Malady of Love

Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose came to me as a blurry, philosophical babble on religious heresies, follies and crimes designed, I suspect, to drive me out of my illogical mind.

New York Times hailed the book as a bestseller. I might have been dazzled by its brilliance too were I not distracted by the fact that I found it all quite meaningless.

Umberto concluded by burning the once prominent abbey and glorious labyrinthine library in Italy where it all happened. And now I believe I shall do the same with the 600 pages or so I just wasted about two weeks digesting in my mind. Well, maybe, save five of them…

About mid part of the book, I was given pause from mindless reading, so surprised was I to have run across a commentary on a subject that has continually plagued each and every one of us through time – the malady of love.

It was Adso -- a character I’ve reluctantly grown fond of whose occasional witticisms have saved me from completely dozing off or smashing the book across the room before I reached its final page—who discovered Speculum amoris by Maximus of Bolgna while leafing through the books in the said library in search of a truth.

Like every one of us at some point in our lives – this young novice monk suffered too from the malady of love, particularly when his vows prevented him from pursuing the girl he slept with one night and constantly thought of the days after.

What is love and how do you conquer it? Allow me to quote from the book and share to you Adso’s discovery:

“So I was moved by the pages of Ibn-Hazm, who defines love as a rebel illness whose treatment lies within itself, for the sick person does not want to be healed and he who is ill with it is reluctant to get well. I realized why that morning I had been so stirred by everything I saw: it seems that love enters through the eyes, as Basil of Ancira also says, and – unmistakable symptom—he who is seized by such an illness displays an excessive gaiety, while he wishes at the same time to keep to himself and seeks solitude, while other phenomena affecting him are a violent restlessness and an awe that makes him speechless…

“I was frightened to read that the sincere lover, when denied the sight of the beloved object, must fall into a wasting state that often reaches the point of confining him to bed, and sometimes the malady overpowers the brain and the subject loses his mind and raves. But I read with apprehension that if the illness worsens, death can ensue, and I asked myself whether the joy I derived from thinking of the girl was worth this supreme sacrifice of the body, apart from all due consideration of the soul’s health.

"I learned further, from some words of Saint Hildegard, that the melancholy humor I had felt during the day, which I attributed to a sweet feeling of pain at the girl’s absence, was perilously close to the feeling experienced by one who strays from the harmonious and perfect state man experiences in paradise…

"… the great Avicenna defined love as an assiduous thought of a melancholy nature, born as a result of one’s thinking again and again of the features, gestures, or behavior of a person of the opposite sex: it does not originate as an illness but is transformed into illness when, remaining unsatisfied, it becomes obsessive thought, and so there is an incessant flutter of the eyelids, irregular respiration; now the victim laughs, now weeps, and the pulse throbs. Avicenna advised an infallible method already proposed by Galen for discovering whether someone is in love: grasp the wrist of the sufferer and utter many names of members of the opposite sex, until you discover which name makes the pulse accelerate.”

“Alas, as remedy, Avicenna suggested uniting the two lovers in matrimony, which would cure the illness… Luckily, Avicenna did consider the case of lovers who cannot be joined, and advised as radical treatment hot baths… But then, I read again in Avicenna, that there were also other remedies: for example, enlisting the help of old and expert women who would spend their time denigrating the beloved – and it seems that old women are more expert than men in this task… The last solution suggested by the Saracen was truly immodest, for it required the unhappy lover to couple with many slave girls, a remedy quite unsuitable for a monk.

“I did find a passage in Arnold Villanova, an author I had heard William mention with great esteem, who had it that lovesickness was born from an excess of humors and pneuma, when the human organism finds itself in an excess of dampness and heat, because the blood (which produces the generative seed), increasing through excess, produces excess of seed, a “complexio venerea,” and an intense desire for union in man and woman. There is an estimative virtue situated in the dorsal part of the meridian ventricle of the encephalus (What is that? I wondered) whose purpose is to perceive the insensitive intentions perceived by the senses, and when desire for the object perceived by the senses becomes too strong, the estimative faculty is upset, and it feeds only on the phantom of the beloved person; then there is an inflammation of the whole soul and body, as sadness alternates with joy, because heat (which in moments of despair descends into the deepest parts of the body and chills the skin) in moments of joy rises to the surface, inflaming the face.

