Fixing My Tocador, Planning My Year

A new year demands a new approach to things. We need to set our goals right and plan strategies that are actually feasible. Unfortunately, clutter, noise, the Internet, the constant barrage of information and overwhelming activity that take place in our daily lives prohibit us from focusing and opening ourselves fully to preparation, contemplation and even relaxation.

To pursue this, I confronted one part of my room that really served as a hindrance to my goal of being organized: my tocador, or what is called a “dresser” in English. Almost all Filipinos have tocadors in their rooms. And almost always, these are susceptible to clutter, dirt and utter chaos. Receipts and candy wrappers scattered, coins here and there, a comb beside one’s ball pen, and many other things are just some of the stuff that clutter our desks or as I said, tocadors.

My Papa gave me a big tocador that could blend well with the rest of the sala when the sliding doors of my room would be opened. As I mentioned in a tweet before, my parents are on an all-out crusade to try to make our house (which was built in the 1930s as my grandmother’s mamá’s bungalow rest house in the compound) to look modern and sport an Ikea feel to it. I detested their plans but to no avail. My wide tocador is covered with vinyl (formica), prefabricated and sports a pale brown hue very unlike what I preferred, a hard-wood piece colored deep, chocolate brown with callado details on the side. Luckily, they still allowed to put the old, wooden grills from an old decor in my grandmother’s house on top of it. I was given the freedom to decorate my tocador, and one of the first things I decided was to not put a mirror on it.

When I decided to fix my tocador, I knew it would be like diving into an ocean of disorder. Its width gave me a hard time organizing things. Luckily, after two hours of fixing all the papers (and there were still readings from college!) tucked in the drawers, rediscovering old books and antique prints, and gathering all the loose foreign and old decommissioned coins scattered everywhere, I was finally able to fix my tocador. A little bit of cleaning also had to be done, and the doily that used to be there had to be removed because it was just gathering dust.

I like its new look because it shows who I am, and it holds almost all the things that inspire me. In the middle is my muse and patroness, Our Lady. Well actually, many images of her sprout elsewhere in my tocador because of my many stampitas. There are also my travel guides and maps, my Filipiniana books on history, heritage and culture, some photographs and the glass lamp I bought for a steal in Rustan’s. I wanted to give it a modern-Filhispanic appeal, something I want my future home to look like. Also, the different coins in different currencies and years also remind me of my insatiable thirst for traveling and collecting, and keeping the memory of the past alive. I also decided to put my more important and old books readily available so that I wouldn’t be searching the entire house when I need them. I also finally placed an 1800s libretto of Luigi Bordese’s in an enclosed glass frame to better preserve it. It’s my 50-peso find, which I proudly bought to save it from being discarded. Of course, my old Philippine map featuring the forested areas at the turn of the 1800s also finds a place of prominence on my tocador.

I’m not great in interior designing but I could say I tried my best to make my tocador look appealing, not to mention, chic and eclectic but I hope that after one year, it still remains neat and organized just as how I would like my plans to be – successfully in order and executed.

Have a great week ahead!