Pay it forward: A lipstick and a beauty queen without a crown
Pay It Forward Curation Contest is now on its 20th week and getting stronger. More and more participants are joining in because, I think, they appreciate the sense of giving back at least to Steemit community. Anyone can join so come on! Click here for the details.
Featured blogger: @anutu(42)
I do not remember which tab or view of Steemit I was when I stumbled upon the post of @anutu. On his blog A Guy and a Lipstick - how I kept a memory I never had, he spoke about how he loves recycling things and happen to apply that on a memorabilia of her grandaunt whom he never met but would have loved to. He made a leather bracelet and attached his grandaunt's lipstick as accent to the bracelet. It was a creative and sweet way to preserve memories while making out of what seem to be for trash to something new. At first I thought I saw a bullet but I was amazed to realized that the lipstick case from long time ago seem to be made of copper.
This photo is from the original blog.
Featured blogger: @torania (38)
@torania (38) wrote a short Filipino story Ang Beauty Queeng Walang Titulo, A Beauty Queen Without Crown. I will curate a bit longer here as I try to summarize the story in English.
This graphic is my creation.
It is a story about Jed, a 19-year old son who, together with his mother, was left behind by his father when he was very young. His father left for another woman. Since then, he never got to meet his father until the latter's wake. The story started with a scene where Jed was in transit to his father's wake in a Mercedez Benz with his dazzling red gown and stilletos, newly manicured nails, model-look shiny black hair. He got out of the car and made a dramatic entrance to where the casket is. Yes, he is gay.
The glits and glamour were a daydream. He got back to his senses when his real ride, habal-habal, stopped in front of the house where his father's remains lie. It will be the first time he sees his father, unfortunately a corpse already, and the mistress aunt Mila. He has a stepbrother, Junmil. Jed noticed the first floor of the house was just completed. It is concrete, tiled floor and a chandelier is hanging by the ceiling. While he and his mother are living in his grandmother's nipa hut that may give up anytime with its aging materials. He also noticed aunt Mila's jewelries. He thought, it should be him and his mother who are supposed to be enjoying those luxuries of life that his father gave them. Jed has been playing so many storming words in his head. He wanted to make aunt Mila knows how he suffered growing up without a father because of her. But those words did not come out. That actually gave his aunt Mila the chance to open up.
Following is a summarized translation of the ending.
We were sharing stories and burst into laughter. But her eyes were not smiling, those are glued to papa's coffin. I saw in her eyes the solitude of missing a husband. She kept quiet for a while. Her face was serious. She stared at the coffin once again, seemed to be pulling strength and prepared herself. Tears began to roll down her eyes.
"Did you know that you are supposed to have another brother? The baby was just a month old when I discovered that he has other woman. Women. What's more, one was just about your age. I really got mad then... " Suddenly her tongue was shaking. I am now hearing a confession from a person who wants to wash herself from the blemish of guilt to be free.
"I challenged him," she threw her voice. She was obviously trying to delay the tears. "I asked him what he would choose, his women or our child's life?" Her shrieking voice shook her head. She buried her face on her palms. She was sobbing intently. Her shoulders were rocking. I was shocked to hear it. Her mourning was enough for me to gather what happened.
"Even so. I still loved him," she continued. Now I just fully understood the love of Jose Corazon de Jesus;
"When you retreat from risk and danger
Your mind is really bright and full
You are still afraid of your love, you are not loving.
'To love, even the pit of death will be heaven to you.'
If that night was a beauty contest, no one won. We are all victims - I, mama, aunt Mila, and Junmil - beauties that have been denied the right to wear the crown. But for the first time, along with the reign of the moon in the deepening of the night, I set out to aunt Mila the crown she deserved to wear. Because that night, I look at her as a woman, mother, wife.
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Your summary definitely brought me to them, especially the story of the queen without a crown, it was something inside to dig more, but I can't speak tagolog so I enjoy your short explanation, that is nice to read.
@anutu is a great artis and has great writing talent and @torania definitely knows how to amaze her reader. bravo to both of them and you @macoolette
The beauty queen without crown is well written in Filipino. The gist and the twist are there that I wanted to translate it with as much detail as I can but that's gonna be tough for me. So I just tried my best to translate with enough details for everyone to understand.
