Jashon Ray S Fabia introduces his new memoir, Swirling in the Eddy: LDS, Filipino, & Gay, published by BCC Press.
In the northern Philippines, we have an ancient practice called alaw. It is a chant and ritual used to call oneself. My grandmother once told me that we are bound to lose ourselves when we leave the safety of our home and community. We are likely to find something out there but it always means losing first. There’s no finding without losing. That is why when I walk towards the doorstep of my home, I face the direction where I came from and tap my heart with my right hand as I chant alaw. Calling my name with a loud yet gentle voice, asking me to come back home.
“You need to call your name; you might have stayed somewhere out there,” my grandmother used to say. “You call you the way you call a child lost in the wilderness. Loud and heartfelt. Only you can bring yourself home.”
But my ancestors also believed that sometimes, you cannot call yourself back alone because of circumstances that could have made you stay afar. Today, we call it ‘trauma’. When traumatic events happen, we call an elderly Shawoman who would bring other female shamans to do a different form of alaw. Only this time, you are not alone bringing yourself home. The elderly women will summon your family members and neighbours. Your community is summoned to form a circle around you. And together all of you will bring you home.
Alaw is also performed when someone is having a difficult transition from this life to the next. The shawoman will then chant the alaw and do a ritual with your family—sending you on a journey back to your heavenly home.
Alaw literally means to save and/or to give comfort. This book is my attempt to go back in time and to give comfort to my younger self. To save the current me by reopening some wounds in the past that have closed but never healed. To go back and look at it again but with more compassion, courage, and love. To be more forgiving.
Trauma never moves in a straight line. Neither does healing. As tidbits of wonderful and hurtful memories in the past came in while writing Swirling in the Eddy, I followed how they came back to me: disorderly ordered, with incoherent coherence. And because most of the stories are still painful, I chose to make the chapters brief, but with my soul poured into them. Writing in my third language, I needed to keep my reflections as simple as possible, summoning words that would speak clearly to others.
I am a Latter-day Saint. I am a proud Filipino. I am a gay man. I am so much more, but these three identities have been colliding my whole life, making the process of finding home difficult. They contradicted each other to the extent that both taking a step to leave home (if where I am is home) and taking a step to find home (if I will ever find home) has always been nearly impossible.
My story isn’t new. I am not the first to face these conflicting identities and I will never be the last. But for someone who is not only gay but is also from a developing country, I am hoping that this book will reach other queers who come from a conservative faith, a rich culture, and a poor country. I am praying that my story, my simple story, may give honour and illuminate the lives of others who have similarly struggled and who were never given a voice.
This book is dedicated to Jordan and Hyrum, who both went back to our heavenly home at a very young age.
Jordan, who appears in my book, took his life when we were in high school, when he got tired of the abusive words always thrown at him. Every time I wear a hibiscus over my ear, I see him in me. I see the younger him when we were throwing hibiscus blossoms into the river back in the 1990s, watching the flowers swirl past the eddies.
Two weeks ago, I went to a viewing of Hyrum. He was 23. He was wearing a gorgeous dress. His nails were new. His handbags and makeup were on top of his casket. His LGBTQIA+ friends were there. Hyrum is my example of courage. Hyrum walked away when hurtful words and treatment were given to him. He walked away and found home.
I know it is impossible, but I wish I had been there with them, holding their hands when abusive and hurtful words were thrown at them. I wish I had been there when they experienced unfair bigoted treatment. I wish I had been there when they were swirling in their own eddies alone, because I swirled and I am still swirling. But now I am not alone.
Swirling in the Eddy is my way of calling myself home. It is my alaw, my written chant, calling the name of Jordan and Hyrum. Swirling in the Eddy is my story trying to represent the stories of the unheard and almost forgotten.
This book is dedicated to Jordan and Hyrum, and to all queer people from any faith, any culture, any country, who are gorgeously, bravely, and tiredly swirling in their never-ending eddies in life. May each of us find our individual home. May each of us help each other to get home. May we create a circle of support and love as we brave our eddies.
Jashon Ray S Fabia is an educator, a musician, a wellness facilitator, and a volunteer. He doubled major in Music and Psychology in Brigham Young University – Hawaii. He is currently taking his graduate program in Music Therapy in the Philippines. On the weekdays, Jashon is a school teacher. On the weekends, he usually holds spaces with yoga, sound bath, and music therapy sessions. Presently, Jashon is actively working with and volunteering for survivors of abuse and trauma, PLHIV, children with special needs, and PDL. Most of his efforts holding wellness classes and spaces are donated to nonprofit organizations for survivors of abuse, both women and children.