just before the cloth wears through.

A young woman approached our gate, with a baby cradled in her left arm. Her right hand held an umbrella to keep out the sun. I was the only one on the porch when she entered the yard. Fortunately, Emelie came out just as she got to the gate. She and the woman exchanged some words in Cebuano. Emelie smiled and went back into the house without saying anything to me. The young woman tilted the umbrella so it hid her face, then she began what sounded like a recitation. I could tell by the intonation and beat that she was not just talking to me, which would be a waste of time anyhow, since I understand very little Cebuano. I wondered what was going on. After about thirty seconds of this, I began to detect something almost melodic about her voice. Hell, she was singing, to her umbrella, in fact! The first thirty seconds were a warm-up, apparently. It never occurred to me that a person would need to warm up to sing that horribly. I can sing off-key right from the starting gate, no warm-up needed. A natural talent, I suppose.

I don’t scare easily, but her noise gave me a fright. It put me in mind of a childhood experience, watching a woman sing to the moon, in her front yard, after midnight, rocking back and forth in her tennis shoes and Sunday dress.

I was still out there on the porch all by myself, since Emelie went back inside. The woman kept on; wasn’t about to let it go, neither. The small lizards that hang out on the porch, chewing up the bugs, had all scurried to their hidy-holes. Sometimes her voice would tremble and crack like she was on the verge of tears. I was wishing she would just go ahead and cry, or scream or something and stop that damn caterwauling. Where was Emelie? And why didn’t she warn me?

I crept into the house, not wanting to disturb the performance, there being such a fine line between artistic genius and insanity and all. Emelie was in the bedroom, digging a twenty-piso note out of her purse. She handed it to me, smiling, and said “Give it to her, will you?” She went on to tell me that the young woman was singing a Christmas carol. (That was caroling?!) According to the woman, her alcoholic, abusive husband had kicked her and the baby out of the house (Maybe she sang to him.) and he took up with a new, ignorant victim.

I gave the girl the money and she went away. Good investment. I smelled drama in this one, the sticky kind that makes you wish, in retrospect, you would have kept your helping hands free of entanglement.

The young woman left our yard and headed toward town but came back later. She and her baby slept the night on the porch of the new fish sanctuary guard house, across the street from us. It wasn’t in use yet so she had the place to herself.

Note: This account seems to lack sensitivity to the woman’s plight. I decided to recreate this event from a humorous perspective. The perspective taken is after-the-fact, and doesn’t affect what really happened. Nor does it reflect my true attitude toward those events and the woman’s predicament. In reality, I was concerned about her welfare and that of her baby.