Thank you for your support @el-nailul.
What you have done is alright, people will understand about the story, that is a nice way of presenting good contents wider. and I like to see your spirit too
By the way, there was one thing I forgot to tell you about farming. Let me drop it here...
During my childhood days when my parents were farming, my mother also does not stop tending for animals. It is not many. It is not like we had stock farm but it still helped both for our consumption and income generation.
We had pigs, native chickens, dogs, cats, at times goats, carabao. I took care of them all (well, I actually just played with the carabao). The cats, dogs and carabao are for our help, guarding the house and tending the farm. I did not like the goats much because of their smell. And I cannot bathe them like pigs.The rest are mostly the ones we utilize for extra income.
It was my automatic duty that I feed the pigs and chicken when I get home from school in the afternoon. I look for the goats wherever grassy area they were left and take them home. Then cook steamed rice. After that, I'll run away and play until dark. We usually get out of school at 4:00pm so there is still time to play after my duties. When I get home, my mother is either done or still cooking for viand. 😜
My mother's strategy was to have mother animals and we let them multiply. We then sell most of the small produce but leave a few. These few will become our next batch to multiply again so the cycle continues.
I remember one time when our pig bore 11 piglets. I was so happy playing with them. Imagine me playing with piglets in the pig pen. We sold eight of the piglets and kept the other three. My mother made sure that we keep at least one female to reproduce again. When these piglets are big enough, we sell their mother.
We also attempted several times to maintain a fish pond with tilapia in the farm but it was not sustainable because water lizards were faster than us in gathering the fishes. We plant fingerlings and they slowly disappear as they grow bigger. There was once we planted full grown tilapias and only a few were left the following day. 😃
My mother has this belief of not letting our home without any animal. She was saying that animals, regardless of what it is, are our guards. It is like if something bad or evil comes to the house or our family, the animals will catch the bad or evil thing first instead of us. I do not know where she got such belief but she keeps it. When our only dog died (we suspected being poisoned by the neighborhood), my mother said we need to look for a replacement. Our home will always have at least one animal while she is alive, she said.
I am glad I was able to translate and still kept the main points intact that others like you have understood.
Thank you.
@el-nailul Thank you very much!!! I just wrote the second part about the life of my aunt. As I am not an english native speaker, it's not so easy and always takes some time. I will for sure carry on and continue the story completely.
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STOPDear @macoolette ! You made me very happy by reading and enjoying my article about my aunt. Thank you so much for the curation!!!
Thank you for your great summary of "A Beauty Queen Without Crown" - I will definitely take the time to read it later on. Thank you so much again!!!
You're welcome. I hope you will also like the other story about the beauty queen.
I supported both your featured posts
Thank you for your entries
You're welcome and thank you too.
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
@macoolette thank you so much for giving justice to @Ang Beauty Queeng Walang Titulo. You translated it in a very nice manner that it did not destroy the main point of the story. I am so amazed that this short story got your attention. Thank you so much.
I was actually very conscious when translating it, afraid that I may miss important details. I am glad that I did not miss such, according to your reading.
You're welcome and thank you too. 😊
Please don't be conscious. You just did it right and great. I still have a lot of stories to share-still in Filipino. :)
Thank you. 😊
That is good. Keep Filipino talents coming! 👍
Above and beyond with your taking the time to translate your entry. No idea if a judge will be picking your entry, but it was worthy of a 100% upvote for sure at the very least. Both bloggers have been upvoted and comments were left for each of them.
I first thought of passing by the Filipino story because of the need for translation. It's gonna be a long writing but I think it is really worth featuring. Add to that the limited time I have left. I have been watching out and even searching for blogs to feature in the last few days but I failed. I guess quality blogs became elusive on my feed this week. I read the same from a fellow participant.
Thank you for your support to my blog and the featured ones!
Thank you @macoolette for the entry and for summarizing the second story too. Love both the posts and I have supported them too :)
I am glad your liked them. Thank you for your support @lynncoyle1. 😊
You are most welcome @macoolette 😅