the lost wanderer

"Ang hilig ni Jolly mag-attend ng concerts pero di naman siya kumakanta..."

One often wonders how I've come to love "music" when I'm not a singer myself — heck, I'm probably one of those few quite unlucky Filipinos who are sintunado and not even good in singing when in fact it is universally known for Filipinos to be good singers. My dad however was a wonderful singer. He loves singing, and as a matter of fact, has actually sang a few times to our local radio station in Cebu and has his songs recorded in cassette tapes. He has such a lovely singing voice which I would have loved to inherit but unfortunately did not. My father is quite an oldie, died at the age of 91 hence, I grew up knowing and listening to "My Way", "My Funny Valentine" and other beautiful classic songs by Frank Sinatra. Those were my jam back in the day. And I really, genuinely thought those were the hit songs during my time that when I went to school, I was quite surprised most of the kids at my age do not actually sing those but rather the likes of Taylor Swift's Love Story, and Demi Lovato's This Is Me from the Disney musical movie, Camp Rock (oh, I did come to love both artists' songs right after though) and so when I am asked what is my favorite song, I would enthusiastically say My Way and both children and adults would faintly laugh of my odd choice of music which is also notoriously known as a crowd-favorite karaoke song of jolly, old dads during a wake! Silly innocent little me, I'd say. Now, one of my dad's favorite movies would be The Sound of Music musical film starring Julie Andrews, and now 5 years after my dad died I came upon a clip of the said movie and all of a sudden, I just remembered how much I love that movie as much as my dad did! Then, it hit me, my love for music did not just come out of nowhere and that it actually came from my dad who first introduced me to it and made me realize that loving music doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a good singer yourself — you could genuinely love music and appreciate it wholly as a wonderful craftsmanship created by a songwriter and singer. And this is how I come to love listening to almost every genre of music, going to live concerts, watching musical plays in the theater and buying my favorite artists' album... despite not being confident with my singing voice. Music can heal, and I know it truly does, knowing a part of what my dad loves lives inside of me and I'd forever treasure that.

***

She'd mull over day by day why can't she be.

She has every one she loved and who cherished her back;

All except one—"herself".