"The treatment suggested by Arnold consisted in trying to lose the assurance and the hope of reaching the beloved object, so that the thought would go away.”

Suite 34

In this country, you’ll hear two ways of saying it: “Sweet” 34 or “Shoot" 34. The Mr. and Mrs. AutoCorrects, I know, would grit through their teeth that the former (“Sweet”) is the proper and only way to pronounce it. For me though, it really doesn’t matter. Particularly when Suite 34 of Alona Tropical in Panglao, Bohol has come to mean both.

In early March, when the moon was exceptionally full and bright due to a lunar eclipse, my cool cousins from Australia – Nimrod and Jet – dropped by Cebu to visit their equally cool cousins – us, of course ;p

“Coz, we’ve been tasked to be the official welcoming and tour guide committee, k lang?” my cousin Fritz currently living with us asked me. Answer: “Cge, go!”

“Hey, so what guys, gimik starts tonight?” Nimrod greeted us at the airport when we picked them up. Answer: “Cge, go!”

“Yin, let us introduce you to Jack Daniel's (the drink, not the man). Wanna give it a try?” I was asked at Formo. Answer: “Cge go!”

And finally, on their third and supposedly final day in Cebu, I got a text message at the mall, “Coz, hir at ticket ofis. Going 2 Bohol. Wanna go wid us? Libre ka ni Jet. Decyd now. Buying tickets.”

I had a writing deadline the next day, but what the heck -- I sent 2 words: Cge, go!

They could have said Basilan or Batanes and my answer would still have been the same.

When you’re young, broke (read: jobless), and with no serious commitments, you’ll find that your answer to almost anything is “CGE, GO!” After all, what have you got to lose?

So there we were -- Nim, Jet, Otep (Nim and Jet’s cousin from Davao on their mother’s side), Fritz and I -- swapping childhood stories aboard Oceanjet’s last ferry ride for the day to Bohol. My cousins migrated to Australia more than 10 years ago and since then we haven’t really communicated nor seen much of each other. But amazingly enough, there was none of the awkwardness or stilted silences common in strangers among us. And I think we have our childhood summers in Davao to thank for that.

Summers in Davao meant sandcastles in beaches, swimming pool dunks, wild escapades, misguided dares, shared punishments, notorious moments, endless storytelling and hilarious games -- which, thinking now, have made us particularly close. And being the youngest batch of cousins in our clan, we shared the burden – and glory, mind you—of being irresponsible, late, creative (oh boy, the things kids could think of!), daring and spontaneous. And today, we find nothing much has changed.

It was already dark when we arrived in Alona Tropical, Panglao.

“We only have the suite room available. Good for 4. With the extra bed, it’s gonna cost you around P6,000 per night,” the guest officer told us.

Groan. No way, Fritz and I said. For us, that’s already a package cost for a 4 days/3 nights- Bohol/Panglao trip. We braced ourselves to look for another resort.

But Nim and Jet thought differently. “Cge, go!” they said with that charming Australian accent.

“What?!” Fritz and I, in all good Filipino conscience, tried to protest at first. But they, comparing it to resorts in Australia – which they claim are not even half as nice, insist it was cheap.

Well, if you put it that way, and when you think of the difference between the peso and Aussie dollar, it does sound cheaper. Plus, you factor in the late hour, the tiredness, and our growling stomachs, you could almost believe that “Cge, go!” was really the best answer all around. Besides, they’re paying anyway ;)

When we opened the door of Suite 34 -- our abode for the next few days, the first word that came out of Nim and Jet’s mouths was “SWEET!” Apparently, “sweet” is what you say in Australia when you mean “cool, dude!” or “the best!” or simply, “cge, go!” I had to agree. I figured when you’re paying that much, it has to be suite or sweet, right?

