As a young writer many, many years ago accused of disregarding and disrespecting the works of national greats by "not" reading them, all my attempts at defending or at least trying to explain myself were silenced. It was never intentional on my end. Another problem was no writer SPOKE to me through their works.
The latter remains a problem-not to me but to anyone who finds out what I prefer reading. It took some growing up, a lot of pain, maybe a sliver of wisdom, to stop repeated flayings of my self still trying to find stories from writers that speak to me. I have since stopped apologizing for what I like and whose works I enjoy reading. I no longer bother to explain. I just write and write and write. Reaching that kind of peace is what got my work published.
I would have stopped writing had I not discovered this book in a sale bin while still raw over accusations about being "ungrateful" to the paths forged by writers many believed I should be reading and should only read.
"Story Collection" is the no-nonsense title of Gilda Cordero Fernando's first and I believe only collection of short stories. Found in the bottom of the sale basket, its bluish, dark green algae cover with the photo of the author in front was under a rainbow pile of novels with orange covers, children's books in pink, green and neon blue, and a few coffee table books in arctic white. The bookstore was having a huge sale then so people were encouraged to dig around. I got down on my knees and scavenged, fired up by the promise of a good book that met my limited allowance rather than knowing exactly what I was looking for.
That was how I came by Story Collection, and I'd like to think, the first time I ever met Gilda.
Her prose was of another world. Not in the Elvish sense. It was English I knew, and also English I never realized could be. Everyday words like wings, eggs and house were quicksilver with fairy dust. Stories about housewives unable to speak of their boredom became fairy tales, runaway youths in a museum a love story and artists heady with dreams steering to devastation. Calling her book merely Story Collection seemed, I don't know--it was a lot more than just that to me. But now, I think calling it anything else besides Story Collection seems frivolous and the magic of her stories dissipates.
When you're constantly fed in school the same stories about doom (and just my luck, exactly the same story all the way to college), you WILL turn away from them. If they never spoke to you the first time, they never will. That's why I turned to Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. I was not looking for happy endings but stories that fed hope into the world.
Gilda's stories are a mix of that. On one hand, a world where all you can do is pick yourself up off the floor and right the ravished chairs, on the other,after taking to bed with blankets and tranquilizers after another heartbreak, you step outside at last and see that the sun in still shining. The world is scarred and fissured in her stories, the deluge without end. Despite these, the sun still shines. Not everyday, and the brightness varies but it does. It will.
Her book is what got me writing again, word by word. I wouldn't meet her in person many years later.
I wish I can say that after the first time I met Gilda we became friends. Or at least she became a mentor. How amazing would that have been? But that's a privilege not for me. It was her words, meeting her, and I think, being able to write after my heart got stomped on that was the gift, really.
I did manage to tell Gilda which stories of hers I liked the best and I got what was probably the warmest, tightest hug of my life (sorry, Mom). It's a miracle I managed to do it because I was shaking so much--I went to her table, introduced myself and just shattered. It was her hug that fused me back together. I would eventually have Story Collection signed by her, a few years after that first meeting.
2016 would be the last time I saw her.
That last time she hugged me again. It was tighter. She also held my hand while I rambled chains and knots of nonsense. By then she was in a wheelchair.
With her gone, I know there will never again be another writer who could speak as her stories had with me. It's heartbreaking, knowing this. But her stories, and her as well, have shown that despite this wounding, the sun will still come out. Some days the brightness could be blinding. Other days faint, milky streaks in the sky. But it will come out. There will always be that hope. Such is the legacy of her art, and the wonder her stories have shown.
