Fare Thee Well

By: Victoria G. Smith

 

After eight years and two months, it’s with some sadness I’m now having to close this column. It had a good run, if I may say so myself. But like all good things, it must now end. And it ends in order to make way for better things.

I remember the night it was born. In May 2012, I held a reception at my home in Des Moines, Iowa to honor the Filipino American community that had just concluded another successful participation in CelebrAsian—the annual fair held by the various Asian immigrant and refugee communities in Iowa. Among those who attended was a media contingent from Chicago that covered the fair led, I’m told, by a Ms. Veronica Leighton. Since I had once been a happy resident of the Chicago area, but had never had the pleasure of encountering the famous publisher of the popular ViaTimes Magazine and producer of CPRTV-Chicago—the voice of the Filipino American community in the Midwest, I was eager to meet her.

She didn’t fail to impress. She was, to me, as she is still now, one of the most beautiful Filipinas I have ever met. Moreover, I felt a power in her presence as though she herself was a force to be contended with. Since I admire strong women, had aspired to be one myself, and love writing strong women characters in my literary works, I was naturally drawn to her. And she, at least, appeared to be curious about me, as shown by the bold way she said, “I heard you are a writer and a poet. Could you please read us one of your poems?”

As all Filipino parties were, it was a crowded and noisy gathering. We were standing around the buffet table in my dining room. I wasn’t sure it was the right time nor place, for if anything, poetry needed silence and thoughtfulness. But if “Vero,” which had since been my name of endearment for her, wanted it, Vero was sure to get it. Her request was followed with the same clamor by those nearby, and it worked to silence them all. Thus, I obliged her, including all the other guests, with a reading of Pilgrim, the fi rst of my poems published in the U.S. It was featured in the 1996 issue of Dicta, the literary journal of the University of Michigan School of Law from which I had attained my Master of Law degree. The poem was inspired by the confl icting emotions I felt and the powerful socio-political ideas that were nagging my mind during my fi rst year as a Filipino immigrant to the United States.

At the end of my reading, Vero said, “How would you like to have your own column in my magazine?” I was stunned, overwhelmed by her generous offer. Yet never one to shy away from the opportunity to write, I accepted, and two months after, we inaugurated the fi rst edition of my column, which I named, “Warrior Heart, Pilgrim Soul,” after the title of my fi rst book of poems. It began as poetry column and evolved in recent years, when I moved to the Puget Sound area, to, “Notes From the Sound.” Rather than being just a poetry column, it focused, on my design, on essays that refl ected upon current socio-political events inspired by a range of literary works not limited to poems.

Since the publication of my award-winning novella, Faith Healer, in 2016, I conceived of writing a set of novels that celebrate the Filipino through the interactions of Filipino American characters, and thereby hope to contribute to the efforts of illustrious Filipino American writers that came before me to promote and establish awareness of the Filipino in mainstream American literary consciousness and, henceforth, bring our people’s condition, especially the immigrant experience, into proper perspective before the world stage. Ambitious, I grant, but not impossible. And as in every thousand mile journey, one must begin with the fi rst step. This is the reason why I have chosen to end my ViaTimes column: to focus my energies on writing these many books I have in mind before my own mortality overcomes me. This is not goodbye. I prefer the old fashioned phrase, “fare thee well.” It sounds more hopeful and thus empowering because it does not focus on something ending but rather in something beginning—with a wish for each of us to do well, if not better, in the next stage of our shared journey as human beings. I hope my readers will continue to follow my literary works in their multiple forms. I am currently writing a novel with the working title, THE THOMASITE. I think there’s no better way to introduce the Philippines and the Filipino to current American readers than reminding them we were once a colony of the United States, and are therefore inextricably connected with Americans in both history and culture—most especially, with America’s founding spirit of freedom and democracy.

I close with the last stanza of my poem, Letting Go, fi rst published by The Earthen Lamp Journal (Summer 2015):

If you miss me, you need only press your breast upon the ground to feel my heartbeat. There shall I be— your shadow.

(All rights reserved. Copyright ©2020 by Victoria G. Smith. For more on the author and her literary works, go to VictoriaGSmith. com. “Like” her on Facebook at Author Victoria G. Smith. “Follow” her on Twitter @AuthorVGSmith)