I don’t wanna attempt to go into details about the features of Alona Tropical’s Suite 34. You have to live there to smell, see, feel, taste or revel in its “sweetness”. We were just so happy. So happy that in fact later, when one of the pleasant staff asked us, “Which room, sir/ma’am? Shoot 34?” We just amiably answered, “Yep, that’s right. Shoot 34.”

The best perk of Suite 34 is having the swimming pool and the partly-submerged pool bar right outside our door. There we spent midnight-to-dawn sessions -- swimming, mixing drinks (Nim and his unique concoctions), and plotting world domination over iced Tanduay Rhum-Coke, Otep’s Red Horse, chips, white toblerone (the best!) and snickers.

It was on our last midnight session at the pool, as we were mapping out the organizational details of our new would-be cult when we were distracted by the arrival of Mr. VP Kabayan of the Philippines and his entourage, checking in at Suites 33 and 35.

We stared, plotted, and naturally thought of assassinations. The bodyguards also stared, considered, and perhaps wondered if we thought of assassinations.

How would it print in the papers, our overactive minds slightly muddled with alcohol wondered: “SHOOT 34 GANG DOWNS VP” or “SHOOT 34 GANG BLOODIES VP KABAYAN TO DEATH!” or “ALONA’S SUITE 34 HOUSES NOTORIOUS GANG” or “SHOOT 34 GANG FOUND, ARRESTED IN PANGLAO”.

Haha. They wish.

The next morning, I found two guy neighbors at Suite 33 trying to draw me into conversation at the terrace. At first, I thought they were just flirting. To my chagrin, after 20 questions or so, I realized they were actually just trying to check us out. SOP, my cousins told me. Still I wondered, did we really look as sinister as our overactive minds? Oh well. I was nice anyway. Bohol, by day, was too beautiful to entertain such bloody assumptions. Maybe next time-- when I have a job and remember how much I’m bloody paying for my government tax… hmmm…

Anyway, until then, I couldn’t be distracted by such trivial matters… not when you have Bohol laid out before you to explore. After three visits, you'd think there’s nothing left to discover in such a small island. I was wrong.

Let me highlight some of the firsts I experienced on this latest trip to Bohol:

- ATV (All Terrain Vehicles) or Quad Bikes. It was just so cool parading with 3 rented bikes on the dirt road along the Chocolate Hills. Zigzagging along brings you so near you feel you could touch them. After awhile of back riding, Nim let me drive through one paved hill as an initiation. He almost fell off laughing as I screamed all the way up.

- Still ATVs, this time on a deserted, undeveloped beach in Panglao. We took turns driving at low tide during sunset and Nim -- a talented photographer like our cousin Louie (d best! Just check out his blog: slyboyhunt) -- in his Shoot 34 mode, took shots worthy of a National Geographic edition, I must say. It was the fastest I went on four wheels. Another first.

- Loboc River Cruise at lunch time. It was just so beautiful and romantic that I almost forgot to eat. Being the only girl, Nim – still in Shoot 34 mode-- aimed a stolen shot at me and titled it the River Princess. If ever I do find my prince one day, I’ll definitely insist that he take me back there.

- Crossing the hanging bridge while my merciless cousins horsed around. Whoa!

- Seeing the reputed largest python in Asia or the world

- Lying on my back on the beach at night and finally (!) drawing among the stars the Small Dipper.

- Needless to say, Suite 34 of Alona Tropical, of course.

On our second day, supposedly our last, after mooning for awhile at the brunch table, we dared each other to forget our obligations back home and extend for one more day. It was a late move, irresponsible, spontaneous and totally inspired- the most brilliant idea we’ve had so far.

Of course, the cool gang of Suite 34 chorused: Cge, go!

And you could almost hear the enchanting echo: Sweet!