I'm starting this blog on a Sunday, a beautiful Sunday, a Sunday belonging to a glorious weekend when one of the most maddeningly glorious things happened to me, and I'd rather start bubbling with hope and cheer and ridiculous giggling rather than with my original first entry, which was all about worry and death and the sad things that just nibble at the corners of our brains and, make life, well, not really what we want it to be.
I wanted this blog to be about the simple stuff that makes me smile and makes me happy, but I'm starting the ball rolling by describing something incredibly huge for me, a day in my life which just might change the rest of it, I don't know, depends on where and how I take this, but I'm still on a very happy high, and I don't care, so here goes.
Neil Gaiman came to my city and my country. This is a miracle. I live in a far away, turbulent country, and Gaiman was a pseudo mythic figure in college, the enormously cool dude who somehow got everything right and made stories that were strange and scary and funny and sad, but above all, familiar, somehow. And now, he actually comes here. Here!!!
Now, I can be a proud and snotty girl, but yesterday, I let it all go and just allowed it all to happen. I stuck fast with three thousand others to see him in a big white tent, and we waited and waited, standing, hoping, weeping through a horrible set from a goth band, and finally finally he arrived and we all screamed and yelled and cameras were flashing and sparkling all over the place. He was there!! Leather jacket and all!!! He was actually standing in front of us, and he was speaking to us, and we screamed some more.
These things almost never happen to us way out here in the Philippines. Even in this global community we live in today, to actually have someone like Mr. Gaiman grace out shores seemed next to impossible. Yet there he was, speaking to us. And I guess, the knowledge of how rare and terrifyingly precious this visit is made us all scream even more. We wanted him to know how happy we were to see him. I think he was a bit taken aback. Apparently we outrank the Brazilians in terms of noise and public display.
The entire exhausting day, I waited and waited, 524th in the line, wondering if I would ever actually get my book signed. There were so many of us. He hugged and kissed some of the girls. They were crying and giggling at the same time when they got down from the stage. He looked at every single person and talked to them and made little pictures for them and told the weepy ones it was all right, and thanked the ones who brought gifts. Not one time did he seem tired or surly or impatient with anybody. He was just as kind and attentive to the 600th person in the line as he was to the 1st.
Finally it was my turn, and I was partly glad I was so tired, because I didn't have enough energy to pretend to be cool. He mispronounced my name, apologized, and I told him he could pronounce it any way he wanted. He signed my books, he drew me a rattus rattus, and then I gave him my gift. It's a CD of western pop songs translated into Filipino by one of our national artists, recorded by my mother back in the seventies, and I thought it would be a nice souvenir of his trip here, I told him, carefully enunciating each word, then blurting out that I had rehearsed the little speech the whole time waiting in line in my head, and i think i was very close to nervous tears.
but he said the gift was cool!!! And he reached his arm out, hugged me and kissed me!!! He looks at you straight in the eye and you don't feel stupid and silly for having said what you said. or thinking what you're thinking, which was 'thank you thanks so much for being here, actually here, you just destroyed some deep sad beliefs that we never seem to count in the big scheme of things and will all be left behind, you take away the bad taste of star wars, you make me want to pick up a pen again, you make me want to grow up just like you'
glorious magical weekend. My sister said it best, when she stumbled in a daze from the stage, all smiles, all teeth, eyes big and disbelieving:
"Neil Gaiman for Emperor of the World"
I wanted this blog to be about the simple stuff that makes me smile and makes me happy, but I'm starting the ball rolling by describing something incredibly huge for me, a day in my life which just might change the rest of it, I don't know, depends on where and how I take this, but I'm still on a very happy high, and I don't care, so here goes.
Neil Gaiman came to my city and my country. This is a miracle. I live in a far away, turbulent country, and Gaiman was a pseudo mythic figure in college, the enormously cool dude who somehow got everything right and made stories that were strange and scary and funny and sad, but above all, familiar, somehow. And now, he actually comes here. Here!!!
Now, I can be a proud and snotty girl, but yesterday, I let it all go and just allowed it all to happen. I stuck fast with three thousand others to see him in a big white tent, and we waited and waited, standing, hoping, weeping through a horrible set from a goth band, and finally finally he arrived and we all screamed and yelled and cameras were flashing and sparkling all over the place. He was there!! Leather jacket and all!!! He was actually standing in front of us, and he was speaking to us, and we screamed some more.
These things almost never happen to us way out here in the Philippines. Even in this global community we live in today, to actually have someone like Mr. Gaiman grace out shores seemed next to impossible. Yet there he was, speaking to us. And I guess, the knowledge of how rare and terrifyingly precious this visit is made us all scream even more. We wanted him to know how happy we were to see him. I think he was a bit taken aback. Apparently we outrank the Brazilians in terms of noise and public display.
The entire exhausting day, I waited and waited, 524th in the line, wondering if I would ever actually get my book signed. There were so many of us. He hugged and kissed some of the girls. They were crying and giggling at the same time when they got down from the stage. He looked at every single person and talked to them and made little pictures for them and told the weepy ones it was all right, and thanked the ones who brought gifts. Not one time did he seem tired or surly or impatient with anybody. He was just as kind and attentive to the 600th person in the line as he was to the 1st.
Finally it was my turn, and I was partly glad I was so tired, because I didn't have enough energy to pretend to be cool. He mispronounced my name, apologized, and I told him he could pronounce it any way he wanted. He signed my books, he drew me a rattus rattus, and then I gave him my gift. It's a CD of western pop songs translated into Filipino by one of our national artists, recorded by my mother back in the seventies, and I thought it would be a nice souvenir of his trip here, I told him, carefully enunciating each word, then blurting out that I had rehearsed the little speech the whole time waiting in line in my head, and i think i was very close to nervous tears.
but he said the gift was cool!!! And he reached his arm out, hugged me and kissed me!!! He looks at you straight in the eye and you don't feel stupid and silly for having said what you said. or thinking what you're thinking, which was 'thank you thanks so much for being here, actually here, you just destroyed some deep sad beliefs that we never seem to count in the big scheme of things and will all be left behind, you take away the bad taste of star wars, you make me want to pick up a pen again, you make me want to grow up just like you'
glorious magical weekend. My sister said it best, when she stumbled in a daze from the stage, all smiles, all teeth, eyes big and disbelieving:
"Neil Gaiman for Emperor of the World"
posted by wawaya at 1:22 AM
3 Comments:
everytime i read a blog entry about the neil gaiman visit to manila i get weepy. not because i wasn't there (though i DO wish that i was). but because he was there. neil gaiman for emperor of the world!
oooh, a new blog! happy new blog! long live neil gaiman!!! (for two reasons, one for writing neverwhere and for mikah and two for spurring waya to write again.) neil gaiman for emperor of the world!!!
I talked to Neil Gaiman. I gave him a copy of my book. "It means so much to me that I can give you this," I told him. He looked me in the eye and solemnly shook my hand. Am still quietly overwhelmed.
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