In my five decades of living, I only have one woman friend who is a lesbian. Her name Michelle Unso. Mind you, she is not the kind of lesbian we are all accustomed to the macho looking, dressing and sounding type na poging-poging sa sarili. Michelle, my dear friend, loves anything and everything that makes her a “really, female, female” — makeup, dresses, skirts, stilettos and fashion. She also has two kids, a beautiful young miss and a new baby boy. She also champions a lot of causes for women. And she has her own advertising and events office. She has hearty laughter, a hopeless romantic who gives her all to the one she loves. Yes, she is scarred. But that makes my Michelle the most beautiful.

It is because of her that gave me a better understanding of why there are women who are into a different kind of love. Different, simply because it a woman who falls in love with another woman.

Thus, when I learned that the power couple of Ice Seguerra and Liza Diño will produce a play entitled “Choosing,” the excitement in me stirred because this artistic endeavor is an opportunity to understand more about love and life, and the choices we make because of it, from the perspective and point of view, heart and soul of a woman and a transman, and their quest to happily ever after.

Stella and Mitch

Written by Diño, with additional monologues added by Seguerra, under the direction of Anton Juan, Choosing is about the parallel lives of Stella (Diño) and Mitch (Seguerra) and the many stages of their lives — school, domestic matters in question, on-set of puberty, sexual awakening, brush with first romance, romantic relationships and when Stella finally meets Mitch.

The play presented timely and realistic horror and triumphant stories that members of the rainbow community have experienced and survived to tell tale — to his/her closest of friends, a psychiatrist even, and always, the last to know, is the immediate family. Some of the issues that came to life on stage, most especially the most brutal ones (molestation, date rape) are well articulated, but given a tabloid treatment — nagsusumigaw sa atensyon at katotohanan (screaming for attention and truth) but never getting deeper as to why such shitty things happen, the perpetrators getting away with it, and the trauma, plus the fear and trembling, remains with the victim.

What was most evident, in all the situations that the characters of Stella and Mitch encountered individually and collectively as a couple, Diño and Seguerra infused and invested in them the purest of emotions, oftentimes raw and brutal to the truths that their characters hold on to, making the pair of Stella and Mitch and their personal journey that unfolded on the stage. Funny, but it only hurts more when we laugh ­— heart tugging and wrenching with the dynamic duo not minding being emotionally naked, and taking the emotions of Stella and Mitch to its most vulnerable state of frenzy.

Diño and Seguerra and their commitment to give that kind of razor sharp truth, which came about at its most tender, harrowing, silent and screaming, to their respective characters, truly laudable, most appreciated, for giving us what love is all about.

Take Away

Even if what a transman is Mitch did not define and Stella as well did not need explain what a cisgender woman is, I get it. My take away from the play Choosing is that love, is truly love and that it knows no gender, does not care about your sexual preference and orientation, and does not want to be contained in a label or boxed with a letter from the alphabet that supposedly gives a definition of person’s state of being, mind and heart. Love is boundless. It knows no restrictions. Talagang hahamakin nito ang lahat, masunod lamang ito (This will offend everything, so long as it is followed).

Yes, it’s a choice, and whether its romantic, platonic, erotic and its other forms, what makes love, love is that commitment between two individuals to make it happen, soar, thrive, throb and work. It needs communication, an open mind and heart, a listening ear, a shoulder to lean and cry on, honesty, trial and error, ups and downs, the acceptance of flaws, counting the blessing of being each other and having one another, forgiving the errs, trusting, and making you and I, an us.

Choosing, produced by Fire and Ice Live! is slated on 6 July, 3 p.m. and 7 July, 8 p.m. shows, at the Power Mac Spotlight Center at Circuit Makati. Tickets are available at ticket2me.net.