Rosario. Chayong. Inang.

At dawn, Dad’s Mom lets loose her silky long tresses as she springs to sit up on her sleeping banig mat set atop bare wooden floors. With the soft suggestion of light coming through capiz-and-wood windows, she reaches to unknot her kerchief bundle—a pillow upon which she rests her weary head every night. With her eyes partially closed as in prayer, she retrieves a long-toothed comb and sweeps down her strands. Slowly.

Until fully awakening in gratitude for a new day, she secures hairpins to crown her hair into a tight bun; her body and mind and spirit ready to soldier through the womanly tasks that await. She moves her legs to stand, but not before she surveys her open bundle. A pouch bulging with peso bills and centavos. An amulet. A rosary. Lottery numbers. A faded photo (perhaps of her blind mother and siblings all of whom she had to nurture. Or of grandpa Lolo, the love of her life). A smile. Tears. Treasures of a life she carefully re-ropes and tucks inside her dress, to warm her bosom through the day ahead.

Then down the steep wooden steps she goes, past the metal gates of 71 M Salvador Street. Basket in hand, she heads towards the town marketplace to bargain with farmers and fisherman on the day’s fresh harvests.

Rosario. Chayong. Lola.

Early mornings up on a hill in the Philippines’ sugar cane country, Mom’s Mom tosses a pan of coffee beans until delicately browned. Already awakened to the roosters’ crows, atop her bamboo kitchen slats Lola grinds the freshly hot beans in a bowl, inhaling the flavorful notes that fill her day’s beginning. In loving anticipation, she incrementally pours boiling well water around the circumference of a cloth sieve secured atop a wide-rimmed coffee mug. Lola takes her coffee black, out onto the stone veranda where she drinks in the panoramic span of the hills and valleys of the day ahead.

Of her daily market run after coffee; after serving breakfast to husband Lolo and six children, after the children are off to school. Elegantly statuesque in her simple dress and slippers, housewife Lola secures household essentials that include fresh ingredients to soothe her own deepest cravings. After morning aromatic caffeine, Lola sustains self-care throughout the day by chewing on pungent nga-nga—a practice attributed to princes and princesses indigenous to the southern island of Mindanao. A practice Lola celebrates in her kitchen each time she crushes betel nuts in a pestle, wraps the paste in a leafy buyo herb topped with white cream—Never mind that the pleasurable concoction reddens healthy pearly whites: The inter-island ritual serves up dessert; disinfectant; signifier of elevated community status.