on reading somebody else's musings / essays

category: musings
I was just reading Christina Pantoja-Hidalgo's "Coming Home". Of course I was interested to know what drove her to become a writer, so naturally I enjoyed reading her essays: "My Role Models" and "How I Became a You-Know-What". I was pleasantly surprised upon reading that we shared the love for the same books/heroines. The very heroines I'd like to think I grew up with, she also mentioned: Anne of Green Gables, Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm, Jo March, Jerusha Abbot and even Elanor Comstock whom I thought got lost on a lot of people except me. I mean I never have yet met anyone else who has read Gene Stratton Porter because she isn't really up there in the must-read list if you're into the classics. I was drawn to her through her first novel "Freckles". I remember I wrote something in my journal about that book beckoning to me from the shelves of the bookstore near UPLB that I immediately picked it up and just had to buy it. Upon finishing the book I wrote that it was just like meeting a "kindred soul" as Anne would say it. The other books I added on to my mini-library that I vowed to stock with good books bit by bit. Mostly from book sales (second hand stuff) which are the only ones I can afford with my then meager student allowance. I would save up a few pesos a day and then when I have enough I'd go on a book binge. If the amount gets to be a lot more than usual, I would go on a "field trip" to National Bookstore in Alabang Town Center. Those trips would be my first ever foray into the "cosmopolitan" world of the greater Manila Area. Here I was a "probinsiyana" who rarely goes anywhere and going to Manila always means "gastos", yet buying books would be a compelling enough reason for me.