Third of a three-part series. Read parts one and two.

What is the writing voice? A personality? A style? An unwavering position? I wrestled with it for years. I’m afraid I don’t have a voice, I told my mentor twenty years ago, my hand on my throat, channeling Ariel in The Little Mermaid.

But your voice is clear, author Patricia Hampl said.

But how do I know this is my voice? Maybe I’m just confused.

Describe your voice. Your speaking voice.

I stammered. Where do you even start?!

Precisely, she said. You’re not supposed to be able to. We can describe what it’s not. We all have voices, she said. Much of it is our instinctive response to the world around us. That changes across time and is also dependent on circumstance.

I was an early reader. I grew up in a print-rich environment. My mother, a public school teacher, ran a news stand in front of our apartment. They invested in children’s books. I read a lot and refined my hearing. You get better at recognizing the trembling voice, the uneven, the unmistakably singular. But what if you don’t have access to books? Other things also come into play. Power and oppression. Lived experience. People. Soundscapes. Walang silver bullet kaya isinasaalang-alang natin ang isa’t-isa, every inch of this burning world. Place. Whether I’m writing about the forest or the city, a place or space captivates me because I don’t know enough about it. You learn how to shut up and let the place speak to you. The stone has something important to say. The skyscraper has something to reveal. That street address sings!

We tend to imagine the writing voice as ours alone, as unique as our fingerprint. And yet so much of it is not ours. My literary journey was fueled by hunger too. Sa experience ko, pag tinatanggalan ka ng boses, ang bilis mong mag-absorb. Hiram ka nang hiram. Palit ka nang palit. Tono ng iba. Kuwento ng iba. What’s most truthful? How do we end up owning these beats and silences organically? As an artist/writer, priority ko ang practice. The awareness of a hundred influences came later. The longer I practiced, the more I learned about these sounds in different contexts across time. Hanggang iyon na nga, they get distilled and become indissolubly part of the boses and the discerning ear. Two things go hand in hand in the personal essay. That voice and your fidelity to the singularity of your experience. You can’t fake one to make the other truthful; your evolving consciousness is on the page explicitly or subliminally. Nagiging saksi kami sa iyong gising na kamalayan, nakikipagbuno at tumutuklas.

I overheard a passenger on my way to Angel Island. I was on the deck of the ferry boat looking out into the waters an hour before my accident. The man was talking about the 100 protesters that stormed the port of Oakland that day. They were trying to stop a cargo ship bound for Israel. It was sunny that morning but there was fog, a particular kind of fog I don’t see often. It settled on the bay under a clear sky, a white wall that eerily snaked around the bay. I kept picturing a ghost ship creeping through that thick fog.

We saw Angel Island in parts as we got closer. I thought of the 48^th Infantry Volunteers, the chorus. They were trained by Walter H. Loving, the 27-year-old son of a former slave. Pulled away from his studies in Boston at the New England Conservatory of Music, Loving volunteered to be the regiment’s chief musician. After nearly a month on quarantine, the War Department directed the regiment of over a thousand African American soldiers to be shipped to the Philippines. By then, Goyo had been killed, Mabini had been captured, and Funston was closing in on Aguinaldo. It was only a matter of time.

I was on the first ferry trip that arrived in the island, the first visitor to rent an e-bike that morning. I placed a large bouquet of long-stemmed yellow and orange strawflowers into the bike’s front basket. We call them everlasting in the Philippines. I bought a big bunch at the Ferry Building to bring home to my husband who was still sleeping when I left that morning. It was my first time at Angel Island, but I knew the exact spot where I needed to go. East Garrison on Quarry Beach. I felt a sudden chill. I should have brought a jacket, I told myself.

Wilfredo Pascual grew up in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija. He worked for 20 years in the international nonprofit space before settling in San Francisco, USA. A multiple Palanca winner and Ani ng Dangal awardee, his essays have earned a Pushcart Prize nomination and a notable citation in the Best American Essays. He has been published in the Philippines and abroad, with his latest work forthcoming in The Kenyon Review.