Daniela Gigante

I only met Daniela Gigante once, in a 1.30 hours time frame, within 4x5 square meters of candle-lit, highly-scented closed space. She was my Hot Stone Masseurs. She was careful in her deftness, but ultimately, it would be her fascinatingly love- & risk- driven life that I would not forget of that late afternoon session.

We met on a Thursday in January. At the end of that month, she will leave her life in Sydney to move in with her boyfriend in Byron Bay, New South Wales, a beachside town a few hours away.

She met her beau just a few months ago, in late 2008, in Byron Bay, where she was spending a few weeks of Yoga Training. It was in one of the rare night-outs she had with her friends, while dancing that she first saw him. By instinct or the encouragement from her friends, she turned her back to check out this bulk of a handsome man with semi-bald cut. There and then she realized that the skinhead's gaze was on her. She smiled at him and spontaneously asked, "Do you have my back?"

"Yes, I've got your back," went his response, and that sealed the deal between them. For the rest of her stay in Byron Bay, she was with the handsome semi-bald when she was not in class. To her surprise (or maybe she was confident about it), their relationship did not wave towards obscurity when she returned to Sydney. They continued to communicate and share each other's daily grind, unsparing of even the most mundane of days. Daniela, bruised but not jaded by the past petty relationships she's been in, was certain she found her soulmate in him. In fact, so certain was she that she did not wince twice at the idea of moving away from the life she's always known and to one that she is yet to define.

Unfortunately, I was not able to contact Daniela again. Ours was such that you call a one-off friendship, made opportune by her profession as a Hot Stone Masseurs and a favorite of my cousin-in-law Phuong who treated me to the massage. She gave me a company calling card before we parted ways, the details of which I'm sure are already useless now that she moved out already. I would want to know how she is faring at her new life.

Daniela is of Italian descent. Her parents, she described to me, are typical of Italians hailing from the very conservative central region of Tuscany. Even to this day, decades past since they crossed the high seas to the land down under, they frown upon the modern ways the youngsters, especially their own, conduct themselves. They were not too happy when at 22, Daniela entered into a marriage on almost a whim of a decision, and 6 years later, filed for divorce and took to raising their only son on her own. They openly opposed Daniela's short affairs with different guys, especially with the Greek with whom she went out for 2 years but has never been introduced to his parents.

That Greek Daniela would remember most. Aside from that it was with him she had her longest relationship after her marriage, the Greek intentionally kept her away from his folks. "Why?" Daniela finally had the guts to demand to know.

"Because you are a single mother."

She never went out with him again. Though since the divorce, Daniela's life literally narrowed down to work, son, work, she never considered her son a handicap to her youth. If anything, he was a fuel to her drive, the one who unknowingly kept on pushing her to always be and work better. While she'll be away in Byron Bay, her son is enrolled in a scholarship program in an exclusive all-boys Boarding School. I remember her saying, "My son knows I've done so much for him already; he is happy that I'm doing something this big for my own."

From that afternoon, I observed that the mechanics of conversation between friends is different from between strangers. Friends are bound by filial convention to engage in chatter when they are around each other. Strangers are not bound by any. When they do, it's a choice, based on the convenience of the moment, perhaps, or the interest and fascination that was allowed to permeate the moment. Most often, a dead air between friends reeks awkwardness, but among strangers, a normal, undemanding passage. There's comfort in the most likely that you are never to cross paths with this stranger, so the story telling flows, unmindful of a glitch in the details or the exaggeration of a part. The stranger does not have the tiniest idea of and probably the care for who you really are, besides for what you share. Not that I took advantage of that.

As much as my interest for her Tuscany was Daniela's interest in my Philippines. She was especially surprised when I told her I am 23 and has never had a boyfriend, "Oh my gawd, you're the oldest virgin I know!" But when I told her that ladies in the Philippines are expected to keep their virginity until marriage, her surprised mellowed down to appreciation. I guess until she met me, she did not think there's a country left in this carnal world that holds virginity with such reverence.

To my world filled up with stories of people I've known throughout my life or since college, Daniela was a colorful streak of newness. I guess I am the same to hers, though not as colorful yet.