I am Michelle, a lawyer who lives and works at Metro Manila’s concrete central financial district. Before becoming an "officer of the court," I dreamt of becoming a soccer player (6th grade), being a member of a rock band (drummer, 1st year of college), and playing tennis in the international circuit (2nd year high school). I went to law school, fell in love, traveled some parts of the world, got married. I used to have a blog for all of these until a year ago when my life made a 180 turn.
I became a mom and had Hugo at 33. Hugo: the chunky, hunky sweet child of mine. Even his name is too macho for a baby. At 15 months, there is thankfully no sign of him entering his terrible twos. He loves all sorts of round things, from balls to bubbles to pictures of circles. His first word was 'Papa' but when he wakes up in the morning and does not find me by his side, he starts knocking on all of the doors of our apartment saying, 'Mamma.' Our cramped apartment is his playground, so any open space must be the world to him.
Janine is my friend from across my universe. In high school, I taught her math and even after catching her glassy eyed several times, I continued to do so. I was a good student and she was the class’s delinquent, tortured artist. We may be different as night and day but boy we sure have a lot in common. We read the same stuff and loved the art of writing. We both know what a good photograph is but can’t explain how it can be made. Most importantly, like me, her world now revolves around her family, including her youngest kid, River. We love our children deeply and desire to make them far better persons than ourselves.
Janine and I talk everyday. About Hugo, about River, about Los Angeles and Manila. Even with an ocean between us, we've had daily conversations since 2003.
Which brings us to this blog. We figured, with a conversation that has lasted for over a decade, wouldn’t it be better if every one else was in on it?
