The Specter From The Country Club

words by Scarlet M., art by Corinna Keum

While there are added creative embellishments, the basis of this writing is real. Proper nouns and other specific details have been omitted or altered for privacy.

Ghost stories take place in extremes, often defaulting to lavish mansions or decrepit shacks. After all, a tale about a haunted condo wouldn’t achieve half the effect. However, my story happened in your average country club—hardly a traditional locale for ghosts. I encountered an unexpected specter that's been haunting my mind for weeks now.

I’m one of the only Filipino members in a large ensemble of musicians. When you’re not in big enclaves like those in Los Angeles or Virginia Beach, that outsider feeling becomes normal quickly. You could count the number of Filipino people in my high school on two hands and the number of Filipino people in my grade on one. Much to my family’s horror, there were no local Filipino restaurants to count at all. Quips about how I’m a “diversity hire” follow me in every group I’m in, even when the joke goes unspoken. This isolation does have a silver lining; encounters with Filipino strangers turn into celebrations of finding each other “in the wild”—a highlight in an otherwise drab day.

The corridors wrapped around each other like an old oak’s roots, as if trying to corral me into a corner.

One of my ensemble’s regular performances is at an invite-based country club a couple of hours away. Grayscale portraits of older members lined the walls with ghostly complexions and vacant eyes that seemed to follow me. The corridors wrapped around each other like an old oak’s roots, as if trying to corral me into a corner. It’s always intimidating to walk those halls, but this time was different.

After the performance, I attempted to mingle with the country club’s patrons as I do every year—the same amicable crowd with the same surface-level conversations—until I heard Cora, another Filipino member of the ensemble, call my name. I ran over and I saw her beaming as she stood with another woman. The stranger’s gaze was acute yet warm, like a ghost spotting a rare confreré among the living. Without a word, I knew why Cora wanted me there.

We had found another one in the wild.

“Apparently, we were the first Filipinos they had met outside their family.”

Any tension vanished, as if we were family. I even started calling her tita subconsciously, and she immediately followed with “Please, call me Tita Mari!” We bonded over how we were some of the only ones with Philippine blood in our respective groups. She invited us into the club to have dinner with her and her family, but Cora and I told her the band had separate obligations afterward. We reluctantly said goodbye and salamat with a smile.

I caught up with Cora later that night and we laughed about our encounter: from the “Filipino magnet” that made us converge in a sea of people to Tita Mari’s familial warmth and dinner invite to complete strangers, it followed the formula for “finding each other in the wild” to a tee. There was plenty to riff off of until my friend casually dropped a bombshell.

“Before you came, Tita Mari asked to take pictures with her children. Apparently, we were the first Filipinos they had met outside their family.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about that fact for the rest of the night. 

I still can’t stop thinking about it now. 

Our isolation isn’t forever. For every person with a childhood like mine spent unsure of who they were, there might be another person who was affirmed in their childhood by meetings like those between Tita Mari’s children and Cora.

For as few Filipino people I knew before going to college, they were at least there. They helped me feel normal, and they reminded me that I wasn’t alone despite the sinking feeling in my chest that usually said otherwise. 

My heart aches whenever I think about Tita Mari’s children. It’s possible they pay no mind to this type of thing, but I can’t help but be reminded of my own isolation as a child. Do they think of themselves the same way I did? I don’t know why my reaction is so visceral; I haven’t met these children, and I likely won’t see Tita Mari again. It doesn’t stop these thoughts from lingering in my mind, and I’m not sure if they’ll ever cease. I’ve tried to push them from my mind for weeks and it’s clear that exorcizing these feelings will require more effort than I can muster. I’m not sure if I’ll find a perfect solution. Does one even exist?

Then again, I’m not sure if I want these thoughts to disappear. When I think of people like Tita Mari, there’s a hint of something more—hope alongside the torment of loneliness. I’m only haunted because of a random encounter that put a smile on my face for a week. Despite the apparition of alienation that haunted us at the country club that day, Tita Mari reminds me of everyone whose days will be made just because they met someone like them. Our isolation isn’t forever. For every person with a childhood like mine spent unsure of who they were, there might be another person who was affirmed in their childhood by meetings like those between Tita Mari’s children and Cora. They may not be a perfect solution, but the next best thing we can do is to continue to live so we may find each other in the future, in the wild.